is an adumbration of the blessedness of Godand it must be so,—if it is the glory of man to bear the image of God-the whole subject. is manifestly degraded, when it is reduced to the analogy of the enjoyment of a brute. Take the account which is given by Paley,* and happiness consists not only in a succession of pleasurable sensations, but sensations immediately connected with the body. It is a sort of tickling in the region of the heart. He openly declares, too, that there is no essential difference among pleasures but that of intensity and continuance. The main thing is enjoyment; and so a man enjoys himself, he need ask no further question. The superiority of the soul to the body, the coarseness of some, and the excellence of other pleasures -the dignity and refinement of moral, intellectual and spiritual gratifications-all this is idle declamation. He that scratches with the itch, experiences as noble satisfaction as he that rejoices in charity, or whose soul turns upon the poles of truth. This funda * Moral and Political Philosophy. Book i., chap. 6. mental error, that happiness is pleasure, pervades society. It is the animating spirit of the eager and restless struggle for wealth, honour and power. It is the grand delusion of sin; a delusion, whose potent spell no experience has been able to dissolve-no reasoning to dissipate. It is the vanity of the carnal heart, "every age renews the inquiry after an earthly felicity-the design is entailed, and re-inforced with as great a confidence and vigour as if none had been baffled or defeated in it before." Philanthropy projects upon it its visionary schemes for the benefit of the race, and forgetting that all real improvement must begin within, directs its assaults upon the outward and accidental-aims. its blows at the social fabric, and seeks to introduce an order of things which shall equally distribute the sources of enjoyment. all men be equally rich, is the insidious fallacy,-equally fed, equally clothed, equally exalted in social and political condition, and like cattle in the same pasture, they must all be equally happy. "What serious heart Let doth not melt and bleed for miserable men, that are through a just Nemesis so perpetually mocked with shadows, cheated with false, delusive appearances, infatuated and betrayed by their own senses. They walk but in a vain show, disquieting themselves in vain, their days flee away as a shadow; their strength is only labour and sorrow; while they rise up early and lie down late to seek rest in trouble, and life in death."* Behold I show you a more excellent way;—fear God and keep his commandments-for this is the whole of man; this is his being's end and aim. 2. Intimately connected with the subject of happiness is that of holiness. As happiness is an image of the blessedness, so holiness is an image of the moral perfections of God. It is, consequently, that, in the energies of which, happiness must essentially consist. It is God's likeness that fits us to see His face. It is, therefore, a matter of the very last importance that we should know what holiness is; or, if * Howe's Blessedness of the Righteous, chap. 11. It incomprehensible in its essence, that we should understand its phenomena and relations. is only from the Bible that we can obtain any satisfactory light upon these points. Philosophy can discourse of virtues-virtues in the habit and virtues in the act-it can classify and arrange the duties they exact; but when the question arises as to the unity of rectitude, it is utterly unable to answer. Truth is right, justice is right, benevolence is right, temperance is right, the habits which prompt to the observance of these virtues are right; but are all these one and the same right? If one, in what does their unity consist? The actions of truth are certainly dif ferent from those of temperance; the actions of benevolence are as clearly different from those of justice; the habits are obviously so many different subjective states. Where, then, is the unity, and why is the same term applied in common to them all? Philosophy can only dissect consciousness, and consciousness can only reveal to us the primitive cognitions of the moral faculty, which the consti tution of our nature compels to accept as the criteria of right. Philosophy, consequently, can give no other answer to the question, than that all these things, though various in themselves, receive a common name in consequence of a common relation to conscience. They are all commanded by it. As truth is essentially conformity with the laws of the understanding, so virtue is essentially conformity with the laws of conscience. Here philosophy stops. Beyond consciousness it cannot penetrate; and though it may surmise that there is a higher unity in which all these laws are ultimately grounded, it is unable to lay its hand upon it, and bring it to light. Here the Scriptures come in with their doctrine of holiness; and what philosophy had surmised, they abundantly confirm. What, then, is holiness? It is not a single habit; it is not a complement of habits;—it is a NATURE, and by nature we are to understand, not the collection of properties, which distinguish one being from another, but a generic disposition which determines, modifies and regulates all its ac |