DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3689#0097
a Devout and Holy Life. 95
But if to all this we add, that this short life, thus furnished
with all that we want in it, is only a short passage to eternal
glory, where we shall be clothed with the brightness of angels,
and enter into the joys of God, we might still more reasonably
expect, that human life should be a state of peace, and joy, and
delight in God. Thus it would certainly be, if reason had its
full power over us.
But, alas ! though God, and Nature, and Reason, make human
life thus free from wants, and so full of happiness, yet our
passions, in rebellion against God, against nature and reason,
create a new world of evils, and fill human life with imaginary
wants, and vain disquiets.
The man of pride has a thousand wants, which only his own
pride has created; and these render him as full of trouble, as if
God had created him with a thousand appetites, without creating
anything that was proper to satisfy them. Envy and Ambition
have also their endless wants, which disquiet the souls of men,
and by their contradictory motions, render them as foolishly
miserable, as those that want to fly and creep at the same time.
Let but any complaining, disquieted man, tell you the ground
of his uneasiness, and you will plainly see, that he is the author
of his own torment; that he is vexing himself at some imaginary
evil, which will cease to torment him, as soon as he is content
to be that which God, and nature, and reason, require him to
be.
If you should see a man passing his days in disquiet,, because
he could not walk upon the water, or catch birds as they fly by
him, you would readily confess, that such a one might thank
himself for such uneasiness. But now if you look into all the
most tormenting disquiets of life, you will find them all thus
absurd; where people are only tormented by their own folly,
and vexing themselves at such things, as no more concern them,
nor are any more their proper good, than walking upon the
water, or catching birds.
What can you conceive more silly and extravagant, than to
suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day
how to fly? wandering from his own house and home, wearying
himself with climbing upon every ascent, cringing and courting
everybody he meets, to lift him from the ground, bruising him-
self with continual falls, and at last breaking his neck ? And
all this, from an imagination, that it would be glorious to have
the eyes of people gazing up at him, and mighty happy to eat,
and drink, and sleep, at the top of the highest trees in the king-
dom. Would you not readily own, that such a one was only
disquieted by his own folly ?
But if to all this we add, that this short life, thus furnished
with all that we want in it, is only a short passage to eternal
glory, where we shall be clothed with the brightness of angels,
and enter into the joys of God, we might still more reasonably
expect, that human life should be a state of peace, and joy, and
delight in God. Thus it would certainly be, if reason had its
full power over us.
But, alas ! though God, and Nature, and Reason, make human
life thus free from wants, and so full of happiness, yet our
passions, in rebellion against God, against nature and reason,
create a new world of evils, and fill human life with imaginary
wants, and vain disquiets.
The man of pride has a thousand wants, which only his own
pride has created; and these render him as full of trouble, as if
God had created him with a thousand appetites, without creating
anything that was proper to satisfy them. Envy and Ambition
have also their endless wants, which disquiet the souls of men,
and by their contradictory motions, render them as foolishly
miserable, as those that want to fly and creep at the same time.
Let but any complaining, disquieted man, tell you the ground
of his uneasiness, and you will plainly see, that he is the author
of his own torment; that he is vexing himself at some imaginary
evil, which will cease to torment him, as soon as he is content
to be that which God, and nature, and reason, require him to
be.
If you should see a man passing his days in disquiet,, because
he could not walk upon the water, or catch birds as they fly by
him, you would readily confess, that such a one might thank
himself for such uneasiness. But now if you look into all the
most tormenting disquiets of life, you will find them all thus
absurd; where people are only tormented by their own folly,
and vexing themselves at such things, as no more concern them,
nor are any more their proper good, than walking upon the
water, or catching birds.
What can you conceive more silly and extravagant, than to
suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day
how to fly? wandering from his own house and home, wearying
himself with climbing upon every ascent, cringing and courting
everybody he meets, to lift him from the ground, bruising him-
self with continual falls, and at last breaking his neck ? And
all this, from an imagination, that it would be glorious to have
the eyes of people gazing up at him, and mighty happy to eat,
and drink, and sleep, at the top of the highest trees in the king-
dom. Would you not readily own, that such a one was only
disquieted by his own folly ?