The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction
• Christian Philosophy
• Preface
• Introduction
• An Explication of the Text. Gal. VI. 7.
• Section I
• Proposition I
• Proposition Ii
• Proposition Iii
• Proposition Iv
• Proposition V
• Proposition Vi
• Proposition Vii
• Corolary I
• Corolary Ii
• Section Ii
• Introduction
• Proposition I
• Proposition Ii
• Proposition Iii
• Proposition Iv
• Corolary I
• Corolary Ii
• Section Iii
• Introduction
• Proposition I
• Proposition Ii
• Corolary I
• Corolary Ii
• Corolary Iii
• Proposition Iii
• Corolary I
• Corolary Ii
• Corolary Iii
• Corolary Iv
• Section Iv
• A Preliminary Proposition
• Corolary I
• Corolary Ii
• Proposition I
• Proposition Ii
• Proposition Iii
• Query I
• Query Ii
• Query Iii
• Query Iv
• Query V
• Query Vi
• Query Vii
• Query Viii
• Query Ix
• Proposition Iv
• Proposition V
• Proposition Vi
• I.: Virtue Or Holiness Is the Condition of Eternal Happiness; Without It We Cannot Have a Right to It, Or Be Made Sharers of It.
• II.: Holiness Or Virtue Is Absolutely Necessary to Qualify For Future Happiness.
• III.: Further, the Scripture Specifies to Us the Exercises From Which the Future Happiness of the Virtuous Flow.
• IV.: That According to the Scripture Account of the State of the Virtuous In the Life to Come, It Is a State of Unchangeable, Immortal Glory and Happiness.
• Corolary I
• Corolary Ii
• Corolary Iii
• Corolary Iv
• Corolary V
• Conclusion

II.

Holiness or virtue is absolutely necessary to qualify for future happiness.

The happiness of the virtuous in a future state is represented to us under all the pleasant, grateful images that can raise our admiration, excite our desires, or rouse our ambition, to contend diligently for it: and<445> it is said to excel all that we can now be made to conceive, all description. “Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the good things God hath prepared for, and will bestow upon those who loving him, give all diligence to imitate his holiness, and to become like to him.” But, at the same time, we are assured, that it is a happiness resulting from virtue, or for which a virtuous mind only is qualified. “It is reaping the fruits of a well-improved mind; the fruits of having sown to the spirit, the fruits of righteousness, and holiness, and charity.” It is a happiness of a pure and rational kind; a happiness suited to rational powers duly refined and improved by culture in a state of discipline. It is declared negatively to be a happiness which the vitious, the carnal, the impure and corrupt cannot relish, or are utterly incapable of. And it is declared positively to be a felicity resulting from, of a kind with, and proportioned to the rational nature; a happiness of which the pure, the holy only are susceptible, and which to them shall give light, liberty, joy, and felicity unspeakable. The meaning of all which is, briefly, that it is happiness unspeakable, arising from the exercise of a virtuous mind, about objects suited to its excellent disposition, suited to its noble affections, and highly improved powers.

The scripture represents the happiness of all beings superior to man, as consisting in virtuous dispositions suitably exercised. Nay, the happiness of God himself, the Father of spirits, is represented as resulting from the purity, the holiness of his nature, or his absolute moral perfection. And whence else can the chief happiness of any moral being arise, but from its moral powers improved into a capacity for being exercised about objects adequate to improved moral powers? If such happiness be not superior in kind to all other enjoyment, then are not moral powers superior in kind to merely animal faculties, which is an absurdity too gross to be<446> asserted, as hath already been often shewn in this discourse. But if moral powers, and the happiness they are capable of receiving by means of their natural exercises about proper objects, be superior in kind to all other faculties and their gratifications, then to imagine any other rewards for virtue, for moral perfection, besides the happiness resulting from the exercises of improved moral powers about objects commensurate or adapted to them, is to suppose them rewarded by a happiness in its nature inferior to those exercises, which is likewise absurd.