The blessedness of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /The blessednesse of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /

As far as we are capable of blessedness in this world, it must be so with us here. Glory without us will not make us happy in Heaven, much less will any thing without us make us happy on earth. 'Tis an idle dream of sickly crazy minds, that their blessedness consists in some external good, that is separable, and distant from them; which therefore as they blindly guess, they uncertainly pursue; never aiming to become good, without which they can never know what it is to be blessed. What felicity are men wont to imagine to themselves in this or that change of their outward condition? were their state such, or such, then they were happy, and should desire no more. As the child's fancy suggests to it, if it were on the top of such a Hill, it could touch the Heavens, but when with much toil it hath got thither, it finds it self as far off as before. We have a shorter, and more compendious way to it, would we allow our selves to understand it. A right temper of mind involves blessedness in it self; 'tis this only change we need to endeavour. We wear out our days in vanity, and misery, while we neglect this work, and busy our selves to catch a fugitive shadow, that hovers about us. It can never be well till our own souls be an Heaven to us, and blessedness be a domestic, an home-dwelling inhabitant ⟨p. 318⟩there. 'Till we get a settled principle of holy quietude into our own breasts; & become the son• of peace, with whom the peace of God may find entrance and abode: Till we have that treasure within us, that may render us in sensible of any dependence on a foreign good, or fear of a foreign evil▪ Shall that be the boast and glory of • Philosopher only? I carry all my goods with • where ever I go. And that a virtuous good man i• liable to no hurt? Seneca thinks they discover a low Spirit, that say, externals can add any thing (though but a very little) to the felicity of an honest mind,¹ as if (saith he) me• could not be content with the light of the Sun without the help of a candle, or a spark▪ and speaking of the constancy of the virtuous man (saith he) They do ill that say, such an evil i tolerable to him, such a one intolerable, an that confine the greatness of his mind within certain bounds and limits. Adversity (he tells us) overcomes us, if it be not wholly overcome.