For who is
content is happy. But as soon as any new uneasiness comes in, this
happiness is disturbed, and we are set afresh on work in the pursuit
of happiness.
62. From a wrong judgment of what makes a necessary part of their
happiness. Their aptness therefore to conclude that they can be
happy without it, is one great occasion that men often are not
raised to the desire of the greatest absent good. For, whilst such
thoughts possess them, the joys of a future state move them not;
they have little concern or uneasiness about them; and the will,
free from the determination of such desires, is left to the pursuit of
nearer satisfactions, and to the removal of those uneasinesses which
it then feels, in its want of and longings after them. Change but a
man's view of these things; let him see that virtue and religion are
necessary to his happiness; let him look into the future state of
bliss or misery, and see there God, the righteous judge, ready to
"render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by patient
continuance in well-doing seek for glory, and honour, and immortality,
eternal life; but unto every soul that doth evil, indignation and
wrath, tribulation and anguish." To him, I say, who hath a prospect of
the different state of perfect happiness or misery that attends all
men after this life, depending on their behaviour here, the measures
of good and evil that govern his choice are mightily changed.
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