True Happiness, Title page – Dedication
TRUE HAPPINES, OR, KING DAVIDS CHOICE.
Begunne in Sermons, and now digested into a TREATISE.
By Mr. WILLIAM STRUTHER, Preacher at Edinburgh.
LUKE 10. One thing is necessarie, Marie hath chosen the best part, that shall not be taken from her.
Aug. Mor. 4. Illud est hominis optimum, quod & corpore & animâ optimum facit.
Idem Lib. Arb. 2. 19. Vita beata est animi affectio inhaerentis summo bono.
EDINBVRGH, Printed by R. YOUNG, for John Wood, and are to be sold at his shop on the south side of the high street, a little above the Crosse. Anno 1633.
TO THE MOST MIGHTIE MONARCH CHARLES, KING Of great Britaine, France, and Ireland, Defender of the faith, &c.
Grace, MercieMercy, and Peace, &c.
Most gracious and dread Soveraigne,
MAns greatest Miserie is seene most in the marter of happinesse; and when God presenteth the chiefe good, then Sathan presseth to turne it into our chiefe ill.
Of all things on earth only mans Soule keepeth a conscionable correspondence with God, because it is onelyonly capable of his instructions and inspirations; and able to give him a meeting in affection and action. And yet in the matter of true happinesse it was most miserable. For though God made Adam happie, yet by his fall, losing happinesse, he had neither conscience of miserie, nor care of recovering what he had lost. And which is to be lamented, all mankinde (except the handfull of the Church) for more than three thousand yeares lived in the brutish opinion of the soules mortalitie.Aug. Civit. 18. 25. Then Thales, in the daies of Manasseh and Numa, observing exactly the heavens motion, raised this conclusion; That mans soule which could observe those things, had a greater respect to heaven, than to gaze upon it; which could be no other but to dwell in it: whereupon he inferred the soules immortalitie. Thereafter the Phiosophers layd clearer grounds, and raised clearer conclusions: and thereupon began to thinke of true happinesse for an immortall soule. But though they resolved that happinesse is the fruit of the union of the soul with the eternall God, yet they fell foule both in the conceit of their Gods, and of happinesse it selfe. Their carriage to their gods was insolent: They tyrannized over them,Tertull. Apol. Arnob. contra Gentes, Minutius. Lactantius and served themselves of them rather than served them. They made them; they casheered them: They ingaged them for money, and exposed them to a licitation or roping in the market. And if they were not so rid of them, they cast them as blockes to the backes of their fires. And all the honour they gave to the things those blocks represented, was to finde libertie to sinning. For they honoured seditious Iupiter, contentious Mars, drunken Bacchus, licentious Venus, &c. that they might finde a patrocinie of their sinnes in themselves,Scurrilatis potius quam divinitatis officia. Aug. Civit. and yet they never sought true happinesse of any of them; for the offices which they assigned to their select gods were rather scurrilitie than divinitie.
In like manner they erred both in the matter of happinesse, and the way of acquiring it. As for happinesse, though Saint Augustine multiply their opinions to 288.Civit. 19. 1. yet they neither agreed among themselves, neither any one of them apart with himselfe; and none of them all found the truth. If we looke to them joyntly, they are like blinde Andabats smiting other.Aug. contra. Acad, 3. 7. If severally, they are like Bedlemits, every one feeding himself in his own fancie, pretending a confidence that hee had found the truth, but within full of restlesnesse. Cicero presenting all these sects, sheweth that there was none of them who tooke not prioritie to themselves. The Socraticks seemed to come neere by their maxime.aNihil se malle quàm virum …onum esse. Aug. Epist. That they desired nothing more than to bee good men, And yet they knew not the way:bQuid attinet scire quo eundum, nisi sciamus qua eundum, Bern. Jejun. 4. f. 39. c. 2. And what availeth it to know whither to goe, if we know not the way how to goe? And when S. Augustine asked a Pagan Philosopher, what was that way to be good? He got no other answer, but that men should be purged by sacrifices, and reconciled to God by intercession of the lesser gods.
Plato over-reached them all, affirming,aIn cognitione & imitatione Dei. Civit. 8. 8. That true happinesse consisted in the knowledge and imitation of God. He went also further to his purifications, ayming at the reall change of the person, which Porphyre long after him did purifie more: But they were nothing but the evanishing of fleshly minds. Aristotle envying his Masters Divinitie, turned him unto nature, and disputed much of vertue; but proved miserable in his life, and with the restbManciparunt virtutem voluptati. Aug. Civit. 5. 19. mancipated vertue unto pleasure. And though Epicurus by some abstract Maximes (gathered by Seneca) would mitigate his brutish opinion; yet it is sure hee pleaded all for base pleasure, and measured happinesse as grosly as he did the Sun, whose diameter he alledged was but two foot.
Thus they blinded both the world and themselves, and for keeping their own credit, made men think there were many happinesses,aErant tantum multi errores errantium, & non multa summa bona. Aug. lib. arb. 2. 10. which were only errors, and not many chief goods, And the best of them, when they had wrought their mindes to this, that God was the chiefe good: yet they knew him not clearly, and therefore came back to their wonted darknesse, not so much by choice as by wearinesse bNon tamelectione quàm fatigatione. Aug. de Mor. Ecc. 7..
So by aaPoenali morbo plus sitiunt quàm capiunt. Aug. Confess. 11. 12. penall disease they thirsted more than they could conceive: They were blown up with pride, and sought vainely to build happinesse to themselves. ButbQuanta est vanitas, quanta insania, hominem mortalem in seipso fidere ut beatus sit. Aug. ep. 52. how great vanity is it, and how great madnesse, for a mortall man to trust in himselfe to be happy! For cNon accipit humana natura ut per s… am potestatem beata fit. Aug. de Gen. 2. 15.humane nature hath not that power to be happy by it self, because dNon facit hominem beatum, nisi qui fecit hominem Deu…. Aug. epist. 52.none can make man blest, but he that made man.
God ever kept the doctrine of true happinesse in his Church:*Gen. 5. 24. Enochs walking with him, and translating to heaven was a reall document of it: The Patriarchs conversing with God, the exercise of his worship under the law, and the preaching of the Prophets made it to shine clearly long ere Thales advertised the world of immortalitie. And yet when the Iewes would bee like the Gentiles, they obscured that doctrine: And the Sadduces brought into their Church Epicurus opinion of the mortalitie of the soule. But Christ refuted their errour, and positively designed in one sentence more than they all.Joh. 17. 3. Aug. de mor. Ecc. 18. This is life eternall to know thee to be the only true God, and whom thou hast sent Iesus Christ. S. Augustine laboured painfully nine years to find out the truth: He assayed the sects of the Philosophers one after another, but found it with none of them: Then he turned him to the Christians, add falling upon the Manicheans, was more perplexed with their fancies than before,Consess. but being advertised to reade Scripture, he found the truth and true happinesse in Christ.
This is your Majesties glorie, that true happinesse is more fully preached under your Majesty, than any King on earth. Paganisme and Mahumetisme overwhelme all without the Church: Superstition marreth it in Papists, and the craft of Hereticks obscureth it among some Protestants: But under your Majesty the salvation of the Lord is near to them that fear him, that glory may dwell in our Land.*Psal. 85. 9.
The Lord who hath made your Majesty a King of many Kingdomes, make your Majestie more and more a King of many blessings, that we all walking in truth and love, righteousnesse and peace kissing one another, Psal. 21. 6.we may all in the end be happy in him, who is true happinesse.
Edinburgh, 15. Maii, 1633.
Your Majesties most humble and obedient servant, WILLIAM STRUTHER.