OP THE NATURE AND STATE OP MAN W1TH RESPECT TO HAPPINESS

False notions of happiness, philosophical and popular, answered. ît is the end of ail men, and attainable by ail. God intends happiness to be equal; and, to be so, it must be social, since ail particular happiness dépends on gênerai, and since he governs by gênerai, not particular, laws. A* it is necessary for order, and the peace and welfarc of society, that extemal goods should be unequal, happiness is not made to consist in thèse. But, notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of hope and fear. What the happiness of individual» is, as far as h consistent with the constitution of this world ; and that the çood man has hère the advantage. The error of imputing to virtue what are ont y the calamities of nature, or of fortune. The folly of expecting that God should alter his gênerai laws in favour of particulars. That we are not judges who are good ; but that, whoever they are, they must be happiest. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of, virtne. That even thèse can make no man happy without vîrtue: instanced in riches, honours, nobility, greatness, famé, superior talents; with pictures of human infelicity in men possessed of them ail. That virtue only constitutes a happiness, whoseobject is universal, and whose prospect eternal. That the perfection of virtue and happiness consists in a conformity to the order of Providence hère, and a résignation to it hère and hereafter.

ARGUMENT