APHORISM IV.

Leighton

It is one main point of happiness, that he that is happy doth know and judge himself to be so. This being the peculiar good of a reasonable creature, it is to be enjoyed in a reasonable way. It is not as the dull resting of a stone, or any other natural body in its natural place; but the knowledge and consideration of it is the fruition of it, the very relishing and tasting of its sweetness.

REMARK.

As in a Christian land we receive the lessons of morality in connexion with the doctrines of revealed religion, we cannot too early free the mind from prejudices widely spread, in part through the abuse, but far more from ignorance, of the true meaning of doctrinal terms, which, however they may have been perverted to the purposes of fanaticism, are not only scriptural, but of too frequent occurrence in Scripture to be overlooked or passed by in silence. The following extract, therefore, deserves attention, as clearing the doctrine of salvation, in connexion with the divine foreknowledge, from all objections on the score of morality, by the just and impressive view which the Archbishop here gives of those occasional revolutionary moments, that turn of the tide in the mind and character of certain individuals, which (taking a religious course, and referred immediately 40 to the author of all good) were in his day, more generally than at present, entitled effectual calling. The theological interpretation and the philosophic validity of this apostolic triad, election, salvation, and effectual calling, (the latter being the intermediate) will be found among the comments on the aphorisms of spiritual import. For my present purpose it will be sufficient if only I prove that the doctrines are in themselves innocuous, and may be both holden and taught without any practical ill-consequences, and without detriment to the moral frame.