Notes: Chapter Iv. Of The Heart’S Happiness, Or Soul’S Rest.
Notes: CHAPTER IV. OF THE HEART’S HAPPINESS, OR SOUL’S REST.
434
That is an elementary body, made up, as it were, of the four elements as they are called: namely, fire, air, earth, and water.
435
The soul of man has a natural desire for happiness: nothing can make it happy except what is commensurate to its desires, or capable of affording it full satisfaction. Nothing less than an infinite good is such a thing: and only God himself is an infinite good, in the enjoyment of which the soul can rest as fully satisfied, desiring no more. Now, since by reason of the vast capacity of the soul, nothing but God himself can indeed satisfy its desire for happiness — this being so woven into the very nature of the soul, that nothing but the destruction of the very being of the soul can remove it — it is evident that it is impossible that the soul of man can ever find true rest until it returns to God, and takes up its rest with him. But it must still be in quest of, or desiring, its chief good and happiness, in which it may rest. And in reality, this is God himself only. Though the practical understanding being blinded, it does not know that; the perverse will and affections carry the soul away from him, seeking the desired good and happiness in other things. This is what the author calls the soul’s re-aspiring towards the chief good, even God himself; and it is so consistent with the total depravation of man’s nature, that it will remain forever in the damned in hell. A chief part of their misery will lie in that this desire will be ever rampant in them, but never in the least satisfied. They will never be freed from this scorching thirst there, nor get a drop of water to cool the tongue.
436
Man’s poor soul, before it is enlightened, naturally cries to God, as the “young ravens cry to him,” Job 38.41, not knowing to whom: and the soul cries for him as its proper nourishment, as the new-born infant cries for the breast, not knowing for what. Only it feels a want; it desires a proper supply for filling it up; and it can never get kindly rest till it is supplied accordingly; that is, till it comes to the enjoyment of God. Then it rests, as the infant set to the full breast. Isa. 66.11, “That you may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations.”
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That is, a created thing, an earthly substitute for what it spiritually craves from God.
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Namely, violence done to its natural make and constitution (if I may thus express it) by the blindness, corruption, and disorder that have seized its faculties.