conceptions and desires of happiness; if the want remains, and we
have found out little more than barely the means of making it less
sensible; then are we still to seek for somewhat to be an adequate
supply to it. It is plain that there is a capacity in the nature of
man which neither riches nor honours nor sensual gratifications, nor
anything in this world, can perfectly fill up or satisfy: there is
a deeper and more essential want than any of these things can be the
supply of. Yet surely there is a possibility of somewhat which may
fill up all our capacities of happiness, somewhat in which our souls
may find rest, somewhat which may be to us that satisfactory good we
are inquiring after. But it cannot be anything which is valuable
only as it tends to some further end. Those therefore who have got
this world so much into their hearts as not to be able to consider
happiness as consisting in anything but property and possessions--
which are only valuable as the means to somewhat else--cannot have
the least glimpse of the subject before us, which is the end, not
the means; the thing itself, not somewhat in order to it. But if
you can lay aside that general, confused, undeterminate notion of
happiness, as consisting in such possessions, and fix in your
thoughts that it really can consist in nothing but in a faculty's
having its proper object, you will clearly see that in the coolest
way of consideration, without either the heat of fanciful enthusiasm
or the warmth of real devotion, nothing is more certain than that an
infinite Being may Himself be, if He pleases, the supply to all the
capacities of our nature. All the common enjoyments of life are
from the faculties He hath endued us with and the objects He hath
made suitable to them. He may Himself be to us infinitely more than
all these; He may be to us all that we want. As our understanding
can contemplate itself, and our affections be exercised upon
themselves by reflection, so may each be employed in the same manner