*If you go on, and ask what is the happiest thing for a _young gentleman_ or his _sisters_ to do? The answer must be the same; that nothing can be so happy or glorious for them, as to live in such habits of piety, in such exercises of a divine life, as this good old bishop does. For every thing that is great and glorious in religion, is as much the true glory of every man or woman, as it is the glory of any bishop. If high degrees of divine love, if fervent charity, if spotless purity, if heavenly affection, if constant mortification, if frequent devotion, be the best and happiest way of life for any Christian, it is so for every Christian. And as the wisest _bishop_ in the world is he who lives in the greatest heights of holiness, who is most exemplary in all the exercises of a divine life; so the _wisest youth_, the _wisest woman_, whether married or unmarried, is she that lives in the highest degrees of Christian holiness, and all the exercises of a divine and heavenly life. CHAP. IX. _Shewing how great devotion fills our lives with the greatest peace and happiness that can be enjoyed in this world._ 1. SOME people will perhaps object, that this living unto God in all that we do, is too great a _restraint_ upon human life; and that, by depriving ourselves of so many innocent pleasures, we shall render our lives, _dull_, _uneasy_, and _melancholy_. *It will produce just the contrary effect. Instead of making our lives dull and melancholy, it will render them full of content and strong satisfactions; as by these rules we only change the childish satisfactions of our _vain_ and _sickly_ passions, for the solid enjoyments, and real happiness of a _sound mind_. For as there is no true foundation for comfort in life, but in the assurance that a wise and good God governeth the world: so the more we find out God in every thing, the more we apply to him in every place, the more we look up to him in all our actions, the more we conform to his will, the more we act according to his wisdom, and imitate his goodness, by so much the more do we enjoy God, and increase all that is _happy_ and _comfortable_ in human life. And it is plain, he that is endeavouring to subdue all those passions of _pride_, _envy_, and _ambition_, which religion opposes, is doing more to make himself happy, even in this life, than he that is contriving means to indulge them. *For these passions are the causes of all the disquiets of human life: they are the _dropsies_ and _fevers_ of our minds, vexing them with false appetites, and restless cravings after such things as we do not want, and spoiling our taste for those things which are our proper good.