New Church, in regard to the nature of heavenly happiness. My design has been to show that true happiness is that delight which is experienced when the affections and powers of the regenerated spirit, are brought into harmonious and orderly exercise, upon their appropriate objects. We must not, however, estimate the delight, which the angels experience in doing good, by that which men derive from the same source. True spiritual use, and its consequent delight, can be realized only in proportion as the natural man is brought under the dominion of the spiritual; or only as those affections, which are natural, selfish and temporal, are made the servants of those which are spiritual, heavenly and eternal. But such a spiritual state is seldom more than partially attained, even by the best of men. The selfish affections, even after they have lost the controling power, are often like an army of undisciplined and disorderly soldiers, who are constantly seeking to break away from the restraint of those whose duty it is to direct and control them. And hence, even with those who are seeking for regenerate life, there is scarcely the beginning of that pure delight, which is fully realized, only where all the subordinate affections, freely and perfectly respond to the call of heavenly love.
But there are reasons also for believing, that the difference between the happiness of angels in heaven, and that of good men on earth, may be even greater than the corresponding difference between their respective spiritual affections. In the natural world, the good man is surrounded by a multitude of external hindrances, which prevent him from ultimating those useful affections, which he ardently cherishes; and hence he fails to experience that full delight, which such ultimation would bring. In the spiritual world all such external impediments are removed, and the angel who desires to perform a useful act, enjoys, in the same moment, the delight of doing it. So also the delight which each spirit derives from the exercise of heavenly affections, must be
