4 Aug 1815

Jug True

3

III Subsequential

Ch 1

3

What was more, from on this seat of felicity, all elements of infelicity would be excluded. The world to come consists of two parts. One of them termed in our word heaven is the seat of the promised joys abovementioned. The other termed hell, is the seat of correspondent torments. He who has once set his feet in heaven is secure against all danger of ever finding himself cast down into that inferior region of the world to come.

The lot of the followers of Jesus could they but persuade themselves in that effect was in an infinite ratio improved by this important change. The matter of good it is true viz. that part of it which was to be obtained and enjoyed in the present life was any rate near at hand: some portion of it was already in possession: that of which the other life was to be the sum was whatsoever might be the degree of certainty attributed to it, at any rate more or less remote. But whatsoever it wanted in respect of any of those other dimensions in value, viz. proximity and certainty, it more than made up not only in the article of intensity but in that of duration: for in that duration it had no bounds.

As to intensity: i.e. quantity, though neither in this article any more than that of quality had any information been afforded by experience, imagination MS alt. ‘by the power of imagination’. had a power by the exercise of which the deficiency how vast so ever might be supplied. Not from eventual and actual results, but by pictures of them drawn by imagination does human conduct take its direction. The more lively these pictures the more steady and persevering is their conduct in its course. Faith and Imagination if not one and the same being are at any rate inseparable companions and the livelier the faith, the more [...?] the [...?] which it affords.