The Art of Happiness

Man must understand God's original intention in happiness, how it was lost, and how man in his fallen condition can attain it once again through Jesus Christ. It is in Christ Jesus that the Christian is able to be happy, and able to see Christ's beauty. It is here that all Christian affections desire and gasp after Christ. The soul is a wide opened door to receive the benefits of Christ by the power of his quickening and sanctifying Spirit. The Christian must desire him as the only happiness, for true happiness is found in Christ alone. 

Rous teaches the Christian how to discern true happiness, how to gain this happiness, how to keep this happiness, and how to cultivate this happiness; especially by those who may be depressed or despondent. Here the Christian should not only be content to get this happiness, but there must be in them an insatiable desire to forever increase it, and never to lose it. Rous shows that the Spirit of God is the fiery chariot that carries the soul through the way of piety to the country of happiness. Once the Christian finds true happiness, God is theirs, and they are God’s, and in this unity is the fullness of happiness, experienced both now, and the life to come.

This is not a scan or facsimile, has been updated in modern English for easy reading and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.