A26701:170
The way to true happiness in a serious treatise /
The way to true happiness in a serious treatise / by Joseph Alleine.
London : Printed and are to be sold by Nevil Simmons, 1678
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Would you put it to an issue, whether you be converted or not, now then let thy soul and all that is within thee attend.
Hast thou taken God for thy happiness? Where doth the content of thy heart lie? Whence doth thy choicest comfort come in? Come then, and with Abraham lift up thine eyes, Eastward, and Westward, and Northward, and Southward, and cast about thee what it is, that thou wouldst have in Heaven or earth to make thee happy. If God should give thee thy choice, as he did to Solomon, or should say to thee, as Ahasuerus to Esther, What is thy petition, and what is thy request, and it shall be granted thee; Esther 5. 3. What wouldst thou ask? go into the gardens of pleasure, and gather all the fragrant flowers from thence: would these content thee? Go to the treasures of Mammon, suppose thou mightest lade thy self, while thou wouldst from hence: go to the towers, to the trophies of honour; what thinkest thou of being a man of renown, and having a name like the name of the great men of the earth? Would any of this, all this suffice thee, and make thee count thy self a happy man, if so then certainly thou art carnal and unconverted. If not, go further; wade into the divine excellencies, the store of his mercies, the hiding of his power, the deeps unfathomable of his All-sufficiency. Doth this suit thee best, and please thee most? Dost thou say, 'Tis good to be here. Mat. 17. 4. Here I will pitch, here I will live and dye? Wilt thou let all the world go, rather than this? Then 'tis ⟨p. 49⟩well between God and thee: Happy art thou, O man, happy art thou, that ever thou wast born. If a God can make thee happy, thou must needs be happy: for thou hast avouched the Lord to be thy God, Deut. 26. 17. Dost thou say to Christ, as he to us, Thy father shall be my father, and thy God my God,