The way to true happiness in a serious treatise /

Above all other sins, fix the eye of Consideration on these two. 1. The sin of thy nature. 'Tis to little purpose to lop the branches, while the root of original corruption remains untouched. In vain do men lave out the streams, when the fountain is running, that fills up all again. Let the axe of thy repentance (with David's) go to the root of sin, Psal. 51. 5. Study how deep, how close, how permanent it is, thy natural pollution; how universal it is, till thou dost cry out with Paul's feeling, upon thy body of death. Rom. 7. 24. Look into all thy parts and powers, and see what unclean vessels, what sties, what dunghills, what sinks they are become. Heu miser, quid sum? vas sterquilinii, concha putredinis; plenus faetore & horror. August. Solil. c. 2. The heart is never soundly broken, till throughly convinced of the heinousness of original sin. Here fix thy thoughts. This is that that makes thee backward to all good, prone to all evil; Rom. 7. 15. ⟨p. 144⟩that sheds blindness, pride, prejudices, unbelief into thy mind; enmity, unconstancy, obstinacy, into thy will; inordinate heats and colds into thy affections; insensibleness, benumbedness, unfaithfulness into thy conscience, slipperiness into thy memory, and in a word, hath put every wheel of thy soul out of order, and made it of an habitation of holiness, to become a very hell of iniquity. James 3. 6. This is that that hath defiled, corrupted, perverted all thy members, and turned them into weapons of unrighteousness, and servants of sin; Rom. 6. 19. that hath filled the head with carnal and corrupt designs, Mic. 2. 1. the hands with sinful practices, Isaiah 1. 15. the eyes with wandering and wantonness, 2 Pet. 2. 14. the tongue with deadly poison; Jam. 3. 8. that hath opened the ears to tales, flattery, and filthy communication, and shut them against the instruction of life;