The sovereign and final happiness of man with the effectual means to obtain itThe soveraign and final happiness of man with the effectual means to obtain it

The Original of all the Sins and Misery of Men,¹ is their perverse abuse of things, by turning the Means into the End, setting their Affections of Love, Desire, and Joy upon sensible things, as their proper Happiness, with inconsiderate neglect of the spiritual eternal state, to which all other things should be subservient. As if one diseased and sickly in a Foreign Country, that could not possibly recover Health but ⟨p. 107⟩in his Native Air, in his return thither, invited by the pleasantness of the way, should take up his residence in it, and never arrive to his own Country. Among the West Indians some are ^*reported to be so swift in running, that no Horse can keep pace with them, and they have a constant rule in their Diet, to eat of no Beast, or Bird, or Fish that is slow in motion, fancying it would transfuse a sluggishness in them. The Christian Life is by the Apostle compared to a Race, and earthly things by an inseparable property of Nature load and depress the Soul, that it cannot with vigour run the race set before it. The Believer therefore who intends for the high price of his Calling, and is true to his end, will be temperate in all things. Nay he will not only be circumspect lest they should check with his great Design, but wisely manages them in subserviency to it. St. Paul, charges them that are rich in this World, ³to do good, to be rich in good Works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying in store for themselves a good Foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal Life.

The Original of all the Sins and Misery of Men,¹ is their perverse abuse of things, by turning the Means into the End, setting their Affections of Love, Desire, and Joy upon sensible things, as their proper Happiness, with inconsiderate neglect of the spiritual eternal state, to which all other things should be subservient. As if one diseased and sickly in a Forreign Country, that could not possibly recover Health but ⟨p. 107⟩