Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or, A brief discourse

3. For a man thus to do with the favours of God, is to wast and spend his substance most unprofitably. When a man useth his wit, wealth &c. to maintain his pride, his sensuality, to encourage him in profaneness, &c. this is to play the greatest spend-thrift, for.

3. For a man thus to do with the favours of God, is to wast and spend his substance most unprofitably. When a man useth his wit, wealth &c. to maintain his pride, his sensuality, to encourage him in prophaness, &c. this is to play the greatest spend-thrift, for.

1. Man's great business which he hath in this life to trade for, is happiness: It is that which every man ought to aim at, and is indeed the thing which all the Children of men do propound to themselves, Psal. 4. 6. Many there be that do say, who will show us good? They differ indeed in the way and means (and there are almost as many courses taken to obtain it as there are men that seek it) yet all naturally agree in this one end, viz. that they may do and be well: and the right improving of suitable means to this end, is the great thing where in man's wisdom doth most properly consist: If a man misseth of happiness in the end, all the labour that he hath been at here in this world is lost, this is the very thing which the ⟨p. 67⟩wise man so often, in the book of Ecclesiastes calleth Vanity, which is nothing else but a mans losing his propounded end, viz. his ultimate end, i. e. Blessedness: tis only the loss of this which can prove a man to have lived in vain, and spent his time, and cost, and care unprofitably.

1. Man's great business which he hath in this life to trade for, is happiness: It is that which every man ought to aim at, and is indeed the thing which all the Children of men do propound to themselves, Psal. 4. 6