5. It must therefore be the first office of Christian prudence, to make God our end. For indeed not to do so, is the greatest folly that any man can possibly be guilty of. For what can we expect but vanity and disappointment all over, a fruitless labour, and a deluded and abortive hope, if we place our happiness any where but in him, who is the true object of it? ’Tis like leaning with our full force upon what cannot bear our weight, the consequence of which is, to fall with violence. And what an imprudence is this, especially for a Christian, since the clear revelation of the gospel, concerning the true end and final happiness of man: wherein our Saviour hath plainly declared, _This is life eternal to know thee, the only true God_! Since God has not only given us a nature capable of happiness, but has also endued us with faculties and desires, which nothing but himself can satisfy, and he both can and will; and above all, since he has been pleased, lest we should miss the end ♦of our being, to point it out to us, and to tell us that himself is the good, which we so passionately desire, and so blindly seek; it must be the very foolishness of folly for any Christian not to make God his end; much more, so to forget himself and him, as to place it in any thing of this vain world: whether it be directly and professedly, according to the language of the rich epicure, _Soul, take thy ease_; or consequentially, by pursuing the world, and cleaving to its interests, as if it were his end. And besides the folly of this conduct, it bespeaks also such a contempt of God, and of his immense greatness and goodness, as nothing can either parallel or excuse! Especially since the Son of God hath been pleased to concern himself so far for our happiness, as to make this great and excellent end attainable to us, preparing and providing, and procuring an union and communion of God with man, by uniting them both in his own person. Whether, therefore we consider the excellency, or the attainableness of this good, or the manner or price whereby it becomes attainable, God, by all means, is to be made our end, the end of all our desires, and the end of all our designs, the end of all our undertakings, all our actions, and all our hopes, to which we are to refer whatever we think, whatever we speak, and whatever we act, and in one word, to which our whole life is to be directed. ♦ duplicate word “of” removed