1. HITHERTO we have been conducting our prudent Christian to his end, by the chief of the ways that lead to it, _viz._ by the direct and immediate means of happiness, first, the duties of the divine law, and then by the means to those means, such of them in particular, as are of divine appointment. For the application of which, it may now be convenient to draw a little nearer, and consider the conduct which a prudent Christian uses in the government of himself. 2. And first let us consider ♦how the prudent Christian pursues improvement by the government of his senses. He does not study the pleasing of his senses. This indeed many make the great end of their lives, which are almost wholly devoted to the pursuit, and spent in the various entertainments of _sensible pleasure_; as if they thought (and perhaps some of them do) that their supreme happiness consisted in it. But this a prudent Christian will not do; for he knows we are already too much in love with sensible pleasure, the great disease of our nature, and therefore will not by indulging it inflame a passion which is already too violent. *He finds that as the more we abstain from these pleasures, the more cold we grow to them, so by indulgence our appetite acquires a new edge, and grows the more sharp and keen: he that drinks of this water shall not only thirst again, but the more he drinks, he shall thirst the more. He considers likewise, how entirely different from these, are the intellectual pleasures of heaven, and how apt the love of them is to indispose us for these, and in this sense _to alienate us from the life of God_. He is therefore so far from feasting his senses (as the manner of the world is) by all the variety of studied entertainments, that he endeavours by all manner of ways to mortify them, and instead of setting up for a soft, voluptuous life (according to St. _Paul_’s advice to _Timothy_) _inures himself to hardships, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ_: Not indeed by any such rigid austerities, as would destroy or impair his health, but by such a sparing use of, and well-governed abstemiousness from, even those pleasures which are lawful in themselves, as may deaden his love to them, and make him more indifferent to the enjoyment of them. ♦ inserted the word “how” per Errata