Self-Ignorance Detected and Reproved

And now I may suppose, that the best of you all, the most honourable, the most learned, the most religious, (of them 1 dare affirm it,) will acknowledge, that I want not sufficient reason to urge you, with the question in my text, “Know ye not your own selves?” Judge by the forementioned effects, whether self-acquaintance, even in the most weighty and necessary respects, be common among professed Christians. Doth he duly know himself as a man, that doubteth of a Deity, whose image is his very essence, though not the moral image that must be produced by renewing grace? Or he that doubteth of a particular Providence, of which he hath daily and hourly experience? Or he that doubteth of the immortality of his soul, or of the life to come, which is the end of his creation and ciulowments, and is legibly engraven on the nature and faculties of his soul? Do they morally know themselves, that make a jest of sin; and make it their delight? That bear it as the lightest burden, and are not so much humbled by all the distempers and miseries of their souls, as they would be by a leprosy, an imprisonment, or disgrace? That have as cold, unthankful thoughts of Christ, and of his grace and benefits, as a sick stomach of a feast? That compliment him at the door, but will not be persuaded to let him in, unless he will come upon their terms, and dwell with their unmortified sin, and be a servant to their flesh, and leave them their worldly prosperity and delights, and save them for these fruits of the flesh, when sin and the world shall cast them off?

Do those men truly know themselves, that think they need not the Spirit of Christ for regeneration, conversion, and sanctification; nor need a diligent, holy life; nor to be half so careful and serious for their salvation, as they are for a shadow of happiness in the world? That would, without entreaty, bestir themselves if their houses were on fire; and yet think he is too troublesome and precise, that entreateth them to bestir themselves for heaven, and to quit themselves like men for their salvation; and to look about them, and spare no pains for the escaping everlasting misery; when this is the time, the only time, when all this must be done, or they are utterly undone for ever.

Do they know themselves, and what they want, and what indeed would do them good, that itch after sensual delights, and please their appetites and lusts, and waste their time in needless sports, and long for honour and greatness in the world, and study for preferment more than for salvation, and think they can never stand too high nor have too much. as if it were so desirable to fall from the highest pinnacle, or to die forsaken by that, for which they forsook the Lord.

Do our feathered, gaudy gallants, or our frizzled, wanton dames, understand what it is that they are so proud of, or do so carefully trim up and adorn? Do they know what flesh is, as they would do, if they saw the comeliest of their companions, when he hath lain a month, or twelve months, in the grave? Do they know what sin is, as a sight of hell would make them know, or the true belief of such a state? If they did, they would think that another garb doth better beseem such miserable sinners; and that persons in their case have something else to mind, than toyishly to spruce up themselves like handsome pictures for men to look upon; and something else to spend their hours in, than dalliance and compliments, and unnecessary ornaments; and that the amiable and honourable beauty, and comeliness, and worth, consisteth in the holy image of God, the wisdom and heavenly endowments of the soul, and in a heavenly, charitable, righteous conversation, and good works; and not in a curious dress or gaudy attire, which a fool may wear as well as a wise man, and a Dives, that must lie in hell, when a Lazarus may lie in sores and rags.

Do they know themselves that fear no snares, but choose the life of the greatest temptations and danger to their souls, because it is highest, or hath most provision for the flesh? and that think they can keep in their candle in the greatest storms, and in any company maintain their innocency? And yet, cannot understand so much of the will of God, nor of their own interest and danger, as to resist a temptation when it comes, though it offer them but the most inconsiderable trifle, or the most sordid and unmanly lust.

Do they know themselves, that are prying into unrevealed things, and will be wise, in matters of theology, above what is written? That dare set their shallow brains, and dark, unfurnished understandings, against the infallible word of God; and question the truth of it, because it suiteth not with their lame and carnal apprehensions; or, because they cannot reconcile what seemeth to them to be contradiction; nor answer the objections of every bold and ignorant infidel? In a word, when God must not be God unless he please them; nor his word be true, unless it be all within the reach of them, that never employed the time and study to understand it, as they do to understand the books that teach them languages, arts, and sciences, and treat of lower things: and when Scripture truth must be called in question, as oft as an ignorant eye shall read it, or an unlearned, graceless person misunderstand it: when offenders, that should bewail and reform their own transgressions of the law, shall turn their accusations against the law, and call it too precise or strict, and believe and practise no more than stands with their obedience to the law of sin, and will quarrel with God, when they should humbly learn, and carefully obey him; and despise a life of holy obedience, instead of practising it; and in effect, behave themselves, as if they were fitter to rule themselves and the world than God is; and as if it were not God, but they, that should give the law, and be the judge; and God were the subject, and man were God? Do you think, that sinful, creeping worms, that stand so near the grave and hell, do know themselves, when they think, or speak, or live according to such unreasonable arrogancy? Do they know themselves, that reproach their brethren for human frailties, and difference of opinion in modes and circumstances, and errors smaller than their own? And that, by calling all men heretics, sectaries, or schismatics, that differ from them, do tempt men to turn infidels or Papists, and to take us all for such as we account each other? And that, instead of receiving the weak in faith, whom God receiveth, will rather cast out the most faithful labourers, and cut off Christ’s living members from his church, than forbear the imposing of unnecessary things? I dare say, were it not for unacquaintedness with our brethren and ourselves, we should put those in our bosoms as the beloved of the Lord, that now we load with censures and reproaches: and the restoring of our charity would be the restoring of our unity. If blind men would make laws for the banishment of all that cannot read the smallest characters, you would say, they had forgot themselves. Nay, when men turn Papists or Separatists, and fly from our churches, to shun those that perhaps are better than themselves, and to get far enough from the smaller faults of others, while they carry with them far greater of their own; when people are more apt to accuse the church than themselves, and say the church is unworthy of their communion, rather than that they are unworthy the communion of the church, and think no room in the house of God is clean and good enough for them, while they overlook their own uncleanness; when men endure a hundred calujnnics to be spoken of their brethren, better than a plain reprehension of themselves; as if their persons only would render their actions justifiable, and the reprover culpable; judge whether these men are well acquainted with themselves.

What, should we go further in the search, when, in all ages and countries of the world, the unmercifulness of the rich, the murmuring of the poor, the hard usage by superiors, the disobedience of inferiors, the commotions of the state, the wars and rebellions that disquiet the world, the cruelty, covered with pretences of religion, the unthankfulness for mercies, the murmuring under afflictions, too openly declare that most men have little knowledge of themselves; to conclude, that when we see that none are more self-accusing and complaining than the most sincere, and none more self-justifying and confident than the ungodly, careless souls; that none walk more heavily, than many of the heirs of life, and none are merrier than many that must lie in hell for ever: that all that a minister can say, will not convince many upright ones of their integrity, nor any skill or industry suffice to convince most wicked men that they are wicked; nor, if our lives lay on it, we cannot make them see the necessity of conversion, nor know their misery, till feeling tell them it is now too late: when so many walk sadly and lamentingly to heaven; and so many go fearlessly and presumptously to hell, and will not believe it till they are there; by all this judge, what work self-ignorance raaketh in the world.

“Know thyself,” is many a man’s motto, that is a stranger to himself, as the house may be dark within that hath the sign of the sun hanging at the door. It is easy to say, men should know themselves, and out of the book or brain, to speak of the matters of the heart: but, indeed to know ourselves as men, as sinners, as Christians, is a work of greater difficulty, and such as few are well acquainted with: Shall I go a little further in the discovery of it?

1. Whence is it that most are so unhumbled; so great and good in their own esteem; so strange to true contrition and self-abhorrence, but that they are voluntary strangers to themselves? To loathe themselv£s for sin, to be little in their own eyes, to come to Christ as little children, is the case of all that know themselves aright. And Christ made himself of no reputation, but took upon him the form of a servant, and set us a pattern of the most wonderful humiliation that ever was performed, to convince us of the necessity of it, that have sin to humble us, when he had none. “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly.” And one would think it were a lesson easily learned by such as we, that carry about us, within and without, so much sensible matter of humiliation. “Had Christ bid us learn of him to make a world, to raise the dead, and work miracles, the lesson had been strange: but to be meek and lowly is so suitable to our low condition, that if we knew ourselves we could not be otherwise.” — Angustme.

To be holy without humility, is to be a man- without the essentials of nature, or to build without a foundation. It is the contrite heart that is the habitation and delight of God on earth; the acceptable sacrifice. “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted, and he that cxalleth himself shall be brought low.” We must not overvalue ourselves, if we w’ould have God esteem us; we must be vile and loathed either in his eyes or our own. “It is specifical to the elect to think more meanly of themselves than they are.” — Gregori/. But I urge you not to err in your humility. It were low enough, if we were as low, in our own esteem, as we are indeed: which self-acquaintance must procure. IHe is least displeased with himself, that least knoweth himself; and he that hath the greatest light of grace, perceiveth most in himself to be reprehended.” — Gregory. Illumination is the first part of conversion, and of the new creature; and self-discovery is not the least pari of illumination. There can be no salvation without it, because no humiliation.

But how rare this is, let experience determine. To have a poor habitation, a poor attire, and perhaps of choice, (though that is not usual,) is much more common than an humble soul. It is the most ill-favoured pride that stealeth some rags of humility to hide its shame. And saith Jerome truly, “It is easier to change our clothing than our mind, and to put off a gaudy habit, than our self-flattering, tumefied hearts.” Many a one can live quietly without gold rings and jewels, or sumptuous houses and attendance, that cannot live quietly without the esteem and applause of men, nor endure to be accounted as indeed he is.

O therefore, as you would escape divine contempt, and the most desperate precipitation, know yourselves. For that which cast angels out of heaven, will keep you out, if it prevail. As Hugo acutely saith, “Pride was bred in heaven, (no otherwise than as death in life,) but can never hit the way thither again, from whence it fell.” Open the windows of our breast to the Gospel light, to the laws of conviction, to the light of reason, and then be unhumbled if you can. Nature is low, but sin and wrath are the matter of our great humiliation, that have made us miserably lower.

2. The abounding of hypocrisy showeth how little men are acquainted with themselves. I speak not here of that gross hypocrisy which is always known to him that hath it, but of that close hypocrisy, which is a professing to be what we are not, or to believe what we believe not, or to have what we have not, or to do what we do not. What article of faith do not most of us confidently profess? What petition of the Lord’s Prayer will they not put up? Which of the Commandments will they not profess their obedience to? While the stream of their conversation testifieth, that in their hearts there is none of the belief, the desire, or the obedience, in sincerity, which they profess. Did they know themselves, they would be ashamed of the vanity of their profession, and of the miserable want of the things professed; and that God, who is so nigh their mouths, is so far from their hearts. If you heard an illiterate man profess, that he understandeth all the languages and sciences, or a beggar boasting of his wealth, would you take any of these to be the words of one that knows himself? Surely they are in the dark that spend their days in dreaming visions: but they have their eyes so much on the beholders, that they have no leisure to peruse themselves: they are so careful to be esteemed good, that they are careless of being what they seem.

Especially, if they practise not the vicious inclinations of their hearts, they think they have not the vice they practise not, and that the root is dead because it is winter: when it is the absence of temptations and occasions, and not of vicious habits or inclinations, that smooths their lives with seeming innocency, and keeps their sins from breaking forth to their own or others’ observation. “The feeble vices of many lie hid: there are wanting instruments of drawing forth their wickedness. So a poisonous serpent may be safely handled, while he is stiff with cold, and yet it is not because he hath no venom, but because it is stupified: so it is with the cruelty, luxury, and ambition of many.” — Seneca, The knowledge of yourselves is the bringing in of light into your souls, which will awaken you from the hypocrite’s dream, and make such apparitions vanish.

Come near this fire, and the paint of hypocrisy will melt away.

3. The common impatience of plain reproof, and the love of flattery, show us how much self-ignorance doth abound. Most men love those that have the highest estimation of them, be it true or false. They are seldom offended with any for overvaluing them. They desire not much to be accounted well when they are sick, nor rich when they are poor, but to be accounted wise though they are foolish, and godly when they are ungodly, and honest and faithful when they are deceitful and corrupt: this is a courtesy that you must not deny them; they take it for their due. They will never call you heretics for such errors as these: and why is it, but because they err about themselves, and therefore would have others do so too.

A wise man loveth himself so well, that he would not be flattered into hell, nor die as Sisera or Samson, by good words, as the harbingers of his woe-He loveth ingenuous penitence so well, that he cannot love the flatterer’s voice, that contradicteth it. Faithful reprovers are the messengers of Christ, that call us to repentance, that is, to life: unfaithful flatterers are the messengers of the devil, to keep us from repentance, and harden us in impeiiitency unto d«ath. If we know ourselves, we shall know that when we are over-valued and over-praised as being being more learned, wise, or holy than we are, it is not we that are loved and praised; for we are not such as that love or praise supposeth us to be. Vices, like worms, are bred and crawl in the inward parts unseen, unfelt of him that carrieth them about him;

£ 45 and therefore, by the sweetmeats of flattery and sensuality, they arc ignorantly fed: but it is bitter medicines that must kill them; which those only will endure, that know they have them, and what they are. You speak bitterly, saith the impatient sinner to the plain reprover; but such are sweet and excellent men that meddle not with the sore. But it is bitter things that are wholesome to your souls, that befriend your virtues. “Sermons.not piercing, but pleasing, are not wise,” saith Jerome. But, alas! men follow the appetite of their vices, not only in choosing their meat, and drink, and company, and recreations, but also in the choice of the church that they will hold communion with, and the preachers that they will hear: and they will have the sweet, and that which their corruption loveth, come of it what will. Nay, pride hath got so great dominion, that flattery goeth for due civility; and he is accounted cynical or morose that useth it not. To cal men as they are, or to tell them of their faults with necessary freedom, though with the greatest love, and caution, and deprecation of offence, is a thing that most, especially great ones, cannot digest. A man is supposed to rail, that speaketh without fiattery; and to reproach them, that would save them from their sins. Saith Jerome, “The vice of flattery now so reignctli, and, which is worst, goeth under the name of humility and good-will, that he that knoweth not how to flatter is reputed envious or proud.” Indeed, some men have the wit to hate a feigned hypocritical flatterer, and also modestly to take on them to disown the excessive commendations of a friend; but these mistaken, friendly flatterers, seldom displease men at the heart. Saith Hieronymus, “We can say we are unworthy, and modestly blush; but, within, the heart is glad at its own commendation.” Saith Seneca, “We soon please ourselves to meet with those that call us good men, wise and holy: and we are not content with a little praise: whatever flattery heapeth on us without shame, we lay hold on it as due; we assent to them that say we are the best and most holy, when we oftentimes know ourselves that they lie.” All this is for the want of the true knowledge of themselves. When God hath acquainted a sinner effectually with himself, he quickly calleth himself by other names than flatterers do. Vv’ith Paul he saith, “We ourselves were sometime foolish, disobedient, serving divers lusts an’d pleasures;” that he was mad against the saints in persecuting them. He then speaks so much against himself, that, if tender ministers and experienced friends did not think better of him than he of himself, and persuade him to more comfortable thoughts, he would be ready to despair, and think himself unworthy to live upon the earth.

4. Judge also how well men know themselves, when you have observed, what different apprehensions they have of their own ftiults and of other men’s; and of those that are suitable to their dispositions or interests, and those that are against them. They seem to judge of the actions by the persons, and not of the persons by the actions. Though he be himself a sensualist, a worldling, drowned in ambition and pride, whose heart is turned away from God, and utterly strange to the mystery of regeneration and a heavenly life, yet all this is scarcely dis-E 2 ceriied by him, and is little troublesome, and less odious than the failings of another, whose heart and life is devoted to God. The different opinions, or modes and circumstances of worship, in another that truly fcareth God, is matter of their severer censures and reproach, than their own omissions, and averseness, and enmity to holiness, and the dominion of their deadly sins. It seems to them more intolerable for another to pray without a book, than for themselves to pray without any serious belief, or love, or holy desire, without any feeling of their sins, or misery, or wants; that is, to pray with the lips without a heart; to pray to God without God, even without the knowledge or love of God, and to pray without prayers. It seemed to the hypocrital Pharisees, a greater crime in Christ and his disciples, to violate their traditions, in not washing before they eat, to break the ceremonious rest of their Sabbath by healing the diseased, or plucking ears of corn, than in themselves to hate and persecute the true believers and worshippers of God, and to kill the Lord of Life himself. They censured the Samaritans for not worshipping at Jerusalem, but censured not themselves for not worshipping God, that is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth. Which makes me remember the course of their successors, the ceremonious Papists; that condemn others for heretics, and fry them in the flames, for not believing that bread is no bread, and wine is no wine, and that bread is to be adored as God, and that the souls of dead men know the hearts of all that pray to them in the world at once; and that the Pope is the vice-christ, and sovereign of all the Christians in the world; and for reading the Scriptures, and praying in a known tongue, when they forbid it; and for not observing a world of ceremonies; when all their enmity to reason, piety, charity, humanity, all their religious tyranny, “hypocrisy, and cruelty, do seem but holy zeal, and laudable in themselves. To lie, dissemble, forswear, depose and murder princes, is a smaller matter to them when the Pope dispenseth with it, and when it tends to the advantafe of their faction, which they call the church, than to eat flesh on Friday, or in Lent, to neglect the mass, or images, or crossing, &c.

And it makes me remember Hall’s description of a hypocrite, “He turneth all gnats into camels, and cares not to undo the world for a circumstance. Flesh on Friday is more abominable to him, than his neighbour’s bed: he abhors more not to uncover at the name of Jesus, than to swear by the name of God, &c.” It seems, that prelates were guilty of this in Bernard’s days, who saith, “Our prelates strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel, while permitting greater matters, they discuss (or sift) the less. Excellent estimators of things indeed, that in smaller matters employ great diligence; but in the greatest, little or none at all.” And the cause of all this partiality is, that men are unacquainted with themselves. They love and cherish the same corruptions in themselves, which they should hate and reprehend in others. And saith Jerome, “How can a prelate of the church reform the evil that is in it, that rusheth into the like offence? Or with what freedom can he rebuke a sinner, when his conscience secretly tells him, that he hath himself committed the same faults which he reproveth?”

Would men but first be acquainted with themselves, and pass an impartial jLulgment on the affections and actions that are nearest them, and that most concern them, they would be more competent, and more compasyiouatc judges of their brethren, that are now so hardly used by them. It is excellent advice that Austin gives us: “When necessity constraineth us to reprove any one, let us think whether it be such a vice as we never had ourselves; and then let us think that we are men, and might have had it: or, it” we once had such, but have not now, then let the remembrance of common frailty touch us, that compassion and not hatred may lead the way to our reproof: but if we find that we have the same vice ourselves, let us not chide, but groan, and move, (or desire) that we may both equally lay it by.”

5. It shows how little men know themselves, when they must needs be the rule to all other men, as far as they are able to commend it; and that in the matters that men’s salvation dcpeudeth on, and in the smallest, tender, disputable points; and even in those things where themselves are most unfit to judge. ‘In every controverted point of doctrine, (though such as others have much better studied than themselves,) he that hath strength to suppress all those that differ from him, must ordinarily be the umpire; so is it oven in the modes and circumstances of worship. Perhaps Christ may have the honour to be called the King of the church, and the Scripture have the honour to be called his laws. ]jut indeed it is they that would be the lords themselves; and it is their wills and words that must jbe the laws; and this under pretence of serving Christ, and interpreting his laws; when they have talked the utmost for councils, fathers, church-tradition, it is themselves that indeed must be all these; for nothing but their own conceits and wills must go for the sense of decrees, or canons, fathers, or tradition. Even they that hate the jpower and serious practice of religion, would fain be the rule of religion to all others: and they that never knew what it was to worship God in spirit and truth, with delight and love, and suitableness of soul, would needs be the rule of worship to all others, even in the smallest circumstances and ceremonies. And they would be the governors of the church, or the determiners of its mode of government, that they would never be brought under the government of Christ themselves., If it please them better to spend the Lord’s-day in plays or sports, or compliment or idleness, than ia learning the will of God in his word, or worshipping him, and begging his mercy and salvation, and seriously preparing for an endless life, they would have all others do the like. If their full souls loathe the honey-comb, and they are weary of being instructed above an hour, or twice a day, they would have all others forced to their measure, that they may seem as diligent as others, when others are compelled to be as negligent as they. Alas! did men but know themselves, the weakness of their understandings, the sinful bias that personal interest and carnal inclinations have set upon their wills, they would be less arrogant and more compassionate, and not think, by making themselves as gods, to reduce the unavoidable diversities that will be found among mankind, to a unity in conformity to their minds and wills, and that in the matters of God and salvation; where every man’s conscience that is wise and faithful, will be tenacious of a double interest (of God and of his soul) which he cannot sacrifice to the will of any. But be so just as not to mistake and misreport me in all this, as if I pleaded for libertinism or disorder, or spoke against government, civil or ecclesiastical; when it is only private ambition, uncharitableness, and cruelty, and papal usurpations over the church and consciences of men, that I am speaking of; which men, I am sure, will have other thoughts of, when God hath made them know themselves, than they have while passion hindereth them from knowing what spirit they are of: they will then see, that the weak in faith should have been received, and that catholic unity is only to be founded in the universal Head, and End, and Rule.

6. The dreadful change that is made upon men’s minds, when misery or approaching death awakes them, doth show how little they knew themselves before. If they have taken the true estimate of themselves in their prosperity, how come they to be so much changed in adversity? Why do they begin then to cry out of their sins, and of the folly of their worldliness and sensuality, and of the vanity of the honours and pleasures of this life? Why do they then begin to wish, with gripes of conscience, that they had better spent their precious time, and minded more the matters of eternity, and taken the course as those did whom they once derided, as making more ado than needs? Why do they then tremble under the apprehensions of their unreadiness to die, and to appear before the dreadful God, when formerly such thoughts did little trouble them? Now there is no such sense of their sin or danger upon their hearts. Who is it now that ever hears such lamentations and self-accusations from them, as then it is likely will be heard? The same man that then will wish, with Balaam, that he might “die the death of the righteous, and that his latter end might be like his,” will now despise and grieve the righteous. The same man that then will passionately wish that he had spent his days in holy preparations for his change, and lived as strictly as the best about him, is now so much of another mind, that he perceives no need of all this diligence; but thinks it is timorous superstition, or at least, that he may do well enough without it. The same man that will then cry, ‘Mercy, mercy — O mercy, Lord, to a departing soul, that is laden with sin, and trembleth under the fear of thy judgment,’ is now perhaps an enemy to serious, earnest prayer, and hates the families and persons that most use it; or at least is prayerless, or cold and dull himself in his desires, and can shut up all with a few careless, customary words, and feel no pinching necessity to awaken him, importunately to cry and strive with God. Doth not all this show, that men are befooled by prosperity, and unacquainted with themselves, till danger or calamity call them to the bar, and force them better to know themselves.

Your mutability proveth your ignorance and mistakes. If indeed your case be now as good as present confidence or security do import, lament it not E 3 lOG

in your adversity; fear it not when tleatli is calling you to the har of the impartial Jutigc. Cry not out then of your ungodliness and sensuality; of your trifling hypocrisy, your slight contemptuous thoughts of God, and of your casting away your hopes of heaven, by wilful negligence and delays. If you are sure that you are now in the right, and diligent, serious believers in the wrong, then stand to it before the Lord. Set a good face on your cause if it be good; be not down in the mouth when it is tried; God will do you no wrong: if your cause be good, he will surely justify you, and will not mar it. Wish not to die the dearth of the righteous; say not to them, “Give us of-your oil, for our lamps are gone out.” If all their care, and love, and labour, in “seeking first the kingdom of God and its righteousness,” be a needless thing, wish not for it in your extremity, but call it needless then. If fervent prayer may be spared now while prayer may be heard, and a few lifeless words that you have learned by rote may serve the turn, then call not on God when answering is past, seek him not when he will not be found. “When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish come upon you,” cry not, “Lord, Lord, open unto us, when the door is shut.” Call them not foolish then that slept, but them that watched, if Christ was mistaken, and you are in the right.

O sirs, stand but at the bedside of one of these ungodly, careless men, and hear what he saith of his former life, of his approaching change, of a holy or carnal course, whether a heavenly or worldly life is better, (unless God have left him to that deplorable stupidity which an hour’s time will put an end to); hearken then whether he think that God or the world, heaven or earth, soul or body, be more worthy of man’s chief care and diligence; and then judge whether such men did know themselves in their health and pride, when all this talk would have been derided by them as too precise, and such a life accounted over-strict and needless, as then they are approving and wishing they had lived. When that minister or friend should once have been taken for censorious, abusive, self-conceited, and unsufFerable, that would have talked of them in that languaije as when death approacheth, they talk of themselves; or would have spoken as plainly, and hardly of them, as they will then do of themselves. Doth not this mutability show, how few men now have a true knowledge of themselves?

What is the repentance of the living, and the desperation of the damned, but a declaration that the persons repenting and despairing, were unacquainted with themselves before? Indeed the erroneous despair of men, while grace is offered them, comes from ignorance of the mercy of God, and willingness of Christ to receive all that are willing to return. But yet the sense of sin and misery, that occasioneth this erroneous despair, doth show that men were before erroneous in their presumption and self-esteem, Saith Bernard, “Both the knowledge of God and of thyself is necessary to salvation; because, as from the knowledge of thyself, the fear of God cometh into thee, and love from the knowledge of God: so, on the contrary, from the ignorance of thyself cometh pride; and from the ignorance of God comes desperation.”

Poor men that must confess their sin and misery at last, would show a more seasonable acquaintance with themselves, if they would do it now, and say, with the prodigal, “I will arise and go to my father, and say to him. Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” In time, this knowledge and confession may be saving. Even a Seneca could say, without the Scripture, “The knowjedge of sin is the beginning of recovery (or health): for he that knows not that he sinneth, will not be corrected. Reprehend thyself, therefore, as much as thou canst. Inquire into thyself: first play the part of an accuser, then of a judge: and lastly, of one that asketh pardon.”

It is not because men are innocent or safe, that we now hear so little confession or complaint; but because they are sinful and miserable in so great a measure, as not to know or feel it. Saith Seneca, “Why doth no man confess his vices? Because he is yet in them. To tell his dreams is the part of a man that is awake: and to confess his faults, is a sign of health.” If you call a poor man rich, or a deformed person beautiful, or a vile, ungodly person virtuous, or an ignorant barbarian learned, will not the hearers think you do not know them? And how should they think better of your knowledge of yourselves, if any of you that are yet in the flesh, will say you are spiritual? And those that hate the holiness, and justice, and government of God, will say they love him? Or those that are in a state of enmity to God, are as near to hell as the execution is to the sentence of the law, will persuade themselves and others, that they are the members of log

Christ, the children of God, and the heirs of heaven? And take it ill of any that would question it, though only to persuade them to make it sure, and to take heed what they trust to, when endless joy or misery must be the issue!

7. Doth it not manifest how little men know themselves, when in every suffering that befals them, they overlook the cause of all within them, and fall upon others, or quarrel with every thing that standeth in their way? Their contempt of God doth cast them into some affliction, and they quarrel with the instruments, and meddle not with the mortal cause at home. Their sin finds them out, and testifieth against them; and they are angry with the rod, and repine at providence, as though God himself were more to be suspected of the cause than they: yea, it is become with many, a serious doubt, whether God doth not necessitate them to sin; and, whether they omit not duty merely because he will not give them power to perform it; and, whether their sin be any other than a relation unavoidably resulting from a foundation laid by the hand pf God himself. Do men know themselves, that will sooner suspect and blame the most righteous, holy God, than their own unrighteous, carnal hearts? “Man drinketh up iniquity like water, but there is no unrighteousness with God.” And is not such a frail and sinful wight, more likely to be the cause of sin than God? and to be culpable in all the ill that doth befal us?

And it shows, that men little know themselves, when all their complaints are poured out more fluently on others than themselves: like sick stomachs, that find fault with every dish, when the fault is within tlicm. If tlicy want peace, content, or rest, they lay the blame on this place or that, this or that person or estate; they think if they had their mind in this or that, they should be well: and therefore they are still contriving for somewhat which they want, and studying changes, or longing after this or that, which they imagine would work the cure: when, alas, poor souls, the sin, the sickness, the want is in themselves! It is a wiser mind, a better, more holy, heavenly will, that is wanting to them; without which nothing in the world will solidly content and comfort them. Did you know yourselves in all your griefs, it is there that you would suspect and find your malady, and there that you would most solicitously seek the cure.

By this time, if you are willing, you may see where lieth the disease and misery of the world, and also what must be the cure, Man hath lost himself, by seeking himself; he hath lost himself in the loss of God: he departed from God, that he might enjoy himself; and so is estranged from God and himself. He left the sun, and retired into darkness, that he might behold himself, and not the liaht: and now beholdeth neither himself nor the light; for he cannot behold himself but by the light. As if the body should forsake the soul, and say, I will no longer serve another, but will be my own. What would such a selfish separation procure, but the converting of a body into a loathsome carcass, and a senseless clod.’’ Thus hath the soul dejected itself, by turning to itself, and separating from God; without whom it hath neither life, nor light, nor joy. By desiring a selfish kind of knowledge of good and evil, withdrawing from its just dependence upon God, it hath involved itself in care and misery, and lost the quieting, delighting knowledge which it had in God. And now poor man is lost in error: he is straggled so far from home, that he knoweti not where he is, nor which way to return, till Christ in mercy seek and save him.

Yet could we but get men to know that they do not know themselves, there were the greater hope of their recovery. But this is contrary to the nature of their distemper. An eye that is blinded by a suffusion or cataract, seeth not the thing that blindeth it: it is the same light that must siiovv them themselves, and their ignorance of themselves. Their self-ignorance is part of the evil which they have to know. Those troubled souls that complain that they know not themselves, do show that they begin at least to know themselves. But a Pharisee will say, “Are we blind also?” They are too blind to know that they are blind. The Gospel shall be rejected, the apostles persecuted, Christ himself abused and put to death, the nation ruined, themselves and their posterity undone, by the blindness of these hypocrites, before they will perceive that they arc blind, and that they know not God or themselves. Alas! the long calamities of the church, the distempers and confusions in the state, the lamentable divisions and dissensions among believers, have told the world, how little most men know themselves; and yet they themselves will not perceive it. They tell it aloud to all about them, by their self-conceitedness and cruelty, uncharitable censures, reproaches, and impositions, that they know not themselves, and yet you cannot make them know it. Their afflicted brethren feci it to their smart; the suffering, grieved churches tee! it; thousands groan under it, that never wronged them; and yet you cannot make them feel it.

Did they well know themselves to be men, so many would not use themselves like beasts, and care so little for their most noble part. Did they know themselves aright to be but men, so many would not set up themselves as gods; they would not arrogate a divine authority in the matters of God, and the consciences of others, as the Roman prelates do: nor would they desire so much that the observation, reverence, admiration, love, and applause, of all that should be turned upon them; nor be so impatient when they seem to be neglected; nor make so great a matter of their wrongs, as if it were some deity that were injured.

O what a change it would make in the world, if men were brought to the knowledge of themselves! How many would weep, that now laugh, and live in mirth and pleasure! How many would lament their sin and misery, that now are pharisaically confident of their integrity! How many would seek to faithful ministers for advice, and inquire what they should do to be saved, that now deride them, and scorn their counsel, and cannot bear their plain reproof, or come not near them I How many would ask directions for the cure of their unbelief, and pride, and sensuality, that now take little notice of any such sins within them! How many would cry day and night for mercy, and beg importunately for the life of their immortal souls, that now take up with a few words of course, instead of serious, fervent prayer! Do but once know yourselves aright, know what you are, and what you have done, what you want, and what is your danger; and then be prayerless and careless if you can; then sit still and trifle out your time, and make a jest of holy diligence, and put God off with lifeless words and compliments if you can. Men could not think so lightly and contemptuously of Christ, so unworthily and falsely of a holy life, so delightfully of sin, so carelessly of duty, so fearlessly of hell, so senselessly and atheistically of God, and so disregardfully of heaven as they now do, if they did but thoroughly know themselves.

And now, sirs, methinks your consciences should begin to stir, and your thoughts should be turned inwards upon yourselves, and you should seriously consider what measure of acquaintance you have at home, and what you have done to procure ai.d maintain such acquaintance. Hath conscience no use to make of this doctrine, and of all that hath been said upon it? Doth it not reprove you for your self-neglect, and your wanderings of mind, and your alien, unnecessary fruitless cogitations? Had you been but as strange to your familiar friend, and as regardless of his acquaintance, correspondence, and affairs, as too many of you have been of your own, you may imagine how he would have taken it, and what use he would have made of it: some such use it beseemeth you to make of estrangedness to yourselves. Would not he ask,” What is the matter that my friend so seldom looketh at me; and no more mindeth me or my affairs? What have 1 done to him?

How have I deserved this? What more beloved company or employment hath he got?” You have this and much more to plead against your great neglect and ignorance of yourselves.