Motives to Self-Acquaintance

In order to your conviction and reformation, I shall first show you some of those reasons, that should move you to know yourselves, and consequently should humble you for neglecting it: and then I shall show you what are the hinderances that keep men from self-acquaintance, and give you some directions necessary to attain it.

In general consider, it is by the light of knowledge that all the affairs of your souls must be directed: and therefore, while you know not yourselves, you are in the dark, and unfit to manage your own affairs. Your principal error about yourselves will influence all the transactions of your lives; you will neglect the greatest duties, and abuse and corrupt those which you think you do perform. While you know not yourselves, you know not what you do, nor what you have to do, and therefore can do nothing well. For instance,

I. When you should repent of sin, you know it not as in yourselves, and therefore cannot savingly repent cf it. If you know in general that you are sinners, or know your gross and crying sins, which conscience cannot overlook, yet the sins which you know not, because you will not know them, may condemn you. How can you repent of your pride, hypocrisy, self-love, self-seeking, your want of love, and fear, and trust in God, or any such sins, which you never did observe? Or if you perceive some sins, yet if you perceive not that they reign and are predominant, and that you are in a state of sin, how can you repent of that state which you perceive not? Or if you have but a slight and superficial sight of your sinful state and your particular sins, you can have but a superficial, false repentance.

2. If you know not yourselves, you cannot be duly sensible of your misery. Could it be expected that the Pharisees should lament, that they were of their father the devil, as long as they boasted that they were the children of God? Will they lament that they are under the wrath of God, the curse of the law, and the bondage of the devil, that know not of any such misery that they are in, but hope they are the heirs of heaven? What think you is the reason, that when Scripture telleth us that few shall be saved, and none at all but those that are new creatures, and have the Spirit of Christ, that yet there is not one of many that is sensible that the case is theirs? Though Scripture peremptorily concludeth, “That they that are in the flesh cannot please God,” and that “to be carnally minded is death,” and that “without holiness none shall see God,” and that all “they shall be damned that believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness,” and that “Christ will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.” And would not a man think that such words as these should waken the guilty soul that believes them; and make us all to look about us? I confess it is no wonder, if a flat atheist or infidel should slight them and deride them. But is it not wonder if they stir not those, that profess to believe the word of God, and are the men of whom these Scriptures speak? And yet among a thousand that are thus condemned already; (1 say, by the word, that is the rule of judgment, even condemned already; for so God saith, John iii. 18.) how few shall you see, that with penitent tears lament their misery! How few shall you hear, with true remorse, complain of their spiritual distress, and cry out as those that were pricked at the heart, “Men and brethren what shall we do?” How few hearts are affected with so miserable a case! Do you see by the tears, or hear by the complaints, of those about you, that they know what it is, to be unpardoned sinners, under the wrath of the most holy God? And what is the matter that there is no more such lamentation? Is it because there are few or none so miserable? Alas! no: the Scripture, and their worldly, fleshly, and ungodly lives, assure us of the contrary. But it is because men are strangers to themselves: they little think that it is themselves, that all the terrible threatenings of God do mean. Most of them little believe or consider what Scripture saith; but fewer consider what conscience hath to say within, when once it is awakened, and the curtain is drawn back, and the light appeareth. Did all that read and hear the Scriptures know themselves, I will tell you how they would hear and read it. When the Scriptures saith, “To be carnally minded is death;” and “If ye live after the flesh ye shall die;” the guilty man would say, I am carnally minded: and I live after the flesh: therefore I must turn or die. When Scripture saith, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also;” the guilty conscience would assume, my heart is not in heaven, therefore my treasure is not there. When Scripture saith, “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,” and “Except a man be regenerate and born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God;” and “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: -old things are passed away, behold all things are become new;” and “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his;” — the guilty man would assume, I was

never thus converted, regenerate, born again, and made a new creature: I have not the Spirit of Christ: therefore I am none of his, and cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, till this change be wrought upon me. When the Scripture saith, “Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge;” — the guilty man would say. How then shall I be able to stand before him?

Yea, did but men know themselves, they would perceive their danger from remoter principles, that mention the dealing of God with others. When they hear of the judgment of God upon the ungodly, and the enemies of the church, they would say, “Except I repent, I shall likewise perish.” When they hear that “judgment must begin at the house of God,” they would infer, “What shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel of God?” And when they hear that “the righteous are scarcely saved,” they would think, “Where then shall the ungodly and sinner appear?”

3. If you know not yourselves, you cannot be Christians: you cannot have a practical belief in Christ; for he is offered to you in the Gospel, as the remedy for your misery; as the ransom for your enthralled souls; as the propitiation for your sin, and your peace-maker with the Father; without whose merit, satisfaction, righteousness, and intercession, your guilty souls can have no hope. And can you savingly value him in these respects, if you know not that sin and misery, that guilt and thraldom, in which your need of Christ consisteth? Christ is esteemed by you according to the judgment you pass upon yourselves.

They that say they are sinners, from a general brain-knowledge, will accordingly say, Christ is their Saviour and their hope, with a superficial belief; and will honour him with their lips, with all the titles belonging to the Redeemer of the world; but they that feel that they are deadly sick of sin at the very heart, and are lost for ever if he do not save them, will feel what the name of a Saviour signifieth; and will look to him, as the Israelites to the brazen serpent, and will yield up themselves to be saved by hiai, in his way. An ineffectual knowledge of yourselves, may make you believe in a Redeemer, as all the city do of a learned, able physician, that will speak well of his skill, and resolve to use him when necessity constraineth them; but at present they find no such necessity. But an effectual sight and sense of your condition, will bring you to Christ; as a man in a dropsy or consumption comes to the physician, that feels he must have help, or die. Saith Bernard, “You will not take the Son of God for a Saviour, if you be not affrighted by his threatenings.” And if you perceive not that you are lost, you will not heartily thank him that came to seek and save you. Will you seek to him to fetch you from the gates of hell, that find not that you are there?

But to the self-condemning soul, that knoweth itself, how welcome would a Saviour be! How ready is such a soul for Christ! Thou that judgest thyself, art the person that must come to Christ to justify thee. Now thou art ready to be healed by him, when thou findest that thou art sick, and dead. Hast thou received the sentence of death in thyself? Come to him now, and thou shalt have life. Art thou weary and heavy laden? Come to him for rest: come, and fear not; for he bids thee come. Dost thou know, that “thou hast sinned against heaven and before God, and art not worthy to be called a son?” Do but cast thyself, then, at his feet, and tell him so, and ask forgiveness; and try whether he will not welcome and embrace thee, pardon and entertain thee, clothe thee and feast thee, and rejoice over thee, as one that “was lost and is found; was dead and is alive.” For, “he came to seek and to save that which was lost.” While thou saidst, no

“I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:” thou wouldst not “buy the tried gold that thou mightest be rich; nor his white raiment that thou mightest be clothed, that the shame of thy nakedness might not appear; nor Christ’s eye-salve, that t-liou mightest see.” But now thou art poor in spirit; and findest that thou art nothing, and hast nothing, and of thyself canst do nothing, that is acceptably good; and that of thyself thou art insufficient to think any thing that is good; now thou art readier for the help of Christ, and a patient fit for the tender healing hand of the physician. Whilst thou saidst, “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, nor as this publican,” thou wast farther from Christ and justification, than now that thou standest as afar off, and darest scarcely look up to heaven, but smitest on thy breast, and sayest, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” Not that extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or any that are ungodly, are justified, or can be saved, while they are such: not that a smiting on the breast, with a “Lord be merciful to me a sinner,” will serve their turn, while they continue in their wicked lives; but when thou art brought to accuse and condemn thyself, thou art prepared for his grace that must renew and justify thee. None sped better with Christ, than the woman that confessed herself a dog, and begged but for the children’s crumbs; and the centurion that sent friends to Christ, to mediate for him, as being unworthy to come himself, and unworthy that Christ should come under his roof. For, of the first, Christ said, “O woman, great is thy faith: bo it unto thee even as thou wilt;” and of the second, he saith, with admiration, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” Though tlioii art ready to deny the title of a child, and to number thyself with the dogs, yet go to him, and beg his crumbs of mercy. Though thou think that Christ will not come to such a one as thou, and though thou beg prayers of others, as thinking he will not hear thy own, thou little thinkest, how this self-abasement and self-denial prepareth thee for his tenderest mercies, and his esteem. When thou art contrite (as the dust that is trodden under feet), and poor, and tremblest at the word, then will he look at thee with compassion and respect. “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place: with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones: for I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth; for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.” When thou art using the self-condemning words of Paul,” I am carnal, sold under sin: what I would, that I do not; and what I h;ite, that do I. For 1 know that in me,

(that is, in my flesh) dwclleth no good thing

I find a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. A law in my members warring

against the law of my mind, and bringing me into

captivity to the law of sin,” when thou criest

out with him, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death;” thou art then fitter to look to thy Redeemer, and use the F 4j following words, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” When thou didst exalt thyself”, thou wast obnoxious to the storms of justice, which was engaged to bring thee low: but now thou humblest thyself, thou liest in the way of mercy, that is engaged to exalt thee. Mercy looketh downward, and can quickly spy a sinner in the dust; but cannot leave him there, nor deny him compassion and relief. Art thou cast out as helpless, wounded by thy sin, and neglected by all others that pass by? Thou art the fittest object for the skill and mercy of Him that washeth sinners in his blood, and tenderly bindeth up their wounds, and undertakes the perfecting of the cure, though yet thou must bear the surgeon’s hand, till his time of perfect cure be come. Now thou perceivest the greatness of thy sin and misery, thou art fit to study the greatness of his mercy; and with all saints (to strive) “to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.” Now thou hast “smitten upon the thigh,” and said, “What have I done?” thou art fitter to look upon him that was wounded and smitten for thy transgressions, and to consider what he hath done, and suffered: how he “hath borne thy grief and carried thv sorrows, and was bruised for thy iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him, and we are healed by his stripes: all we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Art thou in doubt whether there be any forgiveness for thy sins; and whether there be any place for repentance? Remember that Christ ‘a

“exalted by God’s right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance unto Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” And that he himself hath spoken it, that “all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, except the blasphemy against the Spirit.” And this forgiveness of sins thou art bound to believe as an article of thy creed: that it is purchased by Christ, and freely offered in the Gospel. Mercy did but wait all this while, till thou wast brought to understand the want and worth of it, that it might be thine. When a Peter, that denieth Christ with oaths and cursing, goeth out and weepeth, he speedily finds mercy from him without, that he but now denied within. When so bloody a |)ersecutor as Paul findeth mercy, upon his prostration and confession; and when so great an offender as Manasseh is forgiven upon his penitence, in bonds; when all his witchcraft, idolatry, and cruelties are pardoned, upon a repentance that might seem to have been forced by a grievous scourge; what sinner, that perceives his sin and misery, can question his entertainment if he come to Christ. Come to him, sinner, with thy load and burden; come to him with all thy acknowledged unworthiness: and try whether he will refuse thee. He hath professed that “him that Cometh to him he will in nowise cast out.” He refused not his very murderers, when they were pricked at the heart, and inquired after a remedy; and will he refuse thee? Hath our Physician poured out his blood to make a medicine for distracted sinners; and now is he unwilling to work the cure? O sinner! now thou art brought to know thyself, know Christ also, and the cure is done. Let F 2 lliv lliouglits of tl)e remedy be deciicr, and larger, and longer, than all thy thoughts of thy misery: it is thy sill and shame if it he not so. Why wilt thou have twenty thoughts of sin and misery, for one that thou hast of Christ and mercy? when mercy is so large, and great, and wonderful as to triumph over misery: and grace aboundeth much more where sin hath abounded. Saith Augustine, “Behold the wounds of Christ as he is hanging; the blood of him dying, the price of him redeeming, the scars of him rising. His head is bowed to kiss thee; his heart open to love thee; his arms open to embrace thee; his whole body exposed to redeem thee.”

Saith Augustine, “The Maker of man was made man; that he might suck the breasts that rules the stars; that bread might hunger; the spring (or fountain) might thirst; the light might sleep; the way might be weary in his journey; that the truth might be hidden by false witnesses; that the Judge of quick and dead might be judged by a mortal judge: justice might be condemned by the unjust; discipline might be scourged; the cluster of grapes might be crowned with thorns; the foundation might be hanged on a tree; that strength might be weakened: that health might be wounded; and that life itself might die.” This is the wonderful mystery of love, which will entertain the soul that comes to Christ, and which thou must study to know when thou knowest thyself. But till then all these will be riddles to thee, or little relished: and Christ will seem, to thy neglecting heart, to have died and done all this in vain.

And hence it is, that as proud, ungodly, sensual men, were never sound believers, so they ofttinies fall from that opiiiionative common faith which they had, and of all men do most easily turn apostates: it being just with God, that they should be so far forsaken as to vilify the remedy, that would not know their sin and misery, but love it, and pertinaciously hold it, as their felicity!

4. If you know not yourselves, you will not know what to do with yourselves, nor to what end, and for what work you are to live. This makes the holy work neglected, and most men live to little purpose, wasting their days in matters that themselves will call impertinent, when they come to die; as if they were good for nothing else: whereas, if they knew themselves, they would know that they are made and fitted for more noble works. O man, if thou wcrt acquainted well with thy faculties and frame, thou wouldst perceive the name of Gud thy Maker, to he so deeply engraven in thy nature, even in all thy parts and powers, as should convince thee that thou wast made for him; that all thou art, and all thou hast, is nothing worth, but for his service: as all the parts and motions of a clock, or watch, are but to tell the hour of the day. Thou wouldst know then the meaning of sanctification and holiness; that it signifieth but the giving God his own, and is the first part of justice, without which no rendering men their due can prove thee just. Thou wouldst then know the unreasonableness and injustice of ungodliness and all sin: and that to serve thy fleshly lusts and pleasures, with those noble faculties, that were purposely formed to love and serve the eternal God, is absurd and villanous. O man, didst thou but know thyself, and for what employment thy faculties are made, thou wouldst lift up thy head, and seriously think, who holds the reins? who keeps the breath yet in thy nostrils, and continueth thee in life? and where it is that thou must shortly fix thy unchangeable abode; and what is now to be done in preparation for such a day? Thou wouldst know that thy higher faculties were not made to serve the lower: thy reason to serve thy sensual delights. O man! hadst thou not lost the knowledge of thyself, thou wouldst be so far from wondering at a holy life, that thou wouldst look upon an unholy person as a monster.

I confess, my soul is too apt to lose its lively sense of all these things; but whenever it is awake, I am ibrced to say, in these kind of meditations, If I had not a God, to know and think on, to love and honour, to seek and serve, what had I to do with my understanding, will, and all my powers? What should I do with life and time? What use should I make of God’s provisions? What could J find to do in the world, that is worthy of a man? Were it not as good to lie still, and sleep out my days, and professedly do nothing, as to go dreaming, with a seemine seriousness, and wander about the world as in my sleep, and do nothing with such a troublesome stir, as sensual, worldly persons do? Could not I have lived as a beast, without a reasonable, freeworking soul? Let them turn from God, and neglect the conduct of the Redeemer, and disregard the holy approaches, and breathings, and workings of the soul towards its beloved centre and felicity, that know not what an immortal soul is, or know how else to employ their faculties, with satisfaction or content to themselves. I profess here, as in his presence, that is the Father of spirits, and before angels and men, I do not, I know not, what else to do with ray soul that is worth the doing, but what is subservient to its proper object, its end and everlasting rest. If the holy service of God, and the preparation for heaven, and seeking after Christ and happiness, be forbidden me, I have no more to do in the world, that will satisfy my reason, or satisfy my affections, or that, as a man or a Christian, I can own. And it is as good not to live, as to be deprived of the uses and ends of life. Though my love and desires are infinitely below the Eternal goodness, and glory, which they should prosecute and embrace, yet do my little tastes and dull desires, and cold affections consent, unfeignedly, to say. Let me have God or nothing: let me know him and his will, and what will please him, and how I may enjoy him: or, O that I never had an understanding to know any thing! Let me remember him; or, O that I had never had a memory! Let me love him, and be beloved of him; or, O that I never had such a thing as love within me! Let me hear his teachings, or have no ears; let me serve him with my riches, or let me have none; and with any interest or honour, or let me be despised. It is nothing that he gives not being to; and it is useless that is not for his glory and his will. If God have nothing to do with me, I have nothing to do with myself, and the world hath nothing to do with me.

Let dark and dreaming sinners declare their shame, ami speak evil of what they never knew, anti neglect the good they never saw; let them that know not themselves or God, refuse to give up themselves to God, and think a life of sensuality more suitable to them. But “Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance on me,” and let me no longer be a man, nor have reason, or any of thy talents in my trust, if I shall not be thine, and live to thee. I say as Bernard,” Worthy is that man, O Christ, to die, that refuseth to live to thee: and he

’ that is not wise to thee, is but a fool; and he that careth to he, unless it be for lliee, is good for nothing, and is nothing. For thyself, O God, hast thou made all things; and he that would be to himself, and not to thee, among all things, beginneth to be nothing.”

5. If you know not yourselves, you know not how to apply the word of Gpd, which you read or hear; you know not how to use either promises or threatenings, to the benefit of your souls: nay, you will misapply them to your hurt. If you are unregenerate, and know it not, you will put by all the calls of God, that invite you to come and be converted, and think that they belong to grosser sinners, but not to you. All the descriptions of the unsanctified and their misery, will little affect you; and all God’s threatenings to such will little move you;

- for you will think they are not meant of you; you will be pharisaically blessing yourselves, when you should be pricked at the heart, and laid in contrition at the feet of Christ: you will be thanking God that you are not such as indeed you are; you will be making application of the threatenings to others, and pitying them when you should lament yourselves; you will be thundering when you should be trembling; and speaking that evil of others that is your own; and convincing others of that which you had need to be convinced of; and wakening others by talking in your sleep; and calling other men hypocrites, proud, self-conceited, ignorant, and other such names that are indeed your own: you will read or hear your own condemnation, and not be moved at it, as not knowing your own description when you hear it, but thinking that this thunderbolt is levelled at another sort of men. All the words of peace and comfort, you will think arc meant of such as you. When you read of pardon, reconciliation, adoption, and right to everlasting life, you will imagine that alj these are yours. And thus you will be dreaming that you are rich and safe, when you are poor and miserable, and in the greatest peril. And is it not pity that the celestial, undeceiving light, should be abused to so dangerous self-deceit? And that truth itself should be made the furtherance of so great an error? And that the eye-salve should more put out your eyes? Is it not sad to consider, that you should now be emboldened to presumption, by that very word which (unless you be converted) will judge you to damnation? And that self-deceit should be increased by the glass of verity that should undeceive you?

6. If you know not yourselves, you know not how to confess or pray. This makes men confess their sins so seldom, and with so little remorse to God and man; you hide them because they are hidden from yourselves; and therefore God will open them to your shame: whereas, if they were opened to you, F 3 they would be opened by you, and covered by God. Saith Augustine, “I did not cover, but open that thou mayest cover: I concealed not, that thou mightest hide. For when man discloseth, God covereth: when man hideth, God maketh bare: when man confesseth, God forgiveth.” For want of self-acquaintance it is that men hypocritically confess to God in way of custom, the sins which they will deny or excuse to man; and will tell God formally of much, which they cannot endure to be told of seriously by a reprover: or, if they confess it generally with a seeming humility to others, they cannot bear that another should faithfully charge it upon them, in order to their true humiliation and amendment. Saith Bernard, “It is the sign of true confession, if, as every one saith he is a sinner, he contradict not another that saith it of him. For he desireth not to seem a sinner, but righteous, when one confesseth himself a sinner, when none reproveth him. It is the vice of pride, for a man to disdain to have that spoken to him of others, which he stuck not to confess of his own accord concernincr himself.”

And for prayer, it is men’s ignorance of themselves that makes prayer so little in request: hunger best teacheth men to beg. You would be oftener on your knees, if you were oftener in your hearts. Prayer would not seem needless, if you knew your needs. Know yourselves, and be prayerless if you can. When the prodigal was convinced, he presently purposeth to confess and pray. “When Paul was converted, Ananias hath this evidence of it from God, “Behold he prayeth.” Indeed the mward part of prayer, is the motion of a returning soul to

God. Saith Hugo, “Prayer is the turning of a pious, humble soul to God, leaning upon faith, hope, and love. It is the relief of the petitioner, the sacrifice of God, the scourge of devils.”

And self-knowledge would teach men how to pray. Your own hearts would be the best prayer-books to you, if you were skilful in reading them. Did you see what sin is, and in what relation you stand to God, to heaven and hell, it would drive you above your beads and lifeless words of course, and make you know, that to pray to God for pardon and salvation, is not the work for a sleepy soul. Saith Gregory, “He ofiFereth the truest prayer to God, that knoweth himself, that humbly seeth he is but dust, and ascribeth not virtue to himself,” itc. Nothing quenchelh prayer more than to be mistaken. or mindless about ourselves. When we go fiom home this fire goes out; but when we return, and search our hearts, and see the sins, the wants, the weaknesses, that are there, and perceive the danger that is before us, and withal the glorious hopes that are offered us, here is fuel to inflame the soul, and cure it of its drowsiness and dumbness. Help any sinner to a clearer light, to sec into his heart and life, and to a livelier sense of his own condition, and I warrant you he will be more disposed to fervent prayer, and will better understand the meaning of those words, “That men ought always to pray and not to faint;” and “pray without ceasing.” You may hear some impious persons now disputing against frequent and fervent prayer, and saying, “What need all this ado?” But if you were able to open these men’s eyes, and show them what is within them and before them, you would quickly answer all tlicir arguments, and convince them better than words can do, and put an end to the dispute. You would set all the prayerless families in town and country, gentlemen’s and poor men’s, on fervent calling upon God, if you could but help them to such a sight of their sin and danger, as shortly the stoutest of them must have. Why do they pray, and call for prayers, when they come to die, but that they begin a little better to know themselves? They see then that youth, and health, and honour, are not th.c things, nor make them so happy, as deceiving prosperity once persuaded them. Did they believe and consider what God saith of them, and not what flattery and self-love say, it would open the mouths of them that are most speechless. But those that are born deaf are always dumb. How can they speak that language with desire to God, which they never learned by faith from God, or by knowledge of themselves?

And self-knowledge would teach men what to ask. They would feel most need of spiritual mercies, and beg hardest for them; and for outward things, they would ask but for their daily bread, and not be foolishly importunate with God for that which they know not to be suitable or good for them. “It is mercy to be denied sometimes when we pray for outward things: our physician, and not we, must choose our physic, and prescribe our diet.” And if men knew themselves, it would teach them on what terms to expect the hearing of their prayers. Neither to be accepted for their. merits, nor yet to be accepted without that faith, and repentance and desire; that seriousness, humility, and sincerity of heart, which the very nature of prayer to God doth contain or pre-suppose. “He that nameth the name of Christ, must depart from iniquity,” and must “wash himself and make him clean, and put away the evil of his doings from before the eyes of God, and cease to do evil, and learn to do well.” As knowing that though a Simon Magus must repent and pray, and the “wicked, in forsaking his way, and thoughts, and returning to the Lord, must seek him while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near;” and the prayers of an humble publican are heard, when he sets his prayer against his sins: yet if he would cherish his sin by prayer, and flatter himself into a presumption and security in a wicked life, because he useth to ask God forgiveness: if he thus “regard iniquity in his heart, God will not hear his prayers;” and “we know that such impenitent sinners God heareth not.” And thus the prayers of the wicked, as wicked, (which are not a withdrawing from his wickedness, but a bolster of his security, and as a craving of protection and leave to sin) are hut “an abomination to the Lord,” The bullet, the thorn must be first got out, before any medicine can heal their wounds. Did men know themselves, and who they have to do with in their prayers, they would not go from cards, and dice, and gluttony, and fornication, and railing, lying, or reviling at the servants of the Lord, to a few hypocritical words of prayer, to salve all till the next time, as if one sin had procured the forgiveness of another. Nor would they shut up a day of worldliness, ambition, sensuality, or profaneness, with a few heartless words of confession and supplication; or with the words of penitence, while their hearts are impenitent; as if, when they have abused God by sin, they would make him amends, or reconcile him by their mockery. Nor would they think to be accepted by praying for that which they would not have; for holiness, when they hate it, and for deliverance from the sins which they would not be delivered from, and would not have their prayers granted.

7. If you know not yourselves, it will unfit you for thanksgiving: your greatest mercies will be least esteemed; and the lesser will be misesteemed. And while you are unthankful for what you have, you will be absurdly thanking God for that which indeed you have not. What inestimable mercies are daily trodden under feet by sinners, that know not their worth, because they know not their own necessities! They have time to repent, and make preparation for an endless life: but they know not the worth of it, but unthankfully neglect it, and cast it away on the basest vanities: as if worldly cares, or wicked company, or fleshly lusts, or cards, or dice, or revellings, or idleness, were exercises in which they might better improve it, than the works of holiness, justice, and mercy, which God hath made the business of their lives: or, as if the profits, and pleasures, and vainglory of this world, did better deserve it than their Creator, and their own souls, and the heavenly inheritance. But if their eyes were opened to see where they stand, and what they are, and what are their dangers and necessities, how thankful would they be for one year, one month, one day, one hour, to repent and cry to God for mercy! And how sensibly would they perceive that a hundred years’ time is not too long to spend in serious preparation for eternity!

They have now the faithful ministers of Christ, inviting them in his name to come to him and receive the riches of his grace, and “beseeching them, in his stead, to be reconciled unto God.” But they stop their ears, and harden their hearts, and stiffen their necks, and love not to be disturbed in their sins, but are angry with those that are solicitous for their salvation, and revile them as too precise and strict, that tell them of the “one thing needful,” and persuade them to choose the better part, and tell them where their sin will leave them. They take them for their friends that will encourage them in the way that God condemneth, and be merry with them in the way to endless sorrow, and flatter them into security and impenitency till the time of grace be past; but they hate them as their enemies that faithfully reprove them, and tell them of their folly, and call them to a safer, better way. Alas, sirs, there would not be so many nations, congregations, and souls now left in darkness and misery by their own doing, having driven away the mercy of the Gospel, and thrust their faithful teachers from them, if they knew themselves. Men would not triumph in their own calamity, when they have expelled their faithful teachers, (the dust of whose feet, the sweet of whose brows, the tears of whose eyes, and the fervent prayers and groans of whose hearts must witness against them,) if they knew themselves. They would not be like a madman that glorieth that he hath beaten away his physician and his friends, and is left to himself, if they knew themselves. When they have the earnest calls of the Word without, and convictions and urgings of the Spirit of God, and their consciences within, they would not wilfully go on, and cast these mercies at their heels, if they knew themselves.

They have leave to join in the communion of saints, and to enjoy the benefit of holy society in prayer, and conference, and mutual love and spiritual assistance, and in the public worship of God: but they pass these by, as having more of trouble and burden than of mercy, because they little know themselves.

And their inferior mercies of health, and wealth, and food, and raiment, and friends, and accommodations, they misesteem and misuse; and value them but as provision for the flesh, and the satisfaction of their sensual and inordinate desires, and not as necessary provision for their duty in the way to heaven! And therefore, they are most thankful for their greatest snares: for that honour and abundance which are stronger temptations than they can overcome: for those fleshly contentments and delights, which are the enemies of grace, and the prison of their noblest faculties, and the undoing of their souls. If they could for shame speak out, they would thank God more for sensual pleasures, or riches, or preferment, or lands, or houses, than ever they did for all the offers of Christ and grace, and all the invitations to a holy life. For there is much more joy and pleasure in their hearts in the former than in the latter.

And self-ignorance will also corrupt your thanksr giving, and turn it into sin and folly. Is it not shame and pity to hear an unpardoned enemy of holiness, and of God, to thank God that he is justified and reconciled to God, and adopted to be his child, and made a member of Jesus Christ? And to hear a carnal, unregenerate person give thanks for his regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Ghost? As it is to hear a leper give thanks for perfect health, or a fool or madman thank God for making him wiser than his neighbours? Is it not pity to hear a miserable soul thank God for the grace which he never had? and one that is near eternal misery to thank God for making him an heir of glory? O how many have thanked God pharisaically for the pardon of their sins, that must for ever suffer for those sins! How many have thanked him for giving them the assured hopes of glory, that must be thrust out into endless misery! As I have known many, that by their friends and by themselves have been flattered into confident hopes of life, when they were ready to die, have thanked God that they were pretty well, and the worst was past; which, in the eyes of judicious standers-by, was not the least aggravation of their sad and deplorable state. Methinks it is one of the saddest spectacles in the world to hear a man thanking God for the assurance of salvation, that is in a state of condemnation, and likely to be in hell for ever! These absurdities could not corrupt your highest duties, and turn them into sin, if you knew yourselves.

A man that knowcth his own necessities and unworihinessj is thankful for a little to God and man. Mercy is as no mercy, where there is no sense of need or misery. Therefore, God useth to humble them so low in the work of conversion, whom he meaneth ever after to employ in the magnifying of his grace. And then that which is folly and hypocrisy from a Pharisee, will be an acceptable sacrifice from an humble, grateful soul; and he that by grace is difterenced from other men, may (modestly) thank God that he is not as other men. For had he nothing more to thank God for, than the ungodly world, he would be rejected and perish with the world: and if he have more than the world, and- yet be no more thankful than the world, he would be guilty of greater unthankfulness than the world. Saith Augustine, “This is not the pride of one lift up, but the acknowledgment of one that is not unthankful. Know that thou hast, and know that thou hast nothing of thyself, that thou mayest neither be proud, nor yet unthankful. Say to thy God, I am holy, for thou hast sanctified me: for I have received what I had not; and thou hast given me what I deserved not.” The thanksgiving of a faithful soul is so far from being displeasing to God as a Pharisaical ostentation, that it is a great and excellent duty, and a most sweet and acceptable sacrifice. “Offer unto God thanksgiving — He that oflereth praise glorifieth me.”

8. And as to the Lord’s Supper, what work they are there like to make that are unacquainted with themselves, you may conjecture from the nature of the work, and the command of self-examination and self-judging. Though some may be welcomed by Christ, that have faith and love, though they doubt of their sincerity, and know not themselves to be children of God; yet none can be welcome that know not themselves to be sinners condemned by the law, and needing a Saviour to reconcile and justify them. Who will be there humbled, and thankful for a Redeemer, and hunger and thirst for sacramental benefits, that knoweth not his own unworthinessand necessities? O what inestimable mercy would appear in a sacrament to us, in the offers of Christ and saving grace, and communion with God and with his saints, if our appetites were but quickened by the knowledge of ourselves!

9. And I beseech you consider, whether all your studies, and learning, and employments, be not irrational, preposterous, and impertinent, while you study not first to know yourselves? You are nearest to yourselves, and therefore should be best acquainted with yourselves. What should you more observe than the case of your own souls? and what should you know better than what is within you, and that which methinks you should always feel, — even the bent of your own estimations and affections, the sicknesses of your souls, your guilt, your wants, and greatest necessities? AH your learning is but the concomitant of your dotage, till you know yourselves. Your wisest studies are but the workings of a distracted mind, while you study not yourselves, and the things of everlasting consequence. To study whether it be the sun or earth that raoveth, and not consider what motion is predominant in thy soul and life, is a pitiful, preposterous study: to think more what stars are in the firmament, than what grace is in thy heart; and what planet reigneth, than what disposition reigneth in thyself; and whether the Spirit or the flesh have the dominion, is but to be learnedly beside thyself.

Is it not a laborious madness to travel into far countries, and compass sea and land, to satisfy a curiosity; and to be at so much cost and pains to know the situation, government, and manners, of the cities and countries of the world, and in the meantime to be utterly strange at home, and never bestow one day or hour in a serious survey of heart and life? To carry about a dark, unknown, neglected soul, while they are travelling to know remotest things that less concern them? Methinks it is a pitiful thing, to hear men ingeniously discoursing of the quality, laws, and customs of other nations, and to be mute when they should express their acquaintance with themselves, either in confession and prayer to God, or in any humble, experimental conference with men. To keep correspondence with persons of all degrees, and to have no correspondence with themselves. To keep their shop-books and accounts with diligence, and never regard the book of conscience, nor keep account of that for which they must ere long be accountable to God. It is a pitiful thing to see men turn over voluminous histories, to know what hath been done from the beginning of the world, and regard no more the history of their own lives, nor once look back with penitent remorse upon their ungodly, careless conversations, nor say, ‘What have we done?’ To see men have well-furnished libraries, and read over a multitude of books, and never read the state and record of their souls!

It maketh you but objects of wonder and compassion, to read laws and records, and understand all cases, and never endeavour to understand the case of your immortal souls! To counsel others for their temporal estates, and never understand your own spiritual state! To study the mysteries of nature, and search into all the Works of God, except yourselves, and that which your happiness or misery depends on! To study the nature, and causes, and signs of bodily diseases, and their several remedies, and never study the diseases of your own souls, nor the precious remedy which mercy hath provided you! To cure the sicknesses of other men’s bodies, and never feel a stony, proud, or sensual heart! To know the matters of all arts and sciences, to be able to discourse of them all to the admiration of the hearers, is but an aggravation of thy lamentable folly, if thou be all this while a stranger to thyself, and thai because thou art mindless of thy soul’s condition! It is more necessary to know yourselves, ’ your sin, your duty, your hopes, your dangers, than to know how to cat, or drink, or clothe yourselves. Alas! it is a pitiful kind of knowledge, that will not keep you out of hell; and a foolish wisdom, that teaches you not to save your souls! Till you know yourselves, the rest of your knowledge is but a confused dream. Self-knowledge will direct you in all your studies, and still employ you on that which is necessary, and will do you good, when others are studying but unprofitable, impertinent things; and indeed are but ‘’• proud, knowing nothing, (when they seem to excel in knowledge,) but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, that take gain for godliness.” Self-knowledge will help you in all your studies. “You will know in what order, with what study, and to what end every thing should be known. In what order, that that may go first, that most promoteth our salvation: to what end, that it be not for vainglory and ostentation, but for your own and other men’s salvation.” — Bernard.

And as it is ourselves and our own affairs that are nearest to us, and therefore first in order to be known; so it is ourselves that we have a special charge of, and that we are most obliged to study and to know; and it is our own condition and soul affairs that most concern us. Though sun, and moon, and earth, be not little things in themselves; yet the knowledge of them is a small, inconsiderable matter to thee, in comparison of the knowledge of thyself. The words even of Seneca are so pungent on this subject, that I shall recite some of them, to shame those professed Christians that are so much short of a heathen. “What furtherance to virtue is the enarration of syllables, the diligence of words, the remembering of fables, and the law and modification of verses? What of these taketh away fear, and bridleth concupiscence? — The geometrician teacheth me to measure spacious grounds: let him rather teach me to measure how much is sufficient for a man. Thou canst measure rounds: if thou be an artist, laasiire the mind of man; tell him how great it is, or how little or low. Thou knowest a straight line: and what the better art thou if thou know not what is -right or straight in thy own life? — This diligent study of the liberal arts, doth make men troublesome, unseasonable, wordy, self-pleasing, and such as therefore learn not things necessary, because they have learned things superfluous.”

When our nearer, greater works are done, then those that are more distant will be seasonable, and useful, and excellent in their proper places. When men understand the state and affairs of their souls, and have made sure of their everlasting happiness, they may then seasonably and wisely manage political and economical affairs, and prudently order and prosecute their temporal concerns: when they “first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” subordinate things may be seasonably considered.’ But for a man to be taken up about matters of law, or trade, or pleasure, when he mindeth not the matters of his salvation; and to study languages, arts, and sciences, when he studieth not how to escape damnation, is not to be learned, but to dote; nor to be honourably or prudently employed, but to walk as a man in a dream, and live besides the reason of a man, as well as below the faith of a Christian. These seemingly wise and honourable worldlings, that labour not to know what state and relation they stand in to God, and his judgment, do live in a more pernicious distraction than he that is disputing in mood and figure, while his house is burning over his head.

Even works of charity seem but absurd, preposterous acts, in those that are not charitable to themselves. To be careful to feed or clothe the bodies of the poor, and senseless of the naketJness and misery of your own souls, is an irrational, distracted course of mercy: as if a man should be busy to pull a thorn out of another’s finger, and senseless of a stab that is given himself in the bowels, or at the

heart. To love yourself, and not your neighbour, is selfish and uncharitable. To love neither your neighbour nor yourself, is inhuman. To love your neighbour and not yourself, is preposterous, irrational, and scarcely possible. But to love first yourself, (next to God,) and then to love your neighbour as yourself, is regular, orderly. Christian charity.

10. Consider also, that the ignorance of yourselves doth much unfit you to be useful to others. If you are magistrates, you will never be soundly faithful against the sin of others, till you have felt how hurtful it is to yourselves. If you are ministers, you will scarcely ever be good at heart-searching work, till you have searched your own; nor will you know the deceitfulness of sin, and the turnings and windings of the crooked serpent, till you have observed them in yourselves; nor will you have due compassion on the ignorant, impenitent, ungodly, unconverted, or on the tempted, weak, disconsolate souls, till you have learned rightly to be affected with sin and misery in yourselves. If men see a magistrate punish offenders, or hear a minister reprove them, that is as bad or worse himself, they will but deride the justice of the one, and reproofs of the other, as the acts or words of blind partiality or hypocrisy, and accost you with a “Physician, heal thyself.” The eye of the soul is not like the eye of the body, that can see other things, but not itself. There are two evils that Christ noteth in the reproofs of such as are unacquainted with themselves, — hypocrisy, and unfitness to reprove. “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, abeam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” Thy own vices do corrupt thy judgment, and cause thee to excuse the like in others, and to accuse the virtue that in others is the condemner of thy vice, and to represent all aS odious that is done by those that by their piety and reproofs are become odious to thy guilty and malicious soul. Dost thou hate a holy, heavenly life, and art void of the love of God, and of his servants? Hast thou a carnal, dead, unconverted heart? Art thou a presumptuous, careless, worldly wretch? Hast thou these beams in thy own eye? And art thou fit to quarrel with others that are better than thyself, about a ceremony, or a holiday, or a circumstance of church-government or worship, or a doubtful, controverted opinion? And to be pulling these motes out of thy brother’s eye — (yea, rather wouldst pull out his eyes, to get out the mote) — first get au illuminated mind, and a renewed, sanctified heart; be acquainted with the love of God, and of his image; and cast out the beam of infidelity, ungodliness, worldlincss, sensuality, malice, and hypocrisy, from thine own eye; and then help to cure him of his lesser involuntary errors and infirmities. Till then, the beam of thy sensuality and impiety will make thee a very incompetent judge of the mote of a different opinion in thy brother. Every word that thou speakest in condemnation of thy brother, for his opinion or infirmity, is a double condemnation of thyself for thy ungodly, fleshly life. And if thou G 45 wilt needs have “judgment to begin at the house of God,” for the failings of his sincere and faithful servants, it may remember thee to thy terror, “what the end of them shall be that obey not the gospel of God.” And if you will condemn the righteous for their lamented weaknesses, “Where think you the ungodly and the sinner shall appear?”

1 1. If you begin not at yourselves, you can make no progress to a just and edifying knowledge of extrinsic things. Man’s self is the alphabet or primer of his learning. “In vain doth he lift up his heart to see God, that is yet unfit to see himself. For thou must first know the invisible things of thy own spirit, before thou canst be fit to know the invisible things of God. And if thou canst not know thyself, presume not to know the things that are above thyself.” — Hugo. You cannot see the face which it representeth, if you will not look upon the glass which representeth it. God is not visible, but appeareth to us in his creatures; and especially in ourselves. And if we know not ourselves, we cannot know God in ourselves. “The principal glass for the beholding of God, is the reasonable soul beholding itself.” — Hugo.

And you will make but an unhappy progress in your study of the works of God, if you begin not with yourselves. You can know but little of the works of nature, till you know your own nature: and you can know as little of the works of grace, till self-acquaintance help you to know the nature and danger of those diseases that grace must cure. The unhappy error of presumptuous students, about their own hearts, misleadeth and perverteth them in the whole course of their studies. It is a lamentable sight to see a man turning over fathers and councils, and diligently studying words and notions, that is himself in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity, and never knew it, nor studieth the cure. And it is a pitiful thing to see such in a pulpit, teaching the people to know the mysteries of salvation, that know not, nor ever laboured to know, what sins are predominant in their own hearts and lives; or, whether they stand before God in a justified or a condemned state! To hear a poor, unsanctified man, as boldly treating of the mysteries of sanctification, as if he had felt them in himself: and a man that is condemned already, and stayeth but a while till the stroke of death, for final execution, to treat as calmly of judgment and damnation, as if he were out of danger; and exhorting others to escape the misery which he is in himself, and never dreameth of it! This showeth how sad a thing it is for men to be ignorant of themselves. To see men run out into damnable and dangerous errors on each hand, some into the proud self-conceitedness of the fanatics, enthusiasts, and libertines; and some into contempt and scorn of holiness, and every one confident, even to rage, in his own distractions: this doth but show us, whither men will go, that are unacquainted with themselves.

This also maketh us so troubled with our auditors, that when they would learn the truth that should convert and save them, are carping and quarrelling with us, and hear us as the Pharisees and Herodians heard Christ, to catch him in his words. And they must tell us themselves what medicine must be given G 2 ihem, what doctrine, and what administrations they must have. Yea, they that will not be directed or healed by us, will blame us if others be not healed, and hit the minister in the teeth with the errors and iaults of his unteacliable hearers. Though we do our best, in season and out of season, and they cannot tell us what we have neglected, on our part, that was like to do the cure (though I confess we arc too often negligent): and though we succeed to the conversion of many others, yet must we be reproached with the disobedience of the impenitent! As if it were not grief enough to us, to have our labours frustrated, and see them obstinate in their sin and misery, but we must also be blamed or derided for our calamity!

12. Lastly, consider but how many great and necessary things concerning yourselves you have to know, and it will show you how needful it is to make this the first of your studies. To know what you are as men; with what faculties you are endowed, and to what use; for what end you live; in what relation you stand to God and to your fellow-creatures; what duties you owe; what sin is in your hearts; and what hath been, by commission and omission, in your lives; what humiliation, contrition, and repentance you have for that sin; whether you have truly entertained an offered Christ; and are renewed and sanctified by his Spirit; and unreservedly devoted to God, and resolved to be entirely his: whether you love him above all, and your neighbours as yourselves: whether you are justified and have forgiveness of all your sins: whether you you can bear afflictions from the hand, or for the sake of Christ, even to the forsaking of all the world, for the hopes of the heavenly, everlasting treasure: how you perform the daily works of your relations and callings: whether you are ready to die, and are safe from the danger of damnation, O did you but know how it concerneth you to get all these questions well resolved, you would find more matter for your studies in yourselves, than in many volumes. You would then perceive that the matters of your own hearts and lives, are not so lightly and carelessly to be passed over, as they ordinarily are by drowsy sinners.

If you have but many and weighty businesses to think on in the world, you are so taken up with care, that you cannot turn away your thoughts. And yet do you find no work at home, where you have such a world of things to think on, and such as, of all the matters in the world, do most nearly concern you?