themselves like sick stomachs, that find fault with every dish, when the fault is within them; or like pained, weak, or froward children, that quarrel with every thing that toucheth them, when the cause is in themselves. If they 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. Seneca can teach them this much by the light of nature, Non longa peregrinatione, nec locorum varietatibus, tristitiam mentis gravitatêmque; discuties: animum debes mutare, non cœlum: licèt vastum trajeceris mare, sequuntur te, quocunque perveneris, vitia. Quid miraris tibi peregrinationes non predesse, cum te circumferas? Premit te eadem causa quæ expulit. Quid terrarum juvare novitas potest? Quid cognitio urbium aut locorum? In irritum cedit ista jactantia. Onus animi deponendum est, non antè tibi ullus placebit locus. Vadis huc et illuc, ut excutias incidens pondus, quod ipsa jactatione incommodius fit: sicut in navi onera immota minùs urgent, inæqualitur convoluta citiùs eam partem, in quam incumbunt, demergunt. Quicquid facis, contra te facis : et motu ipso noces tibi: ægrum enim concutis. At cum istud exemeris malum omnis mutatio loci jucundus fiet. In ultimas expellaris terras licèt, in quolibet Barbariæ angulo culloceris, hospitalis tibi illa qualiscunque sedes erit. Magis quis veneris, quam quò, interest.' That is, it is not by long travels, or by change of places, that you can discuss the sadness and heaviness of the mind. It is the mind, and not the climate that you should change; though you pass the vastest sea, your vices will follow you whithersoever you go. Why marvellest thou, that travels avail thee not, when thou carriest about thyself? The same cause that drove thee away, doth follow thee. What can the novelty of countries avail? Or the knowledge of cities and places? This tossing up and down is vain; it is the load of thy mind, that must be laid down: till that be done, no place will please,

thee; thou goest up and down to shake off a burden that is fastened on thee; which even by thy motion doth become more troublesome. As in a ship, the settled weight is least troublesome, when things unequally thrown together, do sink the part in which they lie. What thou dost, thou dost it against thyself, and hurtest thyself by the very motion; for thou shakest a sick person. But when once thou hast taken out of thyself the evil, every change of place will be pleasant. Though thou be expelled into the remotest lands, or placed in any corner of Barbary, it will be however to thee a seat of hospitality: it more concerneth thee to know who (or what) thou art thyself that comest thither, than whither it is that thou comest.

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 light; 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 carcase, 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 dependance 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 knoweth not where he is, nor which way to return, till Christ in mercy seek and save him. (Matt. xviii. 11; Luke xix. 10.)

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 shew 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 shew that they begin at least to know themselves. But a Pharisee will say "Are we blind also?" (John ix. 40.) 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 are 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 dissentions 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 feel it to their smart; the suffering, grieved churches feel 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 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! 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, and 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 and 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 selfneglect, 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 I 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.

In order to your conviction and reformation, I shall first shew you some of those reasons, that should move you to know yourselves, and consequently should humble you for neglecting it: and then I shall shew you what are the hin

drances 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 have influence into 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:

1. When you should repent of sin, you know it not as in yourselves, and therefore cannot savingly repent of 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 estate 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? (John viii. 41. 44.) 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, (Rom. viii. 6-8,) and that "without holiness none