apply the word of God, 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 in 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 are meant of such as you. When you read of pardon, reconciliation, adoption, and right to everlasting life, you will imagine that all these are yours. And thus you will be dreaming-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 eyesalve 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 selfdeceit should be increased by the glass of verity that should undeceive you?

How can you know what promise or threatening doth belong to you, while you know not what state your souls are in. Can you tell what physic to take, till your disease be known? Or choose your plaister till you know your sore?

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, they would be opened by you, and covered by God. Saith Augustine Non operui, sed aperui ut operires; non cælavi, ut tegeres: nam quando homo detegit, Deus tegit. Cum homo cælat, Deus nudat: cum homo agnoscit, Deus ignoscit.' 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 selfacquaintance 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. Indicia veræ confessionis sunt, si ut unusquisque se peccatorem dicit, id de se dicenti alteri non contradicat. Nam non peccator sed justus videri appetit, cum peccatorem se quisque nullo arguente confitetur; superbiæ quippe vitium est, ut quod de se fateri quis sua sponte dignatur, hoc sibi dici ab aliis dedignetur,' 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 concerning himself.

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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, 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." (Acts ix. 11.) Indeed the inward

part of prayer, is the motion of a returning soul to God: Saith Hugo, 'Oratio est piæ mentis et humilis ad Deum conversio, fide, spe, et charitate subnixa.' Prayer is the turning of a pious, humble soul to God, leaning upon faith, hope and love. It is Oranti subsidium, Deo sacrificium, dæmonibus flagellum.' 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 a work for a sleepy soul. Saith Gregory, 'Ille Deo veram orationem exhibit qui semetipsum cognoscit, quia pulvis sit; humiliter videt, qui nihil sibi virtutis tribuit,' &c. He offereth the truest prayer to God, that knoweth himself, that humbly seeth he is but dust, and ascribeth not virtue to himself, &c. Nothing quencheth prayer more than to be mistaken or mindless about ourselves. When we go from 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 and bellows to inflame the soul, and cure it of its drowsiness and dumbness. Help any sinner to a clearer light, to see 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;" (Luke xviii, 1;) and "Pray without ceasing." (1 Thess. v. 17.) 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 shew them what is within them and before them, you would quickly answer all their 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 the things, nor make them so happy, as befooling 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. Fideliter supplicans Deo pro necessitatibus hujus vitæ, et miserecorditer auditur, et miserecorditer non auditur. Quid enim infirmo sit utilius magis novit medicus quam ægrotus,' saith Prosper. 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.

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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," (2 Tim. ii. 19,) 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." (Isa. i. 16, 17.) As knowing that though a Simon Magus must repent and pray, (Acts viii. 22,) 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 ;" (Isa. lv. 6,7;) and the prayers of a 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;" (Psal. lxvi. 18;)

men.

and "we know that such impenitent sinners God heareth not." (John ix. 31.) 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 but " an abomination to the Lord." (Prov. xvii. 8; xxviii. 9.)Ferrum prius extrahendum: The bullet, the thorn must be first got out, before any medicine can heal their wounds. Saith Augustine, Plus Deo placet latratus canum, mugitus bonum, grunnitus porcorum, quam cantus clericorum luxuriantium.' The barking of dogs, the lowing of beasts, the grunting of swine, doth please God better than the singing of luxuriant clergyDid 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, and wipe their mouths, 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