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feels what he reads; and finds that a quickening fpirit, which to a felf-ignorant man is but a dead letter.

Moreover, this felf-acquaintance teaches a man to apply what he reads and hears of the word of God: he fees the pertinence, congruity, and fuitableness of it to his own cafe; and lays it up faithfully in the storeroom of his mind, to be digefted and improved by his after-thoughts. And it is by this art of aptly applying fcripture, and urging the most suitable inftructions and admonitions of it home upon our consciences, that we receive the greatest benefit by it.

(4.) Nothing is of more eminent fervice in the great duty of meditation, especially in that part of it which consists in heart-converfe. A man who is unacquainted with himself, is as unfit to converfe with his heart, as he is with a ftranger he never faw, and whofe tafte and temper he is altogether unacquainted with he knows not how to get his thoughts about him; and when he has, he knows not how to range and fix them, and hath no more the command of them, than a general has of a wild undifciplined army, that has been never exercised or accuftomed to obedience and order. But

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one who hath made it the ftudy of his life to be acquainted with himself, is foon difposed to enter into a free and familiar converfe with his own heart; and in such a felf-conference improves more in true wifdom, and acquires more ufeful and fubftantial knowledge, than he could do from the most polite and refined converfation in the world.-Of fuch excellent use is felf-knowledge in all the duties of devotion and piety.

CHAP. XII.

Self-Knowledge, the best Preparation for
Death.

XII. "

SELF KNOWLEDGE will be an habitual preparation for "death, and a conftant guard against the "furprise of it," because it fixes and fettles our hopes of future happiness. That which makes the thoughts of death fo terrifying to the foul, is its utter uncertainty what will become of it after death. Were this uncertainty but removed, a thousand things would reconcile us to the thoughts of dying *.

"Diftruft

*Illa quoque res morti nos alienat, quod hæc jam novimus,

"Diftruft and darknefs of a future ftate, "Is that which makes mankind to dread "their fate :

"Dying is nothing; but 'tis this we fear, "To be we know not what, we know not "where."

Now, felf-knowledge in a good degree removes this uncertainty: for as the word of God hath revealed the certainty of a future ftate of happiness, which good men fhall enter upon after death, and plainly defcribed the requifite qualifications for it; when a good man, by a long and laborious felf-acquaintance, comes diftinely to difcern thofe qualifications in himself, his hopes of heaven foon raise him above the fears of death; and though he may not be able to form any clear or diftinct conception of the nature of that happiness, yet in general he is affured that it will be a moft exquifite and fatisfying one, P 3 and

novimus, illa ad quæ tranfituri fumus, nescimus qualia fint. Et horremus ignota. Naturalis præterea tenebrarum metus eft, in quas adductura mors creditur. Sen. Epift. 83." It is this makes us averfe to

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death, that it tranflates us to things we are unac"quainted with; and we tremble at the thought of "thofe things that are unknown to us. We are na"turally afraid of being in the dark; and death is 2 "leap in the dark."

and will contain in it every thing neceffary to make it complete, because it will come immediately from God himself. Whereas, they who are ignorant what they are, muft neceffarily be ignorant what they Shall be. A man that is all darkness within can have but a dark profpect forward *. O! what would we not give for folid hope in death! Reader, wouldst thou have it, know God, and know thyfelf.

A TREA

Illi mors gravis incubat
Qui, notus nimis omnibus,
Ignotus moritur fibi.

Sen. Tha. Thyef

"Who, expos'd to others eyes,
"Into his own heart never pries,
"Death's to him a strange surprise."

A

TREATISE

OF

SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

PART III.

Showing how Self-Knowledge is to be
attained.

FROM

ROM what hath been faid under the two former parts of the fubject, felfknowledge appears to be in itself fo excellent, and its effects fo extenfively useful and conducive to the happiness of human kind, that nothing need further be added by way of motive or inducement to excite us to make it the great object of our ftudy and purfuit. If we regard our prefent peace, fatisfaction, and usefulness, or our future and everlasting interests, we shall certainly value and profecute this knowledge above all others, as what will be most ornamental to our characters, and beneficial to our interest in every ftate of

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