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the world fays of us; and fhows fuch a confidence of felf-knowledge as is usually a fure fign of felf-ignorance. The mont knowing minds are ever leaft prefumptuous. And true felf-knowledge is a fcience of so much depth and difficulty, that a wise man would not choose to be over-confi dent that all his notions of himself are right, in oppofition to the judgment of all mankind; fome of whom perhaps have better opportunities and advantages of knowing him (at fome feafons efpecially) than he has of knowing himself; because they never look through the fame false medium of felf-flattery.

CHAP. IV.

Frequent Converfe with Superiors, a Help to

IV. "

Self-Knowledge.

ANOTHER proper means of

"felf-knowledge, is to con"verse as much as you can with those "who

fronts of an enemy, at a time when you have a fair opportunity to revenge them.

Let us carefully obferve thofe good qualities wherein our enemies excel us; and endeavour to excel them, by avoiding what is faulty, and imitating what is excellent in them. Plut. Mor. Vol. i. pag. 265, et feq.

"who are your fuperiors in real excel"lence."

He that walketh with wife men, fhall be wife, Prov. xiii. 20. Their example will not only be your motive to laudable purfuits, but a mirror to your mind; by which you may poffibly difcern fome failings, or deficiencies, or neglects in yourfelf, which before efcaped you. You will fee the unreafonablenefs of your vanity and self-sufficiency, when you obferve how much you are furpaffed by others in knowledge and goodness. Their proficiency will make your defects the more obvious to you. And by the luftre of their virtues you will better fee the deformity of your vices; your negligence, by their diligence; your pride, by their humility; your paflion, by their meeknefs; and your folly, by their wisdom.

And

Examples not only move, but teach and direct much more effectually than precepts; and show us not only that fuch virtues may be practifed, but how; and how lovely they appear when they are. therefore, if we cannot have them always before our eyes, we fhould endeavour to have them always in our mind; and efpecially that of our great head and pattern, who hath fet us a lovely example of the S 2 moft

most innocent conduct under the worst and moft difadvantageous circumstances of human life *.

CHAP. V.

Of cultivating fuch a Temper as will be the beft Difpofition to Self-Knowledge.

V. "IF a man would know himself, he

"that temper which will beft difpofe him "to receive this knowledge."

Now, as there are no greater hinderances to felf-knowledge than pride and obftinacy, fo there is nothing more helpful to it than humility and an openness to conviction.

(1.) One who is in queft of felf-knowledge muft above all things feek humility. And how near an affinity there is between these two appears from hence, that they are both acquired the fame way. The very means of attaining humility are the propereft means for attaining felf-knowledge. By keeping an eye every day upon our faults and wants, we become more humble;

Qui pleniffime intelligere appetit qualis fit, tales debet afpicere qualis non eft; ut in bonorum forma, metiatur quantum deformis eft. Greg.

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209 humble; and, by the fame means, we become more felf-knowing. By confidering how far we fall fhort of our rule and our duty, and how vaftly others exceed us, and especially by a daily and diligent_ftudy of the word of God, we come to have meaner thoughts of ourselves; and, by the very fame means, we come to have a better acquaintance with ourselves.

A proud man cannot know himself. Pride is that beam in the eye of his mind, which renders him quite blind to any blemishes there. Hence nothing is a furer fign of felf-ignorance than vanity and oftentation.

Indeed true felf-knowledge and humility are fo neceffarily connected, that they depend upon, and mutually beget each other. A man that knows himself knows the worst of himself, and therefore cannot but be humble; and a humble mind is frequently contemplating its own faults and weakneffes, which greatly improves it in felf-knowledge. So that felf-acquaintance makes a man humble; and humility gives him ftill a better acquaintance with himself.

(2.) An openness to conviction is no less neceflary to felf-knowledge than humility. As nothing is a greater bar to true

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know

knowledge than an obftinate stiffness in opinion, and a fear to depart from old notions, which (before we were capable of judging perhaps) we had long taken up for the truth, fo nothing is a greater bar to felf-knowledge, than a strong averfion to part with those fentiments of ourselves which we have been blindly accustomed to, and to think worfe of ourfelves than we are used.

And fuch an unwillingnefs to retra& our fentiments in both cafes proceeds from the fame caufe, viz. a reluctance to felf-condemnation. For he that takes up a new way of thinking, contrary to that which he hath long received, therein condemns himself of having lived in an error; and he that begins to fee faults in himfelf he never faw before, condemns himself of having lived in ignorance and fin. Now this is an ungrateful bufinefs, and what self-flattery gives us a strong averfion to.

But fuch an inflexibility of judgment, and hatred of conviction, is a very unhappy and hurtful turn of mind. Ánd a man that is refolved never to be in the wrong, is in a fair way never to be in the right.

As infallibility is no privilege of the

human

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