read or hear. Did we understand our hearts better, we thould understand the word of God better; for that speaks to the heart. A man that is acquainted with his own heart, prefently fees how deeply the divine word penetrates and explores, searches and lays open its moft inward parts: he 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 fuit. ableness of it to his own cafe: and lays it up faithfully in the ftore-room of his mind, to be digested and approved by his after-thoughts. And it is by this art of applying scripture, and urging the most fuitable inftructions and admonitions of it home upon our confciences, that we receive the greatest benefit by it.

(4.) Nothing is of more eminent service in the great duty of meditation; especially in that part of it which confifts in heart converse. A man who is unacquainted with himself, is as unfit to converfe with his heart as he is with a stranger he never faw, and whose 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 undifoiplined

undisciplined army, that has never been exercised, or accustomed to obedience and order. But one, who hath made it the ftudy of his life to be acquainted with himfelf, is foon difpofed to enter into a free and familiar converfe with his own heart; and in fuch a felf-conference improves more in true wifdom, and acquires more ufeful and fubftan-tial knowledge, than he could do from the most polite and refined converfation in the world.-Of fuch excellent ufe is felf-knowledge in all the duties of devotion and piety.

XII.

SEL

CHAP. XII:

Self-Knowledge the best Preparation for Death. ELF-Knowledge will be an habitual preparation for death, and a conftant. guard against the furprise of it, because it fixes and fettles cur 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 to be removed, a thousand things would reconcile us to the thoughts of dying (y).

(y) Illa quoque res morti nos alienat, quod hæc jam novimus, illa ad quæ tranfituri fumus, nescimus qualia fint. Et horremus ignota. Naturalis prætereâ tenebrarum metus eft, in quas adductura mors creditur. Sen. Epift. 83.-It is this makes us averse to death, that it tranflates us to the objects we are unacquainted with; and we tremble at the thoughts of thofe things that are unknown to us. We are naturally afraid of being in the dark; and death is a leap in the dark.

H4

"Diftruft

"Diftruft and darkness of a future ftate,

"Is that which makes mankind to dread their fate:

56

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, diffipates this gloom, and removes this dreadful doubt; for as the word of God hath revealed the certainty of a future state of happinefs, which the good man fhall enter upon after death, and plainly defcribed the requifite qualifications for it; when by a long and labourious felf-acquaintance, he comes diftinctly 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 happinefs, yet in general he is affured that it will be a most exquisite and extenfive one, and will contain in it every thing neceffary to make it complete; because it will come immediately from God himfelf (z); whereas they who know not what they

are,

(*) When we fay that the state of the other world is unknown, the only meaning of it is, that it is a ftate of fuch happiness, fo far beyond any thing we ever yet experienced, ❝ that we cannot form any notion or idea of it: we know that there is fuch a happiness; we know in fome measure wherein this happiness confifts; viz. in feeing God and the blessed Jefus, who loved us, and gave himself for us; in praising . our Creator and Redeemer; in converfing with faints and angels. But how great, how ravifhing and tranfporting a pleasure this is, we cannot tell, because we never yet felt it

-Now

are, must neceffarily be ignorant what they fhall be. A man that is all darkness within, can have but a dark profpect forward (a).

O, what would we not give for folid hope in death!-Reader, wouldst thou have it, know God, and know thyself.

-Now methinks this fhould not make the thoughts of death uneasy to us; fhould not make us unwilling to go to heaven; that the happiness of heaven is too great for us to know, or to conceive in this world. For men are naturally fond of unknown and untried pleafures; which is fo far from being a difparagement to them, that it raifes our expectations of thein, that they are unknown. In the things of this world, enjoyment usually leffens our esteem and value for them, and we always value that moft which we have never tried; and methinks the happinefs of the other world fhould not be the only thing we defpife before we try it.It is fome encouragement to us that the happiness of heaven is too big to be known in this world; for did we perfectly know it now, it could not be very great.' Sherlock on Death, p. 71, 72.

(a) Illi mors gravis incubat,

Qui, notis nimis omnibus,
Ignotus moritur fibi.

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

Sen. Tha. Thyef.

A TREA

H5

A

TREATISE

OF

SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

PART THIRD.

Shewing how Self-Knowledge is to be attained.

ROM what hath been faid under the two

FRO

former parts of the fubject, felf-knowledge appears to be in itfelf fo excellent, and in 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 study and purfuit. If we regard our present peace, fatisfaction, and usefulness, or our future and everlasting interefts, we fhall 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 state of life, and abundantly recompence all our labour.

Were