you are Ministers, you will scarcely ever be good at heartsearching work, till you have searched your own: nor will you know the deceitfulness of sin, and the turnings and windings of the crooked serpent, till you have observed them in yourselves: nor will you have due compassion on the ignorant, impenitent, ungodly, unconverted, or on the tempted, weak, disconsolate souls, till you have learned rightly to be affected with sin and misery in yourselves. If men see a magistrate punish offenders, or hear a minister reprove them, that is as bad or worse himself, they will but deride the justice of the one, and reproofs of the other, as the acts or words of blind partiality or hypocrisy; and accost you with a Medice cura teipsum,' Physician heal thyself: with a 'Loripidem rectus derideat, Æthiopem abbus,' &c. And a 'Primus jussa subi,' &c. And a‘Qui alterum incusat probri, ipsum se intueri oportet.' First sweep before your own door. It is ridiculous for the blind to reproach the purblind. Quæ in aliis reprehendis, in teipso maximè reprehende.' Reprehend that more in thyself, which thou reprehendest in another. The eye of the soul is not like the eye of the body, that can see other things, but not itself. There are two evils that Christ noteth in the reproofs of such as are unacquainted with themselves, in Matt. vii. 3, 4. Hypocrisy and unfitness to reprove. "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thy own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Thy own vices do corrupt thy judgment, and cause thee to excuse the like in others, and to accuse the virtue that in others is the condemner of thy vice, and to represent all as odious that is done by those that by their piety and reproofs are become odious to thy guilty and malicious. soul. Dost thou hate a holy, heavenly life, and art void of the love of God, and of his servants? Hast thou a carnal, dead, unconverted heart? Art thou a presumptuous, careless, worldly wretch? Hast thou these beams in thy own eye? And art thou fit to quarrel with others that are better than thyself, about a ceremony, or a holy day, or a circumstance of church-government or worship, or a doubtful, controverted opinion? And to be pulling these motes out of thy brother's eye? (Yea, rather wouldst pull out his eyes, to get out the mote :) First get an illuminated mind, and a renewed, sanctified heart; be acquainted with the love of God, and of his image; and cast out the beam of infidelity, ungodliness, worldliness, sensuality, malice and hypocrisy, from thine own eye; and then come and play the occulist with thy brother, and help to cure him of his lesser involuntary errors and infirmities. Till then the beam of thy sensuality and impiety will make thee a very incompetent judge of the mote of a different opinion in thy brother. Every word that thou speakest in condemnation of thy brother, for his opinion or infirmity, is a double condemnation of thyself for thy ungodly, fleshly life. And if thou wilt needs have "judgment to begin at the house of God," for the failings of his sincere and faithful servants, it may remember thee to thy terror, "what the end of them shall be that obey not the Gospel of God." And if you will condemn the righteous for their lamented weaknesses, "Where think you the ungodly and the sinner shall appear?" (1 Pet, iv. 17, 18.) Non 11. If you begin not at yourselves, you can make no progress to a just and edifying knowledge of extrinsic things. Man's self is the alphabet or primer of his learning. pervenitur ad summa nisi per inferiora.' You cannot come to the top of the stairs, if you begin not at the bottom. Frustra cordis oculum erigit ad videndum Deum, qui nondum idoneus est ad videndum seipsum: Prius enim est ut cognoscas invisibilia spiritus tui, quàm possis esse idoneus ad cognoscendum invisibilia Dei; et si non potes te cognoscere, non præsumas apprehendere ea quæ sunt supra te (inquit. Hug. de Anim.)' i. e. In vain doth he lift up his heart to see God, that is yet unfit to see himself. For thou must first know the invisible things of thy own spirit, before thou canst be fit to know the invisible things of God. And if thou canst not know thyself, presume not to know the things that are above thyself. You cannot see the face which it representeth, if you will not look upon the glass which representeth it. God is not visible, but appeareth to us in his creatures; and especially in ourselves. And if we know not ourselves, we cannot know God in ourselves. Præcipuum et principale est speculum ad videndum Deum animus rationalis intuens seipsum (inq. Hug.)' The principal glass for the beholding of God, is the reasonable soul beholding itself. And you will make but an unhappy progress in your study of the works of God, if you begin not with yourselves. You can know but little of the works of nature, till you know your own nature: and you can know as little of the works of grace, till self-acquaintance help you to know the nature and danger of those diseases that grace must cure. The unhappy error of presumptuous students, about their own hearts, misleadeth and perverteth them in the whole course of their studies; that by all, they do but profit in misapplied notions and self-deceit. It is a lamentable sight to see a man turning over fathers and councils, and diligently studying words and notions, that is himself in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity, and never knew it, nor studieth the cure. And it is a pitiful thing to see such in a pulpit, teaching the people to know the mysteries of salvation, that know not, nor ever laboured to know what sins are predominant in their own hearts and lives; or, whether they stand before God in a justified or a condemned state! To hear a poor, unsanctified man, as boldly treating of the mysteries of sanctification, as if he had felt them in himself: and a man that is condemned already, and stayeth but awhile till the stroke of death, for final execution, to treat as calmly of judgment and damnation, as if he were out of danger; and exhorting others to escape the misery which he is in himself, and never dreameth of it! This shewetly how sad a thing it is for men to be ignorant of themselves. To see men run out into damnable and dangerous errors on each hand, some into the proud self-conceitedness of the fanatics, enthusiasts and libertines, and some into contempt and scorn of holiness, and every one confident even to rage in his own distractions; this doth but shew us, whither men will go, that are unacquainted with themselves. This also maketh us so troubled with our auditors, that when they would learn the truth that should convert and save them, are carping and quarrelling with us, and hear us ́ as the Pharisees and Herodians heard Christ, to catch him in his words. (Mark xii. 13.) As if a dying man in a consumption, imagining that he is well, should go to the physician to make a jest of him, or seek to ruin him for telling' him that he is sick. And how frowardly do they reject the wisest counsel, and cast the medicine with unthankful indignation into the face of the physician! And they must tell us themselves what medicine must be given them, what doctrine, and what administrations they must have. But self-acquaintance would teach them to understand that of Augustine, 'Novit medicus quid salutiferum, quidve contrarium petat ægrotus. Ægroti estis, nolite ergo dictare quæ vobis medicamnia velit opponere.' Yea, they that will not be directed or healed by us, will blame us if others be not healed, and hit the minister in the teeth with the errors and faults of his unteachable hearers. Though we do our best in season and out of season, and they cannot tell us what we have neglected on our part, that was like to do the cure (though I confess we are too often negligent): and though we succeed to the conversion of many others, yet must we be reproached with the disobedience of the impenitent! As if it were not grief enough to us, to have our labours frustrated, and see them obstinate in their sin and misery, but we must also be blamed or derided for our calamity! Fecerit et postquam quicquid jubet ipsa medendi Et loquitur de te convitia, talia jactans, Heu mihi, quam stultum est medicorum credere nugis! As if they knew not the power of the disease; and what a wonder of mercy it is that any and so many are recovered. Non est in medico semper relevetur ut æger; None would die if physicians could cure all: and none would perish if ministers could save all. Rhetor non semper persuadebit, nec medicus semper sanabat,' saith the philosopher. They cast away the medicine, and then blame the physician. 'Crudelem vel infælicem medicum intemperans æger facit.' An intemperate, unruly patient maketh the physician seem cruel and unsuccessful. 12. Lastly, consider but how many great and necessary things concerning yourselves you have to know, and it will shew you how needful it is to make this the first of your studies. To know what you are as men; with what facul ties you are endowed, and to what use; for what end you live; in what relation you stand to God and to your fellowcreatures; what duties you owe; what sin is in your hearts; and what hath been by commission and omission in your lives; what humiliation, contrition, and repentance you have for that sin; whether you have truly entertained an offered Christ; and are renewed and sanctified by his Spirit; and unreservedly devoted to God, and resolved to be entirely his whether you love him above all, and your neighbours as yourselves: whether you are justified and have forgiveness of all your sins: whether you can bear afflictions from the hand, or for the sake of Christ, even to the forsaking of all the world, for the hopes of the heavenly, everlasting treasure: how you perform the daily works of your relations and callings: whether you are ready to die, and are safe from the danger of damnation. O did you but know how it concerneth you to get all these questions well resolved, you would find more matter for your studies in yourselves, than in many volumes. You would then perceive that the matters of your own hearts and lives, are not so lightly and carelessly to be passed over, as they ordinarily be by drowsy sinners: To consider but 'quid, quis, qualis sis; quid in natura, quis in persona, qualis in vita (ut Bern.)' would find you no small labour. And it would redound (saith another) in utilitatem sui, charitatem proximi, contemptum mundi, amorem Dei:' To our own profit, charity to our neighbour, the contempt of the world, and the love of God. If you have but many and weighty businesses to think on in the world, you are so taken up with care, that you cannot turn away your thoughts. And yet do you find no work at home, where you have such a world of things to think on, and such as of all the matters in the world, do most nearly concern you? Having shewed you so much reason for this duty, let me now take leave to invite you all, to the serious study of yourselves. It is a duty past all controversy, agreed on by heathens as well as Christians, and urged by them in the general, though many of the particulars to be known are beyond their light: It brutifieth man to be ignorant of himself. "Man that is in honour and understandeth not (him |