self especially) is as the beasts that perish." (Psal. xlix. 20.) Saith Boetius, 'Humana natura infra bestias redigitur, si se nosse desierit: Nam cæteris animantibus sese ignorare natura est; hominibus vitio venit.' It is worse than beastly to be ignorant of ourselves, it being a vice in us, which is nature in them.

Come home you wandering, self-neglecting souls; lose not yourselves in a wilderness or tumult of impertinent, vain, distracting things; your work is nearer you; the country that you should first survey and travel, is within you; from which you must pass to that above you: when by losing yourselves in this without you, you will find yourselves before you are aware, in that below you. And then (as Gregory speaks) he that was 'stultus in culpa,' a fool in sinning, will be sapiens in pœna,' wise in suffering! You shall then have time enough to review your lives, and such constraining help to know yourselves, as you cannot resist. O that you would know but a little of that now, that then you must else know in that overwhelming evidence which will everlastingly confound you! And that you would now think of that for a timely cure, which else must be thought of endlessly in despair. Come home then, and see what work is there. Let the eyes of fools be in the corners of the earth! Leave it to men besides themselves, to live as without themselves, and to be still from home, and waste that time in other business, that was given them to prepare for life eternal. Laudabilior est animus, cui nota est infirmitas propria, quam qui ea non perspecta, mania mundi, vias syderum, fundamenta terrarum, et fastigia cœlorum scrutatur, (inquit August.)' The soul is more laudable that knows its own infirmity, than he that without discerning this doth search after the compass of the world, the courses of the stars, the foundations of the earth, and the heights of the heavens. Dost thou delight in the mysteries of nature? Consider well the mysteries of thy own. • Mirantur aliqui altitudines montium, ingentes fluctus maris, altissimos lapsus fluminum, et oceani ambitum, et gyros syderum, et relinquunt seipsos, nec mirantur,' saith Augustine. Some men admire the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the great falls of the rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuit of the stars, and they pass by them themselves without admiration. The compendium of all

that thou studiest without thee, is near thee, even within thee, thyself being the epitome of the world. If either necessity or duty, nature or grace, reason or faith, internal inducements, external repulses, or eternal attractives and motives, might determine of the subject of your studies and contemplations, you would call home your lost, distracted thoughts, and employ them more on yourselves and God.

But before I urge this duty further, I must prevent the misapplication of some troubled souls. I must confess it is a grievous thing for a guilty soul to judge itself, and see its own deformity and danger: and I observe many troubled, humbled souls, especially where melancholy much prevails, are exceeding prone to abuse this duty, by excess and misdoing it. Though wandering minds must be called home, we must not run into the other extreme, and shut up ourselves, and wholly dwell on the motions of our own distempered hearts. Though straggling thoughts must be turned inward, and our hearts must be watched, and not neglected, yet must we not be always poring on ourselves, and neglect the rest of our intellectual converse. To look too long on the running of a stream, will make our eyes misjudge of what we after look on, as if all things had the same kind of motion. To look too long on the turning of a wheel, will make us vertiginous, as if all turned round. And to pore too long on the disordered motions, the confused thoughts, the wants, the passions of our diseased minds, will but molest us, and casť us into greater disquiet and confusion. The words of Anselme notably express the straits that Christians are here put to, 'O nimis gravis Angustia, si me inspicio, non tolero meipsum: si non inspicio, nescio meipsum: si me considero, terret me facies mea: si me non considero, fallit me damnatio mea; si me video, horror est intolerabilis: si non video, mors est inevitabilis.' O grievous strait! If I look into myself, I cannot endure myself: if I look not into myself, I cannot know myself. If I consider myself, my own face affrighteth me: if I consider not myself, my damnation deceiveth me: if I see myself the horror is intolerable if I see not myself, death is unavoidable.

In this strait we must be careful to avoid both extremes; and neither neglect the study of ourselves, nor yet exceed in poring on ourselves. To be carelessly ignorant of ourselves, is to undo ourselves for ever: To be too much

about ourselves, is to disquiet rather than to edify ourselves; and to turn a great and necessary duty into a great unnecessary trouble.

Consider, 1. That we have many other matters of great importance to study and know when we know ourselves. We must chiefly study God himself, and all the books of Scripture, Nature, and Governing Providence, which make him known. What abundance of great and excellent truths have we in all these to study! What time, what industry is necessary to understand them! And should we lay out all this time about our own hearts and actions, which is but one part of our study? What sinful omissions should we be guilty of in the neglecting of all these! It is indeed but the burying of our talent of understanding, to confine it to so narrow a compass as ourselves, and to omit the study of God, and his word and works, which are all with delight and diligence to be studied.

We have also Christ and his Gospel mysteries and benefits to study. We have the church's ease, its dangers, sufferings, and deliverances to study: we have the state of our neighbours and brethren to consider of: the mercies, and dangers, and sufferings both of their souls and bodies: we have our enemies to think of with due compassion: and our duty to all these.

2. And as it is negligence and omission to be all at home, and pass by so great a part of duty; so is it a double frustration of our labour, and will make even this study of ourselves to be in vain. (1.) We cannot come by all our study to the true knowledge of ourselves, unless we also study other things besides ourselves: For we are related to God, as his creatures, as his own, as his subjects, and as his dependent children, as his redeemed, and his sanctified ones, (or such as should be such.) And if we know not God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; as our Owner, Ruler and Benefactor; and know not what his creation, redemption, sanctification, his title, government, and benefits mean, it is not possible that we should know ourselves. Mutual relations must be known together, or neither can be known.

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(2.) And if we could know ourselves, and know no more, it were but to know nothing, and lose that knowledge: for this is but the entrance into wisdom, and the means and way

to higher knowledge. This learning of our alphabet or primer is lost, if we learn no farther; you are therefore to study and know yourselves, that you may advance to the knowledge of Christ and his grace, and be acquainted with the remedy of all that you find amiss at home: and that by Christ you may be brought unto the Father, and know God as your happiness and rest; you are not your own ultimate ends, and therefore must go farther in your studies than yourselves,

3. We shall never attain to rectitude or solid comfort and content, unless our studies go farther than ourselves: for we are not the rule to ourselves, but crooked lines! And cannot know what is right and wrong, if we study not the rule as well as ourselves. And alas, we are diseased, miserable sinners. And to be always looking on so sad a spectacle, can bring no peace or comfort to the mind. To be still looking on the sore, and hearing only the cry of conscience, will be but a foretaste of hell. When we would be humbled and have matter of lamentation, we must look homeward, where the troubling thorns and nettles of corruption grow. But if we would be comforted and lift up, we must look higher, to Christ and to his promises, and to everlasting life : our garden beareth no flowers or fruits that are so cordial.

This much I have spoken by way of caution. 1. That you may not think I am driving you into the extreme of solitude, and confining or imprisoning you at home. 2. Because some scarcely know how to avoid a fault, without running into another on the other side of the way: nor how to understand the right use of a doctrine, but are turning it into an abuse, and building sin upon the foundation of righteousness.

Two sorts of persons have great need of this caution, that they dwell not too much on themselves. One is poor melancholy people, that can think of almost nothing else: their distemper disposeth them to be always poring on themselves, and fixing their thoughts on their sin and misery, and searching into all their own miscarriages, and making them worse than indeed they are: you cannot call off their thoughts from continual self-condemning, and musing on their own misdoings and unhappiness. They have a God, a Christ, a heaven, a treasure of precious promises to meditate on : and they cannot hold their thoughts to these, (unless as they

aggravate their sin and sorrows) but live as if they had nothing to think on but themselves, and were made to be their own tormentors: day and night, even when they should labour, and when they should sleep, they are busy in a fruitless vexation of themselves. These poor afflicted souls have need to be called from the excessive study of themselves.

Another sort is, those Christians that are wholly taken up in inquiring, whether they have saving grace or not; while they neglect that exercise of their grace, in doing all the good they can to others, and following on the way of faithful duty, which might do more to their assurance than solitary trials.

The former sort by overdoing in this one part of their work, disable themselves to all the rest: they tire and distract their minds, and raise such fears as hinder their understandings, and cast their thoughts into such confusion, that they quite lose the command of them, and cannot gather them up for any holy work: yea, while they study nothing but themselves, they lose even the knowledge of themselves: they gaze so long upon their faults and wants, till they can see nothing else, and know no apprehensions but dark and sad; and wilfully unlearn the language of thanksgiving and praise; and the burden of all their thoughts and speeches, is Miserable and Undone; as if there were for them no mercy, no help, no hope, but they were utterly forsaken and cast off by God.

The other sort do so exceed in the measure of that self-love, which in itself is good, that they neglect the study of the love of God, and are still thinking what they are and have been, when they should consider what they must be. They spend so much time in trying their foundation, that they can make but little progress in the building: they are like musicians, that will spend all the day in setting instruments in tune; or like a mower that spends most of his time in whetting. They are all day preparing their tools, while they should be working! and putting on their armour, and preparing their weapons, when they should be fighting: and inquiring which is the way, while they should be travelling. They leave undone too much of their work without doors, while they confine themselves to that within: and that within goes on the worse, because they neglect that without doors,