all if once we seem to feel the contrary, and are perplexed in the tumult of our thoughts and passions, and bewildered and lost in the errors of our own disturbed minds. Though we have walked with God, we are questioning whether indeed we ever knew him, as soon as he seemeth to hide his face. Though we have felt another life and spirit possess and actuate us than heretofore, and found that we love the things and persons which once we loved not, and that we were quite fallen out with that which was our former pleasure, and that our souls broke off from their old delights, and hopes, and ways, and resolvedly did engage themselves to God, and unfeignedly delivered up themselves unto him; yet all is forgotten, or the convincing evidence of all forgotten, if the lively influences of heaven be but once so far withdrawn, as that our present state is clouded and afflicted, and our former vigour and assurance is abated. And thus unthankfully we deny God the praise and acknowledgment of his mercies, longer than we are tasting them, or they are still before us: all that he hath done for us is as nothing, and all the love which he hath manifested to us, is called hatred; and all the witnesses that have put their hands to his acts of grace, are questioned, and his very seals denied, and his earnest misinterpreted, as long as our darkened, distempered souls are in a condition unfit for the apprehension of mercy, and usually when a diseased or afflicted body doth draw the mind into too great a participation of the affliction. And thus as we are disposed ourselves, so we judge of ourselves and of all our receivings, and all God's dealings with us. When we feel ourselves well, all goes well with us, and we put a good interpretation upon all things: and when we are out of order, we complain of every thing, and take pleasure in nothing, and no one can content us, and all is taken in the worse part; as the poet said,

Læta fere lætus cecini, cano tristia tristis. You shall have a merry song from a merry heart, and a sad ditty from a troubled, grieved mind.

And thus while the discoveries both of sin and grace, are at present overlooked, or afterwards forgotten, and almost all men judge of themselves by present feeling, no wonder if few are well acquainted with themselves.

But as the word and the works of God must be taken together, if they be understood, and not a sentence, part or parcel taken separated from the rest, which must make up the sense; so also the workings of God upon your souls must be taken altogether, and you must read them over from the first till now, and set altogether, and not forget the letters, the part that went before, or else you will make no sense of that which followeth. And I beseech all weak and troubled Christians to remember also, that they are but children and scholars in the school of Christ; and therefore when they cannot set the several parts together, let them not overvalue their unexperienced understandings, but by the help of their skilful, faithful teachers, do that which of themselves they cannot do. Inquire what your former mercies signify: open them to your guides, and tell them how God hath dealt with you from the beginning, and tell them how it is with you now; and desire them to help you to perceive how one conduceth to the right understanding of the other. And be not of froward, but of tractable, submissive minds; and thus your self-acquaintance may be maintained, at least to safety, and to some degree of peace, if not to the joys, which you desire, which God reserveth for their proper season.

I should have added more on this necessary subject, but that I have said so much of it in other writings, especially in the "Saints' Rest,” part iii. chap. 7; and in my “Treatise of Self-denial,” and in "The Right Method for Peace of Conscience.”

I must confess I have written on this „subject as I did of Self-denial, viz. with expectation that all men should confess the truth of what I say; and yet so few be cured by it of their self-ignorance, as that still we must stand by, and see the world distracted by it, the church divided, the love of brethren interrupted, and the work of Satan carried on by error, violence, and pride ; and the hearts of men so strangely stupitied, as to go on incorrigibly in all this mischief, while the cause and cure are opened before them, and all in vain, while they confess the truth; so that they will leave us nothing to do, but exercise our compassion, by lamenting the deliration of frenetic men, while we are unable to serve the church, their brethren, or their own souls, from the dilacerations and calamitous effects of their furious self-ignorance. But Christ that hath sent us with the light, which may be resisted, and abused, and in part blown out,

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will speedily come with light irresistible, and will teach the proud, the scornful, the unmerciful, the self-conceited, the malicious, and the violent, so effectually to know themselves, as that no more exhortations shall be necessary for the reception of his convictions; nor will he or his servants any more beseech men to consider and know their sin and misery, nor be beholden to them to believe and confess it. (See Jude 14, 15.) And is there no remedy for a stupified, inconsiderate soul? Is there no prevention of so terrible a self-knowledge, as the light of judgment, and the fire of hell will else procure? Yes, the remedy is certain, easy, and at hand: "Even to know themselves till they are driven to study, and seek and know the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ,” (John xvii. 3,) and yet is the salvation of most as hopeless almost as if there were no remedy, because no persuasion can prevail with them to use it. Lord, what hath thus locked up the minds and hearts of sinners against thy truth and thee! What hath made reasonable man so unreasonable, and a self-loving nature so mortally to hate itself! O thou that openest, and no man shutteth, use the key that openeth hearts; come in with thy wisdom, and thy love, and all this blindness and obstinacy will be gone. At least commit not the safety of thy flock to such as will not know themselves: but “gather thy remnant, and bring them to their folds, and let them be fruitful and increase; and set up shepherds over them, which shall feed them, and let them fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor be lacking.” (Jer. xxiii. 3, 4.) “Ordain a place for them, plant them, and let them dwell therein unmoved, and let not the children of wickedness waste them any more.” (1 Chron. xvii. 9.) shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered, so seek out thy sheep, and deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.” (Ezek. xxxiv. 12.) "Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up for ever.” (Psal. xxviii. 9.)

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“ As a

END OF SELF-IGNORANCE, AND SELF-ACQUAINTANCE.

AND THE VANITY OF THE PAPISTS, AND ALL OTHER SCHISMATICS,
THAT CONFINE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TO THEIR SECT,

DISCOVERED AND SHAMED.

READER, The tumultuary contentions and distractions about the catholic church, which have been raised by many heretical and schismatical firebrands, have moved me to publish these popular sermons, in order to the satisfaction and settlement of such minds as have been ensnared to a misunderstanding

a of this article of the Creed. It grieved me to hear so many Christians, that were all baptized into the catholic church, and there received the badge of Christianity and catholicism, to be doubtfully inquiring which is the true catholic church, and many dividers confining it to their sects: and lastly, the Seekers, (instructed by the Papists) with seeming seriousness questioning whether there be any church and ministry at all? But never any sect did cause my admiration so much as the Papist! That ever so many princes and learned men should so odiously vilify the catholic church, and that under pretence of magnifying it, and appealing to it. They are not contented in their doctrine of transubstantiation, to deny sense and reason, ('Et contra rationem nemo sobrius ') and in many writings to speak diminutively and dishonourably of the Holy Scriptures, (too like to infidels : •Et contra Scripturas nemo Christianus ;') but they also cut off themselves (as sectaries) from the universal church, as far as an uncharitable, odious condemning of the far greatest part of the church can do it, and call the church (even that greatest part) by the name of heretics and schismatics; ('Et contra ecclesiam nemo pacificus.) And as confidently and contentiously do they labour to cut off the When we see the blood ? When we hear the noise of revilers at home, and see the scornful laughters of those abroad? When almost all Christendom is up in arms? When the churches are so many by-names, and broken into so many odious fractions; and so many volumes fly abroad, containing the reproaches and condemnations of each other? And (which is enough to break an honest heart to think or speak of) that all this hath continued so long a time! And they be not so wise as the passionate, or the drunken, that in time will come to themselves again; and that it bath continued notwithstanding the greatest means that are used for the cure : Mediation prevaileth not: pacificatory endeavours have done almost nothing: nay, sin gets advantage in point of reputation, and dividing is counted a work of zeal, and ministers themselves are the principal leaders of it; yea, and ministers of eminent parts and piety; and piety itself is pretended for this, which is the poison of piety; and pacification is become a suspected or derided work; and the peace-makers are presently suspected of some heresy; and perhaps called dividers for seeking reconciliation. It made my heart ache with grief, the other day, to read over the narrative of the endeavours of one man (Mr. John Dury), to heal the Protestant churches themselves, and to think that so much ado should be necessary to make even the leaders of the Christian flocks to be willing to cease so odious a sin, and come out of so long and doleful a misery; yea, and that all should do so little good, and get from men but a few good words, while they sit still and suffer the flames to consume the deplorable remnant: yea, such havock hath division made, and cut the church into so many pieces, that it is become one of the commonest questions among us, which of these pieces it is that is the Church; one saith,.We are the catholic church ;' and another saith, No, but it is we!' and a third contendeth that it is ‘only they :' and thus men seem to be at a loss; and when they believe the holy catholic church, they know not what it is, which they say, they believe. Though I dare not presume to hope of much success in any attempts against this distraction, after the frustration of the far greater endeavours of multitudes that have attempted it with far greater advantage, yet I have resolved by the help of Christ to bear witness against the sin of the dividers, and leave my testi

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