you must

doned, reigning sins of the ungodly. If it be necessary that you be saved, it is necessary that you value and seek salvation; and, if so, it is necessary that you know your need of it, and what be and do, if you will obtain it. If you can prove, that ever any was converted and saved, by any other way, than by the coming to the knowledge of their sin and misery, then you have some excuse for your presumption but if Scripture tell us of no other way; yea, that there is no other way, and you know of none that ever was saved by any other, I think it is time to fall to work, and search and try your hearts and lives. You should rather think with yourselves, If we can so hardly bear the forethoughts of hell, how shall we be able, everlastingly, to bear the torments?

And consider, that Christ hath made the discovery of your sin and misery to be now comparatively an easy burden, in that he hath made them pardonable and curable. If you had not had a Saviour to fly to, but must have looked on your misery as a remediless case, it had then been terrible indeed; and it had been no great mistake to have thought it the best way to take a little ease at present, rather than to disquiet yourselves in vain. But, through the great mercy of God, this is not your case; you need not despair of pardon and salvation, if you will but hear while it is called To-day. task that you are called to, is only to find out your disease, and come and open it to the physician, submit to his advice, use his means, and he will freely and infallibly work the cure. It is but to find out the folly that you have been guilty of, and the dan

The

ger that you have brought yourselves into, and come to Christ, and, with hearty sorrow and resolution, to give up yourselves to his grace, to cast away your iniquities, and enter into his safe and comfortable service. And will you lie in hell and say, 'We are suffering here, that we might escape the trouble of foreseeing our danger of it, or of endeavouring in time to have prevented it!' O sirs, be warned in time, and own not, and practise not, such egregious folly, in a business of everlasting consequence. Believe it, if you sin, you must know that you have sinned: and if you are in the power of Satan it cannot long be hid. Did you but know the difference between discovering it now while there is hope, and hereafter when there is none, I should have no need to persuade you to be willing to know the truth, whatever it should cost you.

Hind. 3. Another great impediment of the knowledge of ourselves, is, that self-love so blindeth men that they can see no great evil in themselves, or any thing that is their own. It makes them believe that all things are as they would have them be; yea, and better than they would have them : for he that would not indeed be holy, is willing by himself and others to be thought so: did not the lamentable experience of all the world confirm it, it were incredible that self-love could so exceedingly blind men. If charity think no evil of another, much more will self-love cause men to see no evil by themselves. No argu

ment so cogent, no light so clear, no oratory so persuading, as can make a self-lover think himself as bad as indeed he is, till God, by grace or terror, shall convince him. When you are preaching the most

searching sermons to convince him, self-love confuteth or misapplieth them; when the marks of trial are most plainly opened, and most closely urged, self-love doth frustrate the preacher's greatest skill and diligence. When nothing of sense can be said to prove the piety of the impious, and the sincerity of the formal hypocrite, yet self-love is that wonderful alchymist, that can make gold not only of the basest metal, but of dross and dirt. No cause so bad which it cannot justify and no person so miserable but it will pronounce him happy, till God, by

grace or wrath, confute it. deceiver of the world.

Self-love is the grand

Direct. 3. Subdue this inordinate self-love, and bring your minds to a just impartiality in judging. Remember that self-love is only powerful at your private bar; and it is not there that your cause must be finally decided: it can do nothing at the bar of God; it cannot there justify, where it is condemned itself: God will not so much as hear it, though you will hear none that speak against it. Self-love is but the vicegerent of the grand usurper, that shall be deposed, and have no show of power, at Christ's appearing, when he will judge his enemies.

And if you would have the benefits of friendship, discourage not plain dealing. "I know a reprover should be wise, and love must be predominant if he will expect success ;" but we must take heed of judging that we are hated, because we are reproved; that is, that a friend is not a friend, because he doth the office of a friend. Of the two, it is fitter to say of a reproving enemy, He dealeth with me like a friend,' than of a reproving friend, He dealeth with

me like an enemy.' It is a happy enmity that help eth you to deliver you from sin and hell; and a cruel friendship that will let you undo your soul for ever, for fear of displeasing you by hindering it.

There are two sorts that deprive themselves of the saving benefit of necessary reproof, and the most desirable fruits of friendship: the one is the Hypocrite, that so cunningly hideth his greatest faults, that his friend and enemy never tell him of them: he hath the happiness of keeping his physician unacquainted with his disease, and, consequently, of keeping the disease. The other is the Proud, that can better endure to be ungodly than to be told of it, and to live in many sins, than to be freely admonished of one.

Consider, therefore, that it will prove self-hatred in the effect, which is now called self-love: and that it would seem but a strange kind of love from another, to suffer you to fall into a coal-pit, for fear of telling you that you are near it. If you love another no better than thus, you have no reason to call yourself his friend and shall this be your wisest loving of yourselves? If it be love to damn your souls for fear of knowing your danger of damnation, the devil loveth you. If it be friendship to keep you out of heaven, for fear of disquieting you with the light that should have saved you, then you have no enemies in hell. The devil himself can be content to grant you a temporal quietness and ease, in order to your everlasting woe. Let go your hopes of heaven, and he can let you be merry a while on earth; while the strong armed man keepeth his house, the things that he possesseth are in peace. If it be not friend

ship, but enmity, to trouble you with the sight of sin and danger, in order to your deliverance, then you have none but enemies in heaven: for God himself doth take this course with the dearest of his chosen. No star doth give such light as the sun doth no minister doth so much to make a sinner know himself, as God doth. Love yourselves, therefore, in the way that God loveth you: be impartially willing that God and man should help you to be thoroughly acquainted with your state: love not to be flattered by others, or yourselves.

Vice is never the more lovely, because it is yours: and you know that pain is never the more easy or desirable to you, because it is yours. Your own diseases, losses, injuries, and miseries, seem the worst and most grievous to you: and why should not your own sins also be most grievous? You love not poverty or pain, because it is your own; O love not sin, because it is your own!

Hind. 4. Another impediment to self-acquaintance, is, that men observe not their hearts in a time of trial, but take them always at the best, when no great temptation puts them to it. A man that never. had an opportunity to rise in the world, perhaps doth think he is not ambitious, and desireth not much to be higher than he is, because the coal was never blown. When a little affront doth ferment their pride into disquietness and desires of revenge; or applause doth ferment it into self-exaltation, they observe not then the distemper when it is up and most observable, because the nature of sin is to please and blind, and cheat the mind into a consent. And when the sin seems past, and they find them