CHAP. VI.

Self Knowledge improves the Judgment.

VI. ANOTHER great advantage of being well acquainted with ourselves is, that it helps us to form a better judgment of other things.

Self knowledge indeed does not enlarge or increase our natural capacities, but it guides and regulates them; leads us to the right use and application of them; and removes a great many things which obstruct their due exercise, as pride, prejudice, passion, &c. which oftentimes miserably pervert the rational powers.

He that hath taken a just measure of himself, is thereby better able to judge of other things.

1. He knows how to judge of men and human nature better. For human nature, setting aside the difference of natural genius, and the improvements of education and religion, is pretty much the same in all. There are the same passions and appetites, the same natural infirmities and inclinations in all mankind; though some are more predominant and distinguishable in some, than they are in others. So that if a man be but well acquainted with his own, this, together with a very little observation on human life, will soon discover to him those of other men; and show him very impartially their particular failings and excellencies, and help him to form a much truer sentiment of them, than if he were to judge only by their exterior, the appearance they make in the eye of the world, or the character given of them by others; both which are often very fallacious.

2. Self knowledge will teach us to judge rightly of facts as well as men. It will exhibit things to the mind in a proper light, and true colours, with

out those false glosses and appearances which fancy throws upon them, or in which the imagination often paints them. It will teach us to judge not with the imagination, but with the understanding; and will set a guard upon the former, which so often represents things in wrong views, and gives the mind false impressions. See Part I. Chap. IV.

3. It helps us to estimate the true value of all worldly good things. It rectifies our notions of them, and lessens that enormous esteem we are apt to have for them. For when a man knows himself, and his true interest, he will see how far, and in what degree, these things are suitable to him, and subservient to his good; and how far they are unsuitable, ensnaring and pernicious. This, and not the common opinion of the world, will be his rule of judgment concerning them. By this he will see quite through them; see what they really are at bottom; and how far a wise man ought to desire them. The reason why men value them so extravagantly is, because they take but a superficial view of them, and only look upon their outside, where they are most showy and inviting. Were they to look within them, consider their intrinsic worth, their ordinary effects, their tendency, and their end, they would not be so apt to overvalue them. And a man that has learned to see through himself can easily see through these,

CHAP. VII.

Self Knowledge directs to the proper Exercise of Self

VII.

Denial.

A MAN that knows himself best, knows how, and wherein, he ought to deny himself.

The great duty of self denial, which our Saviour so expressly requires of all his followers, plain and necessary as it is, has been much mistaken and abused; and that not only by the church of Rome, in their doctrines of penance, fasts and pilgrimages, but by some Protestant Christians in the instances of voluntary abstinence and unnecessary austerities. Whence they are sometimes apt to be too censorious against those who indulge themselves iu the use of those indifferent things, which they make it a point of conscience to abstain from. Whereas, would they confine their exercise of self denial to the plain and important points of Christian practice, devoutly performing the necessary duties they are most averse to, and resolutely avoiding the known sins they are most inclined to, under the direction of scripture, they would soon become more solid, judicious and exemplary Christians; and did they know themselves, they would easily see that herein there is occasion and scope enough for self denial; and that to a degree of greater severity and difficulty than there is in those little corporeal abstinences and mortifications they enjoin themselves.

1. Self knowledge will direct us to the necessary exercises of self denial, with regard to the duties our tempers are most averse to.

There is no one, but, at some times, finds a great backwardness and indisposition to some duties which he knows to be seasonable and necessary. This then is a proper occasion for self discipline. For to indulge this indisposition is very dangerous, and leads to an habitual neglect of known duty; and to resist and oppose it, and to prepare for a diligent and faithful discharge of the duty, notwithstanding the many pleas and excuses that car

nal disposition may urge for the neglect of it, this requires no small pains and self denial; and yet it is very necessary to the peace of conscience.

As for our encouragement to this piece of self denial, we need only remember that the difficulty of the duty, and our unfitness for it, will, upon the trial, be found to be much less than we apprehended. And the pleasure of reflecting, that we have discharged our consciences, and given a fresh testimony of our uprightness, will more than compensate the pains and difficulty we found therein. And the oftener the criminal propensions to the wilful neglect of duty are opposed and conquered, the seldomer will they return, or the weaker will they grow-till at last, by divine grace, they will be wholly overcome; and in the room of them will succeed an habitual readiness to every good work,* and a very sensible delight therein: a much happier effect than can be expected from the severest exercises of self denial, in the instances before mentioned.

2. A man that knows himself will see an equal necessity for self denial, in order to check his inclinations to sinful actions: to subdue the rebel within; to arrest the solicitations of sense and appetite; to summon all his wisdom to avoid the occasions and temptations to sin, and all his strength to oppose it.

All this (especially if it be a favourite constitutional iniquity) will cost a man pains and mortification enough. For instance, the subduing a violent passion, or taming a sensual inclination, or forgiv an apparent injury and affront. It is evident, such a self conquest can never be attained without much self knowledge and self denial. And that self denial that is exercised this way, * Tit. i. 1.

as it will be a better evidence of our sincerity, so it will be more helpful and ornamental to the interests of religion, than the greatest zeal in those particular duties which are most suitable to our natural tempers, or than the greatest austerities in some particular instances of mortification, which are not yet so necessary, and perhaps not so difficult or disagreeable to us as this.

To what amazing heights of piety may some be taught to mount, (raised on the wings of flaming zeal, and distinguished by uncommon preciseness and severity about little things) who all the while, perhaps, cannot govern one passion, and appear yet ignorant of, and slaves to, their darling iniquity: through an ignorance of themselves, they misapply their zeal, and misplace their self denial; and by that means blemish their characters with a visible inconsistency.

CHAP. VIII.

Self Knowledge promotes our Usefulness in the World. VIII. The more we know of ourselves, the more useful we are like to be, in those stations of life in which Providence hath fixed us.

When we know our proper talents and capacities, we know in what manner we are capable of being useful; and the consideration of our characters and relations in life, will direct us to the proper application of those talents; show us to what ends they were given us, and to what purposes they ought to be improved.

"Many of those who set up for wits, and pretend to a more than ordinary sagacity and delicacy of sense, do, notwithstanding, spend their time unaccountably; and live away whole days, weeks,