or as the early dew. "But we should not judge of ourselves by that which is unusual or extraordinary with us; but by the ordinary tenor and drift of our lives. A bad man may seem good in some good mood; and a good man may seem bad in some extraordinary falls; to judge of a bad man by his best hours, and a good man by his worst, is the way to be deceived in them both 11" And the same way may you be deceived in yourself.—Pharaoh, Ahab, Herod, and Felix had all of them their softenings, their transitory fits of goodness; but yet they remain upon record under the blackest characters.

These then are all wrong rules of judgment; and to trust them, or to try ourselves by them, leads to fatal self-deception. Again,

(6.) In the business of self-examination you must not only take care you do not judge by wrong rules, but that you do not judge wrong by right rules. You must endeavour then to be well acquainted with them. The office of a judge is not only to collect the evidence and the circumstances of facts, but to be well skilled in the laws by which those facts are to be examined.

Now the only right rules by which we are to examine, in order to know ourselves, are reason and scripture. Some are for setting aside these rules, as too severe for them; too stiff to bend to their perverseness; too straight to measure their crooked ways are against reason, when reason is against them; decrying it as carnal reason: and against scripture, when scripture is against them, despising it as a dead letter. And thus, 11 Baxter's Direct. p. 876.

rather than be convinced they are wrong, they reject the only means that can set them right.

And as some are for setting aside these rules, so others are for setting them one against the other; reason against scripture, and scripture against reason; when they are both given us by the God of our natures, not only as perfectly consistent, but as proper to explain and illustrate each other, and prevent our mistaking either; and to be, when taken together (as they always should) the most complete and only rule by which to judge both of ourselves and every thing belonging to our salvation as reasonable and fallen creatures.

(1.) Then one part of that rule which God hath given us to judge of ourselves by is right reason by which I do not mean the reasoning of any particular man, which may be very different from the reasoning of another particular man; and both, it may be, very different from right reason; because both may be influenced not so much by the reason and nature of things as by partial prepossessions and the power of passions. But by right reason, I mean those common principles, which are readily allowed by all who are capable of understanding them, and not notoriously perverted by the force of prejudice; and which are confirmed by the common consent of all the sober and thinking part of mankind; and may be eaily learned by the light of nature. Therefore, if any doctrine or practice, though supposed to be founded in or countenanced by revelation, be nevertheless apparently repugnant to these dictates of right reason, or evidently con

tradict our natural notions of the divine attributes, or weaken our obligations to universal virtue, that we may be sure is no part of revelation; because then one part of our rule would clash with and be opposite to the other. And thus reason was designed to be our guard against a wild and extravagant construction of scripture. (2.) The other part of our rule is the sacred scriptures, which we are to use as our guard against the licentious excursions of fancy, which is often imposing itself upon us for right reason. Let any religious scheme or notion then appear ever so pleasing or plausible, if it be not established on the plain principles of scripture, it is forthwith to be discarded: and that sense of scripture that is violently forced to bend towards it is very much to be suspected.

It must be very surprising to one who reads and studies the sacred scriptures with a free, unbiased mind, to see what elaborate, finespun, flimsy glosses men will invent and put upon some texts as the true and genuine sense of them; for no other reason but because it is most agreeable to the opinion of their party, from which, as the standard of their orthodoxy, they durst never depart; who, if they were to write a critique in the same manner on any Greek or Latin author, would make themselves extremely ridiculous in the eyes of the learned world. But, if we would not pervert our rule, we must learn to think as scripture speaks, and not compel that to speak as we think.

Would we know ourselves then, we must often

view ourselves in the glass of God's word. And
when we have taken a full survey of ourselves
from thence, let us not soon forget what manner
of persons we are 12. If our own image do not
please us, let us not quarrel with our mirror, but
set about mending ourselves.

The eye of the mind, indeed, is not like that of
the body, which can see every thing else but
itself; for the eye of the mind can turn itself in-
ward, and survey itself. However, it must be
owned, it can see itself much better when its own
image is reflected upon it from this mirror: and
it is by this only that we can come at the bottom
of our hearts, and discover those secret preju-
dices and carnal prepossessions which self-love
would hide from us.

This then is the first thing we must do, in order to self-knowledge. We must examine, scrutinize, and judge ourselves diligently, leisurely, frequently, and impartially; and that not by the false maxims of the world, but by the

rules which God hath given us, reason and X

scripture; and take care to understand those
rules, and not set them at variance.

CHAP. II.

CONSTANT WATCHFULNESS NECESSARY TO SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

2. WOULD we know ourselves, we must be very watchful over our hearts and lives.

(1.) We must keep a vigilant eye upon our hearts; i. e. our tempers, inclinations, and passions. A more necessary piece of advice, in order to self-acquaintance there cannot be, than that which Solomon gives us1, Keep your heart with all diligence, or (as it is in the original) above all keeping, q. d. Whatever you neglect or overlook, be sure you mind your heart. Narrowly observe all its inclinations and aversions, all its motions and affections, together with the several objects and occasions which excite them. And this precept we find in scripture enforced with two very urgent reasons. The first is, because out of it are the issues of life; i. e. As our heart is, so will the tenor of our life and conduct be. As is the fountain, so are the streams; as is the root, so is the fruit3. And the other is, because it is deceitful above all things. And therefore, without a constant guard upon it, we shall insensibly run into many hurtful self-deceptions. To which I may add that, without this careful keeping of the heart, we shall never be

1 Prov. iv. 23.

2 Parallel to this advice of the Royal Preacher is that of the imperial philosopher. Ενδον βλέπε, ενδον γαρ η πεγη 78 aya08. Look within; for within is the fountain of good. M. Aurel. lib. 7. § 59.