should we deal with our understandings; look over the furniture of the mind; separate the chaff from the wheat, which are generally received into it together; and take as much pains to forget what we ought not to have learned, as to retain what we ought not to forget. To read froth and trifles all our life, is the way always to retain a flashy and juvenile turn; and only to contemplate our first (which is generally our worst) knowledge, cramps the progress of the understanding, and makes our self-survey extremely deficient. In short, would we improve the understanding to the valuable purposes of Self-knowledge, we must take as much care what books we read as what company we keep.

"The pains we take in books or arts, which treat of things remote from the use of life, is a busy idleness. If I study (says Montaigne), it is for no other science than what treats of the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to live and die well1."

It is a comfortless speculation, and a plain proof of the imperfection of the human understanding, that, upon a narrow scrutiny into our furniture, we observe a great many things which we think we know, but do not; and many which we do know, but ought not; that a good deal of the knowledge we have been all our lives collecting, is no better than mere ignorance, and some of it worse; to be sensible of which is a very necessary step to self-acquaintanceo.

CHAP. VII.

SELF-INSPECTION PECULIARLY NECESSARY UPON SOME PARTICULAR OCCASIONS.

7. WOULD you know yourself, you must very carefully attend to the frame and emotions of your mind under some extraordinary incidents.

Some sudden accidents which befall you when the mind is most off its guard, will better discover its secret turn and prevailing disposition than much greater events you are prepared to meet, e. g.

(1.) Consider how you behave under any sudden affronts or provocations from men. A fool's wrath is presently known1; i. e. a fool is presently known by his wrath.

If your anger be soon kindled, it is a sign that secret pride lies lurking in the heart; which, like gunpowder, takes fire at every spark of provocation that lights upon it. For whatever may be owing to a natural temper, it is certain that pride is the chief cause of frequent and wrathful resentments. For pride and anger are as nearly allied as humility and meekness. Only by pride cometh contention 2:—and a man would not know what mud lay at the bottom of his heart, if provocation did not stir it up.

Athenodorus the philosopher, by reason of his

1 Prov. xii. 16.

2 Prov. xiii. 10.

old age, begged leave to retire from the court of Augustus; which the emperor granted him; and in his compliments of leave, "Remember (said he), Cæsar, whenever you are angry, you say or do nothing, before you have distinctly repeated to yourself the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet." Whereupon, Cæsar catching him by the hand, "I have need (says he), of your presence still;" and kept him a year longer3. This is celebrated by the ancients as a rule of excellent wisdom. But a Christian may prescribe to himself a much wiser; viz. "When you are angry, answer not till you have repeated the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer,-forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us; and our Saviour's comment upon it:"-for if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses*.

"A

It is a just and seasonable thought, that of Marcus Antoninus upon such occasions: man misbehaves himself towards me,-what is that to me? The action is his; and the will that sets him upon it is his; and therefore let him look to it. The fault and injury belong to him, not to me. As for me, I am in the condition Providence would have me, and am doing what becomes me 5."

But after all, this amounts only to a philo

sophical contempt of injuries; and falls much beneath the dignity of a Christian forgiveness, to which Self-knowledge will happily dispose ⚫us: and therefore, in order to judge of our improvements therein, we must always take care to examine and observe in what manner we are affected in such circumstances.

(2.) How do you behave under a severe and unexpected affliction from the hand of Providence? which is another circumstance wherein we have a fair opportunity of coming to a right knowledge of ourselves.

If there be an habitual discontent or impatience lurking within us, this will draw it forth; especially if the affliction be attended with any of those aggravating circumstances which accumulated that of Job.

Afflictions are often sent with this intent, to teach us to know ourselves; and therefore ought to be carefully improved to this purpose.

And much of the wisdom and goodness of our Heavenly Father is seen by a serious and attentive mind, not only in proportioning the degrees of his corrections to his children's strength, but in adapting the kinds of them to their tempers; afflicting one in one way, another in another, according as he knows they are most easily wrought upon, and as will be most for their advantage; by which means a small affliction of one kind may as deeply affect us, and be of more advantage to us than a much greater of another.

It is a trite but true observation, that a wise

I

man receives more benefit from his enemies than from his friends; from his afflictions than from his mercies; by which means his enemies become in effect his best friends, and his afflictions his greatest mercies. Certain it is, that a man never has an opportunity of taking a more fair and undisguised view of himself than in these circumstances; and therefore, by diligently observing in what manner he is affected at such times, he may make an improvement in the true knowledge of himself, very much to his future advantage, though, perhaps, not a little to his present mortification: for a sudden provocation from man, or a severe affliction from God, may detect something which lay latent and undiscovered so long at the bottom of his heart, that he never once suspected it to have had any place there. Thus the one excited wrath in the meekest man, and the other passion in the most patient7.

By considering then in what manner we bear the particular afflictions God is pleased to allot us, and what benefit we receive from them, we may come to a very considerable acquaintance with ourselves.

(3.) What is our usual temper and disposition in a time of peace, prosperity, and pleasure, when the soul is generally most unguarded?

This is the warm season that nourishes and impregnates the seeds of vanity, self-confidence, and a supercilious contempt of others. If there be such a root of bitterness in the heart, it will 7 Job, iii. 3.

6 Psal. cvi. 33.