The mischiefs of self-ignorance and the benefits of self-acquaintance opened in divers sermons at…

BY this time, if you are willing, you may see, where lieth the disease and misery of the world and also what must be the cure. Man hath lost himself, by seeking himself: He hath lost himself in the loss of God. He departed from God, that he might enjoy himself: and so is estranged from God and himself. He left the Sun, and retired into darkness, that he might behold himself, and not the Light; and now beholdeth neither himself nor the light: For he can not behold himself but by the Light. As if the Body should forsake the Soul and say, I will no longer serve another, but will be my own: what would such a selfish separation procure but the converting of a Body into a loathsome Carcass, and a senseless clod? Thus hath the Soul dejected it self, by turning to it self, and separating from God: without whom it hath neither Life, nor Light nor Joy. By desiring a selfish kind of Knowledge of Good and evil, withdrawing from its just dependence upon God, it hath involved it self in Care and misery, and lost the quieting delighting Knowledge which it had in God. And now poor man is lost in error: ⟨p. 88⟩He is straggled so far from home, that he knoweth not where he is, nor which way to return, till Christ in mercy seek and save him, Math. 18.11. Luk. 19.10.

BY this time, if you are willing, you may see, where lyeth the disease and misery of the world and also what must be the cure. Man hath lost himself, by seeking himself: He hath lost himself in the losse of God. He departed from God, that he might enjoy himself: and so is estranged from God and himself. He left the Sun, and retired into darkness, that he might behold himself, and not the Light; and now beholdeth neither himself nor the light: For he can not behold himself but by the Light. As if the Body should forsake the Soul and say, I will no longer serve another, but will be my own: what would such a selfish separation procure but the converting of a Body into a loathsome Carkass, and a senseless clod? Thus hath the Soul dejected it selfe, by turning to it self, and seperating from God: without whom it hath neither Life, nor Light nor Joy. By desiring a selfish kind of Knowledge of Good and evill, withdrawing from its just dependance upon God, it hath involved it self in Care and misery, and lost the quieting delighting Knowledge which it had in God. And now poor man is lost in error: