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

1. You confess not sin to God or man so penitently and sensibly as you ought, because you know your selves no better. Did you see your inside with a fuller view, how deeply would you aggravate your sin? How heavily would you charge your selves? Repentance would be more intense and more effectual: and when you were more contrite, you would be more meet for the sense of ⟨p. 277⟩pardon, and for Gods delight, Isa. 51.15. & 66.2. It would fill you more with godly shame and self-abhorrence, if you better knew your selves. It would make you more sensibly say with Paul, Rom. 7.23, 24. [I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!] And with David, Psal. 38.18. I will declare my iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin, & 40.12. They are more then the hairs of my head, & 32.5. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid: I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.] Repentance is the Death of sin: and the knowledge of our selves ▪ and the sight of our sins ▪ is the life of Repentance.

2. You pray not against sin, for grace and pardon so earnestly as you should, because you know your selves no better. O that God would but open these too-close hearts unto us, and anatomize the relicts of the old man, and show us all the recesses of our self-deceit, and the filth of worldliness, and carnal inclinations that lurk within us, and read us a Lecture upon every