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

5. It is for want of a fuller knowledge of our selves, that many lie long in sins unobserved by themselves: and many are on the ⟨p. 284⟩declining hand, and take no notice of it. And how little resistance or mortifying endeavours we are like to bestow upon unknown or unobserved sins, is easy to conceive. How many may we observe to have notable blemishes of Pride, ostentation, desire of preeminence and esteem, envy, malice, self-conceitedness, self-seeking, censoriousness, uncharitableness, and such like, that see no more of it in themselves, then is in more mortified men? How ordinarily do we hear the Pastors that watch over them, and their friends that are best acquainted with them, lamenting the miscarriages, and the careless walking and declining of many that seem Religious, when they lament it not themselves, nor will not be convinced that they are sick of any such disease, any more then all other Christians are? Hence comes the stiffness of too many […] all that can be said to […] them: and that they are […] reproof, and think reprovers […] wrong: and its well if it abate not Christian love, and procure not some degree of hatred or displeasure. Like a man that is entering into a consumption, and takes it for an injury to be told so, till his languishing and decay convince him. ⟨p. 285⟩Hence it is that we have all need to lament in general our unknown sins, and say with David [Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.] Psalm 19.12. Hence it is that we can seldom tell men of the most discernible faults, but they meet us with excuses, and justify themselves.

5. It is for want of a fuller knowledge of our selves, that many lie long in sins unobserved by themselves: and many are on the ⟨p. 284⟩declining hand, and take no notice of it. And how little resistance or mortifying endeavours we are like to bestow upon unknown or unobserved sins, is easie to conceive. How many may we observe to have notable blemishes of Pride, ostentation, desire of preheminence and esteem, envy, malice, self-conceitedness, self-seeking, censoriousness, uncharitableness, and such like, that see no more of it in themselves, then is in more mortified men? How ordinarily do we hear the Pastors that watch over them, and their friends that are best acquainted with them, lamenting the miscarriages, and the careless walking and declining of many that seem Religious, when they lament it not themselves, nor will not be convinced that they are sick of any such disease, any more then all other Christians are? Hence comes the stifness of too many all that can be said to them: and that they are reproof, and think reprovers wrong: and its well if it abate not Christian love, and procure not some degree of hatred or displeasure. Like a man that is entring into a consumption, and takes it for an injury to be told so, till his languishing and decay convince him.