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

Alas, when poor men, that must labour all day for food, and ⟨p. 447⟩•ayment, can find some time for serious converse with God and with their Consciences; the Great ones of the world have •o such leisure: How many are going •pace towards Hell, and say they cannot •ave while to bethink themselves what •ay they are in, or whether it is that they are going! That which they have all their time for, they have no time for, because they have no hearts for it. Prosperity doth so please their flesh, that they can give no heed to conscience or to reason: It doth so charm their minds, and enslave their wills to sense and appetite, that they cannot abide to be so Melancholy is to prepare for death and judgement, or to consider seriously how this will relish with them at the end: nor scare to remember that they are men, that should rule their senses, and be ruled by God, and that have another life to live.

And as Prosperity in it self is so great a Hinderance to the knowledge of your selves, so Flatterers that are the flies of summer, are always ready to blow upon the prosperous, and increase the danger. What miserable men are extolled as wise and virtuous and Religious, if they be but Rich and Great! Their vices are masked, or ⟨p. 446⟩[…] ⟨p. 447⟩[…] ⟨p. 448⟩extenuated, and made but little human frailties: Though they were swinish gluttons or drunkards, or filthy fornicator• or mere flesh-pleasing sensual brutes, tha• waste most of their lives in ease and sports and eating and drinking and such delights yet with their flatterers all these shall g for prudent, pious, worthy persons, if they can but seek when they have done, to mock God and their consciences with some lip-service and lifeless carcass of Religion O happy men if God would judge of them as their flatterers do; and would make a small a matter of their wickedness, and as great a matter of their out-side Hypocritical heartless worship! But they must be greater then men or Angels, and higher then either earth or Heaven, before God will flatter them. When they can make him afraid of their high looks or threatenings, or when they can him put in Hope of rising by their preferment, then they may look that he should comply with their parasites, and complement with his enemies, and justify the ungodly; but not till then. O did they consider, how little flattery doth secure them, and how little the Judge of all the world regards their worldly pomp and splendour, yea how greatly