world, and concealed from himself. The wise man fees those frailties in himself, which others cannot; but the fool is blind to those blemishes in his character, which are confpicuous to everybody else. Whence it appears that felf-knowledge is that which makes the main difference between a wife man and a fool, in the moral sense of that word. CHAP. VII. Concerning the Knowledge of our Conftitu tional Sins. VI. " "SELF-ACQUAINTANCE shows " a man the particular fins he " is most expofed and addicted to; and " discovers not only what is ridiculous, but "what is criminal, in his conduct and " temper." The outward actions of a man are generally the plainest index of his inward dispositions; and by the allowed fins of his life you may know the reigning vices of his mind. Is he addicted to luxury and debauch? sensuality then appears to be his prevailing taste. Is he given to revenge and cruelty? choler and malice then reign in his heart. Is he confident, bold, E 2 and and enterprising? ambition appears to be the fecret spring. Is he fly and designing, given to intrigue and artifice? you may conclude, there is a natural subtilty of temper that prompts him to this. And this fecret disposition is criminal, in proportion to the degree in which these outward actions, which spring from it, tranfgress the bounds of reason and virtue. Every man hath something peculiar in the turn or cast of his mind, which distinguishes him as much as the particular conftitution of his body. And both these, viz. his particular turn of mind, and particular constitution of body, incline and dispose him to some kind of fins, much more than to others. And the fame it is that renders the practice of certain virtues so much more easy to some than it is to others *. Now * Men, with regard to their bodies and bodily appetites, are pretty much alike; but, with regard to their fouls, and their mental tastes and difpofitions, they are often as different as if they were quite of another species; governed by different views, entertained with different pleafures, animated with different hopes, and affected by different motives, and diftinguished by as different tempers and inclinations, $ if they were not of the fame kind. So that I am ry ready to believe, that there is not a greater difence between an angel and fome of the best and wifeft wisest of men, or between a devil and some of the worst and wickedest of men, with regard to their tempers and dispositions, than there is between some fort of men and fome others. And what inclines me to this sentiment is, considering the easy tranfition which nature always observes in paffing from one order or kind of beings to another (which I have before taken notice of), together with the prodigious difference there appears to be between some and others of the human species, almost in every thing belonging to their fouls: For some there are, " in " whom (as one expresses it) one would think na" ture had placed every thing the wrong way;" depraved in their opinions, unintelligible in their reafoning, irregular in their actions, and vicious in every disposition: Whilft in some others we fee almoft every thing amiable and excellent that can adorn and exalt the human mind under the disadvantages of mortality. Now these sins which men generally are most strongly inclined to, and the temptations to which they find they have leaft power to refift, are usually and properly called their conftitutional fins; their peculiar frailties; and, in fcripture, their own iniquities, Pfal. xviii. 23. and the fins which " do most easily beset them," Heb. xii. 1 *. "As in the humours of the body, fo " in the vices of the mind, there is one " predominant, which has an afcendant " over us, and leads and governs us. It " is in the body of fin what the heart is " in E 3 * η αμαρτια ευπεριςατος, The well-circumstanced fin. " in the body of our nature; it begins "to live first, and dies last; and whilft it "lives, it communicates life and spirit to "the whole body of fin; and when it "dies, the body of sin expires with it. "It is the fin to which our constitution " leads, our circumstances betray, and "custom enflaves us; the fin to which " not our virtues only, but vices too, low" er their topfail, and submit; the fin, " which when we would impose upon "God and our confciences, we excuse " and disguise with all imaginable arti"fice and fophistry; but when we are " fincere with both, we oppose first, and conquer last. It is, in a word, the fin " which reigns and rules in the unregenerate, and too often alarms and di"sturbs (ah! that I could say no more) "the regenerate *. Some are more inclined to the fins of the flesh, fenfuality, intemperance, uncleanness, floth, self-indulgence, and excess in animal gratifications. Others more inclined to the fins of the spirit; pride, malice, covetousness, ambition, wrath, revenge, envy, &c. And I am perfuaded there are few, but, upon a thorough fearch into into themselves, may find that fome one of these sins hath ordinarily a greater power over them than the reft. Others often observe it in them, if they themselves do not. And for a man not to know his predominant iniquity, is great felf-ignorance indeed, and a sign that he has all his life lived far from home; because he is not acquainted with that in himself, which every one, who is but half an hour in his company, perhaps, may be able to inform him of. Hence proceeds that extreme weakness which fome discover in cenfuring others for the very fame faults they are guilty of themselves, and perhaps in a much higher degree; on which the apostle Paul animadverts, Rom. ii. I *. * See Dr. Lucas's Sermons, Vol. i. pag. 151. It must be owned, it is an irksome and disagreeable business for a man to turn his own accuser; to search after his own faults, and keep his eye upon that which it gives him shame and pain to see. It is like tearing open an old wound. But it is better to do this, than to let it mortify. The wounds of the confcience, like those of * Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes? Clodius accufat Mæchos? Catalina Cethegum? Juv. Sat. 12. |