poor creature ! your life in the socket, and this candle of the Lord not set up and lighted in your understanding ; your body bowing to the dust, and nature tolling the passing bell, as it were, and you, like one going in the dark, know not whither death will lead you or leave yo\i. It is like, the infirmities of age make you wish your bones were even laid at rest in the grave : but if you should die in this condition, your poor souls would even wish they were here again with tlieir old burthens on their backs ; aches and diseases of old age are grievous, but damned souls would thank God if he would bless them with such a heaven, as to lie in these pains to escape the torments of the other! O bethink you before you go hence ; the less time you have, the more diligence you must use to gain knowledge ; we need n,ot be earnest, one would think, to bid the poor prisoner learn his book, that cannot read, when he knows he shall be hanged if he read not his neck-verse. It is not indeed the bare knowing the truths of the gospel saves ; but the gross ignorance of them to be sure will damn souls. Are you poor? It is not your poverty is your sin or misery. Were you God's poor, rich in knowledge and faith, you were happy : Eccles. iv. 13, ' Better is a poor and wise child, than a foolish king, who will no more 'be admonished;' yea, so happy, that did the princes of the world understand themselves aright, they would wish themselves in our clothes, how ragged soever they are, rather than be in their own robes; thei'e are better making for you in heaven, which you shall put on, when their "s shall be pulled off to their shame : it will not then trouble you that you were, while in the world, poor; but it will torment them that they were so rich and great, and so poor to God, and beggarly in their souls.
Are you rich ? Labour for the knowledge of the Most High. Solomon had more of the world's treasure than a thovisand of you have, and yet we find him hard at prayer, wrestling with God for knowledge, 1 Chron. i. 10. All these outward enjoyments are but vagincB bonoriim, as afflictions ai-e but rogincB ma- lorum. I am afraid many men think themselves privileged by their worldly greatness from this duty, as if God were bound to save them, because rich. Alas, sii's ! there are not so many of you like to come there. I must confess it would make one tremble to think what a small number those among the great ones that shall be saved are summed up into, ' Not many great, not many rich;' why so few saved? Because so few have saving knowledge. O the atheism, the ignorance, the sottish barbarism that is to be found even in those that the world applaud, and even worship, because of their lands and estates, who yet are not able to give any account of their faith ! A poor leather-coat Christian \wll shame and catechise a hundred of them. If heaven were to be purchased with house and lands, then these would carry it away from the poor disciples of Jesus Christ ; they have their hundreds and thousands lie by them for a ^Jurchase always, but this money is not current in heaven's exchange. ' This is life eternal, to know thee, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.'
Quest. But how may an ignorant soul attain to knowledge ?
Alls. First, Be deeply affected with thy ignorance. Some are blind, as Lao- dicea, and know it not. Rev. iii. 17. As ignorance blinds the mind, so pride is a blind before their ignorance, that they know it not. These have such a high opinion of themselves^ that they take it ill any should suspect them as such ; these of all men are most out of the way to knowledge ; they are too good to learn of man, as they think, and too bad to be taught of God. The gate into Christ's school is low, and these cannot stoop : the Master himself is so humble and lowly, that he will not teach a proud scholar. Thei'efore first become a fool in thy own eye. A wiser man than thyself hath confessed as much, Prov. XXX. 2, 3 : ' I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man ; I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.' When thou art come to thyself, to own and blush at the brutish ignorance of thy mind, thou art fit to be admitted into Christ's school. ' If they be ashamed, then shew them the pattern of the house,' Ezek. xliii. 10.
Secondly, Be faithful with that little knowledge thou hast. Art thou con- vinced this is a sin, and that is a duty ?- P'ollow the light' close, you know not what this little may grow to ; we use to set up our children with a little stock at first, and as thcv use it, so we add. The kingdom of God comes of small
DARKNESS OF THIS WORLD. JOJ