Therefore, to bring the words of my text to our present occasion, I shall endeavour, in a further prosecution of them, to evince the great necessity of a nice and curious inspection into the several recesses of the heart, being the surest and the shortest method that a wicked man can take to reform himself:  For let us but stop the fountain, and the streams will spend and waste themselves away in a very little time; but if we go about, like children, to raise a bank, and to stop the current, not taking notice all the while of the spring which continually feeds it, when the next flood of temptation rises, and breaks in upon it, then we shall find that we have begun at the wrong end of our duty, and that we are very little more the better for it, than if we had sat still, and made no advances at all.

But, in order to a clearer explanation of the point, I shall speak to these following particulars:—­

First:  By endeavouring to prove, from particular instances, that man is generally the most ignorant creature in the world of himself.

Secondly:  By inquiring into the grounds and reasons of his ignorance.

Thirdly and Lastly:  By proposing several advantages that do most assuredly attend a due improvement in the knowledge of ourselves.

First, then:  To prove that man is generally the most ignorant creature in the world, of himself.

To pursue the heart of man through all the instances of life, in all its several windings and turnings, and under that infinite variety of shapes and appearances which it puts on, would be a difficult and almost impossible undertaking; so that I shall confine myself to such as have a nearer reference to the present occasion, and do, upon a closer view, shew themselves through the whole business of repentance.  For we all know what it is to repent, but whether he repents him truly of his sins or not, who can know it?

Now the great duty of repentance is chiefly made up of these two parts, a hearty sorrow for the follies and miscarriages of the time past, and a full purpose and resolution of amendment for the time to come.  And now, to shew the falseness of the heart in both these parts of repentance, And

First:  As to a hearty sorrow for the sins and miscarriages of the time past.  Is there a more usual thing than for a man to impose upon himself, by putting on a grave and demure countenance, by casting a severe look into his past conduct, and making some few pious and devout reflections upon it, and then to believe that he has repented to an excellent purpose, without ever letting it step forth into practice, and shew itself in a holy conversation?  Nay, some persons do carry the deceit a little higher; who if they can but bring themselves to weep for their sins, they are then full of an ill-grounded confidence and security; never considering that all this may prove to be no more than the very garb and outward dress