I() What SeIflihnefs and Self - denyal are ; at the Root. for while he was obedient, it was his Fathers part to preferve him and provide for him, to keep off death and danger, and fupply all his wants. And therefore though man had thefaculty or power of knowing more perfeCt then we have now, yet he did not need to trouble himfelfabout there matters of Self becaufe they belonged to God : and confequentiv had not the aanal confederation of knowledge of them : for that would have been but a vain and troublefome knowledge and confideration to him : For though the knowledge of all things Necefary to be known,was part ofhis perfection yet the atlual knowledge of many things unnecefary and vexatious or tempting, may be part ofa mans infelicity and mifery. And fo he that increafeth knowledge increafethforrovp, Ercl r.1 8. As man that foreknow. cid' his owndeath, is through the fear of it all his life time rub- jed to bondage,Fieb.z.r5sand thefear is more grievous then the death it felf; when a beet that knoweth not his death is freed from thole fears. Indeed in our fain elate there is forne ufe for moreof this kind of knowledge then before ; But in inno- cency man needed only to know his maker, and his will and works, and the creature as his utenfils, and the glafs in which he was to be ken, and to fear with moderation the death whichhe had threatned, meetly as threatned byhim. But by the temptation of Satan , man grew defirous to be pail a child, at his Fathers finding , and under his care , and would take care and thought for himfelf and know what Was good or evil for himfelf as to the natural man : and fo far turned his eye to thecreature to fludy it for loimfilf, when he fhould have iludied God in it : and to fearch after good and evil to him- ftlf in it, which be fhould have fearched after the attributes of God in it, and daily gazed with holy love and admiration up- on his bleffed face that shined in this glafs : and fo he would life the creature direetly for himfelf, which he should have ofed only for Gods fervice. And thus I conceive man did indeed by his fall attain to much more at knowledge as to the num- ber of objects then he had before : which knowledge was in- deed in it Pelf confidercd Phyfically good, but not Good to him as any part of his felicity , or his vertue, but rather by participation his fin and mifery , as being unfuitable to his con. dition. It was better with him when we he know Ose God , yL and
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