6. Sixthly, Persons of real holiness are cordially affected avid affiieted, grieved and troubled, about their oivn vileness and unholi- ness, Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26, 31. You may see this in holy Job, chap, xl. 3-5, ' Then Job answered the Lord and said. Behold, I am vile ; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken ; but I will not answer : yea, twice ; but I will proceed no further.' So holy Agur : * Prov. xxx. 2, 3, ' Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 119
man.l I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.' Though all men are brutish, yet holy men are most sensible of their brutishness, and most affected and afflicted with it ; wicked men are more brutish than the beasts, yet they see it not, they bewail it not ; but holy Agur both sees his brutishness, and bewails it. Holy Agur, looking upon that rare knowledge, that depth of wisdom, and those admirable excellencies that Adam was endued with in his integrity and innocency, confesses himself to be but brutish, to be as much below what Adam once was as a brute is below a man. So holy David cries not Ferii, I am undone, I shall perish, but peccavi, * I have sinned, I have done foolishly,' Ps. li. 3. And so for his being envious at the prosperity of the foolish, Ps. Ixxiii. 2, 3, how doth he befool and be-beast himself! Ps. Ixxiii. 22, 'So foolish was I, and ignorant : I was as a beast before thee.' The Hebrew word Behemoth, l£at is here rendered beast generally, comprehends all beasts of the greater sort. 2 As an aggravation of his folly, he conf esseth that he was as a beast, as a great beast, yea, as an epitome of all great beasts. So the holy prophet Isaiah complains that he was undone, that he was cut off, not upon any worldly account, but because he was a man of unclean lips, and dwelt in the midst of a people of unclean lips, Isa. vi. 5. So holy Daniel, chap, ix., complained not that they were re- proached and oppressed, but that they had rebelled. So Peter, Luke V. 8, ' Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord : ' or as the Greek hath it, I am a man, a sinner. 0 Lord depart from me, for I am a mixture and compound of aU vileness and sinfulness. So holy Paul cries not out of his opposers or persecutors, but of the law in his members rebelling against the law of his mind, Kom. vii. 23, 24. Paul's body of death \\'ithin him put him to more grief and sorrow than all the troubles and trials that ever befell him. A holy heart laments over those sins that he cannot conquer ; a holy person labours to wash out all the stains and spots that be in his soul, in the streams of godly sorrow ; that his sins may never drown his soul, he will do what he can to drown his sins in penitential tears. A holy person looks upon his sins as the crucifiers of his Saviour, and so they affect him; he looks upon his sins as the great incendiaries, make-baits, and separatist between God and his soul, and so they afflict him, Isa. lix. 1,2. He looks upon his sins as so many reproaches to his God, blemishes to his profession, and wounds to his credit and conscience, and so they grieve and trouble him ; he looks upon his sins as those that make many a righteous soul besides his own sad, whom God would not have saddened ; and that opens many a sinful mouth that God would have stopped, and that strengthens many a wicked heart that God would not have strengthened ; and so they fetch many a sigh from his heart, and many a tear from his eyes, Ezek. xiii. 22. When a holy man sins he looks upwards, and there he sees God frowning ; he looks downwards, and there he sees Satan insulting ; he looks within himself, and there he finds his conscience either a-bleeding, raging, or accusing; he looks without himself, and there he finds gracious men lamenting and mourning, and graceless men deriding and
^ Ulik ny2, the understanding of Adam.
" Therefore the elephant is called Behemoth in Job xl. 15.
120 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [Heb. XII. 14.
mocking ; the sense of which doth sorely and sadly afflict a gracious soul. Some say that St Peter's eyes, after his great falls, were always full of tears, insomuch that his face was furrowed with continual weeping for his horrid thoughts, his desperate words, his shameful shifts, and his damnable deeds, which made him look more like a child of hell than like a saint whose name was written in heaven. Some say of Adam, that when he turned his face towards the garden of Eden, he sadly lamented his great fall. Some say of Mary Magda- lene, that she spent thirty years in Galba in weeping for her sins. David's sins were ever before him, and therefore no wonder if tears instead of gems were so constantly the ornaments of his bed. Wicked Pharaoh cries out, Oh take away these filthy frogs, take away these dreadful judgments ; but holy David cries out ' 0 Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant.' Pharaoh cries out because of his punish- ments, but David cries out because of his sin. Anselm saith that with grief he considered the whole course of his life : ' I found,' saith he, ' the infancy of sin in the sins of my infancy ; the youth and growth of sin in the sins of my youth and growth ; and the ripeness of all sin in the sins of my ripe and perfect age ; ' and then he breaks forth into this pathetical expression, 'What remaineth for thee, wretched man, but that thou spend thy whole life in bewailing thy whole life ! ' By all which it is most evident, that holy hearts are very much affected and afflicted with their own unholiness and vileness. Now certainly those persons are as far off from real holiness, as hell is from heaven, who take pleasure ia unrighteousness, who make a scoff and mock of sin, who commit wickedness with greediness, who talk wickedly, who live wantonly, who trade deceitfully, who swear horribly, who drink stiffly, who lie hideously, and who die impenitently. But,