fallen from the highest pinnacle of honour,. to sit with Job upon the dunghill. The true honour of a soldier lies not in boasting of the nobleness of his lineage, nor in the blaz[on]ing of his arms, nor in tell- ing of large stories of his pedigrees and genealogies, nor in his brave clothes, nor in his rich plunder, &c., but his honour lies in a torn buckler, a cracked helmet, a blunt sword,i and in the scars and wounds that he has received in the defence of his country; so thy true honour, 0 thou great piece of vanity ! that makest this objection, does not lie in thy coat of arms, nor in thy great titles, nor in thy great lordships and manors, nor in thy high birth, &c., but in thy interest in Christ, in thy new birth, in thy being an heir of the promises, in thy title to heaven, and in thy pursuit after holiness ; and verily, if you should live and die without these things, it had been ten thousand times better that you had been brought up in a cave, than that you had been brought up at court ; and that you had all your days lain under a hedge, than that you have sit so long upon seats of honour ; and that you had begged your bread from door to door, than that you have had your full cups and full tables ; and that you had been clothed with rags, than that you have put on costly robes ; and that you had rather been a-turning of spits, than a-tossing of pots or pipes, for the great things of this world does but lay men the more open to great tempta- tions, and to great provocations, even to commit the greatest abomi- nations. 0 sirs, suppose a criminous 2 person, who is led to execu- tion, should engrave his coat of arms upon the prison gate, would he not be accounted vain and mad ? and yet such is the madness and vanity of the great ones of this world, that they endeavour with the greatest industry to leave monuments of their dignity in the prison of this world, but take no care to make provision for another world, Ps. xlix. 10-15; and all this is out of the horrid pride and loftiness of their spirits : Ps. x. 4, ' The wicked, through the pride of his counte- nance, will not seek after God : God is not in all his thoughts.' There is nothing that hinders a man from seeking after a holy God, and from pursuing after holiness, like pride. A proud heart is too stout to think of holiness, or to mind holiness, or to prize holiness, or to press after holiness. ' Who is the Lord,' says proud Pharaoh, ' that I should serve him?' Exod. v. 2. So says the proud heart. Who is holiness, and what is holiness, that I should seek it, and press so hard after it ? As there is no sin that fortifies the heart against holiness like pride, so there is no sin that weakens and disenables the heart to pursue after holiness like pride. 0 you proud and lofty ones of the world, who look upon holiness as a poor, low, contemptible thing, tell me, what are all your noble births, and great estates, &c., but trifles that God bestows upon the worst and basest of men ? ' The whole Turkish empire,' says Luther, ' is but a crust that God casts to a dog.' Tell me whether the fly and the worm, yea, the most contemptible creature, if there be any such, was not man's elder brother at his first creation; and if so, why then should vain man be proud ? Oh, tell me whether thou hast ever laid to heart that soul -abasing and soul-humbling text, Ps. xxxix. 5, ' Verily every man at his best estate is altogether vanity.
' Of these Biron the French marshal boasted at his death. And so did many of the Romans. * ' Criminal.' — G.
312 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB. XII. 14.
Selah.' ' Verily' lets that in, and ' Selah ' shuts that up ; ' verily every man' — not some man, but 'every man;' Col Adam, Col Hebel, All Adam is all vanity, or every man is every vanity. i Every man is a comprehensive vanity, every rich man is every vanity, and every great man is every vanity, and every mighty man is every vanity, and every noble man is every vanity ; yea, and that which is yet more, ' every man at his best estate,' not in his childhood or decrepit age, but in his best estate, when he is best constituted and underlaid, when he is most firmly fixed and settled on his best bottom, yet even then he is vanity. The original runs [^^J] thus, ' every man standing,' that is, as some carry it, standing a-tiptoe in all his gallantry and bravery, in all liis beauty and glory, and in all his pomp and majesty, is vanity, yea, every vanity. Well sirs, remember this, that as rotten wood and glow-worms make a glorious show in the night, but when the day ap- pears they appear to be poor, despicable, base creatures ; so though now the high, the great, and mighty ones of the earth shine and gloriously sparkle in the darkness of this world, yet in that day when the Sun of righteousness shall arise, and manifest the secrets of all hearts to the world, and strip the great ones of aU their titles of hon- our, and their noble parentage, and their rich and royal robes, and their troops and trains, and their crowns and chains, then they will appear to be but base and despicable creatures ; then their poverty and misery, their nakedness^and vileness will appear to all the world ; then the world shall see that riches without righteousness, power without piety, and greatness without holiness, will do the gods of this world no good. Oh that thou hadst now a heart to weep over that pride of heart that keeps thee from pursuing after holiness, that so thou mayest not weep to all eternity in utter darkness ! But,