And first, of the sins of their nature, of their persons themselves, ' We are all as an unclean thing.'
And then, of the sins of actions : ' all our righteousness is as filthy rags.'
And then, in the third place, a confession of the sin of non-proficiency,^
of obduration, and senselessness, that notwithstanding the corrections of
God, they were little the better : ' There is none that calleth upon thy
name, or that stirs up himself to take hold of thee.'
In the second place, there is an humble complaint of the miserable estate they were in by their sins : ' We all fade as a leaf ; our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away : thou hast hid thy face from us, and consumed us, because of our iniquities.' The complaint is set forth in these four clauses.
184 THE church's complaint and confidence.
And then an humble supplication and deprecation to God, in ver. 8, and so forward. ' Now, Lord, thou art our Father : we are the clay, thou art the potter ; we are all the work of thy hands,' &c. These be the parcels of this portion of Scripture.
' But we are all as an unclean thing,' &c.
Here is, first, an humble confemon. And first, observe in general what afflictions will do, especially afflictions sanctified. That which all the prophetical sermons could not do, that which all the threatenings could not do, affliction now doth. Now when they were in captivity and base estate, they fall a humbling themselves. So the prodigal, nothing could humble him but afflictions. ' By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,' Ps. cxxxvii. 1. All the denunciations of judgments before they came to the waters of Babylon could not make them weep. One affliction will do more than twenty sermons. When God teacheth and chastiseth too, when together with teaching there is correction, then it is efi'ectual. And this is the reason of God's course ; why, when nothing else will do, he humbles his people with afflictions, because he cannot otherwise teach them.
Aitiiction withdraws that which is the fuel of sin ; for what doth our sinful disposition feed on ? Upon pleasures, and vanities, upon the honours of this life, and riches, &c. Now when affliction either takes these things away, or embitters them if we have them, then that which sin cai'ried us to, and that we fed our own base earthly lusts with, being gone, when a man is stripped of these, he begins to know himself what he is, he was drunk before. I deem a man in prosperity little better than drunk. He knows neither God, nor himself, nor the world. He knows it not to be as a vain world. He knows not himself to be vanit}', to be an emptj^ creature, except he consist* in God, and make his peace with him. He knows not God to be such a holy God, and such an angry God for sin. But when affliction comes, and withdraws and strips him of those things that made him fierce against God, then he begins to know God, and to tremble at the judgments of God \vhen he begins to smart. He begins to know himself to be a madman, and a fool, and a sot. He did not know himself before in his jollity. And then he knows the world indeed as a vain w^orld. Blessed be that affliction that m9.kes us know a gi'acious and good God, and the creature to be a vain creature, and ourselves out of the favour of God to be nothing. You see what afflictions will do.
God doth use to break men, as men use to break horses. They ride them over hedge and ditch, and over ploughed lands, uneven grounds, and gall them with the spur and with the bit, and all to make them tractable ; and then afterward they ride them gently and meekly, and rather so than otherwise. So God is fain to carry his children over ploughed lands ; he is fain to break them in their wickedness, to bring their ways upon their heads ; he is fain to gall them, and humble them every kind of way, that they may carry him, that he may bring their spirits under him, that he may lead them in the ways that lead to their own comfort.
Use. Let us never murmur, therefore, at God's hand, but willingly yield at the first. What doth a stubborn horse get, but the spur and stripes ? And what doth a man get, that stands out when God comes to humble him by affliction, and intends his good ? Nothing but more stripes. To come to the parts.
' AVe are all as an unclean thing,' &c.
* That is, = stand. — G.
THE CHUECH S COMPLAINT AND CONFIDENCE.
185
Here, first, jcw see there is an humble confession. I will not enlarge myself in the point of humiliation, but speak a little, because this is the day of humiliation : the occasion is for humiliation. All this is to bring us low, to humble us, to make us know ourselves. Without humihation, Christ will never be sweet unto us, and the benefit of health, &c., will never be precious to us. I mean by humiliation, when God hulhbles us, and we humble ourselves ; when we join with God. When God's humbling of us and our humbling of ourselves go together, then mercy is sweet, and favour and protection is sweet, when God pours his judgments on others, and spares us.