Part 6 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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Part 7 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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6. Sixthly, People of genuine holiness are sincerely affected and afflicted, grieved and troubled—about their own vileness and unholiness. Ezek. 36:25-26, 31. You may see this in holy Job, Job 40:3-4, "Then Job answered the Lord and said—Behold, I am vile! What shall I answer you? I will lay my hand upon my mouth."
Just so, holy Agur: Proverbs 30:2-3, "Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. 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.
Just so, holy David does not cry, "I am undone, I shall perish!"—but, "I have sinned, I have done foolishly!" Psalm 51:3. And so for his being envious at the prosperity of the foolish, Psalm 73:2-3, how does David befool and be-beast himself! Psalm 73:22, "Just so, foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before you." The Hebrew word Behemoth, which is here rendered beast, generally comprehends all beasts of the greater sort. As an aggravation of his folly, he confesses that he was as a beast, as a great beast, yes, as an epitome of all great beasts.
Just 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 a unclean lips, and dwelt in the midst of a people of unclean lips, Isaiah 6:5.
Just so, holy Daniel, chapter 9, did not complain that they were reproached and oppressed—but that they had rebelled.
Just so, Peter, Luke 5:8, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" Or as the Greek has it, "I am a man—a sinner!" "O Lord depart from me—for I am a mixture and compound of all vileness and sinfulness!"
Just so, holy Paul does not cry out because of his opposers or persecutors—but of the law in his members rebelling against the law of his mind, Romans 7:23-24. Paul's body of death within 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 labors to wash out all the stains and spots that are 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 Savior, and so they affect him. He looks upon his sins as the great agitators, and separators between God and his soul—and so they afflict him, Isaiah 59:1-2. 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 that which has made many a righteous soul sad, whom God would not have saddened; and that which opens many a sinful mouth that God would have stopped, and that which strengthens many a wicked heart that God would not have strengthened; and so his sins fetch many a sigh from his heart, and many a tear from his eyes, Ezek. 13:22.
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 outside himself, and there he finds gracious men lamenting and mourning, and graceless men deriding and mocking. The realization of all these things do sorely and sadly afflict a gracious soul.
Some say that 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 whenever he turned his face towards the garden of Eden, he sadly lamented his great fall. Some say of Mary Magdalene, that she spent thirty years 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 "O Lord, take away the iniquity of your servant!" Pharaoh cries out because of his punishments—but David cries out because of his sin! Anselm says that with grief he considered the whole course of his life: "I found," says 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 mature age;" and then he breaks forth into this pathetical expression, "What remains for you, wretched man—but that you spend your whole life in bewailing your 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 people are as far off from real holiness—as hell is from heaven—who take pleasure in 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,
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