Wallowed in sin like swine in the mire – Thomas Brooks
The worst men are commonly best conceited of themselves.
“There is a generation which is pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness.” Proverbs 30:12
They were very bad and yet they had a great opinion of their own goodness. They were very filthy, and yet they stood very much upon their own purity. Their hands were black, their hearts were black, their works were black, and their ways were as black as hell and yet they were pure in their own eye. They were filthy within, and filthy without; filthy in body, and filthy in soul, and filthy in spirit. Filthiness had quite overspread them, and yet they thought to cover their filthiness with a mask of holiness. There has always been such a generation of men, who have wallowed in sin like swine in the mire and yet have kept up in themselves a strong opinion of their own goodness and holiness.
There are many who are shining Christians, who are pure golden Christians in their own eyes who are vile in God’s eyes!
Those who pretend their hearts are as good as the best, when their lives are as bad as the worst shall experience this truth at last to their shame and cost that without visible holiness here, there can be no fruition of God hereafter.