I came across this remarkable language in an essay on holiness by Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), and I thought I would share it.

The eighth argument to prove that without real holiness there is no happiness; that without holiness on earth no man shall ever come to a blessed vision or fruition of God in heaven, is this, The Scripture, that speaks no treason, styles unholy persons beasts, yea, the worst of beasts ; and what should such do in heaven? Unholy persons are the most dangerous, and the most unruly pieces in the world, and therefore are emblemized by lions, Ps. xxii. 21, and they are cruel; by bears, and they are savage, Isa. xi. 7 ; by dragons, and they are hideous, Ezek. xxix. 3; by wolves, and they are ravenous, Ezek. xxii. 27; by dogs, and they are snarling, Rev. xxii. 15; by vipers and scorpions, and they are stinging, Mat. xii. 34, Ezek. ii. 6; by spiders and cockatrices, and they are poisoning, Isa. lix. 5; by swine, and they are [still grunting, Mat. vii. 6. No man in this world is more like another than the epicure is like a swine; the fraudulent person a fox ; the lustful person a goat; the backbiter a barking cur; the slanderer an asp ; the oppressor a wolf; the persecutor a tiger; the seducer a serpent. Certainly the Irish air will sooner brook toads and snakes and serpents to live therein, than heaven will brook such beasts as unholy souls are to live there. Surely God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and angels, and ‘the spirits of just men made perfect,’ are not so in love with dogs and swine, £c., as to put them into their bosoms, or make them their companions. Heaven is a place of too great state to admit such vermin to inhabit there. When Cyneas, the ambassador of Pyrrhus, after his return from Rome, was asked by his master what he thought of the city and state, he answered and said, that it seemed to him to be republica regum, a state of none but great statesmen, and a commonwealth of kings. Such is heaven; it is no other state than a parliament of emperors, a commonwealth of kings. There is not a soul in heaven under the degree of a king, Rev. i. 6, and every king there hath a robe of honour upon his back, a golden sceptre in his hand, and a glorious crown upon his head. And do you think that it will stand with the state of heaven, or with the state of this commonwealth of kings, to admit such vermin as unholy persons are, to be of that noble society? Surely no. God hath long since resolved upon it, that no unclean beasts shall enter into heaven, that no dirty dogs shall ever trample upon that golden pavement. All in heaven are holy: the angels holy, the saints holy, the patriarchs holy, the prophets holy, the apostles holy, the martyrs holy, but the Lord himself above all is most glorious in holiness, and therefore all those holy ones do, as it were in a divine anthem, sing and say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory,’ Rev. iv. 8 ; Isa. vi. 3. Now certainly it would be a hell to these holy ones to have unholy wretches to be their companions. When the holy angels fell from their holiness, heaven was so holy that it spewed them out, as once Canaan did its unholy inhabitants, Lev. xviii. 28 ; and therefore certainly there will be no room in heaven for such filthy beasts as unholy persons are. Well, remember this, that all those stinging expressions and appellations which disgrace and vilify unholy persons, they were inspired by a holy Spirit, and penned by holy secretaries, and enrolled in his holy word, and published by his holy messengers, and all by his holy appointment, who, as he is greater than the greatest, and wiser than the wisest, and better than the best, so he is too pure and too holy to eat the words that are gone out of his mouth, or to deny or unsay what he hath spoken, or not to maintain the truth thereof against all gainsayers. It is prophesied that when the church shall be restored to her purity and glory, such beasts shall not be there, Isa. xxxv. 9; Ezek. xxviii. 24. The majesty of church discipline shall be such as shall keep out all such beasts. ‘Jerusalem above’ is too glorious a habitation for beasts, or for men of beastly spirits, or beastly principles, or beastly practices. The city of the great God was never built for beasts. A wilderness and not a paradise is fittest for beasts.

It’s amazing that God would suffer to make such beasts holy, not merely inconvenience Himself, but endure dreadful pain in order to make some of these beasts as holy and noble as He is.