I do think it was as delightful to Mr. Badman to hear, raise, and tell lies, and lying stories of them that fear the Lord, as it was for him to go to bed when a weary. But we will at this time let these things pass. For as he was in these things bad enough, so he added to these many more the like.
He was an angry, wrathful, envious man, a man that knew not what meekness or gentleness meant, nor did he desire to learn. His natural temper was to be surly, huffy, and rugged, and worse; and he so gave way to his temper, as to this, that it brought him to be furious and outrageous in all things, especially against goodness itself, and against other things too, when he was displeased.
ATTEN. Solomon saith, He is a fool that rageth (Prov 14:16).
WISE. He doth so; and says moreover, that 'Anger resteth in the bosom of fools' (Eccl 7:9). And, truly, if it be a sign of a fool to have anger rest in his bosom, then was Mr. Badman, notwithstanding the conceit that he had of his own abilities, a fool of no small size.
ATTEN. Fools are mostly most wise in their own eyes.
WISE. True; but I was a saying, that if it be a sign that a man is a fool, when anger rests in his bosom; then what is it a sign of, think you, when malice and envy rests there? For, to my knowledge Mr. Badman was as malicious and as envious a man as commonly you can hear of.
ATTEN. Certainly, malice and envy flow from pride and arrogancy, and they again from ignorance, and ignorance from the devil. And I thought, that since you spake of the pride of Mr. Badman before, we should have something of these before we had done.
WISE. Envy flows from ignorance indeed. And this Mr. Badman was so envious an one, where he set against, that he would swell with it as a toad, as we say, swells with poison.[66] He whom he maligned, might at any time even read envy in his face wherever he met with him, or in whatever he had to do with him. His envy was so rank and strong, that if it at any time turned its head against a man, it would hardly ever be pulled in again; he would watch over that man to do him mischief, as the cat watches over the mouse to destroy it; yea, he would wait seven years, but he would have an opportunity to hurt him, and when he had it, he would make him feel the weight of his envy.
Envy is a devilish thing, the scripture intimates that none can stand before it: 'A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both. Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?' (Prov 27:3,4).
This envy, for the foulness of it, is reckoned among the foulest villainies that are, as adultery, murder, drunkenness, revellings, witchcrafts, heresies, seditions, &c. (Gal 5:19,20). Yea, it is so malignant a corruption, that it rots the very bones of him in whom it dwells. 'A sound heart is the life of the flesh; but envy the rottenness of the bones' (Prov 14:30).