[2.] Others have an envious nature, always maligning and repining at other men’s felicity; an evil eye that cannot look on another’s better condition without vexation. This turns a man into a devil. It is the devil’s proper sin, and the fury that doth unquiet him, and he the better knows of what avail it would be to help on our trouble.
[3.] Some are of proud tempers, always overvaluing themselves, with the scorn and contempt of others. This humour is troublesome to all about them, but all this trouble doth at last redound to themselves. These think all others should observe them, and take notice of their supposed excellencies, which if men do not, then it pines them or stirs up their choler to indignation. Solomon, Prov. xxx. 21, mentioning those things that are greatly disquieting in the earth, instanceth in ‘a servant when he reigneth; and the handmaid that is heir to her mistress,’ intending thereby the proud, imperious insolency of those that are unexpectedly raised from a low estate to wealth or honour. He that is of ‘a proud heart stirreth up strife,’ Prov. xxviii. 25; and as he is troublesome to others, so doth he create trouble to himself; for he not only molests himself by the working of his disdainful thoughts, while he exerciseth his scorn towards others: Prov. xxi. 24, ‘The haughty scorner deals in proud wrath;’ but this occasions the affronts and contempt of others again, which beget new griefs to his restless mind.
[4.] Some have a natural exorbitancy of desire, an evil coveting; they are passionately carried forth toward what they have not, and have no contentment or satisfaction in what they do enjoy. Such humours are seldom at ease, their desires are painfully violent; and when they obtain what they longed for, they soon grow weary of it, and then another object takes up their wishes, so that these ‘daughters of the horse-leech are ever crying, Give, give,’ Prov. xxx. 15.
[5.] Others have a soft effeminate temper, a weakness of soul that makes them unfit to bear any burden, or endure any hardness. These, if they meet with pains or troubles—and who can challenge an exemption from them?—they are presently impatient, vexing themselves by a vain reluctancy to what they cannot avoid; not but that extraordinary burdens will make the strongest spirit to stoop, but these cry out for the smallest matters, which a stout mind would bear with some competent cheerfulness.
[6.] And there are other dispositions that are tender to an excess of sympathy, so that they immoderately affect and afflict themselves with other men’s sorrows. Though this be a temper more commendable than any of the former, yet Satan can take advantage of this, as also of the fore-named dispositions, to discompose us, especially by suiting them with fit occasions, which readily work upon these tempers. And this was,
(2.) The second thing to be explained, which shall be performed by a brief enumeration of them, the chief whereof are these:
[1.] Contempt or disestimation. When a man’s person, parts, or opinion are slighted, his anger, envy, pride, and impatience are awakened, and these make him swell and restless within. Even good men have been sadly disturbed this way. Job, as holy a man as he was, and who had enough of greater matters to trouble his mind, yet among other griefs complains of this more than once: Job xii. 4, ‘I am as one mocked of his neighbour: the just upright man is laughed to scorn;’ chap. xix. 15, ‘They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer. Yea, young children despised me; I rose up and they spake against me.’ Thus he bemoans himself, and, which is more, speaks of it again with some smartness of indignation: Job xxx. 1, ‘Now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ David also, who had a stout heart under troubles, complains that he could not bear reproaches: Ps. lxix., ‘Reproach hath broken mine heart; I am full of heaviness.’ What these reproaches were, and how he was staggered with them, he tells us: ver. 10, ‘I chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. I made sackcloth my garment; and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.’ With these he was so stounded that if he had not catched hold on God by prayer, as he speaks, ver. 13, he had fallen, ‘But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord,’ &c.; and he afterward speaks of his support under reproaches as a wonder of divine assistance: Ps. cxix. 51, ‘The proud have had me in derision: yet have I not declined from thy law.’
[2.] Injury is another occasion by which the devil works upon our tempers to disquiet us. Wrongs of injustice and oppression are hard to bear. This is a common ground of trouble. Good men cannot always acquit themselves in this case as they ought. Jeremiah, when smitten by Pashur, and put in the stocks, Jer. xx. 2, 8, falls into a sad passion: ‘I am a derision daily, every one mocketh me. I cried out, I cried violence and spoil,’ imitating the passionate affrightments of those that cry, Murder, murder, &c. No wonder, seeing Solomon gives it as an axiom built upon manifold experience, Eccles. vii. 7. Oppression doth not only make a man unquiet, but mad in his unquietness; and not only those that are foolish and hasty, but the most considerate and sedate persons: ‘Oppression makes a wise man mad.’
[3.] Another occasion of men’s discomposure is, the prosperity of the wicked. Their abundance, their advancements to honours and dignity, hath always been a grudge to those whose condition is below them, and yet suppose themselves to have better grounds to expect preferment than they. This astonished Job even to trembling: Job xxi. 7, ‘When I remember, I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh;’ and the matter was but this, ‘Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, and mighty in power?’ &c. The trouble that seizeth on men’s hearts on this occasion is called fretting, a vexation that wears out the strength of the soul, as two hard bodies waste by mutual attrition or rubbing. And it takes its advantage from our envy chiefly, though other distempers come in to help it forward: Ps. xxxvii. 1, ‘Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.’ David confesseth that he was apt to fall into this trouble, Ps. lxxiii. 3, ‘I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.’ Against this disquiet we have frequent cautions, Prov. xxiv. 1, 19, and Ps. xlix. 16, ‘Be not afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased.’ All which shew our proneness to this disease.
[4.] Crosses and afflictions give Satan an opportunity to work upon our passions; as disappointments of expectations, loss of friends, of estate, persecutions and sufferings for conscience sake, &c. None of these in their own nature are ‘joyous, but grievous;’ and what use they have been of to the devil to discompose the minds of the sufferers, is evidenced by common experience. The tears, sad countenances, and doleful lamentations of men are true witnesses of the disquiet of their hearts. Every one being pressed with the sense of his own smart is ready to cry out, ‘Is there any sorrow like my sorrow? I am poor and comfortless; my lovers and my friends have forsaken me, and there is none to help.’ Some grow faint under their burden, while their eyes fail in looking for redress, especially when new unexpected troubles overwhelm their hopes: ‘When I looked for good, then evil came; and when I waited for light, there came darkness,’ Job xxx. 26. ‘Why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble,’ Jer. xiv. 19; and here they sink, concluding there is no hope. Others that bear up better in a blessed expectation of spiritual profit, having that of David in their eye, ‘Blessed is the man whom thou afflictest, and teachest in thy law;’ yet they cannot forbear their complaints even to God; Ps. xxv. 17, ‘The troubles of mine heart are enlarged; oh bring thou me out of my distresses; look upon mine affliction and my pain.’ Nay,[324] those that have had the highest advantages of heavenly support, whose hearts have been kept in peace, counting it all joy that they have fallen into these trials—and God doth more this way for those that suffer for the gospel’s sake than ordinarily for others; yet have not these been under a stoical senselessness of their trouble. Though they were not ‘distressed,’ they were ‘troubled on every side;’ though ‘not in despair,’ yet they were ‘perplexed,’ 2 Cor. iv. 8; though their afflictions were light, yet were they afflictions still.