very sight of him is painful, and occasions a desire, if possible, to bring him down to a level with ourselves. Like Saul, " we shall eye him from that day, and forward." His worth and ex- cellence will be so far from pacifying our wrath, that it will rather augment it ; and the brighter his character shines, the more shall we be offended at it. "Envy is" justly said to be " as rottenness in the bones^:" the disease lies deep; it creates uneasy sensations throughout the whole man ; and is out of the reach of any common remedy. Though it may not operate so powerfully as to excite a desire to kill him that is the object of it, yet it invariably so affects the mind as to dispose us to detract from his merits, and to rejoice in his misfortunes. Nay more, we shall be ready, if not by overt act, yet at least by secret connivance, so to lower him in the estimation of others, as to prepare the way for the more easy exercise of their hostility towards him : and then shall rejoice in his fall, pleasing ourselves that it has been accomplished without any intervention on our part : and, if he be removed by death itself, it will excite tne feeling of satisfaction rather than of pain and gi'ief.
Well is this represented by Solomon as one of the greatest evils upon earth, and as stamping " vanity and vexation of spirit" upon all things here below, that " for a good work a man is envied of his neighbour s." For, however " cruel and outrageous wrath" may be, it may be withstood; but " who," says Solomon, " can stand before envy'^?"]
Happy shall we be if, by any prescriptions we may offer, we may be enabled in any degree to promote,
III. Its cure —
No conduct on the part of those who are the objects of it can eradicate envy from the hearts of others. They may indeed put a veil, as it were, over their own virtues, so as to give less occasion for the exercise of envy ; but nothing that they can do can prevent the disposition from being cherished by those around them. But we may all impede its influence over our own hearts ;
1. By contemplating the vanity of earthly dis- tinctions—
[How poor and empty are those vanities which men so greatly affect! The satisfaction arising from wealth or honour is far less than people generally imagine. Only let us reflect
' Prov. xiv. 30. P Ecel. iv. 4. ^ Prov. xxvii. 4.
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