immediately after the fall% and is it too often imitated by his guilty descendants — ]
2. On account of their sorrows —
[Sorrow is entailed on all as the punishment of the first transgression : but most of the afflictions which men suffer are brought on them by their own folly. Some involve themselves in distress through sloth or intemperance ; others ruin them- selves by imprudence and extravagance. Others bring them- selves into difficulties by the tempers which they exercise, and the habits which they form: but all under their calamities " fret against the Lord." They are full of invectives against those that have been the more immediate occasions of their trouble**; they consider their lotas hard and severe; and thus do they reflect on Providence rather than on themselves. Cain, the first-born of Adam, indulged this malignant spirit*^ ; nor are there any sons of sorrow who do not more or less follow his example.]
Nor are believers themselves wholly free from this
disposition —
[They watch and pray against their besetting sin, yet are sometimes brought under the power of it. On these occasions they are tempted to fret against the Lord ; they are ready to expostulate with him like those of old '^; they forget how justly they might have been eternally forsaken ; and that the remain- ing power of their sins is the consequence both of former habits, and of present neglects. Under afflictions also they feel too much proneness to murmur. What sinful impatience did the holy Elijah manifest^ ! Even Job himself preserved not wholly a becoming temper^.]
This disposition however is most hateful in the sight of God. IL Point out the evil of it —
It betrays the most deplorable ignorance —
[God is not, nor can be, the author of sin. He maintains in all things the character given of him^: hence St. James shews the folly of casting blame on God**; nor can God punish any of us more than our iniquities deserve : hence the expos- tulation of the prophet is unanswerable'. Besides, to fret against God is not the way to interest him in our behalf, nor
^ Gen. iii. 12. He obliquely condemns God for giving the woman to him.
b Numb. xvi. 11, 41. " Gen. iv. 13, 14. ^ Isai. Iviii. 3.
e 1 Kings xix. 4. ^ Job vii. 15, IG. e Deut. xxxii. 4.
'1 Jam. i. 13, 14. ' Lam. iii. 39.