Prov. xxvii. 4. Who is able to stand before envy ?
MAN is an enemy to his fellow man : nor is there any one who does not on some occasion experience reason for this complaint. But, if some find means of aggression, others obtain means of defence ; some in
their own powers ; others in the assistance of friends ; others in the arm of the law : others, where all these powers fail them, derive a measure of consolation from submission or flight. The most " cruel wrath, and most outrageous anger," may, by one or other of these means, be withstood, or tolerated, or escaped. But there is one weapon from which there is no flight, and against which there is no protection ; and that is, envy : " Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous ; but who can stand before envy?"
In order to bring the subject of envy fully before you, 1 will shew,
I. What an odious principle it is —
1. Consider what envy is —
[Envy, as existing in the soul, is a sense of pain arising from the real or supposed excellence of another, accompanied with a desire to deprive him of it, and to possess it ourselves. The excellence may be either natural or acquired. Any faculty of body or mind which renders a man estimable in the world is a proper object for envy to fix upon, and against which to direct its shafts. So, in like manner, any attainment of wealth or honour will call forth its malignant efforts against the person in whom such a distinction has been found, especially if the distinction so obtained has been an object of desire to the per- son beholding it, and apparently within his reach : for envy finds scope for operation only between persons amongst whom some kind of rivalry exists. A peasant does not envy either a king or a philosopher ; because the dignity of the one, and the wisdom of the other, are altogether beyond a hope, I had almost said a possibility, of his attainment. Envy includes in it a desire of the distinction that calls it forth, and a pain of seeing it possessed by another, when by possibility it might have been possessed by one's-self.]
2. Next mark its odiousness —
[Nothing excites it but what is either really, or in the person's estimation, good : nor does it ever exert itself, but for the destruction of the happiness of him in whom that good is found. It is the happiness of another that gives pain to the envious man ; and the destruction of that happiness is the great object that would afford him pleasure. Its actings, indeed, are not open, like those of wrath and anger: on the contrary, they are as secret as possible ; and they put on, as far as possi- ble, a specious garb, a garb of candour and of equity. But its
^i52 PROVERBS, XXVII. 4. [812.
inseparable attendants are of the same odious character with itself: namely, "debates, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisper- ings, swellings, tumults^." Indeed, it is very nearly alhed to murder: for, as it is invariably connected with anger, it is murder in embryo'': and hence in the Scriptures it is generally associated with murder : " The works of the flesh," says the Apostle, are hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, sedi- tions, heresies, envijmgs, murders'^-'' and in another place he says of unconverted men, that they are "full oi envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters," and so on*^. It indeed may appear harsh to load this principle with such horrid accusations; but they are true, and all verified by experience. "Wherefore did Cain slay his brother? it was because he saw his brother receiving from God tokens of approbation which were denied to him^. And whence was it that Joseph's brethren took counsel to slay him ? it was on account of his enjoying higher favour with his ftither than they, and his re- ceiving more remarkable communications from God^. But, in truth, we do not view this principle aright, unless we see in it the very image of the devil himself. No other principle in the heart of man bears so strong a resemblance of the devil as this. See our first parents in Paradise, as happy as it was possible for creatures in a state of probation to be. The devil saw and envied them their bliss, and never rested till he had robbed them of it?. Nor does he behold one of their descend- ants turning to the Lord, witliout using every efibrt in his power to divert them from their purpose, and to destroy their souls '\ And what does he gain by this ? Is he himself rendered hap- pier by depriving others of their bliss ? No : he only augments his own guilt and misery ; and yet such is the malignity of his disposition, that he can find no employment to his mind but this: and, so far as he is capable of a momentary mitigation of his pains, he finds it only in robbing man of his happiness, and God of his glory. This is the very character of the envious man, whose "' wisdom," as St. James says, " is not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devUishK'"