20 THE BRUISED REED " Nor muzzle the mouth of the ox," 1 Cor. ix. 9. Hath God care of beasts, and not of his more noble creatures ? Therefore we ought to judge charitably of the complaints of God's people, which are wrung from them in such cases : Job had the estee-p.1 with God of a patient man, notwithstanding those passionate complaints. Faith overborne for the present, will get ground again ; and grief for sin, although it comes short of grief for misery in violence, yet goeth beyond it in constancy; as a running strean1 fed with a spring holdeth out, when a sudden swelling brook faileth. For the concluding this point, and our encouragement to a thorough work of bruising, and patience under it, let all know that none are fitter for comfort than those who think themselves furthest off. Men, for the most part, are not lost enough, in their own feeling, for a Saviour. A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope. " In God, the fatherless find mercy." If men were more fatherless, they would feel more of God's fatherly affection from heaven ; for the God who dwelleth in the highest heavens,
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