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SERM.
V.3
THE
SOUL
DRAWING NEAR TO
GOD.
79
if
our hearts
are
but
in
a serious frame, and
if our
tem-.
per or
circumstances
of
mind
or
body
have any
thing
a
-kin
to
the
grief
or piety
of
this good man.
Job
had
now
beard
long stories
of
accusation
from
bis friends, while he
was bowed
down,
and groaning
under
the heavy
providences
of
God
;
they
persecuted
.
him whom
God
had smitten,
and poured
in
fresh
sor-
rows
upon
all his
wounds.
"
I
will
turn
aside,
saith
he,
from man, for miserable
comforters
are
ye
all
;
and
I
will
address
myself to
God, even the
God
that
smites
me.
O
that
I
knew where
I
might
find
him
!"
The
stroke
of
the father doth
not
make the
child
fly
from
him,
but
come
nearer, and
bow
himself
before his
best
friend
;
this
is
the
filial
temper
of
the children
of
God.
"
My
complaint
is
bitter, saith
Job,
ver.
2.
because
of
my
sorrows from the hand
of
God, and
from the
ac-
cusations and reproaches
of
my
friends;
you may
think
I
am
too
lavish in
my
complainings and
my
continual
cries,
but
I
feel
more
than
I
complain
of."
And
there-
fore
Job
is
set
up as
a pattern of
patience
;
for he could
say,'
my
stroke
is
heavier than
my
groaning.
There
are
some
of
the children
of God
who give
them-
selves
up to a
perpetual habit
of
complaints and groans,
though
no
trial
has befallen them
but what
is
common to
men
;
they make
all
around
them
sensible
of
every
lesser
pain
they
feel,
and
being
always
uneasy
in
themselves,
they
take the kindest and gentlest admonition for an ac-
cusation;
and
while
they imagine themselves
in
the
case
of Job,
they
resent
highly every
real or suspected in-
jury;
in
short,
they make
a
great part
of
their
own
sor-
rows themselves,
and then
they cry
out and
complain
;
and among their dismal complainings, they
often, with-
out
reason, assume the words
of Job
as
their
own,
and
say,
"
My stroke
is
heavier than
my
groaning."
In
some
persons
this
is
the
temper
of
their natures, and
in
others
a
mere
distemper
of
the
body; but
both
ought
to watch
against
it,
and resist
it,
because
it appears
so
much like
sinful
impatience and fretfulness,
that it cannot
be
in-
dulged
without
sin.
There
are others,
whose
real
afflictions
are dreadful
indeed,
and
uncommon,
who seem to
tire
all
their
friends
with
their complaints
too
;
but,
it
may
be,
if
we
knew all
their variety
of
sorrows,
and could take an
inti-
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