The Scripture directory for church-officers and people, or, A practical commentary upon the whole…

First, The wickedness of this sin, may be excellently illustrated by that admirable good it is opposite to; for this is a rule, That privation is the worst, whose habit is the best, that is the greatest evil, which is opposite to the greatest good: Now there is a three-fold good that envy doth oppose, as fire water, and darkness light. 1. The infinite goodness in God. 2. The inestimable goodness in Christ. 3. The admirable goodness, in the grace of love, or charity: So that if you would know, how great an evil envy is, say, it is as great an evil, as God is good, as Christ is good; it opposeth Gods goodness, so that phrase implieth, Is thy eye evil, because God is good? Mat. 20 15. that is not intensively, but privatively, for envy doth take God and Christ from me, my neighbour from me, and my self from my self; it maketh Gods goodness, and thy neighbours goodness, to be his evil who envieth; this bitterness upon thy heart, is because God is such a fountain of goodness, that he communicates his mercies freely: Were envy able to fall upon that pure, and spotless Majesty of God, he would not have created the world, nor made such glorious Angels, nor give such excellent perfections to some in the world? for many times God loseth his glory by this means, when they do not praise him, but dishonour him: yet for all this, behold the goodness of God, that doth so liberally diffuse it self, though his glory be obscured thereby. Oh! if it lay in an envious man, to make men great, or admired, or despicable, and contemptible, how quickly would he make the world a poor Hospital, that he might have all the glory! Behold then, the venomous poison of this sin of envy, which doth grudge, and repine, at the glorious Attribute of God, his bounty, and liberality; that which David is so ravished with himself, and calls upon Angels, and other creatures, to praise God for, viz. His mercy which endureth for ever, this the envious man is vexed at. There was a seed of this bitter wormwood in Jonah, how discontented, and ⟨p. 30⟩grieved was he, that God did not destroy that populous City of Nineveh, on a sudden, and how patiently did God expostulate with him, and confute him by his own Gourd, that he was troubled at, because consumed by a worm on a sudden? Jon. 4.10. Oh if an envious man would think, thus would I have God no better to me, then to such an one!