fair to their mind, they are fretting and vexing, and their hearts are
2. Inferiors are commonly very apt to complain. If everything is not fair to their mind, they are fretting and vexing, and their hearts are hot within them; they are uneasy in their place and station, finding fault with everything that is said or done to them. Here is lacking a quiet spirit, which would reconcile us to the post we are in, and to all the difficulties of it, and would make the best of the present state, though it is attended with many inconveniences. Those unquiet people whom the apostle Jude in his epistle compares to raging waves of the sea and wandering stars, were murmurers and complainers—blamers of their lot, so the word signifies. It is an instance of unquietness, to be ever and anon quarreling with our allotment. Those wives lacked a meek and quiet spirit who "covered the altar of the Lord with tears:" not tears of repentance for sin, but tears of vexation at the disappointments they met in their outward condition. Hannah's meekness and quietness was in some degree lacking, when she fretted and wept, and would not eat; but prayer composed her spirit; her countenance was no more sad. It was the unquietness of the spirit of the elder brother in the parable, that quarreled so unreasonably with his father for receiving and entertaining the penitent prodigal. Those that are given to be uneasy, will never lack something or other to complain of. It is true, though not so readily apprehended, that the sullenness and murmuring and silent frets of children and servants, are as great a transgression of the law of meekness, as the more open, noisy, and avowed passions of their parents and masters. We find the king's chamberlains angry with the king. And Cain's quarrel with God Himself for accepting Abel, was interpreted as anger by God. "Why are you angry, and why is your countenance fallen?" The sour looks of inferiors are as certain indicators of anger resting in the bosom, as the disdainful looks of superiors; and how many such instances of discontentment there have been, especially under a continual cross, our own consciences may perhaps tell us. It is the lack of meekness only that makes those