Lamentations 3:31-36 For the LORD will not cast off for ever:… I. THE EXISTENCE OF MISERY RECONCILED WITH THE BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 1. You were created happy, by your own faults you became miserable; your Creator, notwithstanding, redeemed you from this state; and the only penance for your guilt is a mixture of misery with happiness, in that short interval which passes between the cradle and the grave. 2. Those sufferings to which we are exposed in this world, are absolutely necessary for the recovery of that perfection in which we were first created, and for the regaining of that dignity and purity which we forfeited by the fall. II. THE UNREASONABLENESS AND INGRATITUDE OF DISCONTENT AND DESPONDENCY. 1. They were not originally designed for us, but having been introduced by the folly and guilt of our first ancestor, they are necessary and unavoidable; and not only so, but they are in a high degree salutary and medicinal. 2. Though it must be allowed that some portion of misery will fall to the share of all men; that no prudence, virtue, or good fortune can entirely escape it: yet I believe that it may he assumed, and will hold true for the most part, that the hours which we spend in ease and happiness are greatly superior, in number, to those which are passed in misery and pain. 3. Many of the evils which are the subject of our hasty complaints, are brought on us by our own imprudence; disappointments frequently arise from unreasonable expectations; poverty is the general product of idleness; sickness is, in many instances, caused by intemperance; the loss of reputation, by vice or folly: in these cases, shame, one would think, should silence our murmurs, and prevent us from attributing to the constitution of human affairs what is only to be imputed to ourselves. (G. Haggitt, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the Lord will not cast off for ever: |
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