JEALOUSY

     Another element that helps to make up the sum total of the body of sin is jealousy. Akin to and inseparable from this are envy and selfishness. Every careful observer knows that it is impossible to draw a line that will completely separate one carnal trait from another. They are partners, they are children of a common parent, they are branches of one tree. We can, in a measure, separate them for the purpose of explanation, but are constantly brought to realize that in describing one we are encroaching on the territory of another.

     Jealousy is an offspring of pride, and is an inordinate love of self; its natural result is envy. Solomon says that jealousy is as cruel as the grave. There is no limit to the heartlessness of unrestrained jealousy. While professing to love and to be solicitous for an individual's welfare, it is willfully causing that very person pain, and hard-heartedly glorying in its victim's misery. Jealousy claims all the pleasure of the associations and love of a particular person, and, rather than, in the least degree, share its joys with another, allowed to take its course, will brutally murder the idol of its heart, and then fearing the retribution that must come, send its own soul groaning into eternity. Jealousy would take to itself all the honor and praise, whether worthy or not; it would live in pomp and splendor while those around are dying of starvation. This is jealousy, envy, and love of self in their legitimate fulfillment.

     Our inquiry is as to how this principle manifests itself in the regenerated but uncleansed heart.

     1. First, that person whose heart is still infested by jealousy is not able at all times to rightly fulfil the command to rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep. He does rejoice, but not with as free a heart as he would were he the successful person; he does weep, but not as he would at his own reverses. The heart's unholiness may at times he further detected by the fact that the lack of rejoicing is accompanied by a feeling of desire that it had been himself that succeeded, or the lack of weeping by an almost unconscious glorying in his neighbor's defeat.

     2. The heart iii which the principle of jealousy remains finds it difficult to love its neighbor as itself. Such love will cause its possessor to as honestly desire the success of his neighbor as he does his own; to rejoice as freely because his neighbor secured the desired position as he would had he gotten it himself. If the preacher of the gospel loves his neighbor as himself he will be glad to see his neighbor pastor succeed, and will rejoice heartily with him over his success. This love will not cause him to neglect his own work and to put in his time on his neighbor's charge. Such a course would be wrong in more than one way; but, while his heart is in his own field of labor, and he bends his energies toward securing the spiritual prosperity of his people, yet his love for souls will cause him to rejoice in their salvation in any place, and his love for his brother is so great that he will rejoice to see him succeed even though those successes may cause his brother to be lionized and himself to be considered common.

     3. It is hard for that heart in which jealousy still dwells to properly fulfil that characteristic of love which "seeketh not her own." How often in the secret of your heart you have cried, "Oh, that my love for God, for souls, for my brethren, was unmixed; with no ends of my own!" But you realize that your most holy moments and most sacred duties are tainted with this self-centered principle which would do things that you might obtain glory or praise to yourself or for your attainments, and which would even desire the blessings of God that you might consume them on your own lusts.

     4. It is hard for the unclean heart to cease looking on its own and to seek another's wealth. On the contrary, there remains a tendency to seek its own profit and that even at the expense of the comfort or pleasure of another. The saved soul will not willfully promote itself at the expense of its brother or any other man, but there is a struggle against -- inherent tendencies which, if allowed to have their way, would cause him to do so.

     5. If jealousy remains you are likely to feel disappointed when your brother is advanced instead of you, or if your place is given to one that is considered more competent. You are in love with your own fancied competency, and feel uncomfortable when another seems in a fair way to excel. You may feel uncomfortable when another is praised and can scarcely keep from thinking of your own virtues and secretly wondering if the person with whom you are conversing knows how virtuous and competent present company is; or it may be that you keep thinking of the faults of the party mentioned and it takes an effort to keep from telling them, but because of grace you refrain.

     6. Jealousy among ministers is a terrible thing. It causes one to attempt to outshine others in preaching, wire-pulling for the best and most lucrative positions, evil-speaking and criticizing of another in order to lower his standing. The jealous preacher dislikes to labor with his brother preacher, lest the applause which he has been receiving will in a measure be given to the other. O brethren, are you guilty? If so do you wonder that your work is a failure! Such things are inconsistent with saving grace, but, nevertheless, are freely indulged by some who profess to be called of God. When blind people are led by such blind guides, is it any wonder that they both fall into the ditch?

     The following quotation from Baxter's Reformed Pastor is to the point in this place, and should be read with care and prayerfulness by every minister who in the least desires the glory of God to be displayed in his life:

     "Some ministers are so set upon a popular air, and having the highest place in the esteem of men, that they envy the abilities and names of their brethren who are preferred to them; as if all were taken from their praise that is given to another's, and as if God had bestowed His gifts upon them as the mere ornaments of their persons, that they might walk as men of reputation in the world; and as if all the gifts of other ministers were to be trodden down and vilified, if they should stand in the way of their honor. Strange, that one workman should malign another, because he helps him to do his Master's work! Yet how common is this heinous crime among men of ability and eminence in the church! They will secretly blot the reputation of such as oppose their own, and will at least raise suspicions, where they cannot fasten accusations. Nay, some go so far as to be unwilling that any ministers abler than themselves should come into their pulpits, lest they should be applauded above themselves. It is a surprising thing that any man who has the least fear of God should so envy His gifts in others as that he had rather his carnal hearers should remain unconverted than that they should be converted by another person who may be preferred to himself. Yet this sin does so prevail that it is difficult to get two ministers to live together in love and quietness, unanimously to carry on the work of God, unless one of them be greatly inferior to the other, and content to be so esteemed, and to be governed by him. They are contending for precedency, envying each other's interest, and behaving with strangeness and jealousy toward one another, to the shame of their profession and the injury of their congregation. Nay, so great is the pride of some ministers, that when they might have an equal assistant, to further the work of God, they had rather take all the burden upon themselves, though more than they can bear, than that any should share with them in their honor, or lest they should diminish their own interest in the people. It is owing to pride that many ministers make so little proficiency: they are too proud to learn. It is through pride, also, that men so magnify their own opinions, and are so censorious of any that differ from them in lesser things, as if their sentiments were the rules of the church's faith. While we cry down papal infallibility, too many of us would be popes ourselves, and would have everything determined by our judgments, as if we were infallible. And so high are our spirits, that when any reprove or contradict us (though they have sufficient reason to do it), we are commonly impatient both of the matter and the manner. We love the man that will say as we say, and promote our reputation, though in other respects he be less worthy our esteem; but he is ungrateful to us who differs from us, and contradicts us, and who plainly tells us of our faults, specially in relation to our public performances. Many, through their pride, imagine that all those despise them who do not admire all they say and submit to their judgments in the most palpable mistakes. Thus they have dishonored themselves by idolizing their honor, and publicly proclaim their own shame. From pride proceed all the envy, contention and unpeaceableness of ministers, which are the hindrances to all reformation. All would lead, but few will follow or concur. Yea, hence proceeds schisms and apostasies, as did former persecutions, arrogant usurpations and impositions. In short, it is pride at the root that nourishes all our other sins, and this virtually contains them all." ^[1]

     Jealousy is the inward tendency to seek the best for self, to rejoice when it is received and feel disappointed when it is lost. My brother, do your ears itch for applause? Do you love to call attention to yourself, your attainments, your graces? Do you in the least delight in the misfortune of another? Do you rejoice in the least in your exaltation merely because you are exalted, and with little desire in your new position to glorify God? If any of these tendencies remain, get to the blood and let it cleanse you from sin, for sin surely remains in your heart.

1 See chapter 27.