Job had now heard long stories of accusation from his 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 sorrows 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 to the God that smites me. _O that 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 accusations 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 therefore 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 themselves up to a perpetual habit of complaints and groans, though no trial hath 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 accusation; and while they imagine themselves in the case of Job, they resent highly every real or suspected injury: in short, they make a great part of their own sorrows themselves, and then they cry out and complain; and among their dismal complainings, they often, without 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 indulged 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 intimate view of every outward and inward wound, we should acknowledge their stroke was heavier than their groaning; and especially when God is in such a measure absent from them too, that they are at a loss, as Job was, how they should come at him or converse with the heavenly Father: then their souls break out into vehement desires, _O that I knew where I might find him!_