On Sickness
S. Lavington. Job 7:3-5 So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.… When any disease severely attacks us, we are ready to imagine that our trouble is almost peculiar to ourselves; attended with circumstances which have never been before experienced. So we think, but we are deceived. The same complaint has been formerly made; others have exceeded us in sufferings, as much as they have excelled us in patience and piety. There are disorders which make our beds uneasy. Some circumstances render the night particularly tedious to those who are sick. 1. Its darkness. Light is sweet. 2. Its solitariness. In the day the company and conversation of friends help to beguile the time. At night we are left alone. 3. Its confinement. In the day change of place and posture afford temporary relief. At night we are shut up, as it were, in a prison. 4. Its wakefulness. If we could get sleep we should welcome it as a very desirable blessing. It would render us, for a time, insensible to pain. Sometimes we cannot sleep. Suggest some useful reflections — (1) Be thankful for former mercies. (2) Be humbled for former sins. Observe the latter part of the text. Our disorders may be not only painful to ourselves, but offensive to those who are near us. Then be not proud of your bodies. Never boast of their strength or their complexion; for both may be destroyed by a short fit of sickness. Learn the much greater loathsomeness of sin. And rejoice in the prospect of having better bodies hereafter. (S. Lavington.) Parallel Verses KJV: So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. WEB: so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.