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brother without a cause, is in danger of the judgment.

To consider violent anger as a mere infirmity incident to human nature, is to form wrong conceptions of it. We should remember, that wrath and strife are as expressly enumerated among the works of the flesh, as uncleanness, murder, or drunkenness. The former may be as offensive to God, as ruinous to us, and as hurtful to our fellow creatures, as the latter.

The suppression of rash anger, therefore, every one must own to be highly conducive to the comfort of human life, the honour of our holy religion, and the welfare and happiness of all societies, whether natural, civil, or sacred.

By a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price, we are enabled to govern ourselves when any thing occurs that is provoking. As temperance serves to check and moderate our natural appetites in regard to what is pleasing to the flesh, so by meekness we govern and guide our resentment of what is displeasing.

One of the seven sages of Greece left this maxim as a memorial of his knowledge and benevolence; "Be master of thine anger." He thought, it should seem, that he could not lay on posterity a stronger obligation to revere his memory, than by leaving them a salutary caution against furious and unguarded anger.

Rage, peevishness, and implacable resentment, can never be vindicated. They are so hateful and diabolical in their nature, and so mischievous in their effects, that they can never admit of any defence: every wise man condemns them. Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous: and who is able to stand before envy?

Violent anger, it has been observed, makes itself visible by many outward signs. It renders the countenance sometimes red and fiery, sometimes pale and wan; it flames or scowls in the eyes, it wrinkles the brow, it enlarges the nostrils, and makes them heave; it fills the tongue with short spiteful words, or noisy threatenings, and the hands with weapons of violence to assault the offender; and sometimes it causes a tremor through all the limbs.

"There is (says an excellent and judicious author) no passion properly so called, and considered in itself as belonging to man, which is absolutely sinful in the abstract nature of it all the works of God are good. But if passion be let loose on an improper object, or an improper time or degree, or for too long a continuance, then it becomes criminal, and obtains sometimes a distinct name. Esteem, placed upon self as the object, and in an unreasonable degree, becomes pride. Anger, prolonged into a settled temper, often turns into malice; and if it be mingled with vices of the will, it becomes sinful also under that consideration."

The mettle of a young and vigorous steed is not only harmless, but serviceable, when under due regulation. Much the same may be said of anger in the mind of man. When meekness is the bridle that restrains it, and wisdom the hand that guides it, we are safe; but if it be not under proper government, it breaks through all decorum, grows headstrong and outrageous, and threatens mischief to ourselves or those about us. So the unmanageable horse tramples on those who stand in his

way, and perhaps throws the rider headlong on the ground: it should be restrained, therefore, with bit and bridle. We are not to submit to anger as to our master, but to govern it as our servant. It should never appear but on proper occasions, nor then but under the strictest guard. We should never suffer it to carry us beyond the bounds of decency: our resentment should never be either deep or lasting.

My design in this essay is, (1.) To point out the springs and causes of sinful anger(2.) To consider with what we may lawfully be angry-(3.) What restrictions should attend our anger, that we offend not God by it(4.) To consider when it is sinful-(5.) To give some cautions against that anger which is violent and criminal, and to prescribe some rules for the suppression of it.

AN

ESSAY ON ANGER.

CHAP. I.

THE SPRINGS AND CAUSES OF SINFUL ANGER.

THE irregularity of all our passions originates in the depravity of our nature. In the moral as well as the natural world we may plainly perceive the indications of some violent convulsion which has shattered and disordered the workmanship of the great Former of all things. The history of the several nations of mankind, through successive ages and generations, does but present us with a view of the follies and crimes of the descendants of Adam: the whole is a continued tragedy. On this habitable globe, as on a spacious theatre, the same repeated scene hath been exhibited of depredations, wrath, strife, debate, tumult, cruelty, oppression, and bloodshed; the follies of mankind breaking forth in a thousand guilty forms, and their passions hurrying them on to wretchedness and ruin. Hence the necessity of that wonder of

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