earth, without regard to wealth, titles, rank, or profeffion, meet with that punishment or that reward, and that only, which we deferve. From this low fcene, where we are now engaged, this fink of malice, calumny and detraction, to the regions of peace and juftice, of righteousness and truth, may the God of mercies convey us all, through the merits and mediation of our Saviour Jefus Chrift.

ON ANGER.

SERMON

XXVII.

ECCLESIASTES VII. 9.

Be not hafty in thy Spirit to be angry, for anger refteth in the bofom of fools.

AMONGST all thofe violent and unruly

paffions, which difturb the peace and undermine the happiness of mankind, there is not perhaps one which is attended with more fatal and destructive confequences, than that which the wife man in the words of my text has fo juftly branded with the name of folly; a folly of fo malignant and dangerous a nature, as to root up and deftroy all the pleasures of fociety; abfolutely oppofite and contradictory to the rules of reafon, and utterly inconfiftent with the dictates of religion; a folly, which, whilft

it brings terror and deftruction on others, reflects the highest shame and ignominy on ourfelves; which urges us on to violate the laws both of God and man, and not only makes us truly unhappy in this world, but at the fame time muft likewise inevitably subject us to the divine difpleasure in that which is to come. The paffion of anger, as implanted in the breast of man, by our all wife and good Creator, hath doubtlefs nothing in it of guilt or misery, though, by our own unhappy management of it, it may become productive of both.

Anger is indeed no more than a fudden emotion of the foul alarmed at the approach of evil, and preparing for its own defence. The mind no fooner receives a wound from without, than, like the body, it grows warm and inflamed; the faculties of the one, like the limbs of the other, feem immediately to place themselves in a pofture of refiftance, and to refent the injury received: without this natu. ral armour of the mind, we fhould be in perpetual danger of repeated infults, and fall a helpless facrifice to the violence of every enemy that attacked us.

Thus far the paffion, we fee, is neither unlawful or unneceffary; we may doubtlefs, as fcripture hath itfelf affured, and reafon doth fufficiently confirm to us, be angry and fin not: we fhould fin indeed in fome circumftances, that is, we fhould be deficient in the duty we owe to ourselves, if we were not fo.

But in this, as in almost every human affection, it is the abuse, and not the thing, the excefs,

excess, and not the paffion, which constitutes the crime, and brings on the punishment.

Anger, like that fire which it so nearly refembles, may be a good and useful fervant, whilft fubmiffive to the dictates of reason, and obcdient to the laws of humanity; but when it acts by its own authority, without restraint or controul, it becomes a moft cruel and imperious mafter. It may be the means, we cannot but acknowledge, of faving us from fome dangers; but it may alfo, as will more evidently appear in the fubfequent difcourfe, lead us into many more: it may fometimes act the part of a friend, guardian, and protector, but it may, like other friends, other guardians and protectors, deceive and betray us, and often prove our most bitter and moft inveterate enemy.

Be not hafty in thy Spirit to be angry, fays Solomon, for anger refleth in the bofom of fools. That is to fay, it may fometimes intrude, like an officious vifitor, into the breast even of the wife man, but the bofom of the fool is, as it were; its habitation and its home, its favourite and its conftant refidence, where it is al ways fure to meet with a favourable reception and a hearty welcome.

And here it may not be improper to obferve, that most men are fo fond of being thought wife, that they had rather fuffer the imputation of vice, than of folly; and he who reprehends the morals of his neighbour, will meet with a readier forgiveness than he who impeaches his understanding. Certain it is, that, at least in

this our age, we had rather be called knaves than fools. Amongst the latter, we see the angry man is ranked by Solomon, by that royal follower of wisdom, whofe judgment we have furely no right to difpute, and whofe impartiality we have no right to queftion. If we therefore have any regard to our character and reputation, if we have any ambition to acquire that wisdom which he poffeffed, or any defire of avoiding that folly which he fo feverely cenfures; it will become us to confider what it was that induced him to brand this paffion with a name fo odious, or to fet its votaries in a light fo contemptible.-Ift, Because the angry man doth, by the indulgence of his paffion, defeat his own end and purpose in it-2dly, Because it hurts his character and reputation:and 3dly, Because it wounds his peace and tranquillity. Solomon then might most naturally and probably conclude, that anger refted in the bofom of fools.

First, then, I shall take occafion to observe, that the angry man must be a fool, because he defeats his own end and purpose.

If to be angry with men for their folly would make them wifer, or if to be angry with them for their wickedness would make them better, we fhould not want fome excufe for our warmth, and fome reafon for our refentment. The paffionate man, though he would then be hurtful to himself, might still be ferviceable to others, and a private vice become the means of promoting public virtue; but the truth is, this falutary effect is by no means to be expected

pected from a remedy fo poor and fo inefficacious; a remedy, which, like many others, inftead of removing but encreases the diforder.

Ridicule may fometimes laugh men out of their faults; advice may correct; reafon may reform; but very few, I believe, have ever grown better by anger, or wifer by refentment. It is always the angry man's peculiar misfortune that the louder he talks, the lefs he is heard, and the more he fays, the lefs he is attended to; his arrows either fly with fo much fpeed that they overfhoot the mark, or are fo ill-directed that they pass by on one fide of it. Add to this the confideration, that one half of thofe things which raise our indignation, do perhaps better become our laughter, and the other rather deferve our pity. We should not therefore most affuredly venture our own character, and our own peace, without the leaft profpect of restoring our neighbour's, or be fo abfurd as to imagine that one man's folly can correct another's error, or one man's vice render another virtuous.

But fecondly, The angry man must be a fool, because he destroys his own character and reputation in the world, because he is fure to meet not only with disappointment but also with contempt. Anger is fo very unfit to perform the office which it affumes, that, like a partial magistrate, it condemns without trial, and executes without judgment; paffes an arbitrary fentence before examination, and often punishes the fault before it is committed.

As nothing therefore is fo mean as the proud man, nothing is fo humble as the angry man;

for