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For we have the words of our Bleffed Saviour to affure us, that he who giveth but a cup of cold water for his fake fhall not fail of his reward. Let us endeavour to imitate Him in humility, and remember that pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall; that it has thrown down kings from their thrones, drove man out of paradife, and expelled angels from Heaven. May their fall be our warning*!

In the preceding Sermon I have chiefly confined myself to reflections on the different stages of life, and external causes of pride. To attempt to trace it's fources diftin&tly through the various workings of the human paflions, would exceed my capacity, or the limits of this difcourfe

SER

SERMON

V.

The Government of the Paffions, and cruel Effects of finful Anger.

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to ed ECCLESIASTICUS X. 18

Pride was not made for men, nor furious anger for them that are born of a woman.

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mer of which I have confidered in a preceding discourse, have a closer connexion with each other than we are apt at first fight to imagine. For furious anger generally proceeds from pride; and pride from an intellect either naturally deficient, or else untutored in the fevere fchool of affliction. discipline of that school meliorates the foul, and brings it acquainted with those amiable kindred virtues, or accomplishments, wisdom and humility.

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BUT though a furious man is not to be vindicated, yet some degrees there are of refentment not chargeable with guilt; and ef

pecially

pecially when the offence is committed not fo much against us, as against religion and virtue. It becomes us then to fhew, that wifdom is not deftitute of zealous advocates, being in this, as in other refpects, juftified of all her children. Mean-time be the offence we refent ever so high, notorious and complicated, we must not dare to affume GoD's prerogative, who, condefcending to speak af ter the manner of men, declares vengeance to be his, which he will not fail to repay.

In the farther treatment of this subject, no one, I prefume, will expect from me a logical exactness of method; but I fhall endeavour to reduce and confine my thoughts to the following heads:

I SHALL confider, firft, how far and in what cafes anger is innocent; fecondly, what provocations we ought to overlook as beneath our anger; thirdly, how injurious our anger, when exceffive, will be to ourfelves; and, finally, the ferene happiness of that mind, which is enabled to overcome refentment, to despise affronts, and make the ill ufage received from others turn to its own benefit.

I AM to begin with confidering, how far and in what cafes anger is innocent, or ap

pears

pears to be authorized by reason and religion; for that fuch cafes there are, is beyond queftion, as St. Paul's caution upon this fubject evidently implies, that anger and fin are not infeparable. Be ye angry, and fin not; let not the fun go down upon your wrath. Refentment is a paffion in fome degree neceffary to creatures of our rank and in our circumftances; and doubtless, had the exertion of it never been requifite, the great Author of our Being who doth nothing in vain, and who endued us with all our natural paffions as well as faculties, would never have given us this quick mental feeling. Indeed, had we been to converfe only with meek, innocent, and benevolent tempers, this paffion might have lain dormant, or even been excluded out of our frame; but the various parts we have to act on this stage of life, often throw us among perfons, whofe fouls, if I may use the expreffion, feem not to have been made of fo fine materials, nor caft in fo fair a mould. Their high affronts to their Maker, by their general violation and defiance of his laws; their making most impiously free with the fanction of his awful name, in order to de. ceive and injure a fellow-creature; and their daring imprecations of facred vengeance on them

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themselves and others, these horrid infults on Divine authority will vindicate any of us, at certain feasons, in imitating the facred vehemence enjoined the prophet: Cry aloud, Spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their tranfgreffion, and the house of Jacob their fins.

To hear the most ferious, rational, and noble pursuits in human life abused by profane infidels, who vend fophiftry instead of argument, and give us ribaldry for wit!O MOSES! how would thy righteous fpirit, eminent and distinguished as it was for meeknefs, have fired at fuch bafe returns for the advantages of Divine Revelation! To what a transport of anger waft thou once raised by the idolatry of ISRAEL, when thou threweft out of thy hands, and brakeft the tables of the law, though written by the finger of GOD! With what anguish and honeft indignation wouldeft thou now hear the fcoffs of thofe, who defpife their Maker and Redeemer, faying, as the Egyptian tyrant of old, “Who is the Lord that we should obey his voice ?" This fudden paffion of the great prophet and legislator we never find imputed to him as a fin. The tables which he caft from him,

and

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