it will please them to provoke us to anger Yet a wiseman may expresse indignation without anger and an effectual vigour making others tremble himselfe standing unmooved Out of the anger of others wee may fetch three good uses The first is to learne to hate that passion and take heed of it seeing how it is imperious and servile together ugly unbecomming unreasonable hurtful to others and more to a mans selfe The second use is to gather carefully the wholesome warnings which an angry adversary will give us for he will be sure to tell us all the evill he seeth in us which ourselves see not A benefit not to be expected from our discreet friends The third is the noblest use To study the science of discerning the spirits considering with a judicious eye the several effects of every mans anger for no passion discovereth so much the nature of persons It layeth a man starke naked Ifone be a contemner of God as soone as he is angry he will be sure to wreake his anger upon God with blasphemies If he have piety and ingenuity he will make them pleade for him but lamely as discomposed by anger If he be a coward he will insult over the weake and if he find resistance you shall see him threaten and tremble together like base dogs then barking most when they runne away If he be haughty his anger will expresse it selfe in a malignant smile and he will boast of his blood and valour The occasions of anger will better discover what a man is inclined unto for every one will be sooner moved for those things where he is most interessed As in anger so in reconciliation a discerning eye will reade a character of the several humours The vaine and haughty man after he hath done wrong stands upon reparation The baseminded man is threatened into submissions after the injury received The covetous wretch will have reparation in money and puts a rate upon every bastinado The conscionable meeke and generous man is facile both in giving and receiving satisfaction and easily pardons another mans anger his owne with much adoe From this let us reflect to the first use that wee must make of the anger of others He that will mind well how wrath betrayes a man and layeth open his infirmities and how the man that hath no rule over his owne spirit is like a citty that is broken downe and without walles will fence himselfe against that treacherous passion by Christian meekenes and moderation and will learne to be wise by his neighbours harme To that meekenes we shal be much helped by the remembrance of our sins whereby we daily provoke God and for which wee mought have bin cast headlong into hell long agoe but that he is slow to wrath and abundant in goodnesse Exod. 34.6 To expect that God our father be slow to wrath towards us while we are hot to wrath against our brethren is the extremity of injustice and unreasonablenesse To conclude since we seeke here our tranquility which we have found every where inseparably conjoyned with our duty let us observe our Saviours precept grounded upon his example Matth. 11.29 Learne of me that I am meeke and lowly in heart and ye shall finde rest unto your soules That way the Lord Jesus the great Master of wisedome found rest unto his soul the same way shall wee finde rest to ours CHAP. XII Of Aversion Hatred and Revenge AVersion is the first seed of Hatred and hath a larger extent for hatred regards onely persons or actions but many have Aversions for unreasonable or inanimate things wherefore those Aversions are commonly unreasonable whether it be out of naturall antipathy or out of fancy wantonnesse Persons subject to those Aversions have commonly more Passion then reason and are such as are made tender and are soft spirited by ease Ladies have many antipathyes but among country wives and milkmayds you shall find but few that will swound at the sight of a spider or a frog A wise man must impartially examine those Aversions if he have any whether they consist in fancy or nature and not flatter himselse in such capricious weakenesses He shall do much for his rest and credit if he can weane himselfe altogether from them He that can command himselfe to have no Aversion of which he may not give a reason will traine his passion that way to have no unreasonable Hatred against any person Hatred is an indignation for an injury received or imagined or for an ill opinion conceived of a person or action This description is common to it with anger Herein they differ that anger is sudden and hath a short course but hatred is meditated at leasure and is lasting Also that anger seeks more a mans vindication then the harme of others but hatred studieth the harme of adversaries Hatred as anger is a compound of pride and sadnesse I meane the vicious hatred and the most common It proceeds likewise out of ignorance of ones selfe and the price and nature of things This Philosophy we learne of St. John 1 Joh. 2.11 He that hates his Brother is in darknesse and knowes not whither he goes because that darknesse hath blinded his eyes for ignorance is the darknesse of the soul As then blind men are commonly testy the blindnesse of ignorance will make men prone to hate their neighbours and hatred afterwards increaseth that blindnesse By the same ignorance whereby we love some persons and things without knowledge and reason we hate also some persons and things without reason and many will choose rather to lose a friend then a shilling Hatred is naturally good serving to make us avoyd things hurtfull and it is morally good when we use it to oppose that which is contrary to the Soveraine good which is God When we hate that which God hateth we cannot do amiss so that we be very certaine that God hates it such are the unjust habits and actions condemned by his word and by that law of nature written in mans heart But as for the persons because we have no declaration of Gods love and hatred to this or that man we must love them all and never feare to offend God by loving that which he hateth for we cannot offend him by obeying his commandement Now he commands us to love our neighbours as ourselves No doubt but we must love many persons which God hateth neither will it be time to hate them till we have heard the sentence of Gods personall hatred pronounced against them I say Gods personal hatred because there is a hatred of iniquity in God against those that oppose his glory which obligeth us to hate them also with that hatred of iniquity and to oppose them vigorously as long as they oppose God Of that hatred spake David when he said Psal 139.21 Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee I hate them with a perfect hatred
I count them mine enemies But wee must take heed lest the hatred of iniquity bring the hatred against the persons and the persons must not be afflicted more then needs for the repressing of iniquity The more difficult it is to keep that temper the more earnestly ought we to endeavour to render all offices of charity and personall humanity to them whose party we justly seek to defeate for to love our enemies and to overcome the evill with good is the most ingenuous imitation of the Godhead It is his command joyned with his example Matth. 5.44 Love your enemies blesse them that curse you do good to them which despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven for he makes his Sun to rise on the evill and on the good and sends raine on the just and on the unjust There is need of a great measure of grace and wisedome to observe these two precepts together Psal 97.10 Ye that love the Lord hate evill and Matth. 22.39 Thou shalt love thy neighbour like thy selfe hating iniquity in the wicked and loving their persons and both for Gods sake The chiefe use of hatred is to be incited to good by the hatred of evill For that end it is not necessary that the greatnesse of hatred equall the greatnesse of the evill and we are not obliged to hate evill things as much as they deserve otherwise the great currant of our affection would runne into the channell of hatred and leave the channell of love dry Now it is in loving the Soveraine good with all our strength and with all our soul that our duty and happinesse consisteth not in hating the evill with all our strength and with all our soul The hatred of evill is not requisite of it selfe but by accident as a consequence of the love of good If the hatred of vice perswade us to vertue we shall be more yet perswaded to it by the love of goodnesse Many effects of hatred are the same as the effects of anger for there is no anger without hatred in some degree if not to a person at least to an action But there is some hatred without anger when one forethinks in cold blood the wayes to destroy an adversary All the destructions of the world where the will of man is an agent are wrought immediately by hatred They have many remote causes anbition covetousnesse carnall love emulation and all the violent passions but they destroy not but by accident till some opposition hath driven them into hatred which in the inward polity of the soul hath the same office as the hangman in a Citty for it is the executioner and avenger of wrongs Unto hatred all the cruelty of tyranny and malice must be imputed And yet all the blood spilt all the ruines and inventive torments outwardly wrought by hatred are nothing so grievous as the inward disorder wrought by it in cruell and revengefull souls and the separation which it worketh between God and man It is the finall and most grievous effect of hatred that by hating our neighbours we become Gods enemies 1 Joh. 4.20 If a man say I love God and hates his brother he is a lyer Hatred is a bitter venome which being once diffused soaked into the soul turnes a man into a hell-fury contrary to all good ready and industrious to all evil But with all the paine that such a man takes to doe harme to others he doth more harme to himselfe then to any consuming his spirits with a continual malignant fever banishing from his soul serenity charity and meekness vertues which are the soyle of other vertues and the givers of rest contentment to the soul It is often seene that while a man is gnawing his heart with a fierce hatred the person he hateth is healthfull merry and quiet as if imprecations made him prosper An ill grounded hatred drawes Gods blessing upon the party unjustly hated and persecuted Psal 109.18 It was Davids hope Let them curse but blesse thou Hatred is conceived for one of those two ends Either to avenge ourselves or to avenge injustice which is Gods cause As for the first Before wee think of revenging an injury wee must examine whether wee have received or done the greater injury for it is ordinary that the offender is harder to be reconciled that it may not be thought that he is in the wrong Then we must calmely consider whether the revenge may not doe us more harme then the injury though wee had nothing to doe but to breake our launces against a dead stock incapable to resent it For besides that there is no enemy so little but it is better to let him alone then to provoke him the harme that hatred doth within us cannot be recompensed by any sweetness of revenge though there were no other harme in hatred then to find delight in robbing God of that he hath reserved to himselfe Now he challengeth revenge as his owne exclusively to all others Heb. 10.30 Vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompense saith the Lord. To become incapable of rest incapable of doing good incapable of pleasing God are sufficient evils to deterre us from harbouring that inhumane passion enemy of men of God and of ourselves Pro. 11.17 The mercifull man doth good to his owne soul but the cruel troubleth his owne flesh It is a right godly and philosophicall study to strive against that tendernes quick to pick offences slow to take satisfaction And wee must be ingenious to devise causes of patience Are you condemned being guilty acknowledge Justice Are you innocent bow under authority Are you newly offended It is too soone to resent it Is the Sunne gone downe since It is too late Hath any wounded you look to your cure not to your revenge Are you well againe let not your mind be harder to heal then your body Are you offended by a friend remember the friendship more then the offense Are you offended by an enemy Doe your endeavour that he be so no more returning him good for evil Is he too strong for you It is folly to contend with him Is he too weake It is a shame Is he your superiour you must yeeld to him Is he your inferiour you must spare him And since Pride of which none is altogether free represents our enemies to us under a vile and unworthy notion let us fetch some good out of that evill Let contempt help patience to beare with their provocations for if a dogge did bite us wee would not bite him againe nor kicke at a asse that kicks against us Also when some body offends us let us remember that wee have offended some body The fault that wee find in another is in our owne bosome It is too great a flattery of selfe love to looke to be excused and excuse none Wee are evill and infirme and live among persons evill and infirme All have need to put on a
things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth As nothing makes the mind more magnanimous so nothing makes it more holy then that doctrine which teacheth Gods children that all the world is too little for them and that God alone who adopteth them and calls them to the inheritance of his Kingdome is worthy to possesse their whole heart For would any that is so highly dignifyed stoope so low as to subject his affection to the things of the earth or would he be so ungrateful as to returne him disobedience for so much love Rather his high condition will fill him with high thoughts and according to the Apostles exhortation he will endeavour to walke worthy of God who hath called him to his Kingdome and glory 1 Thes 2.12 O could we apprehend the excellency of this high calling by a serious faith with what contempt would we looke upon those things that captivate the passions of men How should we laugh at that which others desire or feare We should looke upon the actions of men as beholding the earth from heaven seeing the clouds of cares and sorrowes gathering farre under our feet and tumultuous desires busling and raising stormes where we should have no other share but compassion of those that are tossed by them Neither temptation nor persecution should be capable to trouble our heavenly serenity The false profit and pleasure of sin should not tempt our desire but provoke our scorne and indignation as unworthy of men and muchmore of Gods children coheires of Christ in his eternall Kingdome called to be Kings and Priests unto God and their Father The same magnanimity will breed in us agodly ambition to imitate God our Father keeping righteousness in all things because the righteous Lord loveth righteousness Psal 11.7 using charity and liberality giving and forgiving because the Lordis good and his tender mercies are over all his workes Psal 145.9 Doing good to our enemies because God fills with his goods the mouthes that blaspheme him And because God gives alwayes and receiveth nothing we must thinke it more happy and divine to give then to receive From magnanimity reflect againe to meekeness Let all that is done magnanimously be done meekely together with simplicity and reality without noyse and ostentation These vertues going hand in hand meekenesse and magnanimity are the two supporters of Justice and the teachers of all goodnesse A meeke and magnanimous spirit is the fruitfull soyle of all vertues To express them in other termes more familiar to the Church They are humility and faith which with the love of God the true essence of Justice make up the greatest perfection that a man is capable of upon earth whereby the minde is sanctifyed sweetened and raised and filled with goodnesse peace contentment and assurance CHAP. II. Of the exercise of Vertue in Prosperity IF I treat not methodically and severally of all Vertues the title of this worke may excuse me I seeke not here the definitions and divisions of Vertues but the use And of all the uses that which conduceth to the peace and contentment of mind Besides all that we have said before and all that we have to say is an exercise of vertue which careth not much by what name she is called justice fortitude temperance or what you will if she may have leave to do her effect which is to maintaine the spirit every where in a vertuous tranquillity Her principall worke is so to informe or rather forme the minde both for Prosperity and Adversity that it be neither corrupted by the one nor dejected with the other That worke is the result of our second and third Book Who so hath learned to have a right Opinion of the things that the world desireth or feareth and to rule his passion accordingly is fenced against all inconveniencies of both fortunes But because it is a worke of the highest difficulty and importance to make the right use of these two different conditions and go through both with a serene and equall spirit Let us consider them with more care and learne to behave ourselves vertuously in both Let us begin at Prosperity as that which requires more vertue Infants will greedily graspe the bright blade of a new knife and cut their fingers The like is done by growne men dazled by the gay shew of honour wealth pleasure they lay hold on them eagerly and hurt themselves for they take them the wrong way We need not say that Prosperity is good in itselfe He that would say the contrary should not be beleeved Yea none would beleeve that such a man beleeveth what he saith But by the evill disposition of those into whose bosome prosperity falls it becomes evill yea farre worse then adversity For one that is ruined and brought to despaire by adversity ten are spoyled and undone by prosperity because adversity makes a man to retire within himselfe and warnes him to arme his minde with prudence piety and resolution But prosperity relaxeth the mind and by it weak braines are made weaker imprudent arrogant and profane acknowledging no vertue and no God but Fortune Which they think to be so enamoured with their person and merit as not to have the power to disgrace them Such is the character that David gives of a man corrupted with prosperity Psal 10.5 His wayes are alwaies grievous thy judgements are farre above out of his sight As for his enemies he puffeth at them He hath said in his heart I shall not be moved for I shall never be in adversity It is an unhappy prosperity that makes men dissolute outragious puft up with pride blinded with selfe love sometimes heavy with a drowzy sloath sometimes transported with an insolent joy The most dangerous and most ordinary abuse of prosperity is the diverting of a mans thoughts and love from God and a better life to fixe them upon the world Wherefore David speaking of men inclosed in their owne fat calls them men of the world whose portion is in this life Psal 17.14 intimating that they have no portion in the other life Truly prosperity is a slippery place With most men it is a faire walk ending in a precipice And the least harme it doth is to enervate the mind and dull the edge of industry The abuses of prosperity are divers according to the different humours of men Some of a joviall and inconsiderate humour glut themselves with prosperity and become fierce and violent Others of a darke and timorous constitution are opprest with wealth and honour as with heavy weights dare not enjoy what they have and live in an anxious care to lose all Eccles 5.12 The abundance of the rich will not suffer them to sleep They ought to thank him that should ease them of that heavy burden their riches Of the sicknesses that attend prosperity I have sayd much and of their remedy It comes to this To consider