OF

MODERATION OF ANGER,

THE helps against Immoderate Anger are of two kinds

1. Previous confiderations before the occafion is of, fered, to habituate the mind to gentleness and quietnefs. 2. Expedients that ferve to allay or divert Anger, when the occafion is offered.

Of the first fort are thefe :

The confideration of our own failings, efpecially in reference to Almighty God, and our duty to him; which are much greater than any demerits of others towards us: I provoke my Creator daily, and yet I de fire his patience towards me, and find it. With what face can I expect gentleness from my Creator, if every small provocation from my fellow-creature put me into a paffion.

2. The confideration of unreasonableness of that dif tempor in respect of myself: It puts me into a perturbation, and makes me unufeful for myself or others, while the distemper is upon me; It breaks and difcompofeth my thoughts, and makes me unfit for bufinefs: It diforders my conftitution of body till the ftorm be over: It difcovers to others my impotency of mind, and is more perceived and obferved by others, than it can be by myfelf: It gratifies my adverfary, when by my paffion I improve his injury beyond the value of it; and injure, and torment, and damnify myself more by my own perturbation, than he can by the injury he doth: It evidenceth a prevalence of my more inferior and fenfual part, common to me with

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the

the beasts, above my reasonable and more noble part, Sometimes, indeed, a perfonated anger, managed with judgment, is of fingular ufe, efpecially in perfons in authority; but fuch an anger is but a painted fire, and without perturbation: but a paffionate anger upon injuries received, or upon fudden conceptions of them, is always without any end at all of good, either intended or effected: nay, it is an impediment to the attaining of any good end, because it blinds the judg ment, and tranfports men into inconfiderate geftures, words, and actions. 1

s. Confideration in refpect of others, even of the very perfons provoking. It may be there are inftruments, permitted by God as his inftruments, either to correct or try me. Peradventure God hath bidden Shimei curfe David; be not too violent against the inftrument, left, peradventure, thou oppofe therein the principal agent. Again, many men are of fuch a pitiful conftitution, that their injuries arife from very impotence of mind in them: fhall I be angry with them becaufe they want that understanding they fhould have? And yet it is very ftrange to fee the weakness and folly of our nature in this paffion, that it will break into a perturbation even with children, drunken men, madmen, beafts, yea, very dumb things: witnels our anger with cards and dice, when their chances pleafe us not; which fhews the unreafonablenefs and frenzy of this paflion.

2. There be fome expedients againft it, even when the occafion is offered."

1. Carry always a jealoufy over thy paffion, and a ftrict watch upon it. Take up this peremptory refolution and practice, I will not be angry, though an occafion be adminiftred. And let the return of that refolution be the first act after the provocation given: for if a man can but bring himfeif to this pass, that he take not fire upon the firft offer, the paffion will cool: a man calls then his reafon about him, and debates

with himself: Is there caufe I fhould be angry? or, is there any good end attainable by it? or, if it be, what is the juft medium, or fize, or measure of anger, proportionable to that end? And these confiderations will break the first onset of paffion, and then it feldom prevails: for it is the firft wave that carries on the perturbation to the end, which if it be broken at the firft, ferenity of mind is preferved with much contentation and fenfe of advantage.

2. Take up this refolution, never to give thyfelf leave to be angry, till thou feeft the just dimenfions of the provocation. First, learn whether there be any fuch thing done or no: for many times we fhall find that a false report, or a mifconception in the mind, fets up the image of an injury, and presently the paffion fwells upon it; when, it may be, upon a due examination, there is no fuch thing at all. Secondly, admit there be an injury, yet learn what the circumstances of it are: for till that be known, though thou hast a mind to be angry, thou knoweft not what proportion or measure of anger to allow, till thou knoweft the measure of the injury done; it may be it is not fo great, or it may be it was done by mistake; it may be it was done by fome provocation given by thee, or at leaft fo understood, and then it is not fo malicious; and it may be the man is coming to make thee amends, or to ask thee pardon. This will give leisure to thy reafon, to thy grace, to come in; and will break the first shock, which the choleric blood gives to the heart, which raiseth the combustion; and then a thousand to one it comes to nothing, and either dies presently, or languisheth below the name of a paffion.

3. In cafe of provocation to anger by words, confider this, that there is nothing fo much gratifies an ill tongue as when it finds an angry hearer; nor nothing fo much disappoints and vexeth it as calmnefs and unperturbednefs. It is the most exquifite and innocent

revenge in the world to return gentle words, or none at all, to ill language. But, on the other fide, anger and perturbation doth not only produce what thy adversary defires, but also puts a difcompofedness and impotence upon thee, that thou becomeft unable to keep filence, or to speak with that reafon and advantage thou fhouldeft.

À PRES

A

PREPARATIVE against AFFLICTIONS;

WITH

DIRECTIONS FOR OUR DEPORTMENT UNDER THEM,

AND UPON OUR DELIVERY OUT OF THEM.

1. Ir is the great folly that ordinarily poffeffeth men, especially in a profperous condition, that they cannot fuppofe a change of their eftates: A living man can hardly think of dying; a healthy man can hardly think of fickness; a wealthy man can hardly think of poverty; a man in the applause and glory of the world, can hardly think of being under difgrace and reproach.

2. The reafons of this difficulty feem to be thefe: 1. The prefent condition is a thing that falls under our prefent fenfe, and takes up our whole confideration: things that yet are not, are made prefent only by contemplation: and that, as it doth not fo ftrongly affect the mind, fo there is a long operation that must precede before it can be brought home; a man must confider whether the state wherein he is be changeable, and what may change it, and whether it may change for the worse, or unto what degree of badnefs, and the probabilities or poffibilities of it; and fo it requires a long process of the mind, before a man can bring himself under a fuppofition that his condition may change, and change extremely for the worse. 2. When that fuppofition is received or admitted, yet it being but notional and imaginary, hath not the like

ftrength