of that there might be a cause of being angry, with a purpose revenge and recompense, and that in such a case it is permitted to them, to whom in all other it is denied, that is, to private persons; which is against the meekness and charity of the Gospel. More reasonable it is, that as no man might kill his brother, in Moses's law, by his own private authority; so an anger is here forbidden, such an anger which no qualification can permit to private persons; that is, an anger with purposes of revenge. 34. But Christ adds, that a farther degree of this sin is, when our anger breaks out in contumelies and ill language, and receives its increment according to the degree and injury of the reproach. There is a homicide in the tongue, as well as in the heart; and he that kills a man's reputation by calumnies, or slander, or open reviling, hath broken this commandment. But this is not to be understood so, but that persons in authority, or friends, may reprehend a vicious person in language proper to his crime, or expressive of his malice or iniquity. Christ called Herod, " fox:" and although St. Michael" brought not a railing accusation" against Satan, yet the Scripture calls him "an accuser," and Christ calls him "the father of lies;" and St. Peter," a devourer," and a" roaring lion;" and St. John calls Diotrephes," a lover of pre-eminence," or ambitious. But that which is here forbidden, is not a representing the crimes of the man for his emendation, or any other charitable or religious cnd, but a reviling him to do him mischief, to murder his reputation: which also shows, that whatever is here forbidden is, in some sense or other, accounted homicide; the anger in order to reproach, and both in order to murder, subject to the same punishment, because forbidden in the same period of the law; save only that, according to the degrees of the sin, Christ proportions several degrees of punishment in the other world, which he apportions to the degrees of death which had ever been among the Jews, viz. the sword, and stoning to death, which were punishments legal and judicial; and the burning infants in the valley of Hinnom, which was a barbarous and superstitious custom used formerly by their fathers, in imitation of the Phoenician accursed rites. 35. The remedies against anger, which are prescribed by masters of spiritual life, are partly taken from rules of prudence, partly from piety, and more precise rules of religion. In prudence: 1. Do not easily entertain, or at all encourage, or willingly hear, or promptly believe, tale-bearers and reporters of other men's faults: for oftentimes we are set on fire by an ignis fatuus, a false flame, and an empty story. 2. Live with peaceable people, if thou canst. 3. Be not inquisitive into the misdemeanours of others, or the reports which are made of you. 4. Find out reasons of excuse, to alleviate and lessen the ignorances of a friend, or carelessnesses. of a servant. 5. Observe what object is aptest to inflame thee, and, by special arts of fortification, stop up the avenues to that part. If losses, if contempt, if incivilities, if slander, still make it the greatest part of your employment to subdue the impotency of that passion that is more apt to raise tempests. 6. Extirpate petty curiosities of apparel, lodging, diet, and learn to be indifferent in circumstances; and if you be apt to be transported with such little things, do some great thing, that shall cut off their frequent intervening. 7. Do not multiply secular cares, and troublesome negotiations, which have variety of conversation with several humours of men, and accidents of things; but frame to thyself a life, simple as thou canst, and free from all affectations. 8. Sweeten thy temper, and allay the violence of thy spirit, with some convenient, natural, temperate, and medicinal solaces; for some dispositions we have seen inflamed into anger, and often assaulted by peevishness, through immoderate fasting and inconvenient austerities. 9. A gentle answer is an excellent remora to the progresses of anger, whether in thyself or others. For anger is like the waves of a troubled sea; when it is corrected with a soft reply, as with a little strand, it retires, and leaves nothing behind it but froth and shells; no permanent mischieft. 10. Silence is an excellent art: and that was the advantage which St. Isaac", an old religious person in the primitive church, is reported to have followed; to suppress his anger within his breast, and use what means he could there to strangle it, but never permitting it to go forth in language. Anger and lust being like fire, which if you enclose, suffering it to have no emission, it perishes and dies; but give it the smallest vent, and it rages to a consumption of all it reaches. And this advice is coincident with the general rule which is prescribed in all temptations, that anger be suppressed in its cradle and first assaults*. 11. Lastly let every man be careful, that in his repentance, or in his zeal, or his religion, he be as dispassionate and free from anger as possible; lest anger pass upon him in a reflex act, which was rejected in the direct. Some mortifiers, in their contestation against anger, or any evil or troublesome principle, are like criers of assizes, who, calling for silence, make the greatest noise; they are extremely angry, when they are fighting against the habit or violent inclinations to anger. 36. But, in the way of more strict religion, it is advised, that he who would cure his anger should pray often. It is St. Austin's counsel to the bishop Auxilius, that, like the apostles in a storm, we should awaken Christ, and call to him for aid, lest we shipwreck in so violent passions and impetuous disturbances. 2. Propound to thyself the example of meek and patient persons; remembering always, that there is a family of meek saints, of which Moses is the precedent; a family of patient saints, under the conduct of Job. Every one in the mountain of the Lord shall be gathered to his own tribe, to his own family, in the great day of jubilee: and the Terminum etiam marinis fluctibus fabricator descripsit; arena maris exigua sæpe inter duas acies intercapedo est: si reprimere iram non potes, memento quia indignabundum mare nil ultra spumam et fluctuationem effert. - Simocatta. - " Ex quo factus sum monachus, statui apud me, ut iracundia extra guttur meum non procederet, dixit S. Isaac Eremita. * Melius enim est negare primum iræ introitum, etiam de causa probabili satis et gloriosa, quàm admissam ejicere. - S. Aug. ad Profuturum. angry shall perish with the effects of anger; and peevish persons shall be vexed with the disquietness of an eternal worm, and sting of a vexatious conscience, if they suffer here the transportations and saddest effects of an unmortified, habitual, and prevailing anger. 3. Above all things endeavour to be humble, to think of thyself as thou deservest, that is, meanly and unworthily; and in reason, it is to be presumed, thou wilt be more patient of wrong, quiet under affronts and injuries, susceptive of inconveniences, and apt to entertain all adversities, as instruments of humiliation, deleteries of vice, corrections of indecent passions, and instruments of virtue. 4. All the reason, and all the relations, and all the necessities of mankind, are daily arguments against the violences and inordinations of anger. For he that would not have his reason confounded, or his discourse useless, or his family be a den of lions; he that would not have his marriage a daily duel, or his society troublesome, or his friendship formidable, or his feasts bitter; he that delights not to have his discipline cruel, or his government tyrannical, or his disputations violent, or his civilities unmannerly; or his charity be a rudeness, or himself brutish as a bear, or peevish as a fly, or miserable upon every accident, and in all the changes of his life, must mortify his anger. For it concerns us as much as peace, and wisdom, and nobleness, and charity, and felicity are worth, to be at peace in our breasts, and to be pleased with all God's providence, and to be in charity with every thing, and with every man. The Seventh Commandment. 37. "Thou shalt not commit adultery." These two commandments are immediate to each other, and of the greatest cognation; for anger and lust work upon one subject; and the same fervours of blood which make men revengeful, will also make men unchaste. But the prohibition is repeated in the words of the old commandment: so 66 it was said to Ubi furoris insederit virus, libidinis quoque incendium necesse est penetrare. Cassian. Numquid ego à te Magno prognatam deposco Consule- Horat. Serm. lib. i. Sat. 2. them of old ;" which was not only a prohibition of the violation of the rights of marriage, but was, even among the Jews, extended to signify all mixture of sexes not matrimonial. For adultery, in Scripture, is sometimes used to signify fornication, and fornication for adultery; as it is expressed in the permissions of divorce, in the case of fornication: and by Moses's law, fornication also was forbidden; and it was hated also, and reproved, in the natural. But it is very probable, that this precept was restrained only to the instance of adultery in the proper sense, that is, violation of marriage; for Moses did, in other annexes of the law, forbid fornication. And as a blow or wound was not esteemed, in Moses's law, a breach of the sixth commandment; so neither was any thing but adultery esteemed a violation of the seventh, by very many of their own doctors: of which I reckon this a sufficient probation, because they permitted stranger virgins and captives to fornicate; only they believed it sinful in the Hebrew maidens. And when two harlots pleaded before Solomon for the bastard-child, he gave sentence of their question, but nothing of their crime. Strangers, with the Hebrews, signified, many times, harlots; because they were permitted to be such, and were entertained to such purposes. But these were the licenses of a looser interpretation; God having, to all nations, given sufficient testimony of his detestation of all concubinate not hallowed by marriage of which, among the nations, there was abundant testimony; in that the harlots were not permitted to abide in the cities, and wore veils, in testimony of their shame and habitual indececies; which we observe in the story of Thamar2, and also Chrysippus. And, although it passed without punishment, yet never without shame, and a note of turpitude. And the abstinence from fornication was one of the precepts of Noah, to which the Jews obliged the stranger-proselytes, who were only proselytes of the house: and the apostles enforce it upon the Gentiles, in their first decree at Jerusalem, as renewing an old stock of precepts and obligations, in which all the converted and religious Gentiles did communicate with the Jews. : 2 évas vocârunt Græci meretrices et peregrinas, ad morem et ad verbum Hebræorum; et Menandrum transferens, Terentius peregrinam vocat Andriain. a Gen. xxxviii. 14. |