He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding.
Sinful anger
The scope of these words is to beat down sinful anger, a common evil, producing much mischief. In them there is--
1. The excellency of meekness, and--
2. The mischief of passionateness, and the evil thereof.
I. The man that is slow of wrath or anger snows great wisdom and understanding in his meek and peaceable disposition and deportment.
1. The nature of wrath or anger in general. Anger or wrath is a passion which is not of itself sinful, but is either good or ill, as it is regulated; and so it differs from fretting, murmuring, and envy, which can never be good or allowable in any case. Anger is a servant to the meek, but a master to the passionate. The passion of anger is like wind to a ship. If there be a dead calm, and the winds blow not at all, or very weakly, the ship does not make way. And if men be so stupid, indolent, and unconcerned, that their spirits will not stir in them, whatever dishonour they see done to God, these are standing still in the way to heaven. If the wind is brisk enough, but yet is contrary, the ship will at best have much ado with it, and may be driven into a shore which the crew desired not to see. So if men’s anger be in itself sinful, it cannot fail of an unhappy event, driving the soul into much sin. Though the wind be not contrary, yet if it be too impetuous and violent, it may dash the ship on rocks and split it. Though a man’s anger may have a just ground, yet if it prove excessive and boisterous it may run men headlong into great mischiefs. The ingredients of anger are, a commotion or trouble of the spirit, which ariseth from an apprehension of an injury. Hatred, which is bent against the injury apprehended. Grief, on account of the party or parties injured. A desire for the vindication of the right and honour of the injured. Anger is a passion uneasy, to one’s self, compounded of bitter ingredients and uneasy passions; in which one walks on slippery ground, where he is apt to fall headlong.
2. What is it to be slow of wrath? Being slow to take up anger in one’s own cause. Managing it warily, when it is taken up, being guided by the light of reason, and not by the fire of passion, and being easy to lay it down. The more slow that anger burns the easier it is to quench.
3. He who is slow of wrath is of great understanding. Such an one thereby shows his duty to God, his sovereign lord, and to himself. He shows that he understands Satan’s diligence and malice against him, his real interest, and human nature. Be slow to wrath. It is a heaven-like disposition. The comfort of society depends on it. It is necessary for a man’s own comfort. It helps to keep ourselves and others from the snare of sin. But there is such a thing as sinful slackness to anger, which may make us omit duties of justice and charity.
II. The passionate man proclaims his folly and naughtiness in his unbridled passion and sinful anger.
1. The nature of sinful anger. Anger is sinful when it riseth without a just ground, having no cause for it assigned by grace or right reason as just. It may rise without any cause at all; or vainly, upon some slight or trifling occasion unworthy of such notice. When it keeps no due proportion with the offence. When it is not directed to the honour of God, and the destruction of sin. When it makes no due difference between the offender and the offence. When the effects of it are sinful. When it is kept up and continued beyond due time.
2. The kinds of sinful anger. Sinful in itself; where there is no just ground. Accidentally sinful; when ill-managed. There is an open and impetuous anger called wrath. A pursuing, implacable wrath, called anger, which is set upon revenge.
3. The effects of sinful anger. Mischievous to the body. Fires the tongue in a particular manner. Disturbs society. Overclouds reason. Unfits a man for duty. The passionate man proclaims his folly. He shows himself to be a proud man, a weak man, incapable of ruling himself; an unmortified man; a rash and precipitant man; an unwatchful man. Practical improvement of this subject--Use of humiliation and conviction; of exhortation. Desire of provoking and stirring up others to passion; for God’s sake, and for your neighbour’s sake, as well as for your own sake. “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” And if at any time you are caught, hasten out of the snare. Dallying with temptation is the fair way to entangle you further; therefore fly from it as from a serpent, lest ye be stung to death thereby. (T. Boston, D.D.)
Religion the restraint of impetuous passion
Death is at all times appalling to nature; but never so frightful as when it comes by the hands of the public executioner. To this the text provides an antidote. The man who lives in the “fear of the Lord” is not likely to die an untimely, much less an ignominious death. The case of martyrs is excepted.
I. Explain the nature of true religion. What is the principle, its rule, and its object.
1. Its principle is the love of God. This love to God must be supreme. And wherever love is present, it will be evidenced by a desire to comply with the wishes, and obey the commands of the person loved.
2. That the rule of true religion is the revealed will of God, as found in the Scriptures.
3. The object of true religion is the glory of God. Religion in the heart can never be satisfied with anything short of the Divine glory as the great object of life.
II. While destitute of the influence of religion, men are perpetually in danger of being overcome by the impetuosity of their passions.
1. Principles directly opposite to those of true religion exist in the human heart.
2. Circumstances are continually arising which may call these unholy principles into active operation.
3. There is grave danger, in the absence of true religion, that excited passion will prevail. Impetuosity can be effectually restrained and subdued only by the power of religious principle. (Essex Remembrancer.)
Slow to wrath
Lord Macaulay has remarked that there are some unhappy men constitutionally prone to the darker passions, men to whom bitter words are as natural as snarling and biting to a ferocious dog; and he asserts that to come into the world with this wretched mental disease is a greater calamity than to be born blind or deaf. A man, he proceeds to say, who, having such a temper, keeps it in subjection, and constrains himself to behave habitually with justice and humanity towards those who are in his power, seems worthy of the highest admiration. “There have been instances of this self command; and they are among the most signal triumphs of philosophy and religion.” In eulogies of the Emperor Justinian this characteristic is not to be slighted, that he was “a master of the angry passions, which rage with such destructive violence in the breast of a despot.” Of Mohammed we are told that he was naturally irritable, but had brought his temper under great control, so that even in the self-indulgent intercourse of domestic life he was kind and tolerant. “I served him from the time I was eight years old,” said his servant Anus, “and he never scolded me for anything, though things were spoilt by me.” Adam Smith traces from school and playground the progress and, so to speak, natural history of self-control, and shows on what grounds, and in what way, the child advances in self-command, studies to be more and more master of itself, and tries to exercise over its own feelings “a discipline which the practice of the longest life is very seldom sufficient to bring to complete perfection.” (W. Arnot, D.D.)