My God and My Country

Afternoon/Evening Reflection

Three great dictates of meekness we find put together in one scripture: "Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;" James 1:19, which some observe to be couched in three proper names of Ishmael's sons, Genesis 25:14; 1 Chronicles 1:30—which Bishop Prideaux, in the beginning of the wars, recommended to a gentleman that had been his pupil, as the summary of his advice— Mishma, Dumah, Massa; the signification of which is, hear, keep silence, bear. Hear reason, keep passion silent, and then you will not find it difficult to bear the provocation. It is said of the Holy One of Israel, when the Egyptians provoked him, he weighed a path to his anger; so the margin reads it from the Hebrew, Psalm 78:50. Justice first poised the cause, and then anger poured out the vials. Thus the Lord came down to see the pride of the Babel builders before he scattered them, and to see the wickedness of Sodom before he overthrew it, though both were obvious and barefaced—to teach us to consider before we are angry, and to judge before we pass sentence, that herein we may be followers of God as dear children, and be merciful, as our Father which is in heaven is merciful. We read of the "meekness of wisdom;" for where there is not wisdom, that wisdom which is profitable to direct, that wisdom of the prudent which is to understand his way, meekness will not long be preserved. It is our rashness and inconsideration that betray us to all the mischiefs of an ungoverned passion, on the neck of which the reins are laid which should be kept in the hand of reason, and so we are hurried upon a thousand precipices. Nehemiah is a remarkable instance of prudence presiding in just resentments: he owns, "I was very angry when I heard their cry;" but that anger did not at all transgress the laws of meekness, for it follows, "then I consulted with myself," or as the Hebrew has it, my heart consulted in me. Before he expressed his displeasure he retired into his own bosom, took time for sober thought upon the case, and then he rebuked the nobles in a very solid, rational discourse, and the success was good. In every cause when passion demands immediate judgment, meekness moves for further time, and will have the matter fairly argued, and counsel heard on both sides. When Job had any quarrel with his servants, he was willing to admit a rational debate of the matter, and to hear what they had to say for themselves; for says he, "What shall I do when God riseth up?" And withal, "Did not He that made me in the womb, make him?" When our hearts are at any time hot within us, we should do well to put that question to ourselves which God put to Cain, Genesis 4:6. Why am I wroth? Why am I angry at all? Why so soon angry? Why so very angry? Why so far transported and dispossessed of myself by my anger? What reason is there for all this? Do I well to be angry for a gourd, that came up in a night and perished in a night? Jonah 4:9. Should I be touched to the quick by such a sudden and transient provocation? Will not my cooler thoughts correct these hasty resentments, and therefore were it not better to check them now? Such are the reasonings of the meekness of wisdom.