Afternoon/Evening Reflection
The peace of the meek man is not only sweet but safe and secure; as far as he acts under the law of meekness, it is above the reach of the assaults of those that wish ill to it. He that abides quietly under "the shadow of the Almighty" shall surely be delivered "from the snare of the fowler." Psalm 124: 7, Proverbs 6:5. (a)The greatest provocations that men can give would not hurt us if we did not, by our inordinate and foolish concern, come too near them. We may therefore thank ourselves if we be damaged. He that has learned with meekness and quietness to forgive injuries and pass them by, has found the best and surest way of baffling and defeating them; nay, it is a kind of innocent revenge. It was an evidence that Saul was actuated by another spirit, in that, when children of Belial despised him and brought him no presents—hoping by that contempt to give a shock to his infant government —he "held his peace," and so neither his soul nor his crown received any disturbance. Shimei, when he cursed David, intended thereby to pour vinegar into his wounds, and to add affliction to the afflicted; but David, by his meekness, preserved his peace, and Shimei's design was frustrated. "So let him curse;" alas, poor creature, he hurts himself more than David, who, while he keeps his heart from being tinder to those sparks, is no more prejudiced by them than the moon is by the foolish cur that barks at it. The meek man's prayer is that of David, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I," Psalm 61:2; and there I can, as Mr. Norris expresses it, —smile to see The shafts of fortune all drop short of me. The meek man is like a ship that rides at anchor—is moved, but not removed: the storm moves it—the meek man is not a stock or stone under provocation—but does not remove it from its port. It is a grace that, in reference to the temptations of affront and injur —as faith in reference to temptation in general—quenches the fiery darts of the wicked: it is an armor of proof against the spiteful and envenomed arrows of provocation, and is an impregnable wall, to secure the peace of the soul, where no thief can break through to steal; while the angry man lays all his comforts at the mercy of every wasp that will strike at him. So that, upon the whole, it appears that the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is as easy as it is comely.
(a) The fowler or hunter represented here is a reference to Satan. Who is a great deceiver and seeks to ensnare all that stray from the path, or refuse to tread upon it.
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