Ephesians 4:26 Be you angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down on your wrath:… I. SOME RULES TO DISTINGUISH THE NATURE AND THE DEGREE OF ANGER WHEN IT BECOMES CRIMINAL. 1. Man having been created susceptible of anger, to enable him to repel with courage the evil which encompasses, or to surmount with activity the calamity which threatens him, it is evident that whoever unnecessarily provokes him is to a certain degree culpable. 2. Since every impulse should be proportionate to the power of the motives which produce it, it is no less evident that all anger, and every emotion carried to excess — that is, which exceed the bounds prescribed by reason, are criminal. 3. It will also be hateful in the sight of God, when through indulgence it degenerates into hatred or malice, into resentment or a desire of revenge. 4. Anger becomes a sin of more aggravated nature, when by continual indulgence it resumes, as it were, a constitutional property. 5. Anger is always criminal, when, either in its nature or attendant circumstances, it, in any manner, is injurious to reason and religion, or involves, in its consequences, either ourselves or other men in trouble. II. I now proceed, under the second head, to propose SOME CONSIDERATIONS TO ENGAGE YOU TO REGULATE THIS PASSION. 1. Nothing is more indecent, disgraceful, and contemptible than the character of a passionate and violent man. Rage always supposes weakness; hence children, sick people, and women, are the most subject to it. 2. blot only is the anger of which I am speaking contemptible, odious, and criminal in itself, but it is also melancholy and criminal in its effects and consequences. A man, by frequent transports of rage, impairs his health. Add to this, that a man who is master of himself has, in all circumstances of life, an infinite advantage over a violent person. At every turn he gives some advantage to his adversary. 3. Besides, a man of an outrageous temper is almost always unhappy; he is always exposed to chagrin, occasioned by his own irritability. Rage is to the soul what fever is to the body: as a fever throws the whole animal economy into disorder, rage, in like manner, so agitates the soul as to bereave it of peace. (P. Bertrand.) Parallel Verses KJV: Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:WEB: "Be angry, and don't sin." Don't let the sun go down on your wrath, |
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