A Christian Directory

§. 4. Direct. 3. If you will be Peaceable, Love your neighbours as your selves. Love neither imagineth¹ nor speaketh, nor worketh any hurt to others: It covereth infirmities: It hopeth all things: It endureth all things: 1 Cor. 13. Selfishness and want of Love to others, causeth all the contentions in the World. You can bear with great faults in your selves, and never fall out with your selves for them: But with your Neighbours you are quarrelling for those that are less! Do you fall out with another because he hath spoken dishonourably or slightly of you, or slandered you, or some way done you wrong? You have done a thousand times worse than all that against your selves, and yet can bear too patiently with your selves? If another speak evil of you, he doth not make you evil: It's worse to make you bad, than to call you so: And this you do against your selves. Doth your Neighbour wrong you in your honour or Estate? But he endangereth not your soul: He doth not forfeit your salvation! He doth not deserve damnation for you, nor make your soul displeasing to God: But all this you do against your selves (even more than all the Devils in Hell do,) and yet you are too little offended with your selves: see here the power of blind self-love! If you loved your Neighbours as your selves, you would agree as peaceably with your Neighbours almost as with your selves. Love them more, and you will bear more with them, and provoke them less.

1. 1Direct. 3.

§. 5. Direct. 4. Compose your minds to Christian gentleness and meekness, and suffer not Passion to ¹make you either turbulent and unquiet to others, or impatient and troublesome to your selves. A gentle and quiet mind hath a gentle quiet tongue. It can bear as much wrong, as another can do (according to its measure): It is not in the power of Satan: He cannot at his pleasure send his Emissary, and by injuries or foul words, procure it to sin: But a Passionate person is frequently provoking or provoked. A little thing maketh him injurious to others; and a little injury from others, disquieteth himself. He is daily troubling others or himself, or both. Coals of fire go from his lips: It is his very desire to provoke and vex those that he is angry with: His Neighbours Peace and his own are the fuel of his anger, which he consumeth in a moment. To converse with him and not provoke him, is a task for such as are eminently meek and self-denying: He is as the leaves of the Asp tree, that never rest, unless the day be very calm. The smallest breath of an angry tongue, can shake him out of his tranquillity, and turn him into an Ague of disquietness. The Sails of the Windmill are scarce more at the winds command, than his heart and tongue is at the command of Satan: He can move him almost when he please. Bid but a Neighbour speak some hard speeches of him, or one of his Family neglect or cross him, and he is presently like the raging Sea, whose waves cast up the mire and dirt. An impatient man hath no security of his own peace for an hour: Any enemy or angry person, can take it from him when they please. And being troubled, he is troublesome to all about him. If you do not in your patience possess your souls, they will be at the mercy of every one that hath a mind to vex you. Remember then that no peace can be expected without Patience; nor patience without a meek and gentle mind: Remember that the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, is of great price in the sight of God,