An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eleventh, twelfth, & thirteenth chapters of…

Yea, Ministers when they are to preach, when they ¹have prepared to deliver something, yet if there will be any tartness in it, they should think, how should I do ⟨p. 151⟩this? what may come of it? I may vent my self, but what good may come of it? what glory to God? what good to the Church? We should make many pauses, and many stops to our anger. As sometimes when you are travelling abroad in the Country, you come upon some ²steep hill, you shall find that the Country men they lay here and there in several places something to stop the Current of the water, for otherwise it would gore too much, if it should run down swiftly, but when it hath some stop it doth not do so much hurt: Oh! how doth the anger of men gore deep; why? because it runs headily, and violently down, and it hath nothing to stop it. Men in anger they are very full of thoughts, and resolutions, and continually all the reasonings of the hearts of men and women in their anger tend to nothing else but to heat their hearts more, all their thoughts work that way, till their hearts are made fiery hot, and so they burst out and cannot stay, they muse upon nothing else but that that may further their anger and displeasure: And ³those that are barren enough in their thoughts otherwise, yet are very quick in invention, and witty for the letting out of anger and wrath. But this would be your wisdom had you the Image of God prevailing in you, when you find anger stirring in your bosom, you would rather muster up reasons that may allay your anger, that may qualify it, you would muse upon those things that may serve to be a stop to it for the present, as God doth here: Oh! did men but do so, say, How shall I do this? what peace and quiet might we have among us!

Yea, Ministers when they are to preach, when they ¹have prepared to deliver something, yet if there will be any tartness in it, they should think, how should I do ⟨p. 151⟩