A discourse concerning meekness and quietness of spirit to which is added, A sermon…

2. He enjoys his Friends:—And that's a thing in which lies much of the Comfort of humane Life. Man was intended to be a sociable Creature, and a Christian much more. But the angry Man is unfit to be so, that takes Fire at every Provocation; fitter to be abandoned ⟨p. 56⟩to the Lions Dens, and the Mountains of the Leopards, than to go forth by the footsteps of the Flock. He that hath his hand against every Man, cannot but have (with Ishmael's Character, Ishmael's Fate) every Man's hand against him, (Gen. 16. 12.) and so he lives in a State of War; But Meekness is the Cement of Society, the Bond of Christian-Communion; it plaineth and polisheth the Materials of that Beautiful Fabric, and makes them lye close and tight, and the living Stones which are built up a Spiritual House, to be like the Stones of the Temple that Herod built, all as one Stone, whereas, Hard upon hard (as the Spaniards Proverb is) will never make a Wall. Meekness preserves among Brethren that Unity, which is like the Ointment upon the Holy Head, and the Dew upon the Holy Hill, Psal. 133. 1, 2. In our present state of Imperfection there can be no Friendship, Correspondence or Conversation maintained without mutual Allowances; we do not yet dwell with Angels or Spirits of just Men made perfect, but with Men subject to like Passions. Now Meekness teaches us to consider this, and to allow accordingly, and so Distances and Strangeness, Feuds and Quarrels are happily prevented, and the beginnings of them crushed by a timely care. How necessary to true Friendship it is to surrender our Passions, and to subject them all to the Laws of it, was (perhaps) intimated by Jonathan's delivering to David his Sword, and his Bow, and his Girdle, all his Military Habiliments, when he entered into a Covenant of Friendship with him, 1 Sam. 18. 3. 4.

2. He enjoys his Friends:—And that's a thing in which lies much of the Comfort of humane Life. Man was intended to be a sociable Creature, and a Christian much more. But the angry Man is unfit to be so, that takes Fire at every Provocation; fitter to be abandoned ⟨p. 56⟩