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

It is the manifest Design of our Holy and Excellent Religion to smooth, and soften, and sweeten our Tempers, and to work off the ruggedness and unevenness of them; is it not a wretched thing therefore, that any who profess it, should be soured, and embittered, and less conversable and fit for humane Society, than other People? He was looked upon as a very good Man in his Day, and not without Cause, who yet had such an unhappy temper, and was sometimes so transported with Passion, that his Friend would say of him, He had Grace enough for ten Men, and yet not enough for himself. All the Disciples of Jesus Christ, even those of the first three, do not know what manner of Spirit they are of, Luke 9. 35. So apt are we to deceive our selves, especially when these Exorbitances shroud themselves under the specious and plausible pretence of Zeal for God and Religion. But yet the Fault is not to be laid upon the Profession, or the strictness and singularity of that in other things that are praise-worthy; nor may we think the worse of Christianity for any ⟨p. 79⟩such Blemishes: We know very well, that the Wisdom that is from above is peaceable, and gentle, and easy to be entreated, and all that's sweet, and amiable, and endearing, tho' she is not herein justified of all that call themselves her Children. But the blame must be laid upon the Corruption and Folly of the Professors themselves, who are not so perfectly delivered into the Mould of Christianity as they should, but neglect their Ornament, and prostitute their Honour, and suffer the Authority of their Graces to be trampled upon, they let fire go out of the Rod of their Branches, which devour their Fruit; so that there is no Meekness as a strong Rod, to be a Sceptre to rule in the Soul, which is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation, (I refer you to that complaint, Ezek. 19. 14.) something resembling the woeful Degeneracy of the Angels that sinn•d, of whom it is said, Jude 6. That they kept not [Greek or Hebrew], S••tm Principatum. So the Vulgar: Might it not be read,¹