Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

But the fittest opportunity for this Duty, ¹is when they are most calm and sedate, their Passions hushed, and their Reason (with which you are to deal) again reseated upon its Throne. When they are free from all inward Perturbations of Mind, and from all considerable Alterations in their outward Estate and Condition. Then, if ever, they will listen to Reproof, and take right Measures of the Sin for which you reprove them. But if we reprove them when ⟨p. 39⟩their Passions are in a Tumult, and all within in an Uproar and Combustion, it is no wonder at all if either they reject or revile our Reproofs; for we then accuse them before very corrupt Judges, viz. their own Passions and corrupt Affections: And you may with as much Reason, and as good Success, chide the Sea for being Tempestuous, when the Winds rage and are let loose upon it. Chide a Man for being angry when he is angry, and what will you get by it, but only some of his foam cast upon you? Let God himself expostulate with an impatient Jonah, whilst he is in his fit of Impatience: ²Doest thou well to be angry? and he will tell him snappishly to his Face, That he doth well to be angry, even to the very Death. There is no dealing ⟨p. 40⟩with Men while their Passions blind their Reason; This makes them as utterly incapable of taking good Counsel, as if they were brute Beasts. Thou wert as good thrust thy Hand into a Wasps Nest, as come with Reproofs and Rebukes when the Swarm is up, to be sure thou shalt only go away with many a Sting and Wound, and thou mayest thank thy self for no better timing thy Reproofs.

But the fittest opportunity for this Duty, ¹is when they are most calm and sedate, their Passions husht, and their Reason (with which you are to deal) again reseated upon its Throne. When they are free from all inward Perturbations of Mind, and from all considerable Alterations in their outward Estate and Condition. Then, if ever, they will listen to Reproof, and take right Measures of the Sin for which you reprove them. But if we reprove them when