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SECTION VI.

OF OUR LORD'S MEEK NESS.

THE regulation of anger is an important part of self government: and this virtue was eminently displayed by our Lord on many occasions. He has also both made it the subject of a precept, and pronounced a blessing on it: "a Blessed are the meek ; for they shall inherit the earth :" they shall enjoy quiet, conciliate friends, and escape injuries. And he has forewarned us that improper anger will incur punishment: Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment." In another place he finely reproved the unjust anger of the Jews against the Gentiles, on account of their admission into the same external privileges with themselves under the Christian covenant. The parable to which I allude prophetically represents the elder brother as angry, and refusing to partake of the feast which his compassionate father had prepared on the younger brother's return.

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In our Lord's conduct towards his disciples there appears as much mildness and gentleness, as there was dulness and unbelief among them. When they contended which should be the greatest, he gave them the softest reproof by setting a child before them, and teaching them that Christian greatness

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a Matt. v. 5. Luke xv. 28.

b Psal. xxxvii. 11.
Matt. xviii. 2.

Matt. v. 22. See p.

28.

was to be obtained by imitating such lowliness. When the resentment of James and John would have led them to consume the Samaritans by fire from heaven for their inhospitality, there was a quickness in his manner suited to the occasion; but the censurer wore a benign aspect, and suggested a palliation of their conduct in their ignorance: "He turned and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit YE are of: for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." When the twelve so unseasonably contended for superiority on the night of the paschal supper, there was much kindness in his manner of correcting their false ideas.

Having observed the difference between his kingdom and worldly ones, exaltation among his followers depending on their humility; he proposed to them his own example during his intercourse with them, turned their views to future greatness in his spiritual kingdom, and enforced his gracious words by a most eminent act of humility in washing their feet an office of condescension, which he exhorted them to imitate in their general conduct towards each other. When, during his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, Peter, James and John, though commanded to watch and pray, slept through sorrow; though himself in an afflicted state of mind, which is most prone to impatience, and though not insensible of his slighted authority, of their culpable security in the midst of danger, and of their unconcern at his own anguish of soul, yet he softened his

fLuke ix. 55, 6. See p. 171.

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John xiii. 1-15.

gib. xxii. 24-30.
Compare Luke xxii 45. John xvi. 6.

expostulation by an excuse, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

There was great moderation in our Lord's behaviour towards Judas. When this apostle murmured against Mary for anointing Jesus with precious ointment, pretending that the price might have been given to the poor, but in fact regretting that he lost an opportunity of partly converting it to his own use; our Lord enlarged on the piety of Mary's deed, not. on the hypocrisy and avarice of the man who was on the point of betraying him. "Let her alone: she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whenever ye will ye can do them good but me ye have not always. She hath done what she had in her power: she hath aforehand anointed my body to the embalming." In Grotius has observed that when Jesus, at the paschal supper, privately marked out the traitor to John by giving him a portion of the food before them, he shewed his very great lenity, and even at that time provoked him to repentance by an act which was one way of testifying affection. We may add that, immediately before, he had condescended to wash Judas's feet in common with the other apostles; not angrily repelling him, but obscurely intimating his intended perfidy : "Ye" are clean, but not all." And in the very execution of his treason he thus addressed Judas: "。 Companion, wherefore art thou come ?" What end canst thou propose to thyself?

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*Matt. xxvi. 41. 230, fol. 1712. G ib. xiii. 10.

See Tillotson on 1 Pet. ii. 21.

John xii. 4-7. and p. p.
Matt. xxvi. 50.

Serm. cxxxvi. p.

On John xiii. 26.

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and how hath my conduct deserved this from thee? And when, notwithstanding this gentleness, Judas "drew near to him and kissed him," making an emblem of homage and love the signal of scorn and contempt, as well as of treachery and villainy,' our Lord's words were, "Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?" He gave him no upbraiding appellation; but simply declared his knowledge that this seeming mark of benevolence was used for the purpose of discriminating him to those whom his relentless enemies sent to apprehend him.

Observe the mildness of our Lord's expostulation, when the Jews were about to stone him. "Many

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good works have I shewn you from my Father: for which of those works do ye stone me ?" When the high priest Ananias commanded Paul to be smitten, this great apostle betrayed a warmth which, on recollection, he becomingly retracted; "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?" But with what composure does the meck Jesus address the officer who struck him at the same tribunal? "If [in the course of my preaching] I have spoken 'evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me ?"

Our Lord's meek and placable disposition appeared in the strongest light when he interceded for his murderers, not on a calm foresight of his sufferings, nor 'upon "cool consideration, after the injury was done,'

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John xviii. 23.

9 Luke xxii. 48. * John x. 32 ☐ Tillotson on Matt. v. 44

P Hale's Contemplations, p. 60.
Acts xxiii. 3.
Serm. xxxiii. fol. 1704. See also Lardner's Sermons, ii. 55, &c.

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but at the very time when they were nailing him to the cross, and probably in the midst of their insults; w when a sense of the wrong and indignity might naturally have been expressed, and assertions of innocence might naturally have been uttered.

There are occasions indeed when our Lord shewed a becoming sensibility of wrong conduct.

When his disciples rebuked those who brought to him young children, that he might lay his hands on them and pray for them, he was moved with indignation that the piety of those who brought them, and his own act of benevolence, should be thus interrupted.

When watched by the Scribes and Pharisees, that they might find matter of accusation against him if he restored a man's withered hand on the sabbath, we read that he looked round on them with anger : but it was an anger mixed with grief and compassion for their hardness of heart; it was a just and generous resentment of their dissembled malevolence, who could think the sabbath profaned by an act of humanity, and sanctified by compassing the death of him who performed it.

There are also instances in our Lord's parables where anger is not only mentioned as a natural and

w Ω μητρὸς ἐμῆς σέβας, ω πάντων

Αἰθὴς κοινὸν φάος εἰλίσσων,
Ἐσορᾶς μ' ὡς ἔκδικα πάσχω;

ESCHYL. Prometheus 1090.

Seest thou this, awful Themis, and thou Æther,
'Thro' whose pure azure floats the general stream
Of liquid light, seest thou what wrongs I suffer ;

* Mark x. 14.

POTTER. ib. iii. 5.

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