duty of the day; and to do acts of public religion is the other part of it. So much is made matter of duty by the intervention of authority: and though the church hath made no more prescriptions in this, and God hath made none at all; yet he who keeps the day most strictly, most religiously, he keeps it best, and most consonant to the design of the church, and the ends of religion, and the opportunity of the present leisure, and the interests of his soul. The acts of religion proper for the day are prayers and public liturgies, preaching, catechizing, acts of charity, visiting sick persons, acts of eucharist to God, of hospitality to our poor neighbours, of friendliness and civility to all, reconciling differences; and after the public assemblies are dissolved, any act of direct religion to God, or of ease and remission to servants, or whatsoever else is good in manners, or in piety, or in mercy. What is said of this great feast of the Christians is to be understood to have a greater severity and obligation in the anniversary of the resurrection, of the ascension, of the nativity of our blessed Saviour, and of the descent of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost. And all days festival to the honour of God, in remembrance of the holy apostles, and martyrs, and departed saints, as they are with prudence to be chosen and retained by the church, so as not to be unnecessary, or burdensome, or useless; so they are to be observed by us, as instances of our love of the communion of saints, and our thankfulness for the blessing, and the example. b Quippe etiam festis quædam exercere diebus Balantúmque gregem fluvio mersare salubri.— Virgil. apud Macrob. De ferocia Tiberii dedit testimonium Tacit. lib. iii. Aunal. his verbis: Quemne diem vacuum pœna? ubi inter sacra et vota, quo tempore verbis étiam profanis abstineri mos esset, vincula et laqueus inducantur. Εορτὴ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἔστιν ἢ τὰ δέοντα πράττειν. — Thucyd. lib. i. “Εκαστος ὑμῶν σαββατιζέτω πνευματικῶς, μελέτῃ νόμου χαίρων, οὐ σώματος ἀνέσει, δημιουργίαν θεοῦ θαυμάζων, οὐχ ἕωλα ἐσθίων, καὶ χλιαρὰ πίνων, καὶ μεμετρημένα βαδίζων, καὶ ὀρχήσει καὶ κρότοις νοῦν οὐκ ἔχουσι χαίρων. - S. Ignat. Ep. ad Magnes. Judæi serviliter observant diem sabbati, ad luxuriam, ad ebrietatem. Quanto meliùs fœminæ eorum lanam facerent, quàm illo die in Menianis saltarent? S. August. Tract. 4. in Joan. Et in Psal. xcii. idem ferè. The Fifth Commandment. 26." Honour thy father and thy mother." This commandment Christ made also to be Christian, by his frequent repetition and mention of it in his sermons and laws, and so ordered it, that it should be the band of civil government and society. In the decalogue God sets this precept immediately after the duties that concern himself, our duty to parents being in the confines with our duty to God, the parents being, in order of nature, next to God, the cause of our being and production, and the great almoners of eternity, conveying to us the essences of reasonable creatures, and the charities of Heaven. And when our blessed Saviour, in a sermon to the Pharisees, spake of duty to parents, he rescued it from the impediments of a vain tradition, and secured this duty, though against a pretence of religion towards God, telling us that God would not himself accept a gift which we took from our parents' needs. This duty to parents is the very firmament and band of commonwealths. He that honours his parents will also love his brethren, derived from the same loins, he will dearly account of all his relatives and persons of the same cognation; and so families are united, and of them cities and societies are framed. And because parents and patriarchs of families and of nations had regal power, they who, by any change, succeeded in the care and government of cities and kingdoms, succeeded in the power and authority of fathers, and became so, in estimate of law and true divinity, to all their people. So that the duty here commanded is due to all our fathers in the sense of Scripture and laws, not only to our natural, but • Ο λοιδορῶν τὸν πατέρα δυσφημεῖ λόγῳ· Τὴν εἰς τὸ θεῖον δὲ μελετᾷ βλασφημίαν. — Menand. Εμφανεῖς θεοί, μιμούμενοι τὸν ἀγέννητον ἐν τῷ ζωοπλαστεῖν. dixit Philo ad Decal. Vivet extento Proculeius ævo, Notus in fratres animi paterni: Illum aget pennâ metuente solvi De Parentibus Fama superstes. Hor. lib. ii. Od. 2. Τούς τε γονεῖς τίμα, τούς τ' ἄγχιστ ̓ ἐκγεγαῶτας. — Hierocl. Cùmque pater tibi sit, jura tuere patris. Necessaria præsidia vitæ debentur bis maximè.- Cicer. Offic. 3. to our civil fathers, that is, to kings and governors. And the Scripture adds, mothers; for they also, being instruments of the blessing, are the objects of the duty. The duty is, "honour;" that is, reverence, and support, if they shall need it. And that which our blessed Saviour calls, "not honouring our parents "," in St. Matthew, is called in St. Mark, doing nothing for them;" and honour is expounded by St. Paul, to be "maintenance," as well as "reverence." Then we honour our parents, if with great readiness we minister to their necessities, and communicate our estate, and attend them in sicknesses, and supply their wants, and, as much as lies in us, give them support, who gave us being. The Sixth Commandment. 27. "Thou shalt do no murders." So it was said to them of old time. He that kills shall be guilty of judgment; that is, he is to die by the sentence of the judge. To this Christ makes an appendix: "But I say unto you, he that is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment." This addition of our blessed Saviour, as all the other, which are severer explications of the law than the Jews admitted, was directed against the vain and imperfect opinion of the lawyers, who thought to be justified by their external works; supposing, if they were innocent in matter of fact, God would require no more of them than man did; and what, by custom or silence of the laws, was not punishable by the judge, was harmless before God; and this made them to trust in the letter, to neglect the duties of repentance, to omit asking pardon for their secret irregularities, and the obliquities and aversations of their spirits; and this St. Paul also complains of, that, neglecting "the righteousness of God, they sought to establish their own"," that is, according to man's judgment. But our blessed Saviour tells them, that such an innocence is not enough; God requires more than conformity, and observation of the fact, and exte e Mark, vii. 12. f 1 Tim. v. 18. d Matt. xv. 6. Γονέας τιμήσωμεν ὑπερβαλλόντως, σώματος ὑπηρεσίας καὶ χρημάτων χορηγίαν αυτοῖς ὑπέχοντες ὅτι μάλιστα προθυμοτάτην. — Hierocl. Φέρει δ ̓ ἐπὶ τὴν ἐπιμυθίαν αυτοὺς, καὶ τὸ τῶν δουλικωτέρων ὑπηρετημάτων ἅπτεσθαι αποτὲ τοὺς παῖδας, ὥστε καὶ πόδας ἀπονίψαι. - Hierocl. apud Stobæum. Lev. xxiv. 21. Num. xxxv. 16, 17. h. Rom. x. 3. rior piety, placing justice not in legal innocency, or not being condemned in judgment of the law and human judicature, but in the righteousness of the spirit also:. for the first acquits us before man, but by this we shall be held upright in judgment before the Judge of all the world. And, therefore, besides abstinence from murder or actual wounds, Christ forbids all " anger without cause against our brother," that is, against any man. 28. By which not the first motions are forbidden; the twinklings of the eye, as the philosophers call them, the propassions and sudden irresistible alterations; for it is impossible to prevent them, unless we could give ourselves a new nature, any more than we can refuse to wink with our eye when a sudden blow is offered at it, or refuse to yawn when we see a yawning sleepy person: but by frequent and habitual mortification, and by continual watchfulness, and standing in readiness against all inadvertencies, we shall lessen the inclination, and account fewer sudden irreptions. A wise and meek person should not kindle at all, but after violent and great collision; and then, if like a flint he sends a spark out, it must as soon be extinguished as it shows, and cool as soon as sparkle. But, however, the sin is not in the natural disposition. But when we entertain it, though it be, as Seneca expresses it, cum voluntate non contumaci," without a determination of revenge, then it begins to be a sin. Every indignation against the person of the man, in us is pride and self-love; and towards others ungentleness, and an immorigerous spirit. Which is to be understood, when the cause is not sufficient, or when the anger continues longer, or is excessive in the degrees of its proportion. 29. The causes of allowable anger are, when we see God dishonoured, or a sin committed, or any irregularity, or fault in matter of government; a fault against the laws of a family or good manners, disobedience or stubbornness; which, in all instances where they may be prudently judged such by the governor, yet possibly they are not all direct sins against God and religion. In such cases we may "be angry." But then we may also sin, if we exceed in time, or measure of degree. iS. Hieron. Epist. ad Demetriad. VOL. III. k Seneca, lib. ii. de Ira, c. 4. D 30. The proportion of time St. Paul expresses, by "not etting the sun set upon our anger." Leontius Patricius' was one day extremely and unreasonably angry with John, the patriarch of Alexandria; at evening, the patriarch sent a servant to him with this message: "Sir, the sun is set." Upon which Patricius reflecting, and the grace of God making the impression deep, visible, and permanent, he threw away his anger, and became wholly subject to the counsel and ghostly aids of the patriarch. This limit St. Paul borrowed from the psalmist; for that which in the fourth Psalm, verse 5, we read, "Stand in awe, and sin not," the Septuagint reads, "Be angry, but sin not." And this measure is taken from the analogy of the law of the Jews, that a malefactor should not hang upon the accursed tree after the sun was set and if the laws laid down their just anger against malefactors as soon as the sun descended, and took off his beams from beholding the example; much more is it reasonable that a private anger, which is not warranted by authority, not measured by laws, not examined by solemnities of justice, not made reasonable by considering the degree of the causes, not made charitable by intending the public good, not secured from injuriousness by being disinterested, and such an anger in which the party is judge, and witness, and executioner. It is, (I say,) but reason, such an anger should unyoke, and go to bed with the sun, since justice and authority laid by the rods and axes as soon as the sun unteamed his chariot. Plutarch reports, that the Pythagoreans were strict observers of the very letter of this caution"; for if anger had boiled up to the height of injury or reproach, before sun-set they would shake hands, salute each other, and depart friends; for they were ashamed that the same anger, which had disturbed the counsels of the day, should also trouble the quiet and dreams of the night, lest anger, by mingling with their rest and nightly fancies, should grow natural and habitual. Well, anger must last no longer; but neither may a Christian's anger last so long; for if his anger last a whole day, it will certainly, before night, sour into a crime. A man's anger is like the spleen; at the first it is natural, but in its excess and Leontius Cypr. Episc. in Vita ipsius, c. 14. m Εἴ ποτε προαχθεῖεν εἰς λοιδορίαν ὑπ ̓ ὀργῆς, πρὶν ἢ τὸν ἥλιον δῦναι, τὰς δεξιὰς ἐμβάλ λοντες ἀλλήλοις καὶ ἀσπασάμενοι διελύοντο.· Plutarch. |