deliberate repentance. We find David often remembering with regret
Joseph in good temper towards his brethren, though he had occasion enough to quarrel with them: "You thought evil against me, but God meant it for good." This satisfied Paul—in reference to the thorn in the flesh, that is, the calamities and oppositions of the false apostles, which touched him more sensibly than all the efforts of persecuting rage—that it was intended to hide pride from him, lest he should be "exalted above measure with the abundance of revelations;" and there seems to be an instance of the good effect it had upon him immediately upon the mention of it, for within a few lines after, he lets fall that humble word, "I am nothing." We should be apt to think too highly of ourselves, and too kindly of the world, if we did not meet with some injuries and contempt, by which we are taught to cease from man. If we would more carefully study the improvement of an injury, we should not be so apt to desire to revenge it.
5. What is said and done in haste, is likely to be matter for deliberate repentance. We find David often remembering with regret what he said in haste, particularly one angry word he had said in the day of his distress and trouble, which seemed to reflect upon Samuel, and indeed upon all that had given him any encouragement to hope for the kingdom: "I said in my haste, All men are liars;" and this hasty word was a grief to him long after. "He that hurries with his feet sins." When a man is transported by passion into any impropriety, we commonly qualify it with this, that "he is a little hasty," as if there were no harm in that; but we see there is harm in it: he that is in haste may contract much guilt in a little time. What we say or do unadvisedly when we are hot, we must unsay or undo again when we are cool, or do worse. Now who would willfully do that which, sooner or later, he must repent of? A heathen that was tempted to a chargeable sin, could resist the temptation with this consideration, that "he would not buy repentance so dear." Is repentance such a pleasant work that we should so industriously
"treasure up unto ourselves wrath against the day of wrath," either the day of God's wrath against us, or our own against ourselves? You little think what a torrent of self-affliction you let in, when you let the reins loose to an immoderate ungoverned passion. You are angry at others and reproach them, and are ready to abhor them and to revenge yourselves upon them, and your corrupt nature takes a strange kind of pleasure in this. But do you know that all this will at last rebound upon yourselves, and return into your own bosom? Either here or in a worse place you must repent of all this; that is, you must turn all these passions upon yourselves; you must be angry at yourselves, and reproach yourselves, and call yourselves fools, and abhor yourselves, and smite upon your own breasts; yes, and if God gives you grace, take a holy revenge upon yourselves, which is reckoned among the products of godly sorrow, 2 Cor. 7:11; and what can be more uneasy than all this? You take great liberty in scolding those that you have under your power, and uttering perhaps abusive language, because you know they dare not chide you again; but dare not your own hearts smite you, and your consciences chide you? And is it not easier to bear the chidings of any man in the world, which may either be avoided, or answered, or slighted, than to bear the reproaches of our own consciences, which, as we cannot avoid hearing, so we cannot trifle with; for when conscience is awake, it will be heard, and will tell us home wherein "we are verily guilty concerning our brother." Let this thought therefore quiet our spirits when they begin to be tumultuous, that hereby we shall but make work for repentance; whereas, on the contrary, as Abigail suggested to David, the bearing and forgiving of an injury will be no trouble or grief of mind afterwards. Let wisdom and grace therefore do what time will do; that is, cool our heat, and take off the edge of our resentment.