bridle" when the heart is hot. Even when there may be occasion for a
crowd out in a disorderly manner, like a confused, ungoverned rabble, but draws them out like the trained bands, every one in his own order, as wisdom and grace give the word of command.
3. Meekness will curb the tongue, and "keep the mouth as with a bridle" when the heart is hot. Even when there may be occasion for a keenness of expression, and we are called to rebuke sharply— cuttingly, Titus 1:13—yet meekness forbids all fury and indecency of language, and every thing that sounds like clamor and evil-speaking. The meekness of Moses was not at hand when he spoke that unadvised word "rebels," for which he was shut out of Canaan, though rebels they were, and at that time very provoking. Men in a passion are apt to give reviling language, to call names, and those most senseless and ridiculous—to take the blessed name of God in vain, and so profane it. It is a wretched way by which the children of hell vent their passion at their beasts, their servants, any person, or any thing that provokes them, to swear at them. Men in a passion are apt to reveal secrets, to make rash vows and resolutions, which afterwards prove a snare, and sometimes to slander and belie their brethren, and bring railing accusations, and so do the devil's work; and to speak that "in their haste" concerning others, Psalm 116:11, of which they afterwards see cause to repent. How brutishly did Saul in his passion call his own son, the heir-apparent to the crown, the "son of the perverse rebellious woman." "Racca" and "you fool" are specified by our Savior as breaches of the law of the sixth commandment; and the passion in the heart is so far from excusing such opprobrious speeches—for which purpose it is commonly alleged—that really it is that which gives them their malignity: they are the smoke from that fire, the gall and wormwood springing from that root of bitterness; and if for "every idle word that men speak," much more for such wicked words as these, must they give an account at the day of judgment. And as it is a reflection upon God to