continue. As it keeps us from being soon angry, so it teaches us when
kill, so it is to curse men that are made after the image of God, though ever so much our inferiors; that is, to speak ill of them, or to wish ill to them.
This is the disease which meekness prevents, and is in the tongue a "law of kindness." It is to the tongue as the helm is to the ship, Jas. 3:4, not to silence it, but to guide it, to steer it wisely, especially when the wind is high. If at any time we have conceived passion and thought evil, meekness will lay the hand upon the mouth—as the wise man's advice is, Prov. 30:32—to keep that evil thought from venting itself in any evil word reflecting upon God or our brother. It will reason a disputed point without noise, give a reproof without a reproach, convince a man of his folly without calling him a fool, will teach superiors either to forbear threatening, Eph. 6:9, or, as the margin reads it, to moderate it; and will look diligently lest any root of bitterness, springing up, trouble us, and thereby we and many others become defiled.
4. Meekness will cool the heat of passion quickly, and not allow it to continue. As it keeps us from being soon angry, so it teaches us when we are angry to be soon pacified. The anger of a meek man is like fire struck out of steel—hard to get out; and when it is, soon gone. The wisdom that is from above, as it is "gentle," and so not apt to provoke, so it is "easy to be entreated" when any provocation is given, and has the ear always open to the first proposals and overtures of satisfaction, submission, and reconciliation; and thus the anger is turned away. He that is of a meek spirit will be quick to forgive injuries and affronts, and has some excuse or other ready with which to extenuate and qualify the provocation, which an angry man, for the exasperating and justifying of his own resentments, will industriously aggravate. It is but to say, "There is no great harm done; or if there is, there was none intended; and peradventure it