To be angry at offenders, is to make our selves the common enemies of mankind, which is both weak and wicked; we may as well be angry that our thistles do not bring forth apples, or that every pebble in our ground is not an oriental pearl.

If anger helps the lion, it is fear that saves the stag, swiftness the hawk, and flight the pigeon but man has God for his example (who is never angry) and not the creatures.

There is no surer argument of a great mind, than not to be transported to anger by any accident; the clouds and the tempests are formed below, but all above is quiet and serene, which is the emblem of a brave man, that lives within himself, modest, venerable, and composed.

Whoever considers the brutality of anger and malice, must acknowledge that there is no such monster in nature, as one man raging against another, and labouring to sink that

which can never be drowned, but with himself for company.

There are no greater slaves, than those that serve anger, for they improve their misfortunes, by an impatience more insupportable than the calamity that causes it.

Our wrath cannot go beyond death: and death will most undoubtedly come, whether we be peevish or quiet. It is time lost, to take pains to do that, which will infallibly be done without us.

To contend with our superiors is folly and madness, with our equals it is doubtful and dangerous, and with our inferiors it is base.

SCEPTICISM AND INFIDELITY.

NOTHING

OTHING is so important to any man, as his own state and condition; nothing so amazing as eternity. If therefore we find persons indifferent to the loss of their being, and to the danger of endless misery; it is impossible to consider them in a right mind.

An atheist is the most vain pretender to reason in the world. The whole strength of atheism consists in contradicting the universal reason of mankind. They have no principles, nor can have any; and therefore they can never reason, but only confidently deny and affirm.

Licentiousness in opinion always makes way for licentiousness in practice.

He that walks only by the light of nature, walks in darkness.

As infidelity is the greatest sin, so for God to give a man over to it is the greatest punishment.

Nothing has more horror than annihila tion. The worst that good men can fear, is the best that evil men can wish for; which is the dissolution of the soul in death.

God has wisely provided, in his present administration of things, to give us instances enough of his just procedure toward the good and bad; and yet to leave us instances enough of unrewarded virtue, and prosperous wickedness, to assure us he intends an after reckoning.

It is certain there never was a man that said, there was no God, but he wished it first.

Practical atheism has always been the grand support of speculative; and deservedly esteemed no less dangerous in its tendency and effects.

Nothing can be plainer, than that ignorance and vice are two ingredients absolutely necessary in the composition of free thinkers, who, in propriety of speech, are no thinkers at all..

If men understand not the evidence of religion, the more shame it is for them; but then immediately to leap out of ignorance into atheism, is first to play the fool, and then run stark mad upon it.

It is a certain maxim, that such persons as take themselves out of God's protection are always at a loss, and know not how to dispose of themselves.