Of Anger
Thomas Fuller (1642)
Anger is one of the sinews of the soul; he that wants it hath a maimed mind, and with Jacob, sinew-shrunk in the hollow of his thigh, must needs halt. Nor is it good to converse with such as cannot be angry, and with the Caspian Sea never ebb nor flow. This anger is either heavenly, when one is offended for God; or hellish, when offended with God and goodness; or earthly, in temporal matters. Which earthly anger, whereof we treat, may also be hellish, if for no cause, no great cause, too hot, or too long.
1. Be not angry with any without a cause. If thou beest, thou must not only, as the proverb saith, be appeased without amends, having neither cost nor damage given thee, but, as our Saviour saith, be in danger of the judgment.
2. Be not mortally angry with any for a venial fault. He will make a strange combustion in the state of his soul, who at the landing of every cockboat sets the beacons on fire. To be angry for every toy debases the worth of thy anger; for he will be angry for anything, who will be angry for nothing.
3. Let not they anger be so hot, but that the most torrid zone thereof may be habitable. Fright not people from thy presence with the terror of thy intolerable impatience. Some men, like a tiled house, are long before they take fire, but once on flame there is no coming near to quench them.
4. Take heed of doing irrevocable acts in thy passion. As the revealing of secrets, which makes thee a bankrupt for society ever after: neither do such things which done once are done for ever, so that no bemoaning can amend them. Samson's hair grew never to be repaired. Wherefore in thy rage make no Persian decree which cannot be reversed or repealed; but rather Polonian laws, which, they say, last but three days: do not in an instant what an age cannot recompense.
5. Anger kept till the next morning, with manna, doth putrefy and corrupt; save that manna not corrupted at all, and anger most of all, kept the next sabbath. St. Paul saith, Let not the sun go down on your wrath; to carry news to the antipodes in another world of thy revengeful nature. Yet let us take the apostle's meaning rather than his words, with all possible speed to depose our passion, not understanding him so literally that we may take leave to be angry till sunset: then might our wrath lengthen with the days; and men in Greenland, where day lasts above a quarter of a year, have plentiful scope of revenge. And as the English, by command from William the Conqueror, always raked up their fire and put out their candles when the curfew bell was rung, let us then also quench all sparks of anger and heat of passion.
6. He that keeps anger long in his bosom, giveth place to the devil. And why should we make room for him, who will crowd in too fast of himself? Heat of passion makes our souls to chap, and the devil creeps in at the crannies; yea, a furious man in his fits may seem possessed with the devil, foams, fumes, tears himself, is deaf and dumb in effect, to hear or speak reason: sometimes swallows, stares, stamps, with fiery eyes and flaming cheeks. Had Narcissus himself seen his own face when he had been angry, he could never have fallen in love with himself.
