, but hasting home, invaded his territories, and
professed open war. "Hatred stirs up contention," Prov. x. 12, and they
break out at last into immortal enmity, into virulency, and more than
Vatinian hate and rage; [1723]they persecute each other, their friends,
followers, and all their posterity, with bitter taunts, hostile wars,
scurrile invectives, libels, calumnies, fire, sword, and the like, and will
not be reconciled. Witness that Guelph and Ghibelline faction in Italy;
that of the Adurni and Fregosi in Genoa; that of Cneius Papirius, and
Quintus Fabius in Rome; Caesar and Pompey; Orleans and Burgundy in France;
York and Lancaster in England: yea, this passion so rageth [1724]many
times, that it subverts not men only, and families, but even populous
cities. [1725]Carthage and Corinth can witness as much, nay, flourishing
kingdoms are brought into a wilderness by it. This hatred, malice, faction,
and desire of revenge, invented first all those racks and wheels,
strappadoes, brazen bulls, feral engines, prisons, inquisitions, severe
laws to macerate and torment one another. How happy might we be, and end
our time with blessed days and sweet content, if we could contain
ourselves, and, as we ought to do, put up injuries, learn humility,
meekness, patience, forget and forgive, as in [1726]God's word we are
enjoined, compose such final controversies amongst ourselves, moderate our
passions in this kind, "and think better of others," as [1727]Paul would
have us, "than of ourselves: be of like affection one towards another, and
not avenge ourselves, but have peace with all men." But being that we are
so peevish and perverse, insolent and proud, so factious and seditious, so
malicious and envious; we do _invicem angariare_, maul and vex one another,
torture, disquiet, and precipitate ourselves into that gulf of woes and
cares, aggravate our misery and melancholy, heap upon us hell and eternal
damnation.

SUBSECT. IX.--_Anger, a Cause_.

Anger, a perturbation, which carries the spirits outwards, preparing the
body to melancholy, and madness itself: _Ira furor brevis est_, "anger is
temporary madness;" and as [1728]Picolomineus accounts it, one of the three
most violent passions. [1729]Areteus sets it down for an especial cause (so
doth Seneca, _ep. 18. l. 1_,) of this malady. [1730]Magninus gives the
reason, _Ex frequenti ira supra modum calefiunt_; it overheats their
bodies, and if it be too frequent, it breaks out into