What is the reason, my brethren, that people sin by anger so much? There is no temptation, it seems to me, that is more often given way to. Other ones, though frequently consented to, are also frequently resisted, even by those most subject to them; but with this it seems as if we were like gunpowder: touch the match to us, and off we go; if any one does us an injury or says an insulting word, we flare up at once and give back all we got, and more.
Afterward, perhaps, we are sorry; but that seems to do no good. Next time it is just the same. And so it goes on, till perhaps we begin to think that we really are like gunpowder; that God made us so that we cannot help going off when the match of provocation is applied.
But that is not true. It will never do to make God the cause of our sins. It is our own fault. But what is the fault? What is the matter that this temptation is not resisted like others?
I will tell you what I think the matter is. It is that the temptation to anger does not seem to be a temptation at the time. The angry word seems to you all right when you utter it. It is not so with other things—sins of impurity, for instance. You know they are wrong, and that you ought to resist them, even when they are on you; and sometimes you make up your mind to do so. But it is not so in this sin of anger.
And why does it not seem to be a temptation? Why do you think it no sin to say the angry word, to flare up when you are provoked? It is because your mind is confused at the time, so that you cannot tell what is sin and what is not.
That is the truth, if I am not mistaken. It is just the peculiar danger of this temptation that it disturbs and confuses the mind more than any other one. You cannot tell what really is right when you are under it; it is not safe to do anything at all. You are for the time like one who is drunk or crazy.
When a man has drank too much, if he have any sense left he will keep out of the way of other people until he is sobered. For he knows he is not fit to do or say anything when he is intoxicated, and that he will only make a fool of himself if he tries.
That is common sense and prudence; and many men, oven when drunk, have enough common sense and prudence left to follow this course. But very few have when under the passing drunkenness of anger. Most angry people do not know enough to hold their tongues. They ought to. They ought to have learned by experience. Well, then, this being the matter, the fault of angry people is plain enough. It is this: that they do not try to guard themselves against this temptation in the only way they can—that is, by remembering and acting on these words of St. James which I read to you from the Epistle of to-day: "The anger of man worketh not the justice of God." It always works injustice; that is, it always makes a mistake and does what is wrong. It has not sense enough to do what is right.