The slowness of the Divine anger.
"Slow to anger, and of great mercy." In former homilies it has been shown that the term "anger" can only be applied to God with extreme caution and precision. Anger is a part of the possibilities belonging to man as a moral being. He would not be a man if he could not be angry. Anger is the proper response which man makes to a certain class of related circumstances. And as man is made in the image of God, we must think that everything essential to man has its answering essential in God. Then there must be the possibility of anger in God. But man is suffering from the influence of willfulness and sin, continued through long generations. And one of the most decided influences has been a loosening of control over the possibilities of anger, so that a man responds too quickly, and anger degenerates into passion. Such anger must never be associated with God, who must never be thought of as losing self-control under any pressure of outward circumstances. Then he is "slow to anger."
I. THE SLOWNESS OF DIVINE ANGER IS MAN'S OPPORTUNITY. The type of man's anger is Cain, who, in a moment of passion, slew his brother, and gave that brother no opportunity of putting things straight. God waits, and in that waiting-time man gets his opportunity of recovery and repentance. He has the chance of "coming to himself." It may never be thought that God's slowness is the sign of his indifference. He feels responsively quicker than man does, but action on feeling is subject to judgment, and delayed by compassion. The slowness is mercy. The history of God's ancient people provides abundant illustrations of the opportunities given by the delaying of Divine anger.
II. THE SLOWNESS OF DIVINE ANGER IS MAN'S PERSUASION. There is something in man which instantly convicts him of his wrongdoing, and as instantly fills him with fear of God's anger. When that anger is held in, the man wonders. If he is a bad man, it leads him to presume. If he is a good man, it becomes to him a persuasion. It reveals to him God's anxiety about him. He feels to be in God's thought and patience, and he is moved to recover himself from that wrong state of mind and heart which brought on him the Divine anger.—R.T.