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WHEREFORE if we wish to gain the substance of that divine reward of
which it is said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God," we ought not only to banish it from our actions, but entirely to
root it out from our inmost soul. For it will not be of any good to have
checked anger in words, and not to have shown it in deeds, if God, from
whom the secrets of the heart are not hid, sees that it remains in the
secret recesses of our bosom. For the word of the gospel bids us destroy
the roots of our faults rather than the fruits; for these, when the
incitements are all removed, will certainly not put forth shoots any more;
and so the mind will be able to continue in all patience and holiness, when
this anger has been removed, not from the surface of acts and deeds, but
from the very innermost thoughts. And, therefore to avoid the commission of
murder, anger and hatred are cut off, without which the crime of murder
cannot possibly be committed. For "whosoever is angry with his brother, is
in danger of the judgment;" and "whosoever hateth his brother is a
murderer;" viz., because in his heart he desires to kill him, whose
blood we know that he has certainly not shed among men with his own hand or
with a weapon; yet, owing to his burst of anger, he is declared to be a
murderer by God, who renders to each man, not merely for the result of his
actions, but for his purpose and desires and wishes, either a reward or a
punishment; according to that which He Himself says through the prophet:
"But I come that I may gather them together with all nations and
tongues;" and again: "Their thoughts between themselves accusing or
also defending one another, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of
men."
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