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AND some are commanded to "be angry" after a wholesome fashion, but
with our own selves, and with evil thoughts that arise, and "not to sin,"
viz., by bringing them to a bad issue. Finally, the next verse explains
this to be the meaning more clearly: "The things you say in your hearts, be
sorry for them on your beds:" i.e., whatever you think of in your hearts
when sudden and nervous excitements rush in on you, correct and amend with
wholesome sorrow, lying as it were on a bed of rest, and removing by the
moderating influence of counsel all noise and disturbance of wrath. Lastly,
the blessed Apostle, when he made use of the testimony of this verse, and
said, "Be ye angry and sin not," added, "Let not the sun go down upon your
wrath, neither give place to the devil." If it is dangerous for the sun
of righteousness to go down upon our wrath, and if when we are angry we
straightway give place to the devil in our hearts, how is it that above he
charges us to be angry, saying, "Be ye angry, and sin not"? Does he not
evidently mean this: be ye angry with your faults and your tempers, lest,
if you acquiesce in them, Christ, the sun of righteousness, may on account
of your anger begin to go down on your darkened minds, and when He departs
you may furnish a place for the devil in your hearts?
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