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| Chapter VII. How those who maintain that a man can be without sin are charged with a twofold error.
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Chapter VII.
How those who maintain that a man can be without sin are
charged with a twofold error.
The reason however which drives
us into this error is that, as we are utterly ignorant
of the virtue of being without
sin,2257
| 2257 Anamarteti id
est impeccantæ. | we fancy that we cannot contract any
guilt from those idle and random vagaries of our thoughts, but being
rendered stupid by dullness and as it were smitten with blindness we
can see nothing in ourselves but capital offences, and think that we
have only to keep clear of those things which are condemned also by the
severity of secular laws, and if we find that even for a short time we
are free from these we at once imagine that there is no sin at all in
us. Accordingly we are distinguished from the number of those who see,
because we do not see the many small stains, which are crowded together
in us, and are not smitten with saving contrition, if the malady of
vexation overtakes our thoughts, nor are we sorry that we are struck by
the suggestions of vainglory, nor do we weep over our prayers offered
up so tardily and coldly, nor consider it a fault if while we are
singing or praying, something else besides the actual prayer or Psalm
fills our thoughts, nor are we horrified because we do not blush to
conceive many things which we are ashamed to speak or do before men, in
our heart, which, as we know, lies open to the Divine gaze; nor do we
purge away the pollution of filthy dreams with copious ablutions of our
tears, nor grieve that in the pious act of almsgiving when we are
assisting the needs of the brethren, or ministering support to the
poor, the brightness of our cheerfulness is clouded over by a stingy
delay, nor do we think that we are affected by any loss when we forget
God and think about things that are temporal and corrupt, so that these
words of Solomon fairly apply to us: “They smite me but I have
not grieved, and they have mocked me, but I knew it
not.”2258
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