people would come together to fight each other, that we remedy this early, and
CHAPTER 4: The Pure in Heart Peacemakers and the PersecuteD
people would come together to fight each other, that we remedy this early, and that we were not waiting for Satan to have won, but that we anticipated. So this is, in short, what we have to retain.
Now our Lord Jesus Christ, to assert such a doctrine among us, says that such, that is to say, those who bring peace, will be called children of God. Is there anything more desirable than to be recognized and confessed as children of God, and to be able to claim him as our Father? For without this, what is our condition? If God gives us away, what more is left? For even if we have all our wishes in this world, do we not know that everything will be cursed and turned into confusion for us, unless God is favorable to us? For there is no true guarantee of all prosperity and all good except that we feel the favor and paternal love of God towards us. So what we must simply aspire to is to know that God is our Father, and that we have this privilege of being able to call ourselves his children. Moreover, we cannot obtain such a good, as Jesus Christ pronounces here, unless we are peaceful. For God not without cause is called the God of peace. So we must resemble him in this, or we do not belong to him in any way, whatever protest we make in our mouths. Here then is a proof that God is our Father, and that we desire to live in obedience to him, it is knowing when we destroy, as far as we are, all discord. Now it is true that we will often be forced to have war with the wicked: and again let us pursue peace as long as it is possible for us, as we are exhorted by Paul, if it is necessary that we endure many clashes and storms. And what's more, we will often be blamed for being the cause of the troubles and emotions that are occurring.
And this is why also our Lord Jesus Christ says goodbye at the same time we are blessed when we suffer persecution, when we will say of us, that we will be returned, and as excommunicate: brief, that we will be held detestable, provided that it is for the Gospel above all.
This is how we will be confessed to God, again that the world calls us troublemakers and mutineers, and that it seems that it is only up to us that everything be peaceful. We must therefore grant these two things here: it is that we are peaceful, even patiently carrying the injuries done to us, remaining calm and gentle in spirit so as not to feed us in our quarrels. And then secondly, we must make peace in everything, again that we must battle against the devil, who is father of contentions, troubles, and noises. Yet in doing this, we must always prize God's truth above outward peace. And then battalions also for righteousness, that is to say for righteousness. It is therefore not enough that we putpeace without discretion, "but it is necessary that the link of this peace is that