22.

MORAL.

25.

490 God helps not wicked men now, much less hereafter.

JOB 8, never sat on the Lord's right hand, after that by smiting His enemies He made them subject to His power, but that He is set over all things in eternal blessedness, even before He treads under His feet the hearts of those that rebel against Him. Wherein it is made plain that His enemies being brought under, He still rules without end even afterwards. Matt. 1, Thus it is said in the Gospel of the espoused of Mary, And knew her not, till she had brought forth her first-born Son. Not that he did know her after the birth of the Lord, but that he never touched her even when he did not know her to be the Mother of his Creator. For because it was impossible that he could have touched her after he knew that the Mystery of our Redemption was transacted from her womb, plainly it was necessary that the Evangelist should bear witness of that time, of which there might be misgivings entertained by reason of Joseph's ignorance. And so it is expressed here in like manner, Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will He stretch out His hand to the evil-minded; till He fill thy mouth with laughter, and thy lips with shouting. As if it were expressed in plain speech; 'Not even before the Judgment does He abandon the life of the faithful, nor even before He appears does He forbear from smiting the minds of the evil-disposed by abandoning them.' For that the sons of perdition He torments without end, and that after that He shall have appeared His Elect reign for evermore, assuredly there is no doubt. It goes on; Ver. 22. They that hate thee shall be clothed with confusion.

liii.

90. Confusion clothes' the enemies of the good in the final Judgment; for when they see before the eyes of their mind their past misdeeds running over in excess to them, their own guilt clothes them on every side, weighing them down. For they then bear the memory of their doings in punishment, who now, as though strangers to the faculty of reason, sin with hearts full of joy. There they see how greatly they should have eschewed all that they loved. There they see how woful that was, which they now hug themselves for in their sin. Then guilt spreads a cloud over the mind, and conscience pierces itself with the darts of its remembrances. Who then can adequately estimate how

The wicked build dwellings to fall on them. 491

VIII.

exceeding great will be the confusion of the wicked Then, Book when both the Judge Eternal is discerned without, and sin is set in review before the eyes within? who are on this account brought to such a pass, because they loved transient things alone. And hence it is rightly added upon that;

And the tents of the wicked shall not abide.

91. For a tent is put together that the body may be liv. preserved from heat and cold. What then is here set forth. by the name of a dwelling-place, save the building of earthly prosperity, whereby the wicked are multiplying above their heads things to fall, that they may shelter themselves from the exigencies of the present life as from heat and rain. Thus they go about to rise in honours, lest they should appear contemptible. They pile up the good things of earth, and heap them high, lest they ever come to pine with the cold of want. They scorn to take thought of what is to come, and busy themselves with all their heart, that nought may be lacking in the present scene of things. They aim to spread their name, that they may not live unknown, and if every thing is forthcoming to their hearts' content, they regard themselves as proof in all things, and blessed in their condition. Thus in the place where they rear a dwelling-place of the interior, there surely they have their tents fixed. They bear crosses with impatience, they rejoice in prosperity without restraint. They mind alone the things that are before them, nor do they draw their breath by the yearning after their heavenly home in the remembrance thereof. They are glad that the good things are theirs, which their heart is bent on having; and there, where they rest in the body, they bury the soul too, making it a thing extinct, in that being slain with the instrument of worldly solicitude, that pile of earthly things, which they heap together hunting for them without, they are always carrying on them within in thought.

92. But contrariwise the good neither take the blessings offered them here below as any thing great, nor very much. dread the ills brought upon them. But both whilst they use present advantages, they forecast inconveniences to come, and when they lament for present evils, they are comforted in the love of the good things to follow. And they are cheered by temporal support, just as a wayfarer enjoys a

MORAL.

492

The righteous build not, nor settle, here.

JOB 8, bed in a stable; he stops and hurries to be off; he rests still 22. in the body, but is going forward to something else in imagination. But sometimes they even long to meet with afflictions, they shrink from finding all go well in transient things, lest by the delightfulness of the journey, they be hindered in arriving at their home; lest they arrest the step of the heart on the pathway of their pilgrimage, and one day come in view of the heavenly land without a recompense. They delight to be little accounted of, nor do they grieve to be in affliction and necessity. Thus they that never fortify themselves against the adversities of the present time, as it were will not have a tent against the heat and Matt. rain. And hence Peter is justly rebuked, because when he 17, 4. was not yet confirmed in perfectness of heart, upon the brightness of Truth' being made known, he goes about to set up a tent upon earth. And thus the righteous are indifferent to build themselves up here below, where they know themselves to be but pilgrims and strangers. For because they desire to have joy in their own, they refuse to be happy in what belongs to another. But the unrighteous, the further they are removed from the inheritance of the eternal Country, fix the foundations of the heart so much the deeper in the earth. It is hence that in the very beginning Gen. 4, of man's creation Enoch is born seventh in the elect family. It is hence that Cain calls his firstborn son Enoch, and names the city that he built after him. For Enoch' is rendered 'Dedication.' And so the wicked dedicate themselves in the beginning. For in this life, which is first, they plant the root of the heart, that they may flourish here to their content, and wither root and branch to the Country that follows after. But to the righteous, Enoch is born the seventh, in that the festal dedication of their lives is kept for the end. It is hence, as Paul testifies, Abraham dwells in 9. tents', for he looked for a city which hath foundations, Iso Vulg. whose builder and maker is God. It is hence that Jacob 14. goes 'humbly following the flocks of sheep, and Esau coming like E. to meet him lords it with a throng of numerous attendants, V. paul-in that here both the Elect are without pride, and the lost swell with satisfaction in the good things of the flesh. Deut. Hence the Lord saith to Israel, If thou shalt choose one

17.

Heb.11,

Gen.33,

2 Vulg.

latim.'

17, 15.

What is built in this world will not stand.

493

VIII.

from the people of the land and set him for a king over thee, Book he shall not multiply horses and horsemen to himself. And yet the first king chosen from among his brethren,' so soon as he had attained the height of power, chose for himself 1 Sam. three thousand horsemen; he immediately launched into pride, 13, 2. burst forth in the building up of the height he had attained, in that without he could not keep under on a level of equality all that made his spirit within rise high above the level of others. That rich man had as it were erected for himself a fenced dwelling place, who said, Soul, thou hast much goods Luke laid up for many years: take thine ease, eat, drink, and be 12, 19. merry. But because that dwelling is not bottomed upon the foundation of Truth, he heard at the same moment, Thou ver. 20. fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall these things be, which thou hast prepared? Therefore it is well said, And the dwelling-place of the wicked shall come to nought. In that the lovers of this fleeting life, whilst they diligently build themselves up in present things, are suddenly hurried into eternity.

i.

HIST.

BOOK IX.

He explains the ninth Chapter, together with the whole of the tenth.

1. BAD minds, if they have once broken out into the eagerness of opposition, whether what they hear from those that withstand them be right or wrong, assail it with contradictory replies; for whereas the speaker is unwelcome from being in opposition, not even what is right is welcome when he utters it. But, on the other hand, the hearts of the good, whose dislike rises not at the speaker but at the offence, in such sort pass sentence on what is amiss, as to adopt still any right things that are said. For they sit the most even umpires in deciding the sense of their opponents' words, and they so reject what is put forth amiss, that notwithstanding they set the seal upon what they recognise to be delivered in truth. For among a wilderness of thorns Ispica the ear' is generally to be found growing up from seed good for fruit. Therefore it must be managed with care by the 2 spina hand of the tiller, that, whilst the thorn is removed, the ear be cherished, so that he, who is eager to root up what pricks, may have sense to preserve what gives nourishment. Hence in that Bildad the Shuhite had said well in enquiry, Doth - God pervert judgment, or doth the Almighty pervert justice? in that he had delivered true and forcible sentiments against hypocrites, blessed Job, seeing that they were delivered against the wicked in general, admirably treads under foot the prosecution of his own defence, and at once sanctions the truths he had heard, saying,

ii.

2

Ver. 2. I know it is so of a truth, and that man put with God is not justified.

2. For man being put under God receives righteousness; being put with God he loses it: for every one that compares