16. Now this Leviathan at this present time elect Spirits of the Angelic host imprison close in the bottomless pit. Rev. 20, Whence it is written. And I saw an Angel come down front heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand; and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years; and cast him into the bottomless pit. Yet at the end of the world they call him back to more open conflicts, and let him loose against us in all his power. And hence it is written again in the same place; Till the thousand To be loosed by AiiyeU at last J or metia trial. 195 years should be fulfilled, and aftei' that he must be loosed. Book For that apostate Angel, whereas • he was created so that '-^ he shoue preeminent among all the other legions of the Angels, fell so low by setting himself up, that he is now prostrated beneath the rule of the orders of Angels that stand erect, whether that being put in chains by them, as they minister to our welfare, he should now lie buried from sight, or that they at that lime setting him free for our pro- bation, he should be let loose to put forth all his power against us. Therefore, because the proud apostate Spirit is restrained by those elect Spirits, who being humble would not follow him, and, they being the executioners, it is ordered, that he shall one day be recalled for the purpose of an open conflict, that he may be utterly destroyed, let it be well said, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan; but forasmuch as the artful adversary is not yet raised to wage open war, let him shew how that night now by hidden influences overshadows the minds of some men. It follows; Ver. 9. Let the stars be darkened with the shadow thereof. 17. In Holy Scripture by the title of stars we have set x. forth sometimes the righteousness of the Saints which shineth in the darkness of this life, and sometimes the false pretence of hypocrites, who display all the good that they do, that they may win the praise of men; for if well doers were not stars, Paul would never say to his disciples, In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom P^il* 2, ye shi)ie like lights in the world. Again, if among those that seem to act aright, there were not some that sought by their conduct to win the reward of man's esteem, John would never have seen stars falling fiom heaven, where he says, The dragon Kev. 12, put forth h is tail, and drew the third part of the stars oflieaven. Now a portion of the stars is drawn by the dragon's tail, in that, in the last efforts of Antichrist to win men, some that appear to shine will be* carried off. For to draw the stars of heaven to the earth is by tlie love of earth to involve those in the froward ways of open error, who seem to be devoted to tlie pursuit of the heavenly life. For there are that as it were ' Ben. Quia, but there is good Ms. years means the times of the Church of authority for qui. whatever duration.
• Book xxxii. §.22. he says the 1000 196 Secret sinners justly let fall into open guilt.
Jobs, shine before the eyes of men by extraordinary deeds; but pjjg^ forasmuch as these very deeds are not the offspring of a pm*e heart, being ^struck blind in their secret thoughts, they are clouded with the darkness of this night, and these often lose the more outward deeds, tvhich they do not practise with any purity of heart. x4nd so because the night is permitted to prevail, whenever even amidst good works the purpose of the heart is not cleansed, let it be said with justice. Let the stars be dark with the shadow thereof; i. e. ' let the dark malice of our old enemy prevail against those who in the sight of men shew as bright by good works, and that light of praise, which in th'j eye of man's judgment they had taken, let them lay aside;' for they are ' overshadowed with the darkness of night,' when their life is brought to shame by open error, so that verily they may also appear outwardly such in practice, as they do not shrink from appearing to the Divine eye in their secret hearts. It proceeds; Ver. 9. Let it look for lights but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day. xi. 18. In the Gospel Truth declares, 1 am the light of the John 8, q^Qyid^ Now as this same Saviour of us men is one Person with the assembly of the good, for He is Himself the Head of the Body, and we all are the Body of this Head, so oiu* old enemy is one person with the whole company of the damned; in that he as a head out-tops them all in iniquity, and they, whilst they minister in the things he prompts, hold fast to him like a body joined below to the head. And so it is meet that all that is said of this night, i. e. of our old enemy, should be applied to his body, i. e. to all wicked persons. Wherefore because our Redeemer is the light of mankind, how is it that it is said of this night. Let it look for light, a?id have none; but that there are some, who exhibit themselves as maintaining by words that faith, which they undo by Tit. 1 works } Of whom Paul saith. They prcfess that they know ^^' God, but in works they deny Him; with these, indeed, either the things which they do are bad, or they follow after good deeds with no good heart. For they do not seek everlasting rewards as the fruit of their actions, but transitory partiality. And yet, because they hear themselves praised as Saints, they ^ Of perhaps ' caught,' ' capt.'
Satan and his body see none of the light of Christ. 197 believe themselves lo be really Saints, and in proportion as Book they account themselves unblameable according to the esteem '— they are in with numbers, they await in gieater security the Day of strict account. Of whom the Prophet well says. Woe Amos unto you that desire the day of the Lord. To these blessed ' Job utters the sentence due to them, saving in the temper of one foretelling the thing, and not as the wish of one that desired it, Let it look for light, hut hare none. For that night, I mean the adversaiy of darkness, in his members doth look for the light, but seeth none; in that whether it be they who retain tlie faith without works, these, tiiisting that they maybe saved at the final Judgment by right of the same faith, will find their hope prove vain, because by their life S. Aug. they have undone the faith, which in the confession of the ^j^^ ^^ lips they have maintained; or they, who for the sake of human «^ort'<- applause make a display of themselves in doing well, they vainly look for a reward of their good deeds at the hand of the Judge, when He cometh; for that whereas they do them out of regard to the notoriety of praise, they have already had their reward from the lips of men. As the Truth testifies, Whichsaith, ]'erily I say untoyou,tJieyhare^ their reward; and Matt. 6, here it is jastly added, Xeither let it see thedaaning of the day. " 19. For the dawn is the title of the Churcli, which is changed from the darkness of its sins into the light of righteousness. And hence the Spouse, admiring her in the Song of Solomon, saith^, JVho is she that goeth forth rt^Cant.e, the moriiing arising ^ for like the dawn doth the Chmch of ^'^' the Elect arise, in that she quits the diukness of her fonner iniquity, and converts herself into the radiance of new light. Tlicrefore in tliat light, which is manifested at the coming of the strict Judge, the body of our enemy when condeumed seeth no dayspring of the rising dawn, in that when the strict Judge shall come, every sinner, being overlaid with the blackness of his own deserts, knows not witli what wondrous sj)lendour Holy Church rises into the interior light of the heart. For then the mind of the Klect is trans- ported on high, to be illuminated witli the rays of the Divine Nature, and in the degree that it is penetrated with the light of that Countenance, it is lilted above itself in the refulgence * Volg. *■ ReceperuDt/ * have received,' which is borne out by the Greek, 198 The Righteous now not understood by the wicked.
Job 3, of gi'ace. Then doth Holy Church become a full dawn, when she parts wholly and for ever with the darkness of her Hist. /> t i state of mortality and ignorance. Thus at the Judgment she is still the dawn, but in the Kingdom she is become the day. For though together with the renewal of our bodies she already begins to behold the light at the Judgment, yet her vision thereof is more fully consummated in the Kingdom. Thus the rising of the dawn is the commencement of the Church in light, which the reprobate can never see, because they are closed in upon and forced dowm to darkness by the weight of their evil deeds from the sight of the Righteous Is. 26, Judge. And hence it is rightly said by the Prophet, Let the LXX. wicked he taken out of the way., that he see not the glory of God. It is hence that these words are uttered by the Psalmist Ps. 31, concerning this dawn. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy Presence from the pride of men. For every Elect one at the Judgment is hid in the countenance of the Godhead in interior vision, whereas the blindness of the reprobate without is banished and confounded by the strict visitation of justice.
20. And this too w^e not irrelevantly interpret with reference to the present time likewise, if we minutely search the hearts of dissemblers. For the proud and hypocritical look on the deeds of the good on the outside, and they find that such are commended by men for their doings, and they admire their high repute, and they see that these receive praises for their good deeds, but they do not see how studiously they eschew such praises; they regard the overt acts, but are Ignorant that these proceed from the principle of the interior hope alone. For all that shine with the tnie light of righte- ousness are first changed from the darkness of the inward puqjose of the heart, so that they wholly forsake the interior dimness of earthly coveting, and entirely turn their hearts to the desire of the light above, lest while they seem to be full of light to others, they be in darkness to themselves; thus persons that assume, because they regard the deeds of the righteous, but do not survey their hearts, imitate them in the things from whence they may obtain applause without, but not in the things w hereby they may inwardly arise to the light of righteousness; and they as it were are blind to Blindness of the Jews. First birth of sin. 199 see the day spring of the rising dawn, because they do not Book think it worth their while to regard the rehgious mind's intent.
21. The holy man, who was filled with the virtue of the Alleo. prophetic Spirit, may also have his eye fixed upon the faith- lessness of Juda?a at the coming of the Redeemer, and in these words he may be s})eaking prophetically of the mis- chievous effects of her blindness, as though in the character of one expressing a wish, so as to say. Let it look for light, hut have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day. For Judaea * looked for the light but had none;' since by pro- phecy she waited indeed for the Redeemer of Man that should come, but never knew Him when He came; and the eyes of the mind, which she opened wide to the expectation, she closed to the presence of the Light; neither did she see the dayspring of the rising dawn, in that she scorned to pay homage to those first beginnings of Holy Church, and while she sup- posed her to be undone by the deaths of her members, was ignorant to what strength she was attaining. But as, when speaking of the faithless, he signified the members of the wicked head, he again turns his discourse to the head of the wicked itself, saying, Ver. 10. Because it shut not up the doors of my mother'' s womb, nor hid soi' row from mine eyes.
22. What the womb of his mother is to each individual xii. man, that the primary abode in Paradise became to the whole human race. For from it came forth the family of man as it were from the womb, and tending to the increase of the race, as if to the growth of the body, it issued forth without. There oiu* conception was cemented, where the Man, the origin of mankind, had his abode, but the serpent opened the mouth of this womb, in that by his cmniing j)ei-suading he broke asunder the decree of heaven in man's heart. The seq)ent opened the mouth of this womb, in that he biu"st the barriers of the mind which were fortified with admonitions from above. Let the holy man then in the punishment which he suffers, cast the eyes of his mind far back to the sin. Let him mourn for this, which the neglect of darkness, that is, the dark suggestions of our old enemy lodged in man's mind; for this, that man's mind consented to his cunning suggestions to his own betrayal, and let him 200 Day of earthly prosperily accursed.
«^0B 3, say, Because it shut not up the doors of my mother'' s womb, j~^ nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. Nor let this disturb us, that he complains that he only did not shut up, whom he abhors for having opened the gate of Paradise. For ' he opened,' he calls shut not up; and ' he entailed it,' nor hid sorrow from me. For he would as it were have ' hid soitow,' if he had kept quiet, and have ' shut up,' if he had forborne from bursting in. For he is weighing well who it is he speaks of, and he reckons that it would have been as if the evil spirit had bestowed gains upon us if he had only not entailed losses upon our heads. Thus we say of robbers that they give their prisoners their lives, if they do not take them. MoiiAL. 23. It is well to go over these points again from the begin- ning, and according to what we remark in practice in the pre- sent life, to review it in a moral sense. Blessed Job, observing how presumptuously mankind, after his soul fell from its original state'', was lifted up in prosperity, and with what dismay it was dashed by adverse fortune, falls back in imagination to that unalterable state which he might have kept in Paradise, and in what a miserable light he beheld the fallen condition of our mortal state of being, so chequered with adversity and prosperity, he shewed by cursing the same in these words; Ver. 3. Let the day perish ivherein I was horn; and the night wherein it was said. There is a man child conceived.
24. It seems as it were like day, when the good fortune of this world smiles upon us, but it is a day that ends in night, for temporal prosperity often leads to the darkness of affliction. This day of good fortune the Prophet had con- Jer. 17 demned, when he said. Neither have I desired man's day\ ^^'. Thou knowest it. And this night our Lord declared He ^owi/iw'was to suffer at the final close of His Incarnation, when Ps^Yg ^^ declared by the Psalmist as if in the past. My reins 7. ' also instructed me in the night season. But by ' the day' may be understood the pleasures of sin, and by ' the night' the inward blindness, whereby man suffers himself to be brought down to the ground in the commission of sin. And therefore he wishes the day may perish, that all the flattering arts which are seen in sin, by the strong hand of justice h Several Mss. have ' Patrice mentis statu.'
Man conceived to sin in darkness, born in false liyhl. 201 intemosing, may be brought to nought. He wishes also Book TV tliat the * night may perish,' that what the bhnded mind 1- executes even in yielding consent, she may put away by the castigation of penance.
25. But we must enquire why man is said to be bom in * the day' and conceived in 'the night?' Holy Scriptiu'e uses the title * man' in three ways, viz. sometimes in respect of nature, sometimes of sin, sometimes of frailness. Now man is so called in respect of nature, as where it is written.
Let Us make man after Our image and likeness. He is Gen. i, called man in respect of sin, as where it is written, 1 have pjj*. 82 said, Ye are all gods, and all of you are children of the Most ^' 7- High: hut ye shall die like men. As though he had ex- pressed it plainly, * ye shall perish like transgressors.' And hence Paul saith, For whereas there is among yon envying i Cor. and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal, and icalk as'' men? As though he had said, ' Ye that carry about minds at variance, do ye not still sin, in the spirit of faulty human nature?' He is called ma)t in relation to his weakness, as where it is written, Cursed he the man that irusteth in man. Jcr. 17, As if he had said in plain words, ' in weakness.' Thus man ^' is born in the day, but he is conceived in the night, in that he is never caught away by the delightfulness of sin, until he is first made weak by the voluntary darkness of his mind. For he first becomes blind in the understanding, and then he enslaves himself to damnable delight. Let it be said then. Let the day perish wherein I was bor?i, and the night trhere- in it was said, There is a man child conceived: i. e. * Let the delight perish, which has hurried man into sin, and the unguarded frailness of his mind, whereby he was blinded even to the very darkness of consenting to evil. For while man does not heedfully mark the allurements of pleasure, he is even carried headlong into the night of the foulest practices. We must watch then with minds alive, that when sin begins to caress, the mind may perceive to what ruin she is being dragged. And hence the words are fitly added, Ver. 4. Let that day he darkness.
26. For ' the day becomes darkness,' when in the very xiv. commencement of the enjoyment, we see to what an end of ruin sin is hurrying us. We * turn tlie day into darkness/ 202 Swfiil pleasure to be chastised lest it he judged.
Job 3, whenever by severely chastising ourselves, we turn to bitter '- — the very sweets of evil enioyment by the keen laments of penance, and, when we visit it with weeping, whereinso- ever we sin in gratification in our secret hearts. For be- cause no believer is ignorant that the thoughts of the heart wdll be minutely examined at the Judgment, as Paul testifieth, Rom. 2, saying, Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else ex- cusing one another; searching himself within, he examines his own conscience without sparing before the Judgment, that the strict Judge may come now the more placably disposed, in that He sees his guilt', which He is minded to examine, already chastised according to the sin. And hence it is well added.
Let not God require it from above. XV. 27. God requires the things, which He searches out in executing judgment upon them. He does not require those, which He so pardons as to let them be unpunished henceforth in His own Judgment. And so ' this day,' i. e. this enjoy- ment of sin, will not be required by the Lord, if it be visited \vith self-punishment of our own accord, as Paul testifies, 1 Cor. when he says, i^or if we icould judge ourselves^ we should not ' * be judged of the Lord. ' God's requiring our day,' then, is His proceeding against our souls at the Judgment by a strict examination of every instance of taking pleasure in sin, in which same * requiring' He then smites him the harder, whom He finds to have been most soft in sparing himself. And it follows well. Neither let the light shine upon it. For the Lord, appearing at the Judgment, illumines with His light all that He then convicts of sin. For what is not then brought to remembrance of the Judge, is as it were veiled under a Eph. 5, kind of obscurity. So it is written. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light. It is as though a certain darkness hid the sins of penitents, of whom the Ps.32 1. Prophet saith. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven^ whose sin is covered. Therefore, as every thing that is veiled is as it were hidden in darkness, that which is not searched out in vengeance, is not illumined with light at the Day of final account. For all those actions of ours, which He would not then visit with justice, the mercy of God in wotting of ' Severnl Mss. ' reum,' 'His culprit.* God hides from light by twt bringing to Judgment. 203 them still hideth in some sort from itself, but all is displayed Book in light, that is at that time manifest in the sight of all men. — Let, then, this day be darkness, in this way, viz. that by penance we may smite the evil that we do. Let not the Lord require this day, neither let the light shine upon it, in this way, viz. that while we smite our own sin, He may not Himself fall thereupon with the visitations of the Final Judgment.
28. But the Judge will come Himself to pierce all things, and strike all things to the core. And because He is every where present, there is no place to flee to, where He is not found. But forasmuch as He is appeased by the tears of self-correction, he alone obtains a hiding-place from His face, who after the commission of a sin hides himself from Him now in penance. And hence it is with propriety yet further added of this day of enjoyment, Ver. 7. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it.
29. Then indeed darkness stains the day, when the delight xvi. of our inclinations is smitten through with the inflictions of penance. By darkness moreover may be signified secret decisions. For what we see in the light we know, but in the dark we either discern nothing at all, or our eyes are bewildered with an uncertain sight. Secret decrees then are like a certain kind of darkness before our eyes, being utterly inscrutable to us. And hence it is written of God, He made Ps. 18, darkness His secret place; and we know well that we do^^* not deserve pardon, but, by the grace of God preventing us, we are freed from our sins by His secret counsels. Dark- ness, therefore, stains the day, when the joy of gratification, which is a proper subject of tears, is in merc}* hidden from that ray of just wrath by His secret determinations. And here the words aptly follow, and the shadow of death.
30. For in Holy Scripture, the shadow of death is some- times understood of oblivion of mind, sometimes of imitation of the devil, sometimes of the dissolution of the flesh. For the shadow of death is understood of the oblivion of the mind, in that, as has been said above, as death causes that that which it kills should no longer remain in life, so obliWon causes that whatsoever it si'izes should no longer abide in the memory. And hence too, because John was coming to pro- 204 Temporal, the shadoiv of Ete^'nal Death.
Job 3, claim to the Hebrew people That God, Whom they had fov- — — '- — gotten, he is iustly said by Zacharias, to qive light to them Moral.* •.,, "^ " i i c • that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; lor to sit in the shadow of death,' is to turn lifeless to the knowledge of the love of God in a state of oblivion. The shadoiv of death is taken to mean the imitating our old enemy. For, since he brought in death, he is himself called death, as Rev. 6, John is witness, saying, and his name is death. And so by the shadow of death is signified the imitating of him. For as the shadow is shaped according to the chai'acter of the body, so the actions of the wicked are cast in a figure of conformity to him. Hence when Isaiah saw that the Gentiles had fallen away after the likeness of our old enemy, and that they rose up again at the rising of the true Sun, he justly records, as though in the past, what his eyes beheld as certain Is. 9, 2. in the future, saying. They that dwell in the la?id of the shadow of death, ■ ypon them a great light hath shined. Moreover, the shadow of death is taken for the dissolution of the flesh, in that, as that is the true death whereby the soul is sej^arated from God, so the shadow of death is that whereby the flesh is separated from the soul. And hence it is rightly said by the Prophet in the words of the Martyrs, Ps. 44, Though Thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadoiv of death. For those, who, we know, die not in the spirit, but only in the flesh, can in no wise say that they are * covered with the true death,' but with the shadow of death.
31. How is it then that blessed Job demands the shadow of death, for putting out the day of evil enjoyment, but that for the obliterating of our sins in God's sight he calls for the Mediator between God and man, who should undertake for us the death of the flesh alone, and Who by the shadow of His own death, should do away the true death of transgres- sors? For He comes to us, who were held in the bands of death, both of the spirit and of the flesh, and His own single Death He reckoned to our account, and our two deaths, which He found. He dissolved. For if He had Himself undertaken both. He would never have set us free from either. But He took one sort in mercy, and condennied them both with justice. He joined His own single Death to Chrisl^hy Deaths shadow, rescued penitents from Death. 205 our twofold death, and by dying He vanquished that double Book death of ours. And hence it was not without reason that '— He lay in the grave for one day and two nights, namely, in that He added the light of His own single Death to the dark- ness of our double death. He, then, that took for our sakes the death of the flesh alone, underwent the shadow of death, and buried from the eyes of God the sin that we have done. Therefore let it be truly said, Let darkness and the shadow of death stai?i it. As though it were said in plain words; * Let Him come. Who, that He may snatch from the death of the flesh and of the spirit, us, that are debtors thereto, may, though no debtor, discharge the death of the flesh.' But since the Lord lets no sin go unpunished, for either we visit it ourselves by lamenting it, or God by judging it, it remains that the mind should ever have a watchful eye to the amendment of itself. Therefore, in whatever particular each person sees that he is succoured by mercy, he must needs wipe out the stains thereof in the confession of it. And hence it is fitly added.
Let a shade dwell upon it, 32. For because the eye is perplexed in the shade, there- xvii. fore the perplexity of our mind in penitence is itself called shade, for as the shade obscures the light of day with a mass of clouds, so confusion overclouds the mind with troubled thoughts. Of which it is said by one, There is a shame Ecclui^. which is glory and grace. For when in repenting we recall^' ^'* our misdoings to remembrance, we are at once confounded with heaviness and soitow, the throng of thoughts clamours vociferously in our breast, sorrow wears, anxiety wastes us, the soul is turned to woe, and, as it were, darkened with the shade of a kind of cloud. Now this shade of confusion had oppressed the minds of those to their good, to whom Paul said, What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ^om. a, ye are now ashamed? Let shade, then, seize this day of sin, i. c. * Let the chastening of penance with befitting sorrow discompose the flattery of sin.' And hence it is added with fitness.
Let it be enfolded in bitterness.
83. For the day is enfolded in bitterness, when, upon the xviii. soul returning to knowledge, the inflictions of penance follow 206 Consent needs more penance than unwilling gratijication.