middle and the end of the action that follows is held in secure possession by the cunning adversary, since he sees that that whole tree bears fruit to himself, which he has 64 Each virtue, and whole character, to he ivatched.
Job 1,4. poisoned at the root with his baleful tooth. Therefore because we have to watch with the gi'eatest cai'e, that the mind even in the service of good works be not polluted by a wicked in- tention, it is rightly said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. As if it were said in plain words, that is no good work which is performed out- wardly, unless the sacrifice of innocency be inwardly offered for it upon the altar of the heart in the presence of God. The stream of our work then is to be looked through, all we can, if it flows out pure from the well-spring of thought. With all care must the eye of the heart be guarded from the dust of wickedness, lest that which in action it shews upright to man, be within set awry by the fault of a crooked inten- tion.
54. We must take heed, then, that our good works be not too few, take heed too that they be not unexamined, lest by doing too few works we be found barren, or by leaving them unexamined we be found foolish; for each several virtue is not really such, if it be not blended with other virtues; and Exod. hence it is well said to Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, 35.' ' stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, of good scent, ivith pure frankincense; of each shall there be a like iceight: And thou shall make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, icell tempered together, and pure. For we make a perfume compounded of spices, when we yield a smell upon the altar of good works with the multitude of our virtues; and this is * tempered together and pure,' in that the more we join virtue to virtue, the purer is the incense of ver. 36. good works we set forth. Hence it is well added. And thou shall beat them all very small, and put of it before the Tabernacle of the Testimony. We * beat all the spices very small,' when we pound our good deeds as it were in the mortar of the heart, by an inward sifting, and go over them minutely, to see if they be really and truly good: and thus to reduce the spices to a powder, is to rub fine our virtues by consideration, and to call them back to the utmost exactitude of a secret reviewal; and observe that it is said of that powder, and thou shall put of it before the Tabernacle of the Testimony: for this reason, in that our good works are then truly pleasing in the sight of our Judge, when the Strict self-examination an offerimj ofjine incense. 65 mind bruises them small by a more particular reexamination, Book and as it were makes a powder of the spices, that the good '■ — that is done be not coarse' and hard, lest if the close hand' S^^- of reexammation do not bruise it fine, it scatter not from itself the more refined odour. For it is hence that the virtue of the Spouse is commended by the voice of the Bride- groom, where it is said, Who is this, that cometh out of the CQ.\ii,3^ ivilderness like a rod of smoke of the perfume of myrrh and frankincense, icith all powders of the merchant? For holy Church rises up like a rod of smoke from spices, in that by the virtues of her life she duly advances to the uprightness of inward incense, nor lets herself run out into dissipated thought, but restrains herself in the recesses of the heart in the rod of severity: and while she never ceases to reconsider and go over anew the things that she does, she has in the deed myn'h and frankincense, but in the thought she has powder. Hence it is that it is said again to Moses of those who offer a victim. And he shall flay the burnt offering^^Q'^'^y and cut it into his pieces. For we strip the skin of the victim, when we remove from the eyes of the mind the over- cast of virtue; and we * cut it in his pieces,' when we minutely dissect its interior, and contemplate it piecemeal. We must therefore be careful, that when we overcome our evil habits, we are not overthrown by our good ones running riot, lest they chance to run out loosely, lest being unheeded they be taken captive, lest firom error they forsake the path, lest broken down by weariness they lose the meed of past labours. For the mind ought in all things to keep a wary eye about it, aye and in this very forethought of circumspec- tion to be persevering; and hence it is rightly added, Thus did Job all the days.
55. For vain is the good that we do, if it be given overxxxvii. before the end of life, in that it is vain too for him to run fast, who fails before he reaches the goal. For it is hence that it is said of the reprobate. Woe unto you that have lost Ecc\ua. patience. Hence IVuth says to His elect. Ye are they Ma/^'ukeaa have contifiued with Me in My tetnptations. Hence Joseph, 28. who is described to have remained righteous among his brethren until the very end, is the only one related to have p 66 Historical sense not to be slighted for the other.
JOB 1,4. had ' a coat reaching to the ancles ^' For what is a coat that G^^^ reaches to the ancles but action finished? For it is as if the Y^lg extended coat covered the ancle of the body, when well doing covers us in God's sight even to the end of life.
Hence it is that it is enjoined by Moses to offer upon the Lev. 3, altar the tail of the sacrifice, namely, that every good action ^^'' that we begin we may also complete with perseverance to the "" ^* end. Therefore what is begun well is to be done every day, that whereas evil is driven away by our opposition, the very victory that goodness gains may be held fast in the hand of constancy.
66. These things then we have delivered under a three- fold sense, that by setting a variety of viands before the ifastidi- delicate 1 sense of the soul, we may offer it something to ^""^^ choose by preference. But this we most earnestly entreat, that he that lifts up his mind to the spiritual significaUon, do not desist from his reverence for the history.
h Vulg. tunica talari, where talari stands for the words tMt was on (or over) him.
/ From the sixth verse of the first chapter to the end, he follows out the exposition according to the threefold interpretation.
1. Holy Writ is set before the eyes of the mind like a kind of mirror, that we may see our inward face in it; for therein we learn the defonnitics, therein we learn the beauties that we possess; there we are made sensible what progress we are making, there too how far we are from proficiency. It relates the deeds of the Saints », and stirs the hearts of theui. weak to follow their example, and while it commemorates ' ""^'^^^ their victorious deeds, it strengthens our feebleness against '^'°°^'' the assaults of our vices; and its words have this effect, that the mind is so much the less dismayed amidst conflicts as It sees the triumphs of so many brave men set before it. Sometimes however it not only informs us of their excellen- cies, but also makes known their mischances, that both in the victory of brave men we may see what we ought to seize on by imitation, and again in their falls what we ought to stand in fear of. For, observe how Job is described as rendered greater by temptation, but David by temptation brought to the gi'ound, that both the virtue of our pre- decessors may cherish our hopes, and the downfall of our predecessors may brace us to the cautiousness of humility, so that whilst we are uplifted by the former to joy, by the latter we may be kept down through fears, and that the hearer's mind, being from the one source imbued with the confidence of hope, and from the other with the luunility arising from fear, may neither swell with rash pride, in that it is kept down by alarm, nor be so kept down by fear as to despair, in that it finds support for confident 'hope in a precedent of virtue.
68 Little circumstances significative in Holy Writ.
Job 1,6. Ver. 6. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. ii. 2. It is interesting to observe the method followed by Holy Writ in delineating, at the commencement of its rela- tions, the qualities and the issues of the particular cases. For one while by the position of the place, now by the posture of the body, now by the temperature of the air, and now by the character of the time, it marks out what it has coming after con- cerning the action which is to follow; as by the position of the place Divine Scripture sets forth the merits of the circumstances that follow, and the results of the case, as where it relates of Ex. 19, Israel that they could not hear the words of God in the '' mount, but received the commandments on the plain; doubt- less betokening the subsequent weakness of the people who could not mount up to the top, but enfeebled themselves by living carelessly in the lowest things. By the posture of the body it tells of future events, as where in the Acts of the Apostles, Stephen discloses that he saw Jesus, Who Acts 7, sitteth at the right hand of the Power of God, in a standing ^' • posture; for standing is the posture of one in the act of rendering aid, and rightly is He discerned standing, Who gives succour in tlie press of the conflict. By the tempera- ture of the air, the subsequent event is shewn, as when the Evangelist was telling that none out of Judaea were at that time to prove believers in our Lord's preaching, he prefaced Johnio, it by saying, and it was winter, for it is written, Because M 24 ^'^^H'^^^iy shM abound, the love of many shall wax cold. There- 12. fore he took care to particularize the winter season, to indicate that the frost of wickedness was in the hearers' hearts. Hence it is that it is beforehand remarked of Peter, when on the John 18, point of denying our Lord, that it was cold, and Peter stood ^^' with them, and warmed himself. For he was now inwardly unenlivened by the warmth of Divine love, but to the love of this present life he was warming up, as though his weakness were set boiling by the persecutors' coals. By the character of the time moreover the issue of the transaction is set forth, as it is related of Judas, who was never to be restored to pardon, that he went out at night to the treachery of his betrayal, where upon his going out, the Evangelist says, How Angels come to God, Whotn they leave not. 69 And it was night. Hence too it is declared to the wicked Book rich man, This night shall thy soul be required of thee; for Johnl3, that soul which is conveyed to darkness, is not recorded as so. required in the day time, but in the night. Hence it is that 20^ ^ '' Solomon who received the gift of wisdom, but was not to persevere, is said to have received her in dreams and in the night. Hence it is that the Angels visit Abraham at midday. Gen. 18, but when proposing to punish Sodom, they are recorded to ^* ^' have come thitlier at eventide. Therefore, because the trial Gen. 19, of blessed Job is carried on to victory, it is related to have ^* begun by day, it being said.
Now there was a day, when the sons of Qod came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
3. Now who are called the sons of God, saving the elect iii. Angels } and as we know of them that they wait on the eyes of His Majesty, it is a worthy subject of inquiry*, whence they come to present themselves belbre God. For it is of these that it is said by the voice of Truth, Tlieir angels do always behold Mat. 18, the face of My Father, IVJiich is in heaven? Of these the ^^* Prophet saith, llioiisand thousands ministered unto Hiniy'Da.ii.Tt and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. If * then they ever behold and ever stand nigh, we must carefully and attentively consider whence they are come, who never go from Him; but since Paul says of them. Are they not all Heh. i, ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that shall he heirs of salvation? in this, that we learn that they are sent, we discover whence they are come. Rut see, we add question to question, and as it were while we strive to unloose the loop, we are only fastening a knot. For how can they either always be in presence, or always behold the face of the Father, if ihey are sent upon external ministration for our salvation? Which will however be the sooner believed, if we think of how great subtlety is the angelical nature. For they never so gb forth apart from tlie vision of God, as to be deprived of tlic joys of interior contemplation; for if when they went forth they lost the vision of the Creator, ihcy could neither have raised up the fallen, nor announced the truth to those in ignorance; and that fount of light, which by departing they were themselves de])rived of, they could in no wise proffer to 70 How Satan could come before God.
JoBi,6. the blind. Herein then is the nature of Angels distinguished from the present condition of our own nature, that we are ,' both circumscribed by space, and straitened by the blindness of ignorance; but the spirits of Angels are indeed bounded by , space, yet their knowledge extends far above us beyond com- ; parison; for they expand by external and internal knowing, since they contemplate the very source of knowledge itself.
For of those things which are capable of being known, what is there that they know not, who know Him, to Whom all things are known? So that their knowledge when compared with ours is vastly extended, yet in comparison with the ;; Divine knowledge it is little. In like manner as their very 1 spirits in comparison indeed with our bodies are spirits, but ^- being compared with the Supreme and Incomprehensible Spirit, they are Body. Therefore they are both sent from Him, and stand by Him too, since both in that they are circumscribed, they go forth, and in this, that they are also entirely present, they never go away. Thus they at the same time always behold the Father's face, and yet come to us; because they both go forth to us in a spiritual presence, and yet keep themselves there, whence they had gone out, by virtue of interior contemplation; it may then be said, The sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord; inasmuch as they come back thither by a return of the spirit, whence they never depart by any withdrawal of the mind.
And Satan came also among them.
iv. 4. It is a very necessary enquiry, how Satan could be present among the elect Angels, he who had a long time before been damned and banished from their number, as his pride required. Yet he is well described as having been present among them; for though he lost his blessed estate, yet he did not part with a nature like to theirs, and though his deserts sink him, he is lifted up by the properties of his subtle nature. And so he is said to have come before God among the sons of God, for Almighty God, with that eye with which He regards all spiritual things, beholds Satan also in the rank of a more subtle nature, as Prov. Scripture testifies, when it says. The eyes of the Lord are in ' ' every place, beholding the evil and the good; but this, viz.
that Satan is said to have come before the presence of God, Satan comes before God uithout seeing Him. 71 comes under a grave question with us; for it is written, Book Blessed are the pure in hearty for they shall see God. But ^^^^^. Satan, who can never be of a pure heart, how could he haves, presented himself to see the Lord?
5. But it is to be observed, that he is said to have come before the Lord, but not that he saw the Lord. For he came to be seen, and not to see. He was in the Lord's sight, but the Lord was not in his sight; as when a blind man stands in the sun, he is himself bathed indeed in the rays of light, yet he sees nothing of the hght, by which he is brightened. In like manner then Satan also appeared in the Lord's sight among the Angels. For the Power of God, which by a look penetrates all objects, beheld the impure spirit, who saw not Him. For because even those very things which flee from God's face cannot be hidden, in that all things are naked to the view of the Most High, Satan being absent came to Him, Wlio was present.
Ver. 7. And the Lord said, unto Satan, Whence comest thou?
6 How is it that it is never said to the elect Angels, when they come, ' Whence come ye?' while Satan is questioned whence he comes } For assuredly we never ask, but what we do not know; but God's not knowing is His condemning. Whence at the last He will say to some, / knoic you wo/Liikei3, whence ye are; depart from me, ye that work iniquity. In ' ' the same way that a man of truth, who disdains to sin by a falsehood, is said not to know how to lie, not in being ignorant if he had the will to lie, but in disdaining to tell a falsehood, from love of truth, ^^^lat then is it to say to Satan, Whence comest thou? but to condemn his ways, as though unknown. The light of truth then knows nought of the darkness, which it reproves; and the paths of Satan, which as a judge it condemns, it is meet that it should inquire after as though in ignorance of them. Hence it is that it is said to Adam in liis sin by his Creator's voice, Adam, where ar/ Gen. 3, thou? For Divine Power was not ignorant to what hiding place His senant had fled after his oflence, but for that He saw that he, having fallen in his sin, was now as it were hidden under sin from the eyes of Truth, in that He approves not the darkness of his error, He knows not, as it were, where the 72 Satan, as fallen from heaven, tcalks on earth.
Job 1,7. sinner is, and both calls him, and asks him, saying, Adam, where art thou? hereby, that He calls him, He gives a token that He recalls him to repentance; hereby, that He questions him, He plainly intimates that He knows not sinners, that justly deserve to be damned. Accordingly the Lord never calls Satan, but yet He questions him, saying, Whence comest thou f without doubt because God never recalls the rebel spirit to repentance, but in not knowing his paths of 1 discu- pride. He condemns him; therefore while Satan is examined* concerning his way, the elect Angels have not to be questioned whence they come, since their ways are known to God in so much as they are done of His own moving, and whilst they are subservient to His will alone, thev can never be unknown to Him, in so far as, by His approving eye, it is Himself from Whom and before Whom they are done. It follows, Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. vi. 7. The toilsomeness of labour is wont to be represented by the round of circuitous motion. Accordingly Satan went toiling round about the earth, for he scorned to abide at peace in the height of heaven; and whereas he intimates that he did not fly, but that he walked, he shews the weight of sin, by which he is kept down below. Walking then up and down, he went to and fro in the earth, for tumbling down from that his soaring in spiritual mightiness, and oppressed by the weight of his own wickedness, he came forth to his round of labour. For it is for no other reason Ps.12,3. that it is said of his members also by the Psalmist, The circuitu wicked walk on every side; for while they seek not things within, they weary themselves with toiling at things without. It follows; Ver. 8. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that fear eth God, and escheu-eth evil? vii. 8. This point, viz. that blessed Job is by the voice of God called a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth Qod, and escheweth evil, having explained above minutely and particularly, we forbear to rehearse what we have said, lest while we go over points that have been already examined, we How Spirit speaks with Spirit. 73 should be slow in coming to those which have not. This Book then requires our discreet consideration, how it is either that the Lord is said to speak to Satan, or that Satan is said to answer the Lord, for we must make out what this speaking means. For neither by the Lord Who is the supreme and unbounded Spirit, nor by Satan, who is invested with no fleshly nature, is the breath of air inhaled by the bellows of the lungs, after the manner of human beings, so that by the organ of the throat it should be given back in the articulation of the voice; but when the Incomprehensible Nature speaks to an invisible nature, it behoves that our imagination rising above the properties of our corporeal speech should be lifted to the sublime and unknown methods of interior sj^eech. For we, that we may express outwardly the things which we are inwardly sensible of, deliver these through the organ of the throat, by the sounds of the voice, since to the eyes of others we stand as it were behind the partition of the body, within the secret dwelling place of the mind; but when we desire to make ourselves manifest, we go forth as though through the door of the tongue, that we may shew what kind of persons we are within. But it is not so with a spiritual nature, which is not a twofold compound of mind and body. But again we must understand that even when incorporeal nature itself is said to speak, its speech is by no means characterized by one and the same form. For it is after one method that God speaks to the Angels, and after another that the Angels speak to God; in one manner that God speaks to the souls of Saints, in another that the souls of Saints speak to God; in one way God speaks to the devil, in another the devil speaks to God.
9. For because no corporeal obstacle is in the way of a spiritual being, God speaks to the holy Angels in the very act of His revealing to their hearts His inscrutable secrets, that whatsoever they ought to do they may read it in the simple contemplation of truth, and that the very dt'lights of contemplation should be like a kind of vocal precepts, for that is as it were spoken to them as hearers which is inspired into them as beholders. Whence when God was imparting to their hearts His visitation' of vengeance upon the pride of • or ' an observant senw,' aDimadversionem.
74 God speaks to Angels hy inward Revelation.
Job 1,8. man, He said, ^ Come, let us go down, and there confound ^^^'^^1 their language. He saith to those who are close about Him, Come, doubtless because this very circumstance of never decreasing from the contemplation of God, is to be always increasing in the contemplation of Him, and I never to depart from Him in heart, is as it were to be f always coming to Him by a kind of steady motion. To them He also says. Let us go down, and there confound their language. The Angels ascend in that they behold their Creator; the Angels descend in thai by a strict examination they put down that which exalts itself in un- lawful measure. So then for God to say, Let us go down, and confound their speech, is to exhibit to them in Himself that which would be rightly done, and by the power of interior vision to inspire into their minds, by secret influences, the judgments which are fit to be set forth.
10. It is after another manner that the Angels speak to Kev. 5, God, as in the Revelation of John also they say, Worthy is the ^' Lamb that was slain to receive power, and inches'", and wisdom; for the voice of the Angels in the praises of God is the very admiration itself of inward contemplation. To be struck dumb at the marvels of Divine goodness is to utter a voice, for the emotion of the heart excited with a feeling of awe is a mighty utterance of voice to the ears of a Spirit that is not circumscribed. This voice unfolds itself as it were in dis- tinct words, while it moulds itself in the innumerable modes of admiration. God then speaks to the Angels when His inner will is revealed to them as the object of their perception; but the Angels speak to the Lord when by means of this, which they contemplate above themselves, they rise to emotions of admiration.
11. In one way God speaks to the souls of Saints, in another the souls of Saints speak to God; whence too it is Rev. G, again said in the Apocalypse of John, I saw under the altar ^' ^^' the sonls of them that were slain for the word qf God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying. How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on '• Vulg. ' venite,' come. Engl. Vers. "^ Divi7iitatem,^ Godhead,* andsoyulg. Go to. for divitias.
God's will that we pray for mercies delayed. 75 the earth? Where in the same place it is added, And ivhile Book robes were given unto every one of them, and it was mid nnto Rev. 6