Ver. 20. / have sinned; what shall I do unto Thee, O Thou Preserver of 7nen?
51. Observe how he confesses the ill that he has done, but ^^^\ the good that he should present to God in compensation, he no where can find, in that all virtue whatever of human 458 Man cannot remedy his own sin and fall.
Job 7 practice is without power to wash out the guilt of sin, except ^^- ^ His mercifulness in sparing foster it, and not His justice in judging press hard upon it. Whence it is well said by the Ps.63,3. Psalmist, Because Thy mercy is better than the life; in that howsoever innocent it may seem to be, yet with the strict Judge our life doth not set us free, if the lovingkindness of His mercy loose not to it the debt of its guilt. Or indeed when it is said. What shall I do unto Thee? it is plainly shewn us that those very good things, which we are com- manded to practise, are not a gain to Him that imposes the command, but to ourselves. Whence it is said again by the Ps.16,2. Psalmist, My goodness extendeth not unto Thee. Now the abjectness of our destitution is set forth, when God is called the ' Preserver of men,' in that if His preserving hand defend us not in the face of the snares of the secret adversary, the eye of our heedfulness sleeps on watch, as the Psalmist again Ps. 127, bears record, who saith, Except the Lord keep the city, the ^' watchman tcaketh hut in vain. For it is through ourselves that w^e have been brought to the ground, but to rise again by our own strength is beyond our ability. The fault of our own will laid us low once, but the punishment of our fault sinks us worse day by day. We strive by the efforts of our earnest endeavours, to lift ourselves to the uprightness we have lost, but we are kept down by the weight of our just dues. And hence it is fitly added. Why hast Thou set me opposite to Thee, so that I am a burthen to myself?
xxxii. 52. Then did God ' set man opposite to Him,' when man forsook God by sinning. For being taken captive by the persuasions of the Serpent, he became the enemy of Him, Whose precepts he despised. But the righteous Creator ' set man opposite to Himself,' in that He accounted him an enemy by pride. And this very oppositeness of sin is itself made a weight of punishment to man, that he being wrongly free, might serve his own corruption, who while serving rightly exulted in the freedom of incorruption. For quitting the healthful stronghold of humility, he was brought by growing proud to the yoke of infirmity, and in erecting only bowed down ihe neck of the heart, in that he who refused to submit to the behests of God, prostrated himself beneath his own necessities; which we shall shew the better, if we set Our present state a perpetual sickness. 459 forth those burthens, first of the flesh and afterwards of the Book spirit, which he is made subject to after being cast down to the ground.
53. For to say nothing of this, that he is hable to pains, that he gasps with fever; the very state of our body, which is called health, is straitened by its own sickness. For it wastes with idleness, it faints with work; failing with not eating, it is refreshed by food so as to hold up; going heavily with sustenance, it is relieved by abstinence, so as to be vigorous; it is bathed in water, not to be dry; it is wiped with towels, not by that very bathing to be too wet; it is enlivened by labour, that it may not be dulled by re- pose; it is refreshed by repose, that it faint not under the exertion of labour; worn with watching, it is recruited by sleep; oppressed with sleep, it is roused to activity by watching, lest it be worse wearied by its own rest; it is covered with clothing, lest it be pierced by the hardship of cold; fainting under the heat it sought, it is invigorated by the blowing of the air. And whereas it meets with annoyances from the very quarter whence it sought to shelter itself from annoy- ances, being badly wounded, so to say, it sickens by its own cure. Therefore fevers set aside and pains not in action, our very breath itself is sickness, whereunto there is never wanting the necessity of administering a cure. Since whatever the comforts we seek out for occasion of life, we as it were meet with so many medicines of our sickness; but the very medicine itself too is turned into a sore, in that attach- ing ourselves a little too long to the remedy we sought, we are more brought down in that which we prudently provide for our refreshment. Thus was presumption to be amended, thus was pride to be laid low. For whereas we once took to us a high spirit, so every day we carry the mud that runneth down.
54. Our very mind too itself being banished from the secure delight of interior secresy, is now beguiled by hope, now tormented by fear; one while cast down by grief, at another time made light by a false mirth; it obstinately attaches itself to transitory objects, and is continually afflicted by the loss of them, in that it is also continually undergoing change by a course that carries it away; and being made 460 Perplexed state of the soul in fallen man.
Job 7, subject to things changeable, it is also made to be at odds '■ — with its own self. For seeking what it has not got, it anxiously obtains it, and so soon as it has begun to possess the same, is sick of having obtained what it sought after. Oftentimes it loves what it once despised, and despises what it used to love. It learns by dint of pains what are the things of eternity, but it forgets them in a moment, if it cease to take pains. It takes a long time to seek, that it may find but a little concerning the things above, but speedily falling back into its wonted ways, not even for a little space does it hold on in the things it has found. Desiring to be instructed, with difficulty it gets the better of its ignorance, and being so instructed it has a harder contest against the pride of knowledge; with difficulty it subjects to itself the usurping power of its fleshly part, yet it is still subject to the images of sin within, the works whereof it has already in vanquishing bound down without. It raises itself in quest of its Creator, but being thrown back, it is bewildered by the beguiling mist of corporeal attachments^. It desires to survey itself, and to see how being incorporeal it bears rule over the body, and it cannot. It asks in a wonderful way what it is unable to answer itself, and remaining ignorant is at a loss under that, which it inquires with a wise purpose. Viewing itself as large and scanty at once, it knows nothing how to form a true estimate of itself, in that if it were not large it would not be seeking matters of so deep enquiry, and again if it were not little, it would at least find that which it asks of itself.
55. Well therefore is it said, Thou hast set me opposite to Thee^ so that I am a burthen to myself, in that whilst man being banished is both subject to annoyances in the flesh, and to perplexities in the mind, surely he carries about his own self as a grievous burthen. On every side he is •* ' Arnica caligo.' The meaning The homely nurse does all she can seems to be what is thus beautifully To make her foster-child, her inmate expressed by a living Poet. Man, * Earth fills her lap with pleasures of I^'orget the glories he has known her own ^^^ *^^^ imperial Palace whence he Yearnings she hath in her own natural came.
And evenwithsomew/mt of a mothers jections of Early Childhood, Poems, And no unworthy aim, Job longs io have his sin clean take?i away. 461 beset with sicknesses, on every side he is hard bestead with Book infiimities, that he who, having abandoned God, thought to '- suffice to himself for his repose, might find nought in him- self but a turmoil of disquietude, and might tr}^ to fly from himself so found, but having set his Creator at nought, might not have where to fly. The burthens of which state of infirmity that wise man rightly regarding, exclaims. An heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam,Jrom the day Ecdns. that they go out of their mother''s womb, till the day'^^^^' that they return to the mother of all things. But blessed Job regarding these things, and seeking with groans where- fore they were so ordered, does not reproach justice, but interrogates mercy; that in asking he may himself in self-abasement deal a blow to that, which the Divine pity might in sparing alter. As if he said in plain words; * Wherefore dost Thou despise man set as in opposition to Thee, Who, I am assured, wouldest not that even he should perish whom Thou art thought to despise?' Whence he proceeds in a right way both to express humility in confession, and to subjoin the voice of free inquiry in the words, Ver. 21. And why dost Thou not take away my trans- gression, and remove mine iniquity?
56. By which same words, what else is intimated but the xxxiii. desire of the expected Mediator, concerning Whom John saith. Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin John i, of the world. Or rather sin is then completely taken away ^^* from mankind, when our corruption is changed in the glory of incorruption. For we can never be free fiom sin so long as we are held fast in a body of mortality, and therefore he longs for the grace of the Redeemer, i. e. for the ^ wholeness^ solidi- of the Resurrection, who is looking to have his iniquity *^^®°^ entirely ' taken away.' Hence immediately after adding both the punishment which was his due by birth, and the Judgment which he dreads in consequence of his own doings, he proceeds.
For now shall I sleep in the dust, and if TIiou shalt seek me in the morning, I shall not abide.
57. It was said to the first man on his sinning, Dust thou xxxiv. art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Now by the ' mornings?Jf °" ^' 462 The Righteous fear the ^ Morning'' of Judgment.
Job 8, is meant that manifestation of sonls, which, when the thoughts are laid bare at the coming of the Judge, is as it were brought Lit.
to light after the darkness of night. Of which same morning Ps. 5, 3.it is said by the Psalmist, In the morning I shall stand '^ ^' before Thee and shall see '\ Now God's ' seeking' is His searching man with a minute inquest, and, in searching, judging him with rigorous strictness. Therefore let blessed Job, surveying the miseries of man's fallen condition, see how that he is both already closely pressed by a present punishment, and in yet worse plight as concerns the future, and let him say. For now shall I sleep in the dust, and if Thou shalt seek me in the morning, I shall not abide. As if he openly lamented, saying, ' In the present life indeed I already undergo the death of the flesh, and yet still further from the Judgment to come I dread a worse death, even the doom of Thy severity. I suffer destruction for sin, yet further on coming to Judgment I dread my sins being brought up again even after my dissolution. Therefore looking at the external death, let him say, For now shall I sleep in the dust, and dreading the interior let him add, And if Thou shalt seek me in the morning, I shall not abide. For how- ever strong in righteousness, even the very Elect by no means suffice to themselves for innocency, if they be strictly examined in Judgment. But they find it now for an alleviation of their withdrawal hence, that they know in their humility that they never can suffice. Therefore they shelter themselves under the covering of humility from the sword of such a grievous visitation, and in proportion as awaiting the terribleness of the Judge to come, they tremble with continual alarm, so there is an unceasing progress in their becoming- better prepared. It goes on, C. viii. 1, *2. Then answered Bildad, the Shuhite, and said, How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall * V. so. the breath^ of the words of thy mouth be multiplied?
XXXV. 58. To the unrighteous the words of the righteous are ever gi'ievous, and such as they hear spoken for edification, they bear as a burthen put upon them. As Bildad, the Shuhite, plainly indicates in his own case, when he says. How long wilt thou speak these things? For he that says how long, * E. V. Jn the morning nnll I direct {my prayer) unto Ttiee, and will look vp.
Job charged wiili much talking. Four kinds of speakers. 463 shews that he cannot any lonoer bear words of edification. Book . VIII But whereas unfair men are too proud to be set right, they '- find fault with the things that are spoken well; and hence he immediately adds, And how long shall the breath of the words of thy mouth be multiplied? When multiplicity is blamed in the speech, surely it is thereby denied that there is weight of meaning in the sense. For the power of speakers on the highest matters is distinguished by a fourfold quality. For there be some whom fulness in speaking and thinking combined give width and compass, and there be some whom meagreness both of thought and utterance reduces to small dimensions; and there are some who are furnished with ability in speaking, but not with penetration in thinking; and there are some, who have penetration of thought to support them, but from barrenness of expression are made silent. For we discover the same in man that we often see in things without sense. Thus it very often happens that both an abundant supply of water is obtained from the deep of the earth, and that it is conveyed by ample channels upon the surface; and very often a scanty quantity lies concealed in the heart of the earth, and hardly finding a crevice to issue by, strains itself out in scanty dimensions without. Very often too the smallest quantity springs up out of reach of the eye, and when it finds an outlet gaping wide whereby it may issue forth from an ample opening, it swells out in a thin stream, and the big channels open themselves wide, but there is not aught for them to pour forth; and very often an ample store springs up out of sight, but being confined by narrow channels, it dribbles out in the smallest quantities. Just so in one sort the ample mouth delivers what the copious fountain of the wit supplies; in another, neither does thought furnish sense, nor the tongue pour it forth. In others, the mouth indeed is wide to speak, but for the giving out that which thought has provided for it, the tongue gets nothing at all; whilst in others, a fvdl fountain of thought abounds in the heart, but a disproportionate tongue, like a scanty channel, confines it. In which same four sorts of speaking, the third only is obnoxious to blame, which appropriates to itself by words that, to the level whereof it doth not rise in wit. For the first is worthy of 464 Bad men can praise God's justice while they prosper.
Job 8, praise, in that it is powerful and strong in both particulars. The second deserv^es commiseration, which in its httleness lacks both. The fourth calls for aid, in that it has not power to embody what it thinks. But the third is worthy to be despised and ought to be restrained, in that while it lifts itself high in speech it is grovelling in sense; and like limbs swoln with inflation, it goes forth to the ears of the hearers big but void. And it is this which Bildad hurls as an accusation against blessed Job, saying. And how long shall the words of the breath of thy mouth he multiplied? For he that attributes multiplicity of words to the mouth, doubtless finds fault with the barrenness of the heart. As if he said in plain words, ' Thou art raised by abundance of breath in word of mouth, but thou art stinted by scanti- ness of sense.' But when bad men blame right things, lest they should themselves appear not to know what is righteous, the good things that are known of all men, and which they have learnt by hearsay, they deliver as unknown. And hence Bildad adds directly, Ver. 3. Doth God pervert judgment? Or doth the A Im igh ty pervert justice? xxxvi. 59. These things blessed Job had neither in speaking denied, nor yet was ignorant of them in holding his tongue. But all bold persons, as we have said, speak with big words even well known truths, that in telling of them they may appear to be learned. They scorn to hold their peace in a spirit of modesty, lest they should be thought to be silent from ignorance. But it is to be known that they then extol the rectitude of God's justice, when security from ill uplifts themselves in joy, while blows are dealt to other men; when they see themselves enjoying prosperity in their affairs, and others harassed with adversity. For whilst they do wickedly, and yet believe themselves righteous, the benefit of prosperity attending them, they imagine to be due to their own merits; and they infer that God does not visit unjustly, in proportion as upon themselves, as being righteous, no cloud of misfor- tune falls. But if the power of correction from above touch their life but in the least degree, being struck they directly break loose against the policy of the Divine inquest, which a little while before, unharmed, they made much of in express- Heretics think the Church condemned by calamities. 465 ing admiration of it, and they deny that judgment to be just, Book which is at odds with their own ways; they canvass the equity of God's deahngs, they fly out in words of contra- diction, and being chastened because they have done wrong, they do worse. Hence it is well spoken by the Psalmist against the confession of the sinner. He will confess /oPs. 49, Thee, when Thou doest well to him. For the voice of con- fession is disregarded, when it is shaped by the joyfulness of prosperity. But that confession alone possesses merit of much weight, which the force of pain has no power to part from the truth of the rule of right, and which adversity, the test of the heart, sharpens out even to the sentence of the lips. Therefore it is no wonder that Bildad commends the justice of God, in that he experiences no hurt therefrom.
60. Now whereas we have said that the friends of blessed Alleg. Job bear the likeness of heretics, it is well for us to point out briefly, how the words of Bildad accord with the whee- dling ways of heretics. For whilst in their own idea they see Holy Church corrected with temporal visitations, they swell the bolder in the bigness of their perverted preaching, and putting forward the righteousness of the Divine probation, they maintain that they prosper by virtue of their merits; but they avouch that she is rewarded with deserved chastisements, and thereupon without delay they seek by beguiling words a way to steal upon her, in the midst of her sorrows, and they strike a blow at the lives of some, by making the deaths of others a reproach, as if those M^ere now visited with deserved death, who refused to hold worthy opinions concerning God. Hence Bildad the Shuhite, after he pleaded the justice of God, thereupon adds, Ver. 4 — 6. Even if thy children have sinned against Him, and He have left them in the hand of their trans- gression; yet if thou ivilt seek to God at dawn, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; if thou wilt walk pure and upright; surely now He will awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness at peace.
61. As if the preachers of falsities were to say to aflBictedxxxvii. Catholics, * Provide for your lives, and learn what wrong things ye maintain from the condemnation of those that are dead from among you. For except your misbelief were dis- 466 Heretics promise rewards of earihly iirosperiUj.
Job 8, pleasing to the Creator of all things, He would never take from — — ^ — you such numbers ^ by destruction let loose to rage against them.' For he says, If thy children have sinned against Him, and He have left them in the hand of their transgres- sion. As though he said in plain speech, ' They are left in the hand of their own wickedness, that refused to follow the . life of our right rule.' Yet if thou icilt arise to God at dawn, and make thy supplication to the Almighty. For inas- much as heretics think that the light of truth rests with themselves, they bid and summon Holy Church, as being in the night of error, to come to the dawning of the truth, that in the knowledge of God it may be led to rise, as in the dawning light, and by the prayer of penitence wash off past misdeeds. If thou wilt walk pure and upright; that is to say, pure in thought, upright in practice. Surely now He will awake for thee. As if it were in plain words, ' that He, Who now forbears to put forth the power of His protecting hand to thy tribulations, is as if asleep to the succouring of one going wrong.' And make the habitation of thy riglite- ousness at peace, i. e. ' does away with the crosses of the present life, and vouchsafes without delay security in repose.'
For because men that are bad reckon temporal enjoyment as a special blessing of Divine recompensing, what they themselves go after with solicitous concern, they promise to others as something great. Hence it very often happens that they either pledge themselves to regain them when lost, or draw on the minds of their hearers after still greater rewards of this world. Which Bildad openly expresses, when he adds upon that, Ver. 7. Insomuch that though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end shall greatly increase. xxxviii. 62. But if it is counsel within the soul that he calls ^ the habitation of righteousness,' the leaders of false opinions promise afflicted Catholics ' the habitation of their righ- teousness at peace,' in that if they draw them to their own views, then indeed they hold their peace from opposition. For those who have let themselves be drawn into that which is wrong, arc the more lulled to rest in temporal peace, in ■* ' Tarn nuiaerosos populos,' clearly alluding to some of the calamities of his own and late times.
They talk of Fathers, and give out old Truths as unknotvu. 467 proportion as they are parted the wider from eternal peace. Book Moreover they promise that the riches of understanding shall ^"^- be increased to all that follow them. And hence it is added, Insomuch that though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end shall greatly increase. Then because they do not easily obtain credit to their words, in that their life is often shewn to be worthy of contempt, they put forward the opinions of the Fathers of old, and turn the right line they take into a proof of their own erring way. Hence it is added, Ver. 8. For inquire, T jrray thee, of the former age, and diligently search into the memory of the fathers.
63. They give us notice that ' the former generation' and xxxix. ' the memory of the fathers' are not seen but ' searched,' be- cause they will not have that to be seen therein, which lies open before the eyes of all men. But sometimes, like good men, they give some instruction of a moral kind, and shew how the present may be gathered from the past; and from the things which are even now withdrawn from our eyes by passing away, they shew how little there is in the things that are seen before our eyes. Whence it is yet further added, Ver. 9. For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are but a shadow.
64. And so the generation of old is set before us to be xl. inquired of, that the period of the present life may be shewn to pass away like a shadow; in this way, that if we recall to mind the things that have been and are now over, we clearly see how swiftly that also will be gone which we have in our hands. But it often happens that heretics go along with us in extolling the same fathers whom we venerate; but their sense being perverted, they strike at us by those very com- mendations of them. Hence it is yet fiirther added, Ver. 10. Shall tiot they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?
Q^. We must mark what he had said before, And the xli. inspiration^ of the words of thy mouth is multiplied. Buti.,.i^. now when the fathers are brought to mind, he says, They^^' ^^ shall utter words out of their heart. As though heretics ^^^°'^' abhorring the life of Holy Church said, ' Thou hast abundance 468 Bildad, who censures hj/pocrlteS) a pretender.
Job 8, of inspiration in thy mouth, in lliy heart thou hast none of —I —.' it. But they are to be heard in opposition, who, in uttering 'words from the heart, have taught the right thing by living like it.' But oftentimes the wicked, whereas the evil of their own crookedness is unknown to them, boldly pull in pieces the uprightness of others, and while they usurp to themselves authority of pronouncing rebukes against good men, they either deliver those good senthnents, which they have im- bibed not by seeing but by hearing them, or else with lying- lips lay that evil to the charge of others, which they are themselves guilty of committing. But when they give utterance to good thoughts, which they scorn to observe, it is to be remarked that very frequently Truth so speaks by the lips of her adversaries, that in putting their tongue in motion it smites their life. So that in telling of the highest perfec- tion of righteousness while they know nothing of it, they themselves are rendered at once both judges by their words Hist, and accusers by their deeds. Hence Bildad subjoins words of wondrous truth against hypocrites, but he is running himself through with the point of his discourse. For unless he were himself in some slight degree aj^retender of righteousness, he would never venture to teach a good man with so much temerity. And indeed they are words of singular force that he speaks, but they ought to have been addressed to fools, not to a wise man; to the wicked, not to a good person; in that he proclaims himself no less than insane, who, when the gardens are parched, pours water into the river. But in the mean lime, laying aside the question to whom the thing is said, let us weigh well and minutely what it is that is said, that the sentiments delivered may edify ourselves, even though they assail the character of their Author. It goes on, Ver. 11. Can the rush grow up without moisture? can the flag grow without water? Moral. To whom Bildad compares * the rush' and ' the flag,' he himself immediately discloses, when he adds; Ver. 12, 13. Whilst it is yet in his greenness.^ and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish.
Hypocrites work by grace, but for ilieir own yiory. 469 QQ. So that by the name of ' a rush' or ' a flag,' he denotes B. ok the life of the hypocrite, which has an appearance of greenxhi.