VOLUME I - THE
FIRST PART.
________
BOOK IV.
Wherein Gregory, having in the Preface set forth in few words
that the letter of Scripture is at times at variance with itself, and that
the imprecations of Job, as of Jeremiah and David, cannot be understood
without absurdity according to the sound which they convey, explains the
words of Job in historical, mystical,
and moral sense, from the commencement of the third
chapter to the twentieth verse of the same.
THE PREFACE.
HE who looks to the
text and does not acquaint himself with the sense of the holy Word, is not
so much furnishing himself with instruction as bewildering himself in
uncertainty, in that the literal words sometimes contradict themselves; but
whilst by their oppositeness they stand at variance with themselves, they
direct the reader to a truth that is to be understood. Thus, how is it that
Solomon says, There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat
and drink; [Ecc. 2. 24] and adds not long after, It is better to go
to the house if mourning than to the house of feasting? [Ecc. 7, 2]
Wherefore did he prefer mourning to feasting, who had before commended
eating and drinking? for if by preference it be good ‘to eat and drink,’
undoubtedly it should be a much better thing to hasten to the house of mirth
than to the house of mourning. Hence it is that he says again, Rejoice,
O young man, in thy youth; [Ecc. 11, 9] yet adds a little after, for
youth and pleasure are vanity. [ver. 10. Vulg.] What does this mean,
that he should either first enjoin practices that are reprehensible, or
afterwards reprehend practices that he has enjoined, but that by the literal
words themselves he implies that be, who finds difficulty in the outward
form, should consider the truth to be understood, which same import of
truth, while it is sought with humility of heart, is penetrated by
continuance in reading. For as we see the face of strange persons, and know
nothing of their hearts, but if we are joined to them in familiar
communication, by frequency of conversation we even trace their very
thoughts; so when in Holy Writ the historical narration alone is regarded,
nothing more than the face is seen. But if we unite ourselves to it with
frequent assiduity, then indeed we penetrate its meaning, as if by the
effect of a familiar intercourse. For whilst we gather various truths from
various parts, we easily see in the words thereof that what they import is
one thing, what they sound like is another. But everyone proves a stranger
to the knowledge of it, in proportion as he is tied down to its mere
outside.
[ii]
See here, for
instance, in that blessed Job is described as having cursed his day, and
said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it
was said, There is a man child conceived; [Job 3, 3] if we look no
further than the surface, what can we find more reprehensible than these
words? But who does not know that the day, in which he was born, could not
at that time be in existence, for it is the condition of time to have no
stay of continuance. For whereas by way of the future it is ever tending to
be, so in going out by the past, it is ever hastening not to be. Wherefore
then should one so great curse that, which he is not ignorant hath no
existence? But perchance it may be said, that the magnitude of his virtue
is seen from hence, that he, being disturbed by tribulation, imprecates a
curse upon that, which it is evident has no existence at all. But this
notion is set aside the moment the reasonableness of the thing is regarded,
for if the object existed, which he cursed, it was a mischievous curse; but
if it had no being, it was an idle one: but whoso is filled with His Spirit,
Who declareth, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give
account thereof in the Day of Judgment; [Matt. 12, 36] fears to be
guilty of what is idle, even as of what is mischievous. To this sentence it
is further added, Let that day be turned into darkness; let not God
regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let darkness and
the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let it be enfolded
in bitterness. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it. Lo, let that
night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein: let it look for light,
and have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day. How is it
that that day, which he knows to have gone by with the flight of time, is
said ‘to be turned into darkness?’ And whereas it is plain that it has no
existence, wherefore is it wished for that ‘the shadow of death might stain
it?’ or what cloud dwells upon it, what envelopement of bitterness enfolds
it? or what darkness seizes upon that night, which no stay holds in being?
Or how is it desired that that may be solitary, which in passing away had
already become nought? Or how does that look for the light, which both
lacks perception, and doth not continue in any stay of its own self? To
these words he yet further adds,
Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came
out of the belly? Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I
should suck? For now I should have lain still and have been quiet, I should
have slept, and been at rest.
[Job 3, 11-13]
[iii]
If he had died at once
from the womb, would he have got by this very destruction a title to a
reward? Do abortive children enjoy eternal rest? For every man that is not
absolved by the water of regeneration, is tied and bound by the guilt of the
original bond. But that which the water of Baptism avails for with us, this
either faith alone did of old in behalf of infants, or, for those of riper
years, the virtue of sacrifice, or, for all that came of the stock of
Abraham, the mystery of circumcision. For that every living being is
conceived in the guilt of our first parent the Prophet witnesses, saying,
And in sin hath my mother conceived me. [Ps.51, 5] And that he who is
not washed in the water of salvation, does not lose the punishment of
original sin, Truth plainly declares by Itself in these words, Except a
man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God. [John 3, 5] How is it then, that he wishes that he had ‘died in
the womb,’ and that he believes that he might have had rest by the boon of
that death, whereas it is clear that the rest of life could in no wise be
for him, if the Sacraments of Divine knowledge had in no wise set him free
from the guilt of original sin? He yet further adds with whom he might have
rested, saying, With kings and counsellors of the earth which built
desolate [Vulg. solitudines] places for themselves. Who
does not know that the kings and counsellors of the earth are herein
far removed from ‘solitude,’ that they are close pressed with innumerable
throngs of followers? and with what difficulty do they advance to rest, who
are bound in with the tightened knots of such multifarious concerns! As
Scripture witnesses, where it says, But mighty men shall be mightily
tormented. [Wisd. 6, 6] Hence Truth utters these words in the Gospel;
unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much be required.
[Luke 12, 48] He implies besides, whom he would have had as fellows in that
rest, in the words, Or with princes that had gold, that filled their
houses with silver. [Matt. 19, 23] It is a rare thing for them that
have gold to advance to rest, seeing that Truth saith by Itself, They
that have riches shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. [Mark
10, 23] For what joys in the other life can they look for, who here pant
after increase of riches? Yet that our Redeemer might further shew this
event to be most rare, and only possible by the supernatural agency of God,
He saith, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are
possible. [Matt. 19, 26] Therefore because these words are, on the
surface, at variance with reason, the letter itself thereby points out, that
in those words the Saint delivers nothing after the letter.
[iv]
But if we shall first
examine the nature of other curses in Holy Writ, we may the more perfectly
trace out the import of this one, which was uttered by the mouth of blessed
Job. For how is it that David, who to those that rewarded him evil,
returned it not again, upon Saul and Jonathan falling in war, curses the
mountains of Gilboa in the following words, Ye mountains of Gilboa, let
there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of
offerings; for there the shield of Saul is vilely cast away, as though he
had not been anointed with oil? [2 Sam. 1, 21] How is it that Jeremiah,
seeing that his preaching was hindered by the hardness of his hearers,
utters a curse, saying, Cursed be the man, who brought tidings to my
father, saying, A man child is born unto thee? [Jer. 20. 15] What then
did the mountains of Gilboa offend when Saul died, that neither dew nor rain
should fall on them, and that the words of his sentence against them should
make them barren of all produce of verdure? Why, forasmuch as Gilboa is by
interpretation ‘running down,’ while by Saul’s anointing and dying, the
death of our Mediator is set forth, by the mountains of Gilboa we have no
unfit representation of the uplifted hearts of the Jews, who, while they let
themselves run down in the pursuit of the desires of this world, were
mingled together in the death of Christ, i.e. of 'the Anointed.’ And
because in them the anointed King dies the death of the body, they too are
left dry of all the dew of grace; of whom also it is well said, that they
cannot be fields of first fruits. Because the high minds of the Hebrews
bear no ‘first fruits;’ in that at the coming of our Redeemer, persisting
for the most part in unfaithfulness, they would not follow the first
beginnings of the faith; for Holy Church, which for her first fruits was
enriched with the multitude of the Gentiles, scarcely at the end of the
world will receive into her bosom the Jews, whom she may find, and gathering
none but the last, will put them as the remnant of her fruits. Of which
very remnant Isaiah hath these words, For though thy people Israel shall
be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return. [Is. 10,
22] However, the mountains of Gilboa may for this reason be cursed by the
Prophet's mouth, that whilst, the land being dried up, no fruit is produced,
the possessors of the land might be stricken with the woe of that
barrenness, so that they might themselves receive the sentence of the curse,
who had obtained as the just reward of their iniquities to have the death of
the King take place among them. But how is it that, from the lips of the
Prophet, that man received the sentence of cursing, who brought to his
father the tidings of his birth? Doubtless this is so much the more full of
deeper mystery within, as it lacks human reason without. For perchance, if
it had sounded at all reasonable without, we should never have been kindled
to the pursuit of the interior meaning; and thus he the more fully implies
something within, that he shews nothing that is reasonable without. For
though the Prophet had come into this world from his mother's womb to be the
subject of affliction, in what did the messenger of his birth do wrong? But
what does the person of the Prophet represent ‘carried hither and thither [fluctuantis]’
except the mutability of man, which came by the dues of punishment, is
thereby signified? and what is expressed by his ‘father’ but this world
whereof we are born? And who is that man, who ‘bring tidings of our birth
to our father,’ saving our old enemy, who, when he views us fluctuating in
our thoughts, prompts the evil minded, who by virtue of this world's
authority have the preeminence, to persuading us to our undoing, and who,
when he has beheld us doing acts of weakness, commends these with applause [favoribus]
as brave, and tells as it were of male children being born, when he gives
joy that we have turned out corrupters of the truth by lying? He gives
tidings to the father that a man child is born, when he shews the world him,
whom he has prevailed with, turned into a corrupter of innocence. For when
it is said to any one committing a sin or acting proudly, ‘Thou hast acted
like a man,’ what else is this than that a man child is told of in the
world? Justly then is the man cursed, who brings tidings of the birth of a
man child; because his tidings betoken the damnable joy of our corrupter.
Thus by these imprecations of Holy Scripture we learn what, in the case of
blessed Job, we are to look for in his words of imprecation, lest he, whom
God rewards after these wounds and these words, should be presumptuously
condemned by the mistaken reader for his words. As then we have in some
sort cleared the points, which were to be the objects of our enquiry in the
preface, let us now proceed to discuss and to follow on the words of the
historical form.
[HISTORICAL
INTERPRETATION]
Ver. 1, 2, 3. After
this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day, And Job spake, and said, Let
the day perish wherein I was born.
[i]
1. That which is here
said, He opened his mouth, must not be gone into negligently. For by
the things which Holy Scripture premises but slightly, we are apprised that
what comes after is to be expected with reverence. For as we know nothing
what vessels that are closed contain inside, but when the mouth of the
vessels is opened, we discover what is contained within; so the hearts of
the Saints, which so long as their mouth is closed are hidden, when their
mouth is opened, are disclosed to view. And when they disclose their
thoughts, they are said to open their mouth, that with the full bent of our
mind we may hasten to find out, as in vessels that are set open, what it is
that they contain, and to refresh ourselves with their inmost fragrance.
And hence when the Lord was about to utter His sublime precepts on the
Mount, the words precede, And He opened His mouth, and taught them;
[Matt. 5, 2] though in that place this too should be taken as the meaning,
that He then opened His own mouth in delivering precepts, wherein He had
long while opened the mouths of the Prophets. But it requires very great
nicety in considering the expression, After this, namely, in order
that the excellence of all that is done may be perceived in its true light
by the time. For first we have described the wasting of his substance, the
destruction of his children, the pain of his wounds, the persuasions of his
wife, the coming of his friends, who are related to have rent their
garments, to have shed tears with loud cries, to have sprinkled their heads
with dust, and to have sat upon the ground for long in silence, and
afterwards it is acded, After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his
day; clearly that from the very order of the account, duly weighed, it
might be concluded that he could never have uttered a curse in a spirit of
impatience, who broke forth into a voice of cursing whilst his friends were
as yet silent. For if he had cursed under the influence of passion,
doubtless upon hearing of the loss of his substance, and upon hearing the
death of his sons, his grief would have prompted him to curse. But what he
then said, we have heard before. For he said, The Lord gave, and the
Lord hath taken away. [Job 1, 21] Again, if he had cursed under the
impulse of passion, he might well have uttered a curse when he was stricken
in his body, or when he was mischievously advised by his wife. But what
answer he then gave we have already learnt; for he says, Thou speakest as
one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at
the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? [Job 2, 10] But after
this it is set forth that his friends arrive, shed tears, seat themselves,
keep silence, whereupon this is immediately subjoined, that he is said to
have cursed his day. It is, then, too great an inconsistency to
imagine that it was from impatience that he broke out into a voice of
cursing, no man setting him on, no man driving him thereto, when we know
that amidst the loss of all his goods, and the death of his children, amidst
bodily afflictions, the evil counsels of his wife, he only gave great
acknowledgments to his Creator with a humble mind. It is plain, then, with
what feelings he spoke this when he was at rest, who even when stricken
uttered such a strain of praise to God. For afterwards, when no longer
stricken, he could not be guilty of pride, whom even his pain under the rod
only shewed to be full of humility. But as we know for certain that holy
Scripture forbids cursing, how can we say that that is sometimes done
aright, which yet we know to be forbidden by the same Holy Writ?
2. But be it known
that Holy Writ makes mention of cursing in two ways, namely, of one sort of
curse which it commands, another sort which it condemns. For a curse is
uttered one way by the decision of justice, in another way by the malice of
revenge. Thus a curse was pronounced by the decree of justice upon the
first man himself, when he fell into sin, and heard the words, Cursed is
the ground for thy sake. [Gen. 3, 17] A curse is pronounced by decree
of justice, when it is said to Abraham, I will curse them that curse thee.
Again, forasmuch as a curse may be uttered, not by award of justice, but by
the malice of revenge, we have this admonition from the voice of Paul the
Apostle in his preaching, where he says, Bless, and curse not; [Rom.
12, 14] and again, nor revilers shall inherit the kingdom of God. [1
Cor. 6, 10] So then God is said to curse, and yet man is forbidden to
curse, because what man does from the malice of revenge, God only does in
the exactness and perfection of justice. But when holy men deliver a
sentence of cursing, they do not break forth therein from the wish of
revenge, but in the strictness of justice, for they behold God's exact
judgment within, and they perceive that they are bound to smite evils
arising without with a curse; and are guilty of no sin in cursing, in the
same degree that they are not at variance with the interior judgment.
It is hence that Peter
flung back the sentence of a curse upon Simon when he offered him money, in
the words, May thy money perish with thee; [Acts 8, 20] for he who
said, not does, but may, shewed that he spoke this, not in the
indicative, but in the optative mood. Hence Elias said to the two captains
of fifty that came to him, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down
from heaven, and consume thee. [2 Kings 1, 10] And upon what reasonable
grounds of truth the sentences of either of the two were established, the
issue of the case demonstrated. For both Simon perished in eternal ruin,
and fire descending from above consumed the two captains of fifty. Thus the
subsequent miracle [virtus] testifies with what mind the sentence of
the curse is pronounced. For when both the innocence of him that curseth
remains, and he that is cursed is by that curse swallowed up to the extent
of utter destruction, from the end of either side we collect, that the
sentence is taken up and launched against the offender from the sole Judge
of what is within.
3. Therefore if we
weigh with exactness the words of blessed Job, his cursing cometh not of the
malice of one guilty of sin, but of the integrity of a judge, not of one
agitated by passion, but of one sober in instruction; for he, who in cursing
pronounced such righteous sentence, did not give way to the evil of
perturbation of mind, but dispensed the dictates of wisdom. For, in fact,
he saw his friends weeping and wailing, he saw them rending their garments,
he saw how they had sprinkled their heads with dust, he saw them struck dumb
at the thought of his affliction; and the Saint perceived that those whose
hearts were set upon temporal prosperity, took him, by a comparison with
their own feelings, for one brokenhearted with his temporal adversity. He
considered that they would never be weeping for him in despair, who was
stricken with a transient ill, except they had themselves withdrawn their
soul in despair from the hope of inward soundness; and while he outwardly
burst forth into the voice of grief, he shewed to persons inwardly wounded
the virtue of a healing medicine, saying,
Ver. 3. Let the
day perish wherein was born.
4. For what is to be
understood by ‘the day of our birth,’ save the whole period of our mortal
state? So long as this keeps us fast in the corruptions of this our mutable
state of being, the unchangeableness of eternity does not appear to us. He,
then, who already beholds the day of eternity, endures with difficulty the
day of his mortal being. And observe, he saith not, ‘Let the day perish
wherein I was created,’ but, let the day perish wherein I was born. For man
was created in a day of righteousness, but now he is born in a time of
guilt; for Adam was created, but Cain was the first man that was born. What
then is it to curse the day of his birth, but to say plainly, ‘May the day
of change perish, and the light of eternity burst forth?’
5. But inasmuch as we
are used to bid perish in two ways, (for it is in one way that we bid
perish, when we desire to any thing that it should no longer be, and in
another way that we bid it perish, when we desire that it should be ill
therewith,) the words that are added concerning this day, Let a cloud
dwell upon it: let it be enveloped in bitterness [Vulg.]; clearly shew,
that he wishes not this day to perish in such sort as not to be, but so that
it may go ill with it; for that can never be ‘enveloped in bitterness,’
which is so wholly destroyed as not to be at all. Now this period of our
mutable condition is not one day to perish, (i.e. to pass away,) in such a
way, as to be in an evil plight, but so as to cease to be altogether, as the
Angel bears witness in Holy Writ, saying, By Him that liveth for ever and
ever, that there should be time no longer. [Rev. 10, 6] For though the
Prophet hath it, Their time shall endure for ever [Ps. 81, 15], yet
because time comes to an end with every moment, he designated their coming
to an end by the name of ‘time,’ shewing that without every way ending they
come to an end, that are severed from the joys of the inward Vision.
Therefore because this period of our mortal condition does not so perish as
to be in evil plight, but so as not to be at all, we must enquire what it
means that he desires it may perish, not so that it may not be, but that it
may be in ill condition. Now a human soul, or an Angelic spirit, is in such
sort immortal, that it is capable of dying, in such sort mortal, that it can
never die. For of living happily, it is deprived whether by sin or by
punishment; but its essential living it never loses, either by sin or
punishment: it ceases from a mode of living, but it is not even by dying
susceptible of an end to every mode of being. So that I might say in a
word, that it is both immortally mortal, and mortally immortal. Whereas
then he wishes that the day may perish, and soon after it is said that it is
‘to be enveloped in bitterness,’ whom should we think the holy man would
express by the name of ‘day,’ except the Apostate Spirit, who in dying
subsists in the life of essential being? Whom destruction does not withdraw
from life, in that in the midst of pains eternal an immortal death kills,
while it preserves, him whose perishing, fallen as he is already from the
glory of his state of bliss, is still longed for no otherwise than that
being held back by the punishments, which he deserves, he may lose even the
liberty of tempting.
6. Yea, he presents
himself as the day, in that he allures by prosperity; and his end is in the
blackness of night, for that he leads to adversity; thus he displayed day
when he said, In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as Gods; [Gen. 3, 5] but he brought on night, when he
led to the blackness of mortality; the day, therefore, is the proffered
promise of better things, but the night is the very manifested experience of
evils. The old enemy is the day, as by nature created good, but he is the
night, as by his own deserts sunk down into darkness. He is day, when by
promising good things he disguises himself as an Angel of light to the eyes
of men, as Paul witnesses, saying, For Satan himself is transformed as an
angel of light; [2 Cor. 11, 14] but he is night, when he obscures the
minds of those that consent to him with the darkness of error. Well then
may the holy man, who in his own sorrows bewailed the case of the whole
human race, and who viewed nothing in any wise special to himself in his own
special affliction, well may he recal to mind the original cause of sin, and
soften the pain of the infliction by considering its justice. Let him look
at man, and see whence and whither he has fallen, and exclaim, Let the
day perish wherein he was born, and the night in which it was said, There is
a man child conceived. As if he said in plain words, ‘Let the hope
perish, which the apostate Angel held forth, who, disguising himself as day,
shone forth with the promise of a divine nature, but yet again shewing
himself as night, brought a cloud over the light of our immortal nature.
Let our old enemy perish, who displayed the light of promises, and bestowed
the darkness of sin; who as it were presented himself as day by his
flattery, but led us to a night of utter darkness by sealing our hearts with
blindness.’ It proceeds;
Ver. 4. Let that
day be turned into darkness.
[ii]
7. This day shines as
it were in the hearts of men, when the persuasions of his wickedness are
thought to be for our good, and what they are within is never seen; but when
his wickedness is seen as it is, the day of false promises is as it were
dimmed by a kind of darkness spread before the eyes of our judgment, in this
respect, that such as he is in intrinsic worth, such he is perceived to be
in his beguilement, and so ‘the day becomes darkness,’ when we take as
adverse even the very things, which he holds out as advantageous whilst
persuading them. ‘The day becomes darkness,’ when our old enemy, even when
lurking under the cloak of his blandishments, is perceived by us to be such
as he is when ravening after us, that he may never mock us with feigned
prosperity, as though by the light of day, dragging us by real misery to the
darkness of sin. It proceeds;
Let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
[iii]
8. As Almighty God
was able to create good things out of nothing, so, when He would, He also
restored the good things that were lost, by the mystery of His Incarnation.
Now he had made two creations to contemplate Himself, viz. the Angelic and
the human, but Pride smote both, and dashed them from the erect station of
native uprightness. But one had the clothing of the flesh, the other bore
no infirmity derived from the flesh. For an angelical being is spirit
alone, but man is both spirit and flesh. Therefore when the Creator took
compassion to work redemption, it was meet that He should bring back to
Himself that creature, which, in the commission of sin, plainly had
something of infirmity; and it was also meet that the apostate Angel should
be driven down to a farther depth, in proportion as he, when he fell from
resoluteness in standing fast, carried about him no infirmity of the flesh.
And hence the Psalmist, when he was telling of the Redeemer's
compassionating mankind, at the same time justly set forth the cause itself
of His mercy, in these words, And he remembered that they were but flesh
[Ps. 78, 39]. As if he said, ‘Whereas He beheld their infirmities, so He
would not punish their offences with severity.’ There is yet another
respect wherein it was both fitting that man when lost should be recovered,
and impossible for the spirit that set himself up to be recovered, namely,
in that the Angel fell by his own wickedness, but the wickedness of another
brought man down. Forasmuch then as mankind is brought to the light of
repentance by the coming of the Redeemer, but the apostate Angel is not
recalled by any hope of pardon, or with any amendment of conversion, to the
light of a restored estate, it may well be said, Let not God regard it
from above, neither let the light shine upon it. As though it were
plainly expressed, ‘For that he hath himself brought on the darkness, let
him bear without end what himself has made, nor let him ever recover the
light of his former condition, since he parted with it even without being
persuaded thereto.’ It goes on;
Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it.
[iv]
9. By ‘the shadow of
death,’ we must understand ‘oblivion,’ for as death ends life, so oblivion
puts an end to memory. As therefore the apostate Angel is delivered over to
eternal oblivion, he is overclouded with the shadow of death. Therefore let
him say, Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; i.e. ‘So let
him be overwhelmed with the blindness of error, that he never more rise up
again to the light of repentance by recollection of God's regard. The words
follow;
Let a cloud dwell upon it [Vulg.]: and let it be enveloped
in bitterness.
[v]
10. It is one thing
that our old enemy suffers now, bound by the chains of his own wickedness,
and another that he will have to suffer at the end. For in that he is
fallen from the rank of the interior light, he now confounds himself within
with the darkness of error; and hereafter he is involved in bitterness, in
that by desert of a voluntary blindness, he is tortured with the eternal
torments of hell. Let it be said then, ‘What is it that he, who has lost
the calm of the light interior, now endures as the foretaste of his final
punishment? Let a cloud dwell upon it. Moreover let that subsequent
doom be added also, which preys upon him without end.’ Let him be folded
up in bitterness; for every thing folded up, shews, as it were, no end
any where, for as it shews not where it begins, so neither does it discover
where it leaves off. The old enemy then is said to be folded up in
bitterness, in that not only every kind of punishment, but punishment too
without end or limit awaits his Pride; which same doom then receives its
beginning when the righteous Judge cometh at the last Judgment; and hence it
is well added,
Ver. 6. As for
that night, let a dark whirlwind seize upon it.
[vi]
11. For it is
written, Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall
devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him.
[Ps. 50, 3] Thus [Vulg. tenebrosusturbo] a dark whirlwind seizes
upon that night, in that the apostate Angel is by that fearful tempest
carried off from before the strict Judge to suffer eternal woe; thus this
night is seized by a whirlwind, in that his blind Pride is smitten with a
strict visitation. It goes on;
Let it not be joined unto the days of the year; let it not come into the
number of the months.
[vii]
12. By year we
understand not inapplicably the preaching of supreme grace. For as in a
year the period is completed by a connected series of days, so in heavenly
grace is a complex life of virtue made complete. By a year too we may
understand the multitude of the redeemed. For as the year is produced by a
number of days, so by the assemblage of all the righteous there results that
countless sum of the Elect. Now Isaiah foretells this year of a completed
multitude, in these words; The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the
Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek: He hath sent Me
to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the
opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord [Is. 61, 1]. For ‘the acceptable year of the Lord is
proclaimed,’ in that the future multitude of the faithful is foretold as
destined to be illumined with the light of truth. Now what is meant by ‘the
days,’ but the several minds of the Elect? What by the months, but their
several Churches, which constitute one Catholic Church? So then let not
that night be joined unto the days of the year, neither let it come into the
number of the months. For our old enemy, hemmed in with the darkness of
his pride, sees indeed the coming of the Redeemer, but never returns to
pardon with the Elect. And hence it is written, For verily He took not
on Him the nature of Angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham
[Heb. 2, 16]. For it was on this account that our Redeemer was made not
Angel, but Man, because He must needs be made of the same nature as that
which He redeemed, that He might at once let go the lost angel, by not
taking his nature, and restore man, by taking his nature in Himself. These
days, which abide in the interior light, may also be taken for the angelic
spirits, and the months, for their orders and dignities. For every single
spirit, in that he shines, is a ‘day,’ but as they are distinguished by
certain set dignities, so that there are some that are Thrones, some
Dominions, some Principalities, and some Powers, according to this
distribution of ranks, they are entitled ‘months.’ But forasmuch as our old
enemy is never brought back to merit light, and is never restored to the
order of the ranks above, he is neither reckoned in the days of the year,
nor in the months. For the blindness of the pride that he has been guilty
of is so settled upon him, that he no more returns to those heavenly ranks
of interior brightness. He no longer now mixes with the ranks of light that
stand firm and erect, for that, in due of his own darkness, he is ever borne
downwards to the depth. And for that he remains for ever an alien to the
company of that heavenly land, it is yet further justly added,
Ver. 7. Lo, let
that night be solitary, let it be worthy of no praise.
[viii]
13. That night is
made solitary, in that it is divided by an eternal separation from the
company of the land above. Yet this may be also taken in another sense, viz.
that he loses man, whom he had made his fellow in ruin, and that the enemy
perishes alone together with his body [i.e. the wicked], while many that he
had destroyed are restored by the Redeemer's grace. The night then is made
solitary, when they that are Elect being raised up, our old enemy is made
over alone to the eternal flames of hell. And it is well said, Let it be
worthy of no praise. For when mankind, encompassed with the darkness of
error, took stones for gods, in this, that they worshipped idols, what else
did they but praise the deeds of their seducer? Hence Paul rightly remarks,
We know that an idol is nothing. But I say that the things which
the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils. [1 Cor. 8, 4; 10, 20]
How else then is it with those that have bowed themselves to the worship of
idols, but that they have ‘praised the darkness of night?’ But, lo! we see
now that that night is known to be unworthy ‘of any praise,’ since now the
worship of idols is condemned by the human race redeemed; and that ‘night is
left solitary',’ in that there is none that goeth with the damned apostate
spirit to suffer torments. It proceeds;
Ver. 8. Let them
curse it that curse the day, that are ready to rouse up Leviathan.
[ix]
14. In the old
translation it is not so written, but, Let him curse it that hath cursed
the day, even him who shall take the great whale [so LXX]. By which
words it is clearly shewn, that the destruction of Antichrist, to be at the
end of the world, is foreseen by the holy man. For the evil spirit, who by
rights is night, at the end of the world passes himself for the day, in that
he shews himself to men as God, while he takes to himself deceitfully the
brightness of the Deity, and exalteth himself above all that is called
God, or that is worshipped. [2 Thess. 2, 4] The same therefore that
curseth the day, curseth the night; in that He at this present time destroys
his wickedness, Who will then by the light of His coming also extinguish the
power of his strength. And hence it is well subjoined, Who will take the
great whale. For the strength of this whale is taken as a prey in the
water, in that the wiliness of our old enemy is overcome by the Sacrament of
Baptism.
15. But that which in
the Old Translation is spoken of the Author of all things, in this
translation, which we get from the Hebrew and Arabian tongues, is related of
His elect Angels. For it is of them that it is said, Let them curse it
that curse the day. For that spirit in his pride desired to pass
himself for day even with the Angelic Powers, at that time when as though in
the power of the Deity he exalted himself above the rest, and drew after him
such countless legions to destruction. But they, truly, who with humble
spirits stood firm in the Author of their being, when they saw there was
night in his perverse ways; trod under foot the day of his brightness by
thinking humbly of themselves, who do now point out to us the darkness of
his disguise, and shew us how we should contemn his false glare. So let it
be said of the night of darkness, which blinds the eyes of human frailty;
Let them curse it that curse the day; i.e. ‘Let those elect Spirits by
condemning denounce the darkness of his erring ways, who see the grandeur of
his shining already from the first a deceit.’ And it is well added, Who
are ready to rouse up [Vulg. thus] Leviathan. For ‘Leviathan’ is
interpreted to be ‘their addition.’ Whose ‘addition,’ then, but the
‘addition’ of men? And it is properly styled ‘their addition;’ for since by
his evil suggestion he brought into the world the first sin, he never ceases
to add to it day by day by prompting to worse things.
Or indeed it is in
reproach that he is called Leviathan, i.e. styled ‘the addition of men.’
For he found them immortal in Paradise, but by promising the Divine nature
to immortal beings, he as it were pledged himself to add somewhat to them
beyond what they were. But whilst with flattering lips he declared that he
would give what they had not, he robbed them cunningly even of what they
had. And hence the [al. The Lord by the P.] Prophet describes this same
Leviathan in these words, Leviathan, the bar-serpent [Vulg.
serpentem vectem]: even Leviathan that crooked serpent. For this
Leviathan in the thing, which he engaged to add to man, crept nigh to him
with tortuous windings; for while he falsely promised things impossible, he
really stole away even those which were possible, But we must enquire why he
that had spoken of ‘a serpent,’ subjoining in that very place the epithet
‘crooked,’ inserted the word ‘bar,’ except perhaps that in the flexibility
of the serpent we have a yielding softness, and in ‘the bar,’ the hardness
of an obstinate nature. In order then to mark him to be both hard and soft,
he both calls him ‘a bar’ and ‘a serpent.’ For by his malicious nature he
is hard, and by his flatteries he is soft; so he is called ‘a bar [E.V.
Piercing],’ in that he strikes even to death; and ‘a serpent,’ in that
he insinuates himself softly by deceitful acts.
16. Now this
Leviathan at this present time elect Spirits of the Angelic host imprison
close in the bottomless pit. Whence it is written, And I saw an Angel
come down from 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; [Rev. 20, 1-3]
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 years should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed.
For that apostate angel, whereas he was created so that he shone 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 time
setting him free for our probation, 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.
[x]
17. In Holy Scripture
by the title of stars we have set 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 11.ation,
among whom ye shine like lights in the world. [Phil. 2, 15] 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 from heaven, where he says, The dragon put forth his tail,
and drew the third part of the stars of heaven. [Rev. 12, 4] 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 the love of earth
to involve those in the froward ways of open error, who seem to be devoted
to the pursuit of the heavenly life. For there are that as it were shine
before the eyes of men by extraordinary deeds; but forasmuch as these very
deeds are not the offspring of a pure 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, which they do not practise with any
purity of heart. And 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 the 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 light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day.
[xi]
18. In the Gospel
Truth declares, I am the light of the world. [John 8, 12] 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
our 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, and have none; but that
there are some, who exhibit themselves as maintaining by words that faith,
which they undo by works? Of whom Paul saith, They profess that they
know God, but in works they deny Him; [Tit. 1, 16] 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 believe themselves to be really Saints,
and in proportion as they account themselves unblameable according to the
esteem they are in with numbers, they await in greater security the Day of
strict account. Of whom the Prophet well says, Woe unto you that desire
the day of the Lord. [Amos 5, 18] To these blessed Job utters the
sentence due to them, saying in the temper of one foretelling the thing, and
not as the wish of one that desired it, Let it look for light, but have
none. For that night, I mean the adversary of darkness, in his members
doth look for the light, but seeth none; in that whether it be they who
retain the faith without works, these, trusting that they may be saved at
the final Judgment by right of the same faith, will find their hope prove
vain, because by their life they have undone the faith, which in the
confession of the lips they have maintained; or they, who for the sake of
human 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,
Which saith, Verily I say unto you, they have their reward [Matt. 6,
2. 5.]; and here it is justly added, Neither let it see the dawning of
the day.
19. For the dawn is
the title of the Church, 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, Who is she that goeth forth as the morning arising?
[Cant. 6, 10] for like the dawn doth the Church of 'the Elect arise, in that
she quits the darkness of her former iniquity, and converts herself into the
radiance of new light. Therefore in that light, which is manifested at the
coming of the strict Judge, the body of our enemy when condemned 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 with what wondrous splendour Holy Church rises into the interior light
of the heart. For then the mind of the Elect is transported on high, to be
illuminated with the rays of the Divine. Nature, and in the degree that it
is penetrated with the light of that Countenance, it is lifted above itself
in the refulgence of grace. Then doth Holy Church become a full dawn, when
she parts wholly and for ever with the darkness of her 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 down to
darkness by the weight of their evil deeds from the sight of the Righteous
Judge. And hence it is rightly said by the Prophet, Let the wicked be
taken out of the way, that he see not the glory of God. [Is. 26, 10. LXX]
It is hence that these words are uttered by the Psalmist concerning this
dawn, Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy Presence from the pride
of men. [Ps. 31, 20] 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 we
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 true light of
righteousness are first changed from the darkness of the inward purpose 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 whereby they
may inwardly arise to the light of righteousness; and they as it were are
blind to see the dayspring of the rising dawn, because they do not think it
worth their while to regard the religious mind's intent.
[ALLEGORICAL
INTERPRETATION]
21. The holy man, who
was filled with the virtue of the prophetic Spirit, may also have his eye
fixed upon the faithlessness of Judaea at the coming of the Redeemer, and in
these words he may be speaking prophetically of the mischievous effects of
her blindness, as though in the character of one expressing a wish, so as to
say, Let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning
of the day. For Judaea ‘looked for the light but had none;’ since by
prophecy 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 supposed 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 sorrow from mine eyes.
[xii]
22. What the womb of
his mother is to each individual 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 our 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 cunning persuading he
broke asunder the decree of heaven in man's heart. The serpent opened the
mouth of this womb, in that he burst 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 say,
Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, 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 sorrow,’ 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.
[MORAL
INTERPRETATON]
23. It is well to go
over these points again from the beginning, and according to what we remark
in practice in the present 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 wherein I was born; 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 condemned,
when he said, Neither have I desired man's day [‘diem hominis’
Vulg.], Thou knowest it. [Jer. 17, 16] And this night our Lord
declared He was to suffer at the final close of His Incarnation, when he
declared by the Psalmist as if in the past, My reins also instructed me
in the night season. [Ps. 16, 7] 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 interposing, may be
brought to nought. He wishes also that the ‘night may perish,’ that what
the blinded mind 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 born in ‘the day’ and conceived in ‘the
night?’ Holy Scripture 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. [Gen. 1, 26] He is called man in respect
of sin, as where it is written, I have said, Ye are all gods, and all of
you are children of the Most High: but ye shall die like men. [Ps. 82,
6. 7.] As though he had expressed it plainly, ‘ye shall perish like
transgressors.’ And hence Paul saith, For whereas there is among you
envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? [1
Cor. 3, 3] 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
man, in relation to his weakness, as where it is written, Cursed be the
man that trusteth in man. [Jer. 17, 5] 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
born, and the night wherein 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 be darkness.
[xiv]
26. For ‘the day
becomes darkness,’ when in the very commencement of the enjoyment, we see to
what an end of ruin sin is hurrying us. We ‘turn the day into darkness,’
whenever by severely chastising ourselves, we turn to bitter the very sweets
of evil enjoyment by the keen laments of penance, and, when we visit it with
weeping, whereinsoever we sin in gratification in our secret hearts. For
because no believer is ignorant that the thoughts of the heart will be
minutely examined at the Judgment, as Paul testifieth, saying, Their
thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another; [Rom. 2,
15] 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 enjoyment of sin, will
not be required by the Lord, if it be visited with self-punishment of our
own accord, as Paul testifies, when he says, For if we would judge
ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord. [1 Cor. 11, 31] ‘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 kind
of obscurity. So it is written, But all things that are reproved are
made manifest by the light. [Eph. 5, 13] It is as though a certain
darkness hid the sins of penitents, of whom the Prophet saith, Blessed is he
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. [Ps. 32, 1]
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 them still hideth in
some sort from itself, but all is displayed 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.
[xvi]
29. Then indeed
darkness stains the day, when the delight 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 darkness His secret place; [Ps. 18, 11] 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. Darkness,
therefore, stains the day, when the joy of gratification, which is a
proper subject of tears, is in mercy 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 sometimes 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 oblivion causes that whatsoever
it seizes should no longer abide in the memory. And hence too, because John
was coming to proclaim to the Hebrew people That God, Whom they had
forgotten, he is justly said by Zacharias, to give light to them that sit
in darkness and in the shadow of death; for ‘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 shadow of death is taken to mean the imitating our
old enemy. For, since he brought in death, he is himself called death, as
John is witness, saying, and his name is death. [Rev. 6, 8] And so
by the shadow of death is signified the imitating of him. For as the
shadow is shaped according to the character 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 in the future, saying,
They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon 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 separated 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, Though Thou hast sore broken us in the place of
dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. [Ps. 44, 19] 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 transgressors? 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 condemned them
both with justice. He joined His own single Death to our twofold death, and
by dying He vanquished that double 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 darkness 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 stain 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.
[xvii]
32. For because the
eye is perplexed in the shade, therefore 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 which is
glory and grace. [Ecclus. 4, 21] For when in repenting we recall our
misdoings to remembrance, we are at once confounded with heaviness and
sorrow, 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 ye are now ashamed?
[Rom. 6, 21] Let shade, then, seize this day of sin, i.e.
‘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.
[xviii]
33. For the day is
enfolded in bitterness, when, upon the soul returning to knowledge, the
inflictions of penance follow upon the caresses of sin. We ‘enfold the day
in bitterness,’ when we regard the punishments that follow the joys of
forbidden gratification, and pour tears of bitter lamenting around them.
For whereas what is folded up is covered on every side, we wish ‘the day to
be folded in bitterness,’ that each man may mark on every side the ills that
threaten crooked courses, and may cleanse the wantonness of
self-gratification by the tears of bitter sorrow.
34. But if we hear
that day, which we have rendered the ‘gratification of sin,’ assailed with
so many imprecations, that, surely, our tears poured around it may expiate
whatsoever sin the soul is become guilty of by being touched with
gratification through negligence, with what visitings of penitence is the
night of that day to be stricken, i.e. the actual consent to sin? For as it
is a less fault when the mind is carried away in delight by the influence of
the flesh, yet by the resistance of the Spirit offers violence to its sense
of delight; so it is a more heinous and complete wickedness not only to be
attracted to the fascination of sin by the feeling of delight, but to pander
to it by yielding consent. Therefore the mind must be cleansed from
defilement by being wrung harder with the hand of penitence, in proportion
as it sees itself to be more foully stained by the yielding of the consent.
And hence it is fitly subjoined,
Ver. 6. As for
that night, let a black tempest seize it.
35. For the awakened
spirit of sorrow is like a kind of tempestuous whirlwind. For when a man
understands what sin he has committed, when he minutely considers the
wickedness of his evil doings, he clouds the mind with sorrow, and the air
of quiet joy being agitated, as it were, he sweeps away all the inward
tranquillity of his breast, by the whirlwind of penitence. For unless the
heart, returning to the knowledge of itself, were broken by such a
whirlwind, the Prophet would never have said, Thou breakest the ships of
Tarshish with a strong wind. [Ps. 48, 7] For Tarshish is
rendered, ‘the exploring of joy.’ But when the strong blast of penitence
seizes the mind, it disturbs therein all the ‘explorings’ after a censurable
joy, that it now takes pleasure in nought but to weep, minds nought but what
may fill it with affright. For it sets before the eyes, on the one hand,
the strictness of justice, on the other the deserts of sin, it sees what
punishment it deserves, if the pitifulness of the sparing Hand be wanting,
which is wont by present sorrowing to rescue from eternal woe. Therefore,
‘a strong wind breaks the ships of Tarshish,’ when a mighty force of
compunction confounds, with wholesome terrors, our minds which have
abandoned themselves to this world, like as to the sea. Let him say then,
As for that night, let a black tempest seize it, i.e. let not the
softness of secure ease cherish the commission of sin, but the bitterness of
repentance burst on it in pious fury.
36. But we are to
bear in mind, that when we leave sins unpunished, we are ‘taken possession
of by the night,’ but when we correct those with the visitation of
penitence, then we ourselves ‘take possession of the night,’ that we have
made. And the sin of the heart is then brought into our right of
possession, if it is repressed in its beginning. And hence it is said by
the voice of God to Cain, harbouring evil thoughts, Thy sin will lie at
the door. But under thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
For ‘sin lieth at the door,’ when it is knocking in the thoughts, and ‘the
desire thereof is under,’ and man ‘ruleth over it,’ if the wickedness of the
heart, being looked to, be quickly put down, and before it grows to a state
of hardness, be subdued by a strenuous opposition of the mind. Therefore
that the mind may be quickly made sensible of its offence by repenting, and
hold in under its authority the usurping power of sin, let it be rightly
said, As for that night let a black tempest seize it; as though it
were said in plain words, ‘Lest the mind be the captive of sin, let it never
leave a sin free from penance.’ And because we have a sure hope that what
we prosecute with weeping, will never be urged against us by the Judge to
come, it is rightly added,
Let it not be joined unto the days of the year; let it not come into the
number of the months.
[xx]
37. The year of our
illumination is then accomplished, when at the appearing of the Eternal
Judge of Holy Church, the life of her pilgrimage is completed. She then
receives the recompense of her labours, when, having finished this season of
her warfare, she returns to her native country. Hence it is said by the
Prophet, Thou shalt bless the crown of the year with Thy goodness.
For the Crown of the year is as it were ‘blessed,’ when, the season of toil
at an end, the reward of virtues is bestowed. But the days of this year are
the several virtues, and its months the manifold deeds of those virtues.
But observe, when the mind is erected in confidence, to have a good hope
that, when the Judge comes, she will receive the reward of her virtues, all
the evil things that she has done are also brought before the memory, and
she greatly fears lest the strict Judge, Who comes to reward virtues, should
also examine and weigh exactly those things, which have been unlawfully
committed, and lest, when ‘the year’ is completed, the ‘night’ also be
reckoned in. Let him then say of this night, Let it not be joined unto
the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. As
though he implored that strict Judge in such words as these; ‘When, the time
of Holy Church being completed, Thou shalt manifest Thyself for the final
scrutiny, do Thou so recompense the gifts Thou hast vouchsafed, that Thou
require not the evil we have committed. For if that ‘night be joined unto
the days of the year,’ all that we have done is brought to nought, by the
accounting of our iniquity. And the days of our virtues no longer shine, if
they be overclouded in Thine eyes by the dark confusion of our night being
added to the reckoning.’
38. But if we would
not then have inquest made on our night, we must take especial care now to
exercise a watchful eye in examining it, that no sin whatever may remain
unpunished by us, that the froward mind be not bold to vindicate what it has
done, and by that vindication add iniquity to iniquity. And hence it is
rightly added,
Ver. 7. Lo, let
that night be solitary, and worthy of no praise.
[xxi]
39. There are some
men that not only never bewail what they do, but who do not cease to uphold
and applaud it, and verily a sin that is upheld, is doubled. And against
this it is rightly said by one, My son, hast thou sinned? add not
again thereto. [Ecclus. 21, 1] For he ‘adds sin to sin,’ who over and
above maintains what he has done amiss; and he does not ‘leave the night
alone,’ who adds the support of vindication also to the darkness of his
fault. It is hence that the first man, when called in question concerning
the ‘night’ of his error, would not have the same ‘night’ to be ‘solitary,’
in that while by that questioning he was called to repentance, he added the
props of self-exculpation, saying, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with
me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat; i.e. covertly turning the
fault of his transgression upon his Maker; as if he said, ‘Thou gavest me
occasion of transgressing, Who gavest me the woman.’ It is hence that in
the human race the branch of this sin is drawn out from that root so far as
to this present time, that what is done amiss should be yet further
maintained. Let him say then, Let that light be solitary, and not worthy
of any praise. As though he besought in plain words, ‘Let the fault
that we have done remain alone, lest while it is praised and upheld, it bind
us a hundredfold more in the sight of our Judge. We ought not indeed to
have sinned, but would that, by not adding others, we would even leave those
by themselves, which we have committed.'
40. But here it is to
be impressed upon our minds, that he in a true sense bears hard upon his
sin, whose heart is no longer set to the love of the present state of being
by any longing for prosperity, who sees how deceitful are the caresses of
this world, and reckons its smiles as a kind of persecution; and hence it is
well added,
Ver. 8. Let them
curse it that curse the day.
[xxii]
41. As if he said in
plain words; ‘Let them strike the darkness of this night by truly repenting,
who henceforth despise and tread upon the light of worldly prosperity.’ For
if we take ‘the day,’ for the gladness of delight, of this ‘night’ it is
rightly said, Let them curse it that curse the day. In that, indeed,
they do truly chastise the misdeeds committed with the visitations of
penance, who are henceforth carried away by no sense of delight after
deceitful goods. For of those whom other mischievous practices still
delight, it is all false whereinsoever they are seen to bewail one set they
have been guilty of. But if, as we have said above, we understand thereby
the crafty suggestion of our old enemy, those are to be understood to curse
the ‘night,’ that curse the ‘day,’ in that surely they all really punish
their past sins, who in the mere flattering suggestion itself detect the
snares of the malicious deceiver. But it is well added;
Who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.
[xxiii]
42. For all they that
with the spirit tread under foot the things which are of the world, and with
a perfect bent of the mind desire the things that belong to God, rouse up
Leviathan against themselves, in that they inflame his malice, by the
incitements of their life and conduct. For those that are subject to his
will, are as it were held in possession by him with an undisturbed light,
and their tyrannizing king, as it were, enjoys a kind of security, while he
rules their hearts with a power unshaken, but when the spirit of each man is
quickened again to the longing after his Creator; when he gives over the
sloth of negligence, and kindles the frost of former insensibility with the
fire of holy love; when he calls to mind his innate freedom, and blushes
that his enemy should keep him as his slave; because that enemy marks that
he is himself contemned, and sees that the ways of God are laid hold of, he
is stung that his captive struggles against him, and is at once fired with
jealousy, at once pressed to the conflict, at once raises himself to urge
countless temptations against the soul that withstands him, and stimulates
himself in all the arts of mangling, that launching the darts of temptation
he may pierce the heart, which he has long held with an undisputed title.
For he slept, as it were, whilst he reposed at rest in the corrupt heart.
But he is ‘roused,’ in challenging the fight, when he loses the right of
wicked dominion. Let those then curse this light, that are ready to
rouse up Leviathan, i.e. ‘let all those gather themselves resolutely to
encounter sin with the stroke of severe judgment, who are no wise afraid to
rouse up Leviathan in his tempting of them.’ For so it is written, My
son, if thou come to serve the Lord, stand in righteousness and in fear; and
prepare thy soul for temptation. For whosoever hastes to gird himself
in the service of God, what else does he than prepare against the encounter
of the old adversary, that the same man set at liberty may take blows in the
strife, who, when slaving in captivity under tyrannizing power, was left at
rest? But in this very circumstance that the mind is braced to meet the
enemy, that some vices it has under its feet, and is striving against
others, it sometimes happens that somewhat of sin is permitted to remain,
nevertheless not so as to do any great injury.
43. And often the
mind, which overcomes many and forcible oppositions, is unable to master one
within itself, and that perchance a very little one, though it be most
earnestly on the watch against it. Which doubtless is the effect of God's
dispensation, lest being resplendent with virtue on all points, it be lifted
up in self-elation, that while it sees in itself some trifling thing to be
blamed, and yet has no power to subdue the same, it may never attribute the
victory to itself, but to the Creator only, whereinsoever it has power to
subdue with resolution; and hence it is well added,
Ver.9. Let the
stars thereof be overshadowed with darkness.
[xxiv]
44. For the stars of
this night are overshadowed with darkness, when even they that already shine
with great virtues, still bear something of the dimness of sin, while they
struggle against it, so that they even shine with great lustre of life, and
yet still draw along with unwillingness some remains of the night. Which as
we have said is done with this view, that the mind in advancing to the
eminence of its righteousness, may through weakness be the better
strengthened, and may in a more genuine manner shine in goodness by the same
cause, whereby, to the humbling of it, little defects overcloud it even
against its will. And hence when the land of promise now won was to be
divided to the people of Israel, the Gentile people of Canaan are not said
to be slain, but to be made tributary to the tribe of Ephraim; as it is
written, The Canaanites dwelt in the midst of Ephraim under tribute.
[Jos. 16, 10. V.] For what does the Canaanite, a Gentile people,
denote saving a fault? And oftentimes we enter the land of promise with
great virtues, because we are strengthened by the inward hope that regards
eternity. But while, amidst lofty deeds, we retain certain small faults, we
as it were permit the Canaanite to dwell in our land. Yet he is made
tributary, in that this same fault, which we cannot bring under, we force
back by humility to answer the end of our wellbeing, that the mind may think
meanly of itself even in its highest excellencies, in proportion as it fails
to master by its own strength even the small things that it aims at. Hence
it is well written again, Now these are the nations which the Lord left,
to prove Israel by them. [Jud. 3, 1] For it is for this that some of
our least faults are retained, that our fixed mind may ever be practising
itself heedfully to the conflict, and not presume upon victory, forasmuch as
it sees enemies yet alive within it, by whom it still dreads to be
overcome. Thus Israel is trained by the Gentile people being reserved, in
that the uplifting of our goodness meets with a check in some very little
faults, and learns, in the little things that withstand it, that it does not
subdue the greater ones by itself.
45. Yet this that is
said, Let the stars thereof be overshadowed with darkness, may also
be understood in another sense; for that night, viz. consent to the
sin, which was derived to us by the transgression of our first parent, has
smitten our mind's eye with such a dimness, that in this life's exile, beset
by the darkness of its blinded state, with whatever force it strain after
the light of eternity, it is unable to pierce through; for we are born
condemned sinners after punishment has begun [post poenam], and we
come into this life together with the desert of our death, and when we lift
up the eye of the mind to that beam of light above, we grow dark with the
mere dimness of our natural infirmity. And indeed many in this feeble
condition of the flesh have been made strong by so great a force of virtue,
that they could shine like stars in the world. Many in the darkness of this
present life, while they shew forth in themselves examples above our reach,
shine upon us from on high after the manner of stars; but with whatsoever
brilliancy of practice they shine, with whatever fire of compunction they
enkindle their hearts, it is plain that while they still bear the load of
this corruptible flesh, they are unable to behold the light of eternity such
as it is. So then let him say, Let the stars thereof be overshadowed
with darkness; i.e. ‘let even those in their contemplations still feel
the darkness of the old night, of whom it appears that they already spread
the rays of their virtues over the human race in the darkness of this life,
seeing that, though they already spring to the topmost height in thought,
they are yet pressed down below by the weight of the first offence. And
hence it comes to pass that at the same time that without they give
specimens of light, like the stars, yet within, being closely encompassed by
the darkness of night, they fail to mount up to the assuredness of an
immoveable vision. Now the mind is often so kindled and inflamed, that,
though it be still set in the flesh, it is transported into God, and every
carnal imagination brought under; and yet not so that it beholds God as He
is, in that, as we have said, the weight of the original condemnation
presses upon it in corruptible flesh. Oftentimes it longs to be swallowed
up, just as it is, that if it might be so, it might attain the eternal life
without the intervention of the bodily death. Hence Paul, when he ardently
sought for the inward light, yet in some sort dreaded the evils [damna]
of the outward death, said, For we that are in this tabernacle do groan,
being burthened, for that we would not be unclothed, but clothed upon, that
mortality might be swallowed up of life. [2 Cor. 5, 4. Vulg.] Therefore
holy men long to see the true dawn, and, if it were vouchsafed, they would
even along with the body attain that deep of inmost light. But with
whatever ardour of purpose they may spring forth, the old night still weighs
upon them, and those eyes of our corruptible flesh, which the crafty enemy
has opened to concupiscence, the just Judge holds back from the view of His
inward radiance. And hence it is well added,
Let it look for light and have none, neither let it see the dawning of the
day.
[xxv]
46. For with whatever
strength of purpose the mind, while yet in this pilgrimage, labours to see
the Light as It is, the power is withheld, in that this is hidden from it by
the blindness of its state under the curse. [Now the ‘rising of the dawn’
is the brightness of inward truth, which ought to be ever new to us. And
this the night assuredly seeth not, because our infirmity, blind by reason
of sin, and still placed in the corruptible flesh, mounts not up to that
light wherewith our fellow citizens above are already irradiated. For the
rising of this dawn is in the interior, where the brightness of the Divine
Nature is manifested ever new to the spirits of the Angels, and where that
bliss of light is as it were ever dawning, which is never brought to an
end.] [Note: this bracketed portion is found only in the Edition of
Gussanville, and there without any notice to shew where it comes from.
(Ben.) It is not in the Oxford Mss.] But the rising of the dawn, is
that new birth of the Resurrection, whereby Holy Church, with the flesh too
raised up, rises to contemplate the sight of Eternity; for if the very
Resurrection of our flesh were not as it were a kind of birth, Truth would
never have said of it, In the Regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit
upon the throne of His glory. [Matt. 19, 28] This then, which He called
a regeneration, He beheld as a rising. But with whatever
virtue the Elect now shine forth, they cannot pierce to see what will be
that glory of the new birth, wherewith they will then mount up together with
the flesh to contemplate the sight of Eternity. Hence Paul says, Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man,
the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. [1 Cor. 2, 9]
Let him say then, Let it look for light and have none, neither let it
see the dawning of the day. For our frail nature, darkened by its
spontaneous fault, penetrates not the brightness of inward light, unless it
first discharge its debt of punishment by death. It goes on;
Ver. 10. Because
it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor took away sorrow from mine
eyes.
[xxvi]
47. As has been
likewise remarked above, the words, it shut not up, are ‘it opened,’
and it took not away, ‘it brought upon me.’ So that this night,
i.e. sin, opened the door of the womb, in that to man, conceived unto sin,
it unsealed the lust of concupiscence [m], whereof the Prophet says,
Enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors. [Isa. 26, 20] For we
‘enter our chambers,’ when we go into the recesses of our own hearts. And
we ‘shut the doors,’ when we restrain forbidden lusts; and so whereas our
consent set open these doors of carnal concupiscence, it forced us to the
countless evils of our corrupt state. And so now we henceforth groan under
the weight of mortality, though we came [n] thereunto by our own free will,
in that the justice of the sentence against us requires thus much, that what
we have done willingly, we should bear with against our will. It proceeds;
Ver. 11, 12. Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the
ghost when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees prevent me? or why
the breasts that I should suck?
[xxvii]
48. Be the thought
far from us, that blessed Job, who was endued with such high spiritual
knowledge, and who had such a witness of praise from the Judge within,
should wish that he had perished in abortive birth! But seeing, what we
also learn by the reward which he received, that he has within the witness
of his fortitude, the weight of his words is to be reckoned within.
49. Now sin is
committed in the heart in four ways, and in four ways it is consummated in
act. For in the heart it is committed by the suggestion, the pleasure, the
consent, and the boldness to defend. For the suggestion comes of the enemy;
the pleasure, of the flesh; the consent, of the spirit; and boldness to
uphold, of pride. For the sin, which ought to fill the mind with
apprehension, only exalts it, and in throwing down uplifts, while by
uplifting it causes its more grievous overthrow; and hence that upright
frame, wherein the first man was created, was by our old foe dashed down by
these four strokes. For the serpent tempted, Eve was pleased, Adam yielded
consent, and even when called in question he refused in effrontery to
confess his sin. The serpent tempted, in that the secret enemy silently
suggests evil to man's heart. Eve was pleased, because the sense of the
flesh, at the voice of the serpent, presently gives itself up to pleasure.
And Adam, who was set above the woman, yielded consent, in that whilst the
flesh is carried away in enjoyment, the spirit also being deprived of its
strength gives in from its uprightness. And Adam when called in question
would not confess his sin, in that, in proportion as the spirit is by
committing sin severed from the Truth, it becomes worse hardened in
shamelessness at its downfall. Sin is likewise completed in act by the
self-same four methods; for first the fault is done in secret, but
afterwards it is done openly before men's eyes without the blush of guilt,
and next it is formed into a habit, finally, whether by the cheats of false
hope, or the stubbornness of reckless despair, it is brought to full growth.
50. These four modes
of sin then, which either go on secretly in the heart, or which are executed
in act, blessed Job views, and bewails the many stages of sin wherein the
human race was fallen, saying, Why died I not from the womb? Why did I
not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees
prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? For ‘the womb of
conception’ at the first was the tongue of the evil suggestion. Now the
sinner would ‘perish in the womb,’ if only man knew in the very suggestion
itself that he would bring death upon himself. Yet ‘he came forth from the
belly,’ in that, as soon as the tongue had conceived him in sin by its
suggestions, the pleasure likewise, immediately hurried him forth; and after
his coming forth, ‘the knees prevented him,’ in that having issued forth in
the carnal gratification, he then completed the sin by the consent of the
spirit, all the senses being made subservient like knees underneath. And
‘the knees preventing him, the breasts did also give him suck.’ For
whereas, in the spirit's consenting to the sin, the senses were drawn into
the service, the many reasonings of vain confidence followed, which
nourished the soul thus born, in sin with poisoned milk, and lulled it with
soothing excuses, that it should not fear the bitter punishment of death.
And hence the first man waxed bolder after his sin, saying, The women
whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
[Gen. 3, 12] And truly, he had fled to hide himself out of fear, yet when
he was called in question, he made it appear how swoln he was with pride
while he feared; for when punishment is feared as the present consequence of
sin, and the face of God being lost is not loved, the fear is one that
proceeds from a high stomach [timor ex tumore], and not from a lowly
spirit. For he is full of pride who does not give over his sin, if be may
go unpunished.
51. But, as we have
said, sin is committed in these four ways, as in the heart, so also in the
deed; for he saith, Why died I not in the womb? For the womb to the
sinner is the secret fault in man, which conceives the sinner under cover,
and as yet hides its guilt in the dark. Why did I not give up the ghost,
when I came out of the belly? For there is ‘a coming out of the womb
from the belly,’ when the sinner does not blush to do openly as well the
things, which he has been guilty of in secret, Thus they had as it were come
out of the womb of their hiding place, of whom the Prophet spake it; And
they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not, Why did the knees
prevent me?[Is. 3, 9] In that the sinner, when he is not confounded at
his wickedness, is strengthened in the same by the further stays of most
heinous custom. The sinner is as it were nursed on the knees, till he grow
bigger, so long as the sin is confirmed by habitual acts, till it acquires
strength. Or why the breasts that I should suck? For when the sin
has once begun to issue into habit, then, alas! the sinner feeds himself
either with the fallacious hope of God's mercy, or with the open
recklessness of despair, that he never may return back to self-amendment, in
so far as he either extravagantly colours to himself the pitifulness of his
Maker, or is extravagantly terrified at the sin that he has done. Let the
blessed man, then, take a view of man's fall, and mark down what precipice
he has plunged himself into the pit of iniquity, saying, Why died I not
in the womb? i.e. ‘Why would I not, in the very secret act of sin in
the heart, kill myself to the life of the flesh?' Why did I not give up
the ghost, when I came out of the belly? i.e. ‘Why, when I came forth
in the overt act, died I not, was I not then at least instructed that I was
undone?’ For he would have ‘given up the ghost’ in his condemnation of
himself, if he had known that he was lost. Why did the knees prevent me?
i.e. ‘Even after the open act of sin, why, yet further, did the custom too
take me up in it, to make me stronger to commit sin, and to nurse and
sustain me with habitual wicked acts?’ Why the breasts, that I should
suck? i.e. ‘After I entered into the habit of sin, why did I rear
myself to a more tremendous pitch of iniquity, either by reliance on false
hope, or by the milk of a miserable despair?’ For when the fault has been
brought into a habit, the mind, even if it be inclined, by this time resists
more feebly: for it becomes bound upon the mind by as many chains, as there
are recurrences of the evil practice that clench it fast, Whence it happens
that the mind, being sapped of strength, when it has no power to get free,
turns to some resource or other of fallacious consolation, so as to flatter
itself that the Judge, Who is to come, is of so great mercy, that even
those, whom He shall find deserving of condemnation, He will never wholly
destroy. Whereunto there is this worst addition, that the tongue of many
like him abets him, since there are many who magnify with their praises
these very misdeeds; whence it comes to pass that the fault is continually
growing, nourished by applauses. Also then we neglect to heal the wound,
which is counted worthy of the meed of praise, Hence Solomon says well,
My son, if sinners give thee suck, consent thou not. [Prov. 1, 10. V.]
For the wicked ‘give suck,’ whenever they either put wicked acts in our way
to be done by their enticements, or applaud them with marks of favour when
done. Does not he suck of whom the Psalmist says, For the wicked man is
commended in his heart's desire; and he that doeth iniquity receives a
blessing,? [Ps. 10, 3. Vulg. 9, 24]
52. We must also
know, that those three modes of being sinners are more easily corrected as
they come in their order downwards; but the fourth is not corrected but with
difficulty. And hence our Saviour raises the damsel in the house, the young
man without the gate, while Lazarus He raises in the grave; for he that sins
in secret is as yet lying dead in the house, he is already being carried
without the gate, whose iniquity is done openly, even to the shamelessness
of commission in public; but he is pressed with the sepulchral mound, who,
in the commission of sin, is over and above pressed and overlaid with the
use of habit. But all these in mercy He restores to life; in that it is
often the case that Divine grace enlighteneth with the light of its regard
those that are dead not only in secret sins, but likewise in open evil
practices, and that are overlaid with the weight of evil habit. But our
Saviour knows indeed of a fourth being dead from the disciple's lips, yet
never raises him to life; in that it is hard indeed for one, whom, after
continuance in bad habit, the tongues of flatterers too get hold of, to be
recovered from the death of the soul; and of such an one it is said with
justice, Let the dead bury their dead. [Luke 9, 60] For ‘the dead
bury the dead,’ as often as sinners load sinners with their approval. For
what else is it to ‘sin,’ but to lie down in death? and to ‘bury,’ except it
be to hide? But they that pursue the sinner with their applauses, bury the
dead body under the mound of their words. Now Lazarus too was dead, yet he
was never buried by the dead. For the believing women, who also gave
tidings of his death to the Quickener, had laid him under the ground. And
hence he forthwith returned back to the light; for when the soul is dead in
sin, it is soon brought back, if anxious thoughts live over it. But
sometimes, as we have likewise said above, it is not false hope that cuts
off the mind, but a more deadly despair pierces it. And whereas this
totally cuts off all hope of pardon, it supplies the soul with the milk of
error in greater abundance.
53. Let the holy man
then consider, what wickedness man has been guilty of, yet for the worse,
after the first sin, and, after he had lost paradise, to what broken steeps
he descended in this place of exile, and let him say, Why died I not in
the womb? i.e. ‘When the suggestion of the serpent conceived me a
sinner, O that I had then known the death that would come upon me; lest the
suggestion should transport me to the length of delight, and should link me
more closely to death.’ Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out
of the belly? As though he said, ‘O that when I came out to the
external gratification, I had known that I was parting with the internal
light; so that I had at least died [i.e. died from sinning] at the point of
this gratification only, that death might not inflict a sharper sting
through the consent.’ Why did the knees prevent me? As though he
said, ‘O that the consent had never caught me, my senses being made to bear
up my frowardness, that my own consenting might not hurry me yet for the
worse into shamelessness.’ Or why the breasts that I should suck?
As though he said, ‘O that I had at least refused to flatter myself, after
ill acts committed, that I might not attach myself thereby the more wickedly
to my fault, the more softly I dealt with myself therein.’ So then in these
words of reproach, he charged himself with having sinned in our first
parent. But had man never been brought down to the wretchedness of this
place of banishment, by committing sin, let him say what peace he might have
had. It proceeds;
Ver. 13. For now
should I have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept, then had I
been at rest.
[xxviii]
54. For this was man
set in Paradise, that, had he attached himself by the chains of love to an
obedient following of his Creator, he might one day be transported to the
heavenly country of the Angels, and that, without the death of the flesh.
For he was made immortal in such sort, that, if he sinned, he would yet be
capable of dying, and in such wise mortal, that, if he sinned not, he should
even be capable of never dying, and that, by desert of a free choice, he
might attain the blessedness of those realms, wherein there is neither
possibility of sinning nor of death. There then, where, since the time of
the Redemption, the Elect are conveyed, with the death of the flesh
intervening, to the same place our first parents, if they had remained
stedfast in the state of their creation, would undoubtedly have passed, and
that, without the death of the body. Man then would have lain still and
been quiet, he would have ‘slept and been at rest,’ in that being brought to
the rest of his eternal country, he would have found as it were a retreat
from these clamours of human frailty. For since sin, he, as it were, is
kept awake and crying aloud, who bears with struggling opposition the strife
of his own flesh. This stillness of peace man, when he was created,
enjoyed, when he received the freedom of his will, to encounter his enemy
withal. And because he yielded himself up to him of his own accord, he
forthwith found in himself what was to rise in clamours against him,
forthwith met in the conflict with the riotings of his frail nature; and
though he had been created by his Maker in peaceful stillness, yet, once of
his own will laid low under the enemy, he had to endure the clamours of the
fight. For the very suggestion of the flesh is a kind of outcry against the
mind's repose, which man was not sensible of before the transgression,
plainly because there was nought that he could be exposed to undergo from
infirmity of his own. But since he has once voluntarily subjected himself
to his enemy, now being bound with the chains of his sins, he serves him in
some things even against his will, and suffers clamours in the mind, when
the flesh strives against the Spirit. Did not clamours within meet his
ears, who was pressed with the words of an evil law at variance with
himself, saying, But I see another law in my members, warring against the
law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members. [Rom. 7, 23] Let then the holy man reflect in what a peace
of mind he would have reposed, if man had refused to entertain the words of
the serpent, and let him say, For now should I have lain still and been
quiet, I should have slept, then had I been at rest; i.e. I should have
withdrawn into the retirement of my breast to contemplate my Creator, had
not the fault, the first sin of consent, betrayed me out of myself to the
riotings of temptation; and let him add to the joys of this state of
tranquillity, whom he would have had for his fellows in the enjoyment
thereof saying,
Ver. 4. With the
kings and counsellors of the earth.
[xxix]
55. From things
without sense we learn what to think of beings endowed with sense and
understanding. Now the earth is rendered fruitful by the air, while the air
is governed by the quality of the heaven. In like manner man is over the
beasts, the Angels over man, and the Archangels are set over the Angels.
Now that man has sovereignty over the beasts, we both perceive by the
common use, and are instructed by the words of the Psalmist, who says,
Thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the
beasts of the field. [Ps. 8, 6. 7.] And that the Angels are placed over
man is testified by the Prophet, in these words, But the prince of the
kingdom of Persia withstood me. [Dan. 10, 13] And that the Angels are
under the governance of authority in superior Angels, the Prophet Zechariah
declares; And, behold, the Angel that talked with me went forth, and
another angel went out to meet him, and he said unto him, Run, speak to this
young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls.
[Zech. 2, 3. 4.] For in the actual ministration of the holy spirits, if the
superior Powers did not direct the inferior, one Angel would never have
learnt from the lips of another what he should say to a man. Therefore,
forasmuch as the Creator of the Universe holdeth all things by Himself
alone, and yet for the purpose of constituting the defined order
characterizing a universe of beauty, He rules one part by the governance of
another; we shall not improperly understand the kings to be the
Angelic spirits, who the more devotedly they serve the Maker of all beings,
have things subject to their rule the more. He would then have been ‘at
rest with kings;’ in that, surely, man would have already had peace in
company with the Angels, if he had refused to listen to the tongue of the
Tempter. These too are rightly called ‘counsellors,’ for they ‘consult’ for
the spiritual commonwealth, while they unite us to the kingdom as
fellow-heirs with themselves. They are justly called ‘counsellors;’ for,
whereas, from their lips we are made acquainted with the will of the
Creator, it is in them assuredly that we find counsel to extricate ourselves
from the misery that besets us here.
56. But since blessed
Job is full of the Holy Spirit of Eternity, and since Eternity knows neither
to have been nor to be about to be, whereto, as we know, neither things past
depart, nor things future approach, as seeing all things in the present, he
may, in the present inspiration of the Spirit, have his eyes fixed on the
future preachers of the Church, who, when they leave the body, are separated
by no intervals of delay from the inheritance of the heavenly country, as
the fathers of old were. For as soon as they are parted asunder from the
ties of the flesh, they enter into rest in their heavenly habitation, as
Paul bears witness, who saith, For we know that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens. [2 Cor. 5, 1] But before our
Redeemer by His own death paid man's penalty, those even that followed the
ways of the heavenly country, [see Book xiii. §. 49.] the bars of hell held
fast after their departure out of the flesh, not so that punishment should
light on them, but that while resting in regions apart, they should find the
guilt of the first sin a bar to their entrance into the kingdom, in that the
Intercession of the Mediator was not yet come. Whence, according to the
testimony of the same Mediator, the rich man, that is tormented in hell,
beholds Lazarus at rest in the bosom of Abraham. Now if these had not been
in the lower regions, he, in the place of his torment, would not have seen
them; and hence this same Redeemer of us men, in dying to pay the debt of
our sin, goes down into hell, that He may bring back to the realms of heaven
all His followers, who had been held in that debt. But where man in a state
of redemption now ascendeth, thither, if he had refused to sin, he might
have reached even without the help of the Redemption. Let then the holy man
consider that if he had not sinned, he would have ascended to that place,
even without redemption, whereunto the holy Preachers, since the Redemption,
must fain arrive at the cost of much labour, and let him shew in company
with whom he would now be at peace, saying, With kings and counsellors of
the earth. For the kings are the holy Preachers of the Church, who know
both how to order aright those that are committed to them, and to regulate
their own bodies; who, while they check the motions of lust in themselves,
rule over their thoughts, kept in due subjection according to the law of
virtue. These too are rightly entitled, counsellors of the earth. For they
are ‘kings’ in that they rule themselves, but counsellors of the earth,
because they yield lifegiving counsel to the lifeless sinner. They are
kings in that they know how to govern themselves, and counsellors of the
earth, in that they lead earthly minds up to heavenly things by advice of
their admonitions. Was not he ‘a counsellor of the earth,’ that said,
Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I give my
judgment; and again, but she is happier if she so abide, after my
judgment. [1 Cor. 7, 25. 40.] It is justly added,
Which build desolate places for themselves.
[xxx]
57. For all that
either seek forbidden things, or that desire to appear somewhat in this
world, are inwardly beset with a countless throng of thoughts, and while
they stir up in their own bosom a host of desires, their mind, being laid
prostrate, is miserably trodden by the foot of crowded resort. Thus one man
has subjected himself to the law of lust, and he paints to his mind's eye
representations of impure acts, and when the execution of the deed is not in
his power, the thing is the more often done in the inward intent; the
consummating of pleasure is sought, and the mind being struck powerless,
borne hither and thither, disquieted at once and blinded, looks out eagerly
for an opportunity of the foulest fulfilment in practice. That mind then,
which is disordered by a rabble riot of thoughts, suffers as it were a kind
of crowded population. Another man has submitted his neck to the dominion
of Anger, and what does he employ himself about in imagination but quarrels
which do not even exist? Such a man is often overlooking those that are
before him, contradicting the absent, giving and receiving insults in
imagination, making his reply severer than the insult received, and when
there is none there to encounter him, he makes up a quarrel in his own
breast with much uproar. He then that is pressed down by an intolerable
weight of angry thoughts, has the misfortune of a rabble in his own bosom.
Another has delivered himself over to the law of avarice, and, out of
conceit with his own possessions, hankers after what belongs to another: it
often happens that being unable to obtain what he longs for, he spends the
day indeed in idleness, but the night in thought; he is a sluggard in useful
work, because he is harassed with unlawful devices; he multiplies his
schemes, and stretches his bosom the wider by all the contrivances and
expedients of his invention; he is busy to reach the desired objects, and in
order to obtain them he casts about for the most secret windings to serve
for his occasions, and the moment that he reckons himself to have hit upon
any crafty contrivance on an occasion, he is now in high glee as having
obtained possession of his object, and now he is contriving what he may even
add further to the thing when gotten, and is considering how it ought to be
improved to a better condition; and whereas he is now in possession, and is
bringing it to wear a better appearance, he is next considering the snares
of those that are envious of him, and pondering what dispute they may fasten
upon him, and making out what answer to give, and at the time he has nothing
in his hands, the empty handed disputant is wearing himself out in defence
of the thing which he desires. Thus although he has not got a particle of
the object desired, yet he has already in his breast the fruit of his desire
in the troublesomeness of the quarrel; and so he, that is overcome by the
tumultuous instigations of avarice, has a vast population besetting him.
Another one has subjected himself to the empire of pride, and while he lifts
himself up against his fellow-creatures, he submits his heart to the vice,
to his great misery. He covets the wreaths of elevated honours, he aims to
exalt himself by his successes, and all that he desires to be, he represents
to himself in the secret thoughts of his own breast. He is already as it
seems seated on the judgment-seat, already sees the services of his subjects
at his command, already shines above others, already brings evil upon one
party, or recompenses another for having done this. Already in his own
imagination he goes forth into public surrounded by throngs, already marks
with what observance he is sustained in his high position; yet while
fancying this, he is creeping by himself alone. Now he is treading one set
under his feet, now he is elevating another, now he is gratifying his
dislikes upon those he treads under foot, now he is receiving applause from
the other whom he has elevated. What else is that man doing, who has such a
multitude of fanciful imaginations pictured in his heart, save gazing at a
dream with waking eyes? and thus, since he undergoes the misery of so many
combinations of cases, which he pictures to himself, he plainly carries
about within him crowds, that are engendered of his desires. Another has by
this time learnt to eschew forbidden objects, yet he dreads lest he should
lack the good things of this world, he is anxious to retain the goods
vouchsafed him; he is ashamed to appear inferior among men, and he is full
of concern lest he should become either a poor man at home, or an object of
contempt in public. He anxiously inquires what may suffice for himself,
what the needs of his dependants may require; and that he may sufficiently
discharge the rights of a patron towards his dependants, he searches for
patrons whom he may himself wait upon; but whilst he is joined to them in a
relation of dependence, he is undoubtedly implicated in their concerns,
wherein he often consents to forbidden acts, and the wickedness, which he
has no mind for on his own account, he commits for the sake of other objects
which he has not forsaken. For often, while dreading the diminution of his
reputation in the world, he gives his approval to those things with his
superiors, which in his own secret judgment he has now learnt to condemn.
Whilst he anxiously bethinks himself what he owes to his patrons, what to
his dependants, what gain he may make for himself, how he may promote his
inclinations, he is in a manner overlaid with resort of crowds, as many in
number as the demands of the cases whereby he is distracted.
58. But holy men, on
the other hand, because their hearts are not set upon any thing of this
world, are assuredly never subject to the pressure of any tumults in their
breast, for they banish all inordinate stirrings of desire from the heart's
bed, with the hand of holy deliberation. And because they contemn all
transitory things, they do not experience the licentious familiarities of
the thoughts springing therefrom. For their desires are fixed upon their
eternal country alone, and loving none of the things of this world, they
enjoy a perfect tranquillity of mind; and hence it is said with justice,
Which built desolate places for themselves. For to ‘build desolate
places' is to banish from the heart's interior the stirrings of earthly
desires, and with a single aim at the eternal inheritance to pant in love of
inward peace. Had he not banished from himself all the risings of the
imaginations of the heart, who said, One thing have I desired of the
Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord?
[Ps. 27, 4] For he had betaken himself from the concourse of earthly
desires to no less a solitude than his own self, where he would be the more
secure in seeing nought without, in proportion as there was no insufficient
object that he loved. For from the tumult of earthly things he had sought a
singular and perfect retreat in a quiet mind, wherein he would see God the
more clearly, in proportion as he saw Him alone with himself also alone.
59. Now they, who
‘build for themselves solitary places,’ are very properly also called
‘consuls,’ for they set up the mind's solitude in themselves in such wise,
that whereinsoever they have the greater ability, they never cease to
consult for the good of others through charity. Accordingly let us consider
a little more particularly the case of him, whom we just now noticed as ‘a
consul,’ and see in what manner he casts abroad the counters [b] of the
virtues, for the setting forth examples of a sublime life to the lines of
people under him. Observe, in order to inculcate the returning good for
evil, he makes confession on his own person, saying, If I have returned
on them that requited me evil, then should I deserve to fall empty before
mine enemies. [Ps. 7, 4] To excite the love of our Maker, he introduces
himself saying, But it is good for me to draw near to [to cleave]
God. To work an impression of holy humility, he shews the secrets of
his heart, saying, Lord, mine heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty.
[Ps. 131, 1] He excites us by his own example to imitate his unswerving
zeal, saying, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee, and am not I
grieved with them that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect
hatred, I count them mine enemies. [Ps. 139, 21. 22.] To light up in us
the desire of our eternal home, he laments the length of this present life,
and says, Woe is me that my sojourn is prolonged. [Ps. 120, 5. V.]
Surely he shone forth in the magnificence of the consulship, who, by the
example of his own conversation, casts before us so many of virtue's
counters.
60. But let this
counsellor tell whether he too builds a solitary place for himself, For
he says, Lo, I fled far off and remained in the wilderness. He
‘fleeth far off,’ in that he raises himself from the throng of earthly
desires in high contemplation of God; and he ‘remains in the wilderness,’ in
that he persists in the retiring purpose of his mind. Of this solitude
Jeremiah saith well to the Lord, I sat alone from the face of Thy hand,
because Thou hast filled me with threatening. [Jer. 15, 17] For the
‘face of God's hand,’ is the stroke of His righteous judgment, whereby He
cast man out of Paradise, when he waxed proud, and shut him out into [caecitatem
A.B.C.D.E.] the darkness of his present place of banishment. But ‘His
threatening' is the farther dread of a subsequent punishment. Accordingly
after ‘the face of His hand,’ we are yet further terrified with ‘His
threats,’ because both the penalty of our present banishment has already
fallen upon us in the actual experience of His judgment, and, if we do not
leave off from sinning, He further consigns us to everlasting punishments.
Let the holy man then, here cast away, consider whence it was that man
fell, and whither the justice of the Judge yet further hurries him, if he
goes on to sin afterwards, and let him dismiss from his breast the countless
hosts of temporal desires, and bury himself in the deep solitude of the
mind, saying, I sat alone from the face of Thy Hand; for Thou hast filled
me with threatening. As though he said in plain words, ‘when I consider
what I already suffer in experience of Thy judgment, I seek with trembling
the withdrawal of my mind from the tumult of temporal desires; for I dread
even still worse those eternal punishments, which Thou dost threaten.’ Well
then is it said of ‘kings and counsellors,’ which built desolate places
for themselves. In that they, who know both how to govern themselves,
and to advise for others, being unable as yet to obtain admission to that
interior tranquillity, fashion a resemblance to it within themselves by
pursuit of a quiet mind.
Ver. 15. Or with
princes that have gold, who fill their houses with silver.
[xxxi]
61. Whom does he call
princes, but the rulers of holy Church, whom the Divine economy
substitutes without intermission in the room of their predecessors?
Concerning these the Psalmist, speaking to the same Church, says, Instead
of thy fathers thou hast children born to thee, whom thou mayest make
princes in all lands. [Ps. 45, 16] And what does he call gold, saving
wisdom; of which Solomon saith, A treasure to be desired lieth at rest in
the mouth of the wise? [Prov. 21, 20] That is, he saw wisdom as gold,
and therefore called it a treasure: and she is well designated by the name
of ‘gold,’ for that, as temporal goods are purchased with gold, so are
eternal blessings with wisdom. If wisdom had not been gold, it would never
have been said by the Angel to the Church [p] of Laodicea, I counsel thee to
buy of me gold tried in the fire. For we ‘buy ourselves gold,’ when we pay
obedience first, to get wisdom in exchange, and it is to this very bargain
that a certain wise man rightly stimulates us, in these words, If thou
desire wisdom, keep the commandments, and the Lord shall give her unto thee.
[Ecclus. 1, 26] And what is signified by the ‘houses,’ but our
consciences? Hence it is said to one that was healed, Go unto thine
house. [Matt. 9, 16] As though he had heard in plain words, ‘After the
outward miracles, turn back into thine own conscience, and weigh well what
kind of person within thou shouldest shew thyself before God.’ And what too
is represented by silver but the divine revelations, of which the Psalmist
says, The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in the fire?
[Ps 12, 6] The word of the Lord is said to be like silver tried in the
fire, because God's word, when it is fixed in the heart, is tried with
afflictions.
62. Let the holy man
then, full of the Spirit of Eternity, both sum up the things that shall be,
and gather together in the open bosom of his mind all those, whom ages long
after should give birth to, and consider with wonder and astonishment those
Elect souls, with whom he would be enjoying rest in life eternal without the
weariness of labour, had none ever been led into sin by the passion of
pride, and let him say, For now should I have lain still and been quiet;
I should have slept; then had I been at rest with kings and counsellors of
the earth, which built desolate places for themselves, or with princes that
had gold, who filled their houses with silver. For as, if no decay of
sin had ever ruined our first parent, he would not have begotten of himself
children of hell, but they all, who must now be saved by the Redemption,
would have been born of him Elect souls, and none else, let him look at
these, and reflect how he might have been at rest in their company. Let him
see the holy Apostles so ruling the Church they had undertaken, that they
never ceased to give it counsel by the word of preaching, and so call them
kings and counsellors. After these let him behold rulers arise in their
room, who by living according to wisdom should have gold, and by preaching
right ways to others should shine with the silver of sacred discourse, and
let him call them real princes, the houses of whose conscience are full of
gold and silver. But as it is not enough sometimes for the Spirit of
Prophecy to foresee future events, unless at the same time it presents to
the view of the prophet the past and by-gone, the holy man opens his eyes
below and above, and not only fixes them on the future, but also recalls to
mind the past. For he forthwith adds,
Ver. 16. Or as an
hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
[xxxii]
63. An abortive
child, because it is born before the full period, being dead is forthwith
put out of sight. Whom then does the holy man term ‘abortives,’ with whom
he might ‘have been at rest,’ he reflects, saving all the Elect, who from
the beginning of the world lived before the time of the Redemption, and yet
studied to mortify themselves to this world. Those who had not the tables
of the Law, ‘died’ as it were ‘from the womb,’ in that it was by the natural
law that they fear their Creator, and believing the Mediator would come,
they strove to the best of their power, by mortifying their pleasures, to
keep even those very precepts, which they had not received in writing. And
so that period, which at the beginning of the world produced our fathers
dead to this life, was in a certain sense the ‘womb of an abortive birth.’
For there we have Abel, of whom we read not that he resisted his brother
when he slew him. There Enoch, who approved himself such that he was
carried up to walk with the Lord. There Noah, who hereby, that he was
acceptable to the searching judgment of God, was, in the world, the world's
survivor. There Abraham, who, while a pilgrim in the world, became the
friend of God. There Isaac, who, by reason of his fleshly eyes waxing
dim, by his age had no sight of things present, but by the efficacy of the
prophetic Spirit lighted up future ages even with his extraordinary
luminousness of sight. There Jacob, who in humility fled his brother's
indignation, and by kindness overcame the same; who was fruitful indeed in
his offspring, but yet being more fruitful in richness of the Spirit, bound
that offspring with the chains of prophecy. And this untimely birth
is well described as hidden, in that from the beginning of the world,
while there are some few, whom we are informed of by Moses' mention of them,
by far the largest portion of mankind is hidden from our sight. For we are
not to imagine that during all the period up to the receiving of the Law,
only just so many righteous men came forth, as Moses has run through in the
most summary notice. And thus, forasmuch as the multitude of the righteous
born from the beginning of the world is in great measure withdrawn from our
knowledge, this untimely birth is called hidden. And it is
also said, not to have been, because a few only being enumerated, the
generality of them are not preserved among us by any written record for
their memorial.
64. Now it is rightly
added; As infants which never saw light. For they, who came into
this world after the Law was received, were conceived to their Creator, by
the instruction of the same Law; yet, though conceived, they never
saw light, in that these never could attain to the coming of the Lord's
Incarnation, which yet they stedfastly believed; for the Lord Incarnate
saith, I am the Light of the world [John 8, 12]; and that very Light
declareth, Many Prophets and righteous men have desired to see those
things which ye see, and have not seen them. [Matt. 13, 17] Therefore
the fruit ‘conceived never saw light,’ in that, although quickened to
entertain the hope of a future Mediator by the plain declarations of the
Prophets, they were never able to behold His Incarnation. In all these then
the inward conception brought forth a form of faith, but never carried this
on so far as to the open vision of God's Presence; for that death
intervening hurried them from the world before Truth made manifest had shed
light thereon.
65. Thus the holy man
then, full of the spirit of Eternity, fixes to his memory by the hand of the
heart all that is transient; and because every creature is little in regard
to the Creator, by the same Spirit, Which hath nought either in Itself or
about Itself saving always to be, he views both what shall be, and what hath
been, and directs the eye of his mind both below and above, and regarding
things that are coming as past, he burns in the core of his heart toward
eternal Being, and says, For now I should have lain still and been quiet.
For ‘now’ belongs to the present time, and what else is it for one to seek a
rest always placed in the present, but to pant after that bliss of eternity,
whereunto there is nought in coming or in going? Which always Being The
Truth, by the lips of Moses, shews to be His own attribute, so as to
communicate it to us in some degree in the words, I AM THAT I AM, and He
said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, HE THAT IS hath sent
me unto you; and now, that he is contemplating things transient, and
seeking an ever present bliss, and making mention of the light to come, and
enumerating and considering the orders of the Elect children thereof, let
him now shew us in a little plainer terms the rest itself that appertains to
this light, and let him shew in plainer words, what is brought to pass
therein every day relating to the life and conduct of the wicked. It
proceeds;
Ver. 17. There the
wicked cease from disturbance, and there the weary in strength be at rest.
[xxxiii]
66. We have already
said above, that herein, viz. that the hearts of sinners are possessed with
a tumult of desires, they are grievously oppressed by a host of goading
thoughts, but in this light, which the ‘infants conceived’ never saw, the
wicked are said to ‘cease from their disquietude' for this reason, that the
coming of the Mediator, which the fathers under the Law had long waited for,
the Gentiles found to the peace of their life, as Paul testifies, who saith,
Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath
obtained it. [Rom. 11, 7] In this light then ‘the wicked cease from
disquietude,’ inasmuch as the minds of the untoward, when they have come to
the knowledge of the truth, eschew the wearisome desires of the world, and
find rest in the quiet haven of interior love. Does not the Light Itself
call us to this rest when It says, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take My yoke upon You and learn
of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto Your
souls; For My yoke is easy, and My burthen is light. [Matt. 11,
28-30] For what heavy yoke does He put upon our mind's neck, Who bids us
shun every desire that causes disquietude? What heavy burthen does He lay
upon His followers, Who warns us to decline the wearisome ways of the
world? Now, by the testimony of the Apostle Paul, Christ died for the
ungodly; [Rom. 5, 6] and it was for this reason that the Light Itself
condescended to die for the ungodly, that these might not continue in the
disorderment of their state of darkness. So let the holy man consider with
himself, that by the mystery of the Incarnation ‘the Light’ rescues the
wicked from heavy toil, while It takes clean away all the aims of wickedness
from their hearts; let him reflect how every converted person has already
here below a taste, by inward tranquillity, of that rest which he desires to
have throughout eternity, and let him say, There the wicked cease from,
disturbance, and the weary in strength are at rest.
67. For all they that
are strong in this world are by their might in one way strong, not
wearied out in strength; but they that are endued with might in the love
of their Maker, the more they be strengthened in the love of God, which is
their object of desire, become in the same degree powerless in their own
strength, and the stronger their longing for the things of eternity, the
more they are wearied as to earthly objects by a wholesome failure of their
strength. Hence the Psalmist, being wearied with the strength of his love,
said, My soul hath fainted in [al. toward as V.] Thy
salvation. [Ps. 119, 81] For his soul did faint while making way in
God's salvation, in that he panted with desire of the light of eternity,
broken of all confidence in the flesh. Hence he says again, My soul
longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord. [Ps. 84, 2] Now
when he said ‘longeth,’ he added rightly, and ‘fainteth,’ since that longing
for the Divine Being is little indeed, which is not likewise immediately
followed by a fainting in one's self. For it is but meet that he who is
inflamed to seek the courts of eternity, should be enfeebled in the love of
this temporal state. So that he should be cold to the pursuit of this
world, in proportion as he rises with soul more inflamed to the love of God.
Which love if he completely grasps, he then at the same time completely
quits the world, and the more entirely dies to temporal things, the higher
he is made to soar after the life to come by the inspirations of Eternity.
Had not that soul found itself wearied in its own strength, which
exclaimed, My soul [so V.] was melted when he spake; [Cant. 5,
6] clearly in that while the soul is touched by the inspirations of the
secret communication, weakened in the seat of its own strength, it is
‘melted’ by the desire wherewith it is swallowed up, and finds itself
wearied in itself by the same step whereby it is brought to see that there
is a might without itself to which it soars. Hence when the Prophet was
telling that he had seen a vision of God, he adds, And I, Daniel fainted
and was sick certain days; [Dan. 8, 27] for when the soul is held fast
to the power of God, the flesh waxes faint in respect of its own strength.
Thus Jacob, who held an Angel in his hold, immediately afterwards halted
upon one foot; for he that regards things on high with a genuine love,
already forswears to walk in this world with a doubleminded affection. For
he rests upon one foot, who is strong in the love of God alone; and it must
needs be that the other should wither, for when the virtue of the soul gains
increase, it behoves assuredly that the strength of the flesh wax dull. Let
blessed Job, then, review the deep recesses of the hearts of the faithful,
and consider the haven of inward peace that they find, while in advancing
unto God they are enfeebled in their own strength, and let him say, There
the weary in strength be at rest. As if he taught in plain words,
‘there the repose of light is the reward of those, whom the advancement of
inward restoration wearies here.’ Nor ought it to influence us, that after
naming light he did not subjoin, in this, but there, for that
which he beholds encompassing the Elect, he discovers to be our place as it
were. Whence then the Psalmist, when contemplating the unchangeableness of
Eternity, and saying, But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail;
[Ps. 102, 28] proclaims that this is the place of the Elect, by adding,
But the children of Thy servants shall dwell there. For God, Who
without position containeth all things, remains a place without locality to
us who come to Him. And when we reach this place, our eyes are opened to
see, what infinite vexation even our very repose of mind was in this life,
for though the righteous by comparison with the bad already enjoy rest, yet
in estimating the inmost Rest, they are altogether not at rest. Hence it is
well added;
Ver. 18. There the
former prisoners are alike without vexation.
[xxxiv]
68. For though the
just are possessed by no riot of carnal desires, yet the clog of corruption
binds them down in this life with hard chains; for it is written, For the
corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth
down the mind that museth upon many things. [Wisd. 9, 15] So herein
even, that they are still mortal beings, they are weighed down by the
burthen of their state of corruption, and chained and bound by its clogs, in
that they are not yet risen in that liberty of an incorruptible life. For
they meet with one thing from the mind, and another from the body, and they
are spent every day in the inward conflict with themselves. Are they not
indeed bound with the hard chain of vexation, whose mind, without labour, is
dissolved in ignorance, and is not trained without the strivings of labour?
When forced it stands erect, of itself it lies prostrate, and yet as soon
as raised up, it forthwith falls, by conquering itself with laborious
effort, its eyes are opened to see heavenly things, but recoiling, it flees
the light, which had illuminated it. Are they not bound fast with the hard
chain of vexation, who when their fired soul draws them with a perfect
desire to the bosom of inward peace, suffer perturbation from the flesh in
the heat of the conflict? And though this now no longer encounters it face
to face, as though drawn up with hostile front, yet it still goes muttering
like a captive in the rear of the mind, and, though with fears, it yet
defiles with vile clamouring the form of fair tranquillity in the breast.
Therefore, though the Elect subdue all enemies with a strong hand, since
they long for the security of inward peace, it is yet a grievous vexation to
them to have something still to vanquish. And leaving these out of the
question, they endure over and above those chains too, which a sore
necessity outwardly fastens upon them; for to eat, to drink, and to be
tired, are chains of corruption, and chains too, which can never be
unloosed, save when our mortal nature is turned into the glory of an
immortal nature; for we fill our body with food to sustain it, lest it fail
from extenuation; and we thin it down by abstinence, lest it oppress by
repletion. We quicken it by motion, lest it be killed by lying motionless,
but by setting it down we soon stop its motions, that by that very activity
it may not give under. We clothe it with garments as a succour to it, lest
the cold destroy it, and cast off these succours so sought after, lest the
heat should parch it. Exposed then to so many vicissitudes and chances,
what else do we, but drudge to the corruptibility of our state of being,
that howsoever the multiplicity of the services rendered to it may sustain
that body, which the fretting care of a frail nature subject to change
weighs to the ground. Hence Paul says well, For the creature was made
subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected
the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the
sons of God. [Rom. 8, 20. 21.] For ‘the creature is made subject to
vanity, not willingly,’ in that man, who willingly left the footing of
inborn firmness, being pressed down by the weight of a deserved mortality,
is the unwilling slave of the corruption of his changeful condition. But
this creature is then rescued from the slavery of corruption, when in rising
again it is lifted uncorrupt to the glory of the sons of God. Here then the
Elect are bound with vexation, in that they are still pressed down by the
curse of their corrupt condition. But when we are stripped of our
corruptible flesh, we are as it were loosened from those chains of vexation,
whereby we are now held bound. For we already long to come into the
presence of God, but we are still hindered by the clog of a mortal body. So
that we are justly called ‘prisoners,’ in that we have not as yet the
advance of our desire to God free before us. Hence Paul, whose heart was
set upon the things of eternity, yet who still carried about him the load of
his corruption, being in bonds exclaims, Having a desire to be unloosed
and to be with Christ. [Phil. 1, 23] For he would not desire to be
‘unloosed,’ unless, assuredly, he saw himself to be in bonds. Now because
he saw that these bonds were most surely to be burst at the Resurrection,
the Prophet rejoiced as if they were already burst asunder, when he said,
Thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of
thanksgiving. [Ps. 116, 16] Let the holy man then reflect that inward
light is the haven that receives converted sinners, and let him say,
There the wicked cease from trouble. Let him reflect, that holy men,
being awearied with the exercising of desire, enjoy the deeper repose in
that inmost bosom, and let him say, And there the weary in strength are
at rest. Let him reflect, that being absolved from all the bonds of
corruption at once and together, they attain those uncorrupt joys of liberty.
And the former prisoners are alike without vexation. And it is wel1
said, the former prisoners, for while that ever present bliss is in
his view, all that shall be, and is going [B. ‘and shall be gone’], seems as
though past. For whilst the end of all things is awaited, all that passes
away is accounted already to have been. But let him tell what all they, for
whom the interior rest is there in store, shall meanwhile have done here.
It goes on;
They have not heard the voice of the exactor.
[non exaudierunt]
[xxxv]
69. Who else is to be
understood by the title of the ‘exactor,’ saving that insatiate prompter,
who for once bestowed the coin of deceit upon mankind, and from that time
ceases not daily to claim the debt of death? Who lent to man in Paradise
the money of sin, but by the multiplying of wickedness is daily exacting it
with usury? Concerning this exactor, Truth saith in the Gospel, And the
Judge deliver thee to the officer [V. ‘exactori’]. [Luke 12, 58]
Therefore the voice of this exactor is the tempting of persuasion to our
hurt. And we hear the voice of the exactor, when we are smitten with his
temptation, but we do not bear it effectually [exaudimus] if we
resist the hand that smites, for he ‘hears’ that feels the temptation, but
he hears effectually who yields to the temptation. So let it be said of the
righteous, They have not heard the voice of the exactor; for though
they hear his prompting in that they are tempted, they do not hear it
effectually, for that they take shame to yield thereto, but because
whatsoever the mind loves with great affection, it is often repeating even
in utterance of the lips; blessed Job, in that he views the crowds of inward
peace with fulness of affection, again employs himself about the description
[al. the distinguishing of them] of it, saying,
Ver. 19. The small
and great are there; the servant is free from his master.
70. Forasmuch as
there is to us in this life a difference in works, doubtless there will be
in the future life a difference in degrees of dignity, that whereas here one
surpasses another in desert, there one may excel another in reward. Hence
Truth says in the Gospel, In My Father's house are many mansions.
[John 14, 2] But in those ‘many mansions,’ the very diversity of rewards
will be in some measure in harmony. For an influence so mighty joins us
together in that peace, that what any has failed to receive in himself, he
rejoices to have received in another. And thus they that did not equally
labour in the vineyard, equally obtain all of them a penny. And indeed with
the Father are ‘many mansions,’ and yet the unequal labourers receive the
same penny, in that the blessedness of joy will be one and the same to all,
yet not one and the same sublimity of life to all. He had seen the small
and great in this light, who said in the voice of the Head; Thine eyes
did see My substance, yet being imperfect, and in Thy book were all My
members written. [Ps. 139, 16] He beheld ‘the small and the great
together,’ when he declared, He will bless them that fear the Lord, both
small and great. [Ps. 115, 13] And it is well added, And the servant
is free from his master. For it is written, Everyone that sinneth is
the servant of sin [John 8, 34]. For whosoever yields himself up to bad
desire, submits the neck of his mind, till now free, to the dominion of
wickedness. Now we withstand this master, when we struggle against the evil
whereby we had been taken captive, when we forcibly resist the bad habit,
and treading under all froward desires, maintain against the same the right
of inborn liberty, when we strike our sin by penitence, and cleanse the
stains of pollution with our tears. But it oftentimes happens, that the
mind indeed already bewails what it remembers itself to have done amiss,
that already it not only forsakes its misdeeds, but even chastises them with
the bitterest lamentations, yet while it recalls to memory the things that
it has done, it is affrighted and sorely dismayed against the Judgment. It
already turns itself with a perfect intention, but does not yet lift itself
up in a perfect state of security, for while it weighs the rigid exactness
of the final scrutiny, it trembles with anxiety between hope and fear, for
it knows not, when the righteous Judge comes, what He will reckon, what He
will remit of the deeds done. For it remembers what evil deeds it has
committed, but it cannot tell whether it has worthily bewailed the
commission of them, and it dreads lest the vastness of the sin exceed the
measure of penance. And it is very often the case that ‘Truth’ already
remits the sin, yet the troubled soul, whilst it is full of anxiety for
itself, still trembles for the pardon thereof. So that in this present life
the servant already escapes from his master, yet he is not free from him, in
that by chastisement and penance man already forsakes his sin, yet he still
fears the strict Judge for the recompensing of it. There then ‘the servant
will be free from his master,’ when there will be no longer misgiving about
the pardon of sin, when the recollection of its sin no longer condemns the
soul, now secured, where the conscience does not tremble under a sense of
guilt, but exults in the pardon of the same in a state of freedom.
72. But if man is
reached there by no remembrance of his sin, how does he congratulate himself
that he has been saved therefrom? Or how does he return thanks to his
Benefactor for the pardon, which he has received, if by an intervening
forgetfulness of his past wickedness, he knows not that he is a debtor to
suffer punishment? For we must not pass over negligently that which the
Psalmist says, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever. [Ps.
89, 1] For how does he ‘sing of the mercies of God for ever,’ if he knows
not that he has been miserable; and if he has no recollection of past
misery, whence does he answer with praises the bestowal of mercy? And
again, we must enquire how the mind of the Elect can be in perfect bliss, if
amidst its joys the memory of its guilt reaches it? Or how does the glory
of indefectible light shine out, when it is overcast by the sin that is
recalled to mind? But be it known, that just as oftentimes now in joy we
call to mind sad things, so in the future life, we bring back the memory of
past sin without any hurt to our bliss. For it very often happens, that in
the season of health, we recall to mind past pains without feeling pain, and
in proportion as we remember ourselves sick, the more we hug ourselves in
health. And so in that blissful estate there will be a remembrance of sin,
not such as to pollute the mind, but to attach us the more closely to our
joy, that while the mind without pain remembers itself of its pain, it may
the more clearly perceive itself to be a debtor to the physician, and so
much the more cherish the health it has received, in proportion as it
remembers what it has escaped of uneasiness. And so then, placed in that
state of bliss, we so regard our evil deeds without loathing, as now being
set in light, without any inward blindness of the heart, we see the darkness
with our mind; for though that be dim which we perceive with the
imagination, this comes from the sentence of light, not from the misfortune
of blindness. And thus throughout eternity we render to our Benefactor the
praise of His mercy, yet are in no degree oppressed with the consciousness
of wretchedness; for whilst we review our evils without any evil betiding
the mind, on the one hand there will never be ought to defile, the hearts
that render praise on the score of past wickednesses, and again there will
always be somewhat to inflame them to the praise of their Deliverer.
Therefore, because the repose of inward light does in such sort transport
the great ones into itself, that yet it does not leave the little ones, let
it be rightly said, the small and great are there. Now forasmuch as
the mind of the converted sinner is there touched by the recollection of his
sin in such sort that he is not overwhelmed by any confusion at that
recollection, it is fitly subjoined, And the servant is free from his
master.
BOOK V
