33.

HIST.

224

Job grieved at his Friends' sin.

JUB 21, merable quantity." Whereas blessed Job then delivered these things excellently against the prince of the wicked, who is permitted to be exalted in this life, but will be destroyed in the coming of the Lord, touching himself he plainly shews that he received the scourges of the Lord not by his offending, since if the bad man is permitted to prosper in this life, it is necessary that the elect of God should be held fast under the reins of the scourge. From which circumstance he reproves his friends, saying,

lxii.

How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing your answer is shewn to be against Truth?

73. The friends of blessed Job could not console him, in whom they gainsaid the truth by their discourse, and when they called him a hypocrite or ungodly, hereby that they themselves by lying were guilty of sin, assuredly they augmented the chastisement of the righteous man chastened with wounds. For the minds of the Saints, because they love the truth, even the sin of another's deceit wrings. For in proportion as they see the guilt of falsehood to be grievous, they hate it not only in themselves, but in others also.

BOOK XVI.

After going through the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of the Book of Job, and the twenty-fourth to the middle of verse twenty with a brief explanation, he brings the third Part to a close.

THOSE persons, who being opposed to the words of truth, LIT. get the worst in making out a case, often repeat even what is well known, lest by holding their tongue they should seem defeated. Hence Eliphaz, being pressed closely by the sayings of blessed Job, utters things which no one but is aware of. For he says,

Ver. 2. Can a man be compared unto God, even when he has perfect knowledge?

1. By comparison with God, our knowledge is ignorance, i. for it is by participation, and not by comparison, with God that we become imbued with wisdom. What wonder then when that is said, as if in the way of instruction, which might have been known, even if it had been kept silent? And yet further he subjoins the power of God as defending it.

Ver. 3. Is it any profit to the Almighty that thou art righteous? or is it gain to Him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?

2. For in all that we do well, we are doing good to ourselves ii. and not to God. And hence by the Psalmist it is said, O my soul, Ps. 16,2. thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my God, seeing that Thou needest not my goods. For He is truly Lord' to us, because He is also assuredly God,' Who needs not the good in him that serveth Him, but bestows the goodness which He receives, so that the goodness which is offered up should avail not Himself, but those that first receive and afterwards render back. For though the Lord, when He cometh for Judgment, saith, Inasmuch as ye have done it Mat. 25, unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me; it is with extraordinary pitifulness that He says this, by sympathy with His members. And He the same Being

40.

4-8.

226

Eliphaz passes from truisms to false charges.

JOB 22, hereby, viz. that He is our Head, aids, Who by our good deeds in His members is aided. Yet further Eliphaz adds what there is no man but is aware of, saying,

iii.

iv.

V.

Ver. 4. Will He reprove thee for fear of thee? Will He enter with thee into judgment?

3. Who that was out of his senses even would think this, that from fear the Lord reproves us, and from dread sets His judgment against us? But they who do not know how to mete their words, doubtless slip down to idle discourse. Wherein if they never at all take themselves to task, without delay they leap forth to words mischievous and insulting. Hence Eliphaz, who brought in idle words, immediately burst out into abusive ones, saying,

Ver. 5. Is it not for thy wickedness that is great, and thine iniquities that are infinite?

4. Observe how from a deadened heart he came to idle words, and from idle words in the heinousness of lying he blazed out into insults. For these are the descents of increasing sin, that the tongue when not restrained should never there where it has fallen lie still, but be always descending to what is worse; but these things that are subjoined, because they are very plain taken after the history, do not need to be set forth after the letter.

5. But whereas we have said that the friends of blessed Job bear the likeness of heretics, but that he himself bears the representing of Holy Church, the words of Eliphaz how they fit the falseness of heretics, let us now at once point For it proceeds;

out.

Ver. 6-8. For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary, thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. In the might of thine arm thou didst possess the land, and as the most powerful thou didst hold it.

6. In Holy Scripture by the term of a pledge' sometimes ALLEG. the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and sometimes the confession of sin, are denoted. Thus pledge is taken as the gift of the 2 Cor. 1, Holy Spirit, as where it is said by Paul, And given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. For we receive a pledge for this, that we may hold an assurance touching the promise

22.

Holy Church charged with hard dealing by Heretics. 227

XVI.

25. 26.

32.

12.

that is made to us. And so the gift of the Holy Spirit is Book called a pledge, in that by this our soul is strengthened to assuredness of the inward hope. Again by the name of a ' pledge' confession of sin is used to be intended, as it is written in the Law; If thy brother oweth thee aught, and Ex. 22, thou takest away a pledge from him, restore the pledge before the setting of the sun. For our brother is made a debtor to us, when any fellow-creature is proved to have done any thing wrong against us. For sins we call debts.' Whence it is said to the servant when he sinned, I forgave Mat.18, thee all that debt. And in the Lord's Prayer we pray daily, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Now we Matt. 6, 'take a pledge' from our debtor, when from the lips of him who is found to have sinned against us, we have now gotten a confession of his sin, whereby we are entreated to remit the sin, which was committed against us. For he that confesses the sin that he has done, and begs pardon, has already as it were given a pledge' for his debt, which pledge we are bidden to restore before the sun set,' because before that in ourselves through pain of heart the Sun of righteousness shall set, we are bound to render back the acknowledgment of pardon to him, from whom we receive the acknowledgment of transgression, that he who remembers that he has done amiss towards us, may be made sensible that what he has done amiss is by us at once remitted. Therefore whereas Holy Church, when it receives back any returning from heretics to the truth of the faith, first persuades them that they must confess the sin of their error, it is said by Eliphaz as under the likeness of heretics; For thou hast taken away a pledge from thy brother for nought, i. e. From those, that come to thee from us, thou didst exact a confession of error to no purpose.' But, as we said before, if we suppose a pledge' the gifts of the Holy Spirit, heretics say that Holy Church has taken away the pledge of her brothers,' because they imagine that those that come to her, lose the gifts of the Spirit. Hence it follows, And stripped the naked of their clothing.

7. Those whom they draw after them by their perverted preaching, heretics count to have the precepts of their teaching as a kind of garments, and they esteem them to be

6-8.

ALI.EG.

228 Pure minds quit heresy. Heretics think they give food.

JOB 22, clothed so long as the things which they themselves preached they witness observed by them, and when any persons return to Holy Church from them, they immediately fancy that they have lost the garments of instruction. But whereas one that is naked cannot be spoiled, we have to enquire how they are first mentioned as 'naked,' and afterwards as 'stripped?' Now it is necessary to know that every one that enjoys purity of mind, by the very circumstance that he has not the cloak of double-dealing, is naked.' And there are some among the Heretics, who have purity of heart indeed, but yet take up the corrupt tenets of their teaching. These same are at once by their own purity' naked,' and by the preaching of those persons they are as it were clothed. And whereas all such are easily brought back to Holy Church, for this reason that they do not use the wickedness of doubledealing, those persons heretics acknowledge as naked, whom they call stripped by her of their clothing, because they look upon all the simple-minded as slow and dull, who, they see, have parted with their own corrupt tenets.

8. It follows; Thou hast not given water to the weary, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. Heretics in proportion as they hold not the solid substance of truth, so sometimes they busy themselves, that they may appear full of discourse, and against the faith of Catholics they are boastful as of the knowledge of learning; all that they see they seek to draw to them by their wicked discoursings, and by the very same act, whereby they are joining others to themselves for destruction, they think themselves doing something conducive to life. Now we call those 'weary' that are worn down under the wearisome load of this world. Mat 11, And hence Truth saith by Himself, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And so whereas heretics never cease to preach their own doctrines, they mock at Holy Church as if for ignorance. Thou hast not given water to the weary, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. For themselves they think they give water to the weary' when to persons travailing under their earthly load they supply the cup of their own error. And they look upon it that they themselves have not withholden bread from the hungry,' in that when ques

28.