Moralia in Job 1116

VERSE 14. — 'Even when thou shalt say: He does not consider; be judged before Him, and wait for Him.' 55. When the storm of despair rushes in, God's benefits are to be recalled to memory. — For perhaps, while our cry seems to be neglected, the hope that was in the heart is weakened; and we believe that heavenly help will fail, because we obtain it more slowly;

and we groan as though the things we endure unavenged are unconsidered by God. But when this storm of despair confounds us, the shaken mind more quickly settles itself in the harbor of hope, if it subtly weighs its own causes with the Lord, if it recalls His good gifts to memory, if it does not craftily excuse to itself the evils it has rendered for His goods, if it carefully considers what it has justly incurred from Him and what it has mercifully received, if it vigorously examines its own life, if — scrutinizing before God's eyes all that it does — it does not hide itself from itself, if it remembers that it was made when it was not, if it recognizes that it, which lay in darkness, was enlightened and lifted up.

Gathering therefore all these things again within itself, while it considers the good things received, it does not accuse the adversities it endures; nor is it broken by despair, being strengthened by the consolation of so many gifts, because it takes up hope concerning things to come while it recognizes the benefits already past. Let it therefore say: 'Even when thou shalt say: He does not consider; be judged before Him, and wait for Him.' As if he said: Since for this reason God is believed not to consider, because He shows mercy slowly, enter into the inmost recess of thought, and there before His eyes take up the judgment of thy cause; and discern what things thou thyself hast contributed by thy living, and what things thou hast mercifully received;

and then thou returnest to the confidence of hope, while thou art put to shame by the good things of so great a kindness, so that amid adversities thou mayest confidently wait for Him whom, even after thy sins, thou dost recollect to be propitious. For heavenly helps ought to have been hoped for, even if no benefits had gone before. And it must be known that God does not unjustly spurn the man whom He kindly created. 56. Let him who considers past gifts not despair of those to come. — It must therefore be weighed of how great peril it is to perceive gifts already past, and to despair of those to come; of how great peril it is, if in this storm of tribulations we are broken by the shipwreck of despair, we who are bound to the harbor of hope by past gifts as by vast cables. Let it therefore rightly be said: 'Be judged before Him, and wait for Him.'

For he who does not judge himself before God does not wait for Him when he is afflicted. For he who dissembles that good things have gone before, despairs that helps can follow; and when he forgets the past, he is also defrauded of the bounty of what follows. But behold, while we are afflicted, while we patiently endure awaiting the grace of consolation, the wicked break forth into worse things, and profit by the very heaping up of iniquity, in that they are left without the scourge. And yet the Almighty mercifully awaits sinners, grants time for repentance, which for those not converted He turns into testimony of graver guilt; He patiently restrains the wrath which one day He will pour out irrevocably. Whence it is aptly added: