約伯倫理 第 1100 章

Verse 33. — Doth God require it of thee, because it hath displeased thee? 3. The saints do not fear human judgment, but the divine, to which even the wicked pretend to appeal. — As if he said: I shall set out my reasons before the Lord, why my iniquity should now be reproved by thee, when it is agreed that in judgment it will not be required by thee. Upright men, when they are unjustly assailed by men, have recourse to the judgment on high. Hence by that same blessed Job it is said: Behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high (Job xvi, 19). And because they earnestly desire to please Him, they seek His testimony alone.

The perverse also, because they forsake the life of the just yet sometimes follow their sayings, when they are rebuked for their evil deeds, take up as an argument for their defense that which the just put forward as a testimony of purity. Hence it has become a custom with them, that if anyone accuse them of their deeds, they seek God's judgment rather than man's. For they do not fear to be judged by God, even when they know themselves to be worthy of condemnation, yet they blush to be judged by men. They therefore set forward the greater thing which they do not fear, that they may thereby avoid the lesser thing at which they blush. For it is written: Every one of us shall give account for himself to God (Rom. xiv, 12).

Because, then, at that time the condemnation of each one is made manifest, from thence the wicked now conclude that even the perverse action of each one is safe; namely, that no just man should now sift it out by reproving, since it is agreed that in the judgment he stands aloof from it. But on the contrary, the consciences of the pious believe that a great reward is conferred upon them when they are now reproved for certain of their unlawful actions. For they set before the eyes of the heart that the strict judgment of God will then be so much the more truly softened over them, the more sharply it is now forestalled by the reproving of man; and they count the temporal wrath upon themselves as gain, through which they are not ignorant that they can escape the eternal.

Elihu therefore, holding the type of all the arrogant, and choosing rather to be smitten with eternal invective than to be temporally rebuked, may say: Doth God require it of thee, because it hath displeased thee? But because those who begin to speak in contention are wont to be more culpable than those who answer, he added, saying: