VERSE 12. — 'Which go round about whithersoever the will of Him that governeth them shall lead them.' 56. They traverse all things, God governing their course. — For often the holy preachers wish to exhort certain persons, but cannot. Often they desire to turn aside from certain persons, and yet, by the impulse of an inward instigation, they are most urgently compelled to exhort them. Let us see how the cloud of God is both led by the hand of Him that governeth to those things it does not desire, and again restrained from its own impulse by the hand of Him that governeth. Certainly Paul, when, shaking out his garments, he wished to depart from the Corinthians, heard:
'Fear not, but speak, and hold not thy peace, because I am with thee, and no man shall be set upon thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in this city' (Acts XVIII, 9-10). Again, when he had wished to go to the Thessalonians, he was held back, saying: 'We would have come to you, even I Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us' (1 Thess. II, 18). For Satan could not of himself hinder the ways of so great an apostle, but for the uses of a hidden dispensation, while he opposes, unknowingly he serves; so that indeed Paul, while he wished to go to others and was not able, might more fitly profit those from whom he could not withdraw.
The clouds of God, therefore, go round about through all things, because by the light of preaching they illuminate the ends of the world. But because, being subject to the divine biddings, they cannot accomplish what they will, they cannot go except whither the will of Him that governeth shall lead them. Whence it is also further added: