約伯倫理 第 1230 章

50. The Gentile world is a desert, bedewed as with a shower by heavenly grace. To rain upon the earth without man, in the desert, is to preach the word of God to the Gentile world. Which, since it held no worship of the Divinity, and showed in itself no form of good work, was assuredly a desert. In which, because there was no lawgiver, and no one who reasonably sought God, there was as it were no man; and, occupied as it were by beasts alone, it stood empty of mortals. Of this desert land it is said elsewhere: 'He set a way in the desert' (Isa. 43:19). Of this preaching granted to the Gentile world the Psalmist testifies, saying: 'He set rivers in the desert' (Ps. 107:33).

But it must be noted that, after the heat was divided over the earth, the most violent shower received a course, that it might rain in the desert; because after the harshness of persecution had grown fierce in Judaea, so that it not only in no way received the faith, but even assailed it with swords, each preacher sent to Israel turned aside to call the Gentiles. Whence the holy apostles say to the persecuting Hebrews, whom they forsake: 'It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you; but because you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles' (Acts 13:46). The heat, therefore, being divided,

the deserted land, and the earth without man, is bedewed with rain, because, persecution of the faithful being scattered abroad in the regions of Judaea, the Gentile world—long forsaken and, as it were, alien from the infusion of reason—is bedewed with the drops of preaching. And that this Gentile world is shown to have been, as it were, still discovered by the preachers, when it is subjoined: But what, being bedewed with rain, it rendered, is shown when it is at once added: