約伯倫理 第 1358 章

28. In tempting the saints he serves their benefit and God's will. — Understand: as I do. But it must be observed with great care what covenant this Leviathan strikes with the Lord, so that he is held by Him as an everlasting servant. For in a covenant the will of the disagreeing parties is fulfilled, so that each attains to its desire and concludes the dispute with the wished-for end. And so the ancient enemy, inflamed by the torch of his own malice, is at variance with the sincerity of divine innocence; yet even by disagreeing he does not depart from His judgment; for he always desires malevolently to tempt just men, but nevertheless the Lord permits this to be done, whether mercifully or justly.

This very license of temptation, therefore, is called a covenant, in which the desire of the tempter is carried out, and yet through it, in a wondrous manner, the will of the just Dispenser is fulfilled. For, as we said a little before, the Lord often subjects His elect to the tempter that they may be instructed; just as, after the enclosures of paradise, after the secrets of the third heaven, lest Paul might be exalted by the greatness of his revelations, an angel of Satan was given to him (2 Cor. XII, 7). But, as we have said before, by this very temptation it is arranged that those who, being exalted, might have perished should, being humbled, be saved from perdition. Therefore by a secret order of dispensation, from the very source whence the iniquity of the devil is permitted to rage, thence the loving-kindness of God is dutifully accomplished.

And rightly, from this covenant which he is said to strike with the Lord, he is declared to be received as a servant, because from that very quarter whence he wearies out the wrath of his most wicked will, thence he obeys the biddings of supernal grace. [Old Version XIX.] He is therefore a servant by covenant, who, while he is permitted to fulfill his own will, is bound by the will of the supernal counsel, so that, as has been said, the elect of God, willing, may tempt, and by tempting may unknowingly test. 29. The punishment of the reprobate ministers to the glory of the elect.

— But since he serves the uses of the elect only so long in this life as he is able to exercise the wickedness of his malice in temptations, and yet in this passage he is said to be received from the Lord not only as a servant by covenant but as an everlasting servant, we are compelled to investigate how we may show him to serve the Lord in perpetuity even after the term of this present life. For he is not then permitted to tempt the just, flourishing in heavenly felicity, when he is delivered up before their eyes to the eternal fires of Gehenna; because in that supernal homeland, where they are already recompensed for the labors of temptations, they are by no means still to be instructed by temptations.

But then this Leviathan, with his body — that is, with all the reprobate — is handed over to the avenging flames, in which he is tortured without end. And while the just behold these torments, they increase in the praises of God, because they both discern in themselves the good with which they have been rewarded, and look upon in those others the punishment which they have escaped. For then the whole universe shall be beautiful, when both Gehenna justly torments the impious, and eternal felicity justly rewards the pious. For just as black color is laid beneath in a painting, so that the white or red laid over it may appear the more beautiful, so then too God, well ordering even the evil, displays the more blessed joys of the blessed, once the punishments of the reprobate have been shown before their eyes.

And although that joy of theirs, arising from the vision of the Lord, is not such as can increase, yet they feel themselves the more debtors to their Author, when they both discern the good which they justly rewarded receive, and the evil which, mercifully helped, they have overcome. [Recent Version XIV] Therefore, if both the temptation of this Leviathan here, and his damnation there, profits the benefit of the just, he is an everlasting servant, since he unknowingly serves the praises of God: there his punishment is just, and here his will unjust. There follows: