約伯倫理 第 300 章

Same verse. 'And the beasts of the earth shall be at peace with thee.' 51. The sharper snares of the enemy compel us to seek the aid of grace. It is first to be noted that he says not 'pacified' but 'peacemaking' — namely, not because they have peace, but because they make peace. For crafty enemies, while they lie in wait, afflict; but the afflicted mind loves its return to the eternal fatherland the more, the more laboriously it lives in this wretched exile; and it humbles itself the more truly to the grace of its helper, the more it weighs the sharper snares of the enemies against itself. The beasts of the earth therefore become peacemaking to the elect, because the malign spirits, when by opposing they press down the hearts of the good, drive them, unwilling as they are, to the love of the Lord.

Thence therefore a stronger peace with God arises, whence a harder battle is stirred up for us by the adversaries. [Old Chapter XXII.] 52. The motions of the flesh roar while slackening, but they do not reach the point of biting. Nay, they procure for us peace with God. By the beasts of the earth may also be understood the motions of the flesh, which, while by suggesting irrational things they provoke our mind, rise up bestially against us. But when the heart is pressed down under the divine covering, even the incitements of the flesh subside; so that although by slackening they murmur beneath, yet they by no means rise up to the effect of works, as it were to the fury of an open bite.

For who, still subsisting in this corruptible flesh, fully tames these beasts of the earth, when that eminent preacher, caught up to the third heaven, says: 'I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members' (Rom. 7:23)? But it is one thing to behold these beasts raging in the field of work, another to hold them roaring within the cavern of the heart. For driven back within the enclosures of continence, though they still roar by tempting, yet they do not exceed, as we have said, to the bite of unlawful action.

The beasts of the earth are therefore peacemaking, because the motions of the flesh, though they throb through desires, yet do not assail us with the open contradiction of deed. Although by this very fact that they are called peacemaking, that too which we said of the malign spirits is not inaptly taken. For the motions of the flesh make peace for us with God when by tempting they contradict us. For the mind of the just, in that it is directed to things above, is wearied by heavy war from the corruptible body. And if it be at any time delayed from heavenly desires by however slight a delight of this world, by that very war of its temptation it is impelled to love with its whole heart that which no contradiction disturbs.

Whence it comes to pass that it recalls the inmost repose to remembrance, and fleeing the enticements of its flesh, sighs after that repose with full love. For everyone is compelled by temptation to consider whence and whither he has fallen, who, after he has forsaken the peace of God, feels a strife rise up within himself against himself, and then more truly sees what he has lost of the secure love of God, who, having slipped back into himself, finds his own reproach within himself. The beasts of the earth therefore make peace for us, because the motions of the flesh, while by tempting they provoke us, impel us to the love of the inmost repose. And it is well added: