Ibid. — Let Him loose His hand and cut me down. 21. How much to be feared it is lest He hold His hand bound from striking our vices. — For often, puffed up by confidence in long prosperity, we are raised up into a certain state of elation. And when the Creator beholds us exalting ourselves, but does not exercise His love toward us through scourges, He holds, as it were, His hand bound from striking our vices. Had He not bound the hand of His affection when He said to the sinning people: I will no longer be angry with you (Isa. liv, 9); and: My jealousy has departed from you (Ezek. xvi, 42)? Let Him loose His hand, then, is said: Let Him exercise His affection. And rightly is it subjoined: And let Him cut me down.
For when a sudden pain of the scourge, or the temptation of infirmity, strikes us who are secure and elated over the abundance of our virtues, at once the elation of our mind, cut down from the summit of its state, falls, so that it dares nothing of itself, but, laid low by the blow of its own infirmity, seeks the hand of Him who raises up. Hence it is that holy men, when they are suspicious of the hidden disposition toward them, fear prosperity itself the more, desire to be tempted, covet to be scourged, that fear and grief may instruct the incautious mind, lest on this way of pilgrimage, with the enemy bursting forth from ambush, its own security should the worse lay it low. Hence the Psalmist says: Prove me, O Lord, and try me (Ps. xxv, 2). Hence again he says:
I am ready for scourges (Ps. xxxvii, 18). For because holy men consider that the wound of their mind's correction is not without putrefaction, they willingly prepare themselves under the hand of the physician for incisions, so that, the wound being opened, the poison of sin may go out, which within, under sound skin, was killing them. Whence it is also further added: