約伯倫理 第 449 章

Verse 15. — And if I be wicked, woe is me; and if I be righteous, I shall not lift up my head, being filled with affliction and misery. 85. The difference between one who resists and one who yields to vices. — For the wicked man has woe, the righteous man misery; because both eternal damnation follows the reprobate, and every elect one is purified by the sorrows of transient adversity. The wicked man lifts up his head, but being lifted up he cannot escape the woe that follows. The righteous man, afflicted by the labor of his struggle, is not permitted to lift up his head, but being pressed down, is delivered from perpetual affliction. The one raises himself amid pleasures, but sinks amid the punishments that follow. The other casts himself down in sorrow, yet thereby is hidden from the weight of eternal chastisement.

Let the holy man therefore consider that either the man resisting his vices is afflicted with present labor, or the one succumbing is handed over to perpetual affliction, and let him say: And if I be wicked, woe is me; and if I be righteous, I shall not lift up my head, being filled with affliction and misery. As if he plainly lamented, saying: Either, laid low beneath the desires of the flesh, I am subjected to eternal punishment; or, fighting against unlawful motions, I am tormented by present pain, because I am not free from the labor of the struggle.

But the supernal dispensation permits us, who serve Him with our whole intention, to be shaken by the assaults of our flesh for this reason: that our mind may not dare to be lifted up into pride by presumption of its own security, so that while, being buffeted, it trembles, it may plant the foot of its hope more firmly upon the sole help of its Author. Whence again it is aptly added: