約伯倫理 第 544 章

Same verse.—Thou hast appointed his bounds, which cannot be passed. 2. Nothing befalls men without God's counsel, though it be hidden. Nothing that befalls men in this world comes to pass apart from the hidden counsel of Almighty God. For God, foreknowing all things that were to follow, decreed before the ages how they should be disposed through the ages. For it is already appointed for man, both how far the prosperity of the world shall attend him, and how far adversity shall strike him, lest either immoderate prosperity lift up His elect, or excessive adversity weigh them down. It is also appointed how long he shall live temporally in this mortal life itself. For although Almighty God added fifteen years to the life of King Hezekiah (2 Kings

20:1), yet when He permitted him to die, then He foreknew that he was to die. In which matter a question arises, how it is said to him through the prophet: Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die and not live; to whom, when the sentence of death had been spoken, life was straightway added at his tears. But through the prophet the Lord said at what time he himself deserved to die; yet by the bounty of His mercy He deferred him to death at that time which He Himself foreknew before the ages. Neither therefore is the prophet false, because he made known the time of death at which that man deserved to die; nor are the Lord's decrees overthrown, because that the years of his life should grow from God's bounty, this too was foreordained before the ages;

and the span of life which seemed unexpectedly added outwardly was inwardly appointed without any increase to the divine foreknowledge. Well therefore is it said: Thou hast appointed his bounds, which cannot be passed. 3. God sets a limit to spiritual advancements. Yet this can also be understood according to the spirit, because sometimes we strive to advance in virtues and receive certain gifts, but being repelled from certain others, we lie in the depths. For there is no one who grasps as much of virtue as he desires, because Almighty God, discerning the inner things, sets a limit to the very spiritual advancements themselves, so that hereby a man may not be lifted up in those things which he can attain, on account of that which he strives to grasp and cannot.

Whence that excellent preacher too, who had been caught up to the third heaven and had penetrated the secrets of paradise, was not able after the revelation to be tranquil and free from temptation (2 Cor. 12:3). But because Almighty God appointed for man bounds which cannot be passed, He both lifted him up to know sublime things, and led him back again to endure infirm things, so that beholding the measure of his own limit, while he strove to attain security and could not, he might not through pride go outside himself, but through humility be compelled ever to return within his own bounds. It follows: