約伯倫理 第 890 章

35. God scourges the elect here in order to spare them, the reprobate in order to begin to punish them. Every divine stroke is either a purgation of the present life, or the beginning of the punishment that follows. — As often as God corrects the sinner by smiting, He sends the scourge for this end, that He may spare. But when He concludes by smiting his life remaining in sin, He sends the scourge, but by no means spares. For He who sent the scourge that He might spare, sends it at times for this end, that He may not spare. For in this life the Lord so much the more scourges that He may spare, by how much the more He scourges by way of waiting, as He Himself says by the voice of the angel to John: 「Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise」 (Revelation 3:19). And as is said elsewhere:

「Whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth」 (Hebrews 12:6). But on the contrary, concerning the scourge of damnation it is written: 「The sinner is caught in the works of his own hands」 (Psalm 9:16). Concerning whom the Lord says through Jeremiah, when He sees peoples incorrigibly offending, whom He regards no longer as sons under discipline, but under strict smiting as enemies: 「I have struck thee with the wound of an enemy, with a cruel chastisement」 (Jeremiah 30:14). And what is here said, 「He will not spare,」 there too is declared in other words: 「Why criest thou for thy affliction? thy sorrow is incurable」 (Jeremiah 30:15).

Whence the elect always provide for this, that they may return to righteousness before the wrath of the Judge is inextinguishably kindled, lest, caught by the final scourge, their life be ended together with their guilt. For the scourge then washes away guilt, when it changes the life. For of him whose morals it does not change, it does not expiate the actions. Every divine stroke, therefore, is in us either a purgation of the present life, or the beginning of the punishment that follows. For on account of those who profit from the scourge it is said: 「Who framest labour in commandment」 (Psalm 94:20). Because while the wicked man is scourged and corrected — he who was unwilling to hear the precept, hears the pain. Pain therefore is framed in commandment for him who from evil works is restrained by pain as it were in place of a precept.

But concerning those whom the scourges condemn and do not deliver, it is said: 「Thou hast struck them, and they have not grieved; thou hast bruised them, and they have refused to receive correction」 (Jeremiah 5:3). To these the scourges begin from this life, and endure in eternal smiting. Whence through Moses the Lord says: 「A fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest hell」 (Deuteronomy 32:22). As regards the present smiting, indeed, it is rightly said: 「A fire is kindled in my wrath.」 But as regards eternal damnation, it is fitly presently subjoined: 「And shall burn even to the lowest hell.」 Although it may be wont to be said by some that which is written: 「God doth not judge twice for the same thing」 (Nahum 1:9).

Yet such men do not heed what is said by the prophet concerning the wicked: 'And crush them with a double destruction' (Jeremiah XVII, 18). And what is written elsewhere: 'Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe' (Jude 5). If, nevertheless, we assent to these words, we must reckon that any fault can be smitten twice in the case of those smitten because of sin and dying in their sin, because their smiting, begun here, is completed there, so that for the uncorrected there is one scourging which begins in time but is consummated in eternal punishments — inasmuch as for those who refuse to be corrected at all, the stroke of present scourgings becomes the beginning of the torments that follow. 'He shall cast upon him, and shall not spare' (Job XXVII, 22).