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| Chapter XXXI. On the fact that those men are more to be pitied to whom it is not given to be subjected to those temporal temptations.
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Chapter XXXI.
On the fact that those men are more to be pitied to whom
it is not given to be subjected to those temporal temptations.
But we ought to consider
those men truly wretched and miserable in whose case, although they
defile themselves with all kinds of sins and wickedness, yet not only
is there no visible sign of the devil’s possession shown in them,
nor is any temptation proportionate to their actions, nor any scourge
of punishment brought to bear upon them. For they are vouchsafed no
swift and immediate remedy in this world, whose “hardness and
impenitent heart,” being too much for punishment in this life,
“heapeth up for itself wrath and indignation in the day of wrath
and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,” “where
their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.”1503
Against whom the prophet as if perplexed at
the affliction of the saints, when he sees them subject to various
losses and temptations, and on the other hand sees sinners not only
passing through the course of this world without any scourge of
humiliation, but even rejoicing in great riches, and the utmost
prosperity in everything, inflamed with uncontrollable indignation and
fervour of spirit, exclaims: “But as for me, my feet had almost
gone, my treadings had well nigh slipped. For I was grieved at the
wicked, when I saw the peace of sinners. For there is no regard to
their death, nor is there strength in their stripes. They are not in
the labour of men, neither shall they be scourged like other
men,”1504
since hereafter
they shall be punished with the devils, to whom in this world it was
not vouchsafed to be scourged in the lot and discipline of sons,
together with men. Jeremiah also, when conversing with God on this
prosperity of sinners, although he never professes to doubt about the
justice of God, as he says “for Thou art just, O Lord, if I
dispute with Thee,” yet in his inquiry as to the reasons of this
inequality, proceeds to say: “But yet I will speak what is just
to Thee. Why doth the way of the wicked prosper? Why is it well with
all them that transgress and do wickedly? Thou hast planted them and
they have taken root: they prosper and bring forth fruit. Thou art near
in their mouth and far from their reins.”1505
And
when the Lord mourns for their destruction by the prophet, and
anxiously directs doctors and physicians to heal them, and in a manner
urges them on to a similar lamentation and says: “Babylon is
suddenly fallen: she is destroyed. Howl for her: take balm for her
pain, if so she may be healed;” then, in their despair, the
angels, to whom is entrusted the care of man’s salvation, make
reply; or at any rate the prophet in the person of the Apostles and
spiritual men and doctors who see the hardness of their soul, and their
impenitent heart: “We have healed Babylon: but she is not cured.
Let us forsake her, and let us go every man to his own land because her
judgment hath reached even to
the heavens, and is lifted up to the
clouds.”1506
Of their desperate
feebleness then Isaiah speaks in the Person of God to Jerusalem: From
the sole of the foot unto the top of the head there is no soundness
therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores: they are not bound up
nor dressed nor fermented with oil.”1507
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