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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." 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," 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." 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." 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."
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