[“Lay down your greatness without tribulation, and all the mighty in strength. Do not prolong the night, so that people should go up for them. Take heed that you do not decline to iniquity, for you have begun to follow this after misery.”] … What is this that, while he forbids him to decline iniquity, he condemns him for it at once, as if he had already declined it? Does this suggest that arrogant people wish rather to appear as judges rather than consolers? Hence also, they sometimes smite with severe sentences those faults that they suspect have arisen in the heart. And before the fault of the offenders is certain, severe invective of words is brought forward; and a person is struck by their sentence before anything appears to be smitten. Even just people commonly oppose, by reproof, wicked and secret thoughts, but when any preceding doings make plain these thoughts, they frequently root out from the hearts of their hearers, by the hand of reproof, those sins that have not shown them...
85. He follows iniquity after misery, who, after the evils which he endures for his correction, inflames himself, in his glowing heart, with the torches of impatience. Which Eliu believed that blessed Job had done, having heard him speak in bold words, when in the midst of scourges: being ignorant, namely, that every thing which he said, he uttered not from the sin of impatience, but from the virtue of truth, who did not, even when justifying himself, differ from the sentence of the inward Judge. But we must greatly consider how, when saying, Decline not to iniquity, he immediately subjoined of this very iniquity; For thou hast begun to follow this after misery.
86. What is this, that, while he forbids him to decline to it, he condemns him for it, at once, as if he had already declined to it; except that arrogant men wish rather to appear judges, than consolers? Whence also, they sometimes smite, with severe sentences, those faults, which they suspect have arisen in the heart. And, be...
Haughty men in truth call this the misery of the Church, because they suspect that its main body is despised by God: and they scorn it with loftier pride, the more they suspect that it is utterly despised by God.
Having given rapidly a figurative exposition of these words, we must now gather their moral meaning; that, having learned the figure of the Church, which we believe to be generally described, we may learn what we may specially gather from these words in each single case.
