This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroys the blameless and the wicked.
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Consumeth. Ecclesiastes ix. 2. (Haydock)
This principle is incontrovertible. (Worthington)
I do not retract it. (Menochius)
The misery inflicted on the just, is not contrary to the goodness of the Almighty. Job perfectly discovered this truth, which puzzled his enlightened friends, and most of those who lived before Christ; (Psalm lxxii. 2., and Jeremias xii. 1.; Calmet) and even Job himself was not fully convinced of the motives of the Providence, till God had explained them. (Houbigant) (Chap. xlii.)
40. The ‘perfect man is destroyed’ by the Creator, in that whatever his pureness may have been, it is swallowed up by the pureness of the divine immensity. For though we take heed to preserve pureness, yet by consideration of the interior Perfection it is shewn, that this which we practise is not purity; ‘the wicked’ likewise is ‘destroyed’ by the Creator, in that whilst God ordereth all things marvellously, his wickedness is caught in the noose of his own artifices. For he is even unwittingly involving himself in punishment on the same grounds whereon he wittingly exults in doing any thing. Whereas therefore Almighty God at once surpasses the perfection of the righteous by pureness, and penetrating the craft of the wicked condemns it, it is rightly said, This is one thing, therefore I said it; He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. As if it were expressed in plain words; ‘I have spoken this word of reflection to myself, that neither being perfect, shall I appear perfect, if I ...
