plication in Thy truth; hear me in Thy justice!” And he adds ihe reason of his earnest supplications: “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight no man living shall be justified.”[1] I do not ask Thee to free me from the persecution I have to suffer from my own son, or from the other miseries that afflict me; I should be calm and undisturbed in the midst of any temporal misfortunes and trials if I could only have the consolation of not coming under the strictness of Thy justice, for I know that no man can justify himself in Thy sight.
And holy Job. I hear Job on the dung-hill crying out full of anguish and fear in the midst of terrible sufferings: “What shall I do when God shall rise to judge? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer Him?”[2] Ah, innocent and holy man, art thou in doubt as to how thou shalt fare, as to what thou shalt answer? If so, wo to me! for I should be well off if I could answer as readily as thou. Answer what thy own Judge said of thee, and He will not be able to contradict it; for He has given testimony that thou art “a man simple, upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil.”[3] Would to God that I could say the same of myself! Answer: “My heart doth not reprehend me in all my life.”[4] Would to God that I could say that, too, of myself! Answer that after the loss of all thy goods, the slaying of thy children, in the torments thou hadst to suffer, thou hast never sinned with thy lips, wert always resigned to the divine will, and didst bless the name of the Lord. Answer that whatever small faults thou didst commit were most amply atoned for by thy generous alms, and by the sufferings thou didst bear with such patience. Ah, would that I could say as much for myself! Answer: “I was clad with justice.…I was an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame. I was the father of the poor,”[5] a comforter of the afflicted. And yet thou art afraid of the judgment of God, and dost not know what to do! Alas! let me and other sinners ask: “What shall I do?” God will come to judge me, and I have done none of the praiseworthy things that stand to thy credit; what shall I do?
- ↑ Domine, exaudi orationem meara. Auribus percipe obsecrationem meam in veritate tua. Exaudi me in tua justitia. Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo; quia non justificabitur in conspectu tuo omnis vivens.—Ps. cxlii. 1, 2.
- ↑ Quid faciam cum surrexerit ad judicandum Deus? et cum quæsierit, quid respondebo illi?—Job xxxi. 14.
- ↑ Vir ille simplex et rectus, ac timens Deum, et recedens a malo.—Ibid. i. 1.
- ↑ Neque enim reprehendit me cor meum in omni vita mea.—Ibid. xxvii. 6.
- ↑ Justitia indutus sum.…Oculus fui cœco, et pes claudo. Pater eram pauperum.—Ibid. xxix. 14–16.
