Psalms 31:10

Now the faith which is in Christ confirms all these [admonitions]. For He Himself by the Holy Ghost thus addresses us: “Come, ye children, hearken unto Me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that desireth life, and loveth to see good days? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are [open] unto their prayers. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles.” “Many are the stripes [appointed for] the wicked; but mercy shall compass those about who hope in the Lord.”

“Now all those things are confirmed by the faith that is in Christ.‘Come, ye children,’ says the Lord, ‘hearken to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man that desireth life, that loveth to see good days? ’ Then He subjoins the gnostic mystery of the numbers seven and eight.‘Stop thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good. Seek peace, and pursue it.’ For in these words He alludes to knowledge ( gnosis ), with abstinence from evil and the doing of what is good, teaching that it is to be perfected by word and deed. ‘The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are to their prayer. But the face of God is against those that do evil, to root out their memory from the earth. …

Now the faith which is in Christ confirms all these [admonitions]. For He Himself by the Holy Ghost thus addresses us: “Come, ye children, hearken unto me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that desireth life, and loveth to see good days? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are [open] unto their prayers. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles.” “Many are the stripes [appointed for] the wicked; but mercy shall compass those about who hope in the Lord.”

10. “Many are the scourges of the sinner:” much is he scourged, who, confessing not his sins to God, would be his own ruler. “But he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy compasseth him about” ( ver. 10 ); but he that trusteth in the Lord, and submitteth himself to His rule, mercy shall compass him about.

But having a sample in what I have mentioned, ye will have a notion of all the rest besides, the things about Christ, about the resurrection, about the life to come, about the resting, about punishment, about moral matters, all that concerns doctrines, and you will find the book filled with countless blessings. And if you fall into temptations, you will gain much comfort from hence. If you fall into sins even, you will find countless remedies stored up here, or if into poverty or tribulation, you will see many havens. And if thou be righteous thou wilt gain much security hence, and if a sinner much relief. For if thou be just and art ill-treated, thou wilt hear him say, “For Thy sake are we killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.” ( Ps. xliv. 22 .) “All these things have come upon us, and yet have we not forgotten Thee.” ( ib. …

28. The argument of the next section is, “In the day of judgment, no mercy will be shown to the unjust and to sinners, but they must be consumed in eternal fire.” Who can bear this, and suffer you to prohibit the mercy of God, and to sit in judgment on the sentence of the Judge before the day of judgment, so that, if He wished to show mercy to the unjust and the sinners, He must not, because you have given your veto? For you say it is written in the one hundred and fourth Psalm, “Let sinners cease to be in the earth, and the wicked be no more.” And in Isaiah, “The wicked and sinners shall be burned up together, and they who forsake God shall be consumed.” Do you not know that mercy is sometimes blended with the threatenings of God? He does not say that they must be burnt with eternal fires, but let them cease to be in the earth, and the wicked be no more. …

Well then, though we say that trial is twofold, i.e., in prosperity and in adversity, yet you must know that all men are tried in three different ways. Often for their probation, sometimes for their improvement, and in some cases because their sins deserve it. For their probation indeed, as we read that the blessed Abraham and Job and many of the saints endured countless tribulations; or this which is said to the people in Deuteronomy by Moses: “And thou shalt remember all the way through which the Lord thy God hath brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee and to prove thee, and that the things that were in thy heart might be made known, whether thou wouldst keep His Commandments or no:” and this which we find in the Psalms: “I proved thee at the waters of strife.” To Job also: “Thinkest thou that I have spoken for any other cause than that thou mightest be seen t …