25. But we must enquire why man is said to be born in 'the day' and conceived in 'the night?' Holy Scripture uses the title 'man' in three ways, viz, sometimes in respect of nature, sometimes of sin, sometimes of frailness. Now man is so called in respect of nature, as where it is written, Let Us make man after Our image and likeness. [Gen. 1, 26] He is called man in respect of sin, as where it is written, I have said, Ye are all gods, and all of you are children of the Most High: but ye shall die like men . [Ps. 82, 6. 7.] As though he had expressed it plainly, 'ye shall perish like transgressors.' And hence Paul saith, For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? [1 Cor. 3, 3] As though he had said, 'Ye that carry about minds at variance, do ye not still sin, in the spirit of faulty human nature?' He is called man, in relation to his weakness, as where it is written, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man . [Jer. 17, 5] As if he had said in plain words, 'in weakness.' Thus man is born in the day, but he is conceived in the night, in that he is never caught away by the delightfulness of sin, until he is first made weak by the voluntary darkness of his mind. For he first becomes blind in the understanding, and then he enslaves himself to damnable delight. Let it be said then, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night wherein it was said, There is a man child conceived : i.e. 'Let the delight perish, which has hurried man into sin, and the unguarded frailness of his mind, whereby he was blinded even to the very darkness of consenting to evil. For while man does not heedfully mark the allurements of pleasure, he is even carried headlong into the night of the foulest practices. We must watch then with minds alive, that when sin begins to caress, the mind may perceive to what ruin she is being dragged, And hence the words are fitly added,
Ver. 4. Let that day be darkness.
[xiv]
26. For 'the day becomes darkness,' when in the very commencement of the enjoyment, we see to what an end of ruin sin is hurrying us. We 'turn the day into darkness,' whenever by severely chastising ourselves, we turn to bitter the very sweets of evil enjoyment by the keen laments of penance, and, when we visit it with weeping, whereinsoever we sin in gratification in our secret hearts. For because no believer is ignorant that the thoughts of the heart will be minutely examined at the Judgment, as Paul testifieth, saying, Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another ; [Rom. 2, 15] searching himself within, he examines his own conscience without sparing before the Judgment, that the strict Judge may come now the more placably disposed, in that He sees his guilt, which He is minded to examine, already chastised according to the sin. And hence it is well added,
Let not God require it from above.
[xv]
27. God requires the things, which He searches out in executing judgment upon them. He does not require those, which He so pardons as to let them be unpunished henceforth in His own Judgment. And so 'this day,' i.e. this enjoyment of sin, will not be required by the Lord, if it be visited with self-punishment of our own accord, as Paul testifies, when he says, For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord. [1 Cor. 11, 31] 'God's requiring our day,' then, is His proceeding against our souls at the Judgment by a strict examination of every instance of taking pleasure in sin, in which same 'requiring' He then smites him the harder, whom He finds to have been most soft in sparing himself. And it follows well, Neither let the light shine upon it . For the Lord, appearing at the Judgment, illumines with His light all that He then convicts of sin. For what is not then brought to remembrance of the Judge, is as it were veiled under a kind of obscurity. So it is written, But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light . [Eph. 5, 13] It is as though a certain darkness hid the sins of penitents, of whom the Prophet saith, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. [Ps. 32, 1] Therefore, as every thing that is veiled is as it were hidden in darkness, that which is not searched out in vengeance, is not illumined with light at the Day of final account. For all those actions of ours, which He would not then visit with justice, the mercy of God in wotting of them still hideth in some sort from itself, but all is displayed in light, that is at that time manifest in the sight of all men. Let , then, this day be darkness , in this way, viz. that by penance we may smite the evil that we do. Let not the Lord require this day, neither let the light shine upon it , in this way, viz. that while we smite our own sin, He may not Himself fall thereupon with the visitations of the Final Judgment.
28. But the Judge will come Himself to pierce all things, and strike all things to the core. And because He is every where present, there is no place to flee to, where He is not found. But forasmuch as He is appeased by the tears of self-correction, he alone obtains a hiding-place from His face, who after the commission of a sin hides himself from Him now in penance. And hence it is with propriety yet further added of this day of enjoyment,
Ver. 7. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it.
[xvi]
29. Then indeed darkness stains the day, when the delight of our inclinations is smitten through with the inflictions of penance. By darkness moreover may be signified secret decisions. For what we see in the light we know, but in the dark we either discern nothing at all, or our eyes are bewildered with an uncertain sight. Secret decrees then are like a certain kind of darkness before our eyes, being utterly inscrutable to us. And hence it is written of God, He made darkness His secret place; [Ps. 18, 11] and we know well that we do not deserve pardon, but, by the grace of God preventing us, we are freed from our sins by His secret counsels. Darkness , therefore, stains the day , when the joy of gratification, which is a proper subject of tears, is in mercy hidden from that ray of just wrath by His secret determinations. And here the words aptly follow, and the shadow of death.
30. For in Holy Scripture, the shadow of death is sometimes understood of oblivion of mind, sometimes of imitation of the devil, sometimes of the dissolution of the flesh. For the shadow of death is understood of the oblivion of the mind, in that, as has been said above, as death causes that that which it kills should no longer remain in life, so oblivion causes that whatsoever it seizes should no longer abide in the memory. And hence too, because John was coming to proclaim to the Hebrew people That God, Whom they had forgotten, he is justly said by Zacharias, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death ; for 'to sit in the shadow of death,' is to turn lifeless to the knowledge of the love of God in a state of oblivion. The shadow of death is taken to mean the imitating our old enemy. For, since he brought in death, he is himself called death, as John is witness, saying, and his name is death . [Rev. 6, 8] And so by the shadow of death is signified the imitating of him. For as the shadow is shaped according to the character of the body, so the actions of the wicked are cast in a figure of conformity to him. Hence when Isaiah saw that the Gentiles had fallen away after the likeness of our old enemy, and that they rose up again at the rising of the true Sun, he justly records, as though in the past, what his eyes beheld as certain in the future, saying, They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a great light hath shined . Moreover, the shadow of death is taken for the dissolution of the flesh, in that, as that is the true death whereby the soul is separated from God, so the shadow of death is that whereby the flesh is separated from the soul. And hence it is rightly said by the Prophet in the words of the Martyrs, Though Thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death . [Ps. 44, 19] For those, who, we know, die not in the spirit, but only in the flesh, can in no wise say that they are 'covered with the true death,' but with the shadow of death .
31. How is it then that blessed Job demands the shadow of death , for putting out the day of evil enjoyment, but that for the obliterating of our sins in God's sight he calls for the Mediator between God and man, who should undertake for us the death of the flesh alone, and Who by the shadow of His own death, should do away the true death of transgressors? For He comes to us, who were held in the bands of death, both of the spirit and of the flesh, and His own single Death He reckoned to our account, and our two deaths, which He found, He dissolved. For if He had Himself undertaken both, He would never have set us free from either. But He took one sort in mercy, and condemned them both with justice. He joined His own single Death to our twofold death, and by dying He vanquished that double death of ours. And hence it was not without reason that He lay in the grave for one day and two nights, namely, in that He added the light of His own single Death to the darkness of our double death. He, then, that took for our sakes the death of the flesh alone, underwent the shadow of death , and buried from the eyes of God the sin that we have done. Therefore let it be truly said, Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it . As though it were said in plain words; 'Let Him come, Who, that He may snatch from the death of the flesh and of the spirit, us, that are debtors thereto, may, though no debtor, discharge the death of the flesh.' But since the Lord lets no sin go unpunished, for either we visit it ourselves by lamenting it, or God by judging it, it remains that the mind should ever have a watchful eye to the amendment of itself. Therefore, in whatever particular each person sees that he is succoured by mercy, he must needs wipe out the stains thereof in the confession of it. And hence it is fitly added,
Let a shade dwell upon it.
[xvii]
32. For because the eye is perplexed in the shade , therefore the perplexity of our mind in penitence is itself called shade , for as the shade obscures the light of day with a mass of clouds, so confusion overclouds the mind with troubled thoughts. Of which it is said by one, There is a shame which is glory and grace . [Ecclus. 4, 21] For when in repenting we recall our misdoings to remembrance, we are at once confounded with heaviness and sorrow, the throng of thoughts clamours vociferously in our breast, sorrow wears, anxiety wastes us, the soul is turned to woe, and, as it were, darkened with the shade of a kind of cloud. Now this shade of confusion had oppressed the minds of those to their good, to whom Paul said, What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? [Rom. 6, 21] Let shade , then, seize this day of sin, i.e. 'Let the chastening of penance with befitting sorrow discompose the flattery of sin.' And hence it is added with fitness,
Let it be enfolded in bitterness.
[xviii]
33. For the day is enfolded in bitterness, when, upon the soul returning to knowledge, the inflictions of penance follow upon the caresses of sin. We 'enfold the day in bitterness,' when we regard the punishments that follow the joys of forbidden gratification, and pour tears of bitter lamenting around them. For whereas what is folded up is covered on every side, we wish 'the day to be folded in bitterness,' that each man may mark on every side the ills that threaten crooked courses, and may cleanse the wantonness of self-gratification by the tears of bitter sorrow.
34. But if we hear that day, which we have rendered the 'gratification of sin,' assailed with so many imprecations, that, surely, our tears poured around it may expiate whatsoever sin the soul is become guilty of by being touched with gratification through negligence, with what visitings of penitence is the night of that day to be stricken, i.e. the actual consent to sin? For as it is a less fault when the mind is carried away in delight by the influence of the flesh, yet by the resistance of the Spirit offers violence to its sense of delight; so it is a more heinous and complete wickedness not only to be attracted to the fascination of sin by the feeling of delight, but to pander to it by yielding consent. Therefore the mind must be cleansed from defilement by being wrung harder with the hand of penitence, in proportion as it sees itself to be more foully stained by the yielding of the consent. And hence it is fitly subjoined,
Ver. 6. As for that night, let a black tempest seize it.
35. For the awakened spirit of sorrow is like a kind of tempestuous whirlwind. For when a man understands what sin he has committed, when he minutely considers the wickedness of his evil doings, he clouds the mind with sorrow, and the air of quiet joy being agitated, as it were, he sweeps away all the inward tranquillity of his breast, by the whirlwind of penitence. For unless the heart, returning to the knowledge of itself, were broken by such a whirlwind, the Prophet would never have said, Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with a strong wind . [Ps. 48, 7] For Tarshish is rendered, 'the exploring of joy.' But when the strong blast of penitence seizes the mind, it disturbs therein all the 'explorings' after a censurable joy, that it now takes pleasure in nought but to weep, minds nought but what may fill it with affright. For it sets before the eyes, on the one hand, the strictness of justice, on the other the deserts of sin, it sees what punishment it deserves, if the pitifulness of the sparing Hand be wanting, which is wont by present sorrowing to rescue from eternal woe. Therefore, 'a strong wind breaks the ships of Tarshish,' when a mighty force of compunction confounds, with wholesome terrors, our minds which have abandoned themselves to this world, like as to the sea. Let him say then, As for that night, let a black tempest seize it , i.e. let not the softness of secure ease cherish the commission of sin, but the bitterness of repentance burst on it in pious fury.
36. But we are to bear in mind, that when we leave sins unpunished, we are 'taken possession of by the night,' but when we correct those with the visitation of penitence, then we ourselves 'take possession of the night,' that we have made. And the sin of the heart is then brought into our right of possession, if it is repressed in its beginning. And hence it is said by the voice of God to Cain, harbouring evil thoughts, Thy sin will lie at the door. But under thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him . For 'sin lieth at the door,' when it is knocking in the thoughts, and 'the desire thereof is under,' and man 'ruleth over it,' if the wickedness of the heart, being looked to, be quickly put down, and before it grows to a state of hardness, be subdued by a strenuous opposition of the mind. Therefore that the mind may be quickly made sensible of its offence by repenting, and hold in under its authority the usurping power of sin, let it be rightly said, As for that night let a black tempest seize it ; as though it were said in plain words, 'Lest the mind be the captive of sin, let it never leave a sin free from penance.' And because we have a sure hope that what we prosecute with weeping, will never be urged against us by the Judge to come, it is rightly added,
Let it not be joined unto the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.
[xx]