430 Making great men serve GoiTs Church is His work.
Job 39, cutors, that the broken clods might, as it were, no longer
'-—' oppress with their hardness, but might crumble and bud
forth on receiving the seeds of the word. Whence He now
rightly says; Or will he break the clods of the ralleys after
thee? As if He were saying, As after Me, Who, after I
enter the mind of any lofty power, not only render it subject
to Me, but also train it to crush the enemies of the faith, that
the mighty of this world, being bound with the bands of My
fear, may not only continue believers in Me, but may also
from zeal for Me crush the hardness of another's heart.
7. But this, which we have said of unbelievers, we observe
also in many who are reckoned by the name of faith. For
many, placed in the midst of lowly brethren, hold the faith
in word only, but while they abandon not the swelling of
pride, while they oppress those, whom they can, by the
infliction of violence, while they themselves receive not
at all the seeds of the word, while others are bearing fruit,
but turn the ear of their heart from the voice of the adviser,
what else are they, but hardened clods lying in the culti-
vated valleys? Who are the more wicked, inasmuch as
they neither bring forth themselves the fruit of humility,
and, what is worse, oppress the lowly who are producing it.
To break down the hardness of these, Holy Church, because
she suffices not with her own strength, sometimes seeks the
assistance of this rhinoceros, that is, of an earthly prince,
for him to break down the overlying clods, which the
humility of the Churches, like the level of the valleys, is
bearing. These clods, therefore, the rhinoceros presses
and crushes with his foot, because the religion of the prince
crumbles, by its power, the hardness of the wicked and
powerful, which the humility of the Church is unable to
withstand. And since it is the effect of Divine power alone,
that the loftinesses of earthly sovereignty are bowed down,
to advance the kingdom of heaven, it is now rightly said,
Or will he break the clods of the valleys after thee? But
that Job may think humbly of his virtues, and, under the
name of the rhinoceros, still discern sublime tniths concern-
ing the powers of this world, it follows
;
Ver. 11. Wilt thou have confidence in his great strength,
and tiilt thou leave to him thy labours?
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