380 Divers ojferhigs ofvirtue. The Church seizing prey. Job 38, fore exercise their resolute authority by bracelets and rings, '- —and others by ean-ings and armlets display devoted obedi- ence, and upright conduct; some by the golden vessel which has been set apart possess a surpassing and more accurate knowledge of God; others by the blue, purple, and scarlet, cease not to hope for, believe, and love ihe heavenly things they have heard of, even those which they do not yet under- stand with more accurate knowledge ; some by the fine linen offer the purity of the flesh; others by the goats' hairs bewail with severity' that which they have committed with pleasure; innumerable clods are produced, as it were, from one earth, because unlike actions of the faithful proceed from one and the like obedience. But these clods would doubtless not be bound together and rise from the dust, did not the dust first receive water, and become solid from the moisture it has imbibed: because if the grace of the Holy Spirit did not bedew sinners, the unity of charity would not keep them firmly bound to deeds of faith. Let the Lord then make known when He will declare the system of the heavens, or make the harmony of heaven to sleep. For He says; When the dust was being hardened into earthy and the clods were being bound together. As if He were saying. My calling and My choice being then first manifested, I both disclosed, not without compassion, spiritual secrets to some, and hid them, not without justice, from others, when T was rejecting some, and was uniting others within the Church in the concord of unity. But because this Holy Church, when rejected by the unbelief of the Jews, betook herself to spoil the Gentiles, and to convert them in her own body, (which she did indeed not in her own strength, but that of the Lord,) it is fitly subjoined; Ver. 39. Wilt thou seize' the prey for the lioness., andJill the soul of her whelps ? vii. 25. She is doubtless that lioness, of which Job was saying, when he saw proud Judaea passed over by the preaching of Job 28, the Church; The cldldren ofthe dealers have not trodden it, nor hath the lioness pcCssed through it. The Lord therefore seizes the prey for this lioness, to fill the soul of her whelps, because for the increase of this Church, He has carried off many from the Gentile world, and has, by the gain of souls.