Job 11:14

"If in your hands there is some defilement. He uses the same two ideas, but in a different order. "That iniquity does not dwell in your house. He means in his heart.

If the iniquity which is in thine hand thou put far from thee, and wickedness dwell not in thy tabernacle, then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot, yea thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not fear. Every sin is either committed in thought alone, or it is done in thought and deed together. Therefore 'iniquity in the hand' is offence in deed; but 'wickedness in the tabernacle,' is iniquity in the heart; for our heart is not unfitly called a tabernacle, wherein we are buried within ourselves, when we do not shew ourselves outwardly in act. Zophar therefore, in that he was the friend of a righteous person, knows what he should say, but in that he reproached a righteous person, bearing the likeness of heretics, he does not know how rightly to deliver even the things which he knows. But let us, treading under our feet all that is delivered by him in pride of spirit, reflect how true his words are, if they had but been spoken in a right manner. For first he bids that 'iniquity' be removed from the 'hand,' and afterwards that 'wickedness' be cut off from the 'tabernacle;' for whosoever has already cut away from himself all wicked deeds without, must of necessity in returning to himself probe himself discreetly in the purpose of his heart, lest sin, which he no longer has in act, still hold out in thought. Hence too it is well said by Solomon, Prepare thy work without, and diligently work thy field, that afterwards thou mayest build thine house. For what is it when the 'work is prepared,' to 'till the field diligently without,' saving when the briars of iniquity have been plucked up, to train our practice to bearing fruits of recompense? And after the tilling of the field, what else is it to return to the building of our house, than that we very often learn from good deeds the perfect purity of life which we should build up in our thoughts. For almost all good deeds come from the thoughts, but there be some fine points of thought which have their birth in action; for as the deed is derived from the mind, so on the other hand the mind is instructed by the deed; for the soul taking the first beginnings of divine love dictates the good things which should be done, but after the deeds so dictated have begun to be fulfilled, being practised by its own actions, it learns how little it saw when it began to dictate good deeds. Thus the 'field is tilled without, that the…