Job 24:23

"Let him not heal in his diseases; In his afflictions. "Let him go weaker every day. The impious one in the midst of adversity seeks among consolations, those which overwhelm him more.

"When he has fallen sick, let him not hope to recover, but let him perish by disease." The diseases of the body, in fact, often occur because of sin. "Let him not hope," that is, the lack of hope is due to the consciousness of his sins. "Let him perish" by disease, that is, by the blows of calamity.

God hath given unto him room for repentance, and he abuseth it in pride. Whosoever commits sin and lives, such a person Divine Appointment for this reason bears with in iniquity, that it may withhold him from iniquity. But he that is borne with for a longer time, and yet is not withholden from iniquity, is vouchsafed indeed the benefit of the patience Above, yet with the chains of his guilt is by that very benefit binding himself the tighter. For because the times of repentance vouchsafed he diverts to sin, the strict Judge in the end converts the instances of mercy bestowed into punishment. Hence it is said by Paul; Or knowest thou not that the longsuffering of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Hence Isaiah saith, For the child shall die an hundred years old, but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. As though he deterred us in plain words, saying, 'The life of a child indeed is drawn to a great length, in order that he may be corrected of childish doings, but if he be not even by length of time restrained from the commission of sin, this very length of life, which he received in pitifulness, is made to grow to him into an aggravation of cursing.' Whence it is necessary that the longer time that we see ourselves to be waited for, we fear the very seasons of pitifulness before granted as the grounds of condemnation, lest by the clemency of the Judge the punishment of the sinner should be heightened, and by the same means whereby anyone might have been rescued from death, he should tend to death in a manner the more disastrous. Which is for this reason very often brought to pass, because the eye of the mind is not in the least degree weaned from things present. For the sinner is careless to regard the ways of the Redeemer, and so he grows old in his own paths without stopping. Hence it is added; For his eyes are upon his ways. For the sinner 'regards his own ways,' because he sets himself to mind only, to have an eye only for, things which may stand him in stead for temporal advantage. Thus it is hence Paul saith, All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. For the way of the highminded is pride; the way of the robber, avarice; the way of the lecherous, carnal concupiscence.…