Job 29:14

"I am dressed in righteousness, as in a cloak. When you prefer to spiritual actions the spiritual works, that your left hand does not know what your right does (1), that it ignores the intention that directed you. The left hand remains closed under the mantle, the right remains open; so let us act, when we know to. who must report our actions.

"I put on righteousness," he says. There are people who occupy higher positions than others but who often commit injustice. But this is not the case with Job, because he constantly lived in the greatest righteousness. So, when with regard to God you hear that "he is clothed with righteousness," do not believe that real garments clothe incorporeal beings. Job did not wear that kind of garment either. "And I clothed myself with judgment like a double mantle." That was my elegance. To be sure, others are unhappy with that activity; they find it unpleasant and heavy. But I did not, he says. As one is proud of a double mantle, so I was constantly glorified … in that activity. But who appointed him to be a judge? He became one by himself, thanks to his virtue, like Moses.

With righteousness was I clothed, and arrayed myself as with raiment. And my judgment a diadem. [HISTORICAL / MORAL INTERPRETATION] Surely, when we are clothed with a garment, we are surrounded on every side, and so he is 'clothed with righteousness as with a garment,' who defends himself on every side with good practice, and leaves no part of his conduct naked to sin; for he that is just in some deeds and unjust in others, it is as if he covered over this side, and exposed that one naked; nor are those henceforth good deeds, which are defiled by other evil deeds springing up. For hence it is said by Solomon, He that offendeth in one thing, shall lose many that are good. Hence James saith, But whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he shall be guilty of all. Which same sentence of his he himself diligently unfolded, when he added, For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. And so with the eyes of the heart stretched out round about, watching must be enforced by us on every side. Hence it is rightly said by Solomon also, Keep thy heart with all watching, for out of it are the issues of life. For going to say watching, he put first all, without question that each one might scan himself diligently on this side and on that side, and as long as he is in this life know that he is set in pitched battle against spiritual enemies, lest the reward which he is making up by one set of actions, he should lose by another set, lest on this side he bar the door against the enemy, but on another side open an entrance. For if against plotting enemies a city be encompassed by a great rampart, be girt with strong walls, on every side defended by a sleepless watch, yet a single opening only be left therein undefended through neglect, from this quarter surely the enemy enters in, who seemed to be every way shut out. For that Pharisee who went up into the Temple to pray, with what fortifying he had begirt the city of his soul, let us hear. I fast twice in the week, he says, I give tithes of all that I possess. He that set out with I thank Thee, did, surely, employ extraordinary defences. But let us see where he left an opening undefended for a plotting enemy; Because I am not as this publican. See how he opened the city of his heart to…