Job 38:40

"They tremble in their caves," while they secretly prepare their ambushes: if they did not tremble, who could resist them? They dread the power of Him to whom they said, "Why did you come to lose us before the time"? And if it is true that never, without his permission, they had entered the body of swine, it is equally certain that without this permission they could not do us any harm. He who disposes of everything in his justice has given them this power, to test us, to avenge ourselves, to make us expiate our faults, or to subject us to eternal punishment. "They lie in wait for their prey, hidden in the depths of the forests. Never in them does the love of evil rest, even when God stops their malice. The carnal occasions are like the dark forest where their traps are stretched; they look for those who let themselves be caught by the law of God, those who can not deny their sins, and claim them as their pasture.

When they couch in their dens, and lie in wait in their caves. 26. For when the holy Apostles did not at all rise up against the limbs of the devil in the voice of bold preaching, and, not being yet strengthened after the Lord's Passion with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, did not preach their Redeemer with firm authority, they were still lying in wait, as it were, in dens against their adversaries. For when the doors were closed, the whelps who were about to ravage the world were couching, as it were, in certain secret caves: in order that they might afterwards boldly seize the prey of souls, of whom it was then certain, from their very concealment, that they were afraid of the assault of the world on themselves. These whelps in ambush with those closed doors sought for the death of our death, that so they might destroy our guilt, and kill all the life of sin within us. To the chief of these, that famished, but still vigorous whelp, it is said, when the Gentiles had been set before him by the linen sheet, as though the prey had been pointed out to him, Kill and eat. [Acts 10, 13] These whelps, as though they were still weak, are ordered to couch in their dens, when it is said to them by the voice of the Lord, Tarry ye here in the city until ye be endowed with power from on high. [Luke 24, 49] Are not they rightly called the whelps of the lioness, who, having been born in the Church, seized with their mouth the opposing world? 27. And these things we know were done by the holy Apostles, these also we now see done by perfect teachers. For though they are the fathers of the people that follow them, yet are they the sons of those who go before; whence they are not improperly called whelps. Or certainly because though they are the teachers of certain of the faithful, yet they boast that they are the disciples of the Church universal. The Lord, therefore, seizes the prey for the lioness, because by the virtue of His inspiration He seizes the life of offenders from error; and He fills the soul of her whelps, because by the conversion of many He satisfies the holy longings of teachers. Of which whelps it is well subjoined; When they couch in their dens, and lie in wait in their caves. For all seasons are not fitted for teaching. For the value of sayings is commonly lost, if they are brought forward out of season. And frequently even that which is said gently,…