Job 9:28

"All my members shudder. It is fear that prepares conversion.

I was afraid of all my works, knowing that Thou wouldest not spare me, when guilty of transgression. What were the works that blessed Job practised, the text of this sacred history makes plain. For he studied to propitiate his Maker by numberless burnt offerings; in that according to the number of his sons, as it is written, rising up early in the morning, he offered burnt offerings for each, and purified them not only from impure actions, but likewise from bad thoughts. Of whom it is recorded, by the witness of Scripture, For Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. He exercised the feeling of sympathy, in that he declares of himself, when he was importuned by the interrogations of his friends, Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? He discharged the office of pity, as he says, I was an eye to the blind, and a foot was I to the lame. He kept pureness of chastity in heart, in that he discovers himself openly with adjuration, saying, If mine heart have been deceived by a woman. He held the very topmost point of humility, from the grounds of his heart, who saith, If I did despise to be judged with my manservant or my maidservant, when they contended with me. He bestowed the bounties of liberality, who saith, Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof? And again; If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep. He displayed the kindness of hospitality, who says, The stranger did not lodge in the street; but I opened my doors to the traveller. And in the midst of these things, for the consummation of his virtues, by that more excellent way of charity, he even loved his very enemies, in that he says, If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me. And again, Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin, by wishing a curse to his soul. Why then was the holy man 'afraid for his works,' in that he ever practised these, by which God is wont to be softened towards transgressions? How then is it, that while doing works to be admired, he even fears for these same, being in alarm, when he says, I was afraid of all my works, save that we gather from the deeds and the words of the holy man, that if we really desire to please God, after we overcome our bad habits, we must fear the very things themselves that are done well in us? For there are two…