XII

First, he saith, “thou shalt not be afraid of the fear of the night.”  By the night is there in scripture sometimes understood tribulation, as appeareth in the thirty-fourth chapter of Job:  “God hath known the works of them, and therefore shall he bring night upon them,” that is, tribulation for their wickedness.  And well you know that the night is of its own nature discomfortable and full of fear.  And therefore by the night’s fear here I understand the tribulation by which the devil, through the sufference of God, either by himself or by others who are his instruments, tempteth good folk to impatience as he did Job.  But he who, as the prophet saith, dwelleth and continueth faithfully in the hope of God’s help, shall so be clipped in on every side with the shield of God that he shall have no need to be afraid of such tribulation as is here called the night’s fear.  And it may be also fittingly called the night’s fear for two causes:  One, because many times, unto him who suffereth, the cause of his tribulation is dark and unknown.  And therein it varieth and differeth from that tribulation by which the devil tempteth a man with open fight and assault for a known good thing from which he would withdraw him, or for some known evil thing into which he would drive him by force of such persecution.  Another cause for which it is called the night’s fear may be because the night is so far out of courage, and naturally so casteth folk into fear, that their fancy doubleth their fear of everything of which they perceive any manner of dread, and maketh them often think that it were much worse than indeed it is.

The prophet saith in the psalter, “Thou hast, good Lord, set the darkness and made was the night, and in the night walk all the beasts of the woods, the whelps of the lions roaring and calling unto God for their meat.”  Now, though the lions’ whelps walk about roaring in the night and seek for their prey, yet can they not get such meat as they would always, but must hold themselves content with such as God suffereth to fall in their way.  And though they be not aware of it, yet of God they ask it and of him they have it.  And this may be comfort to all good men in their night’s fear, that though they fall in their dark tribulation into the claws of the devil or the teeth of those lions’ whelps, yet all that they can do shall not pass beyond the body, which is but as the garment of the soul.  For the soul itself, which is the substance of the man, is so surely fenced in round about with the shield of God, that as long as he will abide faithfully in the hope of God’s help the lions’ whelp shall not be able to hurt it.  For the great Lion himself could never be suffered to go further in the tribulation of Job than God from time to time gave him leave.