Verse 4. — 'After him a sound shall roar.' 39. When grace breathes upon and shines forth, the groanings and roarings of repentance are heard. — For whomsoever the Lord shall have filled by illuminating, his life without doubt he turns into lamentation; and the more he instills eternal punishments into the illumined mind, the more harshly does he wear it out with groanings over its past wickedness; and a man grieves for what he was, because he now begins to see the good which he was not; he hates what he remembers himself to have been, he loves what he knows he ought to have been, and now loves the bitterness of repentance alone, because he silently considers in how many pleasures he sinned by his own delight. Well therefore is it said:
'After him a sound shall roar,' because when God enters the mind, it is established beyond doubt that soon the groaning of repentance follows, so that it may now please it to weep wholesomely over those things over which it before rejoiced with the wicked mirth of iniquities. But the more abundantly the fault is wept for, the more deeply is the knowledge of truth attained, because, in order to see the inward light, the conscience long polluted is renewed, baptized with tears. Whence after the roaring of repentance it is aptly subjoined: