Verse 19. — In six tribulations he shall deliver thee, and in the seventh evil shall not touch thee. 43. By transitory labour we are ransomed from perpetual pain. For what is signified by the number six, which the seventh follows, save the working and course of the present life? For on the sixth day, perfecting all things, God made man, and on the seventh day rested. Which seventh day, namely, has no evening, because no term now closes the repose that follows. When therefore all things are perfected, repose follows; because after the good works of the present life, the recompense of eternal quiet is found.
In six tribulations therefore the Lord delivers us, lest in the seventh evil should touch us, because through the instruction of his fatherly tenderness he wears us down with the labour of the present life, but at the coming of the judge hides us from the stroke; that he may then present us so much the more secure unto salvation, the more harshly the scourges now cut us. Who fitly soon, enumerating both the evils of the present life and the aids of supernal protection, subjoins: