Psalms 94:20

But, instead, I was in a ferment of wickedness. I deserted you and allowed myself to be carried away by the sweep of the tide. I broke all your lawful bounds and did not escape your lash. For what person can escape it? You were always present, angry and merciful at once, strewing the pangs of bitterness over all my lawless pleasures to lead me on to look for others unallied with pain. You meant me to find them nowhere but in yourself, O Lord, for you teach us by inflicting pain, you smite so that you may heal, and you kill us so that we may not die away from you.

"He who fashions toil in the commandment." No one is crowned while sleeping, no one at ease possesses the kingdom of heaven, no one with a stuffed belly can worthily discourse about fasting. You see, then, what he says: "He who fashions toil in the commandment." All the commandments of the Lord have toil: without toil we cannot possess the kingdom of heaven. Do you want to know that it is so? "If you wish," he says, "to be perfect, go, sell all that you possess, and give to the poor, and come, follow me." He who wants, he says, to attain the kingdom of heaven, let him pray day and night, keep vigil, fast, lie on a rush mat, not on a feather cushion, not on silk. Penance does not love luxuries. "For I ate ashes," he says, "like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping." "He who fashions toil in the commandment: they will hunt the soul of the righteous." See how it seems not to be consistent. For what is the logical connection: "He who fashions toil in the commandment: they will hunt the soul of the righteous"? But what the fleshly ear does not understand, the spiritual ear understands. What then does he say? "He who fashions toil in the commandment": therefore, he says, we toil in the commandments of the Lord day and night, we keep vigil, we pray, we fast, because we have many adversaries who hunt the soul of the righteous. See what he says: they hunt the soul of the righteous, not of the unrighteous. For they do not want to deceive those who have been deceived, but the righteous. Whence it is said in Habakkuk: "His food is choice." "And they shall condemn innocent blood." Some are accustomed to say: That man who was killed would not have been killed, unless he were a fornicator, or had had some sin; the collapse would not have overtaken him, unless he had been a sinner; the shipwreck would not have overwhelmed him, unless he had been a sinner. […]

"Wilt Thou have anything to do with the stool of iniquity, who makest sorrow in learning?" (ver. 20). He hath said this, No wicked man sitteth with Thee, nor shall Thou have anything to do with the stool of iniquity. And he giveth an account whereof he understandeth this, "For Thou makest sorrow in learning." For from this, because Thou hast not spared us, do I understand that Thou hast nothing to do with the stool of iniquity. Thou hast this in the Epistle of the Apostle Peter, and for this reason he hath adduced a testimony from the Scripture: "for the time is come," he saith, "that judgment must begin at the house of God;" that is, the time is come for the judgment of those who belong to the house of God. If sons are scourged, what must the most wicked slaves expect? For which reason he added: "And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God?" To which he added this testimony: "For if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" How then shall the wicked be with Thee, if Thou dost not even spare Thy faithful, in order that Thou mayest exercise and teach them? But as He spareth them not, for this reason, that He may teach them: he saith, "For Thou makest sorrow in learning." "Makest," that is, formest: from whence comes the word figulus (from fingo), and a potter's vessel is called fictile: not in the meaning of fiction, a falsehood, but of forming so as to give anything being and some sort of form; as before he said, "He that fabricated (finxit) the eye, shall He not see?" Is that, "fabricated the eye" a falsehood? Nay, it is understood He fashioned the eye, made the eye. And is He not a potter when He makes men frail, weak, earthly? Hear the Apostle: "We have this treasure in earthen vessels." ...Behold our Lord Himself, how He showeth Himself a potter. […]

Their dignity served to put a reputation upon sin, and their authority was employed to support it, and to bring about their wicked designs. It is a pity that ever a throne, which should be a terror to evil-doers and a protection and praise to those that do well, should be the seat and shelter of iniquity.

Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee,....