The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^8. He exults, rejoices, exhorts, he repeats those same verses in exhortation. “The earth has given her fruit”. What fruit? “Let all peoples confess to You.” Earth it was, of thorns it was full; there came the hand of One rooting them up, there came a calling by His majesty and mercy, the earth began to confess; now the earth gives her fruit. Would she give her fruit unless first she were rained on? Would she give her fruit, unless first the mercy of God had come from above? Let them read to me, you say, how the earth being rained upon gave her fruit. Hear of the Lord raining upon her: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He rains, and that same rain is thunder; it terrifies: fear thou Him thundering, and receive Him raining. Behold, after that voice of a thundering and raining God, after that voice let us see something out of the Gospel itself. Behold that harlot of ill fame in the city burst into a strange house into which she had not been invited by the host, but by One invited she had been called; called not with tongue, but by Grace. The sick woman knew that she had there a place, where she was aware that her Physician was sitting at meat. She has gone in, that was a sinner; she dares not draw near save to the feet: she weeps at His feet, she washes with tears, she wipes with hair, she anoints with ointment. Why do you wonder? The earth has given her fruit. This thing, I say, came to pass by the Lord raining there through His own mouth; there came to pass the things whereof we read in the Gospel; and by His raining through His clouds, by the sending of the Apostles and by their preaching the truth, the earth more abundantly has given her fruit, and that crop now has filled the round world.