But we may lose those whom we have loved by a separation far worse than that caused by death. This was a cross which almost crushed the spirit of Job: "My friends scorn me: my kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children's sake. All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me!" Where is the burden of family trial endured by a Christian now that can weigh in the balance against such a mountain of sorrow as this?
Is our cross that of sickness and pain? We behold Job suffering all the tortures which the malice of a fiend could inflict, stretched on the rack of most acute suffering, and that for no brief space of time: "I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat."
Nor were Job's sufferings those of the body alone: his was the wounded spirit, the tormented mind, oppressed with fear, with temptation, and with mysterious terrors: "Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions: so that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway! The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; which long for death, but it cometh not?" Truly the spirit of Job, as well as his tortured body, was clothed in the sackcloth of mourning!
The question naturally arises, "Why was so good a man as Job thus overwhelmed with affliction; almost, as it would seem, abandoned for a while to the malice of the Enemy? God had Himself said of Job, 'There is none like him on the earth, a perfect and an upright man.'"
It cannot be that Job was thus chastened only to show forth his patience in the sight of men and devils; great as was that patience, we know that it wavered in the trial. Nor do we suppose that Job's miseries were permitted only that he might be thoroughly humbled before God; still less that he suffered only that his history might be for the lasting instruction of the Church. All these advantages, indeed, followed; but the more we reflect on the subject, the more clearly we see that some great, personal, and lasting benefit must have accrued to Job from every pang that he endured. There was a proportion between his anguish and his subsequent joy. It is delicate ground on which we now enter: it would be a perilous error to hold that sorrow of itself sanctifies; that because a man suffers much here, he must necessarily rejoice hereafter. So is it a perilous error to hold that any good works of men's doing can ever earn Heaven.
But how clearly and forcibly the Rev. Mr. Arnot places before us the blessed effects of good works, not as a means of salvation, but as a precious evidence of grace! "As ciphers added one by one in an endless row to the 'left' hand of an unit are of no value, but on the 'right' hand rapidly multiply in power; so, although good works are of no avail to make a Christian, yet a Christian's good works are both pleasing to God and profitable to men."
So may it be with the sufferings which saints are called to endure—not self-inflicted pangs, but trials appointed by God. Numerous passages in Holy Writ lead us to such a conclusion: "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Yes; there is a mystery in suffering which we do not fully understand, nor perhaps ever will, until suffering is exchanged for bliss everlasting. Preeminence in pain appears to be connected with preeminence in glory. What was the answer of our Lord to those who asked for the highest places in Heaven? "Ye know not what ye ask. Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?" We cannot fathom the depth of meaning contained in the words that even He, the Captain of our salvation, was made "perfect through suffering," but we know that the cup which He drained was one of unutterable woe. The very description of the saints in bliss seems to be the fulfilment of the blessing on them that mourn: "These are they which came out of great tribulation." To them God hath appointed "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
The fearful afflictions of Job remind us of the saying, that God, like a human general, gives His best soldiers the most difficult post, places them under the hottest fire. There is a striking passage in the Book of Proverbs, which, it has been observed, makes a distinction between two metals, both precious, but one of nobler nature than the other: "The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold." Both are exposed to the heat of tribulation, but the furnace-glow, the hottest trial, is that which the gold undergoes. If it be indeed thus, how should long-continued prosperity exercise our humility as well as our gratitude! What the world regards as proofs of God's favour, may be rather signs of His indulgence for the weakness of His feebler saints! He keeps on easy garrison-duty those whose faith is not yet equal to the greater hardships and perils, to be followed by the greater glories, of the battlefield of life. What a high post of honour was assigned by Him to the veteran Job! We look upon his sackcloth as the warrior's uniform covered with decorations by the King of kings!
This view of the secret connection, in the case of the redeemed, between present pain and future pleasure, the "evil things" here, and the "good things" hereafter, throws some light on the otherwise almost inexplicable mystery of the sufferings of idiots and of infants. These sufferings can neither be chastenings for wilful sin nor exercises of patience, yet they are permitted by a God of love who "doth not afflict willingly." How solacing to the affection, how strengthening to the faith of parents witnessing the pangs of the innocent, to feel that, in some way that we understand not, God makes the seed sown in tears rise into the harvest of joy; that not one cry of pain from a baby's lips is uttered in vain!