but also that higher lesson, so boldly expressed by the same poet, that in all God’s works, without exception, three attributes are seen united—
Fecemi la divina potestate,
La somma sapienza, e ’l primo amore.[[62]]
He is silenced, indeed, but only as with the poet of Paradise—
All’ alta fantasia qui mancò possa.[[63]]
The silence with which both these ‘vessels of election’ meet the Divine revelation is the silence of satisfaction, even though this be mingled with awe. Job has learned to forget himself in the wondrous creation of which he forms a part, just as Dante when he saw
La forma universal di questo nodo.[[64]]
Job cannot, indeed, as yet express his feelings; awe preponderates over satisfaction in the words assigned to him in xl. 4, 5. In fact, he has fallen below his better knowledge, and must be humbled for this. He has known that he is but a part of humanity—a representative of the larger whole, and might, but for his frailty, have comforted himself in that thought. God’s power and wisdom and goodness are so wondrously blended in the great human organism that he might have rested amidst his personal woes in the certainty of at least an indirect connection with the gentler manifestations of the ‘Watcher of mankind’ (vii. 20). This thought has proved ineffectual, and so the Divine Instructor tries another order of considerations. And, true enough, nature effects what ‘the still, sad music of humanity’ has failed to teach. Job, however, needs more than teaching; he needs humiliation for his misjudgment of God’s dealings with him personally. Hence in His second short but weighty speech ‘out of the tempest’ Jehovah begins with the question (xl. 8)—
Wilt thou make void my justice?
wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?