February 28

"He was the greatest man in the east." But his estate would never have been noticed, had he possessed nothing else: a man is nothing the more to God for the number of his sheep, oxen, and asses. "The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his mercy." But he was as good as he was great; and his accuser was told that he was "a perfect and an upright man." Yet we should have known nothing of his moral and spiritual worth but for his afflictions. His calamities were his trial, and his triumph: these have filled the earth with his renown. Many names in the book of martyrs would have perished in oblivion but for the sufferings that raised and immortalized them. The servants of God are never so remarked, so impressive, so useful, as when they are called forth by trouble to be his witnesses, and to glorify him in the fires: and little do they frequently imagine what personal and relative, what public and remote consequences may result from their enduring. What would Joseph have been, what would he have done, but for the persecutions and hardships through which he rose to eminence, influence, and fame? And thus you have heard of the patience of Job—

—Not his insensibility. Patience is not stoicism. There is no patience in a stone: there is no virtue in bearing what we do not feel. Job is never senseless under his woes. When he said, "My friends scorn me," he adds, "but mine eye poureth out tears unto God." With what earnestness does he call for commiseration! "Pity me, pity me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me." And when he heard of all the evil that had come upon him, "he rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground, and worshipped." You have heard of the patience of Job—

—Not his impatience. And yet he cursed the day of his birth, and prayed for death, and said, I loathe it, I would not live always. O that Thou wouldst hide me in the grave! There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary are at rest. But not a word of this is here mentioned. No. He had repented of it, and it had been forgiven him: and the sins and iniquities of his people God remembers no more. No. It was not the display of his habitual disposition; but a partial and temporary emotion, issuing not from his principles, but against them. And does not this omission of his fault by an Apostle teach us—That a man is to be judged of by his general character and conduct?—That we should be peculiarly lenient towards a person in great sufferings; when by the violence of the storm, reason and religion for a moment may be upset; and in the anarchy, nature involuntarily utters things which grace will afterwards be sure to condemn?—Yea, that we should always speak of our brethren with candour and kindness. The wicked watch only for their halting; they would make them offenders for a word; they overlook a thousand good things, and greedily seize upon a single failing, and magnify this into a crime—But charity covereth a multitude of sins. It will allow and require us indeed to be severe towards ourselves; but it will induce us to make the best of things in others, not only because from our infirmities we may need the same tenderness, but that we may be followers of the God of all grace. Yes,