Chapter III

_God will not allow us to be tempted above our strength_, as He has graciously promised through St. Paul, who writes: “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will make also with temptation issue that you may be able to bear it” (I Cor. x, 13). This truth is strikingly illustrated by the history of Job, which is graphically told thus, in poetic language: “On a certain day, when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them. And the Lord said to him: Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, and fearing God and avoiding evil? And Satan answering said: Does Job fear God in vain? Hast thou not made a fence for him and his house, and all his substance round about, blessed the work of his hands, and his possession hath increased on the earth? But stretch forth thy hand a little, and touch all that he hath, and see if he blesseth thee not to thy face. Then the Lord said to Satan: Behold all that he hath is in thy hand, only put not forth thy hand upon his person.” He thus allowed Satan to deprive Job of his possessions, but not to go any further. We all know how Satan carried out this permission to the letter, and took away in one day all that Job enjoyed, his sons and daughters included, so that he exclaimed: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither, the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it hath pleased to the Lord so it is done,” and he added with perfect resignation: “Blessed be the name of the Lord” (i, 6-22). Next, Satan obtains power from God to afflict Job in his health, yet so as to spare his life; God controls all. “So Satan went forth from the face of the Lord, and struck Job with a very grievous ulcer, from the sole of the foot to the top of his head. And he took a potsherd, and scraped the corrupt matter, sitting on a dunghill. And his wife said to him: Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? bless God and die, and he said to her: Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women; if we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? In all these things Job did not sin with his lips” (ii, 7, 8).

Such is the grand example of patience that Job gave for all subsequent ages. After his trials were ended, the Lord rewarded him abundantly in his wealth and in the excellence of his later children; “and Job lived after these things a hundred and forty years, and he saw his children and his children’s children unto the fourth generation, and he died an old man and full of years.” In the New Law, in which we live, the rewards of patience are far more precious than those here mentioned in the case of Job; for “The sufferings of this time,” says St. Paul, “are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us” (Rom. viii, 18). And St. James writes: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptations; for when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life which God hath promised to them that love Him” (i, 12).