To be near unto God - pagina 98

proach, that they have so long ignored him, adds to the terror of their fears.

But this apprehension of dread affects the godly man most strongly when faith fails him, and God momentarily lets him go. Then it seems that God loosens his hold on the soul and at the same time tightens his hold more firmly on the body. A man like Job could not think of anything that did not come to him from God. He had long enjoyed the peace of God which passeth all understanding. And when the evil day came and loss followed loss, he could only consider them as so many arrows from the bow of divine displeasure to grieve and mortally to wound him. And because Job was inwardly At first he pious, it could not end with this. thought that God in anger stood far off, and with arrow upon arrow wounded him from the distance. But he perceives that God comes to him, and at length personally attacks him. And when he feels that God has come upon him, as man against man, that He attacks him and is ready to throw him, his fear becomes more striking. A tyrant attacking Job and overcoming him in order to render him helpless, might at most put his feet in stocks. Now that God attacks him, this can not be the end. He perceives that God not only faces him and attacks him from without, but that by his Almighty power God enters into his inmost soul, goes through him altogether, until at length he feels himself penetrated to his feet, even to the roots of his feet by the Almighty One, and crushed beneath the weight of His anger. Only they who are truly pious can suffer this mortal agony. Divine anger can only be felt in 90

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