ny possible Calvinistic falsehood, God Himself bears
the emphatic testimony, that 'there was none like him upon the earth, a
perfect and upright man, who feared God and eschewed evil.' If such a
person as this, therefore, could be made miserable, necessarily the
current belief of the Jews was false to the root; and tradition
furnished the fact that he had been visited by every worst calamity. How
was it then to be accounted for? Out of a thousand possible
explanations, the poet introduces a single one. He admits us behind the
veil which covers the ways of Providence, and we hear the accusing angel
charging Job with an interested piety, and of being obedient because it
was his policy. 'Job does not serve God for nought,' he says; 'strip him
of his splendour, and see if he will care for God then. Humble him into
poverty and wretchedness, so only we shall know what is in his heart.'
The cause thus introduced is itself a rebuke to the belief which, with
its 'rewards and punishments,' immediately fostered selfishness; and the
poem opens with a double action, on one side to try the question whether
it is possible for man to love God disinterestedly--the issue of which
trial is not foreseen or even foretold, and we watch the progress of it
with an anxious and fearful interest; on the other side, to bring out,
in contrast to the truth which we already know, the cruel falsehood of
the popular faith--to show how, instead of leading men to mercy and
affection, it hardens their heart, narrows their sympathies, and
enhances the trials of the sufferer, by refinements which even Satan had
not anticipated. The combination of evils, as blow falls on blow,
suddenly, swiftly, and terribly, has all the appearance of a purposed
visitation (as indeed it was); if ever outward incidents might with
justice be interpreted as the immediate action of Providence, those
which fell on Job might be so interpreted. The world turns disdainfully
from the fallen in the world's way; but far worse than this, his chosen
friends, wise, good, pious men, as wisdom and piety were then, without
one glimpse of the true cause of his sufferings, see in them a judgment
upon his secret sins. He becomes to them an illustration, and even (such
are the paralogisms of men of this description) a proof of their theory
that 'the prosperity of the wicked is but for a while;' and instead of
the comfort and help which they might have brought him, and which in the
end they were ma