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fatherly chastisements, Deu 8:5; Pro 3:12; Heb 12:6, Rev 3:19, comp. Tob. 12:13 (Vulg.). But this general distinction between the sufferings of the righteous and of the ungodly is not sufficient for the book of Job. The sufferings of the righteous even are themselves manifold. God sends affliction to them more and more to purge away the sin which still has power over them, and rouse them up from the danger of carnal security; to maintain in them the consciousness of sin as well as of grace, and with it the lowliness of penitence; to render the world and its pleasures bitter as gall to them; to draw them from the creature, and bind them to himself by prayer and devotion. This suffering, which has the sin of the godly as its cause, has, however, not God's wrath, but God's love directed towards the preservation and advancement of the godly, as its motive: it is the proper disciplinary suffering (מוּסר or תּוכחת, Pro 3:11; παιδεία, Heb 12). It is this of which Paul speaks, 1Co 11:32. This disciplinary suffering may attain such a high degree as entirely to overwhelm the consciousness of the relation to God by grace; and the sufferer, as frequently in the Psalms, considers himself as one rejected of God, over whom the wrath of God is passing. The deeper the sufferer's consciousness of sin, the more dejected is his mood of sorrow; and still God's thoughts concerning him are thoughts of peace, and not of evil (Jer 29:11). He chastens, not however in wrath, but בּמשׁפּט, with moderation (Jer 10:24).
Nearly allied to this suffering, but yet, as to its cause and purpose, distinct, is another kind of the suffering of the godly. God ordains suffering for them, in order to prove their fidelity to himself, and their earnestness after sanctification, especially their trust in God, and their patience. He also permits Satan, who impeaches them, to tempt them, to sift them as wheat, in order that he may be confounded, and the divine choice justified, - in order that it may be manifest