Though I speak, my grief is not relieved: and though I forbear, how am I eased?
Read Chapter 16
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
It is sometimes necessary that wicked minds, which are incapable of being corrected by human preaching, should have the comfort of God desired for them in a spirit of kindness; and while this is done with great earnestness in love, plainly not the punishment but the correction of the guilty person is the thing aimed at, and it is shown to be a prayer rather than a curse. In these words blessed Job is shown to aim at this, that the friends, who didn’t know how to sympathize with his grief through charity, might learn by experience how they ought to have pitied the affliction of another. Those subdued by grief may learn to draw from their own suffering a better way to minister consolation to others. They would then live ever more healthfully within as they are made more sensitive to frailty without. - "Morals on the Book of Job 13.5"
