destroyed, if God allowed this condition always to
continue; if by always putting on new fuel, if by uninterrupted proofs
of His love. He were to keep that fire burning continually. If the love
of the feelings and imagination is to become a cordial, thorough moral
love, it requires to be tried, in order that thus it may recognise
its own nothingness hitherto, and how necessary it is that it should
take deeper root. The means of this trial are God's afflicting us,
concealing Himself from us, leading us in a way different from that
which we expected, and, apparently, forsaking vis. But because He is
the merciful One who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are
able,--because He Himself has commanded us to pray, "Lead us not into
temptation," _i.e._, into such an one as we are not able to bear, and
would thereby become a temptation inwardly,--He makes His gifts to go
by the side of His chastisements. He who suffered Israel to hunger,
gave them also to eat. He who suffered them to thirst, gave them also
to drink. He who led them over the burning sand, did not suffer their
shoes to wax old. But this counterpoise to tribulation becomes, in
another aspect, a new temptation. As Satan tries to overthrow us by
pleasure as well as by pain; so God proves us by what He gives, no less
than by what He takes away. In the latter case, it will be seen whether
we love God _without_ His gifts; in the former, whether we love Him in
His gifts. This second station is, to many, the last; the bodies of
many fall in the wilderness. But while a multitude of individuals
remain there, the Congregation of God always passes over to the third
station,--the possession of Canaan. The state of temptation is, to her,
always a state of sifting and purification at the same time. That
which is to the individual a calamity, is to her a blessing.--That
we have thus correctly defined the nature and substance of the leading
through the wilderness, is confirmed by the temptation of Christ
also, which immediately succeeded the bestowal of the Spirit, which
again corresponded to the first love. That this temptation of Christ
corresponded to the leading through the wilderness--in so far as
it could do so in the case of Him who was tempted in all things,
yet without sin; while in our case, there is no temptation, even
when resisted [Pg 258] victoriously, that is without sin--appears
sufficiently from its two external characteristics, viz., the stay in
the wi