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 wilderness, and the forty days; but still more so, from the internal feature,--the fact that the Saviour, in order to show the tempter that He recognised in His own case a repetition of the stay in the wilderness, opposed Him with a passage taken from the _locus classicus_ concerning it, already quoted.--We now, moreover, cite the parallel passages which serve as an explanation of the passage under consideration, and as a confirmation of the explanation which we have given. The most important is Ezek. xx. 34-38: "And I bring you _out from the nations_, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out. And I bring you into the _wilderness of the nations_, and there will I plead with you face to face; like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead there with you, saith the Lord God.