Moreover, we are not at all persuaded that there is so very much evil in us. We do not know ourselves. Our convictions of sin have been but shallow, and we are beginning to ima- gine that the conflict between the flesh and the spirit, is not so very fierce and deadly as we had conceived it to be. We think we have got quit of many of our sins entirely, and are in a fair way for speedily getting quit of all the rest. The depths of sin in us we have never sounded ; the number of our abomina- tions we have never thought of marking. We have been sailing smoothly to the kingdom, and perhaps at times were wondering how our lot should be so different from the saints of old.
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We thought too that we had got the better of many of our corruptions. The old man was crucified. It seemed dead, or at least feigned itself to be so in order to deceive us. Our lusts had abated. Our tempers had im- proved. Our souls were calm and equable. Our mountain stood strong, and we were say- ing " we shall never be moved." The victory over self and sin seemed, in some measure, won. Alas, we were blind ! We were pro- foundly ignorant of our hearts.
Well, the trial came. It swept over us like a cloud of the night, or rather through us like an iceblast, piercing and chilling us to the vi- tals. Then the old man within us awoke, and, as if in response to the uproar without, a fiercer tempest broke loose within. We felt as if the four winds of heaven had been let loose, to strive together upon the great deep within us. Unbelief arose in its former strength. Rebelliousness raged in every re- gion of our soul. Unsubdued passions re- sumed their strength. We were utterly dis- mayed at the fearful scene. But yesterday, and this seemed impossible. Alas, we know not the strength of sin, nor the evil of our
f:
THE PROVING. 89
hearts, till God thus allowed them to break loose.
!lt was thus he dealt with Israel ; and for ,his end he led them into the desert. " The Lord thy God led thee forty years in the wil- derness to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart."* Their desert-trials put them to the proof. And when thus proved, what iniquity was found in them ! What sin came out which had lain hidden and unknown before ! The trial did not create the evil ; it merely brought out what was there already, unnoticed and unfelt, like a torpid adder. Then the heart's deep fountains were broken up, and streams of pol- lution came rushing out, black as hell. Re- bellion, unbelief, fretfulness, atheism, idola- try, self-will, self-confidence, self-pleasing, — all burst out when the blast of the desert met them in the face, and called Egypt to remem- brance with its luxurious plenty. Thus they were proved.
Even so it is with the saints still. God chastens them that he may draw forth the evil that is lying concealed and unsuspected within. The rod smites us on the tenderest
* Deut. vii. 2. 8*
00 THE PROVING.
part, and we start up in a moment as if in arms against God. The flesh, the old man, is cut to the quick, and forthwith arouses itself, displaying, of a sudden, much of its former strength. When it was asleep we did not know its power, but now that it has been wa- kened up, its remains of strength appal us.
It is not till the sea is " troubled," that " its waters cast up mire and dirt." When all was calm, there seemed naught but purity per- vading it, and ripple folded over ripple in the still brightness of its transparent green. But the winds break loose, the tempest stirs its lowest depths, and then all is changed. Thus we see it in the saints. When calamity breaks over them like a tempest, then the hid- den evils of their hearts awake. Sins scarcely known before, display themselves. The heart pours out its wickedness. Hard thoughts of God arise. Atheistical murmurings break out, and refuse to be restrained. Question- ings both of his wisdom and of his love are muttered ; yea, how often do they assume a more explicit form, and we ask if God be so loving and wise, why is it thus ? We could not have expected such treatment at his hands. Distrust and unbelief assume the mastery,
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and we refuse to acquiesce in his will. It seems hard to be smitten so severely, and laid so low. For a while it seems as if the heart were determined to think evil thoughts of God and never to think well of him again. And, though a calm ensues and we become both ashamed and terrified at our rebelliousness, still the heart has given forth its pollution. We have learned its unsearchable depths of evil. We are led on the one hand into deeper views of our own amazing and incredible vile- ness ; and on the other into fuller discoveries of the abounding grace of God. We learn to prize more the open fountain, and we betake ourselves anew for covering to the righteous- ness of the Righteous One.