To be near unto God - pagina 266

about God, we worship him, and

his spiritual in the inner life of the soul. But is an altogether different matter when the it power of God is seen in the material, outward life. For it is in this that affliction makes a breach. It breaks it, and you see and feel and handle the

power

is

felt

power, that comes into the life from without, working havoc and distress. There is no power with us to face it. we discover that there

And is

in our powerlessness real power in God alone,

which great and strong is able to bring deliverance, and to repulse the evil that is arrayed against us. Thus life becomes an arena in which these destructive powers work against us and our God, and the saving power of God enters into the combat on our side. At first we continue to take part ourselves, but when it becomes most fierce, we are incapacitated, at length we become altogether passive, and we feel and perceive that God and his angels fight for our salvation. When they are snares of sin, by which Satan seeks to foil In us, this conflict is most exalted, most holy. the end we feel that all the angels and all the devils watch intently to see, what will gain the day in the soul; the power of sin or the power of God. This conflict maj' also bear an exalted character with sorrow in the outward life, as bj^ means of new affliction Satan seeks to do us harm, and when in the end. by God's help, w^e may sing of victory. For by this very struggle the soul learns to understand more fully than ever before, that in the thing which Satan brings upon us, the appointment of God's love is carried out; that it 262

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