We are in England, and even more in Scotland, assailed with infidelity and attacks on scripture, the Free Church being specially [prominent] in retailing German infidelity. I have been reading thus these German books. It makes me more familiar with scripture, for there is not a text they have not scrutinized. But oh, what a difference! to dwell with God, and to be treating about the thoughts and cavils of men who do not know Prirs, and seek to get rid of Him. It is terrible; but only makes one feel the grace that has made us know Him by, and only by, the blessed revelation of Himself. Not a trace of anything -not an atom of the beauty of grace or a moral thought! And His word shines out in itself, as superior in its nature in it all, as the sun and all the beauties it displays to pitch darkness and a trackless marsh. Thank God, the desire to seek and search the word on the other hand, in those whose hearts God has touched, goes on freely too, and pretty widely God is working. But it is as a barrier—that is, it is warfare to the end: rest is elsewhere when this poor world will be over.
I have been interested lately in noticing that the desert is no part of God's purpose: it is of His ways. His purpose was redemption and glory in Christ, the second Man. But in the desert the old man and new are contrasted, are defined, and we learn God and learn ourselves. If you look at Ex. 3; 6 and 15, you will find nothing of the wilderness, but of Egypt and Canaan, or Edom and Moab conflict; in Deut. 8 plenty. Thence too the Lord made all His quotations in the wilderness. The Lord can take the thief straight to paradise. But then sin, the cross and the world, and the old and new man, were clearly defined and in their true colors. So we give thanks to the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. But we learn the wilderness by degrees. Hence even if perfect according to our light, all our dealings in it are imperfect. But God can, even so if He pleases, work by us, but it is He that gives the increase.... Peace be with you.
[1877.]