Judges 3:1

As useful as it is to me that you [the Lord] should leave me for a little while in order to test the steadfastness of my desire, so it is harmful if you let me be abandoned for too long because of my deserts and my sins. For no human strength will be able to endure by its own steadfastness if it is too long abandoned by your help in time of trial. Nor will it be able to give way instantly before the power and wherewithal of the adversary if you yourself, who are aware of human strengths and are the arbiter of our struggles, "do not permit us to be tried beyond our capacity, but with the trial also provide a way out, so that we may be able to endure."We read something like this as it appears in mystical fashion in the book of Judges with respect to the extermination of the spiritual nations that are opposed to Israel: "These are the nations that the Lord forsook, so that by them he might instruct Israel, so that they might grow accustomed to fighting with their enemies." And again, a little further on: "The Lord left them so that he might test Israel with them, whether or not they would hear the commandments of the Lord that he had laid down for their forefathers by the hand of Moses." God did not begrudge Israel their peace or look with malice upon them, but he planned this conflict in the knowledge that it would be beneficial. Thus, constantly oppressed by the onslaught of the nations, they would never feel that they did not need the Lord's help. Hence they would always meditate on him and cry out to him, and they would neither lapse into sluggish inactivity nor lose their ability to fight and their training in virtue. For frequently security and prosperity have brought low those whom adversities cannot overcome.

God's providence, Peter, in bestowing of his gifts, is wonderful: for often it falleth out, that upon whom he vouchsafeth the greater, he giveth not the less: to the end that always they may have somewhat to mis-like in themselves: so that desiring to arrive unto perfection and yet can not: and labouring about that which they have not obtained, and can not prevail: by this means they become not proud of those gifts which they have received, but do thereby learn that they have not those greater graces of themselves, who of themselves cannot overcome small faults. And this was the cause that, when God had brought his people into the land of promise, and destroyed all their mighty and potent enemies, yet did he long time after reserve the Philistines and Caananites, that, as it is written, "He might in them try Israel." For sometime as hath been said, upon whom he bestoweth great gifts, he leaveth some small things that be blameworthy, that always they may have somewhat to fight against, and not to be proud, though their great enemies be vanquished, seeing other adversaries in very small things do put them to great trouble: and therefore it falleth out strangely, that one and the self same man is excellent for virtue, and yet of infirmity sometime doth offend, so that he may behold himself on the one side strong and well furnished, and on another open and not defended: that by the good thing which he seeketh for, and is not able to procure, he may with humility preserve that virtue which already he hath in possession. But what wonder is it that we speak this concerning man, when as heaven itself lost some of his citizens, and other some continued sound in God's grace: that the elect Angels of God, seeing others through pride to fall from heaven, might stand so much the more steadfast, by how much with humility they preserved God's grace received? They, therefore, took profit by that loss which heaven then had, and were thereby made to persevere more constantly in God's service for all eternity. In like manner it fareth with each man's soul, which sometime for preserving of humility, by a little loss it attaineth to great spiritual perfection.