Limitations of temporal protection.
The fact is patent. It demands consideration. God does not always give protection from bodily evils to his saints. On a house at Chester, that was spared in the time of plague, is the inscription, "God's providence is mine inheritance." But the man who lived there was not the only good man in Chester at the time. Other good men were not thus protected. Evidently the psalmist "accepts in all simplicity the belief in that which, but for sin and its consequences, would be the law of human life—that visible blessing, and obedience to the Supreme Ruler of the world, must always go together. To us the faith is rather that whatever betides us of outward fortune cannot touch the true life which is hid in God." What we need to see is that the psalmist asserts the ever working law, and leaves us to find the limitations and exceptions that arise in its practical working.
I. THE EVER WORKING LAW. Temporal good attends upon piety. The world is constructed and arranged to give this law a sphere. Just so far as natural relations are kept simple, the law does work. "Honesty is the best policy." Goodness does bring reward. Chastity does secure health. The fear of God does prove to he practical wisdom. The man of wise and restrained habits does stand the best chance in time of epidemic disease. The diligent in business do succeed. "Right is right." Right comes right. "Godliness has the promise of the life that now is."
II. THE EVER MANIFEST EXCEPTIONS. These occasion the distress of men like Asaph, who are too keen to detect the dark side of things. Righteous Job suffers. The wicked are in great power. The exceptions come through the disturbance of Divine arrangements by man's wilfulness and sin. He makes his law cross the Divine law. Then arises the necessity for modifications in the working of the Divine law.
1. The allegiance of the good must be tested.
2. The results of that testing must be used as persuasive example to others. The Book of Job really wrestles with this difficulty. The man who is "upright, fears God, and eschews evil" does not find himself protected from all harm. And yet it is still true, Job in trouble was abiding in "the shadow of the Almighty."—R.T.