The lesser and the larger mercies.
This prayer includes the striking request, "Be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble." The words suggest the pertinent and not unprofitable question—Are we laid under greater obligation by the lesser mercies of God which we are continually receiving, or by the larger ones which we occasionally receive at his hands? We look at both—
I. THE LESSER MERCIES WE ARE CONTINUALLY RECEIVING. God is to us "our Arm every morning;" he is our support from day to day, from hour to hour; "in him we live and move and have our being." We may pass many days in which no striking or impressive mercy is bestowed upon us; but we pass no single hour, we spend no fleeting minute, in which some kindnesses do not come from his bountiful hand. Our indebtedness arising from these may be estimated when we consider:
1. Their regularity. The nature of God's kindnesses is commonly missed by reason of their regularity; they are referred to "law," as if law had any power, in itself, to originate or to sustain. Consequently, they are not traced, as they certainly should be, to the love and care of a Heavenly Father. But their value is immeasurably enhanced by their regularity. How much more "gracious unto us" is our God in that he is "our arm every morning!" in that we can confidently reckon on the morning light, on the evening shadows, on the incoming and outgoing tides, on the returning seasons, and can arrange and act accordingly, than if the Author of nature gave us his blessings irregularly, spasmodically, at such uncertain intervals that we could make no arrangements, and hold no permanent offices, and be in constant doubt as to whether or when our agency would be required!
2. Their constancy. We are leaning on God's arm continually. It is not merely a matter of frequency; it is not by a permissible hyperbole that the psalmist says, "the goodness of God endureth continually" (Psalms 52:1); nor is it without reason that he asks of God "that his loving-kindness and his truth may continually preserve him" (Psalms 40:11). Every year God is crowning with his goodness; he "daily loadeth us with benefits;" he is our arm every morning of our life; each night he lays his hand upon us in sleep and "restores our soul." We may well join in singing—
"The wings of every hour shall bear
Some thankful tribute to thine ear."
For on the wings of every passing hour come many mercies to our hearts and to our homes from the protecting and providing love of God; and we may go yet further and say, or sing, "Minutes came fast, but mercies were more fast and fleet than they." God's creative power gives us our life, and his constant visitation preserves our spirit (Job 10:12).
II. THE LARGER MERCIES WE SOMETIMES RECEIVE. God is" our salvation also in the time of trouble." The greatness of our indebtedness to him for these his larger, his especial and peculiar loving-kindnesses, we may estimate if we consider:
1. Their frequency. Though infrequent as compared with his constant favors, yet they are not infrequent in themselves, if we count them all—national, ecclesiastical, family, individual.
2. Their exceeding preciousness to us who receive them. Who can reckon the worth of one single deliverance from
3. Their costliness to the Divine Giver.
(a) taking this last thought into account, the special mercies of God do incalculably outweigh the constant ones;
(b) that together they constitute an overwhelming reason for worship, for obedience, for consecration;
(c) that we do well to appeal to God in earnest prayer for the special mercies we need, and to wait expectantly for them. "O Lord, be thou gracious unto us; we have waited for thee."—C.
A wise nation (Church).
These verses supply us with three features by which a nation or Church that is possessed of true wisdom will be characterized.
I. A PERVADING SENSE OF GOD—of his greatness, his power, his righteousness. "The Lord is exalted; he dwelleth on high; he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness." The result of the deliverance wrought by Jehovah would be the creation of this devout sentiment. The holy nation, the Church after the heart of its Divine Author, will strive to maintain this as an abiding, religious sense; it will cherish that feeling of reverential awe which fills the heart when the greatness of the Exalted One is realized, when the power of him that makes his judgments to be known is felt, when the righteousness of him who overturns iniquity is present to the mind. Well does it speak for the community, civil or sacred, when this sacred sense of God "hath filled" it from end to end, from the least to the greatest. This pervading conviction is, indeed, an essential thing; without it the most vehement protestations, the most honored creeds, the most ecstatic fervors, will soon be found to be as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."
II. A DEEP SENSE OF THE TRUE SOURCE OF STABILITY AND STRENGTH. "Wisdom and knowledge," etc. It has always been the case that communities have imagined that their stability and strength rested in things material and visible—in seas and mountains, in armies and navies, in lands and houses, in large numbers of men and women, in goods and grants. But all these things prove to be of no avail when there is inward rottenness, when disunion has crept into the state or into the Church, when the process of demoralization has set in so that it cannot be arrested. No external resources of any kind, however numerous or strong they may be, will save a society that is giving itself up to that which is false and foul. Its defeat and dissolution are only a question of years—or days. The true source of stability and of strength is in heavenly wisdom—that "knowledge" of God which means, not only a perception of the truth but a love of it, a delight in it, an acceptance of it as the one thing that will cleanse the heart, and that should regulate the life.
III. A RIGHT ESTIMATE OF PROSPERITY. "The fear of the Lord is his treasure." What is it that constitutes wealth or prosperity? According to the answer which we give to this question our spiritual position may be well determined. If we are indulging the illusion that our prosperity consists mainly in money, or in stocks, or in mines, or in acres; or if we seek for it in numbers, or in reputations, or in the patronage of the titled, and the strong, we are living in a "paradise of fools." "Surely our riches are not where we think, and the kind heart is more than all our store." Yes! and not simply the kind heart, but the pure heart, the heart