Luke 1:46-55 And Mary said, My soul does magnify the Lord,… When Mary speaks here of her soul and her spirit, she means to describe exhaustively the whole inward immaterial being of man — its higher and its lower elements — the seat of reason and personality, as well as the seat of affection; that which we have in common with the lower animals, as well as that which distinguishes us from them as immortal beings. The whole inward being, she says, enters on this work of joyful praise — soul and spirit alike. And the reason is that the human soul is so constructed that contact, real contact, with God affords it the highest pleasure, of which such language as Mary's is the natural, the unexaggerated, expression. Without God, man, viewed on the highest side of his nature, is but a spent force — incomplete, inexplicable. With God, he attains the complement, the explanation, of his mysterious being. These words express — I. THE SATISFACTION WHICH MAN'S REASON EXPERIENCES AT CONTACT WITH GOD. God satisfies some of the deepest yearnings of our intellectual nature, e.g. — 1. The desire to find some common principle and comprehensive law explaining seeming irregularities. 2. The desire to know the real causes of things. II. THE SATISFACTION WHICH GOD YIELDS TO THE AFFECTIONS OR EMOTIONS. 1. The emotion of awe. God alone is great in Himself, distancing all possible competition. 2. The love of beauty. 3. Filial affection. III. SATISFACTION TO THE CONSCIENCE. God supports and justifies conscience. He gives to conscience basis, firmness, consistency. He relieves its anxieties. He reconciles by a fuller revelation its questionings about Himself. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, |
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