Lamentations 3:38-39 Out of the mouth of the most High proceeds not evil and good?… We will on this subject meet at once the tenets of the boldest complainants. 1. It is asserted, then, by some, that, under all the circumstances of this life, they. cannot consider creation as a blessing, and cannot offer up thanksgivings for it; that, born into the world without their own consent, they have a right to the good things of it; that, although a distant heaven may be promised, yet, as a distant hell is also threatened, the hopes of the one are more than counterbalanced by the fears of the other; and that it would be better not to have been born, than to live so circumstanced. These are high words against your Maker. They proceed, he assured, either from ignorance of the true state of things, or from a mind perverted by some love of sin. When you complain of being born into the world without your own consent, it should seem that you consider yourself flung into it, by some blind necessity, or senseless chance. But is this the real state of things? You know it is not. From the moment of your birth, you became the care of an almighty, all-seeing, all-merciful God: in your progress through this world to that for which He graciously designs you, there is not a step in your path but you are surrounded by His presence, and upholden by His power! 2. But it is not, perhaps, under a distrust of the general providence of God that you look upon life as no blessing; but under a view of your own individual situation, as born, according to the scriptural representation of you, subject to misery and death. Had that curse upon your first parents, which subjected you to these calamities, left you under them; had the future generations of mankind been, from that awful hour, devoted unto wrath, anti forsaken, some excuse might be urged for pleading, — though even then with the deepest reverence of Omnipotence, — "Why hast Thou made me thus?" But search the Scriptures, and see whether such pleading will bear you out. Earth at one and the same time heard the denunciation of death, and the promise of redemption. Man was to be gradually fitted for that heaven, which, from the first, was designed him. The care of Omnipotence was thenceforth exerted in preparing the world for the coming of Him, in whom the nations of the earth were to be finally blessed. 3. Now, had Adam never fallen, or had it been ordained you to live with him in his early days of innocence and peace; had it been your lot, after a few years thus sojourning in peace in the garden of Eden, to have been removed from the shadows of this world to the realities of a better; will you say that creation would have been no blessing to you? that it would be nothing to have been brought from the dust of the earth into the everlasting fruition of spiritual bliss? I will not degrade your reason by thinking it capable of harbouring a thought so low and so unworthy. Well, then, if a spiritual immortality be deemed a blessing, what is there in the trials and sorrows of this life to check your aspirings after it? Shall the land of your inheritance be given up, because a boisterous Jordan rolls before you, and the sons of Anak must be struggled with? I would require you, with the book of revelation in your hand, to descend into your heart; to mark its pride, its sensuality, its worldly-mindedness, and vanity; and would urge you to say whether anything was ever more weak, more earthy, less fitted to mingle with the saints in light! You will plead that this pride and vainly proceed from a corruption inherent in your nature; and that their existence is no fault of yours. But it is your fault that they are not corrected. The Almighty has promised His everlasting Spirit to them that ask it. You have not asked it as you ought. Why, then, should a living man complain, — man for the punishment of his sins? 4. We may go yet farther, and even ranking you among those whose errors are the most venial, and omissions of duty the fewest, may ask you whether you ever felt real cause for lasting repining at the occasional mixture of evil with your good. Indeed, the nearer you approach to fulness of obedience, and to a perfect love of God, the more thankful you will be for those warnings which tend to estrange you from the things of earth. Consider, therefore, this world m its true nature; consider it as a scene of preparation for another: that no state is so dangerous as undisturbed prosperity; that, during our continuance here, we must be purified to qualify us for perfect happiness in the presence of God: that such purification must be effected by triads and temptations; and that trials and temptations necessarily suppose troubles and afflictions. Let these considerations take place in the mind, and, at the brightness before them, clouds and darkness shall disperse, doubts and difficulties shall vanish away. (G. Mathew, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?WEB: Doesn't evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High? |
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