2. For the quieting of our fears —
[The two principal sources of disquietude to the soul are, a sense of our unworthiness to receive God's mercies, and of our insufficiency to do his will. Now both of these are entirely removed by a view of God's character as exhibited in the text. As he is a sovereign, he may bestow his grace, as he often has done, on the most unworthy ; he is most glorified by bestowing it on these very persons. And, as he is faithful, he may be safely trusted to accomplish his own promises, in his own time and way. Our weakness is no obstacle to him; it shall rather be an occasion of manifesting the perfection of his strength. Let us then commit ourselves into his hands ; and every per- fection he possesses shall be glorified in our salvation.]
x Deut. xxxii. 35. and xxix. 20. and Ezek. xxiv. 14. y Exod. xxxiv. 7. z ver. 11. a 1 Pet. ii. 9.
THE REASONS OF GOD's DIVERSIFIED DEALINGS WITH HIS
Deut. viii. 2, 3. And thou shall remember all the way whidi the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the tcilderness,
to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know ivhat was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee ivith manna, (which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know,) that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
AMONGST the various things which distinguish man from the brute creation, is that faculty which he possesses of grasping within his mind things past and future; and of deriving both from the one and the other the most powerful incentives to action. The consideration of things future is that which operates most upon the bulk of mankind : but men of thoughtful and comprehensive minds derive the most important lessons of wisdom from reflecting on the past: and it is this retrospective view of things which distinguishes one man from another, almost as much as a prospective view of them does an adult person from a child. Hence Moses was peculiarly solicitous to draw the attention of the Israelites to all those wonderful events which had taken place, from the period when he was first commissioned to effect their deliverance from Egypt, to that hour when they were about to enter into the promised land: and truly there never was such an eventful period from the foundation of the world, nor one so replete with instruction as that.
Two things in particular we notice in the words before us;
I. The diversified dealings of God with his people —
In the dealings of God with the Jews we see a mixture of mercy and of judgment. His mercies to them were such as never were vouchsafed to any other people. His interpositions by ten successive plagues in order to effect their deliverance from Egypt, their passage through the sea, their pre- servation from " serpents and scorpions in that great and terrible wilderness a;" their miraculous supplies of manna from the clouds, and of " water from the
a ver. 15.
197.1 OF GOD's DEALINGS WITH HIS PEOPLE. 301
rock of flint ;" the preservation of " their garments and of their shoes b from waxing old during the space of forty years," and of " their feet also from swelling/' notwithstanding the long journeys which at different times they were obliged to travel0; these, with in- numerable other mercies not specified in the text, distinguished that people above every nation under heaven.
But at the same time God saw fit occasionally to let them feel the difficulties with which they were encompassed. He suffered them on some occasions to be tried both with hunger and thirst ; and inflicted heavy chastisements upon them for their multiplied transgressions.