Homilist Psalm 31:8 And have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: you have set my feet in a large room. They are not shut up within narrow limits, or indeed within any boundary line; their sphere is immeasurable. I. Their sphere affords ample play for their INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 1. Look at Nature. There is an ever-growing universe to study. There are volumes of truth in the smallest plant and the tiniest animalcule. 2. Look at the Bible. The Bible indeed is a "large room," its area of eternal principles transcends the limits of creation, and widens into the immensities. II. Their sphere affords ample play for their SOCIAL SYMPATHIES. The human heart was made, like the sun, to encompass the world with its genial and beneficient influences. III. Their sphere affords ample play for their VARIED ACTIVITIES. Activity is essential to our well-being; inaction is. death. In the "large room" in which Providence has placed us all, there is work enough to engage all our activities in such a way as to yield us perfect satisfaction. 1. This "room" contains work adapted to draw out all our faculties. Our happiness, — nay, our very existence, — would be incomplete were one of our faculties undeveloped. (1) In this "room" there is work for our intellectual natures. There is a universe to study. (2) In this "room" there is work for our social natures. We are all members of a social system numbering thousands, — some to draw out our compassions, some to excite our esteem, some to inspire our admiration, some to fill us with delight and joy. (3) In this "room" there is work for our religious natures. We are made be worship; and in this "room" there is unfolded, in ten thousand aspects of loveliness, an infinitely perfect God to worship. 2. This "room" contains work in which there is a perpetual freshness. We are so formed that monotony is not only distasteful to us, but distressing and saddening. But in this "room" there is fresh work for every fresh day. 3. This "room" contains work to which there is a perpetual promise. Man is an anticipating being. Work that does not terminate at death, because its grand purpose, the glory of God, runs into eternity. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.WEB: You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a large place. |
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