Verily, verily, God is great, and
man is small. I do not say that this was a miracle in the common
meaning of the word; but I do say that this was a striking instance
of that everlasting and special providence of the living God, who
ordereth all things in heaven and earth, from the rise of a nation
to the fall of a sparrow; and does so, not by breaking his own laws,
but by making his laws work exactly as he will, when he will, and
where he will; and I say that it is a fresh proof of the great
saying, that no man can see a thing unless God shows it to him. For
it is the Lord who gives us power to get wealth. It is he that hath
made us, and not we ourselves; and in him we live and move, and have
our being.
This, then, was what Moses commanded--to remember that they owed all
to God. What they had, they had of God's free gift. What they
were, they were by God's free grace. Therefore they were not to
boast of themselves, their numbers, their wealth, their armies,
their fair and fertile land. They were to make their boast of God,
and of God's goodness.
He that gloried was to glory in the Lord, and confess that a Syrian
ready to perish was their father Jacob, when the Lord had mercy on
him, and made him the head of a great tribe, and the father of a
great nation; that not themselves, but God had brought them out of
Egypt with signs and wonders; that they got not the land in
possession by their own bow, neither was it their own sword that
helped them, but that God had driven out before them nations greater
and mightier than they.
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