Matthew Henry! That deluded old fart was one of a kind! I bolded just one paragraph because this is what he does throughout his meandering bible commentary. He makes me chuckle out loud in a sad sort of way. He can go to the meanest and most ignorant parts of scripture and knit a tapestry of virtue and justice! He was one deluded old bastard but he knew more about his delusions than ten thousand Bakers or Swaggarts or Robertsons! If this fellow had wrote the bible nobody would have been able to track the contradictions, absurdities, and sheer nonsense! It might have stood for 3000 years beyond Paul! As it is, it has had a good run--but will be pretty much tribal once again within another century.
"What it is that leads him to admire the condescending favour of God to man it is his consideration of the lustre and influence of the heavenly bodies, which are within the view of sense ( Psalm 8:3): I consider thy heavens, and there, particularly, the moon and the stars. But why does he not take notice of the sun, which much excels them all? Probably because it was in a night-walk, but moon-light, that he entertained and instructed himself with this meditation, when the sun was not within view, but only the moon and the stars, which, though they are not altogether so serviceable to man as the sun is, yet are no less demonstrations of the wisdom, power, and goodness of the Creator. Observe, 1. It is our duty to consider the heavens. We see them, we cannot but see them. By this, among other things, man is distinguished from the beasts, that, while they are so framed as to look downwards to the earth, man is made erect to look upwards towards heaven. Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri jussit--To man he gave an erect countenance, and bade him gaze on the heavens, that thus he may be directed to set his affections on things above for what we see has not its due influence upon us unless we consider it. 2. We must always consider the heavens as God's heavens, not only as all the world is his, even the earth and the fulness thereof, but in a more peculiar manner. The heavens, even the heavens, are the Lord's ( Psalm 115:16) they are the place of the residence of his glory and we are taught to call him Our Father in heaven. 3. They are therefore his, because they are the work of his fingers. He made them he made them easily. The stretching out of the heavens needed not any outstretched arm it was done with a word it was but the work of his fingers. He made them with very great curiosity and fineness, like a nice piece of work which the artist makes with his fingers. 4. Even the inferior lights, the moon and stars, show the glory and power of the Father of lights, and furnish us with matter for praise. 5. The heavenly bodies are not only the creatures of the divine power, but subject to the divine government. God not only made them, but ordained them, and the ordinances of heaven can never be altered. But how does this come in here to magnify God's favour to man? (1.) When we consider how the glory of God shines in the upper world we may well wonder that he should take cognizance of such a mean creature as man, that he who resides in that bright and blessed part of the creation, and governs it, should humble himself to behold the things done upon this earth see Psalm 113:5,6. (2.) When we consider of what great use the heavens are to men on earth, and how the lights of heavens are divided unto all nations ( Deuteronomy 4:19; Genesis 1:15), we may well say, "Lord, what is man that thou shouldst settle the ordinances of heaven with an eye to him and to his benefit, and that his comfort and convenience should be so consulted in the making of the lights of heaven and directing their motions!" |
