Witsius:
1)
(2) When the produce which the earth,
through the divine blessing, has yielded, is bestowed on individuals,
and is possessed by them in their barns, in their houses, and at their
tables. Those blessings are actually bestowed by God on individuals when
they enjoy them, not as the bread of slothfulness, or of covetousness,
or of deceit, or of robbery,–but when his providence enables them to
obtain them by a just title. Those who possess them in any other way
cannot be said to have them as a gift from God, bit as the fruits of
wicked robbery. “The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou gives them
their meat in due season. Thou opens thine hand, and satisfies the
desire of every living thing.”
(3) When he bestows all those things on believers, not from the ordinary love which he bears to mankind,1
but from a Fatherly love which he regards them in Christ. When the
smallest crumb of bread, or drop of cold water, is bestowed, it becomes
inconceivably preferable to all the delicacies of the rich. When those
things are enjoyed as the earnest of better and heavenly blessings, “a
little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many
wicked.” Herman Witsius, Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer, (Escondido,
California: The den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1994), 278. [Some
spelling modernized; footnote value modernized; footnote content
original; and underlining mine.]
2)
XCV. Further, we should ascend by the
creatures, as be an erect ladder, to God the Creator; who exhibits
himself in them, not only to be seen, but also to be felt.2–whose glory the heavens declare,3 and to whom the brute animals of the earth, and the dumb fishes of the sea, bear witness, that they proceeded from his hand.4
XCVI. Nor is a general acknowledgment of
this sufficient. But those perfections of God which he has brightly
displayed in the work of creation, ought to be particularly
observed:–that the infinite Power, at whose command all things rose into
existence:–that unbounded Goodness, to which alone the creatures must
own themselves entirely indebted for whatever portion of good is in
them:–that unsearchable Wisdom, which has arranged every thing in so
beautiful and order, that it appears no less admirable in the last than
in the greatest works:–that amazing Philanthropy, in fine, which he has shown towards man,
not only adorning his body by so exact a proportion of all its parts,
which has beyond measure astonished Hippocrates and other anatomists;
but also suspending his soul, as in the hidden vault of the temple, an
image of himself and a representation of his own holiness; and at the
same time, granting him dominion over the rest of the creatures. Herman
Witsius, Dissertations on the Apostles’ Creed, (Escondido,
California: The den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1994), 224-225. [Some
spelling modernized; footnote value modernized; footnote content
original; and underlining mine. [the "mine" there is David Ponter's underlining, not my underlining--CD]
______________________1Philantropia
2Acts xvii. 27.
3Ps. xix.1.
4Job xii.9.
SOURCE
