Thou art He that took me out of the womb.
David’s acknowledgment of God’s goodness
1. He takes notice of common mercies. Such mercies as most men are partakers of. To come safe and sound into the world, and to be persuaded and sustained in it, they are such things as most men have allotted and vouchsafed unto them. But there are very few who are sensible of common mercies,--such is the corruption of our nature and our base ingratitude.
2. He acknowledges ancient mercies. He remembers those mercies which another would have forgotten. The mercies of his infancy and childhood and younger years. We should remember both temporal and spiritual mercies.
3. He remembers primitive or original mercies. Those mercies which he had at first, in the very entrance or beginning of his life when he first came into the world, and were likewise the ground and foundation of all the rest. It is with mercies as with judgments, one makes way for another, and the first is so much the more considerable as it induces and brings in the rest.
4. He takes notice of constant mercies. Those which were continued to him from the first moment of his being till now, through the whole course of his life to this present. He takes notice of the goodness of God to him in the full latitude and extent of it. See now the specification of the several particulars.
(1) The blessings of the womb, in his birth and first coming into the world.
(2) The blessings of the breast, in his nursery and first sustentation in the world.
(3) The blessing of the cradle, in the tutelary care of his orphanage and desolate condition.
(4) The blessings of the covenant, in the continued and mutual interest which he had in God and God in him. (T. Horton, D. D.)
Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.--
On the nature and influence of hope
To a contemplative mind nothing will suggest more powerful inducements, perhaps, for adoring the wisdom and the goodness of God than a distinct consideration of the many faculties, passions, and propensities with which a human creature is furnished. Exposed to various evils; encompassed with manifold infirmities; subject to pain and labour, to poverty, disease, and death, we might soon feel life a burden unless there were some pervading principle which seems to connect us with futurity, and bids us forget our past calamities and our present sorrows in the bright prospects that are to come. Hence by the goodness of God we are all possessed of that lasting and universal passion, Hope. Now let us consider--
I. Its nature and influence. It enters largely into every man’s system of happiness, whether they be prosperous or afflicted. It is the spring of men’s conduct, the end of their life. It keeps his soul alive within him, invigorates his faculties, purifies his passions, and directs the exertions both of his mind and body to their proper objects.
II. By what principles to regulate it. A passion so general, and that has such an influence on the sum of life, cannot be too carefully regulated nor disciplined to its proper objects. In this, as in most other cases of moral and religious duty, the folly and the danger of extremes should be avoided. The happy medium, which we should all labour to attain on the present occasion, lies equally remote from silly and extravagant expectations,--from sluggish indifference and helpless despondency, or the dead calm of insensibility. The one is apt to lead to every kind of excess, and to end in misery and disappointment; the other disqualifies us for fulfilling the duties of life, and is, in fact, the destruction or subversion of every virtue.
III. The objects to which it should be directed. These are to be found in the blessed future world. (J. Hewlett, B. D.)
The meaning of hope as an instinct of the soul
The text is a strong figure intended to express the idea that hope is an inbred sentiment of the soul. The body, it is true, may exist without the eye, but in a very incomplete state. And there are emaciated souls, souls with deadened senses and broken faculties. But hope is yet an instinct keeping the face of the soul ever towards the future. Now, this instinct--
I. Implies the goodness of God in the constitution of our nature. For it is one of the chief blessings of humanity.
1. It is one of the most powerful impulses to action.
2. It is one of the chief elements of support under trial. Hope buoys us up beneath the load; gives us a steady anchorage amid the fiercest surgings of the storm.
3. It is a source of joy. The joys of memory and the pleasures of the passing hour are not to be compared with the joys of hope.
II. Suggests a future state of existence. It may not prove such existence, but it does much in that direction. For--
1. Analogy supports it. All our senses and appetites have provision made for them--light for the eye, sounds for the ear, etc. And so in our social relations.
2. The Divine goodness leads to belief in it.
III. Means that progress in blessedness is the law of our being. Hope points not only to the future, but to good in the future.
IV. Shows the fitness of Christianity to human nature. For--
1. It reveals eternal blessedness; and--
2. Supplies means of its attainment which are both soul pacifying and purifying.
V. Indicates the congruity of the religious life with our nature. Therefore, if we quench this hope midnight reigns; and sin tends to do this. (D. Thomas, D. D.)