And ye shall know that I [am] in the midst of Israel, and [that] I [am] the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.
Ver. 27. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel] These temporal blessings shall seal up my love to you and presence of grace with you. True it is that no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them, Ecclesiastes 9:1; because all things come alike to all, Joel 2:2. But yet from this text we may comfortably conclude, that if the good things of this life make us more cheerful, thankful, hopeful; if mercy excite us to duty, and the sense of God's love make us love God, his ways, and people, with a desire to love them more; then we are loved of God, who is in us of a truth, 1 John 4:10; 1 John 4:19, and we may know it too. For if instinct of nature teach dams to know their young ones, and the young their dams, shall not God's Spirit teach us to know him, that he is in the midst of us, not by his omnipresence only, but by his gracious presence? yea, that he is the Lord our God, and none else; and that while we hold us to this anchorhold of the faithful soul, we shall never be ashamed, Psalms 31:1. That was a brave speech of Luther, and one of those that a man would fetch upon his knees from Rome or Jerusalem to be author of them, Ipse videret ubi anima mea mansura sit, qui pro ea sic solicitus fuit, ut vitam pro ea posuerit, Let him see to it where my soul shall rest, who took so much care for it as that he laid down his life for it (Joh. Manl. loc. com.).