This is that peace of God which we forfeit, only by displeasing Him.
Nor did he deem adversity and poverty useless situations to others. The
wish of the powerless is recorded, the intercessive prayer of the
indigent is offered to God by the Mediator, who observed and blessed the
scanty donation of the poor widow. Those angels, who wait around His
throne, serve the Most High, as acceptably as they who fly on his
messages. It was owing to too inordinate a love of the praise of men,
that people generally feared to spend their lives in a condition, where
no one thought their actions worth attending to.--We like the text, "Let
your light shine before men;" but we recoil from that which bids us be
content with the approbation "of Him who seeth in secret." These
commands were intended for different stations, one suited the affluent,
the other the needy, and they were, beside, limitations and comments on
each other, teaching us neither to contemn praise, nor to pursue it too
ardently. He spoke much of the passive virtues, patience, returning good
for evil (which the most indigent might do by remembering their enemies
in their prayers), self-denial, self-examination, and aspirations after
a better world.
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