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There is in ver. 10 a promise as to the fulness of the Divine gifts, which has a far wider reach and nobler application than to the harvests and granaries of old Palestine. We may take the words in that aspect, first, as containing God's pledge that these outward gifts shall come in unbroken continuity. And have they not so come to us all, for all these long years? Has there ever been a gap left yawning? has there ever been a break in the chain of mercies and supplies? has it not rather been that "one post ran to meet another"? that before one of the messengers had unladed all his budget, another's arrival has antiquated and put aside his store? "Things grown common lose their dear delight." "If in His gifts and benefits He were more sparing and close-handed," said Luther, "we should learn to be thankful." But let us learn it by the continuity of our joys, that we may not need to be taught by their interruption; and let us still all tremulous anticipation of possible failure or certain loss by the happy confidence which we have a right to cherish, that His mercies will meet our needs, continuous as they are, and be threaded so close together on the poor thread of our lives that no gap will be discernible in the jewelled circle. May we not apply that same thought of the unbroken continuity of God's gifts to the higher region of our spiritual experience? His supplies of wisdom, love, joy, peace, power to our souls, are always enough, and more than enough, for our wants. If ever men complain of languishing vitality in their religious emotions, or of a stinted supply of food for their truest self, it is their own fault, not His. He means that there should be no parentheses of famine in our Christian life. It is not His doing if times of torpor alternate with seasons of quick energy and joyful fulness of life. So far as He is concerned the fiery is uninterrupted, and if it come to us in jets and spurts like some intermittent well, it is because our own evil has put some obstacles to choke the channel and dam out His Spirit from our spirits. The source is full to overflowing, and there are no limits to the supply. The only limit is our capacity, which again is largely determined by our desire. So after all His gifts there is more yet unreceived to possess. After all His self-revelation there is more yet unspoken to declare. Great as is the goodness which He has wrought before the sons of men for them that trust in Him, there are far greater treasures of goodness laid up in the deep mines of God for them that fear Him. Bars of uncoined treasure and ingots of massy gold lie in His storehouses, to be put into circulation as soon as we need, and can use them.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

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KJV: If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

WEB: "'If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;