The liberal man will ever be rich; for God’s providence is his estate, God’s wisdom and power are his defence, God’s love and favour are his reward, and God’s word is his security.—Barrow.
The liberal soul is made fat in the healthful vigour of practical godliness. The minister is refreshed by his own message of salvation to his people. The Sunday-school teacher learns many valuable lessons in the work of instruction. The Christian visitor’s own soul glows in carrying the precious name of Jesus to a fellow-sinner. Every holy temper, every spiritual gift, every active grace is increased by exercise.—Bridges.
Give, and thou shalt receive. John Howard, when he grew sad about his piety, put on his hat and went about among the poor. He came back a gainer. He diverted his mind from his own interests, and yet promoted them in a higher assurance. Religion being benevolence, as well as a love of holiness, doing good to others is a philosophic way of ripening it in ourselves. Verse 24 has its Poor Richard phrase as well as a higher one. Being “penny wise and pound foolish” is understood even in our shops. But the grand sense is evangelical. “Inserviendo allius consumor” may be true of poor impenitents, but a candle is no emblem for a Christian. He is a glorious sun who, by some strange alchemy, brightens by shining. Watereth refers to the ground, or to animals. “Giving plenty to drink” is the meaning of the word as applied to man.—Miller.
Wherefore doth the Lord make your cup run over, but the other men’s lips might taste the liquor? The showers that fall upon the highest mountains should glide into the lowest valleys.—Secker.
Man is God’s image, but a poor man is
Christ’s stamp to boot; both images regard.
God reckons for him, counts the favour His:
Write, so much given to God; thou shalt be heard.
Let thy alms go before, and keep heaven’s gate
Open for thee, or both may come too late.
The last clause of ver. 25 is literally he that raineth shall himself become a river. The water that falls in refreshing and fertilising irrigation is not lost, but becomes a fair stream. So the bounty of the liberal man, which rains down blessings, will flow on for ever in a beautiful river.—Wordsworth.
The well-being of all is concerned in the right working of each. One necessarily affects for good or evil all the rest in proportion to the closeness of its relations and the weight of its influence. You draw another to keep him from error: that other’s weight which you have taken on keeps you steadier in your path. You water one who is ready to wither away; and although the precious stream seems to sink into the earth, it rises to heaven and hovers over you, and falls again upon yourself in refreshing dew. It comes to this, if we be not watering we are withering.—Arnot.
Poor men are not excluded from the grace and blessing of being merciful, though they attain not to the state and ability of being wealthy. Mercy is not placed with money in the purse, but dwelleth with loving-kindness in the heart. He that can mourn with such as do mourn, he that can pray for them that be in distress, has a “soul of blessing.”—Dod.
St. Gregory applieth the words particularly unto ministers and saith, He that by preaching doth outwardly bless, receiveth the fatness of inward increase. And to this sense the Chaldee reads it, saying, “He that teacheth shall himself also learn.” And then the former part of the verse may be taken thus, the soul that bestoweth abroad the blessings of a wise instruction shall profit much in his wisdom, according to a common saying among the Jews, “I have profited more by my scholars than by all things else.”—Jermin.
Bounty is the most compendious way to plenty; neither is getting, but giving, the best thrift. The five loaves in the Gospel, by a strange kind of arithmetic, were multiplied by a division and augmented by subtraction. So will it be in this case. St. Augustine, descanting upon Psa. lxxvi. 5, says, “Why is this?” “They found nothing in their own hands, because they feared to lay up anything in Christ’s hands.” “The poor man’s hand is Christ’s treasury,” saith another Father.—Trapp.