Copiousness of God's Mercy
H. W. Beecher. Luke 1:46-55 And Mary said, My soul does magnify the Lord,… God's pity is not as some sweet cordial, poured in dainty drops from a golden phial. It is not like the musical water-drops of some slender rill, murmuring down the dark sides of Mount Sinai. It is wide as the whole scope of heaven. It is abundant as all the air. If one had art to gather up all the golden sunlight that to-day falls wide over all this continent, falling through every silent hour; and all that is dispersed over the whole ocean, flashing from every wave; and all that is poured refulgent over the northern wastes of ice, and along the whole continent of Europe, and the vast outlying Asia and torrid Africa — if one could in anywise gather up this immense and incalculable outflow and treasure that falls down through the bright hours, and runs in liquid ether about the mountains, and fills all the plains, and sends innumerable rays through every secret place, pouring over and filling every flower, shining down the sides of every blade of grass, resting in glorious humility upon the humblest things — on sticks, and stones, and pebbles — on the spider's web, the sparrow's nest, the threshold of the young foxes' hole, where they play and warm themselves — that rests on the prisoner's window, that strikes radiant beams through the slave's tear, that puts gold upon the widow's weeds, that plates and roofs the city with burnished gold, and goes on in its wild abundance up and down the earth, shining everywhere and always, since the day of primal creation, without faltering, without stint, without waste or diminution; as full, as fresh, as overflowing to-day as if it were the very first day of its outlay — if one might gather up this boundless, endless, infinite treasure, to measure it, then might he tell the height, the depth, and unending glory of the pity of God! The light, and the sun, its source, are God's own figures of the immensity and copiousness of His mercy and compassion. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, WEB: Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord.