Tuesday, December 23, 2008

My soul doth magnify the Lord!



Mary is all heart; evidently her soul is on fire; while she muses, the fire burns; then she speaks with her tongue. May we, too, call home our wandering thoughts, and wake up our slumbering powers to praise redeeming love. It is a noble word that she uses here: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” I suppose it means, “My soul doth endeavor to make God great by praising him.” He is as great as he can be in his being; my goodness cannot extend to him; but yet my soul would make God greater in the thoughts of others, and greater in my own heart. I would give the train of his glory wider sweep; the light which he has given me I would reflect; I would make his enemies his friends; I would turn hard thoughts of God into thoughts of love. “My soul would magnify the Lord....”

It is as if she wanted to get more of God into her, like Rutherford, when he says, “Oh! that my heart were as big as heaven, that I might hold Christ in it;” and then he stops himself- “But heaven and earth cannot contain him. Oh, that I had a heart as big as seven heavens, that I might hold the whole of Christ within it.” Truly this is a larger desire than we can ever hope to have gratified; yet still our lips shall sing, “My soul doth magnify the Lord.”

From a sermon entitled "Mary's Song," delivered December 25, 1864. Image: Visitation by Mariotto Albertinelli (1503); in the public domain.

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