The All-Supporting Nail

“The creatures hang upon God as a garinejit ttpoji a nail; take away the nail and the garment falls down. The emblem is simple but accurate. All the weight falls upon the nail, and all the need of the creature’s existence hangs upon the Omnipotent One. What power must he have from whom all power is derived! All that we see around us of force and might is but God in action. There is no such deity as “Nature”: nature is the Lord at work.

Do all things depend upon God? Then the law of faith is, after all, no novelty, no intrusion, no exception to general rule. A sort of passive faith is the life of all created things. Dependence is the faith of irrational objects, and the believer’s trust is this dependence gifted with eyes and will. It should then be an easy thing for my creature-life to hang upon its Creator. Had it not been for sin, faith would have been my very nature, dependence upon God a constituent quality of my existence. Who, then, are they that laugh at faith 1 Rationalists 1 Nay; irrational men, at war with one of nature’s first and most essential laws. Let them laugh on, for my heart is well assured that confidence in God is the highest reason, and trust in my Maker the finest common sense.

O Lord! I bless thee that the nail on which creation hangs can never fail, for thou faintest not; neither will my confidence be put to shame, for it hangs where hang the worlds. Till thou dost thyself cease from thine almightiness, my soul’s hope is safe beyond question, for it rests only upon thee.