Wesley Corpus

4. If, then, we add to the littleness of man the inexpressible shortness of his duration, it is any wonder that a man of reflection should sometimes feel a kind of fear, lest the great, eternal, infinite Governor of the universe should disregard so diminutive a creature as man -- a creature so every way inconsiderable, when compared either with immensity or eternity Did not both these reflections glance through, if not dwell upon, the mind of the royal Psalmist Thus, in contemplation of the former, he breaks out into the strong words of the text: "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou has ordained, What is man, that thou shouldest be mindful; or the son of man, that thou shouldest regard him" He is, indeed, (to use St. Augustine's words,) aliqua portio creaturae tuae, "some portion of thy creation;" but quantula portio, "how amazingly small a portion!" How utterly beneath thy notice! It seems to be in contemplation of the latter, that he cries out in the hundred and forty-fourth Psalm, "Lord, what is man, that thou hast such respect unto him; or the son of man, that though shouldest so regard him" "Man is like a thing of naught." Why "His time passeth away like a shadow." In this, although in a very few places,) the new translation of the Psalms -- that bound up in our Bibles -- is perhaps more proper than the old, -- that which we have in the Common Prayer Book. It runs thus: "Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him; or the son of man, that thou makest account of him" According to the former translation, David seems to be amazed that the eternal God, considering the littleness of man, should have so much respect unto him, and should so much regard him: But in the latter, he seems to wonder, seeing the life of man "passeth away like a shadow," that God should take any knowledge of him at all, or make any account of him.