Now all through the ministry of Isaiah the prophet is con- fronted with a mean and impoverished conception of God. And to this impoverishment he traces the national degradation. The popular conception was weak and effeminate, and that in two
^ R. J. Campbell, City Temple Sermons, p. 200. 413
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ways. First, it fatally limited the Lord's presence. He was here, but not there. The boundary of their country marked the out- skirts of His dominion. There is no more pathetic cry arises from the realms of the exile than the cry which implies that God is far away. They have left Him behind in the homeland ! When they lost their home they lost their heaven ! And then, in the second place, the conception was not only belittled, but debased. They conceived of God as rejoicing in their gifts even though they were offered with dirty hands. If only they brought Him an offering He would wink at their uncleanness. They regarded Him as one who could be appeased by carnal sacrifice.
It is this debased conception of God that the prophet sets himself to remove. " God is the high and lofty One and His name is Holy." But in removing it he does not fall into the opposite mistake of representing God as a Being with whom in His majesty and His holiness they can have no intercourse. He is high and holy and unchangeable, and at the same time He dwells with the humble and contrite. The thought of the verse, says Skinner, is very striking. It is the paradox of religion that Jehovah's holiness which places Him at an infinite distance from human pride and greatness, brings Him near to the humble in spirit. No contrast is indicated : Jehovah dwells on high and (not hut yet) with the lowly.
The subject is the Double Dwelling-Place of God. That we may understand that it is two and yet one, the prophet describes >God as both lofty and lowly. Thus we should consider : — I. God's Highness. II. God's Humbleness. III. God's Double Dwelling-Place.
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God's Highness.
How .impossible to speak worthily of God ! of Him who fills the universe with His glory ! A little while ago a great painter went out to paint the sunset. He prepared his palette, but the sight was so beautiful that he waited to examine it better. All about the skies and hills were rich shadows, resplendent colom'S,
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purple flames, golden lustres. The painter waited, waited, absorbed by the vision of glory. Said his friend, impatiently, " Are you not going to begin ? " " By and by," replied the artist. And so he waited, paralysed by the splendour, until the sun was set and dark shadows fell upon the mountains. Then he shut up his paint-box and returned home. But if we faint thus in the presence of God's lower works, how impossible is it to speak adequately of Him whom no man hath seen or can see. Yet it is well sometimes to recall the grandeur of God. Let us shun familiarities and sentimentalisms, and live in wonder and reverence.
z. His Spaciousness.
He stands above nature, law, necessity, fate, power, destiny, and all other such names as men have been pleased to give to the world, its laws, and its forces. He stands above humanity ; dominating us, whatever may be our power, pride, or wrath. He stands above the unknown world, and its principalities. " God over all."
It is difficult to say which conception carries with it the greatest exaltation — that of boundless space or that of un- bounded time. When we pass from the tame and narrow scenery of our own country, and stand on those spots of earth in which nature puts on her wilder and more awful forms, we are conscious of something of the grandeur which belongs to the thought of space. Go where the strong foundations of the earth lie around you in their massive majesty, and mountain after moimtain rears its snow to heaven in a giant chain, and then, when this bursts upon you for the first time in life, there is that peculiar feeling which we call, in common language, an enlarge- ment of ideas. But when we are told that the sublimity of these dizzy heights is but a nameless speck in comparison with the globe of which they form the girdle ; and when we pass on to think of that globe itself as a minute spot in the mighty system to which it belongs, so that our world might be annihilated, and its loss "would not be felt; and when we are told that eighty millions of such systems roll in the world of space, to which our own system again is as nothing ; and when we are again pressed with the recollection that beyond those farthest limits created
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power is exerted immeasurably farther than eye can reach, or thought can penetrate : then, brethren, the awe which comes upon the heart is only, after all, a tribute to a portion of God's greatness.
Greatness can be known only by greatness ; wisdom can be seized and interpreted only by wisdom ; purity alone can honour the perfection and uplift the praises of infinite and absolute sanctity. The full-orbed splendour of the Most High can never be known outside the limits of the high and holy place. It is true " heaven and earth are full of his glory," but earth redolent with the incense of the sweetest springtides, dainty with the flowers that bloom only in the steps of the King, over- arched with those glowing canopies of cloud His own skill spreads forth, consecrated by the most overwhelming theophanies He has ever vouchsafed to mortals, earth is but " His footstool " whilst heaven is " His throne." " I dwell in the high and holy place,"