The consideration of the infinitely glorious excellencies of the nature of God, manifesting themselves in his works, doth greatly set out his condescension and grace in his regard and respect unto man- kind. This the occasion of the words, and the words themselves, do teach us.
This the method of the psalmist, I say, leads us unto. He begins and ends his consideration of the works of God with an ad- miration of his glorious excellency by whom they were made, verses 1, 9, “ O Lorp our Lord, how excellent is thy name!”—‘ How glo- rious art thou! and thou manifestest thyself so to be’? And from thence doth he proceed to the consideration of his condescension in his regard and love to man, verse 4 And to direct us — with the psalmist we may observe,—
First, That the works of God, those especially which were the peculiar subject of his meditation, the heavenly bodies which we behold, are indeed tn themselves exceedingly glorious. Their frame, greatness, beauty, order, course, usefulness, all speak them admirable and glorious. The naked view of them is enough to fill the mind of man with admirationand astonishment. And the more wecontemplate
VER. 5-9.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 343
on them, the more skilful we are in the consideration of their nature, order, and use, the more excellent do they appear unto us: and yet it is the least part of their greatness and beautiful disposition that we can attain a certain knowledge of; so that still they remain more the objects of our admiration and wonder than of our science. Hence the wisest among the heathen, who were destitute of the teachings of the word and Spirit of God, did with one consent as- cribe of old a deity unto them, and worshipped them as gods; yea, the very name of God in the Greek language, ©sés, is taken from Je#, “to run,” which they derived from the constant course of the heavenly bodies. They saw with their eyes how glorious they were; they found out by reason their greatness and dreadful motion. Ex- perience taught them their use, as the immediate fountains of light, warmth, heat, moisture; and so, consequently, of life, growth, and all useful things. It may be they had some tradition of that rule and dominion which was at first allotted unto the sun and moon over day and night, Gen. i. 16. On these and the like accounts, having lost the knowledge of the true and only God, they knew not so well whither to turn themselves for a deity as to those things which they saw so full of glory, and which they found to be of so universal a communicative goodness and usefulness. And in them did all idola- try in the world begin. And it was betimes in the world, as we see in Job, where it is mentioned and condemned, chap. xxxi. 26, 27, “Tf I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in bright- ness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand.” He condemns the idolatry, but yet withal shows that the lustre, brightness, and glory of those heavenly lights had a great influence on the hearts of men to entice them unto a secret adoration, which would break out into outward worship, whereof salutation by kissing the hand was one part and act. And there- fore God cautions his people against this temptation, Deut. iv. 19, “Lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lorp thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole hea- ven.” If men forget the true God, and then lift up their eyes unto, or fall into the contemplation of the heavenly bodies, such is their glory, majesty, and excellency, that they will be driven and hurried unto the adoration and worship of them. And so universal was this folly of old, that from these latter words, “ which the Lorp thy God hath divided unto all nations,” the Jews affirm that God hath given the sun, moon, and stars, to be the deities of the Gentiles, for them to worship! But the distribution there mentioned is as unto their common use unto all nations, and not as to their veneration. Nor is God the author of idolatry, as they blasphemously imagine; but
344 AN EXPOSITION OF THE " [orap. 11.
this their glory and excellency led them unto. And when any of them ascended higher, to apprehend living, intelligent spirits for their deities, they yet conceived at least that they had thei glorious habi- tation in the heavenly bodies. Yea, and some Christians have fallen into vain imaginations, from a false translation of the latter end of the fourth verse of Psalm xix. by the LXX. and the Vulgar Latin, which read the words, “ He hath placed his tabernacle in the sun,” instead of, “ He hath set in them,” that is, in the heavens, “a taber- nacle for the sun,” as the words are plain in the original. Why should I mention the madness of the Manichees, who affirmed that Christ himself was gone into, if not turned into the sun? JI name these things only to show what influence upon the minds of men destitute of the word the glory and excellency of these heavenly bodies have had. And what inestimable grace God showeth unto us in the benefit of his word! for we are the posterity of them, and by nature not one jot wiser than they, who worshipped those things which are not God. But exceeding glorious works of God they are ; and the more we consider them, the more will their glory and great- ness appear unto us. And as the children of Israel said of the sons of Anak, “ We were before them in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight,” may we not much more say concern- ing ourselves, compared with these glorious works of the hands of God, ‘We are all but as grasshoppers in comparison of them, and whence i is 1t that God should set his heart upon us?’