Ver. 5.-Likenesses to God. "Who is like unto tho Lord our God?" The precise point here may be thus expressed:" Who as he combines majesty with condescension?" Both heaven aud earth, glorious and wonderful though they nre, are alike immeasurably below the majesty of God. The psalmist evidently has tho idolatry in mind which seeks for suggestions of God's figure either in heaven or in earth. No fitting ones ce.n be found. They are all mad,e things; and the maker is always grander than the things he makes. No manufactured article can ever do more than suggest somethincr about the man who designed or made it; it can never give an adequate and complete impres- ~ion of him. Think of the sun as the sublimest of all created things, but it is no more fitting to represent God, it is no more worthily a likeness of God, than the images, hideous or beautiful, which idolatry or paganism may design. God absolutely refoses to permit any likeness to be made of him after anything in heaven, or earth, or under the earth. Nothing material must be permitted to limit our large, free, spiritual thought of him. I. LIKENESSES TO Goo IN THE HEAVENS. Men naturally look up into the heavens first, because that is the sphere of mystery, and that inspires awe and leads to adora- tion. It does so to the uncultured, but how much more it does to the cultured, who know that the seemingly little star Uranus is eighty times larger than the earth, Neptune a hundred and fifty times larger, Saturn more than seven hundred times lar~er, and Jupiter more than fourteen hundred times larger l The general sentiment of humanity has found in our sun the best likeness of God; but, though this should bring to men sublime ideas of grandeur, purity, and power, even the sun is unworthy to represent God. II. LrxE:s'ESsEs TO Goo IN THE EARTH. The apostle regards it as a degrading descent, that men, unsatisfied with sun-figures, "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." It is an impressive proof of the uselessness of the material to represent the immaterial, that men who once look to the material for figures of God always tend to go lower and lower in the scale. Nowadays, though we are not likely to worship the sun or manufactured idols, there are still thought-ideals, thought- idols, which may be as unworthy to represent the eternal God as the images of our heathen brothers.-R. T. Ver. 6.-The relative value of earthly things. There is no absolute value in them, God cannot be thought of as interested in them for their own sakes. Ho humbles himself to regard them because of the relation his people bear to them, and because of the influence they have upon his people. Of him it has been suggestively said, "He stoops to view the skies, and bows to see what angels do." This we say of God, beca.use we have the revelation of him as a Moral Being, with moral as well· as natural attri- butes. Once let a being take a moral view of things, and the material can never afterwards be the all-important thing to him. Once let us take the moral view, an<l we must always take it; for us the moral must have eternal precedency. I. Goo CANNOT DE THOUGHT OF AB INTERESTED IN EVENTS FOR THEIB OWN BAKES. l'here is no quality in things. Even we men are not supremely interested in the things we make; we are concerned about the purposes for which we make them, and the uses to which they may be put. We go, in thought, past the things themselves. Even when God is pictured as calling each day's work of creation "very good," we are reminded that his eye was upon the moral beings for whom he was arranging it all. It would help us in gaining right views of God if we would clearly see that material creation is not bis end, but his means to secure a higher end. IL GoD MUST BE TllOUGllT OF AS INTERESTED IN EVENTS FOR THE BAKE OF HIB PEOPLE. Material things, earthly events, human relat(ons, do variously infl~ence the moral beings that God has made; and these various mfluences we may thmk of as God's supreme concern. It is not right to say-God made everything for the sake of man. This only fills man with pride. It is right to say that God made everything for the sake of his purpose in man and through him. Illustrate from tho parental relation to the mere incidents and events of the boy's life. Parents would not tum aside to consider the events if the boy were not in them. It is the boy they consider, not the events. A.11 their concern is the inlluence of the events on the character and J'8. o:r.m. 1-9.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. S5
life of the boy. Transfer this to tbe larger, sublimer family sphere of the heavenly Father, and then our point comes out clearly. God concerns himself with his world for the sake of his purpose through his people.-R. T.