an instructing word, a rejoicing word, a desirable word, a warning word, and
a rewarding word.
2. A singular and experimental knowledge of himself. —So it
seemeth, that that word which David did so much commend, he did commend it
from an experimental efficacy; he had found it to be a righteous, and holy,
and pure, and discovering word, laying open, not only visible and gross
transgressions, but also, like the light of the sun, those otherwise
unobserved and secret atoms of senses flying within the house; I mean in the
secret chambers of the soul.— Obadiah Sedgwick, 1660,
Verse 1. "The heavens declare the glory of God," etc.—The eminent
saints of ancient times were watchful observers of the objects and
operations of nature. In every event they saw the agency of God; and,
therefore, they took delight in its examination. For they could not but
receive pleasure from witnessing the manifestations of his wisdom and
beneficence, whom they adored and loved. They had not learned, as we have
in modern times, to interpose unbending laws between the Creator and his
works; and then, by giving inherent power to these laws, virtually to remove
God away from his creation into an ethereal extramundane sphere of repose
and happiness. I do not say that this is the universal feeling of the
present day. But it prevails extensively in the church, and still more in
the world. The ablest philosophers of modern times do, indeed, maintain
that a natural law is nothing more than the uniform mode in which God acts;
and that, after all, it is not the efficiency of the law, but God's own
energy, that keeps all nature in motion; that he operates immediately and
directly, not remotely and indirectly, in bringing about every event, and
that every natural change is as really the work of God as if the eye of
sense could see his hand turning round the wheels of nature. But, although
the ablest philosophy of modern times has reached this conclusion, the great
mass of the community, and even of Christians, are still groping in the
darkness of that mechanical system which ascribes the operation of this
natural world to nature's laws instead of nature's God. By a sort of
figure, indeed, it is proper, as the advocates of this system admit, to
speak of God as the author of its natural events, because he originally
ordained the laws of nature. But they have no idea that he exerts any
direct and immediate agency in bringing them about; and, therefore, when
they look upon these events they feel no impression of the presence and
active agency of Jehovah.
But how different, as already remarked, were the feeling of ancient
saints. The psalmist could not look up to heaven without exclaiming, "The
heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There
is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard." When he cast
his eyes abroad upon the earth, his full heart cried out, "O Lord, how
manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is
full of thy riches." In his eye everything was full of God. It was God who
"sent springs into the valleys, which run among the hills." When the
thunder-storm passed before him, it was "God's voice in the heavens, and
his lightnings that lighted the world." When he heard the bellowings, and
saw the smoke of the volcano, it was "God who looketh on the earth, and it
trembleth; he toucheth the hills, and they smoke."— Edward Hitchcock, D.D., LL.D., 1867.
Verse 1. "The heavens declare," etc. Man has been endued by his
Creator with mental powers capable of cultivation. He has employed them in
the study of the wonderful works of God which the universe displays. His
own habitation has provided a base which has served him to measure the
heavens. He compares his own stature with the magnitude of the earth on
which he dwells; the earth, with the system in which it is placed; the
extent of the system, with the distance of the nearest fixed stars; and that
distance again serves as a unit of measurement for other distances which
observation points out. Still no approach is made to any limit. How
extended these wonderful works of the Almighty may be no man can presume to
say. The sphere of creation appears to extend around us indefinitely on all
sides; "to have its centre everywhere, its circumference nowhere." These
are considerations which from their extent almost bewilder our minds. But
how should they raise our ideas toward their great Creator, when we consider
that all these were created from nothing, by a word, by a mere volition of
the Deity. "Let them be," said God, and they were. "By the word of the
Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his
mouth." "For he spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast."
Psalm 33:6, 9. What must be that power, which so formed worlds on worlds;
worlds in comparison of which this earth which we inhabit sinks into utter
nothingness! Surely when we thus lift up our thoughts to the heavens, the
moon and the stars which he hath ordained, we must feel, if we can ever
feel, how stupendous and incomprehensible is that Being who formed them all;
that "the heavens" do indeed "declare the glory of God;" and the
firmament sheweth his handywork." — Temple Chevallier, in "The Hulsean Lectures for 1827."
Verse 1. I have often been charmed and awed at the sight of the nocturnal
heavens, even before I knew how to consider them in their proper
circumstances of majesty and beauty. Something like magic has struck my
mind, on transient and unthinking survey of the aethreal vault, tinged
throughout with the purest azure, and decorated with innumerable starry
lamps. I have felt, I know not what, powerful and aggrandising impulse,
which seemed to snatch me from the low entanglements of vanity, and prompted
an ardent sigh for sublimer objects. Methought I heard, even from the
silent spheres, a commanding call to spurn the abject earth, and pant after
unseen delights. Henceforth I hope to imbibe more copiously this moral
emanation of the skies, when, in some such manner as the preceeding, they
are rationally seen, and the sight is duly improved. The stars, I trust,
will teach as well as shine, and help to dispel both nature's gloom and my
intellectual darkness. To some people they discharge no better a service
than that of holding a flambeau to their feet, and softening the horrors of
their night. To me and my friends may they act as ministers of a superior
order, as counsellors of wisdom, and guides to happiness! Nor will they
fail to execute this nobler office, if they gently light our way into the
knowledge of their adored Maker—if they point out with their silver rays
our path to his beatific presence.— James Hervey, A.M., 1713-1758.
Verse 1. Should a man live underground, and there converse with the works
of art and mechanism, and should afterwards be brought up into the open day,
and see the several glories of the heaven and earth, he would immediately
pronounce them the work of such a Being as we define God to be.— Aristotle.
Verse 1. When we behold "the heavens," when we contemplate the
celestial bodies, can we fail of conviction? Must we not acknowledge that
there is a Divinity, a perfect Being, a ruling intelligence, which governs;
a God who is everywhere and directs all by his power? Anybody who doubts
this may as well deny there is a sun that lights us. Time destroys all
false opinions, but it confirms those which are formed by nature. For this
reason, with us as well as with other nations, the worship of the gods, and
the holy exercises of religion, increase in purity and extent every day.— Cicero.
Verse 1. "The heavens declare the glory of God," etc. They discover
his wisdom, his power, his goodness; and so there is not any one
creature, though never so little, but we are to admire the Creator in it.
As a chamber hung round about with looking-glasses represents the face upon
every turn, thus all the world doth the mercy and the bounty of God; though
that be visible, yet it discovers an invisible God and his invisible
properties.— Anthony Burgess, 1656.
Verse 1. None of the elect are in that respect so unwise as to refuse to
hear and consider the works and words of God as not appertaining unto him.
God forbid. No man in the world doth with more fervency consider the works
of God, none more readily lift up their ears to hear God speak than even
they who have the inward revelation of the Holy Spirit.— Wolfgang Musculus.
Verse 1. During the French revolution Jean Bon St. Andrè, the Vendean
revolutionist, said to a peasant, "I will have all your steeples pulled
down, that you may no longer have any object by which you may be reminded of
your old superstitions." "But," replied the peasant, "you cannot help
leaving us the stars." — John Bate's "Cyclopaedia of Moral and Religious Truths," 1865.
Verse 1. "The heavens declare the glory of God" —
How beautiful this dome of sky,
And the vast hills in fluctuation fixed
At thy command, how awful! Shall the soul,
Human and rational, report of Thee
Even less than these? Be mute who will, who can,
Yet I will praise thee with impassioned voice.
My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd,
Cannot forget thee here, where thou hast built
For thine own glory, in the wilderness!
William Wordsworth, 1770-1850.
Verse 1. "The firmament sheweth his handiwork" —
The glitt'ring stars
By the deep ear of meditation heard,
Still in their midnight watches sing of him.
He nods a calm. The tempest blows his wrath:
The thunder is his voice; and the red flash
His speedy sword of justice. At his touch
The mountains flame. He shakes the solid earth,
And rocks the nations. Nor in these alone—
In ev'ry common instance God is seen.
James Thompson.
These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! Thine this universe frame,
Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
John Milton.
Verses 1, 2. In order more fully to illustrate the expressive richness of
the Hebrew, I would direct the attention of my reader to the beautiful
phraseology of the XIX. Psalm. The literal reading of the first and second
verses may be thus given:—
"The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The firmament displaying the work of his hands;
Day unto day welleth forth speech,
Night unto night breatheth out knowledge."
Thus the four distinct terms in the original are preserved in the
translation; and the overflowing fulness with which day unto day pours forth
divine instruction, and the gentle whisperings of the silent night, are
contrasted as in the Hebrew.— Henry Craik, 1860.
Verses 1-4. Though all preachers on earth should grow silent, and every
human mouth cease from publishing the glory of God, the heavens above will
never cease to declare and proclaim his majesty and glory. They are for
ever preaching; for, like an unbroken chain, their message is delivered from
day to day and from night to night. At the silence of one herald another
takes up his speech. One day, like the other, discloses the same spectacles
of his glory, and one night, like the other, the same wonders of his
majesty. Though nature be hushed and quiet when the sun in his glory
has reached the zenith on the azure sky—though the world keep her
silent festival, when the stars shine brightest at night—yet, says the
psalmist, they speak; ay, holy silence itself is a speech, provided there
be the ear to hear it.— Augustus T. Tholuck.
Verses 1-4. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament
sheweth his handiwork." If the heavens declare the glory of God, we should