HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, AND PLAN OF THE WORK.
On the night of the 10th of January, in the year 1838, the inhabitants of London—those especially residing in the heart of the city—were alarmed by a cry expressive or prophetic of calamity or peril.—The Royal Exchange was in flames! Feelings and sentiments were excited by the occurrence different from those produced by an ordinary conflagration. The Royal Exchange was one of the great public buildings of the metropolis; it was the third too which, within a very short period, had met with a similar fate. It was not only the monument of individual munificence, the gift to the city which he had adorned and served, of an eminent merchant,—a man of talents, goodness, learning, and largeness of heart; it was the central point in the British empire for the meeting of the men of all nations; the palace of trade; the place of commercial congress; the hall in which assembled from day to day the “merchant princes” of England, and the representatives of the traffic and the wealth of the world. The flames spread; the devouring element secured to itself the entire edifice; it fed upon and consumed floor and roof, picture and statue, destroying or defacing everything it touched, till the whole building was reduced to ashes, and nothing remained of it but smouldering ruins.
In a little time a new edifice was projected, larger and more magnificent than the former, and thus better fitted to meet the wants of the age, and to indicate the progress and advancement of society. The first stone was laid by the youthful husband of our young queen,—one might almost say the young bridegroom of a royal bride,—and the building rose with comparative rapidity, unfolding and embodying its great idea. As it approached completion, and its front was to be adorned by some significant figures or allegorical device, questions arose as to whether an inscription should be placed there with them, and as to what that inscription should be. The illustrious individual who had laid the first stone of the structure suggested for that inscription a simple text from the English Bible, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” The suggestion was adopted; it was carried into effect; and hence there may be read, on the front of our Royal Exchange, and read in our land’s language,—but addressed to all men; for they are addressed not only to the British merchant, but to the representatives of every nation under heaven,—the few plain words which have just been repeated,—
THE EARTH IS
THE LORD’S,
AND THE FULNESS
THEREOF.
Words, however, these, which, while simple in appearance, are pregnant and suggestive in the highest degree; for they are full to overflowing, of great practical divine thoughts.
The suggestion of this inscription for the Royal Exchange was the suggestion not only of sound judgment and good sense, but of piety, humility, and religious faith. It attributes nothing to any individual; it proclaims no national or municipal greatness; it breathes no flattery to monarch, merchant, class, or kingdom:—it is simply a devout recognition of Almighty God, “from whom, and by whom, and for whom are all things:”—who created the world, and adorned and beautified it; who covered it with verdure, made it fruitful, fills it with its various products, and sustains it for the service of man. It is a great thing to have this public recognition of the Most High made, as it were, every hour of every day, from the very centre of all mundane and secular activities;—it is a stirring recollection, that that very building, thought by many to be the temple of Mammon, should stand forth as a preacher and teacher on behalf of God; and, still more so, that its English voice should be distinctly heard above the din and discord of its many languages, perpetually proclaiming to its busy multitudes, and the busy multitudes of the whole city, what, if practically pondered, would cool avarice, prevent fraud, moderate ambition, inspire truth, dictate justice, make every man feel as a brother to his fellow, and all nations, ranks, and conditions of men, as the members of one vast and undivided confraternity.
It is interesting to think that the same illustrious Prince who suggested the inscription for the Royal Exchange, originated the idea of the Exhibition of the industry of all nations. It is to the honour of England, that the first time that the whole world, so to speak, comes together for a peaceful purpose, the meeting takes place in the British metropolis; and it is to the honour of the husband of England’s Queen, not only that he should have been the father of this thought, but that by a previous one he should have attempted, as it were, to sanctify industry, and trade, and commerce, and manufactures, by an open recognition of the providence of God as the source of them all. It is worth living for, to be, first, the occasion of a great central commercial edifice, in one of the greatest cities of the world, bearing on its front the record of the central truth of religion; and then, secondly, to be the cause of the congregating together, in that city, of men of all lands and of all languages, to look, among other things, upon that edifice, and to observe the truth which the people it represents have there publicly enthroned!
The writer of the following pages proposes, then, to unite in his reflections the two things which, through the agency of the same mind, are thus already united in fact—the Inscription on the Royal Exchange, and the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations. He intends, in the first part, to point out and illustrate the great primary religious truths which are involved in the announcement of the inscription itself. As it, however, is the first verse of a psalm, he purposes, in the second part, to look at it in connexion with the whole of the psalm, and at the psalm in connexion with the whole of Revelation, and thus to bring out and associate with the inscription additional ideas of both truth and duty. Then, supposing the whole series of these truths and duties to be earnestly adopted and practically exemplified by all nations—by England herself, and by those to whom they will be virtually presented on their meeting together in the British metropolis—it is proposed, in the last part, to describe what, on such a supposition, would be the coming future of Europe and of the world.
I.
The Divine Existence and Personality.
The first idea suggested by the words of the inscription is the existence of God: “The earth is the Lord’s.” It is here assumed that there is a God; and it is further assumed that God is a person. He is the possessor and proprietor of the world: he has an existence distinct from it: he is capable of looking upon it, and of regarding it as his own: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Not only is the material structure his, but the living inhabitants; and not only those of inferior rank, but the Lord and Master of them all. The same being that claims “the fowls of the mountains, the wild beasts of the field and the forest, and the cattle upon a thousand hills,” claims also to be the proprietor of man, the source and sovereign of the intelligent universe;—“all souls are mine.” God is not nature, nor nature God. God and the universe are not one and the same thing. He is not a force, a power, a law; he is not attraction, electricity, or any of the great active material agents, or all of them put together: he is not necessity, chance, fate: he is not a thing, nor the sum of things, but a person: he is a mind, with faculties, affections, character, and is as distinct from the “earth” and the “world” as a man is distinct from a house or a clock, or anything whatever that he can call his.
The personality of God—his existence as an intelligent agent distinct from the universe,—is destructive of all theories of atheism and pantheism; of the philosophy which teaches that there is no God at all, and of that which teaches that all things are God. The two systems, indeed, are essentially one; they are alike opposed to the existence of religion, and render faith and piety impossible. A principle is proclaimed in the words before us,—words ceaselessly uttered, and uttered to all men, from the commercial centre of this great city,—which repels and repudiates a godless philosophy, in whatever form it may be held or taught—by whatever name it may be indicated or concealed.
The truth thus referred to, the foundation truth of all religion, is taught and illustrated in the Holy Scriptures in the most remarkable manner. The Bible, indeed, seldom or never attempts to prove that there is a God; it rather assumes his existence, takes it for granted, proceeds upon it as a necessary intuitional truth, and regards any one who would pretend to deny it, either as “a fool” who is prompted to the denial by his corrupt “heart;” or as a philosopher who has become “vain in his reasonings,” and whose “understanding is darkened.” While, however, the Bible starts with the acknowledgment of God, and proceeds throughout on the recognition of his existence, it occasionally illustrates his personality, supremacy, distinctness from the universe and correlative truths, in a way which is at once adapted to confirm these views where they are admitted,—to demonstrate them to those that doubt,—and to cover with contempt idolaters or sophists by whom they may be denied.
Two or three scriptural passages may be quoted here, in support or illustration of this statement. Let it be remembered then, that the Scriptures always ascribe to God personal attributes. He is “a God of knowledge.” His “understanding is infinite.” He acts “according to the council of his will.” He is “holy,” “just,” “good,” “pure;” He loves and hates, observes and remembers, approves and condemns, punishes and rewards. His personal omniscience, and consequent independence of all other beings, is powerfully asserted by Isaiah:—“Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?” But the personality of God, and his distinct existence from the universe, are sometimes united together in a very striking way. He is referred to as the Creator—the source whence all things have proceeded; and then, on the principle that what there is in the effect there must first have been in the cause, and must continue to be in an existing cause, his personal properties are argued from the fact that such properties actually exist,—exist, that is, in men,—beings whom he has made: “He that planted the ear, shall not he hear? he that formed the eye, shall not he see? … he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?” The same argument, in another form, is used by the apostle Paul, when reasoning with the philosophers of Athens. Having referred to God as the Creator of the world; as giving “to all life, and breath, and all things;” and as “having made all nations of men that dwell on the face of the earth;”—having illustrated his position by the saying of one of their own poets,—“we are also his offspring,”—he proceeds to argue thus:—“forasmuch then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device:” in other words, “seeing that we have thought, intelligence, and will,—that we have affections, consciousness, personality,—and seeing that we are the creatures of God, and must have derived from him whatsoever we possess, it is absurd to think of him as impersonal, material, unintelligent, since he must certainly have in himself what he has been able to confer.” There is great force in this form of putting the truth as it is put both by the prophet and the apostle. To ordinary common sense, it would seem to be demonstrative. It appears so natural to infer that the great parent of persons must be a person;—that the source of thought must be able to think;—that the fountain whence flows to the intelligent universe, faculty and affection, reason and will, must possess these in infinite plenitude in itself;—it would appear so natural to reason thus, and so obvious, as almost to render reference to it superfluous, were it not that it is now fashionable to think of the universe as a mere machine, and God as the central and pervading force, and that this machine, in the course of its ceaseless and everlasting action, and in the process of its varied movements from eternity, has happened, or contrived, to grind out thought along with other things, and to fill worlds with persons (or what seem to be such) as well as with form and colour, and the different objects of material existence! In reference to such a theory, we may appropriately adopt the words of the psalmist, which stand in immediate connexion with those already quoted. “Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?—The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.”
II.
Creation.
But the words of the Inscription, read in connexion with the second verse of the psalm from which it is taken, further illustrate the ideas adverted to—God’s existence, personality, and distinction from the universe—by placing the fact of his ownership of the earth, on the previous fact of his having created it. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”
God is thus distinctly recognised as the Creator of all things, and as hence becoming, or being, their proprietor, by necessary consequence. That the universe is a creation, in the most strict and literal sense of the word, is the teaching of the Bible;—a truth which, while leading to that of his universal proprietorship of the earth and the world, as necessarily implies and strikingly illustrates his own distinct independence and personality: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” The meaning of this statement is, that visible objects—that is, the whole visible universe—did not originally spring out of visible materials. However long might be the periods, during which the substance of the earth was undergoing preparatory processes, previous to the appearance of its destined inhabitant, there was a time when that substance was not. There was a period when the Eternal lived alone,—when space was literally infinite, except as filled and pervaded by him,—when nothing material anywhere existed, by which any portion of space could be inclosed or limited. In that mysterious solitude, God was as much a personality,—as much a mind with thought and will,—as he is now. He could not then be confounded with his works, for his works were not; and he ought not now to be confounded with them because they are. It is possible to conceive of all the suns and systems that exist, as being swept away into utter nothingness, and yet to understand that God might continue in all the fulness of his being and perfections. “In the beginning,”—at some period in the immeasurable depths of the abyss of that eternity which is the dwelling-place of Deity, God exerted the act of creation, and gave birth to what we call matter, which, in the revolutions of ages, he framed and fashioned into separate worlds. The Lord was, “before his works of old.” He was “from everlasting, or ever the earth was.” “When there were no depths,” he existed;—“before the mountains and hills,—while as yet he hath not made the earth, nor the fields, nor (even) the dust (or matter) of the world.” This is the sublime and awful truth which the Scriptures teach as to the primary relation of God to the universe, and on the ground of which they ascribe to him successive acts of formative power,—often in language highly figurative, but always meant to convey the idea of the exercise of the wisdom, goodness, foresight, and similar attributes of a personal agent in the Maker of the world.
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” “He prepared the heavens, he set a compass upon the face of the depth. He established the clouds above, he strengthened the foundations of the deep. He gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment.” “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” He is “the great God that formed all things.” “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.” “The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down dew.” “Of old thou hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands” “The sea is his,—he made it; and his hands formed the dry land.” “Mine hand hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens.” “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?” “I have made the earth—the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my out-stretched arm.” “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof? Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the day-spring to know his place? Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? Where is the way where light dwelleth? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof? Canst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or guide Arcturus with his sons? Who hath put wisdom into the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?” “There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” God made “man in his own image.” He is “the Father of spirits.” “The heavens declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” “That which may be known of God is manifest” to men, “for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead;” so that men are “without excuse,” if, knowing God, or not liking “to retain God in their knowledge,” they “worship him not as God,” but, “professing themselves to be wise, become fools,” changing “the truth of God into a lie.”
Such are some of the statements of Scripture respecting the creation of the world and man. To admit these, it is not necessary to deny the revelations of science as to the physical antiquity of the globe, and the successive phenomena that distinguished the history of the pre-adamite earth. There might have been then a wonderful series of gradual developments, and various material and animal formations;—the point to be kept in view is, that all these were intelligently presided over by the Author of nature; and that they all followed in obedience to laws, which he not only ordained, but administered. The “Crystal Palace” is the embodiment of an idea conceived and perfected in a personal intelligence. It has been constructed and reared by rule and compass, measure and weight, and according to the suggestions of wisdom and skill. All the variety of its extraordinary contents bear the impress of thought and purpose, design and contrivance, faculty and power; but no one confounds the work with the workmen, or imagines that the skill impressed on the productions is something inherent in the productions themselves, or that they have sprung, by necessity, from the impulse or operation of unintelligent force! Any one who saw the apparently confused and chaotic jumble of coarse packages and unarranged materials, as they lay about the building, previous to being put into harmonious order, could never have imagined that they had in themselves any tendency to take the places and assume the appearances to which they were destined, independently of the mind, the thought, plan, reason, and ability of the person or persons by whom all was to be effected. Even if it had been possible to conceive such a thing,—to conceive, namely, that they should, without the immediate agency of hands, have gradually arranged themselves into beautiful groups, and that thus confusion was to be succeeded by order,—this would only have been regarded as the result of processes to which they had been subjected by human sagacity, and as the proof of profounder and more wonderful contrivance on the part of the presiding genius of the scene. Instead of tempting a thoughtful observer to confound and identify the thing done with the actual doer,—or to lose sight of him, and to attribute all to necessity or chance, or to some mysterious appetencies in the things themselves,—it would only have carried the idea of personality further back, and have augmented his admiration of the attributes that distinguished it. In the same way, adhering to the truth that the heavens and the earth are an actual creation, then, whatever may have been the processes through which they gradually passed till the whole fabric was developed and perfected, all was the work of a personal agent distinct from the actual universe itself, and all that was done was accomplished through the action of those laws which he framed,—to which he subjected them,—which he administered,—which the things did not originate,—which they could not understand, and from which they could not escape. He—the living, spiritual, personal God—was the Mover and Maker, the Designer and Doer from first to last. In the same way, just as nothing can be more completely a man’s own than that which is the product of his own skill, when acting independently, and operating on his justly obtained material, so nothing can be such a proof of the proprietorship of God in the universe and its inhabitants, as that by him they were all alike “created and made.” “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and hath established it upon the floods.”
III.
Providence.
The idea suggested by the words of the inscription, of the “FULNESS” of the earth belonging to God, deserves a distinct and specific consideration.
By the “fulness” of the earth, we understand all that it contains of raw material capable of being subjected to human skill, and all that it produces, of whatever sort, animal or vegetable, for the service of men,—for the sustenance of sentient nature,—for happiness, or glory and beauty. By all this being God’s, by this “fulness of the earth” belonging to him, we understand that it is to be attributed to him as its Author; that he originally deposited, in the depths of the mountains and the womb of the world, their mineral wealth; that he covered the earth with verdure and fruitfulness, and filled the air, the sea, and the field with their numerous inhabitants; that he established the laws by which there should be a constant succession in all the varieties of animal and vegetable nature; and that he so superintends the whole arrangement, and personally administers these laws, that all that they produce may be properly regarded as the immediate product of his power and skill. “Fulness,” so produced, is his, “from whom and by whom” it comes, with scarcely less emphasis than if it was to be spoken into being in the “twinkling of an eye,”—at the utterance of a single word, or by a sudden act of omnipotent volition.
The inhabitants, then, of this great city are reminded every day, as they look up at the front of their Royal Exchange, not only of the existence and personality of God, and of his being the proprietor of all things, but of his being this, by his continued providence and government of the world, as well as by his having created it at first. It was God that for ages wrought in secret, constructing the rocks and consolidating the mountains, depositing the useful and precious metals, spreading the coal-field, and preparing materials of every sort for future society. It was he who commanded “the dry land to appear,” and the waters to be gathered into seas: who covered the earth “with the grass of the field, and with the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit;” who fixed the sun in the heavens, and gave him to the world for cheerful light and genial warmth; who “spread abroad the clouds,” and “caused rain,” and established the laws of vegetable production: it was God who caused the waters to be filled “with the moving creature that hath life;” that caused “the fowl to fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven;” and that made “the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle, and everything that creepeth upon the earth;”—it was God that gave to them the law “to increase and multiply, and to fill the earth;” and then gave the earth to the children of men, and commanded them, too, not only “to increase and multiply and to replenish the earth,” but “to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” It was God who “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,” and who, as “the Most High, who ruleth over the children of men, and doeth as he will with the inhabitants of the earth,” “separated the sons of Adam, and divided to the nations their inheritance,” and “determined their appointed times, and the bounds of their habitation.” It was God who appropriated to different climes their diversified productions;—who hid beneath the surface of various peoples mineral varieties;—who conferred on the nations different talents and different tastes;—who made exchange of productions a mutual want, necessity, or convenience;—and who thus established the law of commercial intercourse. It was God that gave to man improvable reason, so that he was not bound down to unintelligent instinct in constructing his habitation or providing for his necessities, but was empowered and intrusted with the inventive head and the skilful hand; could become the accomplished and cunning artificer, so that out of the raw material of the world he could call forth new appearances and forms of things, and thus cover the earth with another creation! It was God who appointed wood to swim, and water to flow, and fixed the poles, and fashioned the loadstone, and gave the compass, and bound the breast of the first mariners as with triple brass, that all the wonders of navigation might ensue, and enterprise and discovery, and the peaceful and profitable intercourse of nations. And it is God that still presides over and governs all things; that gives spring and summer, and winter and harvest; it is he who distils the influences of the heavens, and perpetuates the fertility of the earth; it is he who gives annual abundance, and causes all nations, the world over, to rejoice in what comes to them as if it were a new and instant creation,—a gift and gratuity dropped from the sky! It is God “that gives to man power to get wealth,” and that confers on the nations their respective tastes and distinctive genius,—their capacity for labour, or their love of the beautiful, or their skilful handicraft, or their omnipotent enterprise, or their gigantic achievements! It is God that thus makes them useful to each other;—that binds them together from the very circumstance of their separate gifts and their mutual necessities;—and that imparts to them an interest in each other’s industry, from the different forms and uses that it takes;—and it is he, we trust, who is bringing them together to the Great Exhibition, so that, while they wonder at the result, the vastness and the variety of their own doings, they may acknowledge Him, to whom they are indebted for material and skill, time and capacity, life and all things;—whose they themselves are;—from whom cometh every good and every perfect gift; and, as whose property, all that they possess should be held and used. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”
The propriety of thus attributing everything to God, and of recognising his providence in the laws of the world, the productions of the seasons, the results of industry, the instruments of commerce, and even in the adornments of civilization, and the allowable luxuries of elegance and refinement, and also in the gifts of invention, subtlety, and mechanical skill,—all this is so frequently taught or referred to in Scripture, that a few appropriate illustrative passages may with great propriety be inserted here.
The attentive reader will notice that the several quotations that follow illustrate the most of the ideas that have been advanced, and that they do this very much in the order in which they have been given. The first passage, from the Book of Job, we give in the language of Mr. Goode’s translation, as it expresses the sense of the original, with some approach to scientific exactness.
“Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a bed for the gold which men refine. Iron is dug up from the earth, and the rock poureth forth copper. Man delveth into the region of darkness, and examineth to the utmost limit the stones of darkness and death-shade: he breaketh up the veins from the matrice, which, though nothing thought of under the foot, are drawn forth, are brandished among mankind. The earth of itself poureth forth bread, but below it windeth a fiery region. Sapphires are its stones, and gold is its ground.”
The following sentences, while forming part of an argument respecting moral and spiritual wisdom,—the fear of God and departure from evil,—are remarkable as an enumeration of valuable substances, and are here quoted simply as such.
“But where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding? It cannot be “gotten for gold,” nor “silver;” it cannot be valued with “the gold of Ophir,” “the precious onyx,” or “the sapphire;” “gold” and “crystal” cannot equal it; nor “coral,” nor “pearls;” nor “the topaz of Ethiopia;” for “the price of wisdom is above rubies.”
When we rise from the cavern and the mine, from noticing the precious metals and precious stones, and look abroad on the surface of the earth, or upwards to the sky, or over the great and wide sea, the Scripture meets us with innumerable utterances of what, if we are wise, we shall see there of the ever present, active, and beneficent God. “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread that strengtheneth man’s heart.” “He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, that sing among the branches. He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is filled with the fruit of his works.” “The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon which he hath planted.” “Thou makest darkness and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.” “The earth is full of thy riches: so is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. These wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever; the Lord shall rejoice in his works.” He is “the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea.” He “by his strength setteth fast the mountains, being girded with power:” He “stilleth the noise of the waves, and the tumult of the people.” “Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and of the evening to rejoice. Thou visitest the earth and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.”
In the following passages, the various powers and capacities of humanity, as displayed in agriculture and art, are represented as Divine gifts. The farmer and mechanic, the designer and manufacturer, the engraver and draftsman, the worker in metals, in wood, stone, and in every sort of raw material, all accomplish their several operations in virtue of ability which God confers. “Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place? For GOD doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in council, and excellent in working.” “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri;—and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, and to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship. And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach;—and, in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee.” And Hiram, king of Tyre, sent also to Solomon “a cunning man, endued with prudence and understanding,—skilful to work in gold, and silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of engraving, and to find out every device that might be put to him.”
The next quotations illustrate commercial intercourse, the dependence of nation on nation, trade by sea, and the importation of natural curiosities, as well as of valuable products and useful material, with other kindred matters. “The Lord gave Solomon wisdom,—and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together:” and Solomon wrote to Hiram, “Thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like the Sidonians. Now, therefore, let thy servants hew me cedar-trees out of Lebanon, and unto thee will I give hire for thy servants, according to all that thou shalt appoint.” And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, “I have considered the things which thou sentest to me for: and I will do all thy desire, concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of fir. My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon to the sea; and I will convey them by sea in floats, to the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be discharged there, and thou shalt receive them: and thou shalt accomplish my desire in giving food for my household. So Hiram gave Solomon cedar-trees and fir-trees; and Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil.”
And Solomon “went to Ezion-geber, and to Eloth, at the sea-side, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent him by the hands of his servants ships, and servants that had knowledge of the sea; and they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold and brought it to king Solomon:” “and once every three years came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, and ivory, and apes, and peacocks.” The 27th chapter of Ezekiel is one of the most extraordinary descriptions that is anywhere to be met with, of the exchange of commodities and the intercourse of nations by means of commerce. The different productions of various peoples and climes are enumerated; the “fulness” of all lands is represented as flowing into the markets of Tyre,—brought there by the ships and sailors of every maritime nation;—while Tyre itself is spoken of as the nurse of mariners and the mistress of the sea,—her beauty and abundance radiant and wonderful,—and her merchant princes as the lords of the world. All this may breed luxury, foster pride, promote corruption, and lead ultimately to national degradation and decay: but this is not the necessary effect of abundance, nor does it forbid us to refer riches, prosperity, commerce, manufactures, and everything else that adorns life, to the beneficence of God. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” HE pours down, year by year, the riches of the skies,—calls up the treasures of the earth, spreads abroad the abundance of the seas,—adds to the value of many of his gifts what they derive from the labour, skill, and ingenuity of man,—and excites the nations to exchange and trade, that each country may share in the joy and the productions of all. In this way it comes to pass, that the whole race, in relation to the entire world, might be addressed in the language of Moses to the chosen people when he described the land promised to their fathers. “The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land; a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills: a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive-oil and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.” “Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things of the earth AND FULNESS THEREOF, and for the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush.” “He made Jacob to ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; butter of kine and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and he drank the pure blood of the grape.”
Unusual as some of these expressions are, especially those of a figurative character, they may be taken to indicate the intention of Providence to bless the obedient in “the life that now is,” as well as in relation to that “which is to come.” “God giveth us all things richly to enjoy;” if faith and piety, love and obedience, pervaded the race, everything that adorns and beautifies existence might be delighted in and used without injury. By free and universal commercial intercourse, the abundance and blessings of favoured regions may become the common property of all. There may thus be established throughout all nations, an equality of privilege, each sharing in the productions of the rest. With such views, we may appropriately conclude the present chapter by the following passages, weaving them into a song for the entire race:
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;
The world, and they that dwell therein.”
“The Lord is good to all:
And his tender mercies are over all his works.
The eyes of all wait upon him;
And he giveth them their meat in due season.
He openeth his hand,
And satisfieth the desire of every living thing.
My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord:
And let all flesh bless his holy name, for ever and ever.”
PART II.
INFERENTIAL.
PART II.
INFERENTIAL.
So far we have been employed in elucidating the principles which are involved in the terms of the inscription—which is enthroned in the front of the Royal Exchange,—The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof. These words, taken alone, distinctly recognise the existence of God, Creation, and Providence. They express, or imply, through their own inherent and independent force, the acknowledgment of these great primary truths. In the course of our remarks, we have glanced at one or two of the clauses of the psalm immediately succeeding the words of the inscription; rather, however, as illustrative of the extent of its significance, than as bringing to it any additional thought. We now propose to take the acknowledgment, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,” in connexion with the whole psalm of which it is the commencement, and the psalm itself in connexion with the whole revelation of which it is a part; and thus to bring out those additional forms of both truth and duty, which the scriptural recognition of God’s existence and government, and his general relations to the world and man, may come to suggest to a devout and reflective Christian observer.
I.
Worship.
Immediately after the assertion of God’s proprietorship of the world and man, the psalmist inquires, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?” Language this, which refers to the locality and the uses of the temple, as the appointed place of Divine service. The existence of God and the obligation to worship him, would seem to be associated by an indissoluble necessity. The two ideas, indeed, mutually involve and illustrate each other. Admit the Divine existence; it is felt to extend downwards into the domain of human duty, and to suggest and enforce the obligation of worship: admit the reality of the religious instinct, and mark its universal and irrepressible force,—it swells upwards and amounts to a proof of the existence of God. The Divine Being has not only set his glory above the heavens, and spoken of himself by the myriads of voices that are perpetually issuing from the earth and the sky; he has not only stamped his image and superscription on the personal and intellectual attributes of the race; but he has provided an unimpeachable witness for himself, in the religious constitution of human nature. If there is one thing more than another which forms the peculiar distinction of man, and which places him in secluded and solitary grandeur apart from all the tribes of sentient existence by which he is surrounded, it is his possession and consciousness of a religious capacity. It may show itself in grotesque or disgusting forms,—it may blunder in its search, and babble in its utterances,—it may even become ferocious and malignant in its character; but there it is, in man, and in him alone, manifested everywhere, active always, forming a palpable and impassable distinction between his nature and that of all other creatures. The lower animals have senses and appetites similar to his; they can see and hear—they hunger and thirst; in many of them, indeed, some of the things that he and they possess in common, exist in greater acuteness and perfection in them than they do in him; while others make approaches to thought and reason, memory and will, affection and passion; but none of them share with him the capacity to adore,—none of them can pray,—none but he can entertain the conception of an invisible power,—engage in individual, or unite in acts of social, devotion. It is the prerogative of man to be able to say either, “Our Father,” or “I believe.” Even if it were admitted that specimens of humanity have been found, or could be produced, utterly destitute of the religious capacity, and with nothing about them, when they gaze on the universe, beyond the vacant stare of unintelligent natures; and even if it were further asserted and acknowledged, that it was utterly impossible to awaken in them a sense or perception of anything Divine,—yet it would be found that their children could be taught to comprehend and feel religious ideas,—that they had within them the spiritual capacity,—from which it would be evident that their fathers had originally possessed it too. The religious instinct, then, or susceptibility, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, is inherent in human nature—divides and distinguishes it from all else in the wide world, though it may express itself in the grossnesses of superstition and idolatry, or may have sunk into dormancy in extraordinary cases; but neither old, nor young, of all the tribes of the inferior races,—the most sagacious or the most domesticated,—can be found to display, or be taught to comprehend, religion at all!
It is a simple fact, then, beyond all question, that humanity possesses this distinguishing attribute. All things beneath and around him seem to be made for man; but he is the subject of a strong, active, predominating impulse, that appears like a consciousness, on his own part, that he is made for something else. This impulse finds utterance and embodiment in religious ideas and religious service. Now, it would be a strange anomaly in a world like this, in which every faculty of every creature finds its corresponding and appropriate object,—in which wing and hoof, scent and speed, eye and ear, hand and horn, powers and passions, appetites and attributes of all sorts, are fitted exactly to something that seems to be made for them, or for which they are made,—it would be a strange thing, that the only exception to this law, should be in the Lord and Master of the world himself!—and that it should occur, too, just in that one faculty that at once distinguishes and dignifies him more than any other! The existence and actings of the religious instinct in man thus constitute a proof of the existence of God, just as the admitted existence of God involves the obligation to religion in man. The tendency in humanity “to feel after God if haply it may find him,”—and to have something it may call God,—whether it succeed in finding him or not,—is demonstrative of a Divine objective reality answerable to itself, in the same way as the half-formed wings of a bird in the shell are proof of the existence of an external atmosphere, and of the ultimate destiny of the bird itself.
It is worth observing, too, that this duty of worship, which results from the truth professed in the acknowledgment that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,” like the other things already mentioned, involves or illustrates the Divine personality. Worship, at the very least, is adoration and gratitude,—the utterance, generally in words, of thought and affection towards the Supreme Nature, as the subject of high attributes and the source of universal good;—exercises these, that can have no meaning, if that nature has no consciousness of its own perfections, and no knowledge of the language addressed to it. For man “to ascend into the hill of the Lord, and to stand and worship in his holy place,” He, to whom he approaches, must be a personal intelligence. Worship is the communion of mind with mind,—not only the sympathy of worshipper with worshipper, but the communion of each and of all with the worshipped. There can be no communion or sympathy with a force;—no intelligent adoration of a law; no affections can be warmed and excited, and drawn forth in psalm and song, towards a mere senseless physical power,—an unintelligent, mechanical necessity! Without a personal God, everything like worship is a mockery and a lie; the whole service is nothing but a masquerade. If worship could be conceived to be honestly attempted in connexion with the denial of God’s personal existence, it would be an attempt on the part of the worshippers to produce subjective states of mind by the conscious temporary assumption of a falsehood, and the employment upon themselves of a system of direct deception and imposture. The thing is impossible,—or impossible to be continued. There must either be the admission of a personal God as the object of worship, or worship itself will soon cease. Our belief and persuasion as a people are recorded in the front of our Royal Exchange. We may adapt to the fact the beautiful words of the Book of Proverbs: “Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets. She crieth in the chief place of concourse; in the CITY she uttereth her words, saying, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.’” And this publicly recorded persuasion,—this proclamation of our faith in the ears of all men, and our meaning it for the proclamation of the common and universal faith of humanity,—this involves in it the corresponding duty,—the duty of worshipping Him who is acknowledged as God,—the God of the whole earth,—and the duty of “all that dwell therein.” “O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.” “The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.” “Sing unto the Lord a new song, sing unto the Lord, all the earth.” “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.” “Praise the Lord, all ye nations; praise him, all ye people. For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye the Lord.”
II.
Character.
What stands next to the idea of worship, is a description of the moral character of the worshippers. “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?” “He that hath clean hands and a pure heart: who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.” This description is very brief, but it is very comprehensive. Each clause may be considered as representing a distinct and large department of duty; and the whole, taken together, as demanding or enforcing universal virtue. “Clean hands” stand as a figure for all outward and visible excellence. Every thing that the man does, is done in consistency with the rule of rectitude. He is a just, equitable, fair-dealing man. Confidence may be placed in his honour and uprightness, his incorruptible integrity, his contempt of meanness, and intolerance of wrong. Everything that belongs to a sound, solid, practical worth,—a pure, and even a fastidious, virtue,—a virtue beyond doubt or suspicion,—may be supposed to attach to the man who is said, by emphasis, to have “clean hands.” “Not to swear deceitfully,”—whatever may be its precise shade of meaning in the psalm,—may fairly be interpreted, in a discussion like this, as standing for honest and sincere speech, and as the type of the virtuous use of the tongue. It excludes from the idea of the character, deceit and falsehood, concealment and equivocation, with everything approaching to the designed conveyance of a wrong impression by word or look. In buying and selling, in barter or bargain, in converse or correspondence,—in respect to whatever business he transacts, and in relation to every medium for thought—there is supposed to be, in the man before us, scrupulous propriety of language,—the utmost transparency of meaning and purpose. He is simple, straightforward, without the shadow of deceit or guile. Then, “a pure heart,” in addition to habitual “cleanness of hands,” and the maintenance of entire integrity of tongue, is intended to express, the co-existence of an upright inward life, with the outward appearances of practical goodness. It would not only imply, however, the harmony of a man’s thoughts with his words,—and the correctness of the motives of his visible acts,—it would include in it, in its scriptural import, the government of the passions,—the control of the imagination,—sincerity and depth of religious feeling;—every thing not only chaste but devout, the whole soul liberated from gross and corrupting affections,—free from the drag and degradation of the flesh,—and fairly detached from the adhesions of earth, in all senses in which they would imply bondage to the sensual or the secular. “Not to lift up the soul unto vanity,” is intended to express the freedom of the man from idol-worship. The “vanities” of the heathen were the idols or deities whom the heathen adored; to whom they “lifted up their souls,”—or, in other words, to whom they rendered religious reverence, and before whom they appeared in worship. “Cleanness of hands,” then, “sincerity of speech,” “purity of heart,” with all that they include, in their seminal comprehensiveness, of outward and inward practical virtue, are thus connected with regard to the true God. The man has not only both morality and religion, but his religion is of the right kind. It is as proper as to its object, as it is sincere in itself. The man neither worships idols as Gods,—nor idols with God,—nor God through idols. “He has not lifted up his soul unto vanity.” He has not been seduced by the sun in his splendour, nor by the moon in her brightness; he has not “kissed his hand,” nor “offered sacrifices,” to “the queen of heaven:” he has not “bowed his knee to the image of Baal,” nor “fallen down to the stock of a tree.” The language descriptive of his feeling and practice would be that of David in relation to himself,—“Unto THEE, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”
It is easy to see, how this demand of character in his worshippers adds to the proof of the personality of God. Worship of any kind, to have any meaning, implies personality;—but the demand for worshippers of a certain sort, implies, along with this, the possession, by Him whom they are to approach and please, of personal properties the same in kind with those of the worshippers. Where there is virtue, there must be thought;—where there are moral attributes, there must be personal intelligence; and where there is the necessity for these, as a pre-requisite for worship,—the Being worshipped must be supposed to be distinguished by moral attributes as well as by intelligence, as thus, only, could he properly appreciate, or consistently demand, them. A God may be imagined to be better than his worshippers,—he cannot rationally be supposed to be worse. To have a perception of goodness, and a sympathy with the good, and to permit none but the latter to stand before him, or to come into his presence, God must not only be a person, but one whose own character, must itself be pre-eminently distinguished by goodness. It may be worth observing, that moral ideas associated with worship, operate in more ways than one. They take a direction both upwards and downwards, each action illustrating the other. The character regarded with complacency in the worshippers, indicates that of the God they worship;—the character associated with the God they worship, moulds and fashions that of the worshippers. The deities of a people will naturally influence their moral notions and their moral behaviour. The object of worship becomes the standard of virtue;—men will imitate what they are taught to adore. If there be no God, there need be no worship;—if worship is rendered to unintelligent force, it can be of no consequence, so far as it is concerned, what the moral character of the worshippers is;—if the God be conceived of as sensual or malignant, lascivious or bloody, his image may be expected to be mirrored in his worshippers;—but if in all that approach him, he peremptorily demands “clean hands” and “a pure heart,”—with all that these include of universal virtue,—he must of necessity be considered to be holy Himself, while the habitual worship of such a being must be regarded as conducive to holiness in his servants. These latter ideas are precisely those which the Biblical idea of Deity illustrates. He is always described, in the loftiest terms, as invested with every attribute of excellence; as infinitely removed from evil; as looking on the good with delight; as permitting such only to approach him; as bidding the bad far from his presence; as detecting and denouncing hypocrisy and formality; and as exposing the uselessness of ritual acts and external observances taken by themselves, and insisting on an inward and earnest sympathy with his own love of the holy and the pure.
In consistency with the course which more than once we have already followed, we shall here introduce a series of passages from the Holy Scriptures illustrative of the statements which have just been made.
“The holy one of Israel.” “He is the Rock, his work is perfect;—a God of truth, and without iniquity; just and right is he.” “The Lord is in his holy temple;”—“worship him in the beauty of holiness.” “For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.” “Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?—Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee and set them (thy doings) in order before thine eyes.” “Thou art not a God that hast pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with thee.” “Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols. For thou Lord art high above all the earth; thou art exalted far above all gods. Ye that love the Lord, hate evil. Rejoice in the Lord ye righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.” “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth,—but their heart is far from me;” “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, seek ye me, and ye shall live;—seek good and not evil, that ye may live.” “Hate the evil and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate that ye may live.” “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?” “When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.” “When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well.” “Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. Examine me, prove me, try my reins and my heart. I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers. I have hated the congregation of evil doers; and will not sit with the wicked. I will wash mine hands in innocency, and so will I compass thine altar, O Lord.” “Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.”
III.
Christ.
These representations lead to the consideration of a third and last thing, which is essential to the complete illustration of the subject.
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” There is a God; God is to be worshipped; none but the good can acceptably worship him. So far all is plain. But men are not good. Throughout the race there is a consciousness to the contrary. In spite of the operation of many amiable instincts, and in spite of a large amount of passable virtue, it is quite understood that there is a terrible mass of iniquity in the world;—that there are the grossnesses of brutal lust, and the refinements of a fastidious licentiousness;—that there are falsehood, and fraud, and lying, and theft,—all the modes of open or secret dishonesty by which men attempt, or contrive, to overreach each other;—that there is the stupid animalism of rural ignorance, and the arts, and appliances, and accomplishments of crime, that abound in the recesses of great cities;—it is well known that corruption and depravity, in all these forms, have made terrible havoc in all lands; and, what is still more to the purpose, that among the classes the freest from crime, there is so much moral defect, and so many things having the character of sin,—so much, especially, of the want of religious faith, and of indifference to God, if not of conscious and positive enmity against him,—so much, in fact, of what constitutes the opposite of all that must be meant by the term “holiness,” and of what is demanded in those who can calmly “ascend into the hill of the Lord,” and acceptably “stand in his holy place;” that it would almost seem, on the admission of the statements and principles advanced, as if the worship of God must be given up as hopeless, in a world like this, from the utter impossibility of finding a sufficient number to make up for him an assembly of fitting worshippers.
There is a difference between worship considered as the habitual service of the good,—the appearing before God of those of “clean hands” and “pure hearts,” who are living in moral sympathy with him,—and the approach to his footstool, in shame and tears, of the guilty and the penitent. It is the worship and character of the former class that are contemplated in the description of the psalm before us; which description, with the demand involved in it, to be fully and theologically understood, must be looked at in connexion with the entire service of the Hebrew Institute, and the whole teaching of the sacred volume. If a holy God can only be approached by holy worshippers,—and that, too, in a world of which holiness is not the natural and characteristic attribute,—it is very obvious, that he must either remain without ever being worshipped at all, or some mode must exist by which the inhabitants of such a world may be made holy. Now this is just the thing which the Jewish dispensation illustrated by a figure, and which the Christian redemption is given to the world to realize in fact.
The Jewish dispensation approached men, in the first instance, as sinful and polluted, and it established a system adapted to their necessities. It set up its altar,—prescribed its sacrifices,—appointed its institutions,—consecrated its priesthood;—had its days of atonement, and its ark of propitiation,—its paschal lamb, and its burnt offering, and its scape-goat, and its sprinkling of blood;—with everything else that could either significantly presuppose sin, or point to the necessity and the mode of its removal. The Hebrew worshipper, in appearing before God, was first required to come into contact with the sacrifice and the priest;—he confessed offence, acknowledged his just exposure to punishment, brought his propitiation, and then, being purified from his ceremonial transgressions and the consequent disqualifications he had contracted, by this appointed method of approach to God, he was regarded as in a state of fitness for his worship, and could thus draw nigh as an accepted worshipper.
Now, there was a moral meaning in this ritual arrangement. It was intended to teach that, as ceremonial impurity needed to be removed in order to acceptable outward service,—so, spiritual guilt needed to be removed in order to acceptable spiritual worship. When the psalm before us, therefore, or any other, expatiates on the virtues and excellences of the man who is permitted “to ascend into the hill of the Lord,” or allowed “to stand in his holy place,” it is always implied, that he has come to the attainment of the character described, by a process of pardon and of purification through the previous exercise of the Divine mercy.
But, it is to be remarked, that the Levitical Institute, while so fully set forth and impressively taught the two great truths of the sinfulness of man, and the necessity for some Divinely appointed mode both for his reconciliation with God and the renewal or sanctification of his nature, did not reveal, completely and explicitly, what that mode was, or what it was to be. It dimly foreshadowed it;—it indicated the principle on which it would proceed, and the parts of which it would consist;—but it did this by type and symbol,—anticipating, in a picture, the substance and reality that were one day to be revealed. It was very evident, from the Hebrew Institute, considered as a Divine and intelligible appointment, that men were to learn from it that their approach to God was to be marked by solemn and affecting peculiarities. They were distinctly taught that they needed to be redeemed, reconciled, pardoned, purified, in order that they might be able to rejoice at the remembrance of God’s holiness, or to appear before him as acceptable worshippers; and they were further taught, that in order to this,—that is, to their attainment of pardon and its attendant advantages,—it was incumbent that atonement should be made by sacrifice, and that the priest should pass into the Divine presence with the blood of the victim, to bring thence, and through it, the blessings needed by sinful humanity.
St. Paul tells us, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the Levitical Institute taught this, and that it was intended to teach it; that is, that it taught what it was that humanity needed. But he tells us more than that; he tells us that it also taught that this thing that was so needed, and so wished for, was not yet revealed, that it was not provided by the Institute itself, in its own altar, victim, or priesthood,—and would not be manifested so long as itself stood; or, at least, that the coming of it, as it would be the fulfilment of what the Institute foreshadowed or foretold, would be the signal and means of its dissolution and departure. By the fact of sacrifice, and the sprinkling of blood, and the washings and purifications of their own ceremonial, the apostle says it was evidently taught, that there existed a necessity for the removal of sin and the cleansing of the conscience; but then, by the repetition of the sacrifices, the annual return of the day of atonement, and the mysterious darkness of the holy of holies,—excluded from sight by the awful veil, and permitted to be approached only once a year, and that only by one individual,—by all this, he says, it was equally taught, that Judaism did not accomplish for man, what it informed him needed to be done. The first covenant had ordinances of divine service,—a sanctuary—a veil—the tabernacle which is the holiest of all. Now, into this, the high priest alone went, “once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people. The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not made manifest, while the first tabernacle was yet standing: which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience: which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.”
Now, this typical and temporary character sustained by the Jewish Institute,—this parabolic and preparatory office which it had to fulfil,—this suggesting merely, or setting forth in a figure, of the wants of humanity and of the principle which must pervade, underlie, and distinguish the provision that must meet them,—this prophetic announcement that priest and sacrifice were yet future, but were certain to come,—all this, while it shows the importance of attending to the connexion between the Old and the New Testaments, and of mutually interpreting each by the other, gives, of necessity, to the more spiritual portions of the Hebrew records a far-stretching and comprehensive meaning, which can only be understood by looking at it in the light of the Christian revelation. “Coming events cast their shadows before.” The whole of the fabric and furniture of the tabernacle were constructed and arranged upon this principle. This principle was recognised and embodied in the utterances of the prophets;—it often pervaded the entire texture, or appeared in parts, of one or other of the psalms and songs of the ancient church. In looking at the intention and significancy of Judaism, we should imagine ourselves gazing on the floor of the temple and the front of the veil,—observing them covered with flickering shadows falling from objects which are unseen. There they lie,—the distinct outlines of thing and person,—the shadows of substances which are existing somewhere, but which only, as yet, give notice that they are, by this insubstantial intimation of themselves. In the holy of holies, there is the mysterious light of the glory of God seated between the cherubims;—between that and the hanging veil and the sacred floor, some one must be standing, whom, as yet, we see not,—for his shadow can be discerned on the veil itself, and even on the floor, as we mark minutely the appearances before us of light and shade. Some one is preparing to appear, and to be revealed, and manifested, in whose hands will be found the substance of those other objects whose shadows seem to be lying around us!—The approaching events are thus prophetically announced by these dim outlines; and, while they are being so, voices are heard from the great congregation, uttering an equally prophetic song,—celebrating the glories of what they see, but doing it in language which only finds its intended significance when applied to and associated with what they see not.
On this principle it is, then, that we have prophetic psalms;—psalms that are termed Messianic, from their referring to the Messiah, and anticipating his appearance, his sufferings and death, his resurrection and ascension, his kingdom and glory. Some of these refer, in their primary application, to other individuals and to mundane events;—they express the feelings and anticipations of the writers in relation to themselves, and they describe matters of immediate concern or recent occurrence; but they do this in language that admits of a deeper meaning and a larger range;—the import of which they that employed it might not know, and which we only learn from the New Testament expositors of the Hebrew text. When Jesus “opened the understandings of the apostles, that they might understand the Scriptures;” and when he condescended to show them the true meaning of their ancient books, he expounded to them, it is said, “What was written in the law, in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning himself.” The evangelists and the apostles, in their future writings for the instruction and use of the Christian church, used this knowledge, or similar knowledge from the same source; and thus it is, that we find quotations from so many of the psalms,—some in the Gospels, some in the Acts, others in the Epistles of Peter and Paul. From one psalm the apostle takes the expression of man being made “a little lower than the angels,” to express the fact of Christ’s coming in the flesh, with the objects and results of it;—that “he was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that he might taste death for every man.” From another psalm, he applies language still stronger, to the same purpose. “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: lo! I come to do thy will, O God.” The apostle’s comment upon this is very remarkable. Having quoted the passage, he proceeds to reason upon it after this manner:—When he says, “Sacrifice and offering, which are offered by the law, thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein, and then says, ‘Lo! I come to do thy will;’ he takes away the first that he may establish the second.” That is, he removes and puts aside the mere symbols of the preparatory dispensation, which were inefficient and typical, and reveals the reality, which they were meant to announce, and which they prophetically foreshadowed. That reality was the Divine “will” in its ultimate object, namely, “The offering of the body of Christ” “once for all,” “through the eternal Spirit,” “without spot;” by the which offering, we are saved and sanctified;—for it can do that for the heart and conscience which the others only showed to be necessary by what they did “for the purifying of the flesh.” From another psalm may be collected the physical circumstances of the crucifixion,—the “cruel mockings,” the “piercing of the hands and the feet,” the “parting of the garments and casting lots;” together with the anticipated mysterious utterances of the great sufferer, in his “bloody sweat,” and his mighty anguish! In another psalm, we find the resurrection;—the soul of Messiah is “not left in Hades,” the place of the dead, nor does “his body” in the grave, “see corruption;” and in other psalms, we find the foreshadowing of subsequent events:—his ascension into heaven; his official position, and mediatorial glories and functions, there; with much that relates to the corresponding effect of all this on earth:—“Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee”:—“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedek.” “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed:—Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.” Now, this latter passage is to be particularly observed. It is a passage taken from one of the psalms,—a psalm sung at the removal of the ark, like the twenty-fourth, and which, like it, is taken up in the celebration of battle and war, victory and conquest. It is to be noticed, then, that the passage just quoted, is applied by the apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, to the ascension of Christ, and is connected by him with the work which he came from heaven to accomplish, and the blessings which he returned to heaven to dispense. “Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended, is the same also as he that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things). And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come, in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
These last remarks will have revealed the drift of this long discussion, and will enable us now rapidly to bring it to a close. By “reasoning out of the Scriptures,” we have shown how the Levitical dispensation was, in its rites and usages, preparatory and prophetic of something to come;—by distinct passages from the Book of Psalms, as quoted and explained in the New Testament, we have shown how the hymns of the ancient church anticipated, by their recondite and profounder meaning, the same things that were foreshadowed in the ritual;—and, in the concluding remarks on this point, we have shown, how the apostle illustrates the ascension of Messiah, after successful battle and war—returning from conquest and crowned with victory—by referring to the words of a Hebrew Psalm. In the same way, then, we think ourselves entitled to connect the 24th Psalm with the mission of the Messiah, and to consider that the close of it, if not an intended prophecy of his ascension, is yet capable of being regarded as illustrative of it; and that it should suggest therefore the propriety of adding to whatever truths of a general nature the first verses of the psalm may embody, the specific peculiarities of the Christian revelation,—that revelation to which all previous discoveries were preparatory, and without which they cannot be complete. There is an emphatic sense, in which Christ is “the King of glory;” in which he is to be regarded as having being engaged in mortal combat,—contending with the enemy of God and man,—overcoming him in a way as mysterious as it was successful—by yielding himself to be “bruised for our iniquities,” and “stricken for our sins;” and that, “after having by himself purged our sins,”—after having, in the nature he had assumed, “presented himself an offering and a sacrifice,” that we might obtain “eternal redemption through his blood,”—he rose again from the dead, proclaiming his triumph over sin and Satan, by showing that it was “not possible for him to be holden” of Death; and further, that “he ascended up on high,”—entered into heaven, whose “everlasting gates” opened to receive him, as one who was “leading captivity captive,” and who came to ask and “to receive gifts for men.” All this we are warranted in connecting with the ideas which have already passed before us, of the supremacy of God, the duty of worship and the character of his worshippers, and of finding in it the evangelical element in which such ideas need to be baptized. God is; God is to be worshipped; God is holy; they must be holy who habitually approach him;—but “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God:” “every mouth must be stopped, for the whole world is guilty before Him.” “Who, then, shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place?”—They, certainly, who have “clean hands” and “a pure heart,” but—who have first “made a covenant with God by sacrifice;”—who have accepted Him, whom he hath “set forth as a propitiation,” and “whose blood cleanseth from all sin;”—who, as sinners, draw nigh in his name, who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and without whom “no man cometh unto the Father;”—they who, believing in Him “who died, rose again, and continues to live,” and “who hath ascended up on high that he might fill all things,” have “received out of his fulness even grace for grace”;—have obtained the pardon of actual sin, and have received the gift of the sanctifying Spirit which the Redeemer is emphatically exalted to bestow;—they who, by the subjective operation of the truth, are “washed, and justified, and sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God;” and who know, by experience, that “the grace of God which bringeth salvation, teaching them, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world.” “This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face O God of Jacob.” “These receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of their salvation.” “They that do these things, shall never be moved.”
In this way, then, by taking the first verse of the psalm before us, which constitutes the inscription on the Royal Exchange, and looking at it in connexion with the whole composition of which it is a part, and by looking at that, also, in connexion with the religious institution it belonged to, and the entire revelation of both Testaments, as gradually developing the great system of mercy and mediation,—in this way, we are taught to associate with the general truths of an elementary Theism,—which is all that at first appear to be proclaimed,—the specific truths of an Evangelical Christianity. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;”—this simple declaration of the primary principle of all religion, when placed in the light emanating from the whole constellation of discoveries which surround it in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, is seen to involve in it, not only the existence, the government, and the worship, of a personal God, but the reality and the functions, the work and the presidency, of a personal Redeemer. They that “ascend into the hill of the Lord, and that stand with acceptance in his holy place,” must be holy because God is holy; but it were terrible to make this demand upon humanity, which is altogether deformed and dislocated, and that manifests everywhere, when it thinks of God, that its next thought is that God is against it,—it were terrible, we say, to make this demand, if there came not along with it, the proclamation of the offer, and the announcement of the Divine method, of forgiveness,—the “reconciliation” effected by him who triumphed over sin by the death of the cross, and who ascended up on high in the might of his achievement, to be at once the medium of our access to God, and the Divine Distributor of the blessings of his salvation. Men, as men—that is, as sinners—are to believe the gospel, and to accept of Christ, that, by faith and repentance, spiritually “entering into the holiest of all, through the way he has consecrated for them by his blood,” they may be constituted the church; and then, being the church,—that is, sinful men justified and sanctified through him,—they are “to bring forth the fruits of the spirit” in their lives, and habitually to worship “in the beauty of holiness.” The virtue that we demand in the worshippers of God, under the rule of the Christian dispensation, is the virtue that flows from religious faith; that faith being, the exercise of trust in the redemption of the gospel. To have “clean hands” and “a pure heart,”—to be sincere and upright in lip and life—we exact of all men as their daily duty; but in order to possess these in a proper manner, so that they shall be vital, Christian holiness, and not a superficial and secular virtue, there is a previous duty which behoves to be attended to,—the submission of the mind to the faith of Christ,—penitent approach to an offended God through the one divinely-appointed Mediator, “in whom we have redemption, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.” Being “made partakers of the Divine nature,” through the influence of the quickening and sanctifying Spirit, they will then not only have “their fruit unto holiness,” and cultivate, from the force of a necessary law, and as impelled by a regal and irrepressible instinct, “whatsoever things are just, and whatsoever things are pure, and whatsoever things are true, and whatsoever things are lovely and of good report,” but they will be a part of “the priesthood of God,” endowed and consecrated by an unction from himself, that, in the various acts and exercises of the Church, they may constantly offer up “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to him by Jesus Christ.” These engagements, again, will re-act on their personal character, and have a constant tendency to advance and elevate it, and help their attainment of a practical perfection. In this way, men, first “having obtained like precious faith” with the Apostles, “in the righteousness of God, and of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ;” will be divinely taught the secret of a real and accumulative excellence. “Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world through lust,” they will “give all diligence to add to their faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.”
An intelligent adherent of the Scriptural, Protestant, and Evangelical faith of the living Christianity of this realm of England, associates all we have endeavoured to illustrate in the whole of our discussion with the simple inscription on the Royal Exchange. It is a text from the Bible. It recognises the Divine authority of the book; and the recognition of that authority in one of its sayings, carries with it the admission of the whole of its utterances. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” The association of this, in a devout mind, is easy and natural with the exaltation and glory of the Redeemer of the world, whose last words when he left it were, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” and who, upon this, based the command which he gave to the Apostles, “Go ye, therefore, into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” The government of the earth is in the hands of Christ; it is mediatorial; it is not only that of goodness and beneficence, but it is that also of revealed mercy. God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth,” for his son “gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” There is another “fulness,” besides that of the teeming earth, and the annual redundance and prodigality of nature. There is “The fulness of Christ,—the fulness of him who filleth all in all;” the complete development of “his body the Church;” and the full-orbed display of his perfections and glory, when “to him every knee shall bow of things in heaven and things in earth; and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” All this, the thoughtful observer associates with the sentence that daily meets the eyes of the citizens of this great metropolis. All this is being ceaselessly uttered in the hearing of the assembled congress of nations;—it is held up in the sight of the many and multitudinous representatives of the various tribes and peoples of the earth! What would be the future of Europe and the world,—moral, political, social, and religious,—if England and its visitors alike learnt, and fully carried out, all that is involved in what the one is proclaiming in the ears of the others?
In the succeeding pages of this book, we shall endeavour to reply to this question.
PART III.
PROPHETIC.