he will be the everlasting God, will be when they exist no more, as he was before they existed at all. Secondly, Having judged of the grandeur of God by the sublimity of his essence, judge of it by the immensity of his works. The prophet invites us to this meditation in the words of my text. It is he that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things. It is he who 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. But who can pretend to discuss, in a single article of one sermon, a subject which whole volumes could not contain? For if there be a subject, in which simple narration resembles rhetorical bombast, it is undoubtedly this. A novice is frightened at hearing what astronomers assert; that the sun is a million times bigger than the earth that the naked eye discovers more than a thousand fixed stars, which are so many suns to enlighten unknown systems: that with the help of glasses we may discover an almost infinite number: that two thousand have been reckoned in one constellation; and that without exaggerating, they may be numbered at more than two millions: that what are called nebulous stars, of which there is an innumerable multitude, that appear to us as if they were involved in little misty clouds, are all assemblages of stars. A novice is frightened, when he is told, that there is such a prodigions distance between the earth and the sun, that a body, moving with the greatest rapidity that art could produce, would take up twenty-five years in passing from the one to the other: that it would take up seven hundred and fifty thousand to pass from the earth to the nearest of the fixed stars and to the most distant more than a A novice is frightened: (do not accuse me, my brethren, of wandering from the subject of this discourse, for the saints, who are proposed in scripture as patterns to us, cherished their devotions with meditations of this kind: at the sight of these grand objects they exclaimed, O Lord, when we consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? Psal. viii. 3, 4. And my text engageth me to fix your attention upon these objects: lift up your eyes on high and behold.) A novice is frightened, when he is assured, that, although the stars, which form a constellation, seem to touch one another, yet the distance of those that are nearest together cannot be ascertained, and that even words are wanting to express the spaces which separate those that are at the greatest distances from each other: that if two men were observing two fixed stars, from two parts of the earth, the most distant from each other, the lines that went from their eyes, and terminated on that star, would be confounded together; that it would be the same with two men, were one of them on the earth, and the other in the sun, though the sun and the earth are at such a prodigious distance from each other; so inconsiderable is that distance in comparison of the space which separates both from the star. All this startles a novice: and yet, what are these bodies, countless in their number, and enormous in their size? What are these unmeasurable spaces, which absord our senses and imaginations? What are these in comparison of what reason discovers? Shall we be puerile enough to persuade ourselves that there is nothing beyond U what we see? Have we not reason to think, that there are spaces far, far beyond, full of the Creator's wonders, and affording matter of contemplation to the thousand thousands, to the ten thousand times ten thousand intelligences that he hath made? Dan. vii. 10. Let us pause. Over all this universe God reigns.But what is man even in the comparison of this earth? Let him reflect on himself," (I borrow the words of a modern author) "let him consider what he is in comparison of the whole that exists beside: let him regard himself as confined in this obscure by-corner of nature and from the appearance of the little dungeon where he is lodged, that is, of this visible world, let him learn to estimate the world, its kingdoms, and himself at their real value." Isaiah estimates their real value in the words of my text. Behold, says he, all nations before him are as a drop of a bucket: they are of no more value than the small dust that cleaves to the balance: God sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: yea, they are still less considerable, all nations before him are as nothing. Thirdly. The immensity of the Creator's works lead us to the efficiency of his will: and the idea of the real world conducts us to that of the possible world. There needs no train of propositions to discover a connection between what God hath done, and what he can do. The idea of a creature leads to that of a Creator: for, in supposing that some beings have been created, we suppose an author of their creation. The idea of a creative Being includes the idea of a Being whose will is efficient for as soon as you suppose a creative Being, you suppose a Being whose will is self-efficient. But a Being, whose will is self-efficient, is a Being who, by a single act of his will, can create all possible beings: that is, all the existence of which implies no contradiction; there being no reason for limiting the power of a will that hath been once efficient of itself. So that as soon as you conceive a Being who hath once created, you conceive a Being who can always create. Let us then form this notion of God: a Being who, by a single act of his will, can create now in empty space, as he hath formerly created. He can say, of light which doth not exist, what he once said of that which doth exist, Let there be light; and there shall be light, like that which 'actually is. He can say, of luminaries which are not, what he hath said of luminaries which already are, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven; and luminaries, that are not, shall be, as those that once were not are now, and will owe their existence to that will, which is always irresistible, and always efficient; or, as the prophet saith in the words of my text, to the greatness of his might, to the strength of his power. Lastly, to convince you of the grandeur of God, I am to remark to you the magnificence of some of his mighty acts, at certain periods, in favor of his church. The prophet had two of these periods in view. The first was the return of the Jews from that captivity in Babylon which he had denounced: and the second, the coming of the Messiah, of which their return from captivity was only a shadow. What wonders did God work in the first of these periods! Nebuchadnezzar, the tyrant of the Jews, had obtained universal monarchy, or as the prophet Jeremiah expresseth it, he was become the hammer of the whole earth, chap. i. 23. The inspired writers represent the rapidity of his victories under the emblem of the swiftness of an eagle. We can hardly imagine the speed with which he over-ran Ethiopia, Arabia, Palestine, Persia, Media, Egypt, Idumea, Syria, and almost all Asia, and with which he conquered all those extensive countries as he marched through them. Cyrus had been appointed by the Lord, and nominated by the prophets, to stop his career, and to subdue those Babylonians, who had subdued so many nations. But who was this Cyrus? Son of a father, whose meanness and obscurity had prevailed with Astyages, king of Media, to give him his daughter Mandana in marriage; how will he perform such prodigious enterprizes? This is not all: Astyages was afraid that Mandana's son should fulfil a dream, of which his diviners had given him frightful interpretations. He caused her therefore to reside at court during her pregnancy, and commanded Harpagus, one of his most devoted courtiers, to put the child to death as soon as he should be born. But God preserved the child, and all the power of Astyages could not make one hair fall from his head without the Divine permission. Harpagus trembled at his commission, resigned it to the overseer of the king's flocks, and ordered him to expose Mandana's son: but when he was preparing to obey him, his wife, affected with the beauty of young Cyrus, prevailed with her husband to expose her own son in his stead. Thus, by a train of miracles, was this anointed of God preserved, and by a train of greater miracles still, did he stir up the Persians against the Medes, march at the head of them against the cruel Astyages, defeat him, conquer Media, and at length besiege Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar had surrounded that city with a triple wall, and had replaced the bricks of Semiramis with freestone, which contributed, says Dion, less to the magnificence |
