December 13

Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain.— Jeremiah 10:7.

God is so abundantly and wonderfully represented to us in all his works, as will leave us under the guilt of most inexcusable contempt, it we overlook him, and live as without him in the world. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work: day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge." Thus "that which may be known of God is manifest; 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 the ungodly are without excuse." Can not you see that which all the world revealeth; nor hear that which all the world proclaimeth? "O sing ye forth the honor of his name: make his praise glorious." Can we forget him, when all the world are our remembrancers? Can we stop our ears against the voice of heaven and earth? Can we be ignorant of him when the whole creation is our teacher? Can we overlook that holy, glorious name, which is written so legibly upon all things that ever our eyes beheld, that nothing but blindness, sleepiness, or distraction, could possibly keep us from discerning it?

I have many a time wondered, that, as the eye is dazzled so with the beholding of the greatest light, that it can scarce perceive the shining of a lesser, so the glorious transcendent majesty of the Lord doth not even overwhelm our understandings, and so transport and take us up, as that we can scarce observe or remember any thing else. For naturally the greatest objects of our sense are apt to make us at that time, insensible of the smaller: and our exceeding great business is apt to make us utterly forget and neglect those things that are exceedingly small. And, oh, what nothings are the best and greatest of the creatures, in comparison with God! And what toys and trifles are all our other businesses in the world, in comparison of the business which we have with him!

But I have been stopped in these admirations, by considering that the wise Creator hath fitted and ordered all his creatures to the use which he designeth them to. And, therefore, as the eye must be receptive only of so much light as is proportioned to its use and pleasure; and must be so distant from the sun, that its light may rather guide than blind us, and its heat may rather quicken than consume us; so God hath made our understanding capable of no other knowledge of him here, than what is suited to the work of holiness. And while we have flesh, our souls in this lantern of the body must see him through so thick a glass, as shall so far allay our apprehension, as not to distract us, and take us off the works which he enjoineth us. And God and our souls shall be at such a distance, as that the proportionable light of his countenance may conduct us, and not overwhelm us; and his love may be so revealed, as to quicken our desires, and draw us on to a better taste, but not so as to make us utterly impatient of this world, and utterly weary of our lives. So that when I consider that certainly all men would be distracted, if their apprehensions of God were any whit answerable to the greatness of his majesty and glory, (the brain being not able to bear such high operations of the soul, nor the passions which would necessarily follow,) it much reconcileth my wondering mind to the wise and gracious providence of God, even his setting innocent nature itself at such a distance from his glory, though it reconcile me not to that doleful distance which is introduced by sin, and which is furthered by Satan, the world and the flesh, and which our Redeemer by his Spirit and intercession must heal.

And it further reconcileth me to this disposure and will of the blessed God, and this necessary natural distance and darkness of our mind, when I consider that, if God, and heaven, and hell, were as near and open to our apprehensions, as the things are which we see and feel, this life would not be what God intended it to be, a life of trial and preparation for another. What trial would there be of any man's faith, or love, or obedience, or constancy, or self-denial, if we saw God stand by, or apprehended him as if we saw him? It would be no more praiseworthy or rewardable for a man to abhor all temptations to worldliness, ambition, gluttony, drunkenness, lust, cruelty, than it is for a man to be kept from sleeping that is pierced with thorns; or for a man to forbear to drink a cup of melted gold, which he knows will burn out his bowels.

But though in this life we may neither hope for, nor desire, such overwhelming, sensible apprehensions of God, as the rest of our faculties can not answer, nor our bodies bear, yet, that our apprehensions of him should be so base, and small, and dull, and inconstant, as to be borne down by the noise of worldly business, or by the presence of any creature, or by the tempting baits of sensuality, this is the more odious, by how much God is more great and glorious than the creature, and even because the use of the creature itself is but to reveal the glory of the Lord. To have such slight and stupid thoughts of him, as will not carry us on in uprightness of obedience, nor keep us in his fear, nor draw out our hearts in sincere desires to please him and enjoy him; and as will not raise us to a contempt of the pleasures, and profits, and honors of this world, this is to be despisers of the Lord, and to live as in a sleep, and to be dead to God, and alive only to the world and flesh. It is no unjust dishonor or injury to the creature, to be accounted as nothing in comparison of God, that it may be able to do nothing against him or his interests: but to make such a nothing of the most glorious God, by our contemptuous forgetfulness or neglect, as that our apprehensions of him can not prevail against the sordid pleasures of the flesh, and against the richest baits of sin, and all the wrath or allurements of man,—this is but to make a god of dust and nothing. It is wonder that man's understanding can become so sottish, as thus to wink the sun itself into a constant darkness, and to take God as nothing, or as no God, who is so abundantly revealed to them in astonishing, transcendent greatness and excellency, by all the creatures in the world, and with whom we have continually so much to do. O sinful man! into how great a depth of ignorance, stupidity, and misery art thou fallen!