The Night Watches

Psalm 63:6; 130:6; 42:8

By John MacDuff

THE GLORY OF GOD

"Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." Psalm 90:2

O My Soul! Seek to fill yourself with thoughts of the Almighty. Lose yourself in the impenetrable tracts of His Glory! "Can you by searching find out God?" Can the animalcule fathom the ocean, or the worm scale the skies? Can the finite grasp the Infinite— the mortal Immortality? We can do no more than stand on the brink of the shoreless sea, and cry, "Oh the depth!" "From everlasting!"- shrouded in the great and awful mystery of eternity. Before one star revolved in its sphere- before one angel moved his wing- God was! His own infinite presence filling all space. All time, to Him, is but as the heaving of a breath- the beat of a pulse- the twinkling of an eye.

The Eternity of bliss, which is the noblest heritage of the creature, is in its nature progressive. It admits of advance in degrees of happiness and glory. Not so the Eternity of the Great Creator; He was as perfect before the birth of time, as He will be when "time shall be no longer;"- as infinitely glorious when He inhabited alone the solitudes of immensity, as He is now with the songs of angel and archangel sounding in His ear! But "who can show forth all His praise?" We can at best but lisp the alphabet of His glory. Moses, who saw more of God than most, makes it still his prayer, "I beseech you, show me Your glory." Paul, who knew more of God than other men, prays still, "that I may know Him." "Our safest eloquence," says Hooker, "concerning Him, is our silence, when we confess without confession, that His glory is inexplicable."

And is this the Being to whom I can look up with sweetest confidence, and call "My Father"? Is it this Infinite One, whom "the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain," I can call "My God"? Believer, contemplate the medium through which it is you can see the glory of God, and yet live. "No man has seen God at any time, the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." He, who dwells in light inaccessible, comes forth from the pavilion of His glory in the person of "Immanuel, God with us." In Christ, "the Image of the invisible God," the creature- yes, sinners- can gaze unconsumed on the lusters of Deity! Be it yours to glorify Him. Seek thus to fulfill the great design of your being. Let all your words and ways, your actions and purposes, your crosses and losses, redound to His praise. The highest seraph can have no higher or nobler end than this— the glory of the God before whom he cast his crown.

But he has a claim on you, which He has not on the unredeemed angel. "He gave Himself for you!" This mightiest of all boons which Omnipotence could give, is the guarantee for the bestowment of all lesser necessary blessings, and for the withholding of all unnecessary trials. While you are called to behold "His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father," remember its characteristic; it is not a glory to appall you by its splendors, but to win and captivate you by its beauties- it is "full of grace and truth." He is your God in covenant. "Underneath are the everlasting arms." You may compose yourself on your nightly pillow, with the sweet pledge of security, and say, "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8