view him as king over Israel; and within its sacred precincts those celebrations took place, and those rites were performed, which announced a Redeemer, and in some sense anticipated his coming. Then well indeed might the Jew, who thought on God's way as "in the sanctuary," break into a confession of the greatness of God. We know not precisely the time when the psalm, in which our text occurs, was composed; whether after the building of the temple, or whilst "the ark of the covenant of the Lord remained under curtains." But suppose that Solomon had already reared his magnificent pile, it would not have been the grandeur of the house of the Lord which would have filled the devout Jew with wonder and exultation. As he gazed on the stupendous structure, it would not have been because it outdid every other in beauty and majesty, that his heart would have swelled with lofty emotions. He would have venerated the edifice, because it was as the council-chamber in which Deity arranged his plans, and the stage on which he wrought them gradually out for the benefit of the world. As he entered its courts, he would have seemed to himself to enter the very place where all those mighty affairs were being transacted, which were to terminate, in some far-off season, in the emancipation of the earth from wickedness and wretchedness. On every altar he would have seen a Redeemer already offered up in every cloud of incense he would have marked the ascendings of acceptable prayer through a Mediator: in the blast of every trumpet he would have heard God marshalling his armies for the final overthrow of Satan. And the feeling of his soul must have been, "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary." Thy way-I cannot trace it on the firmament, studded though it be with thy works. I cannot trace it on the earth, though thou art there in a thousand operations, all eloquent, and all worthy, of thyself. I search creation, but cannot find the lines of thy way, along which thou art passing to the fulfilment of thine ancient promises. But here is thy way, here in thy sanctuary. Every stone seems wrought into the pavement of that way every altar is as a pillar which shows its course: every sound is as the sound of thy footstep, as thou goest forward in thine awfulness. And in this, yea, in this, thou art amazing. I should have marvelled at thee less, had thine advancings towards the consummation of thy plan been audible through the universe, than now that within these walls thou hast space enough for the march of a purpose in which the universe has interest. Wonderful in that, through what goes on in this house builded with hands, thou art approximating to a glorious result, the overthrow of evil, and its extermination from thine empire-yea, more wonderful, for it more shows thee independent even on the instruments which thou dost use, than if thou hadst taken unnumbered worlds for thy scene of operation, passing in thy majesty from one to another, and causing each to be a beacon on the track of redemption. And therefore, oh, what can I do, after feeling and confessing that "thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary," but break into a challenge, a challenge to angels above, and to men below, "who is so great a God as our God?" But we would now observe, that, by the sanctuary, we may probably understand the holy of holies: for it was in that veiled and mysterious recess that the Shekinah shone, the visible token of the Almighty's presence. However true it be that God's way was in the temple, understanding by the temple the whole structure that was set apart to sacred uses, it was yet more emphatically true that this way was in the sanctuary, understanding by the sanctuary that part within the veil, into which none but the high priest was allowed to enter, and that but once in the year, when he entered as a type of the Mediator who, having shed his blood as a sacrifice, carried it into heaven to present it as an intercessor. It may not have been altogether to the temple services, to the ceremonies and sacrifices appointed by the law, that the Psalmist referred: it may rather have been to the awfulness, the sanctity, the privacy of that spot where the Almighty might be said to have condescended to take up his abode. In saying that God's way was "in the sanctuary," he may have designed to assert the impenetrable obscurity in which the divine proceedings were shrouded, and at the same time the inviolable holiness by which they were distinguished; and then the concluding question will indicate that this obscurity, and this holiness, were arguments or evidences of the greatness of God. And it will not be difficult to trace the connection between the several parts of our text, if you consider the sanctuary as thus put for the qualities or properties which were specially pointed out by the holy of holies. You are to remember that the sanctuary was a place into which no Israelite but the high priest might ever dare to enter, and the attempting to enter which would have been an act of the worst sacrilege, certain to be followed by instant and fearful vengeance. What concealment then was there about this sanctuary, and at the same time what purity! He who thought on the holy of holies thought on a solitude which was inaccessible to him, though close at hand inaccessible, even as the remotest depth of infinite space, though a single step might have taken him into its midst; but, at the same time, a solitude where, as he well knew, every thing breathed holiness, every thing glowed with the lustre of that Being who is of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. And to say of God that his way was in this sanctuary, what was it but to say that God works in an impenetrable secrecy, but that, nevertheless, in that secrecy he orders every thing in righteousness? These are facts with which we ought to be familiar, and in regard of which we should strive to keep our faith firm. We may not hope to understand the dealings of the Lord: nay, we must be content not to understand them: we must not attempt to lift, with presumptuous hand, the veil which conceals the place in which they originate. It is behind that curtain, to pass which is to perish, that the Almighty arranges his purposes, and appoints means for their consummation; and though we may know something of these purposes, as they appear without the curtain in their progress towards completion, they are hidden from us in their springs, and must often therefore be quite incomprehensible. But what of this? The sublime secrecy in which God dwells, and in which he works, is among the signal tokens of his greatness. In nothing does the Supreme Being more demand our admiration than in those properties which caused an apostle to exclaim, "How unsearchable are his judg ments, and his ways past finding out.' It is a proof of his mercy towards us, and a source of vast honor to himself, that he hides himself in clouds, and throws around his goings an awful obscurity. There is something singularly noble in that saying of Solomon, in the book of Proverbs, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing." It is his glory, not to make his every dealing luminous, so that his creatures might read without difficulty its design, and admit without an act of faith its excellence; but to involve his proceedings in so much of darkness, that there shall be a constant demand on the submissiveness and trust of those whom they concern. It is his glory, inasmuch as he thus takes the most effectual mode of preserving a spirit of dependence on himself, in beings who are prone to forget a first cause, and to ascribe to some second whatsoever they fancy they can trace to an origin. And very wonderful does God appear, when thus represented as seated in some inapproachable solitude, veiled from all finite intelligence, and there regulating the countless springs, and putting in motion the countless wheels which are to produce appointed results throughout immensity. It is not that he is associated with myriads of wise and ever-active beings, with whom he may consult, and by whom he may be assisted, in reference to the multitudinous transactions of every day and every moment. His way "is in the sanctuary." He is alone, majestically, omnipotently alone. The vast laboratories of nature, he presides over them himself. The operations of providence, they all originate with himself. The workings of grace, they confess his immediate authorship. My brethren, this is God in his sublimity. God in his stupendousness. Let us take heed that we attempt not to penetrate his solitudes: let it content us to worship before the veil, and to know that he is working behind it: why of the holy of holies, when "it is the rashly endeavor to cross the threshold glory of God to conceal a thing?" And certainly it is not the obscurity which there may be round the ways of the Lord which should induce a suspicion that those ways are not righteous. If God work in a place of secrecy, we know that it is equally a place of sanctity: we can be sure, therefore, of whatsoever comes forth from that place, that, if involved in clouds, it is invested with equity. We may not be able to discover God's reasons: but we can be certain from his attributes, attributes which shine through the vail, though that vail be impenetrable, that we should approve them if discovered. And if it be an evidence of the greatness of God, that his way is hidden, we scarcely need say that it is a further evidence of this greatness, that his way is holy. That, although he have to deal with a polluted world, with creatures by nature "dead in trespasses and sins," he contracts no impurity, but keeps travelling, as it were, "in the sanctuary," even whilst moving to and fro amid those who have defiled themselves and their dwellingplace what is this but proof that he is immeasurably separated by difference of nature, from all finite being; that he is verily "the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity," the high because the holy, and equally the holy because the high? Indeed, whilst there is every thing to comfort us, there is every thing also to give us lofty thoughts of God, in the fact that God's way "is in the sanctuary." "In the sanctuary:" I may not enter, I may not think to penetrate. But how great inust be the Being who thus, withdrawn from all scrutiny, always in a solitude, though encompassed with ten thousand times ten thousand waiting spirits, orders every event, directs every agent, consummates every purpose. In the sanctuary" where every thing is of a purity that dazzles even the imagination, on whose emblematic furniture the eye may not look, as though a human glance would dim the lustres of its gold. How righteous must be the Being who thus hides himself in light, how just his ways, how good his appointments! Do ye not seem to enter into the feeling of the Psalmist ? are ye not ready to pass with him from his confession to his challenge? Come, place yourselves by him, as he may be supposed to meditate in the temple. He calls to mind the dealings of God. How much that is perplexing, how much that is dark, how much that is incomprehensible! Whither shall he turn for counsel and comfort? whence shall he draw material of assurance, that, notwithstanding all apparent inconsistencies, notwithstanding obscurity and intricacy, the hand of the Lord is a mighty hand, and will bring to pass whatsoever is best? His eye is on that vail which hides from his gaze the Shekinah, and the mercy-seat, and the overshadowing cherubim. What does the solitude, with its burning and beautiful wonders, represent? what means this inaccessible spot, tenanted by Deity, but forbidden to man? Ah, wherefore indeed doth God thus shrine himself in the holy of holies, unless to teach us that we cannot look upon him in his actings, but that, nevertheless, those actings, though necessarily inscrutable, partake the sanctity as well as the secrecy of his dwelling? This thought may be supposed to occupy the Psalmist. It strengthens, it animates him; it should strengthen, it should animate you. The vail, whilst it hides, reveals Deity: nay, it reveals by hiding: it teaches the sublimity of God, inapproachable; his independence, none with him in his workings; and yet his righteousness, for it is the awful purity of the place which warns back all intruders. Then there is enough to make us both discover, and rejoice in, the supremacy of our God. With a tongue of fear, for we are almost staggered by the mysteriousness of his workings, we will confess," Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary:" but with a tongue of triumph, for his very concealments are tokens of his Almightiness, we will give utterance to the challenge, Who is so great a God as our God?" But there can be no reason why we should confine the illustrations of our text to the Jewish temple and dispensation. We may bring down the verse to our own day, understand by the sanctuary our own churches, and still found on the confession in the first clause the challenge which is uttered in the second. You must all be prepared to admit, that, under the christian, even as it was under the legal, dispen sation, God specially works by and through the public ordinances of religion, in converting sinners and bringing them into acquaintance with himself. Perhaps indeed you may think that it could not have been to such workings as these that the Psalmist referred, when he spake of God's way as "in the sanctuary," and that we are not therefore warranted in making that use of his words which we are now about to make. But we believe that this is altogether an error, and that the Psalmist may justly be considered as speaking of the sanctuary, even as we now speak of a church, as a place of instruction where messages are to be looked for from God to the soul. The Psalmist describes himself as perplexed by the dealings of God, and then as comforted by the thought that God's way "is in the sanctuary." Now if you turn to the seventy-third psalm, bearing the name of the same author, Asaph, as is borne by that in which our text occurs, you will find a very similar description of perplexity, and of comfort derived in some way from the sanctuary. The writer is greatly staggered by the prosperity of the wicked, and tempted to receive it as an evidence against the strictness of God's moral government. And how does he overcome the temptation? You shall hear what he says, "When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God: then understood I the end." He obtained, you perceive, instruction in the sanctuary, which sufficed to the removing his doubts, and the restoring his confidence in the righteousness of the divine dealings. It cannot, therefore, be an unwarrantable supposition, that the reference to the sanctuary in our text, is a reference to the public ordinances of religion as instrumental to the communicating knowledge, and the strengthening faith. The Psalmist is again perplexed by much that is intricate in the dealings of God. But again he bethinks him of the sanctuary: he remembers that God's way "is in the sanctuary "-in other words, that God's method of teaching is by and through the ordinances of the sanctuary; and, filled with gratitude and wonder that there should be such a channel of intercourse with the Crea tor, he breaks into an acknowledgment of his unrivalled greatness. Hence we seem justified in transferring the verse to ourselves, in regarding it simply as containing an argument for the greatness of God, drawn from his working through the instrumentality of sermons and sacraments. His "way is in the sanctuary." It is in buildings devoted to the purposes of his worship, and through the ministrations of his ordained servants, that he commonly carries on his work of turning sinners from the error of their ways, and building up his people in their faith. That there may be exceptions to such a rule as this, no one would for a moment dispute. Cases unquestionably occur in which conversion is effected without the instrumentality of a sermon, or in which the soul is rapidly edified, though debarred from all public means of grace. But nevertheless the general rule is, that it pleases God "by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe," not only, you observe, to bring men in the first instance to belief; but to carry them forward in godliness till belief issues in final salvation. We magnify our office. We claim no authority whatsoever for the man: but we claim the very highest for the messenger, the ambassador. Again and again would we seize opportunities of impressing upon you the importance of entertaining just views of the ministerial office. There are numbers of you, we must believe, who constantly come up to God's house with the very tempers and feelings which you would carry to a lecture-room; with all that excited intellect, and all that critical spirit, which fit you for nothing but the sitting in judgment upon what shall be delivered, as upon a process of argument, or a specimen of elocution. There is practically no recognition of the commission which is borne by the man who addresses you, no influential persuasion of his being an appointed messenger through whom you may hope that God will graciously infuse light into the understanding, and warmth into the heart: but, on the contrary, he is thought to stand before you with no higher claim on your attention than what he can make good by his own mental powers, and with no greater likelihood of speaking to your profit the office of a preacher to men. It might than is furnished by his own skill as an have been so. In place of assembling expositor of truth. And upon this ac- to listen to the exhortations, and recount mainly it is, as we have been ceive the counsels, of one who shares long painfully convinced, that there with you your sinfulness, and is natuare such insufficient results from the rally under the same condemnation, services of God's house, that Sabbath you might have thronged to the sancafter Sabbath passes away, and scarce tuary, to hearken to a celestial messenleaves a token that good has been ger, who came down in angelic beauty, wrought. You are not in the moral at- and offered you in God's name a home titude which is presupposed in the ap- in the land from which he had descendpointment of the preacher. You are in ed. And we cannot doubt that you the attitude of critics, you are in the would have hung with surpassing inteattitude of a jury, having to pronounce rest on the lips of the heavenly speaka verdict after hearing certain state- er; and that as, with an eloquence, and ments. But the preacher is not before a pathos, and a persuasiveness, such as you as a debater, the preacher is not are wholly unknown in the most touchbefore you as a pleader; and conse- ing human oratory, he warned you aquently your attitude is just the re-gainst evil and urged you to righteousverse of that which ought to be assumed: the preacher is before you as an ambassador, and therefore ought you to be in the attitude of mere listeners to an overture from the God whom you have offended, of expectants of a communication from him in whose name the preacher addresses you. The evil is, you do not feel that God's way "is in the sanctuary;" and therefore you give too low a character both to sermons and sacraments, failing to view in them the appointed instrumentality through which God works in converting and confirming the soul. But, nevertheless, the fact remains, that God's way "is in the sanctuary.' And a very surprising fact it is, one calculated to excite in us the highest thoughts of the supremacy of God. We wish you to contrast the agency with the result. We are always much struck with the expression of St. Paul to Timothy, "in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." The preacher, who is to be an instrument in the saving of others, stands in the same need of salvation himself. In the great work of gathering in the nations, and fixing the religion of Jesus in the households and hearts of the human population, the Almighty makes not use of lofty agents who have kept their first estate, but of the fallen and feeble, who are themselves in peril, themselves but wrestlers for immortality. It is easy to imagine a different arrangement. In his Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul has supposed the case of an angel from heaven discharging ness, your hearts would have burned within you, and been often wrought up to a resolve of pressing towards the region to which the seraph invited you. We fully believe, that, if some mysterious visitant, unearthly in form and raiment, were to occupy this pulpit, a deep and almost painful solemnity would pervade the assembly; and that as, in tones such as were never modulated by human organs, and words such as never flowed from human lips, he "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," there would be produced on the mass of riveted listeners an effect, which might not indeed be permanent, but which, for the time, would be wholly without parallel in all that is ascribed to powerful speaking. Neither can it be thought that an angel would preach with less affection than a man, because not exposed to our dangers, nor linked with us by any natural ties. We know that angels watch for the repentance of sinners; that, when the poorest of our race returns, like the prodigal, to his Father, a new impulse is given to their happiness; and we cannot therefore doubt, that, if any one of these glorious beings were to be visible amongst us, and to assume the office of teacher, he would plead with such passionateness and warmth, and throw so much of heart into his remonstrance, as would leave no room for a suspicion that difference in nature incapacitated him for deep sympathy with those to whom he spake. But, to pass over other and obvious consequences of the substitution |