The Divine Glory
“I beseech thee, show me thy glory.” — Ex. xxxiii. 18.
When the funeral of Da Costa took place last month at Amsterdam, when the church was filled with mourners and the grand organ had played a soft and muflded tune, the music grew articulate and the assembly melted into tears as they sang, —
“Like as the hart for water-brooks
In thirst doth pant and bray;
So pants my longing soid, 0 God,
That come to thee I may.
My soul for God, the living God,
Doth thirst: when shall T near
Unto thy countenance approach,
And in God’s sight appear?”
They felt that the words were true. They were descriptive of the brother departed. As philosopher and historian, as jurist and divine, above all as the sweet singer of the Netherlands, his had been a life of achievement; but still more conspicuous than all achievement was a certain air of unrest — a certain pressing forward and looking upward — in one word, a certain aspect of continual aspiration. The goal of his spirit was God. It was neither to the temple of fame nor to the chair of science that his ambition had pointed; but he had showed plainly that the magnet which drew him — which, in the meanwhile, made him touch the earth so lightly, and which, by and bye, would draw the very soul forth from the body, — he showed that this mighty attraction was infinite excellence. And now he had reached it. He had reached the livingr God, and was drinking from that river of pleasures for which he had all his life been panting, and tears of triumphant sympathy mingled with their tenderness. And no doubt it deepened the feeling to remember that the same funeral hymn had sounded over the grave of a still mightier minstrel, Bilderdijk, thirty years before, whose life, like Da Costa’s, had been marked by high genius and exalted goodness, but still more by longings after a greatness and goodness which earth has not got to offer, and which it is needful to put off these bodies in order to attain. AVhere intellectual elevation and deep devotion exist together there is sure to be somewhat of this feeling. Moses is an instance. Through eighteen lectures we have traced his history and his services — as scholar, warrior, patriot, as leader of the Exodus, as mediator between the people and their celestial Monarch; and we have had occasion to admire him as the man of genius, as the man of culture, and above all as the man of God. But nowhere do we get a more vivid glimpse into the depths of his being than just in the words of our text, and, taken in connection with the man and with all the attendant circumstances, they teach us many a lesson.
1. They teach us that it is GocTs glory which an enhghtened spirit longs to see. There are sights which we are accustomed to speak of as “glorious;” and of these Moses had seen many. He had seen Pharaoh in all his glory, and as a resident in the court and as a military captain he had seen his own share of martial pomps and ovations. He had seen glorious landscapes — the Nile brimming over with bounty, sunrise from behind the Pyramids, and the majestic mountains of this great wilderness; and the ninetieth Psalm and all the poems in the Pentateuch show how alive he was to the spectacles of beauty. But the glory after which he panted was God’s own: “For Thee, 0 God — O living God! -T-for Thee.” And so, my friends, it is well if you belong to that little company who inherit the earth, for on the most of men this glorious universe is wasted. At sight of ocean, earth, or sky their eye never tingles, their bosom never heaves, the tear never runs over. But if you be not only susceptible but devout, mingling with your emotion, and often overmastering it, will be the feeling of God’s own presence, and in a sense not pantheistic but truly scriptural you will see Him ride past on the wings of the wind, and will feel His rest-giving nearness in the sabbath of the silent hills; the eye that never closes will look down on you from amongst the twinkling stars; suspended a solitary waif in the centre of that round-rimmed sea, infinitude above and mysterious miles below, the everlasting arm will enclasp and uphold you; and like the Hebrew priest in the holy place, viewing the brightness which emanated from within the Holy of Holies, as from under the edges of the veiling night an opalescent splendour begins to issue into the eastern sky, you will welcome the coming day with something like the prayer, “O Thou that sittest between the cherubim, shine forth.”
And yet, although there is far more truth in such feelings than in their absence — although a universe blank and silent, with no God living and moving in it, is a universe with the glory blotted out, — the mind which sees the most of such glory will long for something more, and even amidst the sublimest scenes of nature will wistfully repeat the prayer, “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory.”
2. And if we pass to revelations more articulate and explicit, we shall find the principle still obtain, and he who has seen the most is the likeliest to ask for more. In this respect no one liacl been more favoured than Moses. The “God of glory” had appeared to him at the bash, and had spoken to him the incommunicable name. He had seen the glory of God on that night, so much to be remembered, when Jehovah’s royal ensign fired the firmament, and under Heaven’s immediate guidance the glorious march began. And but a few days were past since this Sinai smoked, and whilst the glory of the Lord like devouring fire encircled the mountain-top, the voice of the Eternal filled the surrounding solitudes with words which echo still and shall never pass away. But all this did not suffice, and in the mind of Moses there was only enkindled a longing for some manifestation more intimate and soul-contenting. Jehovah’s answer shows in what direction the heart of Moses pointed. “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory,” says Moses. “Yes,” answers Jehovah, “I will; I will show thee my goodness, my kindness, and my grace.” Of majesty and grandeur he had already seen as much as heart could wish, as much as the frail body could endure. The personality, the might, the holiness of the Most High were never likely to be effaced from his awe-struck spirit as long as he had any being; but still amidst all its condescension, what wonder if the terrible majesty still left an impression of something far-off and formidable? But just at this very instant in the devouring fire had opened an inlet mild and merciful, and Israel’s intercessor glimpsed a glory still interior — the heart of Jehovah, rich in forgiveness and radiating forth its ceaseless loving-kindness. Not only had He pardoned a most scandalous insult to His supremacy, and in answer to Moses’ bold entreaty consented still to abide by the ungrateful people — “^ly presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest,” — but with overflowing tenderness He had spoken most friendly words to the intercessor himself, “I will do as thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name,” and grasping at that gracious word — pressing up into the exalted intimacy of which he had obtained an earnest so encouraging, Moses replied, “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory.” “Let me still nearer. Prolong this blessed moment, and admit me still further into Thy presence.”
And so of every soul didnely enlightened, or rather, I should say, of every soul divinely enkindled. God is its chief est joy. Whether it knows it or not, God has come to be its supreme felicity, and nothing can make it profoundly and abidingly glad except the sense of His friendship and a certain nearness to Himself Nor is this a desire which a single vouchsafement can appease, or which can live contentedly on even the most marvellous and transporting memories. “0 God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee: my soul thirsteth for Thee, to see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary.” And the believer goes back to the Bible, he hails the return of the Sabbath, he welcomes another Communion as a possible occasion of new insight to the Divine perfection, and as a likely means for enabling him to realize more blissfully the friendship of All-sufficiency. “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” And when to the entreaty, “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory,” is answered, “No man can see Me and live,” faith and affection will sometimes venture to reply, with St. Augustine, “Then that I may see Thee, Lord, let me die.”
The prayer of Moses was answered. Another morning came, so different from that other and august occasion when a quaking multitude surrounded a thundering mount; this time there was neither blackness nor tempest nor sound as of a trumpet, but, with his two stone tables under his arm, the lawgiver ascended in the clear cool day-spring. He ascended and sought the appointed place, and as there in the cleft of the rock he waited, a cloud drew nidi — a cloud like that which floated above the tabernacle, and as the Lord passed by a voice, still and small perhaps, but kind and clear, proclaimed — “The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.” It was enough. The Lord had answered the prayer of His servant, and had showed to Moses His glory, the glory of His goodness. Moses bowed his head and worshipped, and, during the protracted interview of the forty following days, a perfect love cast out fear, and from the pavilion of this friendly presence and its rapt communion Moses came down with that shining face, which only re-appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I incline to think that piety of the highest pitch, piety of the pattern nearest Heaven, is that which, with David, pants after the living God, — is that which, with Moses, cries, “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory.” But it is not common now. It was more common when they dwelt in dens and in dungeons, in caves of the earth and in clefts of the rock. The insulated cloud which from its lonely bosom could launch a bolt big enough to rend the mountain or make the welkin ring again, if touched at every point by its trailing neighbours, if stranded on the tree tops or the mountain side, soon loses all its lightning, drawn off in inconspicuous sparklets, and subsides into a feeble feathery innocent, a thin pale ghost of vapour. And so from isolated spirits, from those who, like Elijah, dwelt apart, or who, like Moses and David, lived alone amidst the multitude, from such vast self-contained, secluded spirits, men with whom their fellows could hold no converse, and who were thus shut up to exclusive fellowship with the Friend ever present and supreme; from such concentrated souls great bolts of prayer went up, or, like the fire of heaven, in some flashing word the long-gathered thought came down. But, and let us not be too severe on circumstances not absolutely evil, in days of much amenity, in a time like this when Christian companionship is no rarity, and when countless objects of beneficence give outlet to those better feelings which in severer or less busy times went back to God; in such a time devotional feeling is hardly permitted to accumulate sufficiently; the sacred fire is drawn off in driblets, and after our friends have got their share, and our neighbours theirs, and the public theirs, alas! there is little left, and instead of the whole soul going up to God in some heaven-rending ejaculation, it is all that our spent and diluted piety can do to appreciate, for we can hardly venture to repeat, the behest, “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory.”
Yet how it helps us, that is to say, how it at once exalts and humbles when we meet with genuine instances. I venture on a specimen. The author is hardly known, but he lived in the same parsonage once tenanted by the holy Herbert, and beneath the spire of Salisbury, and on those wide Wiltshire plains he walked with God, unnoticed and unknown. It is in words like these that the hidden life of JSTorris of Bemerton wells over:” My God, my happiness, who art as well the End as the Author of my being; who hast more perfection than I have desire, and who art truly willing to quench my great thirst in the ocean of Thy perfection; ‘I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory, Withdraw Thy hand from the cleft of the rock, and remove the bounds from the mount of Thy presence, that I may see Thee as Thou art, face to face, and dwell for ever in the light of Thy beauty. I have long dwelt with vanity and emptiness, and have made myself weary in the pursuit of rest. 0 let me be taken up into the only Ark of repose and security, and let me see enough of Thyself to love Thee infinitely, to depend on Thee for my happiness entirely, and to bear up my spirit under the greatest aridities and dejections, with the delightful prospect of Thy glories. 0 let me sit down under this Thy shadow with great delight, till the fruit of the Tree of Life shall be sweet to my taste. Let me stay and entertain my longing soul
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with the contemplation of Thy beauty, till Thou shalt bring me into Thy banqueting-house, where vision shall be the support of my spirit, and Thy banner over me shall be love. Grant this, 0 my God, for the sake of Thy great love, and of the Son of Thy love, Christ Jesus. Amen.”^ Words like these, who does not perceive that they are wings of a dove, and that the soul which sincerely can utter them is being wafted upon them by God’s own Spirit to God’s own heaven?
But who again, reverting to this context, can fail to see that God’s glory is His goodness? Amongst astronomers it is a favourite speculation that the sun himself is something else than a mere ball of fire, and that inside of his burning atmosphere there may be a mighty globe with cool meadows, with seas of glass, and rivers clear as crystal, and with every conceivable provision for a vast and rejoicing population, the possible home of even the just made perfect. And even so, when forced near to God the guilty conscience feels as if it were forced forward towards a consuming fire — towards a holiness which hurts its love of sin, — towards a righteousness rectorial and retributive, which on all its evil radiates condemnation. And it is right, for “He will by no means clear the guilty.” But within this light inaccessible, within this refulgent atmosphere of truth
1 Norris’s Essays, etc., p. 226.
and sanctity, is a glory more intimate and essential still, the inmost perfection and divinest beauty of the Godhead. Coming from within that light inaccessible, the only-begotten Son from the bosom of the Father declared what was there, and He declared that it is love, — a love which had sent Himself and which invited up into its blissful asylum every weary and sin-laden spirit. And so on this occasion, to the meek and wistful Moses preaching the gospel, Jehovah expanded that one word of love into the name, “The Lord God, merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.”
And those who know that name will put their trust in God, especially now when the saving clause or reservation has lost its ominous look, and lost it not by being spirited away, but by being signally fulfilled, — more signally fulfilled than if all the guilty had paid each and individually the personal penalty. And now that the Divine Representative has submitted to take your place, and be treated exactly as if the guilt were His, not yours, — and now that, in virtue of ample satisfaction rendered, that great Substitute is cleared, — now that Christ offers to include you in His full quittance, you may let the refracted rays return and unite again, — you may let this name proclaimed to Moses condense again into that name revealed by Jesus, — you may surrender to the joyful assurance that God is love, that in Christ He is your Father and your God. The prayer is answered not to Moses only but to all of us, on whom these ends of the earth have come. God has showed His glory. Nay, the very “brightness of that glory” has come forth and dwelt among us. Bow the head and worship. Adore the Incarnate Mystery, and as you continue to commune with God manifest, your face will begin to shine. The gladness in your heart will illuminate your countenance, and both from reflected beauty and inward assimilation you will be changed into the same image, glorious as first it dawns and more glorious as it still proceeds.