'If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth
searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for
all that they have done, saith the Lord.'--JER. xxxi. 37.
In the former sermon we considered the previous verse as presenting the
stability of creation as a guarantee of the firmness of God's gracious
covenant. Now we have to consider these grand closing words which bring
before us another aspect of the universe as a guarantee for another
side of God's gracious character. The immensity of creation is a symbol
of the inexhaustibleness of the forgiving love of God.
I. A word or two as to the fact here used as a symbol of the divine
long-suffering.
The prophet had very likely no idea at all beyond the ordinary one that
presents itself to the senses--a boundless vault above an endless plain
on which we stand, deep, sunless foundations, the Titanic substructions
on which all rests, going down who knows where, resting on who knows
what. We may smile at the rude conception, but it will be well for us
if we can get as vivid an impression of the fact as He had.
We thankfully avail ourselves of modern science to tell us something
about the dimensions of this awful universe of ours. We learn to know
that there are millions of miles between these neighbour orbs, that
light which has been travelling for thousands of years may not yet have
fallen on some portion of the mighty whole, that the planetary masses
of our system are but tiny specks in the whole, that every fresh stride
which astronomical observation takes but opens up new nebulae to be
resolved, where suns and constellations and systems are dwarfed by
distance into hazy brightness which hardly deserves the name of light.
We know all this, and can find all about the distances in any book. So
much for space. Then the geologist comes to bewilder us still more,
with extension in time.
But while all this may serve to give definiteness to the impression,
after all, perhaps, it is the eye alone, as it gazes, that really feels
the impression. Astronomy is really a very prosaic science.