Psalms 138:9

And although the heavenly Scripture often turns the divine appearance into a human form, as when it says, “The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous;” or when it says, “The Lord God smelled the smell of a good savour;” or when there are given to Moses the tables “written with the finger of God;” or when the people of the children of Israel are set free from the land of Egypt “with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm;” or when it says, “The mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things;” or when the earth is set forth as “God’s footstool;” or when it says, “Incline thine ear, and hear,”, we who say that the law is spiritual do not include within these lineaments of our bodily nature any mode or figure of the divine majesty, but diffuse that character of unbounded magnitude (so to speak) over its plains without any limit. …

2. And how shall I call upon my God, my God and my Lord? For when I call on Him I ask Him to come into me. And what place is there in me into which my God can come, into which God can come, even He who made heaven and earth? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain Thee? Do indeed the very heaven and the earth, which Thou hast made, and in which Thou hast made me, contain Thee? Or, as nothing could exist without Thee, doth whatever exists contain Thee? Why, then, do I ask Thee to come into me, since I indeed exist, and could not exist if Thou wert not in me? Because I am not yet in hell, though Thou art even there; for “if I go down into hell Thou art there.” I could not therefore exist, could not exist at all, O my God, unless Thou wert in me. …

25. “Let the table of them be made in their own presence for a trap” ( ver. 23 ). Like the trap which for Me they set, in giving Me such a draught, let such a trap be for them. Why then, “in their own presence”? “Let the table of them be made for a trap,” would have been sufficient. They are such as know their iniquity, and in it most obstinately do persevere: in their own presence there is made a trap for them. These are they that, being too destructive, “go down into Hell alive.” Lastly, of persecutors what hath been said? Except that the Lord were in us, perchance alive they had swallowed us up. What is alive? Consenting to them, and knowing that we ought not to consent to them. Therefore in their own presence there is made a trap, and they are not amended. Even though in their own presence there is a trap, let them not fall into it. …

8. “If I go up,” saith he, “to heaven, Thou art there: if I go down to Hades, Thou art present” ( ver. 8 ). At length, miserable runaway, thou hast learnt, that by no means canst thou make thyself far from Him, from whom thou hast wished to remove far away. Behold, He is everywhere; thou, whither wilt thou go? He hath found counsel, and that inspired by Him, who now deigneth to recall him.…If by sinning I go down to the depths of wickednesses, and spurn to confess, saying, “Who seeth me” (for “in Hades who shall confess to Thee?”) there also Thou art present, to punish. Whither then shall I go that I may flee from Thy presence, that is, not find Thee angry? This plan he found: So will I flee, saith he, from Thy Face, so will I flee from Thy Spirit; from Thy avenging Spirit, Thy avenging Face thus will I flee. …

6. For such an indication of God’s infinity the words ‘ I Am that I Am ’ were clearly adequate; but, in addition, we needed to apprehend the operation of His majesty and power. For while absolute existence is peculiar to Him Who, abiding eternally, had no beginning in a past however remote, we hear again an utterance worthy of Himself issuing from the eternal and Holy God, Who says, Who holdeth the heaven in His palm and the earth in His hand , and again, The heaven is My throne and the earth is the footstool of My feet. What house will ye build Me or what shall be the place of My rest ? The whole heaven is held in the palm of God, the whole earth grasped in His hand. Now the word of God, profitable as it is to the cursory thought of a pious mind, reveals a deeper meaning to the patient student than to the momentary hearer. …