"God laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of His hands."

Where it is said further, "God laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of His hands." We must consider the creation of the world is thus attributed to God, not only because all things were made by Him, but because He hath so made them that they carry a mark imprinted in them of the power and Godhead of the Creator. When I see the heavens I must see His greatness, who was able to set such a covering over the earth. When I behold the earth, I must behold His providence, who hath ordained such a place of nourishment for all creatures. When I look upon the unchangeable course in which all things are established, I must look upon His constant wisdom and goodness, who in a steadfast purpose hath extended His mercies over all His works. In the least of all the creatures of God, when I see wisdom, power, glory, more than all the world can reach their hands unto, let me humble myself under His high majesty, before whom no king, no prince, no power of the world hath any account; but all nations before Him are as nothing, and they are accounted unto Him less than nothing, and lighter than vanity itself. Another thing here we have to consider, that the apostle teacheth the excellency of Christ in respect of His continuance, before whom the heaven and earth are but a moment; for so in this comparison he speaketh of their age as a thing of nothing — "They shall perish, they shall wax old as a garment, they shall be folded up as a vesture" — making all the continuance of the heaven to be vanity, and of none account; for although it may seem he might have made his comparison with things of a more expressed show of vanity than a garment, as to have compared them with smoke, with the shadow of smoke, with the dream of a shadow, or such like; yet in comparing the time of the heavens, which are so many ages, with a garment which is scarce a year, it is as clear a testimony all is nothing as if all were not a minute of an hour. Besides this, the cause of this comparison with a garment was the similitude in which God hath set the heavens, who hath spread them like a curtain, and made them as a covering to all His creatures; it was not to make the comparison less in show of their vanity. Then here let us be wise-hearted as the prophet was, as oft as our hope is before our eyes, to see our Saviour Christ living for ever: let us not only confess that our own age is nothing in respect of Him, but let us boldly continue even the continuance of the heavens, and account all things nothing that hath an end; for let the days be never so many, which you can call into account, and multiply years into the longest continuance which your thoughts can comprehend, that thousand thousands be before you, and ten thousand thousands are in your mind, with one word you shall confute them all, and with the breath of your mouth you may blow them away, and, as the prophet saith, make them all as a garment that is rent and worn; for reckon up all thy thousands that thou canst, and put this word "past" unto them, and where are they now become? A thousand thousand thousand years past, what are they? And if time be such a tyrant. to break the delight of the long age of the very heavens, that the wise heart of a man doth say even they are vanity, and wax old as doth a garment, what foolishness hath wrapped up all our understanding? and what blindness is in our hearts, that we see not our own life what it is? And shall yet this life, so short, so troublesome, so without pleasure, so fast hold us bound with blind desire, that we neither long for nor look after Jesus Christ, who liveth ever, and hast cast forth of His presence all sin, and sorrow, and death itself?

(E. Deering, B. D.)