Now let us spend a few minutes in looking into this hymn, and seeing what it teaches us.
You see at once, that it says that the one God, and not many gods, made all things: much more, that things did not make themselves, or grow up of their own accord, by any virtue or life of their own.
But it says more. It calls upon all things which God has made, to bless him, praise him, and magnify him for ever. This is much more than merely saying, One God made the world. For this is saying something about Gods character; declaring what this one God is like.
For when you bless a person(I do not mean when you pray God to bless himthat is a different thing)when you bless any one, I say, you bless him because he is blessed, and has done blessed things: because he has shown himself good, generous, merciful, useful. You praise a person because he is praiseworthy, noble, and admirable. You magnify a personthat is, speak of him to every one, and everywhere, in the highest termsbecause you think that every one ought to know how good and great he is. And, therefore, when the hymn says, Bless God, praise him, and magnify him for ever, it does not merely confess Gods power. No. It confesses, too, Gods wisdom, goodness, beauty, love, and calls on all heaven and earth to admire him, the alone admirable, and adore him, the alone adorable.
For this is really to believe in God. Not merely to believe that there is a God, but to know what God is like, and to know that He is worthy to be believed in; worthy to be trusted, honoured, loved with heart and mind and soul, because we know that He is worthy of our love.
And this, we have a right to say, these three young men did, or whosoever wrote this hymn; and that as a reward for their faith in God, there was granted to them that deep insight into the meaning of the world about them, which shines out through every verse of this hymn.
Deep? I tell you, my friends, that this hymn is so deep, that it is too deep for the shallow brains of which the world is full now-a-days, who fancy that they know all about heaven and earth, just because they happen to have been born now, and not two hundred years ago. To such this old hymn means nothing; it is in their eyes merely an old-fashioned figure of speech to call on sun and stars, green herb and creeping thing, to praise and bless God. Nevertheless, the old hymn stands in our prayer-books, as a precious heir-loom to our children; and long may it stand. Though we may forget its meaning, yet perhaps our children after us will recollect it once more, and say with their hearts, what we now, I fear, only say with our lips and should not say at all, if it was not put into our months by the Prayer-book.
Do you not understand what I mean? Then think of this:
If we were writing a hymn about God, should we dare to say to the things about usto the cattle feeding in the fieldsmuch less to the clouds over our heads, and to the wells of which we drink, Bless ye the Lord, praise him, and magnify him for ever?
We should not dare; and for two reasons.
FirstThere is a notion abroad, borrowed from the old monks, that this earth is in some way bad, and cursed; that a curse is on it still for mans sake: but a notion which is contrary to plain fact; for if we till the ground, it does not bring forth thorns and thistles to us, as the Scripture says it was to do for Adam, but wholesome food, and rich returns for our labour: and which in the next place is flatly contrary to Scripture: for we read in Genesis viii. 21, how the Lord said, I will not again curse the ground any more for mans sake; and the Psalms always speak of this earth, and of all created things, as if there was no curse at all on them; saying that all things serve God, and continue as they were at the beginning, and that He has given them a law which cannot be broken; and in the face of those words, let who will talk of the earth being cursed, I will not; and you shall not, if I can help it.
Another reason why we dare not talk of this earth as this hymn does is, that we have got into the habit of saying, Cattle and creeping thingsthey are not rational beings. How can they praise God? Clouds and wellsthey are not even living things. How can they praise God? Why speak of them in a hymn; much less speak to them?
Yet this hymn does speak to them; and so do the Psalms and the Prophets again and again. And so will men do hereafter, when the fashions and the fancies of these days are past, and men have their eyes opened once more to see the glory which is around them from their cradle to their grave, and hear once more The Word of the Lord walking among the trees of the garden.
But how can this be? How can not only dumb things, but even dead things, praise God?
My friends, this is a great mystery, of which the wisest men as yet know but little, and confess freely how little they know. But this at least we know already, and can say boldlyall things praise God, by fulfilling the law which our Lord himself declared, when he said Not every one who saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.
By doing the will of the heavenly Father. By obeying the laws which God has given them. By taking the shape which he has appointed for them. By being of the use for which he intended them. By multiplying each after their kind, by laws and means a thousand times more strange than any signs and wonders of which man can fancy for himself; and by thus showing forth Gods boundless wisdom, goodness, love, and tender care of all which he has made.
Yes, my friends, in this sense (and this is the true sense) all things can serve and praise God, and all things do serve and praise Him. Not a cloud which fleets across the sky, not a clod of earth which crumbles under the frost, not a blade of grass which breaks through the snow in spring, not a dead leaf which falls to the earth in autumn, but is doing Gods work, and showing forth Gods glory. Not a tiny insect, too small to be seen by human eyes without the help of a microscope, but is as fearfully and wonderfully made as you and me, and has its proper food, habitation, work, appointed for it, and not in vain. Nothing is idle, nothing is wasted, nothing goes wrong, in this wondrous world of God. The very scum upon the standing pool, which seems mere dirt and dust, is all alive, peopled by millions of creatures, each full of beauty, full of use, obeying laws of God too deep for us to do aught but dimly guess at them; and as men see deeper and deeper into the mystery of Gods creation, they find in the commonest things about them wonder and glory, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive; and can only say with the Psalmist, Oh Lord, thy ways are infinite, thy thoughts are very deep; and confess that the grass beneath their feet, the clouds above their headsay, every worm beneath the sod and bird upon the bough, do, in very deed and truth, bless the Lord who made them, praise him, and magnify him for ever, not with words indeed, but with works; and say to man all day long, Go thou, and do likewise.
Yes, my friends, let us go and do likewise. If we wish really to obey the lesson of the Hymn of the Three Children, let us do the will of God: and so worship him in spirit and in truth. Do not fancy, as too many do, that thou canst praise God by singing hymns to him in church once a week, and disobeying him all the week long, crying to him Lord, Lord, and then living as if he were not thy Lord, but thou wast thine own Lord, and hadst a right to do thine own will, and not his. If thou wilt really bless God, then try to live his blessed life of Goodness. If thou wilt truly praise God, then behave as if God was praiseworthy, good, and right in what he bids thee do. If thou wouldest really magnify God, and declare his greatness, then behave as if he were indeed the Great God, who ought to be obeyeday, who must be obeyed; for his commandment is life, and it alone, to thee, as well as to all which He has made. Dost thou fancy as the heathen do, that God needs to be flattered with fine words? or that thou wilt be heard for thy much speaking, and thy vain repetitions? He asks of thee works, as well as words; and more, He asks of thee works first, and words after. And better it is to praise him truly by works without words, than falsely by words without works.