The Puritan Vision of God # 2

The Puritan Vision of God # 2

This vision has been given to isolated individuals in every land and time, and wherever the vision has been granted there has been one more name added to the roll of the heroes and the saints. Never has the vision come but that it has been lighter in the world. It came to the whole group of men in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who, next to the apostles, are the mightiest men who have ever lived. They were the Burghers of the Netherlands, the Huguenots of France, the Puritans of England, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the founders of New England. These are the five tribes of the Israel of God who have molded the temper of modern civilization and changed the structure of the world. Men may say what they will about these men, dwelling on their peculiarities and scoffing at their limitations; men may caricature them, dislike them, denounce them, despise them, but this one thing must in all fairness be admitted, that no mightier men have ever lived. They were mighty in the realm of thought, thinking out ideas which burn like fixed stars in the firmament of the mental world, by which stars men still direct their courses and nations build their institutions. Their words were mighty, having hands and feet, as as they have traveled down the highways of the centuries, they have taken hold of everything they have met, subduing them to their own lofty temper. They were mighty in deed. They laid their hands upon the Church, society and the State, and the prints of their fingers are on them all.

We cannot understand the times in which we live, interpret the movements and problems of modern Christendom, nor appreciate the meaning of our flag until we make the acquaintance of this immortal company of intrepid souls by whose genius the world have been recreated. These were different from the apostles in many points in language and in customs, in race and national temperament and disposition; they differed from them in many an opinion and conviction, but the Puritans and the apostles were alike in this, they saw in heaven that a throne was set and that one sat upon the throne who was the sovereign of this world.

What kind of God was it that the Puritans and the apostles saw? It is sometimes intimated that the God revealed in Scriptures is a rather barbaric and degraded being, with savage propensities and limitations which make it impossible that he should be reverenced or loved by thinking men. I do not so read the Scriptures. To the men who wrote the Bible God was so glorious in His attributes and so exalted in His character that it was impossible for human pen to describe Him. Moses tried to do it, and his language quivered, gasped, and then broke down completely. Isaiah tried to do it, but his pen refused to write. He noticed that even the seraphim were hiding their faces, not daring to look upon the eternal glory, and the prophet falling on his face cried in distress, "Woe is me! I am undone, for mine eyes have seen the King." Job tried to do it, but he also failed. He attempts to enumerate God's works, but scarcely has he begun when he ceases, saying, "These are but a part of His ways." We leave Job where we left Isaiah, prostrate on his face saying, "I abhor myself!"

The only man in the Scriptures who makes a sustained effort at describing the Eternal is the prisoner on Patmos. And he also fails. He begins by comparing the King to the most precious stones that the earth affords, but feeling how inadequate this is, he says, I will not attempt to tell you what He looks like; let me describe to you the surroundings in the midst of which He lives. The four and twenty elders, representatives of redeemed humanity, take their crowns of gold and cast them at His feet; and the four great beasts, representatives of the animal creation, they also fall down before Him, rendering to Him their homage and their praise; and outside the beasts there rise rank above the angels, and all these, ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands break out in praiseful song; and out of the great heart of the universe there comes up a voice saying, "Blessing and honor and glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.

The God of the Scriptures is so infinitely glorious that He cannot be described. John's effort to describe him is laudable and earnest, but his language is very difficult to read. We are perplexed and baffled by it, not knowing exactly what he is trying to do. The genius of human speech in the Book of the Revelation simply falls down in a swoon completely exhausted by its effort to hint at the indescribable glory of Him who sits on the throne.

And that was the God whom the Puritans also saw. It is interesting to see how the great Puritan writers pile up their words in their efforts to picture their idea of the Eternal. "What is God?" they used to say, and their answer was, "God is Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." The Puritan, like Job, threw himself on the ground saying, "I abhor myself. I have seen Him, therefore I abhor myself." Like Isaiah he cried, "Woe is me! I am undone, for mine eyes have seen the King." Like John he fell at Christ's feet as one dead.

But the King, although infinitely glorious, was a God who spoke to men. "Out of the throne there came a voice." God is a revealing God. He cares enough for man to speak to him. He speaks to him in a voice that is intelligible. Man can understand Him if he will. This conception of the Eternal is never departed from from the first chapter of Scriptures to the last. God is everywhere a speaking God. In the Garden of Eden He spoke to man. He spoke to Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David Elijah, Jeremiah, and all the prophets. Jesus Christ is the complete Word that comes out of the infinite heart. It was this speaking God whom the Puritans also saw. "Thus saith the Lord," they cried as they went out to subdue the world.

~Charles E. Jefferson~

(continued with # 3)