I. ON ACCOUNT OF THE PECULIARITIES OF THEIR STRUCTURE. They reveal a new idea of the creative mind. They are neither Phaenogams, or flowering plants, nor Cryptogams, or flowerless, and have many points of alliance with club-moss. They combine the highest appearance with the lowest structure, and are thus links binding together the two great orders of vegetation. In them we have an example among plants of a common principle in God's moral procedure towards His creatures, choosing the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and giving more abundant honour to that which lacked. Into the earthen vessel of the humble organization of the cedars He has poured the glory of the highest development, that the glory may be seen to be all His own. And in this wondrous combination of types in the "trees of the Lord" we have a dim foreshadowing of "Him who dwelt in the bush"; who united in Himself the highest and the lowest, God and man, in one person for ever; and who still, though in the midst of the throne, dwells with the man that is of an humble and contrite heart. The cedars are "trees of the Lord."

II. ON ACCOUNT OF THE ANTIQUITY OF THEIR TYPE. Of this class Preadamite forests were principally composed. In every stratum in which arborescent fossils occur we can trace this antique tree pattern. We burn the relics of extinct cedars in our household fires, as the microscopic investigation of the coal formation reveals. They form the evergreen link between the ages and the zones, growing now as they grew in the remote past, inhabiting the same latitudes, and preserving the same appearances in bulk and figure. Universal in space and universal in time they are monuments of the unchangeableness of the Ancient of Days — proofs indisputable that the vegetable kingdom did not commence as monads, or vital points, but as organisms so noble and complicated that even the most bigoted advocate of the development theory must admit that they could not have been formed by the agency of physical force. During untold ages the cedars were the sole examples of forest vegetation. They afford an illustration of a general law of the deepest philosophic import, namely, that the first introduced animals or plants of any class have been combining types. From the side, as it were, of those Preadamite cedars God took the ribs, of which He made the graceful palm-tree to yield its welcome shade and fruit in the thirsty desert, and the beautiful apple-tree to clothe itself with its bridal dress of blossoms under the smiling, tearful skies of the northern spring. Thus is illustrated that the ceaseless working of the Creator hitherto has been exercised only in the eternal unfolding of the original conception. The cedars are "trees of the Lord."

III. ON ACCOUNT OF THE MAJESTY OF THEIR APPEARANCE. Religion and poetry have sounded so loudly the praise of the cedar that it has become the most renowned natural monument in the world. At an elevation of six thousand feet, with their roots firmly planted in the moraines of extinct glaciers, with their trunks riven and furrowed by lightning, with the snows of Lebanon gleaming white through their dusky foliage, who can fail to feet the force of the psalmist's words, "The trees of the Lord are full of sap," etc.

(H. Macmillan, D.D.)

1. The grace of God is like the vegetation of the earth, in all places. Climb the Alp, and far up on its side you pluck the edelweiss. God was here before you. Go out upon the desert, and far out in that sterile plain you find the waving palm growing beside the spring. God was there before you. Go with your message of cheer to some down-town ward where men are crowded together thicker than corpses in a cemetery, and between the chinks in the pavement are seen blades of grass. God was there before you. As in nature, so in grace. God's prophets are not all confined to Judaism; God's grace is not all confined to Christendom. Wherever a man has been found bowing the knee and lifting up the heart, there God's grace has been responding; for God's grace reaches unto all them that call upon Him, by whatever name, through whatever form, in whatever service.

2. As God's grace is everywhere, like the trees, God's grace is freely offered unto all, as the forest offers its shade alike to the wild beast and to the domestic animal, and its shelter for nests alike to the large and the little, and drops its fruit alike into the hands of the good and the evil.

3. The grace of God, like the trees of God, is everywhere, and for every one; and it is clothed with a great, great power. Ask the child what is the greatest manifestation of force in the world. Perhaps he will summon you to the battlefield. "Listen," he will say, "to all these cannon belching out their thunderous tones; what power there is." Perhaps he will carry you to the factory. "See," he will say, "this ponderous engine driving its great wheels, and stirring all thin factory with its vibrating life." But when he is wiser he will go to the forest, where there is no sound of hammer or of saw, no buzz or bustle of wheel, no bang as of cannon; but in one great forest more power is wrought, it is said, than in all the factories in the world put together. The power of God is the power of a silent love. The still, small voice is more than the fire, the tempest, or the earthquake. Not in Sinai, but in Calvary; not in deluge of water or destroying flame, but in the manger and the cross, is the power of God witnessed.

4. "My God shall supply all your need." There is scarce any physical need of man which the carpeted and sheltering earth does not provide. And this is what the abundant trees whisper, bending their leaves to you, to repeat the message: "God is able to make all grace, abound toward you, that you at all times, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto all good works." We need not wait for the great transition, but here and now we may walk by the river of the water of life, we may walk under the shade of those trees whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, and we may pluck the fruit of that only tree that bears its fruit every month. Other trees lie bare and sere through the long winter; other trees drop their fruit only in the autumn time; but this tree of life, of which they are, after all, but a poor symbol, gives forth its fruit in every month, and every manner of fruit for every manner of need; and here and now we may harvest them, fed on food more life-giving and sheltered by shade more comforting than the Garden of Eden ever knew.

(Lyman Abbot, D.D.)

I. THE ABSENCE OF ALL HUMAN CULTURE. For —

1. They owe their planting entirely to the Lord. No human hand had any part in this work, neither delving the soil nor dropping in the fruitful cone. How those giants of the grove came to be where they are, none can tell. The early planting of these mighty trees is among the secrets which belong unto God. And this is quite true of every child of God. We are not self-planted, but God-planted.

2. Nor are they dependent upon man for their watering. The trees in the plain are fertilized by little canals running at their roots, and therefore are they green: but these, on the top of Lebanon, who shall find a stream for them? And so is it with the Christian who has learned to live by faith. He sings, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." And —

3. No mortal might protects them. They are planted on a mountain ridge no loss than six thousand feet above the level of the sea. The snow frequently lies upon their branches in enormous masses. They are in the most exposed position conceivable. Deadly dangers have threatened them from the very first. They are left unprotected, and yet the veterans survive. It is precisely the same with the Christian. He is not a hot-house plant, sheltered from temptation; he, too, stands in most exposed positions, and innumerable perils compass him about. But still he is able to say, "In all these things we are more than conquerors."

4. And they are utterly indifferent to human gaze. For thousands of years no human eye may have looked upon them. Moses desired to see them. David sang of them. But they heed not. And so with the Christian: he cares nothing for the smiles of men, and he cares as little for their frowns. He walks not before them, but "before the Lord." He leans not upon any arm of flesh, but understands how to stand upright. Out upon the piety which depends upon the public eye. I am not to have a religion like a dog-collar, which I may slip off and on, and be glad to be rid of it; it must be part and parcel of my being. It must not be the Pharisee's paint and tinsel which he puts on in the public place, and privately laughs at when he gets alone.

5. Their exultation is all for God and not for man. In vine and other fruit trees man has had some share in the product: not so here. It is all of God. The cedars have not a green leaf to magnify man with, nor a single cone with which to make him proud. And so in the Christian: there is nothing in you that can magnify man. All your thanks are due to God. You are the Lord's trees from first to last.

6. The cedar is independent of man in its expectations. They never expect man to care for them or to help them. Arab and Turk do their best to ruin the whole grove, but yet there they stand, expecting as little help from man as, in fact, they get. That is your case, O Christian. You are to depend on God alone. God is ever seeking to strike away from us all our human props and buttresses upon which we are so apt to lean. He would wean us from the world.

II. THE CEDARS OF LEBANON ARE A GLORIOUS DISPLAY OF DIVINE CARE.

1. In the abundance of their supply. "The trees of the Lord are full." They are saturated with moisture.

2. They are always green.

3. See their grandeur and size. In "The Land and the Book " it is said that some of them measure forty-one feet in girth, and are a hundred feet high. Supply direct from God is better than all else.

4. Their fragrance.

5. Their perpetuity.

6. How venerable they are.

III. THEY HAVE FULNESS OF LIVING PRINCIPLES. "They are full of sap." Now this is —

1. Vitally necessary.

2. Essentially mysterious.

3. Radically secret.

4. Permanently active.

5. Externally operative.

6. Greatly to be desired. Think, what glory to God a full-grown Christian brings to God Let us have this fulness of life.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

(H. Macmillan, D.D.)

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. NO GREATNESS IS SELF-COMPLETE. The spirit of the angels has been given largely to the forces of nature — "are they not all ministering spirits?" Is not the sea a servant, the wind a servant, and the sun a servant to the needs of man? Does he not count the lightning and the breeze and the moon among his maidservants? Had God created a larger sun than that which lights us now; had He made its face more clear, its heart more fiery, but had not given it a ministering spirit, that would be a worthless sun. If the sun we now have had been more independent, rising and setting according to its fancy, making winter in a fit of bad humour, and making summer after coming to itself again; if it burned its fires without caring anything for the comfort of the worlds under its government, there would be no longer any Cosmic life. But the sun knoweth its going down; and its light and heat have been blessed with the spirit of the angels — the spirit of generous service. The best minds of the world do not gather knowledge to keep it for themselves, but to share it with all. The best thinker that ever trod the earth was the young teacher of Nazareth, who was not ashamed to publish the highest truths of heaven in a common and popular language. His parables are meek and gentle enough to come in as the door of the poorest cottage. Had Christ been less a servant He would have been less a God. His generosity of intellect has made Him the Teacher of the ages. the best disciples of God are the best teachers of men.

II. A TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE DELIGHTS IN THE SERVICE OF OTHERS. To the religious idler the chapter of excuses is a very interesting chapter; and there are many in the Church to-day who know every verse of it by heart. What could the cedars of Lebanon say if they wanted to refuse shelter to the little birds?

1. They might say that they were too venerable to serve such poor little things. Is there not a murmur like this on the lips of the Church? saying under its breath that it is too venerable "to go out into the highways and hedges" to search for the wounded poor? the way is too rugged and too far to go after the lost sheep. That is not the speech of God. Eternity was not too far away for Him to think of saving man. No Church can live on its past history. When it gives itself too much to the reading of "the genealogies of the family," its decay is beginning.

2. They might say that there were other trees in plenty who could serve the little birds. One of the chartered texts of Carlyle was that the world had made the value of a soul to be notching. And his severe way of putting the truth calls for the solemn thought of the Church. "Souls" are lost in the "congregation"; and we forget that the salvation of one soul is worth a life of toil and weariness and sacrifice. "You have laboured for twenty years and have made only one convert yet," said a man unmercifully to a quiet, hard-working minister. "Have I made one convert?" was the noble answer; "here are twenty years for the next one." One pearl won by thee for the Redeemer's crown will shine through all heaven!

3. They might say that the little birds often went away to sing. Many a village church teaches its children well, and then the glitter of city life takes them away from it before they have paid anything in return. Many a father and mother have placed the noblest sacrifices on the altar to give their boys to the world. There is a sound of loss in every home and in every church — the birds gone away from the nests. The teachers of our Sunday schools have to change their scholars often; the old leaving and the new coming. Is there not a moaning among the cedars of Lebanon for the music that is lost, the sweet carollings that have been hushed there for ever, the morning hymn and evening song silent, and the little homes empty and cold? When shall they return? This only teaches every honest workman in Zion to leave the harvest unreaped until he has reached home. The creation has been too skilfully fitted together for any good to get lost in it. If the song has forsaken the cedar where the young soul was nursed, the music of the world is richer somewhere. The hymn learned on the hallowed hearth keeps a longing in the mind for heaven. There the songsters, separated and scattered here, will meet again; and to hear them sing among the branches of the tree of life in Paradise will more than repay for the grief and distress of the parents, and the teacher, and the minister who lost them here.

(H. E. Lewis.)

I. THAT FOR EACH PLACE GOD HAS PREPARED A SUITABLE FORM OF LIFE. For the fir trees, the stork; for the high hills, the wild goat, and so on. Now, the teaching of this is clear.

1. Each age has its saints. So has it been, and so it ever will be.

2. And every position. From the palace to the poor-house, the Christian religion is adapted to all conditions.

3. In every Church.

4. In every city. God has an elect people everywhere.

II. EACH CREATURE HAS ITS APPROPRIATE PLACE. They look wretched enough out of their place. See the animals in the Zoological Gardens. Each creature looks best in his own place. So we each one are best in the position where God has placed us.

1. Providentially. We think otherwise, oftentimes; we say, "Oh, if we were only in such a position, how much better it would be."

2. Experimentally. God has not made two creatures precisely alike. No two leaves are: and it is so in Christian experience. Many distress themselves because they have not the experience of certain good people of whom they have read. "Have I felt precisely thus? Have I felt exactly that? If not, I am lost." But how vain all this is.

3. The same holds good as to individuality of character. God gives to one man one temperament: to another man another. As Luther and Melanchthon; Peter and John. Let no man wish to be what another is. Be yourselves in your religion.

III. EVERY CREATURE THAT GOD HAS MADE IS PROVIDED WITH SHELTER. See the declarations of the text. If, then, He has so cared for the lesser creatures, can He have left man's soul without shelter?

IV. FOR EACH CREATURE THE SHELTER IS APPROPRIATE. And —

V. EACH CREATURE USES ITS SHELTER. I never heard of a stork that when it met with a fir tree demurred as to its right to build its nest there, and I never heard of a coney yet that questioned whether it had a right to run into the rock. Yet the sinner does not recognize the provisions of his Saviour. He asks, "May I?" and "I am afraid it is not for me." O sinner, come, believe in Jesus and find salvation now.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

     4007   creation, and God
     8662   meditation

Psalm 104:2-24

     5776   achievement

Psalm 104:5-26

     5302   education

Psalm 104:14-27

     4065   orderliness

Psalm 104:19-23

     5636   work, and rest

Psalm 104:19-27

     1305   God, activity of

Psalm 104:20-22

     4448   forests

A Whitsun Sermon
PSALM civ. 24, 27-30. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. . . . These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. …
Charles Kingsley—Discipline and Other Sermons

Of Good Angels
"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Heb. 1:14. 1. Many of the ancient Heathens had (probably from tradition) some notion of good and evil angels. They had some conception of a superior order of beings, between men and God, whom the Greeks generally termed demons, (knowing ones,) and the Romans, genii. Some of these they supposed to be kind and benevolent, delighting in doing good; others, to be malicious and cruel, delighting in …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

Lessons from Nature
This prejudice against the beauties of the material universe reminds me of the lingering love to Judaism, which acted like a spell upon Peter of old. When the sheet knit at the four corners descended before him, and the voice said, "Rise, Peter; kill, and eat," he replied that he had not eaten anything that was common or unclean. He needed that the voice should speak to him from heaven again and again before he would fully learn the lesson, "What God hath cleansed that call not thou common." The …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Meditation on God
NOTE: This edition of this sermon is taken from an earlier published edition of Spurgeon's 1858 message. The sermon that appears in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 46, was edited and abbreviated somewhat. For edition we have restored the fuller text of the earlier published edition, while retaining a few of the editorial refinements of the Met Tab edition. "My meditation of him shall be sweet."--Psalm 104:34. DAVID, certainly, was not a melancholy man. Eminent as he was for his piety and …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 46: 1900

Seventh Sunday after Trinity. O Lord, How Manifold are Thy Works; in Wisdom Hast Thou Made them All; the Earth is Full of Thy Riches.
O Lord, how manifold are Thy works; in wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches. Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud [104]Paul Gerhardt. 1659. trans. by Catherine Winkworth, 1855 Go forth, my heart, and seek delight In all the gifts of God's great might, These pleasant summer hours: Look how the plains for thee and me Have decked themselves most fair to see, All bright and sweet with flowers. The trees stand thick and dark with leaves, And earth o'er all here dust now weaves …
Catherine Winkworth—Lyra Germanica: The Christian Year

The Confessions of St. Augustin Index of Subjects
Abraham's bosom, 131 and note, [1]192 (note) Academics Augustin has a leaning towards the philosophy of the, [2]86 they doubted everything, [3]86, [4]88 Academies, the three, [5]86 (note) Actions of the patriarchs, [6]65 Adam averted death by partaking of the tree of life, [7]73 (note) the first and second, [8]162 (note) Adeodatus, Augustin's son helps his father in writing The Master, [9]134 and note he is baptized by Ambrose, [10]134 (note) Adversity the blessing of the New Testament, prosperity …
St. Augustine—The Confessions and Letters of St

O Worship the King, all Glorious Above
[978]Hanover: William Croft, 1708 Psalm 104 Robert Grant, 1833 O Worship the King, all glorious above! O gratefully sing his power and his love! Our shield and defender, the Ancient of days, Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise. O tell of his might! O sing of his grace! Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space. His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, And dark is his path on the wings of the storm. The earth, with its store of wonders untold, Almighty, thy power hath founded …
Various—The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA

The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation, and Continual Government of the World.
1. The invisible and incomprehensible essence of God, to a certain extent, made visible in his works. 2. This declared by the first class of works--viz. the admirable motions of the heavens and the earth, the symmetry of the human body, and the connection of its parts; in short, the various objects which are presented to every eye. 3. This more especially manifested in the structure of the human body. 4. The shameful ingratitude of disregarding God, who, in such a variety of ways, is manifested within …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

How to Use the Present Life, and the Comforts of It.
The divisions of this chapter are,--I. The necessity and usefulness of this doctrine. Extremes to be avoided, if we would rightly use the present life and its comforts, sec. 1, 2. II. One of these extremes, viz, the intemperance of the flesh, to be carefully avoided. Four methods of doing so described in order, sec. 3-6. 1. BY such rudiments we are at the same time well instructed by Scripture in the proper use of earthly blessings, a subject which, in forming a scheme of life, is by no mean to be …
Archpriest John Iliytch Sergieff—On the Christian Life

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit as Revealed in his Names.
At least twenty-five different names are used in the Old and New Testaments in speaking of the Holy Spirit. There is the deepest significance in these names. By the careful study of them, we find a wonderful revelation of the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. I. The Spirit. The simplest name by which the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Bible is that which stands at the head of this paragraph--"The Spirit." This name is also used as the basis of other names, so we begin our study with this. …
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

The Creaturely Man.
"The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life."-- Job xxxiii. 4. The Eternal and Ever-blessed God comes into vital touch with the creature by an act proceeding not from the Father nor from the Son, but from the Holy Spirit. Translated by sovereign grace from death unto life, God's children are conscious of this divine fellowship; they know that it consists not in inward agreement of disposition or inclination, but in the mysterious touch of God upon their spiritual …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

Of Confirmation.
It is surprising that it should have entered any one's mind to make a Sacrament of Confirmation out of that laying on of hands which Christ applied to little children, and by which the apostles bestowed the Holy Spirit, ordained presbyters, and healed the sick; as the Apostle writes to Timothy: "Lay hands suddenly on no man." (1 Tim. v. 22.) Why not also make a confirmation out of the sacrament of bread, because it is written: "And when he had received meat, he was strengthened" (Acts ix. 19); or …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

The Christian's Peace and the Christian's Consistency
PHILIPPIANS i. 21-30 He will be spared to them--Spiritual wealth of the paragraph--Adolphe Monod's exposition--Charles Simeon's testimony--The equilibrium and its secret--The intermediate bliss--He longs for their full consistency--The "gift" of suffering Ver. 21. +For to me, to live is Christ+; the consciousness and experiences of living, in the body, are so full of Christ, my supreme Interest, that CHRIST sums them all up; +and to die+, the act of dying,[1] +is gain+, for it will usher me in …
Handley C. G. Moule—Philippian Studies

The Principle of Life in the Creature.
"By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent."-- Job xxvi. 13. We have seen that the work of the Holy Spirit consists in leading all creation to its destiny, the final purpose of which is the glory of God. However, God's glory in creation appears in various degrees and ways. An insect and a star, the mildew on the wall and the cedar on Lebanon, a common laborer and a man like Augustine, are all the creatures of God; yet how dissimilar they are, and how varied …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

Epistle xvii. To Felix, Bishop of Messana.
To Felix, Bishop of Messana. To our most reverend brother, the Bishop Felix, Gregory, servant of the servants of God [246] . Our Head, which is Christ, to this end has willed us to be His members, that through His large charity and faithfulness He might make us one body in Himself, to whom it befits us so to cling that, since without Him we can do nothing, through Him we may be enabled to be what we are called. From the citadel of the Head let nothing divide us, lest, if we refuse to be His members, …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

The Host of Heaven and of Earth.
"The Spirit of God hath made me."--Job xxxiii. 4. Understanding somewhat the characteristic note of the work of the Holy Spirit, let us see what this work was and is and shall be. The Father brings forth, the Son disposes and arranges, the Holy Spirit perfects. There is one God and Father of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things; but what does the Scripture say of the special work the Holy Spirit did in creation and is still doing? For the sake of order we examine …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
Having spoken of the general notion of blessedness, I come next to consider the subjects of this blessedness, and these our Saviour has deciphered to be the poor in spirit, the mourners, etc. But before I touch upon these, I shall attempt a little preface or paraphrase upon this sermon of the beatitudes. 1 Observe the divinity in this sermon, which goes beyond all philosophy. The philosophers use to say that one contrary expels another; but here one contrary begets another. Poverty is wont to expel …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Material Universe.
There are many who think of the work of the Holy Spirit as limited to man. But God reveals to us in His Word that the Holy Spirit's work has a far wider scope than this. We are taught in the Bible that the Holy Spirit has a threefold work in the material universe. I. The creation of the material universe and of man is effected through the agency of the Holy Spirit. We read in Ps. xxxiii. 6, "By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." We …
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

How those are to be Admonished with whom Everything Succeeds According to their Wish, and those with whom Nothing Does.
(Admonition 27.) Differently to be admonished are those who prosper in what they desire in temporal matters, and those who covet indeed the things that are of this world, but yet are wearied with the labour of adversity. For those who prosper in what they desire in temporal matters are to be admonished, when all things answer to their wishes, lest, through fixing their heart on what is given, they neglect to seek the giver; lest they love their pilgrimage instead of their country; lest they turn …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

The Deity of the Holy Spirit.
In the preceding chapter we have seen clearly that the Holy Spirit is a Person. But what sort of a Person is He? Is He a finite person or an infinite person? Is He God? This question also is plainly answered in the Bible. There are in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments five distinct and decisive lines of proof of the Deity of the Holy Spirit. I. Each of the four distinctively Divine attributes is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. What are the distinctively Divine attributes? Eternity, omnipresence, …
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

The Wisdom of God
The next attribute is God's wisdom, which is one of the brightest beams of the Godhead. He is wise in heart.' Job 9:9. The heart is the seat of wisdom. Cor in Hebraeo sumitur pro judicio. Pineda. Among the Hebrews, the heart is put for wisdom.' Let men of understanding tell me:' Job 34:44: in the Hebrew, Let men of heart tell me.' God is wise in heart, that is, he is most wise. God only is wise; he solely and wholly possesses all wisdom; therefore he is called, the only wise God.' I Tim 1:17. All …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

On the Symbols of the Essence' and Coessential. '
We must look at the sense not the wording. The offence excited is at the sense; meaning of the Symbols; the question of their not being in Scripture. Those who hesitate only at coessential,' not to be considered Arians. Reasons why coessential' is better than like-in-essence,' yet the latter may be interpreted in a good sense. Explanation of the rejection of coessential' by the Council which condemned the Samosatene; use of the word by Dionysius of Alexandria; parallel variation in the use of Unoriginate; …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Covenanting Enforced by the Grant of Covenant Signs and Seals.
To declare emphatically that the people of God are a covenant people, various signs were in sovereignty vouchsafed. The lights in the firmament of heaven were appointed to be for signs, affording direction to the mariner, the husbandman, and others. Miracles wrought on memorable occasions, were constituted signs or tokens of God's universal government. The gracious grant of covenant signs was made in order to proclaim the truth of the existence of God's covenant with his people, to urge the performance …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting