To be near unto God - pagina 257

dressing the Highest Being. It betrays the tendency to show how intimately the man who prays holds converse with his God. And while this is done at the expense of reverence towards God, it

leads to sin.

Both what

is

exalted and what

is

ordinary have

very naturally a certain trait in common. A king on his throne is exalted, his butler is only ordinary. Yet they have this in common, that their family name is rarely used. As a rule they are spoken of by name. In England people speak of King George. Almost no one thinks of his family name of Windsor. Likewise every one knows the butler

by

his first

name, while in case of a payment of

taxes his family inquiry.

name

is

frequently a subject of

This is because the exalted departs from the ordinary measure of our life, and so does that w^hich falls below it. As we read in Isaiah 57:15, "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit". The lofty and the humble are here mentioned in one breath. Our ordinary life has certain measures, forms and dimensions, certain well known figures and appearances. All this together forms our human life. And it la the sin of every thing that is called heathen, that it brings the Almighty down to the level of the human. Thus the heathen make an image of a man, or of an animal, and kneel down to it, and so destroy the incalculable difference between

human and Divine

life.

In the face of it Holy Scripture discloses the holy sphere of the lofty, i. e. of a life that goes 253

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