THE CEDAft. 283 



of God upon the proud and arrogant, declares that * the day of the 

 Lord of Hosts shall be upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are 

 high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,' ch. ii. 13, 

 The king of Israel used the same figure in his reply to the chal- 

 lenge of the king of Judah : * The thistle that was in Lebanon, 

 sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter 

 to my son to wife; and there passed by a wild beast that was in, 

 Lebanon, and trod down the thistle,' 2 Kings, xiv. 9. The spirit- 

 ual prosperity of the righteous man is compared, by the Psalmist, 

 to the same noble plant : ' The righteous shall flourish as the palm 

 tree ; he shall grow as the cedar in Lebanon.' To break the ce- 

 dars, and to shake the enormous mass on which they grow, are the 

 figures that David selects to express the awful majesty and infinite 

 power of Jehovah : 'The voice of the Lord is powerful : the voice 

 of the Lord is full of majesty : the voice of the Lord breaketh the 

 cedars; yea,the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. He makes 

 them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young 

 unicorn,' Ps. xxix. 4. This description of the Divine majesty and 

 power, possesses a character of awful sublimity, which is almost 

 unequalled, even in the page of inspiration. Jehovah has only to 

 speak, and the cedar, which braves the fierce winds of heaven, is 

 broken, even the cedar of Lebanon, every arm of which rivals the 

 size of a tree: he has only to speak, and the enormous mass of 

 matter on which it grows shakes to its foundation, till, extensive, 

 and lofty, and ponderous as it is, it leaps like the young of the herd 

 in their joyous frolics, and skips like the young unicorn, the swiftest 

 of the four-footed race. The countless number of these trees in the 

 days of Solomon, and their prodigious bulk, must be recollected, 

 in order to feel the force of that sublime declaration of the prophet : 

 ' Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient 

 for a burnt-offering,' Isa. xl. 16. Though the trembling sinner 

 were to make choice of Lebanon for the altar, and were to cut down 

 all its forests to form the fuel ; though the fragance ofthis fuel, with 

 all its odoriferous gums, were the incense; the wine of Lebanon 

 pressed from all its vineyards, the libation ; and all its beasts, the pro- 

 pitiatory sacrifice ; all would prove insufficient to make atonement for 

 the sins of men ; would be regarded as nothing in the eyes of the 

 Supreme Judge, for the expiation, of even one transgression. The 

 just and holy law of God requires a nobler altar, a costlier sacrifice, 

 and a sweeter perfume, the obedience and death of a Divine Per- 

 son to atone for our sins, and the incense of his continual interces- 

 sion, to secure our acceptance with the Father of mercies, and ad- 

 mission into the mansions of eternal rest. 



