But the LORD [is] in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
Ver. 20. But the Lord is in his holy temple] It is not enough to condemn superstitions; but we must know and serve the true God in a true manner. Cicero wished that he could as easily find out the true religion as disprove the false ones. Cambyses destroyed the Egyptian idols, rather in scorn of all religion than hatred of idolatry. Lucian jeered the heathen gods; and yet was an enemy to Christianity. Erasmus was no Papist, nor yet good Protestant. Henry VIII despised the old religion, and yet envied the new. There are many (said he in parliament) that are too busy with their new Sumpsimus: a and others that dote too much upon their old Mumpsimus. b Hence it is that the prophet here to those dunghill deities of the heathens, those dead idols, opposeth the living and only true God. Jehovah, saith he, "is in his holy temple"; that Essentiator who hath his being of himself, and gives being to all things else, ζωην και πνοην, as St Paul elegantly expresseth it, Acts 17:25. He is in his holy temple, sc. in heaven, by his power and glory, and in his Church on earth, by his grace and goodness. The use of which doctrine followeth.
Let all the earth keep silence before him] Heb. sc. Or be still, all the earth, &c. Reverentiae causa silete, tremble at his judgments, trust in his promises, wait upon him in his ordinances, walk before him in obedience, speak not of him or to him, but as knowing your distance, your infancy. In speaking of God our best eloquence is silence, saith Mr Hooker. In speaking to him, quanta cum reverentia, quanto timore, quanta humilitate, accedere debet e palude sua procedens et repens villa ranuncula, saith Bernard: with what reverence and godly fear, with what humility, should a poor small frog, creeping out of his mud, draw near unto this great God, before whom angels appear with greatest self-abasements! What abhorrence then and self-annihilation can be sufficient to accompany our approaches to this great God of heaven? And how should the enemies of the Church stand in awe, and even quake before him, wriggling into their holes, as worms do when it thundereth, and being all hushed, as sheep are before the wolf, birds before the hawk, all the beasts of the field before the lion when he roareth.
a A correct expression taking the place of an incorrect but popular one (mumpsimus). OED
b One who obstinately adheres to old ways, in spite of the clearest evidence that they are wrong; an ignorant and bigoted opponent of reform. ŒD