Nothing can be less reverent or more inconsistent with modesty than some men’s offhand and random statements about the Word of God. The truth is that Scripture is always perfect, but men are not competent to speak unless taught of God. Thus, humanly speaking, there are those who could appreciate the wonders of the heavens, but are dull to perceive the divine construction of a daisy. Yet, to anyone that estimates aright, the perfect hand of God even in a daisy is just as clear and certain as in the solar system. It is only a question of the place which each creature of God occupies in His own immense scheme. His wisdom and power are displayed no less in the minute than in the grand and sublime. Thus there is no doubt that, if the telescope opens many a wonder to man, the microscope is not less impressive. They are both important instruments in the hand of man, and they are both intended, doubtless in God’s providence, to show man from the natural world a witness of divine power in what is above and also in that which is beneath.
But in all things what ought to be gathered from this natural world is not glory for man, but the wonders of God in what He has wrought. A similar principle applies to the Word of God; for therein if God displays Himself in what is vast, quite as much does He appear in ways whose minuteness might easily escape observation. Everywhere perfection is claimed for God, whether in what He has made or, above all, in that which He has written. And what He has written transcends that which He has wrought, because His mind and ways must transcend His outward works. For the Word of God is claimed to be the very highest place as the expression of His wisdom—His inner wisdom. That which is connected with matter must yield to what has to do with the mind and the affections, and, above all, the display of the divine nature.
W. Kelly (adapted)