Ye mountains that ye skipped like rams, and ye little hills like young sheep?
He answers: Tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord: at the presence of the God of Jacob.
He fails not to attribute these marvellous appearances, to their true cause. Tho' he knew full well, that the God of nature administred the ordinary course of the earth by second causes; yet he could not be so blind but to perceive, when the waves of the ocean retreated; when the waters of Jordan divided; when mount Sinai was all in fire, smoke, lightning and thunder, with the trumpet of God sounding, and the whole mountain shaking: he could not but perceive the presence of the author of nature, in these extraordinary appearances.
But every where in sacred scripture earthquakes are particularly singled out, above all other natural phænomena, as having more of the majesty and terrific pomp, to denote an immediate operation of God's hand; to excite our fear, and shew his anger, as in our text, because he was wroth. In imitation of the sacred writers, the heathen poets, both greek and latin, express the anger of their Jupiter by an earthquake:
Terrificam capitis concussit terque quaterque
Cæsariem; cum qua terram, mare, sidera, movit.
Ovid.
The moving meteors in the free air, lightning, coruscations, fire-balls, tempests, thunders, or the dreaded comets, tho' frightful enough; yet people that do not think to any purpose, hope, as they are at a distance, to escape their effects. But when the terror comes home to us, to our feet; when the earth moves on which we stand; what heart is not moved? When our houses shake over our ears, the greatest courage is shaken.
It is true, an earthquake causes an universal dread among all sorts of people; even the philosopher immersed in speculation of second causes, quakes; as well as the pious, whose fear proceeds from solid piety: a due sense of the anger of the almighty Being.
We saw how the late earthquakes affrighted every one; but, as to the generality, it was but for a moment. When they found themselves safe, and alive; thoughtless they ran to their business, or their diversion: and this not only the first, but the second time. And I am apprehensive, were another, and another to come, they would only be less regarded than the preceding. As the Israelites, to whom miracles became familiar; as the Jews, in our Saviour's time, demanding of him to show them a sign from heaven, in the midst of the constant scene of miracles innumerable.
But 'tis my present business to call you to a due and serious reflexion, on these extraordinary events; by considering,