Page:The Philosophy of Earthquakes, Natural and Religious.djvu/49

darkness, celestial; hailstones, thunder, lightning, and the like instances of majesty and terror, in the skies; he still keeps his eye on the ground, and concludes with the earthquake, where he began.

Then the channels of waters were seen; and the foundations of the earth were discovered, at thy rebuke, O Lord; at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

Our holy psalmist, at other times, has exhibited the same images, in different coloring, as a great master varies his works, to strike out all the beauties.

Psal. lviii. 7. O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people; when thou didst march thro' the wilderness; the earth shook, the heavens also dropped, at the presence of God. Even Sinai itself was moved, at the presence of God; the God of Israel.

By this he means, the giving the law. Exod. xix. 8. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke; because the Lord descended on it in fire: and the smoke ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

Again, Psal. cxiv. when he is describing the passage over the Red-sea, and that over Jordan; he brings in the machinery of earth-quakes, to testify the divine prefence.

When Israel went out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob from among a strange people;