The Reasonableness and Extent of Religious Reverence:

A SERMON.*

PSALM CXIV. 7.

Tremble thou earth, at the presence of the Lord!

THESE words follow after a repetition of the solemn circumstances, which accompanied the passage of the Israelites out of Egypt, and the giving of the law at mount Sinai.

They may be construed either as a epiphonema of the Psalmist addressed to the material earth; and answering his own questions just before, "What ailed thee, O thou sea?-ye mountains !-ye hills!" as if he had said, “ "Thy shaking so remarkably at that time, O earth, may indeed well be accounted for; it was at the presence of the Lord; his hand was there." And thus they contain an assertion,

* Preached at the Brethren's Chapel, in Fetter-Lane, London, on the Fast-Day, February 6th, 1756.

who is author of earthquakes and other interesting phenomena here below. Or else they may be taken as an exhortation to us, the inhabitants of the earth: "Since the Lord is so great in power, and in all respects so excellent; let a holy shuddering, at least a becoming awe, come over your spirits, O men, when ye consider with whom ye have to do." And thus they will inculcate a frame of mind so very necessary, that the absence or decay thereof happening in any age, must indicate, worse than all other totterings, that "the foundations of the earth are out of course."

We will take the text in both senses.

I. As an address to the material earth.

So construed, the words will assert, That God is the proper author of earthquakes and such like important phenomena. What they directly affirm, is indeed no more than this, that one grand shaking of the earth was to be ascribed to Him: that, I say, at the opening of their dispensation, the Jews could remember at mount Sinai a trembling and concussion of the solid mass, which was undeniably preternatural and divine. Nor is it unworthy of notice, that the Christian dispensation, even in this kind, was ushered in with an equal solemnity: for the shock was repeated at mount Calvary, "the earth then did quake, and the rocks rent."

Here it may be replied, "What inference would you draw? these were always looked upon as single and uncommon instances; they were miracles." This is readily allowed; but we affirm, they were

such single instances, as, by their peculiar evidence, were intended to serve for a key to a thousand others less clear: such uncommon events, as were designed to explain what is called the common course of things. For of miracles in general, and particularly those in the history of Exodus, it has been very justly remarked, that they were calculated on purpose to claim unto God that continual and regular agency, which he has in the elementary motions and sublunary events; and which, because it doth happen daily, and proceeds in a gentle and, if I may so say, modest manner, is apt, without such rousing vindications, to be argued quite away by atheists.

For, however common it is on the tongue, atheism it must ever be to dare to term any effect or occurrence natural, with the intention to deny thereby that it is divine, or to exclude God entirely out of

it. Which is, at the same time, most extremely absurd: for must not the great Architect necessarily preside still over and direct every wheel of his own machine?" He doth," if we will believe the Scripture, "whatsoever pleaseth him, in heaven and in earth, and in the sea, and in all deep places." He gives corn, and wine, and oil. It is he also that sends famine, sword, pestilence; and determines the operations of these his messengers. One time (says the Bible) an epidemic distemper raged; and that no man hereafter, on such occasions, might look alone to noxious qualities in the air, or the like, the veil was for once drawn aside, and presented to open view the destroying Angel of the most High. This is the Scripture account of occurrences here below.

Neither let any reasoner flatter himself, that this is a system only for those who believe a Bible.

It

is impossible to conceive any religion at all, even exclusive of revelation; that is, in other words, to conceive any trust, comfortable resignation, repentance, or gratitude towards the Deity, adapted to the successive scenes of human life; upon any other foundation. For what a dreary void are we left in, what a sullen and total suspense of all those sweetest emotions of the soul towards its Maker, (which are to it, what respiration or drawing breath is to the body) the moment the least exception is but imagined from the general rule, that "the finger of God is in all things!" As, on the one hand, with respect to such an excepted instance, there would be no intelligent and gracious being for us properly to honour, love, and trust in, to supplicate or thank, in that event: so, on the other, if but some things, were they ever so few, did thus come to pass without Him, more might; and then, to make short work, why not all? and so we are without God in the world.

If any one could warrant, that this melancholy issue in practice shall not follow, and if we could be assured that the Almighty shall every where be acknowledged as concerned in some manner or other; be it as acting by a pure immediate power, or, for purposes of favour or chastisement, overruling the already settled causes, restraining secretly here, impelling and guiding the aim there, though sometimes perhaps barely approving the spontaneous course, we might with more patience suffer men to abound each

in his own philosophy, to delineate the mechanical rise and process of earthquakes, as they trace up every other accident, turn or emergence, to some ingenious if not true spring. For, as to the result, each of the above-mentioned suppositions are much the same. Although we must declare, that the shortest, and withal most wholesome way of thinking, will always be, with the wise vulgar, without refinement or inquiring how? simply to say, "All things are God's doing!"

It is through this glass a faithful Jew or Christian views all that happens in the world. The Jew must think the same of every subsequent earthquake, as of that at mount Sinai; namely, that the earth each time trembles at the presence of the Lord: and the Christian cannot but think, not only that the concussion during the scene on mount Calvary had a sacred reference to his incarnate suffering God, as being a reproof to the world for its insensibility of the great evil of sin, and of the awful though gracious price then paid for its remission; but that every solemn warning of the like kind since, comes from the same hand, and has some, yea and the very same meaning. And then an impartial self-examination will presently follow, together with all the wise and happy fruits of such exercise of heart.

But this leads to the

II. Sense, wherein the words may be taken: namely, as an exhortation to us, the inhabitants of the earth, to tremble, in heart and spirit, before the Lord.