N00508:68
Earthquakes explained and practically improved
Earthquakes explained and practically improved: occasioned by the late earthquake on Sept. 8. 1692. in London, many other parts in England, and beyond sea. / By Thomas Doolittle, M.A. The author also of the treatise on the Lords-Supper. ; Jamaica's miseries show London's mercies. Both compared.Earthquakes explained and practically improved: occasioned by the late earthquake on Sept. 8. 1692. in London, many other parts in England, and beyond sea. / By Thomas Doolittle, M.A. The author also of the treatise on the Lords-Supper. ; Jamaica's miseries shew London's mercies. Both compared.
printed by Benjamin Harris & are to be sold, 1693
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Real and proper Earthquakes are either such as are caused by God's immediate Hand and Power, or such as have their Causes in Nature; tho' these also are appointed, and ordered and ruled by the powerful Providence of God, and do not come (as some call it) by chance. Tho' the finger of God be in those Natural Causes, yet such as have been without them must be wholly and only from God. And I shall gather these out of the Scripture, that we might learn to fear and tremble before this great God that needs no winds and vapours, nor any kind of Creature to make the Earth to shake and tremble. And they are these.
1. The shaking of the earth at God's giving of the Law to Moses, and the Children of Israel. Exod. 19. ⟨p. 19⟩18. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole Mount quaked greatly. That this quaking of the Mount was literal, and not figurative, Rivet argues, because it is joined with the smoke, and Thunders & Lightnings properly to be understood, and saith, That the causes of the moving of the Earth, and of the Mountain as it were leaping at the presence of God, are not to be searched for in Nature, nor should we dispute concerning Physical Reasons of this Commotion, for when all things done here are miraculous, the glory of God is obscured, if where he acts immediately and in an extraordinary manner, and that altogether Divine, we enquire after second Causes, which in such events are none. Psa. 68.7. O God! when thou wentest forth before thy people; when thou didst march through the wilderness Selah. Verse 8. The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God; even Sinai it self was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
1. The shaking of the earth at God's giving of the Law to Moses, and the Children of Israel.