The Voice of the Glorious God in the Thunder, Sermon 1
Meditations UPON THUNDER. Uttered September 12. 1694.
OBserving that by the Thunder-storm, just now begun, you are, many of you, thrown into a Consternation, which perhaps may indispose you to mind any thing but the Thunder, I shall altogether lay aside the Meditations wherewith I came hither purposing to entertain you, and I shall with the Leave and Help of your God, who is now speaking, treat you with some sudden Meditations upon the Thunder it self.
Christians, you shall shall now go along with me unto the Twenty-Ninth Psalm, in the Third Verse whereof you shall find these Words, The Voice of the Lord is upon the Waters, the God of Glory Thundereth.
And now let not your Attention to the Thunder at this Instant abroad, interrupt your further Attention to the Greater and Louder Thunder here within; the Voice of God in this Book is far beyond that Voice, which is now making its rapid peals in the Sky. This Voice is more articulate than that, yea, by this Voice that becomes articulate, give unto both your earnest Heed.
I Remember, that while Elihu was, as I now am, speaking at a Private Meeting of some Godly Men, at that very Time, as at this, 'tis by some Interpreters concieved, it Thundred; and at the same Time, that Man of God, fell into a Discourse upon the Voice of God in the Thunder. Then 'twas that he said, in Job 37. beg. At this my Heart trembleth, and is moved out of his place: Hear attentively, the Noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his Mouth. He directeth it under the whole Heaven, and his Lightning unto the ends of the Earth; after it a Voice roareth, he Thundreth with the Voice of his Excellency; and he will not stay them, when his Voice is heard; God Thundreth marvellously with his Voice; great things doth he, which we cannot comprehend.
You then will not count it improper, and I hope our Common Lord will make it not unuseful, if I so far imitate the Example, as to offer you in this Juncture an Essay, at explaining the Voice of God, in that very Thunder, which is just now beginning to Alarum our Thoughts; and this the rather because the Text which we have now read seems to be fetched from those very Words of Elihu.
We have before us a Psalm composed by a Great Servant and Singer of the Lord, probably at a time tempestuous by Thunders, and composed that it might be employed among the People of God at such a Time. You see how conveniently it may at this time, give a Text unto us.
The Sons of such Eminent Patriarchs as Abraham, and Isaac, and Jaoob, are here called upon to give Glory unto the God of Heaven, and this both for his Works of Nature in the World, and for his Works of Grace in the Church: And among his Works of Nature, some done in the lower-Heaven, namely, the Thunders, are singled out, as the special Occasions for our praising of him. But, If Angels may be meant by the Sons of the mighty, thus addressed, their own frequent Concernment and Improvement in the producing of Thunders gives yet a further Emphasis unto this Invitation.
About the Thunder, we have two Remarks in the Words now read unto us:
First, We have the place of it. It is among the Waters; that is, in the Rainy Clouds. The Aqueous particles daily fetched up from the Earth and the Sea into the Regions of the Air, are a Vast advantage to our Quarters of the Creation. The Emptying, the Refreshing, the proportioning of many parts in the Creation, by their perpetual Distillation, is justly to be reckoned among Infallible Demonstrations, to prove as well the Providence as the Existence of the Great God, who formed all things. For this cause this thing is well worthy of the Figure which it makes in the History of the Creation; tho' it had not been there introduced, which probably it is as Figurative of that Age, wherein God separated from the rest of the World a Number of People in the Patriarchal Families, whom He called up into a Church-State; but so small a Number, that in Comparison to the rest, they were no more than the Clouds are unto the Seas. This now is the Secret place of Thunder.
Next, We have the Cause of it, this is The Lord, the God of Glory; Or, the Lord, who is the Glorious God.
It is the Duty of a Minister to Watch for Seasons, wherein, and whereby the Word of God which he is to Preach, may be advantaged with a Singular Energy, for the Saving of himself and of them that Hear him. 'Twill be but a piece of Ministerial Watchfulness, for the to bring you certain Words of God this afternoon, unto which the Terrible Thunder now happening, may be subservent with a more than ordinary Penetrancy.
Sirs, Be not now Deaf to Thunder, but with me make this Observation.
In the THUNDER there is the Voice of the Glorious GOD.
There is — [The Author being arrived hereabouts in his Discourse, a Messenger interrupted him, with Tidings that a Thunder-clap had just now fallen upon his own House; and that tho' no Person had been hurt, yet the House had been much Torn, and fill'd with the Lightnings. But without breaking off, as had been desired, he thus proceeded.]
Brethren, I am just now informed, That the Voice of the Glorous God in the Thunder, has been very Immediately directed unto my self, by a Fall of Thunderbolts upon my own House, at that very instant, as far as I can judge, that I felt the powerful Impressions of Heaven upon my own Soul; Inclining and Engaging of me to frame a peculiar Meditation upon the Voice in the Glorious God in the Thunder among you. Instead of being hereby diverted from the Work which I have now undertaken, I would practically teach you, That with a mind unconcerned about the things of this Life, we should never be unfurnished with devout and proper Thoughts on the mind of God in all our Tryals; and I would hope that this unhappy Accident will be made Happy, at least by procuring yet more of Edge to that Attention which the Voice of God is to have with you: To Day if ye will Hear his Voice!
There is this Enquiry, which I did but now design to make, and which I am Now Concerned more than I was before to make, on this Occasion:
What is the Voice of the Glorious God in the Thunder?
First, It is to be premised, as herein Implied and Confessed, that the Thunder is the Work of the Glorious God. It is true, that the Thunder is a Natural production, and by the Common Laws of Matter and Motion it is produced: There is in it a Concourse of divers weighty Clouds, Clashing and Breaking one against another, from whence arises a mighty Sound, which grows yet more mighty by its Resonancies. The Subtil and Sulpherous Vapours among these Clouds take Fire in this Combustion, and Lightnings are thence darted forth; which when they are somewhat grosser, are Fulminated with an Irresistable Violence upon our Territories. But still who is the Author of those Laws, according whereunto things are thus Moved into Thunder? Yea, who is the First Mover of them? Christians, 'Tis our Glorious God. There is an Intimation somewhere ['tis in Psal. 104.7.] That there was a most early and wondrous use of the Thunder in the first Creation of the World; but still the Thunder it self, and the Tonitruous Disposition and Generation with which the Air is Impregnated, was a part of that Creation. Well, and whose workmanship is it all? Ah! Lord, thou hast Created all these things, and for thy pleasure they are, and were Created. It is also true, that Angels may be reconed among the Causes of Thunders; and for this Cause, in the sentence of the Psalms, where they are called Flames of Fire, one would have been at a loss whether Angels or Lightnings were intended, if the Apostolical Accomodation had not Cleared it. But what tho' Angels may have their peculiar Influence upon Thunders, it is but the Influence of an Instrument; they are but Instruments, Directed, Ordered, Limited by Him, who is the God of Thunders, and the Lord of Angels. Hence the Thunder is ascribed unto our God all the Bible over; in the Scripture of Truth 'tis called the Thunder of God, oftener than I can presently quote unto you. And hence we find the Thunder ever now and then, Executing the purpose of God: Whose can it be, but the Thunder of God, when the Pleasure of God has been continually thereby accomplished.
But I pray, why then should we be Slavishly Afraid of the Thunder? We are in Covenant with that God who makes the Thunder, and it is a Covenant of Grace, wherein he is Our God. Well, and shall we not now make that Joyful Conclusion, He is our Own God, and He will Bless us! Whence then our Amazing Terrors, when we hear him Thundering Terribly in the Heavens over us? As long as the Almighty Thunderer is our Own God, we need not fear that he will do us any Hurt by any of His Works: No, He will make All things work together for our Good. A Saint may say, My God will never Hurt me! Suppose we should be slain by the Thunder, we shall but in that Thunder of Heaven have a Great voice from Heaven, saying to us, Come up hither! and setting aside the unusualness of the stroke, which makes it seem horrid and uncouth, it were the easiest way of going up that ever was gon. I say then, ben't afraid, Ejus est timere qui nolit ad Christum ire.
Mr. Ambrose in his Treatise of Angels, as I remember, does relate this passage: A Profane Persecutor discovered much Affrightment at the Thunder which happened while he was on a Journey, his Pious and Holy Wife then with him, asked him the reason of his being so Affrighted, Why, said he, are not you Afraid? She replied, No, Not at all; for I know 'tis the voice of my Heavenly Father; and shall a Child be afraid of a Kind Fathers Voice? The Man hereby surprised, made this Conclusion, sure these Puritans have a Divine Principle in them, which the World seeth not; Else they could not have such a Serenity in their Souls, when the rest of the World are filled with dismal Horrors! Hereupon he went unto Mr. Bolton, bewailing the opposition which he had given unto the Ministry of that Reverend Man, and became a Godly man ever after.
You know what use to make of the Story, and so I may proceed.
Secondly, it is now to be more distinctly Asserted, that the Thunder is the Voice of the Glorious God; there is a Voice of his in this Work of his. If the Thunder were foreign, The Voice of Jupiter, in the account of the poor Pagans, I am sure it should be accounted The voice of Jehovah by us Christians. One of the ways whereby God revealed of himself to his Ancient People, was a Bath Kol, as they called it, there was a Voice of Thunder in it. Sirs, we have what is Equivolent unto a Bath Kol this afternoon, in the Significancy which we shall now hear the Scripture give unto the Thunder.
I. One Voice of the Glorious God in the Thunder is, that He is a Glorious God who makes the Thunder. There is the Marvelous Glory of God seen in it, when he Thunders Marvelously. Thus do these Inferiour and Meteorous Heavens declare the Glory of God!
The Power of God is the Glory of God: Now His Thunder does proclaim His Power. It is said, the Thunder of His Power, who can Ʋnderstand? that is, His Powerful Thunder; the Thunder gives us to Ʋnderstand, that our God is a most Powerful One. There is nothing able to Stand before those Lightnings, which are stiled the Arrows of God; Castles fall, Metals melt, all flies, when Hot Thunder-bolts are scattered upon them. Yea, to speak in the Language of the Prophets fulfilled in the Thunder-storm, that routed the Assyrian Armies, The Mountains quake, the Hills melt, the Earth is burnt; who can stand before His Indignation? and who can abide in the fierconess of His Anger? His Fury is poured out like Fire, and the Rocks are thrown down by Him. Suetonius, I think 'tis, who tells us, That the Haughty and Profane Emperour Caligula, would yet shrink and shake, and cover his Head at the least Thunder, and run to hide himself under a Bed. This truly is the Voice of the Thunder, Let the proudest Sinners tremble to Rebel any more against a God, who can thus discomfit them with shooting out his Lightnings upon them: Sinners, Where can you show your Heads, if the Highest give forth His Voice with Hail-stones and Coals of Fire. Methinks there is that Song of Hannah in the Thunder, 1 Sam. 2.3, 10. Talk no more so Exceeding proudly, Let not Arrogancy come out of your Mouth. For the Adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, out of Heaven shall He Thunder upon them. The Omnipotent God in the Thunder speaks to those hardy Typhons, that are found Fighting against Him; and says, Oh! do not harden your selves against such a God; You are not Stronger than He! Yea, the Great God is proposed as an Object for our Faith, as well as for our Fear in his Thunder. If Nothing be too hard for the Thunder, we may page missing of my Salvation, and I have waited for Him! I say, let the Thunders drive you on to this Attainment.
IV. A Fourth Voice of the Glorious God in the Thunder, is, Make your Peace with God immediately, lest by the Stroke of his Thunder he take you away in His Wrath. Why is it that Persons are usually in such a Consternation at the Thunder? Indeed there is a Complexional and Constitutional weakness in many this way; they have such a Disadvantage in a Frightful temper, that no Considerations can wholly overcome it. But most usualy the Frights of People at the Thunder, arise from the Terms wherein they may suspect their own Souls to stand before an Angry God. Their Consciences tell them that their Sins are yet unpardoned, that their Hearts are yet unrenewed, that their Title to Blessedness is yet unsettled, and that if the next Thunder-clap shoud strike them Dead, it had been good for them that they had never been Born.
Hi sunt qui trepidant, & ad omnia Fulgura pallent;
Cum tonat, Exanimes primo quo{que} murmure Coeli.
Here then is the Voice of God in the Thunder, Art thou Ready? Soul, Art thou Ready? make Ready presently, lest I call for thee before thou art aware. There is in a Thunder a vehement Call unto that Regeneration, unto that Repenting of Sin, that Believing on Christ; and that Consenting unto the Demands of the New-Covenant, without which no man in his Wits can Comfortably hold up his Face before the Thunder. I have now in my House a Marriners Compass, whereupon a Thunder-clap had this odd Effect, that the North-point was thereby turned clear about unto the South, and so it will veer and stand ever since unto this day, tho' the thing happened above thirteen years ago. I would to God that the next Thunder-claps would give as effectual a turn unto all the unconverted Souls among us! May the Thunder awaken you to turn from every Vanity to God in Christ without any delay, lest by the Thunder it self it come quickly to be too late. It is a vulgar Error, that the Thunder never kills any who are asleep: Man, what if the Thunder should kill thee in the dead sleep of thy Ʋnregeneracy?
5. A fifth Voice of the Glorious God in the Thunder, is, Let this Thunder convict you of what you may justly reckon your own iniquity. Every Man has his own peculiar Sin, a Sin whereby the Soul of the Man is more exposed and endangered, than by any other sin; his Darling-sin, his Master-sin, or that which bids fairest so to be. David being delivered from Damage by the Thunder, ascribes it unto the favour of God [2 Sam. 22.24.] Rewarding him for keeping himself from his own iniquity. This I say the Thunder may do us the favour of informing us, what is our own iniquity, and that would be a Favour indeed! There are some sort of Writings which you can't read until you hold them against the Fire; would you read the worst Guiltiness and Wickedness of your own Hearts? Then say I, hold them up against the Lightning, my meaning is this; when it Thunders, do you observe about what Miscarriage your Hearts do first and most of all then misgive you; observe which of all your Faults then do's first of all, and most of all, stare you in the face, with formidable Criminations. You may now take it for granted, this is your own iniquity. And the Voice of the Thunder is, do you keep a special Watch against that iniquity, and against all the Beginnings, all the Occasions, all the Incentives of that Iniquity.
6. A sixth Voice of the Glorious God in the Thunder, is, Take heed now, take heed ever, of those grosser sins, which have sometimes been revenged by Thunder. There have been the ireful and the direful Thunders of God, sometimes used for the Executions of his Vengeance upon such and such Enormities: The perpetual Admonitions of the Thunders are, take heed of such Thunder-struck Abominations. As now, the Cities now buried, (tho' they say of late by the sinking of the Water growing visible again) in the Lake of Sodom. Tacitus the Roman Historian truely tells us, they perished Fulminum jactu, by Thunder-bolts; God sent an extraordinary Thunder-storm upon them, for the Lusts of Ʋncleanness, wherein they burned. Wherefore, when it Thunders, the Voice of God in it, is, put out the unclean fires of Lust in your Souls, lest I set you on fire, by my dreadful Thunders! Again, there was Nadab and Abihu who offered strange fire to God, and God punished them with a killing fire from Heaven, in a hideous Thunder-storm; so then, when it Thunders, the Voice of God in it, is, Look well to all your sacrifices, lest my fire make you a sacrifice, see that you duely attend my Worship, lest my Thunder fall upon you! Once more; there was Ʋzzah who fell into an Error, in his management about the Ark of God; and it seems as if a Thunder-storm suddenly coming up, kill'd him for it. Hence then, when it Thunders, the Voice of God in it, is, Look to it, that my Ark, and my Word, find no contempt with you, lest my Thunder chastise you for your contempt. What shall I say more? Corah was destroyed by Thunder for his Rebellion against God and Moses, wherefore the Voice of the Thunder, is, Take heed of all Rebellion against God and Jesus. The Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians, were confounded with Desolating Thunders, because they invaded and injured the People of God. It is then the Voice of the Thunder, see that you do no wrong unto an holy people, that have this Artillery of Heaven to defend them. They that are such Witnesses for God and Reformation as Elijah was, have, as he had, the Fires of Lightnings to devour those that hurt them.
VII. A Seventh Voice of the Glorious God in the Thunder, is, Hear the voice of my Word, lest I make you fear the voice of my Thunder. When the Inhabitants of Egypt persisted in their Disobedience to the Word of God, it came to that at last, in Exod. 9.23. The Lord sent Thunder, and the fire ran along upon the Ground. Thus the Eternal God commands Men to let go their sins, and go themselves to serve him; if they are disobedient, they lay themselves open to fiery Thunders. This you may be sure is the Voice of God in the Thunder, Hear my still voice in my Ordinances, lest you put me upon speaking to you with more angry Thunderbolts. I have known it sometimes remark'd, that very Notorious and Resolved Sleepers at Sermons, often have some remarkable suddenness in the Circumstances of their Death. Truly, if you are scandalously given to sleep under the Word of God, and much more if to sin under it, and most of all, if to scoff under it, it may be your Deaths will be rendred sudden by the other Thunders of Heaven lighting on you. When it thunders, God saith to all the Hearers of his Word ordinarily preached, Consider this, and forget not God, lest he tear you to pieces, and there be none to deliver you.
Finally, And is there not this voice of the Glorious God in the Thunder after all? Oh be thankful to the gracious God, that the thunder does no more mischief to you all.
Whatever the Witch-advocates may make of it, it is a Scriptural and a Rational Assertion, that in the Thunder there is oftentimes, by the permission of God, the Agency of the Devil. The Devil is the Prince of the power of the Air, and when God gives him leave, he has a vast power in the Air, and Armies that can make thunders in the Air. We are certain that Satan had his Efficiency in it, when the Fire of God, or the Lightning, fell upon part of Job's Estate, how glad would he have been, if the good Man himself had been in the way to have been torn in pieces, and perhaps it was the Hellish Policy of the Wicked One, thus to make the good Man suspicious that God was become his Enemy. Popes that have been Conjurers, have made fire thus come from Heaven, by their Confederacies with evil Spirits, and we have in our own Land known evil Spirits, plainly discovering their Concurrence in Disasters thus occasioned. A great Man has therefore noted it, that Thunders break oftner on Churches than any other Houses, because the Daemons have a peculiar spite at Houses that are set apart for the peculiar Service of God. I say then, live we thus in the midst of Thunders and of Devils too; and yet live we? Oh! Let us be thankful to the God of our Lives, are we not smitten by the great Ordnance of Heaven, discharging ever now and then on every side of us? Let us be thankful to the great Lord of Heaven, who makes even the Wrath of Hell to praise him, and the Remainder of that Wrath does he restrain. Such a Serious Thankfulness manifested in an Answerable Fruitfulness, will be still continually a better shelter to us from the Mischefs of the Thunder, than the Crowns of Laurel, or the Tents of Seal-Leather whereby some Old Emperours counted themselves protected; or than all their Amulets of Superstition.
To the Custody of Israel's Great Keeper I now commend you all.