med on
the face of the earth, so also a plain of waters should be stretched
along the height of air, and the face of the cloud answer the face of
the ocean; and that this upper and heavenly plain should be of waters,
as it were, glorified in their nature, no longer quenching the fire, but
now bearing fire in their own bosoms; no longer murmuring only when the
winds raise them or rocks divide, but answering each other with their
own voices from pole to pole; no longer restrained by established
shores, and guided through unchanging channels, but going forth at their
pleasure like the armies of the angels, and choosing their encampments
upon the heights of the hills; no longer hurried downwards forever,
moving but to fall, nor lost in the lightless accumulation of the abyss,
but covering the east and west with the waving of their wings, and
robing the gloom of the farther infinite with a vesture of divers
colors, of which the threads are purple and scarlet, and the
embroideries flame.

Sec. 9. This, I believe, is the ordinance of the firmament; and it seems to
me that in the midst of the material nearness of these heavens God means
us to acknowledge His own immediate presence as visiting, judging, and
blessing us. "The earth shook, the heavens also dropped, at the presence
of God." "He doth set His bow in the cloud," and thus renews, in the
sound of every drooping swathe of rain, his promises of everlasting
love. "In them hath he set a _tabernacle_ for the sun;" whose burning
ball, which without the firmament would be seen as an intolerable and
scorching circle in the blackness of vacuity, is by that firmament
surrounded with gorgeous service, and tempered by mediatorial
ministries; by the firmament of clouds the golden pavement is spread for
his chariot wheels at morning; by the firmament of clouds the temple is
built for his presence to fill with light at noon; by the firmament of
clouds the purple veil is closed at evening round the sanctuary of his
rest; by the mists of the firmament his implacable light is divided, and
its separated fierceness appeased into the soft blue that fills the
depth of distance with its bloom, and the flush with which the mountains
burn as they drink the overflowing of the dayspring. And in this
tabernacling of the unendurable sun with men, through the shadows of the
firmament, God would seem to set forth the stooping of His own majesty
to men, upon the _throne_ of the firmament. As the Creat