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Gen_1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.
Ver. 9,10. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered, &c.] The water, they say, is ten times greater than the earth, as is the air ten times greater than the water, and the fire than the air. Sure it is, that the proper place of the water is to be "above the earth". {Psa_104:6} Sailors tell us that as they draw nigh to shore, when they enter into the haven, they run as it were downhill. "The waters stood above the mountain," till (at God’s rebuke here) they "fled, and hasted away at the voice of his thunder, to the place which he had founded for them". {Psa_104:6-8} This drew from Aristotle, in one place, {a} a testimony of God’s providence, which elsewhere he denies. And David, in the 104th Psalm, which one calleth his Physics, tells us that till the word of command, "Let the waters," &c., God "had covered the earth with the deep as with a garment." For as the garment, in the proper use of it, is above the body, so is the sea above the land. And such a garment, saith the divine cosmographer, would it have been to the earth, but for God’s providence towards us, as the shirt made for the murdering of Agamemnon, where he had no issue out. But "thou hast set a bound," saith the psalmist, "that they may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth". {Psa_104:9} God had set the solid earth upon and above the liquid waters for our conveniency; so that men are said "to go down" (not up) "to the sea in ships". {Psa_107:23} See his mercy herein, as in a mirror, and believe that God, whose work it is still to "appoint us the bounds of our habitation," {Act_17:26} will not fail to provide us a hospitium, a place to reside in, when cast out of all, as he did David, {Psa_27:10} and David’s parents, {1Sa_22:4} and the apostles, {2Co_6:10} and the English exiles in Queen Mary’s days, and, before them, Luther, who, being asked where he thought to be safe, answered Under Heaven, {Sub caelo} {b} and yet before him, those persecuted Waldenses, after whom the Romish dragon cast out so much water as a flood, but the earth swallowed it; {Rev_12:15} and God so provided that they could travel from Cullen in Germany to Milan in Italy, and every night lodge with hosts of their own profession. {c} The waters of affliction are often gathered together against the godly, but, by God’s gracious appointment, ever under the heaven, - where our conversation is, {Php_3:20} though our commoration be a while upon earth, - and unto one place, as the text here has it. {d} The dry land will appear, and we shall come safe to shore, be sure of it. The rock of eternity, {Isa_26:4} whereupon we are set, is above all billows. Washed we may be, as Paul was in the shipwreck; drowned we cannot be, because in the same bottom with Christ, and "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." {1Pe_1:5}
{a} Lib. De Mirabil.
{b} Scultet. Annal.
{c} Cade. Of the Church, p. 180.
{d} Pareus, in loc.