Wesley Corpus

There remains no other natural cause assignable, but imprisoned air. I say imprisoned; for as to the fashionable opinion, that the exterior air is the grand agent in earthquakes, it is so senseless, unmechanical, unphilosophical a dream, as deserves not to be named, but to be exploded. But it is hard to conceive how even imprisoned air could produce such an effect. It might, indeed, shake, tear, raise, or sink the earth; but how could it cleave a solid rock? Here was not room for a quantity of it sufficient to do any thing of this nature; at least, unless it had been suddenly and violently expanded by fire, which was not the case. Could a small quantity of air, without that violent expansion, have torn so large a body of rock from the rest, to which it adhered in one solid mass? Could it have shivered this into pieces, and scattered several of those pieces some hundred yards round? Could it have transported those promontories of earth, with their incumbent load, and set them down, unbroken, unchanged, at a distance? Truly I am not so great a volunteer in faith as to be able to believe this. He-that supposes this, must suppose air to be not only a very strong, (which we allow,) but a very wise agent; while it bore its charge with so great caution as not to hurt or dislocate any part of it. What then could be the cause? What, indeed, but God, who arose to shake terribly the earth; who purposely chose such a place, where there is so great a concourse of nobility and gentry every year; and wrought in such a manner, that many might see it and fear; that all who travel one of the most frequented roads in England, might see it, almost whether they would or no, for many miles together. It must likewise for many years, maugre all the art of man, be a visible monument of His power; all that ground being now so encumbered with rocks and stones, that it cannot be either ploughed or grazed. Nor will it serve any use, but to tell all that see it, Who can stand before this great God?