He made darkness his secret place - God is represented as dwelling in the thick darkness, Deuteronomy 4:11; Psalm 97:2. This representation in the place before us is peculiarly proper; as thick heavy clouds deeply charged, and with lowering aspects, are always the forerunners and attendants of a tempest, and greatly heighten the horrors of the appearance: and the representation of them, spread about the Almighty as a tent, is truly grand and poetic.

Dark waters - The vapors strongly condensed into clouds; which, by the stroke of the lightning, are about to be precipitated in torrents of rain. See the next verse.

secret

Psalm 27:5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me...

Psalm 81:7 You called in trouble, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder: I proved you at the waters of Meribah...

Psalm 91:1 He that dwells in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

thick

Psalm 97:2 Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.

Deuteronomy 4:11 And you came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the middle of heaven, with darkness, clouds...

Joel 2:2 A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread on the mountains...

Division of Actual Grace
Actual grace may be divided according to: (1) the difference existing between the faculties of the human soul, and (2) in reference to the freedom of the will. Considered in its relation to the different faculties of the soul, actual grace is either of the intellect, or of the will, or of the sensitive faculties. With regard to the free consent of the will, it is either (1) prevenient, also called cooeperating, or (2) efficacious or merely sufficient. 1. THE ILLUMINATING GRACE OF THE INTELLECT.--Actual …
Joseph Pohle—Grace, Actual and Habitual

The Ark among the Flags
'And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 2. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. 4. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. 5. And the daughter of Pharaoh came …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

This State of Prayer not one of Idleness, but of Noble Action, Wrought by the Spirit of God, and in Dependence Upon Him --The Communication Of
Some people, hearing of the prayer of silence, have wrongly imagined that the soul remains inactive, lifeless, and without movement. But the truth is, that its action is more noble and more extensive than it ever was before it entered this degree, since it is moved by God Himself, and acted upon by His Spirit. St Paul desires that we should be led by the Spirit of God (Rom. viii. 14). I do not say that there must be no action, but that we must act in dependence upon the divine movement. This …
Jeanne Marie Bouvières—A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents