TO THE CLERGY AND INHABITANTS OF THE CITIES OF LONDON AND WESTMINSTER. MY BRETHREN AND FRIENDS, THE relation I ftand in to you is a daily call upon me to confider the spiritual state of these great cities: and though I doubt not but God has many faithful and chofen among you, yet the general view of the wickedness and corruption that abound, and are spreading far and wide, gives me, and muft give to every serious chriftian, very painful reflections. It is hardly poffible to think of the history of providence, recorded in holy writ, and the many examples of divine juftice exercised, fometimes in punishing, fometimes in utterly deftroying wicked nations or cities, without being fenfibly affected with apprehenfions for ourselves: but more efpecially have we reason to fear, when we see the beginning of forrows, and the displeasure of the Almighty manifefted in the calamities we suffer under, and in the figns and tokens given us to expect a far more dreadful judgment. It is every man's duty, and it is mine to call upon you, to give attention to all the warnings which God in his mercy affords to a finful people : fuch warning we have had, by two great fhocks of an earthquake; a warning, which feems to have been immediately and especially directed to these great cities, and the neighbourhood of them; where the violence of the earthquake was so fenfible, though in distant parts hardly felt, that it will be blindness wilful and inexcufable, not to apply to ourselves this ftrong fummons from God to repentance. Thoughtless or hardened finners may be deaf to these calls; and little philofophers, who fee a little, and but very little, into natural causes, may think they see enough to account for what happens, without calling in the aid and affistance of a special providence; not confidering, that God, who made all things, never put any thing out of his own power, but has all nature under command to serve his purposes in the government of the world. But be their imaginations to themselves; the subject is too ferious for trifling, and calls us off to other views. If we confider the general government of the world by God, and upon what reafons and motives he acts, when he brings calamities and plagues upon any people; or if we recollect from hiftory, facred and profane, what state and condition, with refpect to religion and morality, the people were in, who have been examples of justice; and then compare our own cafe with the general reafon by which Providence acts, and with the circumftances of those by whose example we ought to take warning; we shall foon difcover whether there be juft reafon for our apprehenfions. If those who have been destroyed by fire from heaven, or swallowed up by the earth, were finners, and we are righteous, let us fear nothing, nor be difmayed, though the foundations of the earth be removed: but if our confciences tell us that we have finned after their example, what confolation is there to be had against the just expectation of fuffering after their example alfo ? The fame conclufion will arife from a contemplation of God's general providence; which, though it is not daily exerted in punishing all men, or all vices that deserve it, yet is always armed with power to ftop outrageous wickednefs: and he has told us in his holy word, what we may expect from his justice, when we are grown hardened and obdurate against his mercy. Upon these principles let your own case be examined. But who fhall be your accufer? Shall I ? God forbid: My heart's defire and prayer to God for you is, that you may be faved. Hear me then with patience, not as your accufer, but as your faithful fervant and monitor in Chrift Jefus, warning you to flee from the wrath that is to come. Had this part of the world had lefs knowledge and lefs light, they might have fome excufe, and fome hope that God would wink at the times of their ignorance but they have had the light, and have loved darkness: the Gospel of Christ, in which all the goodness and mercy of God are displayed through the redemption purchased by the blood of Chrift; in which the aid and comfort of the holy Spirit of God is offered to all who diligently feek it; in which the hopes and fears of eternity are displayed to guard us against the temptations of fin; has been not only rejected, but treated with a malicious fcorn; and all our hopes in Chrift reprefented as delufions and impofitions upon the weakness of men, How has the prefs for many years paft fwarmed with books, fome to dispute, fome to ridicule the great truths of religion, both natural and revealed! I fhall mention no particular cafes; there is no need for it: the thing is notorious. I wish the guilt in this inftance was confined to the authors only, and that nobody elfe was anfwerable for it: but the earneftness with which thefe books were fought after, the pleasure and approbation with which they were received, are too ftrong indications of the general tafte to be diffembled; and the industry used to disperse these books at home and abroad, and especially to our plantations in America; to which great numbers, and at a great expence, have been conveyed; are proofs of fuch malice against the Gospel, and the holy Author of it, as would not be borne even in a Mahometan country. In this branch of trade, this great city beats all the world; it is become even the mart for infidelity. It required no great fagacity to foresee what the confequence would be of the pains taken to unfettle all principles of religion. Infidelity and immorality are too nearly allied to be long separated; and though some have pretended to preserve a sense of virtue without the aid of religion, yet experience has fhewed, that people who have neither hopes nor fears with respect to another world, will soon abuse this by indulg ing the worft of their paffions, and will not regard man, when once they have learned to disregard God. |