speaker. I have endeavoured to speak, not to an itching ear, or a curious fancy, but to your understanding and your heart; that you may both know and feel what I say: and, indeed, if I should aim at any thing else, I should be at once an egregious trifler, and a profane mocker of God.

Now I have one serious question to put to you, upon a careful review of what I have said; and that is, Do you really hope in your consciences, after you have impartially tried yourselves as in the sight of God, that you have been converted or turned to God? Here is the work: I have plainly described it. But where is the heart in which it has been wrought? Can you put your hand upon your breast and say, 'Oh ! if I know myself, here is the heart that has been the subject of it?' Pause and think upon this inquiry, and never be easy till you can give, at least, a prob

able answer.

I hope this will confirm the wavering hopes of some of you, and enable you to draw the happy conclusion-Well, if this be conversion, I think I may venture to pronounce myself a converted soul.' Then happy are ye indeed. I have not time to say many comfortable things to you at present; but go to your bibles; there you will find precious promises enough for you. Live and feast upon them, and ere long they will be all fulfilled to you, and you shall live and feast with your Saviour in paradise.

But my main business to-day lies with the unconverted and have not some of you discovered yourselves this day to be such? Well, what is to be done now? Can you go on careless and secure still under this tremendous conviction? I hardly think any of you are arrived to such a pitch of presumption and fool-hardiness as this. Must you despair and give up all hopes of salvation? No, unless you choose it-I mean, unless you choose to neglect the means appointed for your conversion, and harden yourselves in sin. If you are determined on this course, then you may despair indeed-there is not the least ground of hope for you. But should you now rouse out of your security, and seek the Lord in earnest, you have the same encouragement to hope which any one of the many millions of converts in heaven or upon earth had, while in your condition: therefore let me persuade you to take this course immediately.

But when I begin to persuade, I am in Jeremiah's perplexity : "To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear?"* • Shall I speak to you, men of business and hurry? Alas! you have no leisure to mind such a trifle as your soul. Shall I speak to you, men of wealth and character? Alas! this is a business beneath your notice. What a gentleman cry for converting grace! That would be a strange sight indeed. Shall I speak to you, old men; my venerable fathers in age? Alas! you are so hardened by a long course of sinning, that you are not likely to hear. Shall I speak to you, ye relics of those families where death has lately made such havock? Sure you must be disposed to hear me-Sure you cannot put me off so soon. I hope sickness and death have been sent among you as my assistants; that is, to enforce what I say, and be the means of your conversion. Shall I speak to you, young people? Alas! you are too merry and gay to listen to such serious things; and you, perhaps, think it is time enough as yet. Thus, I am afraid, you will put me off: and if you put me off, I shall hardly know where to turn; for of all the unconverted among us, I have most hopes of you. Old sinners are so confirmed in their estrangement from God, that there is but little hopes of such veterans: but the habits of sin are not so strong in you, and God is wont to work upon persons of your age. If you, then, put me off, where shall I turn? Behold, I turn to the Gentiles. Poor negroes! Shall I find one among you that is willing to turn to God? Many of you are willing to be baptized but that is not the thing. Are you willing to turn to God with all your hearts, in the manner I have explained to you? This is the grand question; and what do your hearts answer to it? If you also refuse-if you all refuse, then what remains for your poor minister to do, but to return home and make this complaint to him that sent him: Lord, there were unconverted sinners among my hearers; and, in my poor manner, I made an honest trial to turn them to thee: but, Lord, it was in vain-they refused to return; and therefore I must leave them to thee, to do what thou pleasest with them!' Oh! will you constrain me to make this complaint upon any of you to my divine Master? Oh! free me from the disagreeable necessity. Come, come all, rich and poor, young and old, bond

Jer. vi. 10.

and free

come, and let us return unto the Lord; for " he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up, and we shall live in his sight."* Amen.

SERMON 67.

THE RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT OF THE LATE EARTHQUAKES.† ISAIAH XXIV. 18, 19, 20. The foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down; the earth is clean dissolved; the earth is moved exceedingly; the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall lie heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.

THE works of Creation and Providence were undoubtedly intended for the notice and contemplation of mankind, especially, when God comes out of his place, that is, departs from the usual and stated course of his providence, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquities—then it becomes us to observe the operation of his hands, with fear and reverence. To this the psalmist repeatedly calls us; "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolation he hath made in the earth." 66 Come, and see the works of God; he is terrible in his doing towards the children of men." To assist you in this, I shall cheerfully devote an hour to-day.

This world is a state of discipline for another; and therefore, chastisements of various kinds and degrees are to be enumerated among the ordinary works of providence, pain, sickness, losses, bereavements, disappointments; these are the usual scourges of the divine hand, which our heavenly Father uses every day, to chastise some or other of his undutiful children. But when these are found too weak and ineffectual for their reformation ; or when, from their being so frequent and common, men begin to think them things of course, and not to acknowledge the divine

* Hosea vi. 1.

† Preached in Hanover county, Virginia, June 19, 1756. agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.

Tua res

HOR.

hand in them; then the universal ruler departs from his usual methods of chastisements, and uses such signal and extraordinary executioners of his vengeance, as cannot but rouse a slumbering world, and render it sensible of his agency. At such times, he throws the world into a ferment; and either controls its established laws, or carries such into execution, as were formed only for extraordinary occasions. These extraordinary ministers of his vengeance, are generally these four: the FAMINE, SWORD, PESTILENCE, and EARTHQUAKES. A famine in this land of plenty, would be an unusual judgment indeed; and yet, sundry parts of our country have been reduced to the borders of it, by the severity of last year's drought. The sword has been a harmless weapon to us, till of late; but now, it is brandished over our heads, and pierces our country in a thousand veins. The pesti lence is a mischief that has not spread desolation among us; though there is not perhaps one year, in which it is not walking through some country or other upon our globe. As for earthquakes, we have had such shakes, as may convince us, we are not beyond the reach of that desolating judgment, even on this solid continent; though they have not as yet done us any injury. But perhaps there never was, since the earthquake at the deluge, that broke up the fountains of the great deep, so extensive a desolation of this kind, as has lately happened in Europe and Africa. And though, blessed be God, it did not immediately affect us ; yet the very fame of so dreadful a judgment ought to be improv ed for our advantage. To this event I may accommodate the words of my text, "The foundations of the earth do shake ; the earth is utterly broken down; the earth is clean dissolved; the earth reels to and fro like a drunkard :—it is removed like a cottage," or a tent,* that was set up only for a night's lodging ; and the reason of all is, "The transgression thereof lies heavy upon it." Such of you as have read the public papers, need not be informed of that wide-spreading earthquake, which begun on the first of November last, and has since been felt at different times, through most parts of Europe. have only had some imperfect hints of it, I would give you this short history. The city of Lisbon, that, in a little spot, contained about as many souls as the inhabitants of this wide-extended

For the sake of those that

מלונת *

*

colony, is now no more! Its vast riches, and by all accounts between fifty and an hundred thousand persons, have been buried or burnt in its ruins. Sundry other towns in Portugal, Spain, and along the European coasts of the Mediterranean, have been damaged, overthrown, or sunk, like Sodom and Gomorrah. The earthquake also extended across that sea, and has ruined a great part of Africa, particularly in the empire of Morocco, where the large and populous cities of Mequinez, Fez, and the port of Sallee, have been demolished, with many thousands of the inhabitants. It has likewise been felt in sundry parts of Italy, Germany, France, Bohemia, and even in Great-Britain and Ireland. Nay, the tremor has reached our continent; and has been very sensibly felt in Boston and other parts of New England. Though much mischief has not been done in those parts, yet a loud warning has been given; and oh! that it may not be given in vain. It would certainly be an instance of inexcusable stupidity, for us to take no notice of so dreadful a dispensation. Such devastations are at once judgments upon the places where they happen, and warnings to others. For what end were the Israelites punished with so many miraculous judgments? St. Paul will tell you, it was not only for their sins, but "all these things happened to them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."t For what end were the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah turned into ashes ? St. Peter will tell you: God" made them an ensample unto those that should after live ungodly." And shall not we regard such examples, even in our own age? Shall others perish for our admonition? and shall we receive no profit by their destruction? This would be stupid and inexcusable indeed. Therefore, my present design is, to direct you to such meditations as this alarming event naturally suggests; and which may be sufficient to the right improvement of it.

But before I enter upon this design, I would once more inculcate upon you a doctrine, which I have often proved in your hearing; and that is, that this world is a little territory of Jehovah's government-under the management of his providence ; and particularly, that all the blessings of life are the gifts of his bounty; and all its calamities, the chastisements or judgments † 1 Cor. x. 11.

* About three hundred thousand souls.

+ 2 Peter, ii. 6.