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• nifhed him that was addicted to Idols, and had flain many innocent Perfons, yet he received

him when he repented, and forgave him his Offences, and reftored him to his Kingdom. I add, 'for a Conclufion, the Words of God himfelf by Ifaiab the Prophet, elsewhere cited in these • Conftitutions.' To this Man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite Spirit, and trembleth at my Word. [If. lxxvi. 2. Conftitut. vii. 8.]

However, let the Great and the Proud, and the Vain People about the Court, act as impiously and impudently as they pleafe, while Providence bears with them, and gives them Time and Space for their Repentance, which they at prefent feem no Way difpofed for; this may and ought to be indeed Matter of great Lamentation to their pious and religious Friends, and Relations, and to oblige them to most ardent Prayers for, and most importunate Admonitions to them; as knowing that against obstinate Sinners God is a jealous God, and a confuming Fire; [Ex. xx. 5. Heb. xii. 29.] and remembring the serious Interrogation the Prophet Ezekiel puts to fuch a Man, [Ezek. xxii. 14.] Can thine Heart endure, or can thine Hands be ftrong, in the Day that I shall deal with thee? But then those pious and religious Men are to remember our Saviour's Exhortation to them, upon the very firft Beginnings of thefe divine Judgments, from which they will be themselves providentially faved [Luk. xxi. 28.] When thefe Things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your Heads, because

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your Redemption, or Delivery from the Oppreffions and Perfecutions of fuch great wicked Men, draweth nigh. And confidering that fuch great wicked Men, who will not take Warning by fuch affecting Signals of the divine Displeasure as we have lately had, will generally grow worse and worse, the longer they are borne with in this World, and fo will have greater Guilt and heavier Punishment hereafter; fuch a fudden Vengeance, as, I believe, Providence is going to take on them, is rather an Instance of God's Pity and Compaffion to these miferable Creatures; and it is therefore not to hinder good Men from rejoicing in their own Deliverance from them.

I conclude the Whole in the very wife, ferious, moving, and seasonable Words of an unknown Author, who fubfcribes himself PUBLICUS, in his Letter to the Printer of the General Evening Post, inferted into that Paper, from Tuesday, April 17, to Thursday, April 19, 1750; which I defire the Citizens of London to accept as my own Address to them, upon this folemn Occafion.

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SIR,

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Have been informed, that the late Alarm of an Earthquake, not only diffufes its Terrors to Mankind, [which the vaft Multitude, perhaps 100,000, that retired, out of their Houses, into Hyde-Park, &c. on the 4th of this Month, upon a groundless Panick of a third Earthquake to hapР

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that Night, does abundantly testify] but even to the Animals that were in our Streets, and our Fields: But as we tranfcend the Animals; as we C are Creatures endowed with intellectual Powers, and capable of Religion, fo I would hope that we 'fhall give Proof of our Reafon and Religion, by looking beyond fecond Caufes, to the great God of all; who loudly demands from us, in the late Shocks, our Veneration and Obedience.

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Though the Author and Sovereign of Nature, may, in this awful Event, have employed fecond 'Causes, as the Inftruments of his Displeasure against a finful City, yet I befeech the Inhabitants of it not to add this to all their other Iniquities, a Denial, or Difregard of an over-ruling Provi• dence.

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• Without Doubt, the Great God, when he de'nounced Peftilence, Famine, War, and the like direful Calamities to the Ifraelites, intended to accomplish his Threatnings by fecond Causes: And yet, if we fearch the facred Books, where the divine Threatnings are recorded, we fhall find • that fuch tremendous Events were refolved, by the Prophets, into a divine Agency, or Permif'fion.

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We are taught from Scripture to conceive of • God, as upholding all Things by the Word of his Power, Heb. i. 3. We are led to believe, that of Him, and to Him, and through Him, are all Things, Rom. xi. 36. That in Him we live and move, and have our Beings, Acts xvii. 28. and

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that, by Him, all Things confift, Col. i. 17. And furely, fuch Reprefentations of the Deity, direct ' us to conceive of Him, as by an immediate Ener'gy, fuftaining the World He has made; and there'fore we are not to fuffer our Thoughts to ftagnate, ' when all fuch awful Events as have lately alarmed our City arife, in any Inftruments the great God

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may use, but through the Medium, we are to regard and reverence the almighty and conftant "Governor of all.

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Methinks the Voice of Reafon joins with the 'Declarations of Scripture. Reason tells us, that 'God is the Creator of all Things; and confequently, that He furnishes His Creatures, whether ani• mate, or inanimate, with all their Qualities and 'Powers. Will not Reafon farther approve, when we fay, that God, who has made, preferves all Things? For how can it be imagined, that the 'continual Harmonies, and Wonders of the Uni- ' verfe, can be maintained, without the perpetua! Confervation of thofe Laws, by which the vast 'Structure of Nature is governed? And where 'fhall we find Wisdom and Power fufficient for this great Work, fhort of that Being, whofe 'Wisdom and Power produced the amazing Sy( ftem ?

The Heathens, when they were visited with any fuch dreadful Events as have lately awaken'ed our Terror, fled to their Gods for Refuge,

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as the Mariners in the Tempest recorded in Jonak, Ch. i. 5. And fhall we be worfe than Pagans? P2,

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Or fhall we relapfe into Epicureanism, and imagine a Deity who takes no Cognizance of, and exerts no Powers in the World about us; and • hereby, at one fatal Blow, cut off our Fear, Dependance, Hope, and Confolation, in that God, whose we are, and whom we ought to ferve?

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• The Exclufion of the Deity from fuch alarming Events as have lately shocked us, will afford • but little Comfort, if the Ground fhould open un• der our Feet, and threaten to swallow us up. • And what greater Lenitive will the Perfon, who believes an Earthquake to be a meer Chance, find above that Person who believes it is God that cleaves the Earth afunder, to answer fome Purpose or another perfectly wife, and worthy of his fupreme Administration? Nay, will not a Confidence in the Deity, as the Governor of all • Things, and a well-grounded Hope in his infinite . Mercy, fupport and cherish the Mind in the Profpects of fuch a Danger, and in the very Season of its Attack? He that fhuts out God from our • World, does juft as much Service, as he, who, < was it in his Power, would pluck the Sun from its Sphere, or extinguish his univerfal Light, and benign Influences.

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• Let the Inhabitants of this great City know, that if there is any Evil in the City, the great God bas done it, Amos iii. 6. and with one Heart and Soul revere his Juftice, tremble at his Power, forfake their Iniquities, and turn to God, with fincere Repentance, and a Faith in the Merits and • Mediation

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