N00508:129
Earthquakes explained and practically improved
Earthquakes explained and practically improved: occasioned by the late earthquake on Sept. 8. 1692. in London, many other parts in England, and beyond sea. / By Thomas Doolittle, M.A. The author also of the treatise on the Lords-Supper. ; Jamaica's miseries show London's mercies. Both compared.Earthquakes explained and practically improved: occasioned by the late earthquake on Sept. 8. 1692. in London, many other parts in England, and beyond sea. / By Thomas Doolittle, M.A. The author also of the treatise on the Lords-Supper. ; Jamaica's miseries shew London's mercies. Both compared.
printed by Benjamin Harris & are to be sold, 1693
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2 The suddenness of Death, the apprehended nearness of it. The danger did not only seize them suddenly. What! die so soon! what, within a minute or two? will Death stay no longer? can it not a minute more be delayed? what! so soon step into Eternity? so ⟨p. 39⟩suddenly, must I hasten into another everlasting World? I never did so suddenly remove from one House to another, and must I now so suddenly remove from one World to another? from a temporal into an eternal World? and yet not to leave this, nor to go into that? It is hard to imagine the power and strength of fear that must invade and fill them in such distress▪
2 The suddeness of Death, the apprehended nearness of it. The danger did not only seize them suddenly. What! die so soon! what, within a minute or two? will Death stay no longer? can it not a minute more be delayed? what! so soon step into Eternity? so ⟨p. 39⟩suddenly, must I hasten into another everlasting World? I never did so suddenly remove from one House to another, and must I now so suddenly remove from one World to another? from a temporal into an eternal World? and yet not to leave this, nor to go into that? It is hard to imagine the power and strength of fear that must invade and fill them in such distress▪
3. The unavoidableness of Death apprehended in an over throwing Earthquake augments their fears, or torments them with despair of Life. If a man be sick, the means he useth keeps up his hope of Life, and the more he hopes he shall live, the less are his fears of Death. But in a desolating Earthquake, what hopes can Men have? whither can they in a moment go to escape the ruin? what present Friend can help them, when they and their Friends are in the same equal danger? when one must not die without the other? If they stay within doors they apprehend they may be killed with the fl of their Houses: if they run out, they know not but they may be destroyed with the downfall of their Neighbours. Will they hasten into the Fields? what! in a minute? alas! they have not time allowed for such an escape, or if they had, there the Earth in an Earthquake might swallow them up. No where safe, every where in great fear.