N02454:40
Boanerges. A short essay to preserve and strengthen the good impressions produced by earthquakes…
Boanerges. A short essay to preserve and strengthen the good impressions produced by earthquakes on the minds of people that have been awakened with them. : With some views of what is to be further and quickly looked for. : Addressed unto the whole people of New-England, who have been terrified with the late earthquakes; and more especially the towns that have had a more singular share in the terrors of them. : [Three lines from I Chronicles]Boanerges. A short essay to preserve and strengthen the good impressions produced by earthquakes on the minds of people that have been awakened with them. : With some views of what is to be further and quickly look'd for. : Address'd unto the whole people of New-England, who have been terrified with the late earthquakes; and more especially the towns that have had a more singular share in the terrors of them. : [Three lines from I Chronicles]
Boston: printed for S. Kneeland, 1727
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
We read of mighty Legions, who after they have been Damned for seven Thousand years, and have been actually, in the direful Torments of the Damned for one thousand of them, yet being let loose again, they play the Devil again just as they did a Thousand years before; and again attempt with a Satanic Assault of Temptations to disturb the Camp of the Saints, and with Diabolical Delusions and Stratagems, draw in those in the Hidden places of the Earth, who go up from under the Breadth of the Earth, to join with them in their War against the Holy ones. Hell it self won't fetch out the sinful Tendencies, in the Souls of the wicked. Not only if One went from the Dead unto the wicked that are not yet gone to the Dead, they will yet refuse to Repent, but also if they that are there were permitted themselves to go from the Dead, yet even These would not Repent: Except with New Lives they should also have New Hearts given them from Above. They that go down to Hell, with the Lusts in them which were the Weapons of their War, and have their Iniquities in their very Bones, if they that have been shut up in the Prison, should after many Days be Visited, and Released; they would again be as wicked as they were before.
Be sure, Earthquakes alone, will not cure the Love of Sin in Men, and cause them to Turn and Live unto GOD. If People should feel what may ⟨p. 16⟩force them to flee for their Lives, with the utmost confusion, from an all-devouring Earthquake, — As they fled from before the Earthquake, in the Days of Uzziah King of Judah, — This will not cause them to flee from their Sins. If People should see what is not now a New Thing, the Earth open its Mouth, and swallow up their Neighbours by Hundreds at a Morsel, and a multitude going down alive into the Pit, and the Earth closing upon them, yet in flying from the Tents of wicked Men at their lamentable Cry, Lest the Earth swallow up them also, — it would be no New Thing, if they do not fly from the Ways of Wicked Men. Are there not Nefandous Instances of People continuing in the Actual Commission of Disorderly Things, even in the very Time of an Earthquake? Yea, People making themselves Drunk, and Reeling to and fro with strong Drink, while the Earth has just been Reeling to and fro like a Drunkard under them, and roaring against them? And Robberies committed, even while the Earthquake has afforded an Opportunity for the Thieves to exert their cursed. Faculty? Hardened Sinners! There is no Reclaiming of them!