Boanerges. A short essay to preserve and strengthen the good impressions produced by earthquakes…

O the Inconstancy of our Carnal minds! Constant only in their Enmity to GOD! People seem to be very Good while they have the loud peals of the Thunders discharging over them; and they fear lest the Next Flash of the Lightnings render them a Pillar of Salt. But they are not the same after the Thunders are over, that they were in the Time of the Thunders. — How often have I thought! — O! If my dear Neighbours were disposed after the Thunders as they are under them! — How Happy would they be! How Holy would they be! What a Religious Neighbourhood; and how full of PIETY!

O the Inconstancy of our Carnal minds! Constant only in their Enmity to GOD! People seem to be very Good while they have the loud peals of the Thunders discharging over them; and they fear lest the Next Flash of the Lightenings render them a Pillar of Salt. But they are not the same after the Thunders are over, that they were in the Time of the Thunders. — How often have I thought! — O! If my dear Neighbours were disposed after the Thunders as they are under them! — How Happy would they be! How Holy would they be! What a Religious Neighbourhood; and how full of PIETY!

From this Remark on Thunders, I return to Earthquakes, which are of the same Family with them: And, my Remark upon them is, That it is very plain, the Earthquakes which have lately shook the Earth under us for many Hundreds of Miles, and which in many places have been continued for diverse Weeks together, have produced very Good Impressions on many Thousands of Minds. If there be a few Stocks and Stones and Prodigies of Impiety, which have had no Good Impressions made upon them from the mighty Voice of GOD sent forth in these Earthquakes, verily, they are not only most unaccountably Sottish Wretches, but even worse than Brutish ones: I say, worse than Brutish ones; For it might have affected even those profane Indolents themselves, to have seen the Horrors which these Earthquakes raised in the Brutal World, at the Moments of the Tremors: How the greater and ⟨p. 18⟩the smaller Cattle, and the very Dogs themselves, expressed themselves moved, and horribly terrified, when they felt the Earth moving under them. They that now had no Awe upon them, and no Sense of a Glorious GOD and their Duty to Him, and felt no Good Impressions on their Minds, what shall be thought of them! — I suppose, there were very few such Monsters to be seen, in our Land. No; There have been Good Impressions made upon the Minds of People every where in Town and Country. The like was never seen in our Land! The many that fly into the Covenant of GOD, as unto the Horus of the Altar, that they may be sheltered from the Mischiefs of Earthquakes there, most certainly run thither with Good Impressions on their Minds. Yea, there are multitudes with whom it is a Time of such Good Impressions as they never felt in their Lives before. But now, O! The Extreme Hazard which there may be, left these Good Impressions do quickly die away, quickly wear off, quickly come to nothing: Extreme Hazard, lest People anon be just what they were before, and will not yet Fear the Lord GOD, whose Voice has thus loudly called upon us. For my part, my Heart more trembles at this, than at an Earthquake.—