N02463:70
The terror of the Lord. Some account of the earthquake that shook New-England, in…
The terror of the Lord. Some account of the earthquake that shook New-England, in the night, between the 29 and the 30 of October. 1727. : With a speech, made unto the inhabitants of Boston, who assembled the next morning, for the proper exercises of religion, on so uncommon, and so tremendous an occasion. : [One line from Corinthians]
Boston: printed by T. Fleet 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.
Alas, When I see the Epidemical Decay of Real and Vital PIETY, and how Lukewarm we are in all that is Good, with how few Agonies the affairs of Salvation are carried on, methinks, I see sufficient cause for Earthquakes, to throw us into Agonies. Laodicea had this charged upon her, Thou art Lukewarm. Tis Our unhappy and prevailing Temper. But what is become of Laodicea? Tis entirely lost, in amazing Earthquakes. No Travellers can find where Laodicea stood!— It is entirely absorbed and vanished, in horrible Earthquakes.
Alas, When I see the Epidemical Decay of Real and Vital PIETY, and how Lukewarm we are in all that is Good, with how few Agonies the affairs of Salvation are carried on, methinks, I see sufficient cause for Earthquakes, to throw us into Agonies. Laodicea had this charged upon her, Thou art Lukewarm. Tis Our unhappy and prevailing Temper. But what is become of Laodicea? Tis intirely lost, in amazing Earthquakes. No Travellers can find where Laodicea stood!— It is entirely absorb'd and vanished, in horrible Earthquakes.
Lastly. What a Contempt is due to an Earth, whereof we see all the Possessions lying under such a dismal Uncertainty!
We find People casting away their Idols, when they see the LORD arising to shake terribly the Earth. The Earthquake wherein we just now saw the Glorious GOD arising to shake terribly the Earth, has in it this Voice unto us; Don't Idolize this Earth! Set not your Hearts upon an Earth, which may easily and suddenly prove a Grave unto you, and unto all that you have upon it! If we could look into the uncertain Ground which we stand upon, ⟨p. 35⟩and build upon, and could see the deep, the wide, and hideous Vaults below, and how liable the thin Arched Roof over the hollow Recesses of the Subterraneous World may be to fail and break & sink upon the Expansion of the Vapours there, certainly it were enough to make us almost swoon with Fear, and in a shuddering Horror, and our Hearts even die away within us. The dreadful Abyss, over which there is bent and laid the shallow Bridge, that sustains us, and all that the Men of this World have to subsist upon, or find comfort in! Sirs, we have no earthly Possessions, but what may be called, Moveables; Our very Houses are so! O you that mind Earthly Things! What of this Idolized Earth is there, that you can be sure of? How does all appear, when an Earthquake shows you truly what it is? How Undone! How Undone! How Damned are you, if you are put off with a Portion here? The Text, of which the Earthquake is a Cogent and a Pungent Sermon, is that;