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tendance on his cure, the terms of the law muft

be pursued; beyond which there is nothing for any clergyman to ask, nothing for any bishop to grant.

A

LETTER

FROM

THOMAS SHERLOCK, D.D.

LORD BISHOP OF LONDON,

TO THE

CLERGY AND PEOPLE

OF

LONDON AND WESTMINSTER,

ON OCCASION OF

THE EARTHQUAKES IN MDCCL.

TO THE

CLERGY AND INHABITANTS

OF THE

CITIES OF LONDON AND WESTMINSTER.

MY BRETHREN AND FRIENDS,

THE relation I ftand in to you is a daily call

upori me to confider the spiritual state of these great cities: and though I doubt not but God has many faithful and chofen among you, yet the general view of the wickedness and corruption that abound, and are spreading far and wide, gives me, and must give to every serious chriftian, very painful reflections. It is hardly poffible to think of the history of providence, recorded in holy writ, and the many examples of divine justice exercised, fometimes in punishing, fometimes in utterly destroying wicked nations or cities, without being fenfibly affected with apprehenfions for ourselves but more especially have we reason to fear, when we see the beginning of forrows, and the displeasure of the Almighty manifefted in the calamities we fuffer under, and in the figns and tokens given us to expect a far more dreadful judgment.

It is every man's duty, and it is mine to call upon you, to give attention to all the warnings which God in his mercy affords to a finful people : fuch warning we have had, by two great shocks of an earthquake; a warning, which feems to have been immediately and especially directed to these great cities, and the neighbourhood of them; where the violence of the earthquake was fo fenfible, though in diftant parts hardly felt, that it will be blindness wilful and inexcusable, not to apply to ourselves this strong fummons from God to repentance.

Thoughtless or hardened finners may be deaf to these calls; and little philofophers, who fee a little, and but very little, into natural causes, may think they see enough to account for what happens, without calling in the aid and affiftance of a special providence; not confidering, that God, who made all things, never put any thing out of his own power, but has all nature under command to serve his purposes in the government of the world. But be their imaginations to themselves; the subject is too ferious for trifling, and calls us off to other views.

If we confider the general government of the world by God, and upon what reasons and motives he acts, when he brings calamities and plagues upon any people; or if we recollect from hiftory, facred and profane, what state and condition, with respect to religion and morality, the people were in, who have been examples of juftice; and then compare our own case with the general reafon by which Providence acts, and with the circumstances of those by whose example we ought to take warning; we shall foon discover whether there be juft reafon for our apprehenfions. If

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