Α ́ LETTER O F Confolation and Council To the Good People of ENGLAND,. Efpecially of London and Westminster, Occafioned by the late EARTHQUAKE S.. By aLAY MAN: i. e. Mr. GORDON. First printed in the Year 1750.. A LETTER. Friends and Neighbours, A FTER two late convulfions of the earth, or the air, or of both, and after a third alarm from a late folemn address, perhaps fpreading more terror than either, give me leave to offer you fome comforting confiderations. One earthquake is not always followed by another, nor a fecond by a third, nor a third by one ftill more terrible; neither do their havoc in one country imply the fame in any other country. Where one of them has fwallowed a city, or pushed the fea over the continent, how many have been remembred only by being felt? Nobody is frighted at the fight much lefs at the found of a shower; yet inundations caufed by rains have ruined countries and communities, left more extenfive defolation, and produced more frequent calamities, than earthquakes, at least here in Britain, and all over Europe. Earthquakes too are produced from natu ral caufes; fire and floods in the cavities of the earth, violent explofions or rarefactions there, fuch as no weight or bulk can refift, not a fhell or globe of iron a thousand miles thick; and as the fmalleft fpark will blow up a thousand powder mills, a fmall ferment in the earth, even in the center of the earth, will shake it to the furface. We are not to feek for, or to suppose fupernatural caufes, where natural ones are obvious and certain: the latter will fatisfy every reasonable mind, and fupernatural causes are only fought and urged by vifionaries, dealers in judgments, and by fharpers in theology, fuch as pretend to foretell wrath to come, and to avert it; nay, fome of them have threatened to bring it. These men of prophecy and forefight account for all awful and ftriking events, by intelligence from heaven, and are, or feem, confident, that the almighty will do whatever they think he ought to do, referving to themselves a right to prevail with him to change, or fufpend his measures; as if they could repeal his decrees, even fuch terrible decrees as they had foretold he would ter ribly execute, but for their interpofition and charms. They therefore hate, and pretend to defpife, the tracing of any tremendous appearances from nature and reafon; a courfe that would fpoil their warnings and importance. No wonder that they treat the most learned and able inquirers into the powers of nature, as little philofophers; as men who would utterly fpoil and difgrace the theory of judg ments, and fink the folemn character of judg ment-mongers. Thefe laft have this advantage, that the judgments which they threaten, are not obliged to fall, nor even their moft flattering prophecies to be accomplished; for if the people who are threatened, efcape, their ef cape is derived from the warnings and prayers of their monitor, and from his credit and interceffion above; and if their hopes from any of his kind predictions fail, the people have not repented enough, or finned too much. Many a noted prophet, chimerical and pofitive, and almost all pious impoflors, have perfevered in foretelling and miftaking all their lives, yet ftill paffed for authentic prophets : fo fafe it is to foretell what will never happen, |