these, the remarkable chasm near which the following sermon was preached a chasm this which could not be formed but by the ground moving East or West, and not towards the river. This appears likewise by part of a plowed field, which has been torn from the rest, and carried several yards to the South-west, as the direction of the furrows eminently demonstrates.

From these observations we may conclude, that it was an earthquake, accompanied by a considerable eruption of air: and this appears from the sudden gust of wind, that shook Samuel Cookson's windows, and affected a yew tree, which seems to have been blasted, as well as two young trees, whose leaves have also turned yellow. They stand at the end of the long chasm, just in the way from it to the house where the sudden blast terrified the farmer, at the time of the desolation.

This sentiment is confirmed, not only by the accident of the house at Buildwas, which unaccountably moved, cracked in several places, and partly sunk in two days before; but by another singular earthquake that was, it seems, both felt and heard a little after at Hennington, in Shifnal parish; though the earth did not open there, as it did at the Birches.

It seems the matter which was the second cause of our phenomenon, operated near the surface of the earth, and consequently could not cause those violent shocks and convulsions, which are felt far and near, when she is affected in her inmost bowels.

Perhaps also the confined matter, that struggled for a vent, finding one soon, and working itself out gradually when it had found it, at once caused the earthquake to last longer upon the desolated spot, and prevented its being felt at a greater distance.

But whatever the second or natural cause of our phenomenon was, it is certain that the first or moral cause of it is two-fold; on cur part aggravated sin; and on God's part, warning justice.

The design of the following discourse, was to point out that moral cause to inconsiderate spectators in general; and in particular to excite in the hearts of my parishioners, an unfeigned gratitude for our preservation, and a salutary fear of the Almighty, who equally fulfils his providential will by storms or inundations, consumptions or fevers, famine or pestilence, slips or earthquakes.

Should the reader wish to know, why I preached on that occasion upon the ruins: I will ingenuously tell him by what accidents and reaSous I was induced to take that step. The day the earth opened at the Birches, as I considered one of the chasms, several of my parishioners, whom curiosity had brought to the awful spot, gathered around me. I observed to them, that the sight before us, was a remarkable confirmation of the first argument of a book, called An Appeal to matter of fact, or a rational demonstration of Man's fullen and lost estate, which I had just published, as a last effort to awaken to a sense of the fear of God, the careless gentlemen of my parish, to whom it is dedicated. Having a few copies about me, which I was going to present to some of them, I begged leave to read that argument. And as I read, I enlarged upon the following passages.

"Does not the natural state of the carth cast a light upon the spiritual condition of its inhabitants? Amidst a thousand beauties that indicate what it was when God pronounced it very good, and (as the original imports also) extremely beautiful: can an impartial enquirer help taking notice of a thousand striking proofs, that a multi

plied curse rests upon this globe, and that man, who inhabits it, is now disgraced by the God of nature and providence?"

"Here, deceitful morasses, or faithless quick-sands obstruct our way: There, miry, impassable roads, or inhospitable sandy deserts, endanger our life. In one place we are stopt by stupendous chains of rocky mountains, broken into frightful precipices or hideous caverns: and in another, we meet with ruinous valleys, cut deep by torrents, whose tremendous roar stuns the astonished traveller," &c.

"Nor does heaven alone dart destructive fire; earth, our mother earth, as if it were not enough frequently to corrupt the atmosphere by pestilential vapours, borrows the assistance of the devouring (or of the fluid) element, to terrify and scourge her guilty children. By sudden, frightful chasms, and the mouths of her burning mountains, she vomits clouds of smoke, sulphurous flames, and calcined rocks; she emits streams of melted minerals-and, as if she wanted to ease herself of the burden of her inhabitants, suddenly rises against them and in battles of shaking at once crushes, destroys, and buries them (or, as in the present case, their fields and buildings, their bridges and roads, their woods and rivers) in heaps of ruins."

"When these astonishing scenes are past, they may indeed entertain us, like a bloody battle that is seen at a distance: they may amuse our imagination when in a peaceful apartment we behold them beautifully represented by the pen of a Virgil, or the pencil of a Raphael. But to be in the midst of them, as thousands are sooner or later, is inexpressibly dreadful. It is actually to see the forerunners of divine vengeance and to hear the shaking of God's destructive rod. It is to behold at once a lively emblem, and an awful pledge, of that fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, which the righteous Governor of the world will rain upon the ungodly; when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt away with fervent heat, and the earth, with the works that are therein, shall be burnt up."

"Now, as reason loudly declares, that the God of order, justice, and goodness, could never establish, and continue this fearful course of things, but to punish the disorders of the moral world, by those of the natural; we must conclude, that MAN IS GUILTY, from the alarming tokens of divine displeasure, which (sooner or later) are so conspicuous in every part of the habitable globe," and which are Now so clearly seen, so sensibly felt in this ruinous spot.

I concluded my reading and remarks, by thanksgiving and prayer; beseeching the Preserver of men to bless the dreadful phenomenon before us, not only to the awakening of those who were then present, but of all the impenitent in the land; that when they should hear, they might fear, and turn to the Lord, instead of provoking him by their crying sins to stop our rivers, overthrow our roads, cut off our harvest, carry away our lands, sink our buildings, and bury us in such immense and fearful graves, as had been instantaneously dug around us that morning.

Perceiving that seriousness sat upon all faces; remembering the apostolic precept, "Preach the word: be instant in season and out of season," which is abundantly confirmed by these words of our Church in the Communion-service, "It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to Almighty God;" hoping also that curiosity might bring some of the most proplane to hear a sermon and join in thanksgiving on so

extraordinary an occasion; and flattering myself, that the sight of the ruins would fix the attention of the most trifling auditors, aud add solemnity to the devotion of the most serious; I told the people then present, that if they would come again the next evening to the same place, I would endeavour to echo back and improve he loud call to repentance, which God had given us that day.

They readily consented; and when I came at the time appointed, to my great surprise I found a vast concourse of people, and among them several of my parishioners, who had never been at church in all their life; to whom, after prayer and thanksgiving suitable to the uncommon circumstances, I preached a sermon, of which, (so far as I can recollect) the reader may find the substance, with some additions, in the following pages.

May it have a better effect upon him, than it had upon some gentlemen that heard it! Whether they would also preach in their way a lecture to drunken colliers, waggoners, and bargemen-whether they would give me to understand, in the face of heaven and earth, that no ordinary nor extraordinary calls, should ever make them regard the public worship of Almighty God-or whether they would shew, on the margin of the newly formed chasms (those uncommon and dreadful graves) their approbation of the heathenish maxim mentioned by St. Paul, "let us drink, for to-morrow we die ;" I do not pretend to say. But instead of a prayer-book, they pulled out their favourite companion a bottle: and imparted the strong contents to each other, as heartily as I did the awful contents of the text to the decent part of the congregation. Gentle reader, receive them as cordially as they did their stupifying antidote, and I ask no more.

Madeley, July 6, 1773.

1

359

THE

SUBSTANCE OF A SERMON,

PREACHED ON THE OCCASION.

Numbers xvi 30-34.

"If the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertaiu unto them, and they go down alive into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men. have provoked the Lord. And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder, which was under them: and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Corah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round about them, fled at the cry of them; for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also."

OUR inconsideration requires the loudest calls; and our hardness of heart the heaviest blows. When we were warned by the loud, penitential cries of a giddy dying young man,* upon whom God had laid his hand with uncommon severity; crowds of thoughtless hearers attended the church at his burial. I preached to them from these alarming words of Isaiah: "When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Lord, when thy hand is lifted up they will not see, but they shall see.'

Many of

* A blooming dancer, under twenty years of age, whom I loudly warned on Saturday evening to "prepare for death and judgment;" and who distinguished himself among the nimblest of the company, while some cried "play away-dance away," &c.-The next week, far from growing wiser, he procured money by wrong methods, to go every evening to a show, against the will and intreaties of his parents. And this he continued to do, until putting one day his knee to the ground, the unseen point of a nail made an insignificant wound in it, not unlike the prick of a pin. The show-man, to whom he mentioned his accident, by an unfortunate application inadvertently poisoned his trifling wound, and spoiled his dancing for ever. Terrible symptoms soon followed with excruciating pains, which carried him off the Saturday following. The circumstances of his death, his solemn warnings to some of his companions on his death-bed, and his affecting cries for mercy, which were heard for a considerable distance, struck a transitory awe upon many young people, and brought them to hear the funeral sermon, which I referred to in the beginning of this.

you saw, and some felt, on that awful occasion. But alas! the relentings of the most ceased with my warnings, or vanished with the next morning's dew. Nay, instead of learning righteousness, too many by stifling their convictions, hardened themselves, turned the savour of life into the savour of death, and learned to sin with less remorse than ever.

What can be done to awaken our stupid, drowsy, dead consciences? Must God lift up his hand in a more conspicuous manner? In order to turn our heart, must he now subvert our fields, or turn the course of our river?-But why do I ask the question? Has he not wrought the double wonder at once?-O ye ungodly Colliers, that poison the bowels of the earth with your impure and impious breath; see what destruction he has brought upon the solid element in which you get a maintenance!-Ye profane watermen, whose daring wickedness overflows all the dikes of human and divine laws, oftener than the Severn does its banks; see what a curse has overtaken the river, on which you earn your bread!-And ye sinners of all ranks and occupations, see the finger of a sin-avenging God, laid upon this dismal spot; and by the desolation you behold here, judge of that, which our iniquities would long since have brought upon all the earth, if God had not the patience and long-suffering of a God.

However, the axe of his vengeance is not thrown by: it is still laid at the root of the tree; bay, it is lifted high, to strike a blow, general as our wickedness, repeated as our crimes, fearful as our imprecations. But, punishment is God's strange work; and his son, whom we put to open shame, and crucify afresh by our sins, is not yet weary of interceding for us. Yesterday, when the destroyer asked leave to bury us in heaps of ruins, as he did Job's feasting sons and daughters; or to bring in an unexpected flood upon us, as he did upon the world of the ungodly in the days of Noah; our compassionate Mediator interposed and said: Though they cumber the ground like barren figtrees, let them alone this day, this year also, till I shall dig about them. "If they bear fruit well: and if not, then after that, thou shalt cut them down."

And now, sinners, see with grateful astonishment the prevalence of our Lord's prayer! We are spared! But tremble with godly fear at the literal fulfilment of his declaration: to make us bring forth fruit meet for repentance, he actually digs about us at a most alarming rate. What trenches!-To rouze our souls, he tosses our grounds: to stop us in our sinful career, he absorbs our highway; and to water in our hearts the withered plant of God's fear, he dams up our navigable river.

Nay, he does more still. The gospel mentions those, who take the kingdom of heaven by violence: few of us, alas! seem to be of that happy number: in general we act, as if we would storm the kingdom of darkness. We put on the whole armour of Satan; we take up. the shield of unbelief, the helmet of presumption, the girdle of deceit, the breast-plate of unrighteousness, and the sword of the evil spirit, the word of a lying world. Thus equipped, with undaunted confidence we tread upon divine mercies, and go on from sin to sin, from the follies of childhood to the vanity or profligacy of youth, and if we are not killed in the field of intemperance, we crown all by the worldly-mindedness and obduracy of old age. Nothing turns us, nothing stops us. But now the angel of the Lord stands with a drawn