Extract of the Life and Death of Mr. [John Janeway].
Extract of the Life and Death of Mr. [Thomas Haliburton].
SERIOUS THOUGHTS
Occasioned by the late
Earthquake at LISBON.
Tua res agitur, paries quum proximus ardet.
THINKING men generally allow that the greater part of modern Christians are not more virtuous than the antient Heathens: perhaps less so; since public spirit, love of our country, generous honesty and simple truth, are scarce any where to be found. On the contrary, covetousness, ambition, various injustice, luxury and falshood in every kind, have infected every rank and denomination of people, the clergy themselves not excepted. Now they who believe there is a God are apt to believe, he is not well pleased with this. Nay, they think, he has intimated it very plainly, in many parts of the Christian world. How many hundred thousand men have been swept away by war, in Europe only, within half a century? How many thousands, within little more than this, hath the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up? Numbers sunk at Port-Royal, and rose no more. Many thousands went quick into the pit at Lima. The whole city of Catanea in Sicily, and every inhabitant of it perished together. Nothing but heaps of ashes and cinders shew where it stood. Not so much as one Lot escaped out of Sodom!
And what shall we say of the late accounts from Portugal? That some thousand houses, and many thousand persons are no more! That a fair city is now in ruinous heaps. Is there indeed a God that judges the world? And is he now making inquisition for blood? If so, it is not surprizing, he should begin there, where so much blood has been poured on the ground like water? Where so many brave men have been murdered, in the most base and cowardly, as well as barbarous manner, almost every day, as well as every night, while none regarded or laid it to the heart. “Let them hunt and destroy the precious life, so we may secure our stores[¹] of gold and precious stones.” How long has their blood been crying from the earth? Yea, how long has that bloody house of mercy[²], the scandal not only of all religion, but even of human nature, stood to insult both heaven and earth? And shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged of such a city as this?