To come nearer home, and our own times: In 1169, Catania in Sicily was destroyed, and 15,000 people killed.
1692, The whole city destroy'd and 18000 Inhabitants.
1456, At Naples 40,000 perished by an earthquake.
1531, In the city of Lisbon, 1400 houses were overthrown there, besides many damaged.
We know the miserable and deplorable catastrophe of Port-Royal, in Jamaica; which fell out in our own days. My blood shudders at the relation of it. And not many months ago, the populous Lima in America, was wholly swallowed up.
Have we not reason then to fear, for ourselves? 'Tis true, we have hitherto escaped. But can we tell how soon God shall let loose the avenging power of another; which may come, for ought we know, while we are speaking of it. And if it must come, happy may it be for us, that it finds us in this place, and so doing.
III. And this brings us, to consider the uses of these admonitions; and to show, that they are the effects of the divine anger. For the earth shook and trembled, says the holy psalmist, the foundation of the hills moved and were shaken; because he was wroth.
And here we cannot possibly have a stronger and more convincing evidence, of these convulsions of nature, being the immediate finger of God, than this single consideration. Let us but reflect on what has been said, in short; that these visitations only happen to great and populous cities, to great and eminent ports, and maritime emporiums flourishing in trade, riches, and luxury.
We hear not of barren desarts, uninhabited wildernesses, wide heaths, and downs, rocky cliffs, and beaches of the sea, to be the usual subject of earthquakes: but of towns and cities. Not so much of little villages, but of those immense collections of people. God does not give his warnings to birds, and beasts of the forest; to flocks of sheep; that punctually execute the respective offices he has enjoined them: but to us, the lords of the creation; to whom he has given reason, sense, and faculties, to reflect, and judge of things, of our own actions, as well as his; of his doings, toward the children of men.
We observed before, a plain and notorious proof of God's hand in these judgments; that he cou'd move a whole city without throwing down a house. And this is most assuredly a second proof; that he visits only great cities, with these judgments. And we must conclude this to be as strong an argument of a divine interposition in these affairs, as any mathematical demonstration.