MERCY AND PATIENCE OF GOD 



sometimes &quot; cometh out of his place, to punish 

 the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,&quot; 

 and displays the holiness of his nature, by &quot; ter 

 rible things in righteousness.&quot; In such visita 

 tions, &quot; his way is in the whirlwind and the 

 storm ; clouds and darkness are round about him ; 

 a fire goeth before him, and burneth up his ene 

 mies round about ; the stormy winds are his 

 messengers, and flames of fire his ministers ; the 

 clouds pour out their waters ; the sky sends forth 

 a sound ; the voice of his thunder is in the hea 

 vens ; his lightnings enlighten the world ; the 

 earth quakes and the people tremble.&quot; The hur 

 ricane, which tears up whole forests by the roots, 

 and tosses them abo.it as stubble, which levels 

 the loftiest spires with the ground, and dashes the 

 stateliest ships against each other, till they are 

 broken into shivers, and plunged into the deep ; 

 the lightnings, which fill the atmosphere with 

 their blaze, which shatter the strongest buildings, 

 and strike whole herds of cattle into a lifeless 

 group; the pestilence, &quot; which walketh in dark 

 ness,&quot; and cuts off thousands of its victims in a 

 day ; the volcano, belching forth rivers of fire, 

 causing surrounding cities to tremble, and send 

 ing forth its bellowings over a circuit of a thou 

 sand miles ; these, and many other agents which 

 are in operation in the system of nature, are ex 

 perimental proofs of the dreadful energy of those 

 ministers of destruction, which are constantly 

 under the superintendence of the A mighty, and 

 of his occasionally using them for the purpose of 

 chastising the nations for their iniquities. 



In particular, the earthquake is one of the most 

 terrible and destructive instruments of vengeance. 

 In the year 1755, the shock of an earthquake was 

 felt at Lisbon, which levelled to the ground more 

 than half of that populous city, and buried fifty 

 Ihousand of its inhabitants in the ruins. The 

 shock extended its influence over an extent of 

 four millions of square miles ; and therefore, it 

 is easy to conceive, that, had a little greater im 

 pulse been given to the physical agents which 

 produced this terrible effect, the solid globe on 

 which we stand might have been convulsed to its 

 centre, and all its inhabitants crushed to death, 

 amidst the universal ruin. 



We have also an experimental proof, that 

 there are physical principles in the constitution 

 of our globe, sufficient to give it a shock through 

 out every part of its solid mass, and that such a 

 shock, at one period, it actually received. When 

 the wickedness of man became great upon the 

 earth, &quot; when every imagination of the thoughts 

 of his heart was only evil continually,&quot; the 

 fountains of the great deep were broken up, the 

 cataracts of heaven were opened, and the whole 

 solid crust of our globe received such a shock as 

 rent the mountains asunder, and hurled them 

 into the p .airis ; the effects cf which are stil! 

 visible, in every Alpine district, and in the sub 

 terraneous caverns of the earth. Of all the 

 23 



millions of the race of Adam that then existed, 

 only eight individuals, after having been tosseo 

 for seven months on the tremendous billows of a 

 boundless ocean, survived, to tell to their poste 

 rity the tidings of this universal wreck. The 

 dreadful scenes of horror and consternation 

 which must have been presented at this awfui 

 crisis ; the stupendous forces which must have 

 been in operation in the atmosphere above, and 

 in the foundations of the earth beneath, and the 

 tremendous clash of elemental war which must 

 have ensued, throughout every region of earth, 

 air, and sea, it is beyond the power of the 

 human imagination to depict, in all their terrific 

 grandeur. But we have every reason to con 

 clude, that the bottom of the ocean was lifted up 

 to the level of the loftiest mountains, that disrup 

 tions of the mountains and of the densest rocks en 

 sued, that dreadful explosions resounded through 

 out the whole expanse of nature, and that the 

 mighty waters hurled their billows with resist 

 less fury in every direction, rolling immense 

 rocks and forests from one continent to another, 

 and whirling the wrecks of different regions to 

 the opposite extremities of the globe. 



Were it at any time the intention of the 

 Almighty to inflict deserved punishment on a 

 particular district, or class of men, without de 

 ranging the whole structure of our globe, we hav 

 also an experimental proof how easily this could 

 be effected, even without infringing the esta 

 blished laws of nature. He has only to condense 

 the powerful energies of the electrical fluid in a 

 large cloud, and lo despatc-h it on the wings of 

 the wind, to discharge its thunderbolts on any 

 particular city, or mountain, or plain, and the 

 work of destruction is instantly accomplished. 

 A striking instance of this kind happened, in 

 the year 1772, in the island of Java, in the East 

 Indies. On the llth of August, at the dead 

 hour of night, a bright cloud was observed cover 

 ing a mountain in the district of Cheribon, and 

 at the same moment several reports were heard, 

 like those of a cannon. The people who dwelt 

 on the upper parts of the mountain not being able 

 to fly with sufficient swiftness, a great part of 

 the cloud, about nine miles in circumference, 

 detached itself under them, and was seen at a 

 distance, rising and falling like the waves of the 

 sea, and emitting globes of fire so luminous, that 

 the night became as clear as day. The effects 

 of this dreadful explosion were astonishing. 

 Every thing was destroyed for twenty miles 

 around. The houses were demolished ; the 

 plantations were buried in the earth ; vast num 

 bers of goats, sheep, and horses, and 1500 head 

 of cattle were destroyed ; and above two thou 

 sand human beings were in a moment plunged 

 into the gulf of eternity.* &quot; Witi. God is terri- 



* In this, and the other illustrations of this subject 

 stated above, I consider the Divine Being as the 

 grand agent in directing the operations of th ele 



