For a Time of

EARTHQUAKES

AND

Violent FLOODS:

Suited to the various Occafions and Circumftances of Perfons who are apprehenfive of fuch Calamities, or have already felt the Effects of them.

By JAMES MERRICK, M. A. Fellow of Trinity College, OXFORD.

LONDON:

Sold by JOHN RIVINGTON, in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1756.

[Price 1 d. or 7 s. a Hundred. ]

1405

4.

TO THE

READER.

T

HE prefent Situation of the Author (who has lain under a long and painful Illness, which makes a very little Application to Writing and Reading oppreffive to him) may plead in fome Measure for any Defects to be obferved in the following Collection of Devotions. Had he not found this little Attempt too much for him, he might perhaps have made fome Addition to it. As it now ftands, he has been encouraged to hope, that the Publication of it may be of fome Ufe.

INTRODUCTIO N.

T

HE Ufe of Prayer and Repentance, at a Time when we are threatened with Earthquakes, Inundations, or other likeEvents, may be confidered under three Views; as intended either to fecure to us a happy Condition in another Life, in cafe we perish by them, or to keep the Events themselves from happening, or laftly to bespeak God's Care and Providence for our perfonal Safety when they do happen. I shall offer fome Reflections relating to each of thefe Points.

When the Calamities of the Time are regarded as the Fruit of our Sins, and Tokens of God's Anger, the Importance and Neceffity of forfaking our Sins, and of recommending ourselves to the Favour of God by a ftrict Obfervance

fervance of his Laws, are clear and obvious to every Understanding. But if fuch Changes in the natural World were not the Signs of divine Wrath, nor the Deftruction of fome Perfons and Prefervation of others the immediate Appointment of Providence, though there would then indeed be no Hope of averting the temporal Calamities which threaten us, either by Prayer or any other religious Performances, yet in this Cafe likewife, the Neceflity and Advantage of addreffing ourselves to God in Prayer, and applying ourselves to the Duties of Religion with all potfible Diligence, muft appear to every thinking Man in the ftrongest Light. For whether we confider the aftonith-ing Events, which have lately alarmed the World, as the Effects of Sin or not, fure we are that we have finned, and we know likewife, that if we die in our Sins, we must fuffer the Vengeance of God in another World, however we may escape it in this. When therefore we hear Accounts of EarthA 3 quakes.