THE GUILT AND DOOM OF CAPERNAUM Seriously recommended to the consideration of the Inhabitants of London: A Sermon preached at Salters Hall, August 20, 1749, on Occasion of the late Alarm by the second Shock of an Earthquake, March 8, 1749-50. PREFACE. THIS plain sermon which I now offer to the public, was preached to a very large and attentive auditory, the last Lord's day that I spent in London, from such hints as my many engagements in town would permit me to prepare; and it was delivered, with those genuine marks of deep impression on my own mind, which often do more to command regard to a preacher, than any accuracies of composition. It was judged so suitable to the state of things in that city, by some who had long enjoyed opportunities of knowing it much better than myself, and for whose judgment I had a great regard, that I was immediately desired with some importunity to send it to the press: But I thought I had then sufficient reasons for putting a negative upon that request; especially arising from my desire of dispatching, with all convenient speed, the remaining volumes of the Family Expositor; a work, which having finished in shorthand I am now transcribing for the press, and which I never intermit for one day. But what has so lately passed in London, has renewed such a solicitous concern in my mind for its inhabitants, amongst whom I have so large a number of valuable friends, that it has suggested to me the thought, and after a little deliberation the resolution, of doing that unasked, which before I had resolutely declined. Considering the lethargic state of so many souls, I have long thought it the prudence of christian ministers, to improve those public alarms, which remarkable providences may excite in the minds of considerable numbers, by renewing those plain and earnest remonstrances, which in calmer life men are so ready to neglect. I doubt not, but whilst I was yesterday representing these things to my own congregation, that many of my brethren in the city, and I look on all the ministers of Christ as my brethren, were wisely availing themselves of the consternation into which so many were thrown on Thursday morning; and that very suitable things were said, of which some will soon be made public. Yet I cannot but hope, that the perusal of what so many hundreds heard, before an earthquake was thought of by them or by me, and when there was nothing uncommon to awaken an attention, may have its peculiar weight. I hope, it will renew the impressions which were formerly made on the hearers, and communicate, as such truths are now so evidently suitable, the like impressions to many more. I know not, that I have myself been more awfully affected with any sermon I have published or preached: I may say in a literal sense, that I have transcribed it With tears and trembling, and that horror hath taken hold upon me in the review of what is here repre sented. I am not aware of having made any material alteration in the substance of the discourse, especially in its most interesting parts; though I cannot pretend to answer for it, that every sentence is just as it was delivered. But I hope that I shall be excused, if in the remainder of this preface, I add a kind of supplement to the sermon, and address myself to the inhabitants of London, for whom I am under so many obligations to be tenderly concerned, in such a manner as I might have done, had this discourse been delivered among them immediately after that shock, by which I assuredly know that many were thrown into such great and just consternation. You have now, Sirs, very lately had repeated and surprising demonstrations of the almighty power of that infinite and adorable Being, whom, in the midst of your various hurries and amusements, you are so ready to forget. His hand hath once and again within these five weeks lifted up your mighty city from its basis, and shook its million of inhabitants, in all their dwellings. The palaces of the great, yea even of the greatest, have not been exempted; that the Princes of the land might be wise, and its judges and lawgivers might receive instruction t. And is not the voice of this earthquake like that of the Angel in the apocalypse, flying in the midst of heaven, and having the everlasting gospel, saying with a loud voice, fear God, and give glory to him, and worship him that made heaven and earth! Who would not indeed fear him, who Looketh on the earth, and it trembleth §, and In whose hand are its deep places || ! I suppose what you have so lately felt to be the result of natural causes; but remember, they were causes disposed by him, who from the day in which he founded our island, and laid the foundations of the earth, knew every cir cumstance of their operation, with infinitely more certainty, than the most skilful engineer the disposition and success of a mine, which he hath prepared and directed, and which he fires in the appointed moment. And do not your hearts Mediate terror ¶? Especially when you consider, how much London hath done, and even you yourselves have done, to provoke the eyes of his holiness, and awaken the vengeance of his almighty arm? The second shock was it seems more dreadful than the first; and may not the third be yet more dreadful than the second? So that this last may seem as a merciful signal to prepare for what may with the most terrible propriety be called an untimely grave indeed; a grave that shall receive the living with the dead! Have you never read of streets, and towns, and cities overthrown in a few moments, and of many thousands of inhabitants great and small, who have gone down alive into the pit? And can you be secure, because these horrible devastations have hitherto happened chiefly in more southern climates, that they shall be confined entirely to them? Can any of you be secure, even while you are reading these lines, that the ground may not tremble and reel under you; that the houses already twice shaken within these few weeks, may not even now fall and crush you beneath their ruins? And will any of you go on to forget God, and to make light of that eternal salvation which has so awful a counterpart in eternal destruction? Oh, think of what you have lately felt! And think, whether in that amazing moment you could have done any thing material to prepare for another world, if eternity had depended upon that momentary preparation! A shriek of wild consternation, a cry as you were sinking--the Lord have mercy upon us!-would probably have been of very little significancy to those, that have so long despised mercy, and would not have *Psal. cxix. 53. Psal. xcv. 4. + Psal. ii. 10. + Rev. xiv. 6, 7. § Psal. civ. 32. thought of asking it but in the last extremity: And yet nothing more could have been expected, in the circumstance we have been supposing. Let me then beseech those that have neglected religion, to think more attentively of it; and those that trifle in it, more seriously to lay it to heart. Let me beseech the families that call not upon God's name, to think how righte ously judgment might be commissioned to enter the houses, where prayer cannot, after all the importunity so often used, be admitted as a guest. While yet you seem as it were to feel your whole city moving, let me take so uncommon an opportunity of reminding you all, how important it is to secure a kingdom that cannot be moved, to secure everlasting habitations to receive you there, since your dwellings here, how strong and magnificent soever, are thus evidently precarious. I am well aware, that terrors alone are not sufficient to introduce the Lord Jesus Christ, and the efficacy of his gospel, into your hearts: But like the awful ministry of John the Baptist, they may prepare his way. An external reformation they may more probably produce; and whatever some may have incautiously asserted to the contrary, I cannot but think, that is one considerable step towards the other. If therefore this alarming convulsion of the earth, which has made your houses totter, may so far shake your hearts, as to procure a remedy to the most crying evils, I shall hope, not only that the farther judgments of God on so sinful a nation may be diverted, but that many who have been Disobedient to the wisdom of the just, may be found in the noblest and most important sense a people prepared unto the Lord*. We may cheerfully hope it,if the great will exert themselves to remedy the visible contempt of public and domestic worship, the undisguised violation of the sabbath both at home and abroad, and that licentiousness of behaviour so common among their servants, which generally renders those profligate creatures the shame of their masters houses, the nuisance of the neighbourhood around them, and the scourge and ruin of the families they afterwards form;—If magistrates maintain the decorum of their own characters, and vigorously exert themselves to chastise, and so far as the strenuous execution of the law may effect it, to eradicate those audacious enormities, which seem to glory in a superiority to it; enormities so affronting to God and, to our rulers, so infamous to our country, and so pernicious to public order and private safety?If ministers laying aside those subtil trifles, which so soon evaporate into air, and sometimes generate very noxious vapours, will deal plainly and earnestly with their hearers, as with persons who are daily upon the borders of eternity, and will carry that ardent concern for their salvation, which should always breathe from their pulpits, into the families they visit; If the rising generation be diligently instructed in the genuine principles of religion, guarded against the effeminacy, luxury, and vanity of the age, and inured from tender years to habits of frugality, sobriety, and industry;—In a word, if that eager resort to places of public entertainment, in which so many heads of families are shamefullyconsuming their time, squandering away their substance, if it be indeed theirs, and daily increasing their disinclination to business, and servitude to pleasure, be forborne by themselves, be forbidden to their dependants. Would men be persuaded to live like rational creatures, we should be encouraged in our hope of their becoming sincere christians: Would they practise the rules of prudence and virtue, objections against religion would fall off like withered leaves, remonstrances in its favour would be heard with at * Luke i. 17. tention, and our winter would soon be changed into a delightful spring. It is for this purpose, that The voice of the Lord crieth to the city*, by these repeated earthquakes, which have so peculiarly affected it, and the sound of which has been so terrible: For this doth it cry to the country, in the grievous distemper that continues to rage among our cattle; in consequence of which so many pastures are desolate, so many industrious families of the poor ruined, and the rich themselves greatly distressed, while their estates are thrown untenanted upon their hands; and considerable landholders in some of the breeding counties, know not where to get beasts for their money to stock them. For these purposes indeed, doth the voice of the Lord in each of these dispensations cry to us all; for neither is the city unconcerned in the interests of the country, nor the country in those of the city: The man of wisdom will hear it; the man of true piety and benevolence will be willing in his proper sphere to echo it back. The connections in which providence has placed me, and, I would mention it with all humble thankfulness, the unexpected blessing with which God has been pleased to crown some of my writings, have led me to think it my duty to concur with my brethren in this attempt, and to hasten what little I could do in it as much as possible. It may be, that this commotion of the waters may bring some draught under the net of the gospel: It seems at least a time for the fishers of men to be active; and if in a day of such general insensibility, peradventure one soul may be caught by this labour of a night, as it is very little more, I shall not esteem it a small matter; for no everlasting interest is small. My work at least is with the Lord, to whom I trust my motives are approved; and my mind could not have been easy, had so remarkable a crisis been entirely neglected by me. I commit it with all humility to the blessing of God, and the prayers of my christian friends, especially of those resident in the city, for whose benefit it was peculiarly intended. Northampton, March 12, 1749-50. P. DODDRIDGE. *Micah vi. 9. SERMON IV. Mat. xi. 23, 24.—And thou Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day: But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. Do any of you, Sirs, ask who it is, that speaks in this awful, in this majestic language? Who it is, that menaces a city of Israel with judgments more tremendous than those of Sodom? You may on a little reflection answer yourselves, It is A prophet mighty in word and deed*, the greatest, beyond all comparison the greatest, of all the prophets, even the Son of God, whose peculiar prerogative it was To take the book of the divine decrees and to open its seals +. It was he, to whom Authority was given to pronounce and to execute judgment; from whom Sodom and Capernaum were to receive their final doom, and from whom we also are to expect ours. Let us hear him, as their Judge, and as our own: And oh that this tremendous message may awaken us to implore his favour, may awaken as many of us as are in danger of The wrath to come, to flee to him that we may be delivered from it §, before The word be gone forth in righteousness ||, before the sentence be sealed! You can none of you imagine the subject I am now proposing to your meditations, unsuitable to the age in which we live, unsuitable to the circumstances of our native country in general, or of the place in which I now stand: But you may perhaps be more fully aware of the suitableness of it, before I come to the close of the discourse. If a very attentive enquiry has not deceived me, these words were spoken by our Lord, towards the close of the second year of his ministry, that is, between the second and the third of the passovers which occurred during the course of it; a little before he set out on that circuit, for which he sent out the twelve to prepare his way. A very considerable part of his time before this period had been spent in Galilee, and especially in those * Luke xxiv. 19. † Rev. v. 9. John v. 27. § 1 Thess. i. 10. || Isa. xlv. 23. |