Wesley Corpus

Are you sure of this? And are your horses literally swifter than the lightning? Can they leave the panting storm behind? If not, what will you do when it overtakes you? Try your eloquence on the whirlwind. Will it hear your voice? Will it regard either your money, or prayers, or tears? Call upon the lightning. Cry aloud; see whether your voice will “divide the flames of fire.” O no ! it hath no ears to hear ! It devoureth and showeth no pity! But this is not all. IIere is a nearer enemy. The carth threatens to swallow you up. Where is your protection now? What defence do you find from thousands of gold and silver? You cannot fly; for you cannot quit the earth, unless you will leave your dear body behind you. And while you are on the earth, you know not where to flee to, neither where to flee from. You may buy intelligence, where the shock was yesterday, but not where it will be to-morrow, to-day. It comes I The roof trembles J The beams crack | The ground rocks to and fro! Hoarse thunder resounds from the bowels of the earth ! And all these are but the beginning of sorrows. Now, what help? What wisdom can prevent, what strength resist, the blow 7 What money can purchase, I will not say deliverance, but an hour's reprieve? Poor honourable fool, where are now thy titles? Wealthy fool, where is now thy golden god? If any thing can help, it must be prayer. But what wilt thou pray to? Not to the God of heaven; you suppose him to have nothing to do with earthquakes. No; they proceed in a merely natural way, either from the earth itself, or from included air, or from subterraneous fires or waters. If thou prayest, then, (which perhaps you never did before,) it must be to some of these. Begin: “O earth, earth, earth, hear the voice of thy children : Hear, O air, water, fire !” And will they hear? You know it cannot be. How deplorable, then, is his condition, who in such an hour has none else to flee to ! How uncom fortable the supposition, which implies this, by direct necessary consequence, namely, that all these things are the pure result of merely natural causes!