The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 10 (of 32)

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THE
WORKS
OF THE
Rev. JOHN WESLEY, M.A.
Late Fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford.

* * *

Volume X.

* * *

BRISTOL:

Printed by WILLIAM PINE, in Wine-Street.

MDCCLXXII.

Tua res agitur, paries quum proximus ardet.

* * *

THINKING men generally allow that the greater part of modern Christians are not more virtuous than the antient Heathens: perhaps less so; since public spirit, love of our country, generous honesty and simple truth, are scarce any where to be found. On the contrary, covetousness, ambition, various injustice, luxury and falshood in every kind, have infected every rank and denomination of people, the clergy themselves not excepted. Now they who believe there is a God are apt to believe, he is not well pleased with this. Nay, they think, he has intimated it very plainly, in many parts of the Christian world. How many hundred thousand men have been swept away by war, in Europe only, within half a century? How many thousands, within little more than this, hath the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up? Numbers sunk at Port-Royal, and rose no more. Many thousands went quick into the pit at Lima. The whole city of Catanea in Sicily, and every inhabitant of it perished together. Nothing but heaps of ashes and cinders shew where it stood. Not so much as one Lot escaped out of Sodom!

And what shall we say of the late accounts from Portugal? That some thousand houses, and many thousand persons are no more! That a fair city is now in ruinous heaps. Is there indeed a God that judges the world? And is he now making inquisition for blood? If so, it is not surprizing, he should begin there, where so much blood has been poured on the ground like water? Where so many brave men have been murdered, in the most base and cowardly, as well as barbarous manner, almost every day, as well as every night, while none regarded or laid it to the heart. “Let them hunt and destroy the precious life, so we may secure our stores¹
of gold and precious stones.” How long has their blood been crying from the earth? Yea, how long has that bloody house of mercy²,
the scandal not only of all religion, but even of human nature, stood to insult both heaven and earth? And shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged of such a city as this?

¹ Merchants who have lived in Portugal inform us, that the king had a large building filled with diamonds: and more gold stored up, coined and uncoined, than all the other princes of Europe together.

² The title which the Inquisition of Portugal (if not in other countries also) takes to itself.

It has been the opinion of many, that even this nation has not been without some marks of God’s displeasure. Has not war been let loose even within our own land, so that London itself felt the alarm? Has not a pestilential sickness broken in upon our cattle, and in many parts, left not one of them alive? And although the earth does not yet open in England or Ireland, has it not shook, and reeled to and fro like a drunken man? And that not in one or two places only, but almost from one end of the kingdom to the other?

Perhaps one might ask, Was there nothing uncommon, nothing more than is usual at this season of the year, in the rains, the hail, the winds, the thunder and lightning, which we have lately heard and seen? Particularly, in the storm which was the same day and hour, that they were playing off Macbeth’s thunder and lightning at the theatre. One would almost think they designed this (inasmuch as the entertainment continued, notwithstanding all the artillery of heaven) as a formal answer to that question, “Canst thou thunder with an arm like him?”

What shall we say to the affair of ♦Whitson
Cliffs? Of which were it not for the unparalleled stupidity of the English, all England would have rang long ago, from one sea to another. And yet seven miles from the place, they knew little more of it in May last, than if it had happened in China or Japan.

The fact (of the truth of which any who will be at the pains of enquiring, may soon be satisfied) is this. On Tuesday, March 25th
last, being the week before Easter, many persons heard a great noise near a ridge of mountains called Black Hamilton in Yorkshire. It was observed chiefly on the south west side of the mountain, about a mile from the course where the Hamilton races are run, near a ledge of rocks, commonly called ♦Whitson
Cliffs, two miles from Sutton, and about five from Thirsk.

The same noise was heard on Wednesday by all who went that way. On Thursday, about seven in the morning, Edward Abbot, weaver, and Adam Bosomworth, bleacher, both of Sutton, riding under ♦Whitson
Cliffs, heard a roaring (so they termed it) like many cannons, or loud and rolling thunder. It seemed to come from the cliffs: looking up to which, they saw a large body of stone, four or five yards broad, split and fly off from the very top of the rock. They thought it strange, but rode on. Between ten and eleven, a larger piece of the rock, about fifteen yards
thick, thirty high, and between sixty and seventy broad, was torn off and thrown into the valley.

About seven in the evening, one who was riding by, observed the ground to shake exceedingly, and soon after several large stones or rocks of some tons weight each, rose out of the ground. Others were thrown on one side, others turned upside down, and many rolled over and over. Being a little surprized, and not very curious, he hasted on his way.

On Friday and Saturday the ground continued to shake, and the rocks to roll over one another. The earth also clave asunder in very many places, and continued so to do till Sunday morning.

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