Awful and tremendous are the judgments that have lately been abroad. Twice hath the earth on which this great metropolis stands, unable, as it were, any longer to sustain the weight of its inhabitants sins, been made to tremble and totter under us. Since that, how amazingly hath the shock been extended! _Africa_, (nor hath _America_ itself been exempted) hath in a most destructive manner felt its dire effects. And what a dreadful consumption it hath made in various parts of _Spain_, and, in a more especial manner, at _Lisbon_, the metropolis of _Portugal_, is beyond conception, and beyond the power of the most masterly pen to describe. It is to be questioned, whether the like hath ever been heard of since the deluge. Surely nothing was wanting to figure out, and realize to that distressed people the horror of the last day, but the sound of the trump, and the actual appearance of the great Judge of quick and dead. But awful and tremendous as such phænomenas of nature may be; yet, if we consider the consequences of things, was even the like judgment to befal us, (which may GOD avert!) it would be but a small one, in comparison of our hearing that a _French_ army, accompanied with a popish Pretender, and thousands of _Romish_ priests, was suffered to invade, subdue, and destroy the bodies and substance, and, as the necessary consequences of both these, to blind, deceive, and tyrannize over the souls and consciences of the people belonging to this happy isle.
GOD forbid, that I should give flattering titles to any; for in so doing, I should provoke him to take away my soul. But surely we must have eyes that see not, and ears that hear not, as well as hearts that do not understand, if we do not know, and see, and feel, that in respect to our civil and religious liberties, we are undoubtedly the freest people under heaven. And I dare appeal to the most ungrateful and malicious malecontent, to produce any æra in the _British_ annals, wherein we have enjoyed such a continued series of civil and religious liberty, as we have been favoured with for these twenty-eight years last past, under the mild and gentle administration of our dread and rightful Sovereign King _George_. Surely he hath been a nursing father to people of all denominations; and however he may be denied it, yet he may, without a compliment, justly claim from the present, as well as future ages, the deserved title of GEORGE THE GREAT. But notwithstanding this, such is the degeneracy of human nature, it must necessarily be expected, that, in a nation grown wanton with liberty like ours, there are a great multitude of unhappy persons, who being men of lax principles, loose lives, and broken fortunes, will be so abandoned, as to break through all restraints of gratitude, loyalty and religion; and, like _Cataline_ and his wicked confederates, be fond of joining in any change of government, whereby they may entertain the most distant prospect of bettering their fortunes, and gratifying their ambition, though it be at the expence of their country’s blood. This hath been, and no doubt still continues to be, the fate of all civil governments in the world, and consequently is no more than what we may expect, in times of tumult and danger, will be acted over again in our own land by men of such corrupt minds. But how any serious and judicious, much less religious and devout person, can be so stupid to all principles of self-interest, and so dead even to all maxims of common sense, as to prefer a _French_ to an _English_ government; or a _popish_ Pretender, born, nursed, and bred up in all the arbitrary and destructive principles of the court and church of _Rome_, to the present _protestant succession_ settled in the illustrious line of _Hanover_, must be imputed to nothing else but an awful infatuation.
Hear ye, (if there be any into whose hands this address may fall, that are desirous of such a change) not to dwell entirely upon the many innumerable civil or temporal losses we should sustain: hear ye, I say, the mild and gentle language of one or his Most Christian Majesty’s late declarations concerning religion.