Explore "A Letter from the Lord Bishop of London, to the Clergy and People of London and Westminster" by Thomas Sherlock on Textopian.
My Brethren and Friends, The Relation I stand in to you, is a daily Call upon me to consider the spiritual State of these great Cities; and tho' I doubt not but GOD has many faithful and chosen Servants among you, yet the general View of the Wickedness and Corruption that abound, and are spreading far and wide, gives me, and must give to every serious Christian very painful Reflexions: It is hardly possible to think of the History of Providence, recorded in Holy Writ, and the many Examples of Divine Justice exercised, sometimes in punishing, sometimes in utterly destroying wicked Nations, or Cities, without being sensibly affected with Apprehensions for ourselves: But more especially have we Reason to fear, when we see the "Beginning of Sorrows", and the Displeasure of the Almighty manifested in the Calamities we suffer under, and in the Signs and Tokens given us to expect a far more dreadful Judgment.
It is every Man's Duty, and it is mine to call upon you, to give Attention to all the Warnings which God in his Mercy affords to a sinful People: Such Warning we have had, by two great Shocks of an Earthquake; a Warning, which seems to have been immediately and especially directed to these great Cities, and the Neighbourhood of them; where the Violence of the Earthquake was so sensible, tho' in distant Parts hardly felt, that it will be Blindness wilful and inexcusable not to apply to ourselves this strong Summons, from God, to Repentance.