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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61600	A sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons at St. Margarets Westminster, Octob. 10, 1666 being the fast-day appointed for the late dreadfull fire in the city of London / by Edward Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1666 (1666)	Wing S5639; ESTC R34613	20,955	52

Samaria thought it beneath them to own Religion any further than it was subservient to their civil interests They were all of Jeroboams Religion who looked on it as a meer politick thing and fit to advance his own designs by I am afraid there are too many at this day who are secretly of his mind and think it a piece of wisdom to be so Blessed God that men should be so wise to deceive themselves and go down with so much discretion to Hell These are the Grave and retired Atheists who though they secretly love not Religion yet their caution hinders them from talking much against it But there is a sort of men much more common than the other the faculties of whose minds are so thin and aiery that they will not bear the consideration of any thing much less of Religion these throw out their bitter scoffs and prophane jests against it A thing never permitted that I know of in any civilized Nation in the world whatsoever their Religion was the reputation of Religion was alwayes preserved sacred God himself would not suffer the Jews to speak evil of other Gods though they were to destroy all those who tempted them to the worship of them And shall we suffer the most excellent and reasonable Religion in the world viz. the Christian to be profaned by the unhallowed mouths of any who will venture to be damned to be accounted witty If their enquiries were deeper their reason stronger or their arguments more perswasive than of those who have made it their utmost care and business to search into these things they ought to be allowed a fair hearing but for men who pretend to none of these things yet still to make Religion the object of their scoffs and raillery doth not become the gravity of a Nation professing wisdom to permit it much less the sobriety of a people professing Christianity In the mean time such persons may know that wise men may be argued out of a Religion they own but none but Fools and mad men will be droll'd out of it Let them first try whether they can laugh men out of their Estates before they attempt to do it out of their hopes of an eternal happiness And I am sure it will be no comfort to them in another world that they were accounted Wits for deriding those miseries which they then feel and smart under the severity of it will be no mitigation of their flames that they go laughing into them nor will they endure them the better because they would not believe them But while this is so prevailing a humour among the vain men of this Age and Nation what can we expect but that God should by remarkable and severe judgements seek to make men more serious in Religion or else make their hearts to ake and their joynts to tremble as he did Belshazzars when he could find nothing else to carouse in but the vessels of the Temple And when men said in the Prophet Zephany chap. 1. 12. that God neither did good nor evil presently it follows therefore their goods shall become a booty and their houses a desolation the day of the Lord is near a day of wrath a day of trouble and distress a day of wasteness and desolation as it is with us at this time Thus we see how sad the parallel hath been not only in the judgements of Israel but in the sins likewise which have made those judgements so severe 4. The severity of the judgement appears not only from the Causes but from the Author of it I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah God challenges the execution of his justice to himself not only in the great day but in his judgement here in the world Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it When God is pleased to punish men for their sins the execution of his justice is as agreeable to his nature now as it will be at the end of the world We all know that he may do it if he please and he hath told us that he doth and will do it and we know withall that without such remarkable severities the world will hardly be kept in any a we of him We do not find that love doth so much in the world as fear doth there being so very few persons of tractable and ingenuous spirits It is true of too many what Lactantius observes of the Romans Nunquam Dei meminerunt nisi dum in malis sunt they seldom think of God but when they are afraid of him And there is not only this reason as to particular persons why God should punish them but there is a greater as to communities and bodies of men for although God suffers wicked men to escape punishment here as he often doth yet he is sure not to do it in the life to come but communities of men can never be punished but in this world and therefore the justice of God doth often discover it selr in these common calamities to keep the world in subjection to him and to let men see that neither the multitude of their associates nor the depth of their designs nor the subtilty of their Councils can secure them from the omnipotent arm of Divine Justice when he hath determined to visit their transgressions with rods and their iniquities with stripes But when he doth all this yet his loving kindness doth he not utterly take from them for in the midst of all his judgements he is pleased to remember mercy of which we have a remarkable instance in the Text for when God was overthrowing Cities yet he pluckt the inhabitants as firebrands out of the burning and so I come from the severity of God 2. To the mixture of his mercy in it And ye were as a fire-brand pluckt out of the burning That notes two things the nearness they were in to the danger and the unexpectedness of their deliverance out of it 1. The nearness they were in to the danger quasi torris cujus jam magna pars absumpta est as some Paraphrase it like a brand the greatest part of which is already consumed by Fire which shews the difficulty of their escaping So Joshua is said to be a brand pluckt out of the fire Zech. 3. 2. And to this St. Hierom upon this place applyes that difficult passage 1 Cor. 3. 15. they shall be saved but so as by Fire nothing the greatness of the danger they were in and how hardly they should escape And are not all the inhabitants of this City and all of us in the suburbs of the other whose houses escaped so near the flames as Firebrands pluckt out of the burning When the fire came on in its rage and fury as though it would in a short time have devoured all before it that not only this whole City but so great a part of the Suburbs of the other should escape untouched is all circumstances considered a

wonderful expression of the kindness of God to us in the midst of so much severity If he had suffered the Fire to go on to have consumed the remainder of our Churches and Houses and laid this City even with the other in one continued heap of ruines we must have said Just art thou O Lord and righteous in all thy judgements We ought rather to have admired his patience in sparing us so long then complain of this rigour of his justice in punishing us at last but instead of that he hath given us occasion this day with the three Children in the fiery furnace to praise him in the midst of the flames For even the Inhabitants of London themselves who have suffered most in this calamity have cause to acknowledge the mercy of God towards them that they are escaped themselves though it be as the Jews report of Joshua the High Priest when thrown into the fire by the Chaldeans with their cloaths burnt about them Though their habitations be consumed and their losses otherwise may be too great yet that in the midst of so much danger by the flames and the press of people so very few should suffer the loss of their lives ought to be owned by them and us as a miraculous Providence of God towards them And therefore not unto us not unto us but to his holy name be the praise of so great a preservation in the midst of so heavy a Judgement 2. The unexpectedness of such a deliverance they are not saved by their own skill and counsell nor by their strength and industry but by him who by his mighty hand did pluck them as firebrands out of the burning Though we own the justice of God in the calamities of this day let us not forget his mercy in what he hath unexpectedly rescued from the fury of the flames that the Royal Palaces of our Gracious Soveraign the residence of the Nobility the Houses of Parliament the Courts of Judicature the place where we are now assembled and several others of the same nature with other places and habitations to receive those who were burnt out of their own stand at this day untouched with the fire and long may they continue so ought chiefly to be ascribed to the power and goodness of that God who not only commands the raging of the Sea and the madness of the people but whom the winds and the flames obey Although enough in a due subordination to Divine Providence can never be attributed to the mighty care and industry of our most Gracious Soveraign and his Royal Highness who by their presence and incouragement inspired a new life and vigour into the sinking spirits of the Citizens whereby God was pleased so far to succeed their endeavours that a stop was put to the fury of the fire in such places where it was as likely to have prevailed as in any parts of the City consumed by it O let us not then frustrate the design of so much severity mixed with so great mercy let it never be said that neither judgements nor kindness will work upon us that neither our deliverance from the Pestilence which walks in darkness nor from the flames which shine as the noon-day will awaken us from that Lethargy and security we are in by our sins but let God take what course he pleases with us we are the same incorrigible people still that ever we were For we have cause enough for our mourning and lamentation this day if God had not sent new calamities upon us that we were no better for those we had undergone before We have surfetted with mercies and grown sick of the kindness of Heaven to us and when God hath made us smart for our fulness and wantonness then we grew sullen and murmured and disputed against Providence and were willing to do any thing but repent of our sins and reform our lives It is not many years since God blessed us with great and undeserved blessings which we then thought our selves very thankful for but if we had been really so we should never have provoked him who bestowed those favours upon us in so great a degree as we have done since Was this our requital to him for restoring our Soveraign to rebell the more against Heaven Was this our thankfulness for removing the disorders of Church and State to bring them into our lives Had we no other way of trying the continuance of Gods goodness to us but by exercising his patience by our greater provocations As though we had resolved to let the world see there could be a more unthankful and disobedient people than the Jews had been Thus we sinned with as much security and confidence as though we had blinded the eyes or bribed the justice or commanded the power of Heaven When God of a sudden like one highly provoked drew forth the sword of his destroying Angel and by it cut off so many thousands in the midst of us Then we fell upon our knees and begg'd the mercy of Heaven that our lives might be spared that we might have time to amend them but no sooner did our fears abate but our devotion did so too we had soon forgotten the promises we made in the day of our distress and I am afraid it is at this day too true of us which is said in the Revelations of those who had escaped the several plagues which so many had been destroyed by And the rest of the men which were not killed by these Plagues yet repented not of the work of their hands For if we had not greedily suckt in again the poison we had only laid down while we were begging for our lives if we had not returned with as great fury and violence as ever to our former lusts the removing of one judgement had not been as it were only to make way for the coming on of another For the grave seemed to close up her mouth and death by degrees to withdraw himself that the Fire might come upon the Stage to act its part too in the Tragoedy our sins have made among us and I pray God this may be the last Act of it Let us not then provoke God to find out new methods of vengeance and make experiments upon us of what other unheard of severities may do for our cure But let us rather meet God now by our repentance and returning to him by our serious humiliation for our former sins and our stedfast resolutions to return no more to the practice of them That that much more dangerous infection of our souls may be cured as well as that of our bodies that the impure flames which burn within may be extinguished that all our luxuries may be retrenched our debaucheries punished our vanities taken away our careless indifferency in Religion turned into a greater seriousness both in the profession and the practise of it So will God make us a happy and prosperous when he finds us a more righteous and holy Nation So will God succeed all your endeavours for the honour and interest of that people whom you represent So may he add that other Title to the rest of those you have deserved for your Countries good to make you Repairers of the breaches of the City as well as of the Nation and restorers of paths to dwell in So may that City which now sits solitary like a Widow have her tears wiped off and her beauty and comeliness restored unto her Yea so may her present ruines in which she now lyes buried be only the forerunners of a more joyfull resurrection In which though the body may remain the same the qualities may be so altered that its present desolation may be only the puting off its former inconveniencies weakness and deformities that it may rise with greater glory strength and proportion and to all her other qualities may that of incorruption be added too at least till the general conflagration And I know your great Wisdom and Justice will take care that those who have suffered by the ruines may not likewise suffer by the rising of it that the glory of the City may not be laid upon the tears of the Orphans and Widows but that its foundations may be setled upon Justice and Piety That there be no complaining in the Streets for want of righteousness nor in the City for want of Churches nor in the Churches for want of a setled maintenance That those who attend upon the service of God in them may never be tempted to betray their Consciences to gain a livelihood nor to comply with the factious humors of men that they may be able to live among them And thus when the City through the blessing of Heaven shall be built again may it be a habitation of Holiness towards God of Loyalty towards our Gracious King and his Successours of Justice and Righteousness towards men of Sobriety and Peace and Unity among all the Inhabitants till not Cities and Countries only but the World and time it self shall be no more Which God of his infinite mercy grant through the merits and mediation of his Son to whom with the Father and Eternal spirit be all Honour and Glory for evermore FINIS Lam. 2. 1. Luke 17. 28 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de bell Jud. l. 7. c. 14. Jude 7. Tacit. An. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 X●phil in Epit. Dion in Tito p. 227. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herod an in Commod hist. l. 1. p. 22. v. X●phil ad fin Commodi Nic●p● l. 15. c. 21 Evagr. l. 2. cap. 13. Baron Tom. 5. A. 465. 1 Hieron in lo● Gildas de ●xcid Brit. Scipio apud Ang. de Civ D. l. 1. c. 33. Cicer. pro Flacco Hab. 2. 11. Is● 47. 7 8 11. Zeph. 1. 13 14 15. Amos 3 6. Lact. l. 2. c. 11. Rev. 9. 20.