Heaven yet we have just cause to fear if it be not our speedy amendment it may be our ruine And they who think that incredible let them tell me whether two years since they did not think it altogether as improbable that in the compass of the two succeeding years above a hundred thousand persons should be destroyed by the Plague in London and other places and the City it self should be burnt to the Ground And if our fears do not I am sure our sins may tell us that these are but the fore-runners of greater calamities in case there be not a timely reformation of our selves And although God may give us some intermissions of punishments yet at last he may as the Roman Consul expressed it pay us intercalatae poenae usuram that which may make amends for all his abatements and give us full measure according to that of our sins pressed down shaken together and running over Which leads to the third particular 3. The causes moving God to so much severity in his Judgements which are the greatness of the sins committed against him So this Prophet tels us that the true account of all Gods punishments is to be fetched from the sins of the people Amos 1. 3. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof so it is said of Gaza v. 6. of Tyrus v. 9. of Edom v. 11. of Ammon v. 13. Moab ch 2. 1. Judah v. 4. and at last Israel v. 6. And it is observable of every one of these that when God threatens to punish them for the greatness of their iniquities and the multitude of their transgressions which is generally supposed to be meant by the three transgressions and the four he doth particularly threaten to send a fire among them to consume the Houses and the Palaces of their Cities So to Damascus chap. 1. 4. to Gaza v. 7. to Tyrus v. 10. to Edom v. 12. to Ammon v. 14. to Moab ch 2. v. 2. to Judah v. 5. I will send a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the Palaces of Jerusalem and Israel in the words of the text This is a judgement then which when it comes in its fury gives us notice to how great a height our sins are risen especially when it hath so many dreadful fore-runners as it had in Israel and hath had among our selves When the red horse hath marched furiously before it all bloody with the effects of a Civil War and the pale horse hath followed after the other with Death upon his back and the Grave at his heels and after both these those come out of whose mouth issues fire and smoak and brimstone it is then time for the inhabitants of the earth to repent of the work of their hands But it is our great unhappiness that we are apt to impute these great calamities to any thing rather than to our sins and thereby we hinder our selves from the true remedy because we will not understand the cause of our distemper Though God hath not sent Prophets among us to tell us for such and such sins I will send such and such judgements upon you yet where we observe the parallel between the sins and the punishments agreeable with what we find recorded in Scripture we have reason to say that those sins were not only the antecedents but the causes of those punishments which followed after them And that because the reason of punishment was not built upon any particular relation between God and the people of Israel but upon reasons common to all mankind yet with this difference that the greater the mercies were which any people enjoyed the sooner was the measure of their iniquities filled up and the severer were the judgements when they came upon them This our Prophet gives an account of Chap. 3. 2. You only have I known of all the Nations of the earth therefore will I punish you for your iniquities So did God punish Tyre and Damascus as well as Israel and Judah but his meaning is he would punish them sooner he would punish them more severely I wish we could be brought once to consider what influence piety and vertue hath upon the good of a Nation if we did we should not only live better our selves but our Kingdom Nation might flourish more than otherwise we are like to see it do Which is a truth hath been so universally received among the wise Men of all ages that one of the Roman Historians though of no very severe life himself yet imputes the decay of the Roman State not to Chance or Fortune or some unhidden causes which the Atheism of our age would presently do but to the general loosness of mens lives and corruption of their manners And it was the grave Observation of one of the bravest Captains ever the Roman State had that it was impossible for any State to be happy stantibus moenibus ruentibus moribus though their walls were firm if their manners were decayed But it is our misery that our walls and our manners are fallen together or rather the latter undermined the former They are our sins which have drawn so much of our blood and infected our air and added the greatest fuell to our flames But it is not enough in general to declaim against our sins but we must search out particularly those predominant vices which by their boldness and frequency have provoked God thus to punish us and as we have hitherto observed a parallel between the Judgements of Israel in this Chapter and our own So I am afraid we shall find too sad a parallel between their sins and ours too Three sorts of sins are here spoken of in a peculiar manner as the causes of their severe punishments Their luxury and intemperance their covetousness and oppression and their contempt of God and his Laws and I doubt we need not make a very exact scrutiny to find out these in a high degree among our selves and I wish it were as easie to reform them as to find them out 1. Luxury and intemperance that we meet with in the first verse both in the compellation Ye Kine of Bashan and in their behaviour which say to their Masters bring and let us drink Ye Kine of Bashan Loquitur ad principes Israel optimates quosque decem Tribuum saith St. Hierom he speaks to the Princes of Israel and the chief of all the ten Tribes Those which are fed in the richest pastures such as those of Bashan were Who are more fully described by the Prophet in his sixth chapter They are the men who are at ease in Sion v. 1. they put far away from them the evil day v. 3. they lye upon beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches and eat the Lambs out of the flock and the Calves out of the midst of the stall v. 4. they chaunt to the sound of the Viol and invent to themselves instruments of musick like David v. 5.
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
for the gaining of that which may be now lost in an hours time If these flames be so dreadful what are those which are reserved for them who love the world more than God! If none can come near the heat of this Fire who can dwell with everlasting burnings O what madness then will it be to sin any more wilfully against that God who is a consuming fire infinitely more dreadful than this can be Farewell then all ye deceitful vanities now I understand thee and my self better O bewitching world then to fix my happiness in thee any more I will henceforth learn so much wisdom to lay up my treasures there where neither moths can corrupt them nor Thieves steal them nor Fire consume them O how happy would London be if this were the effect of her flames on the minds of all her inhabitants She might then rise with a greater glory and her inward beauty would outshine her outward splendour let it be as great as we can wish or imagine But in the mean time who can behold her present ruines without paying some tears as due to the sadness of the spectacle and more to the sins which caused them If that City were able to speak out of its ruines what sad complaints would it make of all those impieties which have made her so miserable If it had not been might she say for the pride and luxury the ease and delicacy of some of my inhabitants the covetousness the fraud the injustice of others the debaucheries of the prophane the open factions and secret hypocrisie of too many pretending to greater sanctity my beauty had not been thus turned into ashes nor my glory into those ruines which make my enemies rejoyce my friends to mourn and all stand amazed at the beholding of them Look now upon me you who so lately admired the greatness of my trade the riches of my Merchants the number of my people the conveniency of my Churches the multitude of my Streets and see what desolations sin hath made in the earth Look upon me and then tell me whether it be nothing to dally with Heaven to make a mock at sin to slight the judgements of God and abuse his mercies and after all the attempts of Heaven to reclaim a people from their sins to remain still the same that ever they were Was there no way to expiate your guilt but by my misery Had the Leprosie of your sins so fretted into my Walls that there was no cleansing them but by the flames which consume them Must I mourn in my dust and ashes for your iniquities while you are so ready to return to the practice of them Have I suffered so much by reason of them and do you think to escape your selves Can you then look upon my ruines with hearts as hard and unconcerned as the stones which lye in them If you have any kindness for me or for your selves if you ever hope to see my breaches repaired my beauty restored my glory advanced look on Londons ruines and repent Thus would she bid her inhabitants not weep for her miseries but for their own sins for if never any sorrow were like to her sorrow it is because never any sins were like to their sins Not as though they were only the sins of the City which have brought this evil upon her no but as far as the judgement reaches so great hath the compass of the sins been which have provoked God to make her an example of his justice And I fear the effects of Londons calamity will be felt all the Nation over For considering the present languishing condition of this Nation it will be no easie matter to recover the blood and spirits which have been lost by this Fire So that whether we consider the sadness of those circumstances which accompanied the rage of the fire or those which respect the present miseries of the City or the general influence those will have upon the Nation we cannot easily conceive what judgement could in so critical a time have befallen us which had been more severe for the kind and nature of it than this hath been 2. We consider it in the series and order of it We see by the Text this comes in the last place as a reserve when nothing else would do any good upon them It is extrema medicina as St. Hierom saith the last attempt that God uses to reclaim a people by and if these Causticks will not do it is to be feared he looks on the wounds as incurable He had sent a famine before v. 6. a drought v. 7 8. blasting and mildew v. 9. the Pestilence after the manner of Egypt v. 10. the miseries of War in the same verse And when none of these would work that effect upon them which they were designed for then he comes to this last way of punishing before a final destruction be overthrew some of their Cities as he had overthrown Sodom and Gomorrah God forbid we should be so near a final subversion and utter desolation as the ten Tribes were when none of these things would bring them to repentance but yet the method God hath used with us seems to bode very ill in case we do not at last return to the Lord. For it is not only agreeable to what is here delivered as the course God used to reclaim the Israelites but to what is reported by the most faithfull Historian of those times of the degrees and steps that God made before the ruines of the British Nation For Gildas tells us the decay of it began by Civil Wars among themselves and high discontents remaining as the consequents of them after this an universal decay and poverty among them after that nay during the continuannce of it Wars with the Picts and Scots their inveterate enemies but no sooner had they a little breathing space but they return to their luxury and other sins again then God sends among them a consuming Pestilence which destroyed an incredible number of people When all this would not do those whom they trusted most to betrayed them and rebelled against them by whose means not only the Cities were burnt with Fire but the whole Island was turned almost into one continued flame The issue of all which at last was that their Countrey was turned to a desolation the ancient Inhabitants driven out or destroyed and their former servants but now their bitter enemies possessing their habitations May God avert the Omen from us at this day We have smarted by Civil Wars and the dreadful effects of them we yet complain of great discontents and poverty as great as them we have inveterate enemies combined abroad against us we have very lately suffered under a Pestilence as great almost as any we read of and now the great City of our Nation burnt down by a dreadful Fire And what do all these things mean and what will the issue of them be though that be lockt up in the Councils of