eye he eyeth you Twelve Tribes he intends to tear you in pieces and to give your land to another people why because he roareth because he threatens This is the sense of the 4th verse the 5th follows wherein the Lord by his Prophet beats them from another refuge where he knew they would seek to hide their heads and that is that though wars and desolation should come as was threatned that they were but matters of chance incident to this world and no argument of Gods anger towards them This the Lord meets with in a Parable of a bird being taken in a net Can a bird saith he fall upon a snare in the earth where is no gin for him shall one take up a snare from the earth when he hath taken nothing He meaneth however accidental plagues may seem to be to men yet they are determined of God when a bird is caught it is but accidental to the bird he lighteth and is catched in the snare but it is the deliberate act the intentional act of the fowler for he sets the snare for what end to catch the bird and he taketh not up this snare until he hath caught it Oh Israel when ever you find your selves caught in the snare of God when ever you see your selves destroyed however accidental those destructions may seem to come upon you as to second causes believe it I was the fowler I laid the net saith the Lord I did intend to catch you it is my own work my designed work Therefore when such a Judgment comes say I sent it when you are caught I caught you when you are torn in pieces I tore you in pieces And now in the conclusion of all this saith he Can there be evil in the city and the Lord not do it These words they are put by way of question as I now told you make them affirmative and they shall be my Doctrine That is then thus Doct. There is no evil in a city but the Lord hath done it In the opening hereof 1. I shall shew you what is here meant by City 2. I shall shew you what is meant by evil in the City 3. I shall shew you how God is the author of all that evil in the City and I shall shew you the reason why he doth assume to himself to be the author of all the evil in the City 4. I shall shew you the reasons why he doth inflict so many evils upon a City and then we shall come to Application 1. What is here meant by City City may be taken here either properly or improperly properly for the rows of houses the streets of houses as they are compassed in with walls which are the habitations of Citizens The City for the houses of the City and then it is thus Is there any evil befalls the Houses of the City but I do it Are Cities fired and burnt to ashes I do it Improperly and here is a double Synecdoche to be understood in this word City 1. City is here taken for the things and persons in the City Is there any evil in a city that is Doth there any evil befall the Citizens of the City or any concernment of the Citizens and then there is another Synecdoche of the part for the whole the City may be taken for the Kingdom as being part of the Kingdom nay it may be taken for the whole world as being part of the whole world so the sense will be thus Is there any evil in a whole Kingdom Is there any evil in the whole world but I have done it saith the Lord God owneth himself to be the author of all the evil that is of punishment I shall shew presently that hath been in the world from the beginning of it to the end But then we must in the 2d place see what is meant by Evil there is a great deal of reason that you should be well informed hereof There are therefore my Brethren two sorts of evils which we must carefully distinguish 1. There is the evil of sin And 2ly There is the evil of punishment The evil of sin that is any transgression of or any nonconformity to the righteous Law of God this is properly evil the evil of sin yea the greatest evil in the world There are no evils of what kind soever that are to be compared with this great evil of sin Now my Brethren in this sense you must take heed of understanding the Prophet God doth not here say or the Prophet doth not here say Is there any evil of sin in a City but I have done it no God forbid this were the highest blasphemy in the world to make God the author of all the sin of the City He would be a strange God if he should be the author of all London's sins and all England's sins and all the worlds sins This cannot be the meaning of the Prophet for these Reasons 1. Because God is so far from being the author of all the sin in a City or in the world that he never committed any sin since this world was the world hath had experience of God for near six thousand years but they never found God guilty of sin guilty of any unrighteousness God in upbraiding his people Israel he doth make use of this You have departed from me saith the Lord and why are you departed from me What cause have I given you to depart from me Have your fathers found saith he any iniquity in me Have your fathers experienced any unrighteous dealings from me Did they ever find me an oppressor of them Did they ever find me to exact work and not to give good wages Did they ever find me to be false to my word In Jer. 2.5 Thus saith the Lord what iniquity have your fathers found in me that they are gone from me and have walked after vanities and are become vain What iniquity your fathers never found any iniquity in God no nor you neither The righteous God never was guilty from the foundation of the world to this time of any unrighteousness to any of his Creatures No here is a challenge as to all generations if they can tell any unrighteous works or any unrighteous act that God was guilty of and if they can challenge him for any they may have something to say for themselves 2ly God is so far from being the cause of sin that he doth disclaim an having any hand in it in any sort or kind whatever no not so much as in any temptation to it as you may see in Jam. 1.13 Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God That is when any man is tempted to sin let no man say when he is thus tempted that God tempted him to sin Why should they not say so Why saith the Apostle the reason is for God cannot be tempted of evil neither tempteth he any man No man can ever tempt God to do that which is evil neither doth God tempt any man to
in several particulars 1. Sorrow is the proper consequent of sin Christians therefore so far as freed from sin are necessarily in a state of freedom from sinful sorrow slavish fear c. That liberty 2 Cor. 3. latter end is fixed to joy nothing so genuine and characteristically appendant to the state of an Adopted Child of God as joy because having the spirit he ought to rejoyce evermore and that with joy unspeakable and full of glory 2. I grant also that Saints ought to joy in one anothers society with a spiritual delight considering the Wisemans saying Prov. 15.16 Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasures and trouble therewith The company of such should be all their delight Psal 16.3 Christ himself speaks of his rejoycing in the habitable parts of his earth and his delights with the sons of men Prov. 8.31 This might be more at large evidenc'd from Scriptures 3. I must as I have had too sad a cause put in this much That as Christian liberty in other things through Satans policy is abused too too much for an occasion to the gratifying of the flesh and vanity of heart which should not be Gal. 5.13 so in this which I account if it be brought to the face vain laughter Which I shall describe in brief and then leave to spiritual judgments There is such a frame of heart in many precious Saints as this viz. Acertain sudden indeliberate and rash leaping of heart carelesly blindly and unadvisedly transported with fleshly apprehensions of some sensual ridiculousness in somewhat though never so spiritual without the soul an unreasonable jocundness a shameful discovery of the hearts nakedness and inconsiderable jovialty a carnal unaccountable tripudiation in cases never so serious yea sometimes when most serious a delightful frenzy an irregular itching of the laughing faculty Alas I cannot but say I have sound mine own heart sometime like a feather following the puff of any ridiculous object up and down according to the less or greater impression which any vain foolish matter made upon my sense I had occasion to cry out June 18. O the filthy emptiness of my weak heart arising from those troubled steams within me This I could then count nothing but a fuzze of vanity a bubble of corruption a carnal dancing of the careless sons the bane of reason and poyson of Religion Carnality therefore and vanity are the formal Constitutives of this distemper Vanity I say and lightness in an untameable predominancy The internal cause of it is the loosness and rottenness of such a soul as is void of the actual exercise or power of reason discretion and judgment but it is promoted cherished and enlarg'd from some particular circumstance in the object ab extra let into the unsetled mind and indisposed heart by the quick convoy of the bruitish senses which causes this lightness I speak of or an unaccountable or over-powerful frame of laughing upon the presentation of the imagination or understanding either of a very serious thing grace or carriage of a person apprehended under the notion of his being usually familiar or light or more nearly I mean spiritually related to the soul thus distempered having for its external rise or occasion ex parte objecti that very thing ordinarily which to a rectified and considerative mind should rather be a cause of sorrow or serious humble rejoycing namely sometimes 1. Anothers expression of the like vanity 2. The more precious serious or so apprehended Saint his casting his eyes fixedly upon thee 3. Such a familiar Saint his relation either of some great sin or some special act of divine grace in any spiritual working of soul or his putting a light soul on any more singularly advantageous duty suppose Prayer out of a serious heart 4. The external efficient cause of this distemper is Satan who perceiving the heart loose at the bottom easily disposed to lightness of spirit makes it more vain and causeth other objects to take 5. As the cause of this distemper is very bad because corruptio optimi est pessima so the effects are and proportionably worse Take it thus in the lump It 's scandalous and a temptation to others it makes one uncredible as to any spiritual thing done or urg'd by one in such a frame yea it renders a more serious mood suspicious upon the same account it grieves true Saints and delights the Devil In respect of ones self it causes accordingly as it is more prevalent a general indisposition to all acts of Religion and sense of God it deprives a man of all spiritual communion either with God or his Saints for it takes away seriousness which is the considerate fixedness of the soul as to acts of reliance on Christ for strength against it and lastly it hinders sympathizing with other Saints especially as to mourning 6. There be connexed with this distemper while it is in act upon the soul 1. Pride self-applauding no self-abasing apprehensions 2. Security of heart no sense of the Lords being dishonoured Having seen these particulars opening the nature of lightness or carnal laughter the concerning Question is XLVI How may I distinguish betwixt Christian joys and this kind of laughter Answ First Spiritual joy and the expressions thereof be it in smiles or other gestures is still competent and consistent with the hearts well-disposedness towards God and all spiritual things because it is the fruit of the spirit Gal. 5.22 This doth as it were oyl the Chariot-wheels of the soul disposing it better to communion with God and all spiritual activity Yea seeing it ariseth from some love of God and Christ in him darted into the soul it fits the soul more for Christ and inflames it towards him by this the apprehensions of God are not extinguished but sweetned not diminisht but rather enlarg'd Whereas è contra the frame before mentioned dims the light of grace which by the spirit hath been sown in the soul it quenches the spirit of divine Union and so estranges the soul from God it sets the door open to backsliding and profaneness of heart and we see it is the nurse of profaneness in our spiritual backsliding Get a soul into never so high an attainment this will cast him down and betray him so that the soul hereby is brought to a strange loss seeing the spirit through such vanity of mind is sent away with grief and sadness I could produce a most remarkable instance of one a most precious one amongst us who by this means and the subtilty of Satan was cheated of very much spiritual comfort Secondly Spiritual joy and the expression thereof in cheerfulness consists with prudence and discretion so that a man may be spiritually joyous and yet behave himself fuitably to occasions persons and circumstances but this laughing frame puts a soul upon absurd unbeseeming and unsuitable carriages as laughing when one goes to sympathize with a soul broken for sin See Partic. 3d. above Thirdly
sin How come they then to be tempted the Apostle telleth Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and inticed You are tempted of your selves and of the Devil Lay your sins at your own door God hath no hand at all in them 3ly God cannot be the author of the evil of sin Why because it is so contrary to the nature of God It is so contrary that it would even destroy God if it were there A sinning God is no God at all for the very notion of the Godhead doth imply all Perfection in him Now sin is the palpablest imperfection in the world an imperfect God is a weak God and an impotent God is no almighty God and that which is not almighty is no God at all It is a hard thing for any creature to put off its nature or that which is essential to it now righteousness is of the very essence of the Godhead How hard a thing is it my Brethren for you to think or conceive of a Sun without light or to conceive of fire without heat so hard and impossible is it for you to conceive of a God without holiness a God without righteousness yea without perfection of righteousness And therefore the Apostle to the Hebrews doth reckon sin in God as an impossibility it is impossible for God to sin he instanceth in the case of falseness or a lye Hebr. 6.18 that by two immutable things that is his word and his oath in which it was impossible for God to lye Now what the Apostle here saith of the sin of lying I may say of all sorts of sin it is as impossible for God to do unjustly as it is impossible for God to lye it is impossible for these reasons you see it clear that it is impossible for God to be the author of sin Well then how must it be taken by evil must be here meant the evil of punishment Why is punishment called an evil for this reason because that punishment doth deprive us of our good things now that which taketh away our good things is an evil thing punishment taketh away our good things strippeth us of them all both spiritual and temporal Therefore punishment is called an evil so then the sense is this Is there any punishment in a City is there any evil of punishment is there any plague is there any judgment that doth befall a City saith the Lord I did them I will own them You are not ashamed of your sinning and I am not ashamed of my punishing of you for your sin You are not ashamed to provoke me to wrath and I am not afraid to tell you when I am in wrath with you Now there are several sorts of these punishments that God doth inflict for sin and God doth own himself to be the author of them all there are none of them to be found in the world but God will own himself to be the author of them There are some evils of punishment that do light upon the soul and where ever you see of them in a City the Lord is the author of them All the evils all the soul-plagues that are upon a City they are of the Lord. What are these soul-plagues why judicial blindness judicial hardness of heart judicial unconvertedness so far as these are judgments so far God is the author of them And alas how much of this plague is upon London this evil of judicial blindness hardness of heart unconvertedness unhealedness But will God own himself to be the author of this yes he doth do it by his own Son Joh. 12.40 He hath blinded their eyes who hath blinded their eyes God hath blinded their eyes he hath God hath blinded their eyes He hath hardened their hearts God hath hardned their hearts that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts and be converted and I should heal them This is strange is it not my Brethren that God should be the author of the blindness of the mind and the hardness of the heart I say it is as true as strange for so far as blindness is a judgment so far as hardness of heart is a judgment not as it is a sin but as it is a judgment God is the cause of it but if you should be startled as to wonder how possibly it could be that God should be the author of blindness and hardness if you will but compare this phrase unto that other kind of phrase which the Apostle useth in his Epistle to the Romans Rom. 1.26 the matter will be clear Christ saith God hath blinded them the Apostle he expresseth it by a phrase of giving up to sin God he then blindeth and then hardeneth when he giveth up to blindness that is that blindness that men have contracted when he giveth them up to that hardness of heart that by sin they have contracted to themselves For this cause saith the Apostle God gave them up unto vile affections God gave them up to them for even their women to change their natural use to that which is against nature God gave them up to it All the Villanies that were acted among the Heathens all those abominable sins that they polluted themselves with God gave them up in judgment to commit them And truly when you look over this City of London and you find all sorts of sins in a high degree to abound when you hear of sins that are not to be named though these sins are of mens own wicked hearts yet as they are judgments so they are of God God gives them up to drunkenness and up to swearing and up to adultery and uncleanness so far as these are judgments they are to be attributed to God God gives them up to them And it is like that other phrase that the Prophet Hosea useth Hos 4.17 Ephraim is joined to Idols let him alone If you would know when God giveth up a people to blindness and giveth them up to hardness it is then when he lets them alone in their blindness when he lets them alone in their hardness when doth he let them alone when he taketh off friends from reproving them and Ministers from exhorting them and Conscience from troubling them giving them up to searedness of Conscience when he takes off the Spirit from striving with them then he lets them alone So to let a people alone in their blindness to give them Priests after their own hearts to give them those that will sew cushions under their elbows and will flatter them in their sins and tell them it is an easie matter to please God and get to Heaven and therefore need not be at the expence of much trouble When God giveth them up I say to such Priests and such friends as will flatter them in their sins daub over their iniquities then he lets them alone then he is said judicially to blind their minds and harden their hearts that they should not be converted and healed Oh
what a great deal of this plague is upon London and truly Sirs this is a worse plague than that of the Pestilence this plague exceeds the Plague of Sixty-five and exceeds the great plague of the Fire for which you humble your selves this day It is worse than Plague and Fire why because those other plagues are but the litter of this Coccatrice eggs all hatched in this womb of sin London's blindness London's hardness of heart under the light of the Gospel was the cause of London's Fire and London's Pestilence It were well if there were a Fast-day appointed all over England to bewail this great plague of blindness of mind and hardness of heart this judicial blindness and hardness that is as it were spread like a leprosie all over England this is a plague we are not sensible of little affected with Why because it is invisible in the soul The fire that flamed and cast a dreadful smoke and affected our senses looked like Sodom yea like Hell it self these we are affected with and when we see our dying friends look pale and see them gasp and groan this we are affected with but for blind souls dead souls poysoned souls poysoned with sin being full of sin and full of Hell gasping and dying and going to Hell no body is affected with this how few hearts are affected with this and those least upon whom this plague is 2ly There is another sort of evils and those are such that reach the body Is there any evil in a city but I have done it That is Is there any punishment upon the body there is not My Brethren you never know God aright you never adore him aright you never fear him aright till you can see him concerned with every thing that you meet with in the world yea every evil God doth look so narrowly unto all that you are and have that there is not one hair of your heads can fall to the ground without his Providence there is not an aking head but God hath a hand in it the least pain on your body that is inflicted it is by a direction from God There is not one evil in a whole City no not among all the inhabitants of a City but I have done it saith the Lord all the crossings of your family all of them every one of them whatever be the second causes that are at work God is the first he is the first great wheel There is not an evil all those burning feavers agues all the pains of the Stone or Gout all those Plague-sores those Boils and Blains let the disease be what it will what it can as it is a punishment God is the author of it God inflicts it And then there is another sort of evils there are many of them indeed but another that which respects the estate there is not one evil that may befall your estate in this world but God is the author of it Would you in London but believe this it would be of great use to you you never lose one farthing but God knoweth of it and he hath a hand in it You never trust a man and he deceiveth you but God giveth you up to be deceived by that man You never trusted a man that breaketh through poverty but God knew it before hand and gave you up to lend him or to trust him There is not a Ship miscarrieth by Sea but it is of the Lord it miscarrieth Oh that you were but well acquainted with this Doctrine then would you learn to acknowledg God in all your ways and in all his works of Providence that you meet with in the world and if there is none of these evils can follow your estate without God then surely London could not be burnt without God for if the least evil how much more the greatest evil So that here you see it was the Lord Jehovah that burnt this City a few years since he burnt it to ashes he would not have the fire stopt he would have it go on raging till it had finished his Decree he would have it so the Lord hath done it he owneth it this day that you are met together and hath in his Providence sent me to tell you that God burnt London God burnt it Do not therefore much trouble your selves about Instruments though likely some might be wicked instruments in it yet it was God that did the thing I have done it saith the Lord. Doubtless it it of an humbling consideration to us this day now we are come before the Lord. But then the question will be in the Third place How may God be said to be the author of all punishment How is it that God doth burn Cities destroy Families Kingdoms how doth he do it There are two ways that God may be said to be the author of all the punishments that are in the world First God is the author of them by his decreeing of them Secondly God is the author of them by seeing to means that shall certainly execute them God in his Decree appoints the end and God in his Providence provides the means too so that if they be decreed by God and these Decrees executed by God then God may truly be said to be author of them I have done them saith God First Then God is the author of all punishment in a City in as much as when ever these evils come upon a City or people they are first decreed by God they do not come by chance they are of Gods laying on as the Prophet intimateth God hath determined of them before hand and this will be clear if you do but consult several like cases when evils have befallen a world of people and befallen Cities they came not accidentally but they came by the determinate counsel of God We will give you some of these instances One of the most universal plagues that God ever poured down upon this world was that of the Deluge when he drowned it Why whence come these waters from God Who drowned the World I did saith God What didst not thou spare except those eight persons man woman nor child no not one I spared none of them but drowned them all What was it done rashly inconsiderately as men use to do in a passion doing that in haste that they repent at leisure No no God thought of it long before sixscore years before the world was drowned it was determined of God it should be drowned he had passed his Decree upon it for their iniquities Gen. 6.7 And the Lord said I will destroy man whom I have created I will do it saith God from the face of the earth both man and beast and the creeping things and the fowls of the air for it repenteth me that I have made man I will do it saith the Lord. Lord when wilt thou do it I will do it saith he about sixscore years hence I will give them so much time to repent in to see what they will do vers 3. For
ears to hear the word of God God had punished Pharoah and his host and his people in Egypt ten times yet Phareah was not satisfied but followed Israel to the Red-Sea now God will make the Sea to punish Pharoah the very Sea can do it God spake but the word and those great waters a wonderful thing divided hither and thither and contrary unto their natures stood like two crystal walls congealed until the Israelites passed through but when Pharoah and his host assayed to do the like God spoke the word and like two Jaws they close again and devoured Pharoah and his host The Sea was executioner of Gods wrath upon that proud-hearted King Look upon things upon the earth they are all ready to execute vengeance upon Gods enemies the Fly the Locust the Caterpiller yea the very Lice God maketh use of to bring down the proud heart of Pharoah and not only these inferiour creatures but all sorts of creatures yea the very Devils and wicked men stand ready to execute wrath even upon those that are as wicked as themselves The very Devils if God hath a mind to punish a man they will be ready to run to inflict the punishment They will do it nay they are very desirous they would go more about this work of plaguing and punishing men than God is willing they should do and it was meer importunity as I may say whereby the Devil did get God to try Job It is true those afflictions came not in wrath upon Job but for trial but however it was in wrath from the Devil But God giveth the Devil leave to burn Job his Cattel by fire from Heaven to raise a mighty storm to bring the house down upon the heads of his children while feasting to stir up the Sabeans to come into the field and take away his Cattel And what he doth here for Job so he will do it for those that are otherwise his professed friends and followers Ahab was a good servant of the Devil but Ahab had angred God and God was resolved he would spare him no longer but cut him off How will God cut him off He shall be cut off in battel saith God But how shall Ahab be brought to the battel there steps one out a lying spirit I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab his false Prophets and these false Prophets shall perswade Ahab to go to the battel and there thou shalt cut him off This was the Devil the Devil that had put Ahab upon Idolatry the Devil that had put Ahab upon selling himself to do wickedly the Devil is readiest to do execution upon Ahab when his time is come Saith God he hath been false and treacherous to me Go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his Prophets and they shall prevail upon him to lead him out to the battel and I will provide an arrow that shall take away his life Wicked men are ready to do execution upon any people that God is angry with God threatneth his people Israel I will but hiss for such a people and they will all come What a great people were the Babylonians I will but becken I will but nod I will but speak a word and all that great Empire of Babylon shall be in arms For what to pull thee in pieces Oh Judah and Oh Jerusalem So likewise if there were any instruments that did wilfully help forward the burning of the City I tell you they had all their orders But will God give wicked men order to do thus wickedly no. God only gives them order to inflict the evil as it is a punishment no otherwise what wickedness there is in the principle of him that is the executioner that is to himself God gave commission to the Devil to burn Job's Cattel and to destroy Job's Children the Devil doth it maliciously and with an intent to make Job blaspheme God Ay but God doth only give leave for the trying of Job So when God maketh use of wicked men to inflict a judgment he intendeth nothing but the demonstration of his righteousness against sin but wicked men they may have malicious ends of their own So if God should give leave to men to burn the City I tell you though the instruments be wicked and do it wickedly they are crooked staves but yet therewith God strikes a right stroke a right blow It was sin in Judas to betray his Master yet the Apostle Peter tells you it was according to the determinate counsel of God God had so ordered it in his Providence that Judas should be one of the twelve that should betray Christ so ye see that God is the author of all the evil of punishment but not of the evil of sin He is the author of it by decreeing of it by providing means to affect his Decree But then lastly we shall add the reasons hereof when God doth bring evil upon a City Why doth God bring evil upon a City I answer you the principal reason for which God doth bring evil upon a City it their sin for their sins and their punishments are relatives where there is no sin there is no such thing as punishment The Fire of London so far as it was London's punishment it doth respect the sin of London it was for sin This is very clear in all the Judgments that we read of they are all for sin Why did God drown the old world because their imaginations were evil and that continually it was for sin Why did God burn Sodom it was for sin their sins cried in the ears of God Why did God threaten the Twelve Tribes it was for sin Why was ten of them destroyed by the Assyrians about threescore and ten years after this Amos prophesied it was for sin God telleth us so And why was Jerusalem destroyed by the Babylonians for their sin And so the rest And if so if sin is the cause of all the Judgments you read of in the Book of God then you must conclude where there was so great a Judgment so great a punishment inflicted upon London it was for sin it was for the sin of London Why what sins are there that God is so angry with they are of two sorts there are sins against nature or the Law written upon the heart and there are sins against the Gospel against the grace of God in Christ Jesus The sins against the law written in the heart they are enumerated in Rom. 1.28 They liked not to retain God in their knowledg God gave them up to a reprobate mind to do the things which are not convenient being filled with all unrighteousness fornication covetousness maliciousness full of envy murder debate deceit malignity whisperers and so he goeth on these are sins against nature against the law of nature and usually these are the sins for which God doth punish the Gentiles or those that never had the Law nor Gospel But then the sins against the Gospel are the greatest
humble our selves by confessing it was justly done Take the course that Daniel did upon a Fast-day as this may be when he was interceding with God for the people of Israel to bring them back out of Captivity as you are this day that God would not burn it again he did it by confessing of sin and all sorts of sin Dan. 9.5 O Lord saith he thou art a great God a God on thy part keeping covenant and promise to them that love thee and keep thy commandments but as for us we have sinned and committed iniquity and done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments neither have we hearkened to thy servants the Prophets which spake in thy name to our King and Princes and Fathers O Lord righteousness belongeth to thee but to us belongeth confusion of face To us who of us to our King to our Princes to our Fathers all deserve to be put to shame why because we have sinned against thee This is our work this day to humble our selves before God to humble our selves for our sins here in this City against God whereby he was provoked to burn our Habitations Thirdly Is God the cause of all punishments and are all punishments for sin then from hence you may gather that London is a very wicked City Why because God is very angry with it and it is certain he is never angry without great cause men may be angry without a cause and we may chide one another without a cause yet God never is angry without cause and in as much as God hath shewn himself angry with London it is a sign London hath given God a great deal of cause for his anger What cause hath London given God to be angry with them Truly when I begin to think of London's sins they are so many that it puzzles me where to begin or where to make an end but however let us name some of them why did God burn London for London's pride London had lifted it self up in pride against God and God pulled London down he pulled it into ashes to make the proud ones of London know what they are and what their Cities are nothing but dust and ashes My Brethren God is a great enemy against pride for the great King of Babylon's pride he took away his reason and turned him into a beast and turned him a grazing with the Cattel Pride God resisteth the proud he is a great enemy to the proud a great adversary to them and to their projects and designs but he sheweth grace to the humble Wherein doth London appear proud proud in their Apparel proud in their Houses proud in their gestures proud in their Professions they are guilty of all these sorts of pride I cannot stand to speak much of it but the Lord open your understandings and your hearts that you may see where the guilt lyeth the fantastick dresses of many of the Londoners that is one sort the pride of their hearts that 's another sort The next sort of sins are London's luxury drunkenness gluttony their excessive feasting their prodigal expences London is a wanton City instead of worshipping God in spirit it is a City for a great part that sacrificeth as it were unto Bacchus and Ceres they make their belly their god Oh the drunkenness of London the gluttony of London Is it not so Again the covetousness of London God was angry with Israel for being covetous why you covet gold more than grace covet earth more than heaven Oh the injustice the wrong-getting the lying the perjury in getting of Estates Oh the covetousness in keeping in not laying out proportionable to what God gave you to do good to others God hath given you a Talent and you wrap it in a napkin or which is worse you prodigally spend it upon your lusts that make nothing of ten or twenty pounds to bestow upon a vain feast and grudg to give an Angel or twenty shillings for the help of any of the poor servants of God is not this a sin do you think when you are so liberal to your own lusts and you are so heart-bound and hand-bound towards God and his people yea certainly and an highly provoking sin too Again London's prophanation of the Lords-day God all the time of the Law was very zealous for his Sabbath and he had a Controversie with Israel often upon the account of his Sabbath and there are many Promises that he gave them to encourage them to keep his Sabbath If thou wilt keep my Sabbaths and count them thy delight the holy of the Lord honourable I will make thee honourable and great in the world but if not I will pull thee down and destroy thee and make thee the tail and not the head Hath not this been one of London's great sins How full of walkers have the streets been on the Sabbath how full have the fields about this City been on the Lords day what playing what drinking what drunkenness at every Alehouse especially your by Alehouses in London and in the Fields How few in London do strictly observe the Lords-day that pray with their Family in the morning that take care that their whole Family wait upon God all that day in his Ordinances that when they come home at night are careful to see what they profit by what they hear How few are there in London that spend the Lords day as they should do God hath a Controversie with you for this What account can you Masters give of your servants souls What care have you had over them either all the week days or else on the Lords day What have you done for them For your sinful neglect herein God is angry with you For the adultery and uncleanness of London for the whoredoms of Israel the land mourneth for the whoredom of London London was burnt God punished the City with one fire for the sin of another that is the fire of lust But my Brethren it is not barely these sins that God hath been angry with London for but for the aggravations of them Why wherein First For the brazen-facedness of them alas we know that these sins may be found every where ay but we are grown impudent sinners brazen-faced sinners we are not ashamed of our sins but we can be drunk with boldness and commit adultery and boast of it We can sin as Absalom lay with his Fathers Concubines in the face of the Sun before all Israel Here is the aggravation of the sin now it is not the drunkenness only of London and swearing and perjury and Sabbath-breaking but London's shamelesness in it As God when he came to reprove Israel and threatens Judgments upon her saith he Thou hast a brazen face thou hast the looks of an harlot thou dost sin and thou dost not blush at it Truly this hath been London's sin they will swear and receive no reproof be drunk and scorn a reproof it is the very mode of
man would have done it 2 And was not God himself slighted by those that were invited to the feast Was not Christ worse than slighted and was not Paul called a Babler and the Gospel foolishness 3 But consider further Is not the Gospel and the God of it slighted in thee the message thou knowest is not thine but his that sent thee 4 And think is it not natural for the carnal mind to have unsavoury dark foolish thoughts of the Gospel was it not always so did not Christ wonder seeing their unbelief 5 But think it 's God in Christ or the strictness and spiritualness of the Gospel that they undervalue and think nothing of the excellency of They say it 's thou speakest nothing they would say the other but they dare not speak out and so they cast it on thee and art thou not willing rather to suffer than it wouldst not thou have interposed thy face to Christ to have received the spittle and kept it from him and thine head to have been crowned with thorns and what dost thou shrink in taking of this 6 But think what reason have they to charge thee with a nothingness and impertinency in preaching what mean so many to follow thee they may hear nothings and impertinencies nearer home Wherefore go on chearfully and boldly in thy work and regard not what some few scoffers say when thou art carrying on that work for the good of souls which the Lord will own and bless HYMN I. WHat ails my soul to look so wan My vitals they are fled What faintings do I feel within My heart as 't were is dead Love-beams do shine full in my face From off the throne above They sparkle glories round my soul Yet yet I cannot love I see the Heavens open wide My Lord upon his throne I see his Saints all cloth'd in gold Bedeckt with glittering stone I fee a Crown held in his hand To set upon my head If once I were laid low in grave Yet yet my heart is dead What my distemper is God knows It 's cause I can unfold My heart lay down upon the earth And there it caught a cold This this alone had been enough My health to overthrow But I of flesh a surfeit took Which made my grief to grow Lord what compassions in thy looks What pearls stand in thine eye Like a kind friend thou turn'st away As loth to see me die No cordials can my sp'rits revive Those glorious sights do'nt move Oh I am lost there is no hope I see yet cannot love My God! my God! don 't me forsake If I must needs then die Whil'st I am breathing out my last Oh! do but thou stand by Help help thou great soul-curing God In languishments I lye Speak but the word my heart revives Oh yet I shall not die I find my native heat restor'd My wonted joys return I love thee Lord I love thee now With love my heart doth burn Oh what are all the things below What toys they seem to me When shall I leave them and come up To dwell my Lord with thee HYMN II. The Souls Farewell to her Body TIr'd with a body now at last In travel on my road I must take Inn and rest my self I must of flesh unload I see my prison-walls fall down And mold'ring into dust I feel my chains of flesh break off As eaten up with rust Oh! I am going help my God! A little respite give Reverse thy sentence add some years That I on earth may live Ah! foolish soul how fond of life Dost thou thy self betray Why a few minutes more dost thou With tears for life thus pray Are not the years enough thou ' st been A Pilgrim here below Thy Father calls bids come away Ah! fool thou wilt not go What seest thou in this wicked world That thus delights thine eye A father brother or dear friends Thou ' lt find them all on high Thy Saviour hath a Palace there Imbost about with Gold Thine's but a den where now thou dwell'st Whose walls scarce keep out cold What canst thou see more than thou hast The same Sun runs its round The rivers ebb and flow alike No new thing can be found The pleasant faces of thy friends Thou feest but o're again The sweets of meats and drinks thou tasts Are but the very same Yet these sweet and beloved things Have thorns been in thy side Their Prickles have so torn thy heart Thou scarce could'st them abide But Oh thou lump of Gold my Soul How full of dross and tin Thy Father would but melt thee now And purge thee of thy sin Thou art my Soul a ball of light Here in dark lanthorn place't God in a golden socket would Thee set to burn not waste Arise my Soul come shake thy plumes Prepare thy self for flight Like a fledg'd Eagle mount aloft And bid the world Good-night Farewell then dearest friends farewell Farewell fond world I say Lord now I come Oh take me up With sighs and groans I pray HYMN III. The Resurrection of our Blessed Lord. ON Golgotha that fatal day While Christ on Cross did bleed The whole Creation groan'd they say To see that bloody deed The Earths big heart with sorrow swells Which burst out in earth-quakes The Sun his eye hides in a cloud The lowring Heaven shakes The bodies of the dead arise Most ghastly look and wonder Because mens hearts nor garments rent The Vale doth tear asunder Yet one thing do I admire more To see a God-man dead His breathless royal trunk they took And laid in grave deaths-bed Like conquer'd captive there he lies In th' prison of a grave Three days the tyrant death him holds In fetters like a slave So long said he I 'le lye then cry'd Hell grave death do your worst Fast tye me bind me chain my hands I 'le all your fetters burst Rowl rowl a stone upon his tomb The Jews of Pilate pray Set watch and ward lest that his friends By night steal him away With bills and lanthorns there they stand With scoffs they him deride See how he riseth jeeringly They flout one very side At length the third days morn doth dawn Our Lord begins to ' wake Whilest the hard stony Cover-lid Away the Angel takes Look look the watch-men see they run As frighted hark their crys The buried Jesus he is risen We saw him with these eyes Shout shout for joy ye Saints of his This is your Saviour dear When you this wretched life must leave Graves Coffins do not fear This day a perfect conquest he Of grim-lookt death hath made Your moulder'd rotted bodies he Can raise as he hath said HYMN IV. Of our Lords Ascension into Heaven I Sometime wondred why thou Lord Those forty-days didst stay On earth betwixt thy Grave and Crown Or thy Ascension day It seems most like a Captain great After some bloody fights Who walks to shew his friends he lives And puts his Host to rights Thus all things
setled up he mounts Upon his Royal Steed Who prancing through the streets is prais'd For his victorious deed Just so my glorious blessed Prince With vict'ry on his side Being won with ghastly gaping wounds In triumph he must ride Down with a Chariot made of clouds From th' Palace-yard on high His Father sent to setch his Son In great solemnity Before he steps up to his seat Like Royal Prince he gave Rich-wonder-working gifts to 's friends And then he took his leave Strait at command the foaming winds With prancings up they fly Proud of the burthen that they drew A load of Majesty When he got home Oh! with what shouts Of joy did Heav'n resound When th' Father sat him on his Throne And there himself him crown'd Angels and Saints do all at once The Song of the Lamb sing As worthy of all honour praise Yea worthy to be King Sit there thou great Victorious Prince At thy Fathers right hand Bring down thine en'mies to thy feet Rule all by thy command HYMN V. The Souls Access LOrd hear my knocking 's hark my crys Want drives me to thy door Oh! chide not do not say Away I was here once before Where shall I go thou only hast That life none gives beside I went about the world to beg For life but all deni'd Thou art my God and Saviour To thee I naked creep Besmear'd in blood and tears I lie Lord pity see I weep If I have sin'd Lord thou hast di'd To free me thou wast sent And thou hast said I shall not die If that I will repent Justice Oh hold a while thy stroke Suffer a sinner plead It 's for my life one word and then Strike on and make me bleed If I had sin'd and would not yield But stoutly stand it out Thy wrath might then have broacht my heart And let my life run out If I had heard a Christ was come With open arms to save Had I not run for refuge there Mercy I might not crave Now Justice strike 't is done but see Where I incircled lye Within the folds of Jesus arms Strike in his arms I 'le die Chear up my heart the storm is o're Justice is ris'n and gone All thy accusers creep away Thy Christ is lest alone What blessed voice was that I heard My Son rise off thy knees Thy sins are pardon'd thou art free And I have paid thy fees Lord what a quick dispatch hast thou In grace giv'n to my cause I am arraign'd acquit set free By thy most gracious Laws Had I not guilty dar'd to plead Though fraught with Angels skill How sure my impannel'd conscience would Have sought and found the bill HYMN VI. The descent of the Spirit WHO knows the winds from whence they come Or whither they do go The holy breathings we receive Are from the Spirit ev'n so Sometimes its cooling gales we feel On Conscience all on fire Sometimes its cooling heats we find Our nummed hearts inspire This is that Holy Ghost that Christ Did promise for to send This is that pow'rful Spirit that Our stubborn hearts must bend Jerusalem the City was Design'd for his descent Thither the Christians at th' command Of th' Heavenly Angel went No sooner were they set but straight A mighty tempest rose Shook the foundations of the house Which they for pray'rs had chose Struck with amazement soon there fell Flames shap't both flat and long Which hovering light upon each head Much like a Cloven-tongue Those little fiery bushes were But wonders for to shew That th' wonder-working Spirit was Come down to men below For straight he tun'd each Christians tongue All Languages to speak The Parthians Medes and Elamites To them their minds might break Thousands of Salem flock to see This strange unheard-of thing They flock too fast for they forget Good hearts with faith to bring Some are amaz'd but others scoff Some praise but others say They have too much of tongue they 'r drunk With much new wine to day Oh injur'd God! how can'st thou bear These dreadful Blasphemies These wonders speak thy Gospel true They say it 's nought but lyes Scarce fifty days now past thy Son With nails they Crucifi'd And now to heap up sin on sin Thy Spirit they deride Instead of wrath Gods bowels yern Yet thinks them thoughts of Grace The bleeding Christ while Peter preacht The Spirit gave them chace Three thousand hearts at once he struck Who bleeding came and cri'd What shall we do we do believe On Christ we Crucifi'd O holy conquering Spirit thou Those souls did'st captivate This is a second wonder wrought Which we with Songs relate Oh let me find thy heats within As a refiners fire Purge from my heart all dross and sin This this is my desire HYMN VII First Part. THOU dreadful Judg whose Majesty Angels themselves adore That can't with open face thee see But clap their wings before When thou with whispers dost but chide The arch of Heaven doth quake Big-bellied clouds forth lightning bring And into thunders break When that thy wrath it doth but breathe Great storms of whirlwinds rise Hail snow and rain come tumbling down Whilest th' trembling sinner flies The lofty mountains stoop their heads To hide them in their vales Great men and Princes shrink for fear Their hearts and courage fails Some high and mighty Angels hatcht Treason against his Crown He spar'd them not but from their Throne With vengeance pull'd them down He chains of darkness on them laid As pris'ners doth them keep Against the great and terrible day When hardest hearts shall weep When the old world thy name forgot And laid aside their fears The gentle wrathful Heavens wept Drowns it with showers of tears When Sodom and Gomorrah burnt With fires of wanton lust With flakes of fir'd brimstone thou Those Cities burnd'st to dust Sion it self that darling hill In Salem that did stand Them both for slaying of thy Son Thou mad'st a fire-brand Our bleeding carcasses thy sword leaves reeking on the ground Yet after this we no more fear Than men fall'n in a swound Second Part. When thou O mighty God shalt come Riding upon the wind To judg the world Oh! in what place Will th' wicked refuge find How shall we hear thy shrill voice't trump Cleaving th' air asunder To wake our ashes in their graves With noise like claps of thunder Lord what a glorious train is that That on their wings do ride Look how they post in full career Thronging on either side Oh! they 're the Angels of the Lord Egypt's first-born that slay'd That took poor Lazarus soul that di'd And him in bosom laid The Trump shall sound and Michael then Th' Archangel strait shall cry Arise you dead to judgment come The Lord your lives must try Look how the wicked's bodies crawl Like Toads out of their den What ghastly fearful looks they bear They look like frighted men Why do you sinners now thus quake Call for your