the words of the Prophet from God are Ier. 42. last O that this were seriously considered that it might work a penitential reflexion in us upon our ways and doings which have not been good For which God has both lengthened and strengthened the sphere and activity of the Fire to inundate things sacred and civil and to be repulsed from neither the water manageable against it nor the wind dormant in it but has been provoked by every thing that might make our guiltness suspect that God having kindled the Fire in our gates made it unquenchable till it had left nothing almost further to ruine And I pray God it were not a Saboth days punishment for many Sabbath and Fast days prophanation 17. Ier. last This I subjoyn to shew that where God shews his displeasure he does it by all instruments of advantage to his purpose not only desolating chief and remarkable places but by denying all combinations of aid against it that so the judgement might not so much sip as swallow down its full draught of waste and consumption that as he made them all things in perfection so he may shew us that he can so perfectly destroy them that the place of their once being shall be known no more The fifth circumstance of augmenting it was that of the choice of place that this Fire was to work its woe upon the Heart of the City both for Houses of State Trade Charity publick Magistracy most of which it took into its Cyclopique arms and crumbled into ashes for its burning was from London Bridge to neer the Temple both upon the Street side and on the bank of the River its expansion was from a good way low into Fanchurch-street to all the houses that were upon the hilly part of London Candlewick-street Gracious-street Lombard-street Cornhill a part of Broad-street Thred-needle-street Throgmorton-street and so up Coleman-street and so all up to Cripplegate to Aldersgate all Newgate-market to Holborn-bridge Thus from the East to the West it prostrated Houses Halls Chappels Churches Monuments all which it so flaked and enervated that it has left few standing walls stout enough to bear a roof without new raising or charge of repair equivalent to new building which argues the Fire more than ordinarily in earnest when it was not only not impartial but not copable with by those Gyants of strength that usually outstand the shock of Fire yea it brought to ashes that Goodly and Generously useful Pile Sion-Colledge the place of my then comfortable and beloved Residence whose foundations laid by Dr. White and perfected by Mr. Simpson Twins of precious memory and the ever to be celebrated benefactors to Londons Clergy and Religions Increment it demolished For which I cannot but grieve as much as for mine own great losses both in and out of it because it was a publick Dedication to God in a good and graceful accommodation to persons of Learning and aged Poverty the former sort of which had access with welcome to its fair and well-furnished Library six hours in the day duely and freely open to all commers whom the honest and understanding Mr. Spencer the trusty and Aboriginal Librarier yet living and yet faithfully attending the remains of the Books for which he deserves to be well rewarded with a fixed Pension during the little restancy of his life conscionably and with much diligence and humility attended And the latter sort persons of Poverty being twenty of both Sexes chosen Alms-folk into the Colledge were quarterly relieved out of lands appointed thereunto by our Reverend Founder This Colledge I say not added to God knows in Lands by any since its Foundations Gifts though God has made its Library a good part of which is preserved and safely lodged in an upper Gallery by the Favour of the Honorable Government of Sulton's Hospital increase by the gifts of pious and charitable Gentlemen Citizens and their Widows and Children as also by good additions from the London Clergy and by others formerly well addicted to it amongst whom that Learned Grandaeus long since deceased and now with God Mr. Walter Travers Bachelour of Divinity ought as he deserves to be remembred the greatest Benefactour to it of any Clergy man whatever since the two Reverend Founders This this Beloved Sion so nobly design'd and so kept up in its Credit and Reputation till the unhappy dissolution hereof by this Fire was burned down and ruined only the Case of the Library and some of the Gate-piece yet remains but so shattered that long it cannot stand nor suddenly is it like to be repaired the site of the Colledge lying for three Months since the fire open many of the Materials embezzelled too few resenting the detriment that Religion and Learning will receive by the neglect of it so that the remains within the Freedom that were exempted this fire were only from Leaden-hall to the Barrs without Algate from Bishopsgate-street Corner in Cornhil to the Barrs without Bishopsgate and from Moore-fields first postern Gate along the wall with Broad-street from the Church up into Bishopsgate-street from Cripplegate to the Barrs in that Parish from Aldersgate-street to the Barrs above in that street and all the compass without the wall from thence to the end of Cow-lane and from Holborn Bridge to Holborn Barrs these together with the houses from near Iron-Mongers Hall in Fanchurch-street up to Algate and down Mark-lane till within near twenty houses of Tower-street end with Crutched Fryers and the Appendixes thereto were all that of the Liberties of London were preserved which I reckon not above the twentyeth part of the City Freedom in quantity nor the hundereth part of it in value of houses and all this waste committed by the mercyless flames in four dayes the speed whereof added to the quality of what it preyed upon argues the judgment remarkable and past president For it was wont to be computed amongst the choice mercies of God to London that it was specially protected from fires notwithstanding the houses were most of Timber very contiguous each to other and had constant and fierce fires kept in the hearths of them night by night and those later than in any City of the world the good Government thereof making the night as safe for Passengers as the day which gave occasion to more free and more lasting hospitalityes in her then otherwhere are practicable And yet so has God in all times preserved London that such a fire as this never before was kindled in her thus to prevail over her I read indeed of great Fires of old in her In Anno 764 when many Cities and places were destroyed igne repentino London Dunelmensis sayes was one and in Anno 798 London is again storied to be burned repentino igne cum magna hominum multitudine consumpta In Anno 982 Temps Ethelred there was a great Fire In Anno 1087 Cambden tells us the Spire of S. Pauls was so high quae
for from heaven upon their enemies is apposite You know not of what spirit ye are therefore to such I shall make no reply that will incense them or engage me Only Sir I hope I may with modesty and truth say that whatever Londons guilt before God hath been and its receiving from the Lords hand by this fire is God is just and it hath reaped but the fruits of its own sinful doings as to God Londons destruction is of it self but as to the Nation it hath not I perswade my self had more than a proportion of sin with it Her Magistracy Her Ministery Her Sabbaths Her Congregations Her Citizens Her altogether has been as orderly pious as the proportions of them in other places privileged from her Calamity were and when ever the temper of her Inhabitants was most distemper'd they were then no more Criminal than the rest of the Nation whose Emissaries and Suffragans either called up those disorders in her or confirmed ex post facto what was vildely done by them And if London be it as bad as it will be must in policy be made as good as it can and be born with till its humors be sweetned and its eventriqueness be reduced for the Metropolis of Engl. I hope God has ratifyed in Heaven it shall ever be and abide then to no purpose is this waste of rage while Lond. being the common Hostelry of the Nation receives into it men of all additions and tempers nor can it be responsible before God or man for that which a more governable place then the continued building which in this account is reckoned Lond. but really is not would be Londons numbers made London orderly or the contrary as the predominant vertue or vice of them led her nor avails it much what a few wise and loyal men say or do if many more than they will appeal from them to the power they have gotten over them and the mastery they are resolved to keep upon them And though the least instance of Lond. misdemeanor be that which I wish from my soul she could not be charged with yet if those that are most censorious of her and most profess service to the K. and the Country would consider it aright they may I presume find cause to joyn with Renowned K. Iames who in his acknowledgment of Her great forwardness in that honorable action of proclaiming him King says Wherein you have given a singular proof of your ancient Fidelity a Reputation Hereditary to that our City of London being the Chamber of our Imperial Crown and ever free from all shades of tumultuous and undutyful courses so that King And so much by way of Attonement for London the challenge to which needs no other or better reply than that of the Archangel contesting with his Antagonist about the body of Moses whom he answered not with rayling accusations but said The Lord rebuke Thee even so O Lord rebuke the evil spirit of these Sanballats and raise up the spirit of the Nehemiahs and such other Heroicks of Kindness and Ability to consider London If not the place of their birth breeding supply or the foyle in which their Ancestors layd the foundations of their Honour and Fortune yet that wherein their younger Brothers Sisters or Cozen-Germans were disposed of and lived happily in And O that such of the Nobility and Gentry whose Greatness owes its Freedom and Fullness to their City Ancestors who throve so well in it as to leave them that whereby they and their thrifty Posterities may enjoy the plenty they neither laboured nor spun for O that I say these would think the ruines of London under which the Monuments of their worthy Fathers or Grandseirs and the ashes of them lye worthy their rescue and revival by re-edifying those Piles of Devotion in which they were erected and buryed That what is written but upon the Porch of one Church now in the Borders of London may be the Motto of every such restored Church and Chappel Heus viator anne bonis operibus effoetum est hoc soeculum And O that the aid of their great Estates would come in to help the publique Places of Londons Government Guild-hall and the Halls of the Worthy and Charitable Societies of the same a Work becoming the best and bravest Minds and only expectable from such who thereby would more contribute to their own earthly perennity than by the doubtful continuance of Sons and Daughters God knows my heart I hate the vapour of words divorced from real and solid Intentions but this if you Sir and other Worthy men will give me leave to write and belief in writing I had rather live in such publique Munificencies than in Sons or Daughters And had I an Estate as Augustus had whom Tacitus reports to have bestowed by Legacy in his Will incredible sums of Money to the Citizens and Souldiers thereby entitled to his Gift I should rather chuse after moderate Provision for my Children to make the Ruines of London In which Beloved Syon Colledge should have no small share Mine Executor then to restore or continue my own Family by it And I trust God who I believe has accepted as well pleasing in his sight the Piety Faithfullness and Diligence of the Corporations in London will give a Command to those Lazaritique spirits who have been of late engraved in cold resolves to hoard what would be better thus imployed to come forth and become charitably visible And if God be with London to this purpose He that at first brought Order out of Confusion can from this present Heap of Rubbish raise up a New and no less Renowned London And thereby provide a-new for the Reverend Learned and Painful Clergy many of which Constant Preachers Polite Writers Discreet and Holy Livers are now exposed with their Wives Children and Families to hardship un-housed dis-parished Fortuneless Some whereof have lost all or part of their Libraries Common Places and Sermon Notes the fruits of their Studies and the supplies of their Cures and other advantageous Emergencies and what is yet as lamentable as any other unwelcome Accident have lost the convenience of Syâ—n Colledge whose well furnished Library though little added to these late years in a good part saved yet by the ruines of its Case and the uselessness of it in any place but that which was peculiar to it adds to their unhappiness to recover which pristine convenience there was a Motion made to the President and such of the Governours as could be got together about three weeks after the Fire by a Gentleman who would have been the Colledge Orator had they given him and some other Gentlemen joyned with him Credentials to address in their name and to so worthy a purpose The then living though now dead Bishop of Rochester whom the Motioner to my knowledg told such of the Governours as there were present the most likely of any one liveing to accept the
Intreaty and Motion to become the Patron and Refounder of the Colledge God having concentred in his Lordship those arguments of Motive for him to do this which he has not now in many no less willing as that his Lordship was a Native of London the Son of a wealthy Citizen in the same That he was a Church-man in the City many years That he had been a Governour of Syon Colledge That he had long published himself an intender of Publique charity by way of a Colledge to be built or some Hospital or both if this added to his Fatherly ability in point of Estate and his non-avocation by Provision for Children which many mens Intentions this way are pestered with and rendred ineffectual by These I say all amassed together did portray him probable enough to expect such an address and to be by God prepared not to brow-beat it especially when the Eminency of this Charity had furtherance by the cheapness of it the restoration of which Edifice to its splendor would not with the Materials when the Motion was made already there have amounted to above 3000l which was far less than either our first Founder Reverend Dr. White or our second Founder worthy Mr. Simpson though but a playne Rector of a Church in London and having a charge of Children bestowed upon their respective parts of Foundation therein But this Motion which no man can deny to have been then not impossible to have gain'd accomplishment to those honest ends ceased under the conclusion He was an angry old Man and would not relish such an Application and so it dyed and two moneths after his Lordship too but I wish it be not the hopefullest opportunity that the Colledge will ever have And I pray God that future diligence may supply what herein may be feared wanting and that the Library may be fitted to use Since as the Lord Coventry once said The Colledge had never been or continued if it had not been for the Library and Alms-houses This I thought here good to publish it being my nature and custome to promote all pious and learned Interests by any opportunities I have or can seasonably take and to Gratulate the Kindness Convenience and Favour I have had from any person or thing with frequency of acknowledgment and wherein I can with fluency of requital Yea so great a confidence had I of the feasibility of this Motion had it been currantly followed that I dare say and I would have none displeased with me but if they be I will be pleased with my self for believing it That if the meanest Society in London had conceived such hopes of any man so related to them and so enabled for them as the prementioned Prelate was to the Corporation of London Ministers at Syon Colledge they would have not been so Modest as to have made to themselves a difficulty to approach him and a denyal from him before they had attempted the one and received the other But would have made as much of it as their diligence furthered by Gods blessing would have prospered their application to And I the rather Sir move the Nobles and Gentry to this because God in the words of Mordecay to Esther perhaps has brought them to and preserved them in riches and plenty for such a time as this Esther 4. 14. And how can they do more to denominate them Noble and Great â—inded then this of building somewhat of publique Use and State Thus God when he declares his Mercy and Greatness to his is said to Build the Cities of Iudah Psal. 69. 35. And when the Lord builds up Zyon he is said to Appear in his Glory Psal. 102. 16. Thus God saies to his Peoples comfort The Heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places and plant that that was desolate Ezech. 36. 36. And when God threatned the deriders of his destroyed people whom he calls sinners of his people that shall die by the sword which say the evil shall not overtake nor prevent us Amos 9. 10. In the 11th v. he adds In that day to wit of their ruine will I raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen and close up the breaches thereof and I will raise up his ruines and I will build it as in the dayes of old And as God himself shews his Greatness by this so does he stir up great Mindes thus to do Thus he stirred up Solomon to build a House to him 1 Chron. 28. 10. Thus God moved Cyrus to build the Temple Ezra 5â—13 Thus Cain Nimrod Ashur and all men else of Might are excited to build Cities and Houses and to call them after their own Names which was not onely the Fashion of elder times and Eastern Countries but has ever been the Custome of England Most Halls and Lordship Houses takeing Denomination from the Primitive or most remarkable Owner of them Which perpetuation of any mans Name and Memory is more probable and certainly continuous than that of a Child who may die or leave no Heir or but an Heir Female or may by unthriftiness waste an Estate and so extinguish the Ancestor when as a publique Bounty fixed on the Basis of a notable Structure imployed to a general Use can undergo no such change for its Corporation never dies and its Alienation is secured against Which is verified in that Magnanimous and liberal hearted Benefactor to London and that Glory of Englands Traders in his time Sir Thomas Gresham Knight and Mercer of London the wealthy and serviceable Merchant of Queen Elizabeth of ever blessed Memory who dying childless is buryed in the alienation of Asterly and other great parcels of his Lands now out of the Name of Gresham but yet he lives in the Colledge of his Foundation and in the City House he lived in which is by the Mercy of God preserved from Fire and become the Chamber The Guild-hall The Common-hall The Exchange of the remaining City The Royal Exchange in Cornhil of his Foundation Anno 1571. being wholly burnt down and all the Stately and Kingly Effigies of it demolished except his the Founders which yet stands in its Arch undefaced which president of Gods Custody of a charitable mans Statue in that place and posture which to his Memory it was first placed in insinuates to me a very cogent Argument of invitation to some of the descendants from Citizens to set apart some share of their spare Estate to restore waste places of Use and Notability wherein they will more display the Piety Gratitude and bravery of their Natures than by any Paradoe of Pompe or any affectation of Grandeur which is Personal It was a rare Testimony given of the Centurion That he loved the Iewish Nation because he built the Iewes a Synagogue And 't will be a sure Evidence of Love to the Ancestor that in London rose and enriched a Family in London when the Descendants from it so enriched shall
approaching Fire as well as in the actual consuming by the Fire the houses only excepted and probably those in a good part had been saved had they restrained their hands from theft and imployed them to master the Fire by handing water pulling down houses ridding away materials mingled with the Fire and observing the commands of provident and knowing leaders in that so imployed saving service But their design being not what wontedly though stealing has been ever in fashion in those cases so much to stay the Fire and aid the sufferers and their neighbours yea and the whole City which ought to be concerned in the misery of any part of it as to prog for themselves and to pilfer from them whom the Fire sufficiently threatned and at last preyed upon the Fire had no impediment from their labour nor the removers any benefit by their fidelity but they either valued their labour so high that no losers purse could well reach to it by reason of which some ordinary House-keepers were put to 40. pound charge but to remove from the Fire and some few of the more stored sort as I have been informed at neer 400. pound or accepted ingagement that under pretence of it they might colour and act their designed falshood for though many there were that gave and could give great rates for honest Carts and Labourers yet others there were that could not reach it monies being not so flush with them nor they so stored with it on Saturday nights men then paying out all on Saturdays their pay day and those who had thus drayned themselves were certainly put to great straits being either forced to give one part to carry away the rest or to leave all to the fire the mercies of which was cruelty to all that it came neer the flight from which gave opportunity to mis-carriage of thousands of pounds worth of goods and to many thefts of goods lodged in open places Fields and others for present riddance out of danger and hoped for security from it which as it frowardly proved became a removal out of the danger of Fire into the Den of Thieves so that indeed in some sense the City that rich and glorious seat of Merchants and other Tradesmen who were as those of Tyre are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Honourable of the Earth Members of the Crowning City which imployed the Nations younger Brothers and Sisters and restored them in their posterities of elder Brothers Fortunes and Honours The City that I think I may say was one of the wonders of the world if Pope Innocent the fourth were a competent judge who desired not with Moses to see Gods glory but to see with Satan the World and the glory of it summed together in the riches of London and the rarities at Westminster this riches in some degree and the subsistance of the inhabitants thereof was as well devoured by the Suburbian thieves and by the Countreys extortion for their Carts and conveniencies as by the Fire all which had their respective share in laying load upon Londons broken back and upon the general distraction of and in it Which I note not to lay an Imputation upon all assistants either as Labourers or as Carts for some and many I hope and know by relation to have been very honest and reasonable but into those honest and happy hands God knows many of my goods fell not nor the goods of thousands more but into the hands of those Harpyes that devoured all they took and cryed Give give never to return again whereupon the argument must stand good that the riches of London being only the posessors during the vigour of Laws and the ability of the Magistrate to circumspect every part of his charge all disability of thine so to do and so this distraction of the Fire must demolish the wall of seperation and draw a line of level to whatever industry and villany during that rage will prey upon For as Inter arma silent leges so inter flammas cessat proprietas and in such case Occupancy is judged by men unconscionable the best title and the after Proclamations may endevour return and threaten detension of goods so unjustly gotten and some out of honesty and othes out of fear may return some parts and others out of envy to those that have more than they may disclose things that by these means may come to the owners hands yet notwithstanding all these there will not be thetenth of the goods restored that were carried away purely in theft so great and effectual a temptation is opportunity to need where it is not restrayned by conscience nay in this harrass of Fire and that so generally absorptive of the City then there is somewhat towards authorizing a scruple of conscience and absolving persons from the guilt of theft In that what they took being in a kind of Landwreck wherein no body owned goods and they deserted and left to the Fire must have been consumed better they were taken away by any to whom they would do good then consumed by the Fire which does nothing but hurt And if they will now part with their dubious titles upon reasonable terms they that took away goods in a sort wrongfully will prove themselves preservers not raptors which I in a great measure distrusting do conclude that though the Fire in London might not come yet it might be negatively continued from those needy numbers who fish in troubled waters being like the vultures in publico malo falcies carrying more from two or three dayes such disorder then they will by labour or patrimony get or save to themselves all their lives There is a story in Iosephus of the Fire in Antioch which consumed the four square Market-place the publick place where all Writings and Registers were kept as also the Kings Houses which Fire so increased that it threatned firing the whole City Antiochus accused the Jews to be the incendiaries and all the Jews were like to be slain upon the suspition and bruit of it but Collega appeasing the people and further inquiring into the matter found the Jews wholly innocent but certain inpious people had done this being imdebted thinking that when they had burned the Market places and the publick writings that then their debts could not be required at their hands And though if men thought seriously upon the judgements of God on such evill works and ways such gains would prove but like the hire of a Harlot or like the wedge of Achan or the Babylonish garment a curse to them and theirs yet posession being nine points of ten of the Law to them the advantage they in present for further they look not have by it carries them out to withdraw assistance from hindring its progress which by their manual labour they might probably have done so that though what has been written is intended to satisfie so full as it can You Sir and all that read this from concluding this
to be from a supernatural cause that is from Fire darted upon it from Heaven yet does it not nor can it in the least drive at making it a bare accident and a nude casualty but a just and severe judgement of God upon the place and nation auxiliated and perfected by concurrence of circumstances benign to and corresponding with a vastative event nor is any evill of punishments on Cities or Men or Nations but from God concurring with it and exciting and carrying forth instruments to the accomplishing of it The deliverance from the captivity of Aegypt The raising of the Syrians against Israel The defection of the ten Tribes from Rehoboam The captivity into Babylon The desolation of Ierusalem by Vespasian The afflictions of David from his childrens lust and insolency the misery of Iob from Satans inrode upon him and his The storm upon Ionah for his disobedience The temptation of Peter for his self-confidence The thorn in the sâ—esh for Saint Pauls elevation The persecution of the Primitive Martyrs which were the Churches Spawn The Translations of Empires The advance and reducements of families The Marches and Counter-marches of men and things out of one posture into another all these are circumacted by God imploying instruments of his in the managery of them Thus though by good and evil spirits God leads about the world and all in it bringing them into the mold and method of his own good pleasure both of wisdom and power yet are these instruments so purely passive compared to God that they are drowned in his omnipotence whose vassals and visible puppets of agency they only are nor are men to respect them but as bubbles raised up and flatted as God the Master-builder of them informs or deserts them Which rectified notion proves a just medium of expediency to those equally boystrous extremes of seduced man who on the one side will have this judgement miraculous and Fire from Heaven without any natural assistance Gods finger heavier than all the loyns of nature or on the other side ascribe it so to second causes that they will allow no more judgement of God in it than that which accompanies common casualty whereas indeed in this case of London there are so many concurrencies which have their attending cheques which possible are to be but actually were not improved in remedy that the prevalence of the Fire against and in despight of those wonted prudences and usual resistances and the Latitude of effects seconding such a neglect of impeding means where so well understood and so dexterously at other times practised this I say duely and impartially considered must evince some more than ordinary concurrence of God to arm and enable those arising pimples to such a general distemper and mortification And I pray God that this judgement that has thus begun at the House of God For such I dare account London let prophane and superstitious defamers of it say what they please God had more marked ones for Mourners over and livers against the abominations done in the Land in London then I believe in a great part of the Nation beside may stay there and not proceed to those that are yet preserved who are no more righteous than their ruined neighbours Which the Lord of mercy grant for his Sons sake Having thus Sir made way to the more Historical part of this Narrative which falls in properly with the circumstances of co-operation with the Fire whereby it unhappily as to man though happily as to God propagating his power by it prevailed against the City I come to the particularization of such instances as were by wise men observed Fautive of its progress and conclusion And the first circumstance notable in it is that of the time when it began which was ominous as it was about 3. of the clock on a Sunday morning a time when most persons especially the poorer sort were but newly in bed and in their first dead sleep for Saturday being the conclusion of the weeks labour and the day of receipts and payments the markets last not then only all the day but some part of the night especially in Butcheries and too often in Ale-houses the Poors pockets then stored with mony overflowing mostly that way And thence might the Fire get a more than ordinary rooting from the leisure of its burning before it met with checque or suppression Yea and when it was discovered the usuall custom being to lye longest in bed on Sunday might make men more indulge their ease and remit their early stirring and wonted vigour than otherwise they would and besides this amazements in the night are most terrifying to men even of courage whom the dangers of the day are not at all discomforting to because known and distinguished to be what they are by them whereupon in that it pleased God to permit it then to break forth it was not without intimation of some displeasure For usually it is with God to make dayes places and persons peculiarly and devotedly his the instances of his eminent and wasting judgements thus he is said in commissionating judgements to begin at his Sanctuary to give his beloved into the enemies hand to tread the Daughter of Judah in a Wine-press to make Shiloh the mark of his anger to abhorre his people and to hate Sacrifices and to cause the Sabbath to cease from a Laâ—d to cast down the Prince and the Priests his own Vicegerents to make Jerusalem a hissing and an astonishment and to give up his Temple and people into the spoil of the Nations to suffer the Bloud of Iesus that speaks better things than did the bloud of Abel to be the bloud of execration and indictment against them who cryed out Let him be crucified These things thus by God ordered and the method of his ordinary providence inverted and corrosion coming into the room of Balsamittiqueness this ruling of Wine into Vinegar and of Oyl into Aqua Fortis as I may say argues God highly incensed and resolved upon destruction and vengeance For some provocation unnatural unusual persisted in with obstinacy and in opposition to and despight of the meanes and motions of â—eclaimer And applicable hereunto seems Londons case as to the time to be suitable for did he not God make His holy day of Rest a day of labour and disquiet did he not cause the Church to be thin of people to pray to him and hear his Word from him did he not cast off the care of his Sanctuaries and Ministers and give them and theirs up as a prey to the Fire because many of the people would not be present at their Churches according to the Law nor many of the Ministers spiritually expend themselves but according to the law of man has not God dis-parished and scattered them Priest from people Neighbour from Neighbour Indeed Sir these things are to me observable and
opposition from Engines or other Artifices because it was impossible in such a strait and in such a rage of Fire they should be serviceable for if all the Engineers of mischief would have compacted the irremedyable Burning of London they could not have laid the Scene of their fatal contrivance more desperately to a probable success than there where it was where narrow Streets old Buildings all of Timber all contiguous each to other all stuffed with aliment for the Fire all in the very heart of the Trade and Wealth of the City these all concentring in this place put a great share of the mischief upon the choice of the place And hence there may be a more than ordinary argument that this choice was not a thing of accident but contrivance and meditation for some time If it were by the Instrumentality of Man only permitted by God for so was the Plot by Mendoza as Throgmorton and Parry confessed So was the Vault under the Parliament House in the case of the intended Powder ruine by Faux great enterprises alwayes requiring grave perpendment of the method by inspection circumspection and retrospection before they be reduced into act forasmuch as in the defect of due adjustments and prudent libration of what weight they will and will not beare suitable whereunto must every particle of the composure be framed and disposed not only the whole Fabrick sinks and proves effete but the actors in it and the well wishers to it prove ridiculous if not ruined which causes that axiom to be so acclamated among Politicians Deliberandum est diu quod constituendum est semel nor do wise men and fools differ in any thing more than in those specifique actions which are denominative of them fools running hand over head and wisemen going fair and softly surely though slowly and probable it is that the many forraign minded and addicted subtilists amongst us adjuuated by the needy miscreants and desperadoes at home might do much to the production of this Centaure which so speedily devoured more houses of State and Residence and more wealth and value in Merchandizes and other better things than many years wars could spend or many years labour can get yea the victory of any thing beneath an Indies will be but a ten groats composition for a 20 s. lost And if God who knows all things and whose infinite wisdom is past finding out or hiding from stirred up evil men to act his counsell to punish England by London this way that should need as it were no second to it then we have all great cause to take off our thoughts from evill instruments men and place them penitently upon evil Sin for which Gods thoughts are upon us for evil and not for good and we have just ground to bemoane our ways and doings which have not been right before God for the punishment whereof he sends such sweeping and unchecqued judgements such as a Fire is which has no ears to hear the cryes of the sick weak aged lame who are in danger to perish by not being able to remove themselves from it nor happy in being tendred by others who will in that disorder pity them nor eyes to see the cryes and moans of those Widdows Orphans and spoyled Creatures whose tears are Orators potent enough to prevail with any thing but its inexorability When God gives the inhabitations of London for Fuel to the Fire when he sets his face against them that they shall go out from one fire and another fire shall devour them then this had 't is sad And this was the case of London the fire removed from in one place followto another yea sundry there were that removed two or three times yet lost at last and that not only by evil instruments who forfeited their trust and took advantage of the confusion incumbent on all men but by the very Fire which broke in like waves of the Sea and raged like a Beare robbed of her Whelps untill it had executed its errand and made that predicable of London which Florus writes of Samnium so destroyed by Papyrius the Roman Consul Vt hodie Samnium in ipso Samnio requiratur So that though the advantage of place was much in this as in other cases ubi plus valet locus quam virtus and though there might have been rational and probable anticipations of these conflagrating progresses yet were they altogether hid from the eyes of those whose interest in comfort and fortune it would have been to have improved them The third circumstance of furtherance to the Fire was that of the wind which was not only not still but boysterous and such as carried it to not from the City and turned to fan and blow up the Fire East West South and North at some time or other during the Fire like that judgement God threatned upon Elam 49 Ier. 36. Vpon Elam will I bring the four Winds from the four quarters of Heaven and will scatter them toward all these winds and there shall be no Nation whither the outcast of Elam shall come So Iosephus sayes the providence of God turned the Fire the Romans put to the wall of Ierusalem upon the City by reason of which the Fires natural tendency was carried forth to oblique as well as direct effects of wasting that is spread it self this and that way till it had prevailed every where spreading it self like an Armys wings first drawn forth and the main body marching up to it Which complication of circumstances inductive to and in augmentation of a mercyless fate argues this Fire to be no ordinary judgement but to be sent as an evidence of God incensed and of sin the meritorious cause of it out of measure sinful For if the punishment of one single element be dreadful as the water was to the old world and the Air is in pestilential infections and the Earth was when it opened its mouth to swallow up Corah and his company how dreadfully sinful are those provocations of a land or person That God punishes with double and treble judgements in their judgement what vengeance is that like to prove which has Gods Armies of fire and wind united when his single army of Insects are enough to destroy Aegypt and when his negative hostility is productive of Famine to consume his enemies Whom because they would not serve in the abundance of all things he will press to serve their enemies and be ruined by his bringing upon them the want of all things And if Ionas his storm at Sea was so dreadful that he swallowed up in it is said to call to God out of the belly of Hell 2 Ionah 2. What a Hell of confusion and torment were the inhabitants of London delivered from when their lives were in the rage of Fire and Wind and when the Fire carried the noyse of a whirle-wind in it and was so informed with terrour that it surprised the eyes and hearts of men with fear as well as
ye Princes and Grandees for this because the mighty City is fallen which once was the Market of what brought you Wealth and Peace For this London who took off your younger Sons making them thrifty Common-wealths men and in time returned them to you Great and Noble for your Daughters who into it were comfortably bestowed and from it were richly provided for in their Persons and Issues For their Eldest Sons whose Wives portions the provisions of Younger Children were hence plenfully had without sale of Land or diminution of Income Weep O Peasantry who had London for a Market swallowing up all Provisions for it and all quantities brought to it Weep O Poor that in London had great relief Weep O Aged who in London were refreshed and prepared by constant Devotions and hourly Sermons for their dissolutions Weep all High Low Honourable Mean for London was but is not London despise it who will and dare the Great and Flourishing Sprig in our Princes Plumes the Pyramyd of conspicuity in the admired Pile of Britain The Graecatrojan Horse out of which marched many of the Hectors of Englands courage The great Academy of Arts wherein the Learning and activity of all parts united The Hospitable Sanctuary of all distressed strangers who thither came numerously and there were entertained civilly London the great Bulwark of reformed Religion against the assaults and batteries of Popery and Prophanness is in a great measure destroyed O tell it not in Gath declare it not in the Streets of Askalon lest the Uncircumcised Levellers rejoyce and the Enemies of God and the King the Parliament and the Religion say Ah Ah so would we have it O Day O Month September not more inauspicious to many Famous Cities such as Ierusalem begirt the seventh and entred the eighth of Sept. such as Constantinople which was wasted by sire Anno 465. In the beginning of September such as Heidleberg which was taken by the Imperialists about Anno 1622. And now to London in this Fire of September 1666. I mention no more though probably those forty which Caluesius mentions in his Chronology might yield more in execration of September I say not more trist to other parts of the World and to this Nation in general then to Me in particular For it hath been successively within eight years Productive of a Quaternion of unhappinesses to Me The loss of an Excellent Wife of an Indulgent Father the affliction of a terrible Sickness all which happened to Me in September 1658. and now were added to by this of September 1666. wherein it pleased God to give me a fourth tryal by Fire that I may for the future learn to devote my portion of Soul Body to him in the sacred and serious service of him Which O Lord I desire to do as and when thou shalt call enable and accept Me This is my particular apprehension of Septemb. which Sept. thus the time of Londons firing and Englandâ— Misery let it be Discalendred and not be numbered amongst the Twelve let it be accounted the Iudas Month that betrayed all the rest to infelicity Let that day that first opened the Wombe of fire be darkness and let the shaddow of death stain it let a Cloud dwell upon it let the blackness of the day terrifie it as for that night let darkness be upon it let it be solitary and no joyful voice come thereon let the Stars of the Twylight hereof be dark let it look for light but have none as holy Iob's pathetique is upon a like dismal accident and occasion because it produced a Monster and diminished the enjoyment of present and the hopes of after-ages and cast into the Widows disconsolacy Her that sat as a Queen upon a hill of plenty and honour viswing all the Nations doing homage to her as to the Faithful City as to the City of Righteousness 1. Isaiah to 26 as the City of praise the City of all Joy as Damascus was called 49. Ieremiah 25. as the City of Renown who was strong in the Sea that caused their terrour to be upon all that haunt it as the Prophet Ezekiel describeth Tire c. 26. v. 27. London the Earthly Paradice of Cities having the glory of Gods Ordinances and the light of his Reformed Truth in her shining like a Jaspar stone clear as Crystal The foundation of the Wall of which City was garnished with all manner of precious Stones Its Government its Magistrates its Ministery its Fraternities its Franchises being all Emblematical of and Symmetrious with the Greater Ones of the Nation in the best and clearest instances of its Royalty This London ancienter as is thought than Rome and more potent though less politique then she that has her Oar in every Boat This London which its learned Native and Englands admired Antiquary terms such that none hath better right to assume to it self the Name of a Ship Road or Haven than she For in regard of both Elements most blessed and happy it is as being situate in a rich and fertile soil abounding with plentiful store of all things and on the gentle ascent and rising of a Hill hard by the Thames side the most mild Merchant as one may say of all things that the World doth yield hath swelling at certain set hours which the Ocean Tides by its safe and deep Channel able to entertain the greatest Ships that be daily bringeth it so great Riches from all parts that it striveth at this day with the Mart Towns of Christendom for the second Prize thus her Cambden This London I say who was to those that lived in it whatever Heaven and Earth could indulge a Militant condition and a viatory state did God give up to the destruction of Fire So that now there is little resting in it but Piles of Rubbish and Mountains of wast no neatness of Pavement no Magnificence of Structure no vestige of Majesty there only now is to be seen the the tops of Steeples Belless and the Stones of Structures Mortarless and the figures of Beauty disfigured no Pallaces have the Magistrates to sit in no Prisons as wontedly to hold Offendors in no conveniency almost to sustain Order to its future hopes but God has made it a Bochim and scattered the Inhabitants of it into all quarters Thus has God done to London our English Ierusalem the joy of which was heard even a far off More I could Write and more of this I had written in a Commentary on the Chartar 9. H. 3. For election of the Lord Mayor of London but that with many other Manuscripts fitted for the Press together with the general collections of the study of my life being burned I can only weep my kindness to her Quid faciam vocem pectori negare non audeo amor ordinem nescit And if London the place of my Birth and of my longest dwelling should not have all the right my poor Pen can do it It deserved not
to be accounted any thing tending to the Pen of a ready Writer nor indeed is it but I hope it will be accounted prove it self to be the Pen of a veracious well meaning Christian Englishman whose glory it is not so much to subdue Divels of danger to level Mountains of difficulties as to be owned a Friend to Learning a Servant to Religion a Native of London And if I forget thee O London let my right hand forget her cunning and they that forget thee by their cold Prayers heartless Tears Vituperious Sarcasms Secret rejoycings at thy ruins had best to remember that the Inundation of thy Thames may cool their courage and thy tutelar Angelique Patron become thine avenger on them for God has fixed an immortal spirit in London the horn and branch of which will sprout out to her detractors amazement and though she sit now in darkness yet the Lord shall be a light to her While England is an Empire London will be the Metropolis of it let who will dote on that Northern Prophecy which some thought fulfilled in stout Bishop Montaigne Lincoln was London is York shall be yet the very Learned and Noble Geographer Dr. Heylin is so far from cherishing that which has any reflexion of Ecclipse to London whose misfortune is as it were the prodromus of the Nations misery that he discreetly docks the recitall â—incoln is London was c. And Ingenious Dr. Fuller who will be more valued in after ages as most are than in their own upon this Proverb thus writes But as for those whose hope is York shall be the English Metropolis they must wait until the River of Thames run under the great Arch of the Ouse bridge However York shall be that is shall be York still as it was before for if York I write for my Native City and no City or person ought to be offended with me for my zeal for London would ever have overpoysed London it was probablest to have been when the union of England and Scotland into Great Britain was because of its neer situation to the Two Kingdoms then conjoyned But then it failing by the advantage London gave to the seat of Government above that or any part of the Nation the River of Thames that flowing up to her caused her foundation at first will I trust in God forever keep her in her Metropolitical station and add to her Paramouncy of renown as the Vrbs aeternabilis as Rome is called For so she seems to be framed after the Protoplast of the Nation that she answers every feature and digestion of parts in the Greater Body As if the Providence of God and the Policy of Antiquity had set her as a Glass before her Monarchs to see the paths and perfections of the greater Government in the methods and manageryes of her the less And so far does London answer the favour of her Soveraigns in their indulged liberties to her that she hath the suffrage abroad to be one of the most August Regular Religious Subaltern Governments in the world And now Sir after a more than usually long digression I come to the last Circumstance promoting this desolating Fire which was that Dread and pavid manlessness that seised the Inhabitants by reason of which they not only fled before the Fire leaving it to its forradge and not checquing it while dealeable with nor anticipating its Progress by pulling down or blowing up buildings before it For by this did every mans unmanly example discourage till at last the hearts of men were in their heels and every hand as it were became Palsie thorough terrour of apprehension there being a kind of Divination in men introductive to and fautive of the victory of the Fire over both their houses and endevours For as Iosephus well observes when God has designs to accomplish he puts upon men the guilt of humane errour and incredulity by which they think it not lawful for them to avoid their future calamity neither shun they irrecoverable destiny which as it was the case of the Iews when Nebuzaradan led the Iews captive into Babylon burning the goodly Temple and razing the City So was it in a great measure the condition of London for though the Inhabitants had seen many Fires and seen them soon again upon Gods blessing on their endevours quenched yet This This Fire was from the begining of it a Fire of amazement a Fire bespoke by them to be portentuous they gave up all by common Opinion mistrust of vote unto it God stopped some ruling mens ears against Counsel and filled other mens hearts with terrour the rich packed away effaeminating their endevour by the securings they made of their Wives Children and Goods and those not only near and within view but remotest from the Fire when no colour or prudent probability gave judgment to warrant such doings But yet was it done and thereby the City undone for had not that exportation been their diligence and success against the Fire would have been trebled and sutably for ought any knows have prov'd successful the prayers and tears of some cooperating with the hands heads of others being more probable securities to communities then such courses of astonishment which tended to presage of depopulation and was a holocaust to nothing but the extortion and thefts of Forraigners and had not God been more merciful to Outrage and Savageness Which seisure of the Inhabitants and over early pregustation of Woe disarming them of all agible judgment and prudent succour was if not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the judgment For as in the body natural when the Sun and the Moon and the Stars be darkned when the keepers of the house shall tremble and the strong men shall bow themselves as the Preacher describes old Age c. 12. v. 2 3. Death is at the dore so in the body Politique when manly Courage flags and the spirit of people fail them so that they crep about like walking Ghosts there is a sign that God is the cause of it and punishes by it when God turns mens pleasure into fears 21 Isay 4. when fear prepares for the pit and the snare 24 Isay 17. when fear is on every side 6 Ier. 25. when God sends a voice of fear 30 Ier. 5. and when he seconds the voice with real fear 48 Ier. 43. and those that fly from fear shall fall into the pit v. 44. when God sends a fear from all those that be about men c. 49. Ier. 5. This fear of exatlantation arising from guilt and its punishment poorness of spirit is that which is the Judgement and Curse of fear Now this God does to make way for his execution and to render the endeavour against it less potent and to save himself the drawing forth of his Almighty Artiller This he doth to shew that his wrath is perfected by rendring enemies passive
to his power as well as by becoming himself active in power irresistible And as in evidences of mercy The righteous shall be quiet from the fear of evil 11 Prov. last and be not afraid of sudden fear 3 Prov. 15. and Gods people are dehorted from fearing other mens fears 8 Isay 12. And God St. Paul sayes gives not his Elect the spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1. c. v. 7. so in displayes of judgement fear shall amate and terrifie wicked men God will mock when their fear comes when it comes as Desolation 1 Prov. v. 26. 27. Fear shall be upon the Land 30 Ezekiel 13. Fear fell upon all them which saw Gods judgements 11 Rev. 11. This not only real but opinionative and imaginary fear is the Crysis of the judgement therein lies the vigour and execution of it when God gives up the Pilot to neglect steerage and stoppage when the Marriners that should ply the sails and pump prepare for planks and shipwrack when the light of reason is under a Bushel of passion and impuissance is regent in the soul and senses when the right hand not only knows not what the left hand doth but hath forgot it is a right hand or a hand and hangs it self down folded when the sluggards dilatoriness is upon men and they will sit still a little longer and pause a little more till sorrow and misery come upon them like an armed man These remisnesses in cases of strait and Paroxisms of instancy argue Phrygian wits and arrive men at woe with a witness Thus was Troy lost by the sloth and carelesness of her Inhabitants And thus Sir was London's Fate and fyring helped forward by the extremes of some mens precipitancy and other mens dilatoriness For had but Industry led the Van Security probably or at least not this havock would have Marched in the Rear but because some neglected the fire to save their Moveables and others neglected removing upon belief therein Sir I accuse my self who was one of those unbelievers that the fires limits would be within and short of them and theirs the fire diverted not from its persuit but devoured the Goods of many and the Houses of all so dangerous a thing is that which the consequence calls unpreventive wisdom that the want of it is censured by many whose fortunate fright has proved advantageous to them to be wanting to their own good and helpers forward of their own Woe And yet Sir God often impregnates his severity with this which is the Talent of Lead in the Ephah of judgment that men shall not see the day of their Visitation This fetched tears from the innocent eyes those Casements and out-looks of the tender heart of our Lord Jesus who beholding the City Ierusalem wept over it saying O that thou hadst known even thou in this thy day the things that belonged to thy peace This is that which becalmed Ierusalem who sate as a Queen and knew no evil till at last Misery came upon her in a moment and desolation as a whirlwind when men and Citties have Babylons doom to be cast into a deep sleep so that sooner may all be crumbled down about their ears and they buryed in the rubbish and confusion of their downfall than they awaken when God brings a high repose on Saul in the Cave and makes him secure amidst bare and watchless weapons of defence Then either men are taken napping as Saul was or are ruined nodding as Eutychus but for a Miracle had been and nothing but mercy reached out of the Clouds can save them from their perpetual sleep and unawaking period 51. Ier. 57. Now though Sir it be too heavy a guilt to charge this on London yet how we of this City can discharge our selves of it I do not very well know unless we take refuge in that rule Quos perdere vult Iupiter dementat or in that Quae fata manent non facile vitantur which Tacitus makes the salve for every fatality or unlesse the day of Visitation being come and the time of recompense being on us God makes the Prophet a Fool and the Spiritual man mad that is brings Prescience Counsel Courage Constancy in all degrees of their activity out of date giving men up to the just surprise of ridiculous stupidness and to obstinate contumacy against the dictates of them And if God had not intended much of this nature to be evidenced in this Case of London's trouble in order to the whole Nations abatement he would not have charged home this assault in the time of London's weakness when so many of the Good and Grave Magistrates of London men of steddiness experience and power in the City were in their Graves when many of the Weeping Fasting and Praying Intercessors of her Clergy whose Office it is to expiate for her were either absent or disseised by fear of that vigour which their hands and Prayers in full Assurance of Faith nothing doubting might otherwise have expressed against the judgment Nor would he have made the hearts and hands of the people of London so lanquid and unactive in this day of their Concern But thus and only thus it was preordained of God to lesson the Nation that God can bring down high thoughts and that the scorn and contempt of Religion and sober sincerity in Her and in her skirts might be punished with an amazing and insolite judgment that those that are round about and are not less guilty than She that is punished May hear and fear and do no more presumptuously For though London be the place smitten and afflicted by God yet because that cannot be charged on her that Iosephus relates of the seditious Jews that had gotten head in Ierusalem I will not cease to speak that which grief compels me I verily think that had the Romans forbore to come against these sedetious that either the Earth would have swallowed the City up or some Deluge have devoured it or else the Thunder and Lightning which consumed Sodom would have light upon it For the people of the City were far more impious then the Sodomites Thus Iosephus because I say though wicked enough London was yet so wicked it was not but as regular and Religious a City and as full of those that feared the Lord and called upon his Name and that Mourned for the Abominations done in it and in the whole Land as any I perswade my self the world then had or at any time ever had To convince the incredulity and ill-will of refractory spirits of the truth of which God I believe reserved a Remnant in it and was mercyful to the Bodies and Goods of the Inhabitants of it the greatest part of whom and which are now blessed be God resient dwelling and Trading in the remains of the Freedom and in the reserved Suburbs This Sir Shall be written that the Generations to come may know it and the people that are yet unborn shall praise the Lord For
if the Lord had not been on our side may London now say If the Lord had not been on our side when the Fire rose up against us then the Fire had swallowed us up quick when its rage was kindled against us Yea certainly God never mingled a Cup of wrath with more Mercy than this which was rather Physick than Poyson more a Paternal chastisement then an extirpating Vengeance For whereas he Marched against Ierusalem of old charging her from his pale horse of fury bringing truculent and bloudy Enemies against it Romans Syrians Arabians all which accompanyed â—espasian against it and that then when there were 270000 Jews which came to Sacrifice shut up by the siege in it as in a Prison and were slain and starved during the siege and at its rendition whereof 600000. were cast out of the City in such distress that a Bushel of Wheat was sold for a talent which is 600 Crowns and the dung and raking of the City sinks was â—â—â—d good Commons and necessity made a Mother kill her Child and dress it and whereas the dead Bodies lay so thick that the way by them was not passable the whole City flowing with bloud so that many parts set on fire were quenched by the bloud of them that were slain and after all the City was burned whereas God thus punished Ierusalem by giving it a Cup of trembling and filling it brimful with deadly Poyson leaving no remnant from which succession should arise or rebuilding and re-inhabitation become probable and effective yet to the praise of the glory of his Grace be it written and be this loving kindness of the Lord never forgotten by London It was not with London as Tacitus writes of Rome Sequiter clades omnibus quid urbi per violentiam ignium acciderunt gravior atque atrocior Annal. lib. 15. p. 791. Edit Dorleans No bloud of the Londoners was mingled with their Sacrifices that is no violent essusion of bloud was in London no Famine during the fire was in London God indeed made the Inhabitants of London during the distraction like Reeds shaken with the wind its Streets were confusedly walked and hurried about in thwack'd with Carts pester'd with Porters and Portadges every house threw out its Furniture which they could not carry away more orderly Men Women Children of all degrees and ages carried out somewhat either to safety or spoil some sent their Goods into the Countrey others into the Feilds and other Open places watching them many nights and others removed them from place to place to lose them at last yet though this was sad God gave them their lives for a prey and they had had the Pity Presence and Comfort of their Good King and the Noble Duke of York with the most Generous Lord Craven and others for Guards and Securers to them and theirs There were indeed bruits of fear and there were companies of suspicious persons who at the best live upon the vices of the Nation and who like Coasters ride out at Sea to expect prey from wrecks and small Boats which they can Master and prey upon such Cormorants of pillage and snaps of ruine My Lodgings were an eminent instance of before they were burned yet open violence there was none to speak of but much even of exemplary Justice and charitable Mercy In the time of the Fires raging and of the distractious impetuosity which I write not to vindicate the dissolute Multitude of pretended Labourers and other instruments of carriage who exhansed the rates of their own portadge while perhaps their Wives Children and Servants or some of them were busie at other work all becoming theirs which their hook could reach or their Net drag away Nor yet do I mention This to atone the displeasure had against those Country Carts and Labourers some of whose wages exceeded the worth of their Lading or the ability of the persons they in this distress exacted it from From these so dreadfully Mercenary to their sensual gain as no more Justice or Courtesie is to be expected than is haveable from a Spoyler who must leave what he cannot carry away and who does not take all not because he cannot find in his heart so to do but because he is afraid so to do whose avoydance of extortion is from wisdom of caution to prevent trouble not upon Conscience of duty to approve himself to God and to Humanity From These I say as no Mercy or Justice is upon resolution to be expected so the Justice and Mercy of These do I not in the least intend to mention by way of praise the Justice and Mercy then remarkable was that of many Honest persons who well understanding the Duties of Constables and Officers became voluntarily such to preseve peace and prevent disorders assisting Government against the common rout apprehending and deteining suspicious persons till they brought Good vouchers and cleared themselves And other Guards and Foot Souldiery upon duty answered the end of their array and did not only not do violence to any but secured all against the violence of any that attempted it it was not with the Sufferers in this Fire as with the Iews when the Romans besieged and Mastered them and they were envyed the Gold that was supposed to be in their Bellies it being noysed that they had swallowed down much which caused some of the Roman allyes in one night to rip up the Bellies of 2000 of them to search for that they found not which Vespasian hearing of and the cruelty of it abominating caused them to be compassed about with Horse and to be destroyed No such truculency was acted here but the Citizens wer fuffered to secure what they could and to pass and repass with what possible freedome and security the exigency of affairs would permit The Souldiers riding about and being their guard and help Thus did King Duke Peers People Souldiers do their parts but Gods Counsell stood and he did with the Buildings and Riches of the City what came in his Soveraign mind to do by reason of which the beauty vastness order of Lond. came down to its Chaos in four dayes which had been climing up to its Meridian above 2000 years exchanging its name of a goodly City for the reproach of a graceless heap The rumination of all which particulars that God suffered a City saved by the Lord from the miseries of War and the mercylessness of Insurrection Risen by grave pauses and Centuries of time into a Miracle of stature accommodated with all ingredients and concentrations to publish and establish it in request and value Whose appositeness for Trade was Magnetique of all Nations and Merchandises to it Whose Credit for order and honesty lewred Strangers out of their Countrys to reside in it and kept them here and naturalized them to it Whose Government was effectual and sweet To ends of terrour and obligement whose Customes and Franchises were beneficial and stated Whose Cittizens were
Sanctifie thoroughout both in Body and Soul are the Marrow and Fatness of all Gods Treasury of Mercies concerning this life His seasonable departure and safe arrival beyond the Seas when he might have been in the same hands his blessed Martyr Father was His Conduct and Preservation while abroad in the condition of a Pilgrim under the Eclipse of a Pensioner His preparation to reduction by his opposites dimnion and his Subjects better prospect into their Seduction combination against those Artificers of their former delusion His Generals and ever Glorious Father in fidelity to him and success for him and us I make bold with His Majesties gracious Pardâ—n humbly implor'd to use the Compellation that I have heard reported to be given him by His Majesty the now beloved and deservedly admired Duke of Albemarâ—â— his sagacity in carrying his intents undiscovered till he had both enabled himself and disabled the opposites to discover or defeat them The honest and wise Parliament of 1660 1 their plyableness first to publish and after to act the security and seasonableness of his Restoration The passivity of a potent Army and Party formerly against him which fore-seeing what is come to pass yet opposed nothing at all at least to no purpose but rather in a great measure forwarded the mercy by their activity The advantage that accrewed to His Majesty upon his reverter not only of Money and Monyes worth by Offices but by Improvement of Lands by other valuable perquisites and besides all the love of his Subjects who adoring the rising Son of so blessed and lamented a Father and accounting themselves delivered by him and Establishable against relapse only from him Sacrificed all to him Their persons and fidelity to him by Oath Their Laws Liberties and Purses to him by Parliamentary playbleness Their Prayers to him by thinking that best done which he did and their prayses of what he did as acceptable to them and magnified by them This this Sun-shine in the harvest of their hopes This This Rain of Fertility after Englands Sultre of war and dissention This mercy of Inundation in the joy of Englands King Charles returned is a mercy from the Womb of the Morning which the light sprung from on high visited us with a Visitation it was of Gods Light and of his Truth Of the light of his countenance in making our Captivity like the Rivers of the South a reaping in joy after a sowing in tears of the Truth of his Promise The seed of the Righteous shall not be forsaken of the truth of his Paternity to us who thus remembred us in our low estate For his mercy endureth for ever This this prosecuted and perfected by his deliverances from Insurrections at home from Confederacies against him abroad from the violencies of ungoâ—ly men and from the dangers and uncertainties of war This raising of him in his Reputation and making his Adversaries appear little to him Is the Matchless mercy of God to him and is Gods Envoy and Herald to beseech His Grace to suitable subjection to him and to circumspect Sanctimony before him And if O England and O London God has thus obliged thy Monarch and his Peerage and his Prelacy and his people of all degrees Then what O England does God require of this Renowned Recipient and Lodge of thy mercy by the distributions from whence thou art refreshed and inriched then that thy Monarch with all his Train of dependants do execute Justice love Mercy and walk humbly with his and their God Answer God O England Prince and people in this requiry of his Do Iustice upon sin the abominable thing that he hateth upon sin of all sorts of all degrees in all persons Execute the Laws impartially while they stand in Force Repeal them if they be supernumerary mitigate them if vexatious explain them if dubious adde to them if too short to reach and redress emergent evils and be not over-come of the evil of partiality but over-come that and all other evil with the goodness of publique spiritedness which aims at entailing Gods blessing upon him and his For he hath not only said he will forgive the sins of those that execute judgment 1 Isay 17. 18. But has promised that those that Execute judgement make their shadows as the Night in the midst of the Noon-day hide the out-casts and betray not him that wandereth to have their Thrones be Established in mercy and their Posterity sit upon them in truth 16 Isa. 5. yea with execution of judgement God whose Throne is Established by Righteousness whose ways are Mercy and Truth is so taken at that He promises to pardon a great and sinful City Ierusalem if in the streets and in the broad places thereof there can be found but one man that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth 5 Jer. 1. Thus to do Justice is to please God if it be seconded by Love of mercy to Gods poor and afflicted Ones Relieve the oppressed visit the Fatherless and Widow in their extremity be not a terrour to those that do well do not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoaking flax Let the long-sufferance and patience of God to you make you compassionate to those whose errours you ought to pity and pray for rather then punish Let Gods Longanimity in your renewed Conscience break out upon their passions in Victory over them and in vertue expressed to them that are contrary minded to you and think that the noblest Conquest that makes you triumph over mortal wrath which accomplishes not the Righteousness of God and that carries you out under every weight that would suppress your heavenly ambition to take heaven by force and to lay hold of eternal Life and to carry away the assurance of God yours in the Talons of an Eagled faith which looks upon the Son of Righteousness boldly and which mounts to the Throne of glory with humble confidence This O Prince and People of England is to love mercy To seek out every true and sacred object of it To neglect no manifestation of it to such To be unwearied in such welldoing To expend every measure of it with Eye to him in heaven that doth command cannot but accept will without fail reward it He that remembers that Gods Extraordinary benevolence to Man is phrased by shewing mercy 14 Num. 18. 3. Lam. 22. 103 Ps. 8. 11. 17. and that he promised his mercy and loving kindness he will never take from His cannot but promise himself great comfort in shewing mercy and greater in loving mercy For God delights in the mercy which is complacential and flows from the bowels and beeing of the shewer and because he delights in mercy and is a God merciful and gracious therefore he requires Men his Vicars to love mercy Evil men may occasionably shew mercy But good men only love mercy Thus O England thou hast invitations from thy God to performances of doing justice and loving mercy
Nor is this all but there is another requiry aequivalent to these in the coordination of which Gods postulation of thee is answered walk humbly with thy God This This O England is thy duty and interest to propagate also for there can be none of the two former without this latter there is no demeanour national or personal under-mercies true and uniform without the Condiment and Ballast of this Humility in owning God the spring of all authority and enablement to do justice and love mercy is that which carries the grace of resolution to its period of performance Let God O England O London have all the glory of what ye have arrived at while some put confidence in Charriots and Horsemen and say their Bow hath brought them their Venison and their Councel and their Confederacies has thus befriended them while they boast of their hearts desires 10. Ps. 3. and of a false gift 25. Prov. 14. while they boast in their Idols 97. Ps. 7. and of too Morrow which they know not what it may bring forth 17. Prov. 1. do thou O England boast only of God all the day long 44. Ps. 8. and so moderate your minds under all your mercies that ye may be termed the Ministers of our God that ye may eat the riches of your Enemies and in that glory shall you boast your selves 61 Isaiah 6. O England O London the Countrey the City of my birth breeding and love how considerable an Interest is this to thee praeponderating all those of Moneys Men Navies Armies though all admirable and useful yet without thee thus prostrate and devoutly nothing in thine own Eyes thou art nothing before God nor wilt thou be any thing against thy Neighbours but in this and in the strength of Gods might by this Thou wilt be more than a ballance to them Thou wilt be a Victor over them for God saveth the afflicted people 18. Ps. 27. that is the humble people 2. Sam. 22. c. v. 28. 49. Isa. 13. and To England and To London thus afflicted paenitent for their sins God I trust will commiseratingly say as once he did to his Church by his Prophet O Thou afflicted tossed with Tempests and not Comforted Behold I will lay thy Stones with fair colours and lay thy Foundations with Saphires and I will make thy Windows with Agates and thy Gates of Carbuncles and all thy Borders of pleasant Stones and all thy Children shal be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy Children This is the cause why I humbly provoke the Nation to humiliation before God upon view of his mercies immerited we have not been worthy of the least of those Myriaded ones that we have enjoyed nor improved them to such a degree of Melioration and gratitude as we might and ought For if those mighty wonders that had been amongst us had been done in any other Nation or City they would have repented long ago in Sackcloth and Ashes whereas We are still setled in our Lees and return not to him that smites us neither bring we forth fruits meet for repentance Further Sir I do humbly pray and wish that England and London would consider the necessity of their humiliation before God for the Judgments past present probably to come upon it and them that are Impaenitent in it and unreformed by them And here methinks I hear the Nation crying to its Neighbours inhabitants as Ierusalem is personated to cry out 1 Lam. 12. Is it nothing to you all yee that pass by behold and see If there be be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger Is it nothing to you that after above 80 years peace I should have an Intestine War an Irish Rebellion a Scotch Insurrection and an English Discord By the Tragickness of all which in Battails fought in Violencies committed in Depraedations made I lost Hundreds of Thousands of Men Millions of Wealth Multitudes of Buildings of State suffered Havock of Religion Humanity Timber and what not that was valuable to keep or get Is it nothing to you that I had wickedness setled in me by a Law and that the Rulers of the People caused me to erre turning judgment into Gall and righteousness into Wormwood till at last the light of our eyes the Annointed of the Lord fell in their snare and the blood of that Holy and Just one Charles the First my once Lord and Master was slain in me Is it nothing to you that I was made another Absyrtus and my seameless coat was torn in pieces and divided between those that then were chief That I was in a good progress to Anarchy and to an impossibility ever to have been recollected and reduced into my orderly and consistent way of regularity and harmony wherein our Governours might be as at the first and our Iudges as at the first no Neighbouring eye pitying me in this day of contempt or saying unto me Live had not God made this time of my pollution the time of his Love Is it nothing to you that God has given me a Horn of salvation in this house of his Servant David and we that under his shadow and protection sit under our own Vine and under our own Fig-tree and enjoy our good things with Peace yet do repine at the Anchor that holds us all together from wreck and think necessary aids granted to him burthens and his Proclamations and Manifests against Prophaneness and contempt of God disobeyed by many of those who will Ram and Damn themselves to be his best friends all Phanatiques who refrain from the same excess not to be heeded with them Is it nothing to you that God has brought a War upon me from my Neighbours in Situation and Religion and made the two Earthen Vessels placed in the Sea and insuperable while inseperable dash each against other and they that in their Union are a terrour to all their opposites become in Hostility the advantage of those that abet their feuds looking for that day which I hope they shall never see wherein they promise themselves the spoil of them Is it nothing to you that the God of Heaven hath brought upon many great Cities and Towns in me and into my London in Anno 1665. the grievous Plague and Pestilence wherein above a hundred thousand dyed Many of its Inhabitants were scattered into several corners of the Nation and impoverished by high expences loss of Trade and Debts and by other unavoidable accidents And when they were but a little returned and were in their way of settlement and recovery Is it nothing to you that God hath by this Dreadful fire of Londons havock given the Enemy of the setled Religion of England occasion to account England and London forsaken of God And now to be as vituperious of me and mine as their Predecessors
Prophets of Truth have been lightly set by yea shrewdly set against When the Lords Day set apart for Sanctification and Devotion hath been prophaned and made common and not only mocked at by Religions Adversaries but thought too long by Religions seeming friends and the perparatory duties to them and the performed duties on them too severe for Christians When the Judgments of God face us to humilitie as the testimony of our sorrow for sin so destructive of us yet mirth and jollity is so applauded and countenanced that no man almost Remembreth the afflictions of Ioseph The desolations that sin has already made further may and without prevention by repentance will make It is to be doubted Thy ways and doings which have not been good O England O London have procured the evils thou feelest and fearest upon thee Thy Incorrigibility and Obduration has brought the Pestilence Exod. 9. 15. Thy contrary walking to God has raised up Enemies against thee Prov. 16. 7. Deut. 28. 48. The pride we have had in our Strength hath made God contend by Fire with us and by such a Fire as hath eaten up not the great deep of England but a part of it London And yet God that has pulled some of us out of the Fire and kept others from the Fire is not returned unto as he upbraids the people Amos 4. 11. These Judgments have been upon England and London the Lord deliver us from what followed upon Israels impenitency Gods abhorrence of the Excellency of Jacob and his hating of his Pallaces God forbid that Iudgment of Gods delivery of England into her Enemies hand from his smiting of the great House of England with breaches as he hath done the little House of London with clefts ver 11. Be that Judgment O Lord be that undecreed by thee and may our repentance reverse the first thoughts of thy severity this way to us This be O Lord the punishment of those who are as Children of Ethiopians to thee sinners that swear by the sin of Samaria and say to the Deities of their own Erection thy God O Dan liveth and the Maner of Beersheba liveth Amos 8. last v. Let those who forsake thee and Follow lying vanities be thus given up to fall and never rise up again But let England and London that have trusted in the Lord be saved by thee and that with A mighty Salvation O be gracious to England that as it hitherto has so yet hereafter it may stand in thy sight a faithful Witness to thy Truth and a signal Instance of thy Patronage for ever and build thou up the walls of London that lye waste and let it once more be called the Perfection of this Nations beauty for my Nations sake I cannot be silent for my Nativities sake I cannot hold my peace I cannot contain my Pen but it will bewray my hearts Language for my Brethren and Companions sake I will wish thee Good will O London in the Name of the Lord The Lord send thee prosperity out of Sion And if the Question be asked of me By whom shall London arise for it is small my Answer shall be God only knows how by what for he can make dry bones live Yet there seems to me som ground of comfort from this That the root of London being left that which now seems arid and sapless may kindle in the womb of Providence and take root downward and bring forth fruit upward first and chiefly in repentance for past Provocations and in Vows of renewed conversation in her Inhabitants and then in making her Buildings her Judges and her Magistrates as at the first and the Renown and Authority of them as in the beginning This Sir is that which I would promise to my self and fore-speak to be the great mercy to England after revived London The late loss of which I believe to be great which my prayers are may be compensated with ten times ten Myriads of Increase and that to render it terrible to Gods and the Kings Foes and supportive to the Crown Religion Lawes under which it happily flourished till the late disastre upon it and God Almighty who knows all secrets and commands all hearts raise it up for these general and honest ends Friends and Benefactors who may not only further its acceleration to what it was but to what of further addition it may be improved to And may all the Timagenesses who hate London as he did Rome augment their grief upon the cause he did the fear and assurance he had Rome would be rebuilt more glorious than it was before The prosperity of which must be the joy and prayer of every sober English man and sincere Protestant and I hope whosoever is not both these shall never have the power to hinder it as I am sure he never will have the will to further it I could enlarge in this Subject which is so pleasing to me to expectorate my self by but over-doing is Vndoing and there is no straine but comes home with a halt Yet this I must subjoyn in comfort to London and England changes will and must come and those to great Kingdomes mighty Governments rich Cities Seneca has languaged this appositely to us All that now Noble Sir remains for me to write is to beg mine excuse for thus addressing you whose greater affairs may be judged unreconcilable with the perusal of such papers as these which carry the memoires of what is as unpleasing for you to remember as impossible to forget But I am not at all diffident of your Civility to them and me because I am in them wholly acted by the cogency of publick spiritedness to both Propose Londons case to the Nations piety and to publish mine own Gratitude to it the place of my birth and of the breeding and conversation of my Worthy Generous and most Religiously sincere and Dear Father who both lived long creditably and belovedly in it and also had the publick respect and Honour from it to be chosen Chamberlain of it upon the death of Chamberlain Harrison tho he was made incapable when his hand was upon the book to be sworn in the Office by one of those Orders that then were in date to exclude those whom that Power termed disaffected These things together with my experience conversation and search into the City Records Customes and Story in which I may modestly say I have desired not to be unknowing court me to appear thus to you Sir and to the Nation in her behalf And since Sir I have no design to promote her happiness by any black arts of injury and impiety to others Interests leaving those mysteries of iniquity to such as Clement the seventh who to advance his own Family sometimes changed the Face of the affairs of Europe and Cardinal Wolsey who to be made Legate a Latere and to be enabled to visit not onely Monasteries but all