heart-burnings against God himself discontent is a Fire within that flies and flames up against the great God as Ahaz said who with his tongue did speak but the language of the hearts of many others This evill is of the Lord why should I wait on him any longer wonder not then if the anger of God have burnt against those that did burn against him if he hath given us fire for fire We were alwayes murmuring when we had no such cause as now we have and now God hath given us as it were something to murmur for and yet let me recall my self that was spoken but vulgarly For though God should punish us with Scorpions in stead of Rods he will no tallow us to murmur but commands us to filence our selves with such a question and answer as this Why doth the living man complain man for the punishment of his sin Who so considers how unthankfull we were for what we had before the fire will see no cause to wonder at what we have lost but rather to wonder at this that such as have lost but a part did not lose all For with Parents nothing is more common than to take away those things from their Children quite and clean for which they will not so much as give them thanks as not being satisfied with them Then say Parents give them us again you shal have none of them they shal be given to them that will be thankfull for them yea say they not sometimes in their anger we will throw such a thing in the fire before such unthankful Children shall have it I see London full of open Cellars and Vaults as it were so many open Graves and Earth lying by ready to cover them How unwilling am I to say that Kiberoth Hatâ—aavah might justly be written upon them that is the graves of those that lusted after more and by that meanes lost what they had If I were one of the murmurers as there were few exempted from that guilt O Lord I have cause to own thy justice in whatsoever this Fire hath or shall contribute to my loss and prejudice and also to adore thy mercy if my share in this loss were not proportionably so great as that of many others and those my betters MEDITATION IV. Of Rebellion against Moses and Aaron procuring a destructive Fire Numb 16. THe sixteenth Chapter of the Book called Numbers in the 35 verse thereof tells us how that a Fire came down from the Lord and consumed no less then 250 Men that offered Incense not their Houses but their very Persons Some would hardly think that so small a crime as opposition to Magistracy and Ministry are in their account should have been the only causes of so heavy a judgment And yet we finde that alledged as the main if not the only reason of Corah and his Complices being consumed by fire The Confederates of Korah Dathan and Abiram are said to have been 250 Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation men of renown Yet when such as they who one would think might better afford to do such a thing than meaner men gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron saying why lift ye up your selves above the Cougregation of the Lord and they themselves would be Priests and Princes as well as they verse 10. Seek ye the Priesthood also said Moses to them yee Sons of Levi. And in the 13 verse they quaâ—rel with Moses for making himself which was false for it was God that had made him so altogether a Prince over them as who shall say they would have no body above themselves either in Church or State I say when they shewed this kinde of spirit and principle you see how God punished it These were right Levellers if I mistake not they pretend they would have all to be alike vers 3. ye take too much upon you all the Congregation are holy every one of them wherefore then say they to Moses and Aaron lift ye up your selves above others But to pretend they would have none inferiour to them surely was but a stratagem to bring to pass that they might have no Superiors or rather that themselves might be superiour to all others This was like to come to good they would have neither head nor taile in Church or State or else it should be all head or all taile But from these principles of Anarchy and Ataxy set at work I say from the displeasure of God against them upon that account sprang the fire which we there read of Much of this spirit hath been in England within a few years past when not a few gloried in the name of Levellers at leastwise in the character and principles of men so called If any of those embers be still raked up under ashes I should fear least a Fire of tumult and confusion might break out from thence and by their meanes as soon as any way nor do I question at all but that the sin and guilt of such vile and antiscriptural tenets might help to kindle that fire which lately devoured the City God will not suffer two such great Ordinances as Magistracy and Ministry which so greatly concern the good of the World nor either of them to be trampled upon St. Jude speaks sharply of such men calling them filthy dreamers who despise dominion and speak evil of dignities they who would level these the God of order will level them for such are said to perish in the gain-saying of Korah Jude 11. Of such it is said in 2 Pet. 2.12 That as bruit Boasts they are made to be taken and to be destroyed and that they shall utterly perish in their own corruption But then if we consider Moses and Aaron one as a holy Magistrate the other as a holy Minister that did greatly aggravate the sin of Korah and his Complices in rising up against and seeking to depose them for as such they had a double â—tamp of God upon them viz. both as Magistrates and as good For as such they were not only called Gods but also partakers of the divine nature and if we must be subject to Superiours that are naught and froward 1 Pet. 2.18 much more to them that are good and gentle the destruction of usefull Magistrates and Ministers is one of the greatest disservices that can be done to the World and will as soon kindle the wrath of God as almost any sin that men commit 2 Chron. 36.16 But they mocked the messengers of God and misused his Prophets till the wrath of God arose against them till there was no remedy Mat. 23.36 There we finde these words O Jerusalem that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee c. Behold your house is left unto you desolate in Numb 16.11 Moses told Corah and his Company that they were gathered together against the Lord. For what is done against Magistrates and Ministers either as Officers ordained of God or as good in their places
with his earnest prayers that assisted by the spirit of God they may kindly co-operate together with the late judgment and all others upon the heart both of the writer and readers The Author doubts not but there is a great deale of hay and stubble in the superstructure of this work of his as in and with all other his performances and it may be thine too though not so much Pray for the pardon of his defects and miscarriages as he would do of thine cover them with love which covereth a multitude of infirmities if there be any passage in this work one or more that God shall make to thee as Gold Silver or precious Stones give God the glory of it for he it is must make it so and take to thy self these following words on the unworthy Author his behalf viz. that though all that hay and stubble which is found upon him or upon any service of his must be burnt up yet himself may be saved though as by Fire in which and all other needfull requests he desireth heartily to reciprocate â—â—â—h thee who is Yet an unprofitable Servant to Christ and his Church but desirous to be otherwise S. R. THE Heads of the ensuing Discourses Meditations and Contemplations PART I. Discourses 1. OF the great duty of Considering in an evil time Discourses 2. Of Gods being a consuming Fire Meditations 1. Of the sins for which God sent Fire upon Sodâ—m and Gomorrah Meditations 2. Of destroying Fire procured by offering strange Fire Meditations 3. Of Fire enkindled by murmuring Meditations 4. Of Rebellion against Moses and Aaron procuring a destructive Fire Numb â—6 Meditations 5. Of Sabbath-breaking mentioned in Scripture as one great 〈…〉 God 's punishing a people by Fire Meditations 6. Of Gods 〈…〉 by Fire for the sins of Idolatry and Sâ—â—â—r 〈…〉 Meditations 7. Of 〈…〉 Theft Deceit false Ballances mention◠〈…〉 Scripture as causes of Gods contending by Fire Meditations 8. Of lying sâ—â—aring and for-swearing as further causes of Gods contending by Fire Meditations 9. Of the abounding of Drunkenness as one cause of the Fire Meditations 10 Of Gods punishing a People by Fire for their great unprofitableness Meditations 11. Of the universall Corruption and Debauchery of a people punished by God with Fire Meditations 12. Of Gods bringing Fire upon a people for their incorrigibleness under other Judgments Meditations 13. Of the Aggravations of the sins of London PART II. Contemplations 1. COncerning the Nature of Fire and the use that may be made of that Contemplation Contemplations 2. Touching the Nature of Sulphur which is the principal matter and cause of Fire and how it comes to be so mischeivous in the World Contemplations 3. Concerning the true cause of Combustibility or what it is that doth make Bodies obnoxious to fire together with the improvement of that consideration Contemplations 4. Of Fire kindled by Fire Contemplations 5. Of Fire kindled by Putrefaction Contemplations 6. Of Fire kindled by the collision of two hard bodies Contemplations 7. Of Fire kindled for want of vent as in Hay c. Contemplations 8. Of Fire kindled by pouring on Water as in Lime PART III. Meditations 1. OF the weight of Gods hand in the destruction of London by fire Meditations 2. Upon sight of the weekly Bill since the fire Meditations 3. Vpon the discourses occasioned by the late fire both then and since Meditations 4. Upon the dishonest Carters that exacted excessive rates Meditations 5. Upon those that stole what they could in the time of the fire Meditations 6. Upon unconscionable Land-lords demanding excessive Fines and Rents since the Fire Meditations 7. Upon the burning down of many Churches Meditations 8. Upon the burning multitudes of Books of all sorts Meditations 9. Upon the burning of the Royal Exchange Meditations 10. Vpon the burning of Hospitals and Rents thereunto belonging Meditations 11. Vpon the burning of publick Halls Meditations 12. Of the burning of publick Schools Meditations 13. Vpon the burning of Tombs and Graves and dead bodies that were buried therein Meditations 14. Upon the burning of Writings as Bils Bonds c. Meditations 15. On the burning of St. Pauls Church and the unconsumed body of Bishop Brabrooke Meditations 16. Upon the visibleness of Gods hand in the destruction of London Meditations 17. Upon burning of the Sessions-house in the Old-Baily Meditations 18. On the Gates and Prisons of London that were burnt Meditations 19. Upon the Conflagration of the Universe Meditations 20. Upon the Fire of Hell Meditations 21. Upon the coming of that most dreadful Fire in so idolized a year as 1666. Meditations 22. Upon the Fire its beginning on the Lords day Meditations 23. Upon the place where this dreadful Fire began viz. at a Bakers-house in Pudding-lane Meditations 24. Upon the great pitty that ought to be extended to Londoners since the Fire Meditations 25. Upon those that have lost all by the Fire Meditations 26. On those that have lost but half their Estates by this Fire or some such proportion Meditations 25. Vpon those that have lost nothing by the Fire Meditations 26. Vpon those that were gainers by the late Fire Meditations 27. Upon the enducements unto rebuilding of London and some waies of promoting it Meditations 28. Upon the Wines and Oileâ— that swaâ—â— in the streets and did augment the flames Meditations 29. Upon the water running down hill so fast as that they could not stop it for their use Meditations 30. Upon mens being unwilling there should be no Fire though Fire hath done so much hurt Meditations 31. Upon the usefulness of Fire in its proper place and the danger of it elsewhere Meditations 32. Upon the blowing up of houses Meditations 31. Upon preventing the beginning of evils Meditations 32. Upon the City Ministers whose Churches were saved from the fire Meditations 33. Upon those Ministers whose Churches were burned Meditations 34. Upon the killing of several people by the fall of some parts of ruinous Churches Meditations 35. Upon the Fire it s not exceeding the Liberties of the City Meditations 36. Upon the Suburbs comming into more request than ever since the Fire Meditations 37. Upon the Tongue its being a Fire c. Meditations 38. Upon the Angels their being called flames of fire Meditations 39. Upon the Word of God its being compared to Fire Meditations 40. Upon the spoiling of Conduits and other Aqueducts by this Fire Meditations 41. Upon the retorts and reproaches of Papists occasioned by this Fire Meditations 42. On the pains which the Kings Majesty is said to have taken in helping to extinguish the Fire Meditations 43. Upon meer Worldlings who lost their All by this Fire Meditations 44. Upon that forbearance which it becometh Citizens to use one towards another since the Fire Meditations 45. Upon such as are said or supposed to have rejoyced at the comming and consequences of this Fire Meditations 46. Of the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah compared with the burning of London Meditations 47 Of
lavished them upon their pride exhausted them by their luxury spent them upon their uncleanness which as so many Cormorants devoured that which might and ought to have been given to the poor I see then there are moral causes of evil as well as natural and these are some of them He is bruitish that thinks otherwise Do not the ends and interests of men sway the World next to God himself and what are they but moral causes and if such be to be taken notice of why not sin which is more considerable than all the rest Then O yee late Inhabitants of that famous City which is now in ashes as ever you desire it should flourish again repent of your pride fulness of bread abundance of idleness neglect of the poor and abominable uncleanness so many of you as were guilty of all or any of these for all were not and let others mourne over them that have sinned and have not repented that God may repent of the evil which he hath brought upon you and may build up your waste places in his good time Continue not in the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah lest their punishment be either not removed from you or if so again revived upon you MEDITATION II. Of destroying Fire procured by offering strange fire WE read concerning Nadab and Abihu that there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Lev. 10.2 Why that heavy judgment befell those two Sons of Aaron the Saints of the Lord the preceding verse will tell us viz. because they took their censers put incense therein and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not Their fault was this God had sent down fire from heaven upon his Altar Levit. 9.24 It should seem it was the pleasure of God and doubtless they knew it that his sacrifice which one calls his meat as the Altar his Table should be kindled and prepared with that fire only which by continual adding of suel as need required was to be kept from ever going out as is supposed Levit. 16.10 There 't is said Aaron shall take a censer full of Coales of fire from off the Altar and his hands full of incense and bring it within the vaile Now they presumed to offer incense to God with common fire which came not from the Altar before the Lord and for this they were burnt to death Upon this passage Bishop Hall worthily called our English Seneca reflects thus It is a dangerous thing saith he in the service of God to decline from his own institutions we have to do with a power which is wise to prescribe his own worship just to require what he hath prescribed powerful to revenge that which he hath not required MEDITATION III. Of fire enkindled by murmuring IN Numb 11. the first and third verses I read these words When the people complained it displeased the Lord and the Lord heard it and his anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burnt amongst them and consumed them that were in the utmost parts of the Camp And he called the name of the place Taberah because the fire of the Lord burnt among them It doth not much concern our present purpose to enquire what the cause of this their murrâ—uring was which yet is thought to have been want of meat in the Wilderness and thence the place where they were punished to have been called the graves of lust as our Margents do English kiberoth hattaavah neither need we be infallibly resolved what kind of fire it was that God sent amongst them for their murmuring it is all we need observe at the present that they were punished by fire and that murmuring was the sin they were punished for Our punishment I am sure hath been by fire as well as theirs ought we not then to examine whether cur provocation was not much-what by murmuring even as theirs was were we contented when the City was standing yea did we not grumble and repine at one thing or other every day and yet we think we should be more than contented that is to say very thankfull and joyfull if we had but London again if that great City Phenix-like might but rise out of the ashes and our places know us once more It should seem then we had enough then to be contented with and thankfull for but we knew it not as it is said of husbandmen Faelices nimium sua si bona norant If some were in worse condition than formerly would that justify their murmuring were not the Israelites in the Wilderness when they were punished for murmuring and had they not enjoyed a better condition than that in former times Do we murmurers think that men are to blame and was not Shimei to blame when he cursed Daivd and yet David looking higher viz. unto God submissively replied it may be the Lord hath bid him curse me The Robbers and spoilers of Israel were in fault Yet seeing it was God that gave Jacob to the spoile and Israel to the robbers that was reason enough why they should be dumb as a sheep before the Shearer and not open their mouths in any way of murmuring If we so remember our miseries as to forget our mercies if we aggravate our evil things and extenuate our good if we be so vexed and displeased with men as if they were sole authors of all our troubles and as if God who owes and payes us such chastisements had no hand in them If in our hearts we quarrel with God as if he were a hard master and had done us wrong if when we had food and raiment we were not content if when we had something and that considerable and how could our loss have been considerable if our enjoyment had not been so we were as unsatisfied as if we had just nothing If so do not these things plainly prove that we were murmurets many of us and whose experience doth not tell him that these things were so how many things have we repined at that men could not help as namely the pestilence now in such cases it is evident that we have not murmured against men but against the Lord Exod. 16.8 Nay if men be punished far less than their sinâ— deserve and yet will not accept of that their punishment but fret at him that inflicted it what must we call that but murmuring And was not that our case I had almost said that England even before this fire was so full of discontent whatsoever the cause were as if all the plagues of Egypt had been upon it and how after this iâ— can swell more without bursting is hard to conceive So little had we learn'd good Eli's note It is the Lord let him do what seemeth good to him Now if the Law of retaliation be burning for â—urning as we read it was Exod. 21.25 How just was it with the great God to send a Fire upon us for our grievous discontents and murmurings Murmurers are full of
the burning of Troy compared with the burning of London Meditations 48. Upon the burning of Jerusalem compared with that of London Meditations 49. Upon people taking the first and greatest care to save those things from the Fire which they did most value Meditations 50. Of people scarce knowing whâ—re their houses stood soon after the Fire Meditations 51. Of the Statue of Sir Thomas Gresham left standing after the Fire in the Old Exchange Meditations 52. Of the Pillar of Brass or Stone appointed to be erected in remembrance of the Fire Meditations 53. Of the Anniversary Fast perpetually to be observed in remembrance of the Fire Meditations 54. Of the burning of Sion-Colledge Meditations 55. Of Citizens dwelling in Booths or House like Booths as in Moor-fields c. Meditations 56. Of certain Timber-houses and other sleight buildings at which the Fire stopt as in Smith-field c. Meditations 57. Upon the warning which other places may and ought to take by the burning of London Reader take notice that through mistake the Numbers 25 26 31 32. in the third part are twice printed which makes them end with 57. instead of 61. PART IV. Discourses 1. OF Deliverance under losses and troubles as well as out of them Discourses 2. Of this that the life of man consists not in the abundance of what he possesseth Discourses 3. Of the Lessons of an afflicted estate well learnt their making way for prosperity to ensue Discourses 4. Of being content with Food and Rayment Discourses 5. Of the way to be assured of Food and Rayment Discourses 6. Of a good conscience being a continual feast Discourses 7. Of getting and living upon a stock of spiritual comfort Discourses 8. Of its being a great mercy to most Men that their lives are continued though their livelihoods are greatly impaired Discourses 9. Of the comfort that may be received by doing good more than ever Discourses 10. Of abstracting from fancy and looking at those that are below our selves rather than at others Discourses 11. Of neer Relations and Friends being greater comforts each to other than they had wont to be Discourses 12. Of training up children in Religion that they may come to have God for their portion Discourses 13. Of that comfort under trouble which may be drawn from the consideration of Gods nature Discourses 14. Of drawing the waters of comfort under affliction out of the Wells of Gods Promises Discourses 15. Of fetching comfort from the usual proceedings of God with his people in and under affliction Discourses 16. Of that relief and support which the commonness of the case of affliction may afford us Discourses 17. Of the lightness of all temporal afflictions Discourses 18. Of the shortness of temporal Afflictions Discourses 19. Of the needfulness and usefulness of Affliction Discourses 20. Of the mixture of mercies with judgments Discourses 21. Of the Discommodities of Prosperity and Benefits of Affliction Discourses 22. Of the gracious ends and intendments of God in afflicting his people Discourses 23. Of Resignation to God and acquiescing in his good pleasure Discourses 24. Of taking occasion by this to study the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly things Discourses 25. Of not being too eager upon the world after this great loss Discourses 26. Of chusing rather to continue under affliction than to escape by sin Discourses 27. Of preparing for our own dissolution now we have seen the destruction of London Next to this place the Title Part I. and the Epistle to the Earl of Northumberland PRELIMINARY DISCOURSES AND Meditations OF THE SINS FOR Which God hath first and last brought THE JUDGMENT OF FIRE PART I. By SAMVEL ROLLE Minister of the Word and sometime Fellow of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge LONDON Printed by R. I. for Tho. Parkhurst Nath. Ranew and Jonathan Robinson 1667. To the Right Honorable ALGERNOON Earl of Northumberland Baron Percy Poinings Fitz-pain and Bryan Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter and one of his Majesties most honourable Privy Counsel To the Right Honorable EDWARD Earl of Manchester Baron of Kimbolton Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter Chamberlain of his Majesties Houshold and one of his Majesties most honourable Privy Counsel AND To the Right Honourable Sir THOMAS INGRAM Chancellor of the Dutchy and one of his Majesties most honourable Privy Counsel S. R. Sometime Minister of Thistleworth and your Honours much obliged Servant humbly dedicateth the ensuing Discourses and Meditations with Apprecation of all Grace and Happiness Preliminary Discourses DISCOURSE I. Of the great duty of Considering in an evil time HE that would see my Commission for engaging in the work of meditation at such a time as this in which few men know what to do or say or think may read it in those words of Salomon Eccles 7.14 But in the day of Adversity consider Times of extraordinary trouble as they afford most matter to the Pen of an Historian so likewise to the mind and heart of an observing Christian Not considering in such times is called not seeing the hand of God when it is lifted up or refusing to see it For the word translated here consider is in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is see Now saith the Prophet They will not see when thy hand is lifted up but they shall see and be ashamed c. Yea thâ— fire of thine enemies shall devour them Isa 26.11 Wherefore is it that God doth call upon his people to enter into their chambers shut their doors upon them hide themselves till the indignation be overpast for the Lord commeth out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquities Isa 26.20 Is it not that men might then and there consider what God hath done and is doing He can do little in his chamber as a christian that might not be done elsewhere that knows not how to meditate and pray there nor can the latter be well performed without the former Therefore the Psalmist doth well joyn those two together Psal 19.14 saying Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight O Lord. Sure I am Affliction calls for a great deal of seriousness even to a degree of sadness James 5.1 Go to now you rich men weep and houl for your miseries which shall come upon you And should they not weep as much for those that are come upon them already and can no waies be prevented Now great seriousness there cannot be where there is no musing and considering and wheresoever considering is such as ought to be there must needs be seriousness I shall think that man despiseth the chastening of the Lord which is strictly forbidden Heb. 12.5 who is not thereby put upon considering such things as are behooveful for him and suteable to the circumstances under which he is So much is hinted to us by these words Isa 5.12 They regarded not the work of the Lord neither consider the operation
of his hands Methinks the punishment threatned in that case seems to speak that there is contempt of God in the sin said I only threatned yea executed For there is not only a woe to such v. 11. but in the 13. verse is added Therefore my people are gone into captivity And v. 14. Therefore hell hath inlarged her self and their glory and their multitude shall descend into it Doubtless it is a great sin in Gods account that procures so great a punishment Who can perform the grand duties of an afflicted state without considering who must not of necessity consider and as the Poet calls it in sese descendere go down into himself if he will search and try his wales and turn to the Lord as that afflicted Church is exhorted to do Lam. 3.40 But surely that proof is ex abundanti which is more than the express command in the first cited text and in others parallel with it Deut. 8.5 Thou shalt consider that as a man chasteneth his son so the Lord chasteneth thee where both the matter and manner of their chastisement seemeth to be proposed to their consideration viz. that God had punished them and how But I have produced these proofs rather as motives to excite our wills and affections to so hard a work than as arguments to prove so easie and manifest a truth If the question be put what are the things we should consider of in an evil day it must here receive but a general answer for to answer it particularly and with reference to that amazing judgment by fire which lately befell the great City will be the drift and substance of all our ensuing Meditations and Discourses Yet I shall venture so far forth to prevent my self and anticipate what is behind as to say that it is our duty in an evil day to consider first what may make for our own humiliation and principally these two things viz. the greatness of our own sins Lam. 3.8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned therefore she is removed Also the greatness of the judgments of God that are upon us For as sins so judgments ought not to be extenuated Lam. 4.6 The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom that was overthrown in a moment Secondly what may make for the vindication of God as just and righteous in all that he hath done against us To that purpose are the ensuing expressions of Scripture Job 34.23 God will not lay upon man more than is right that he should enter into judgment with him Pharaoh himself could say The Lord is righteous but I and my people are wicked And this was when God rained down baile and fire upon him Exod. 9.27 and so said Rehoboam when Shishak came against him 2 Chron. 12.2 Shall such as they justifie God and shall not we saying with the Prophet Jeremy Lam. 1.18 The Lord is righteous for I have rebelled c. And as he elsewhere Man for the punishment of his sin And then the causes of our Afflictions those we should also consider of remembring that trouble springs not out of the dust We should look at God as the efficient cause of all out miseries Lam. 2.17 The Lord hath done that which he hath devised he hath thrown down and hath not pitied and in that Chapter we finde the hand of God owned in every verse for ten verses together Neither is it less needful to consider what are the meritorious and procuring causes of all our miseries So Lam. 3.42 We have transgressed and rebelled thou hast not pardoned And Lam. 1.6 Jerusalem remembred not her last end therefore she came down wonderfully Nor may we forget the final cause or Gods primary end in sending them which is of all the rest most comfortable to consider So saith Moses to the Israelites Deut 8.2 Thou shalt remember the way which the Lord thy God led thee this forty years in the Wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee c. Also Heb. 12.10 But he chasteneth us for our profit that we might be made partakers of his holiness Again we ought to consider what are the duties that are incumbent on us in a time of Adversity what is the Law and the Decorum of that condition and how we ought to behave our selves under the rod of the Almighty viz. Humbly Patiently Circumspectly c. of which we shall have occasion to discourse more fully hereafter The next thing to be considered at such a time is how and wherewithall we may be able to support and bear up our own hearts and the hearts of others in an evil day David saith Psal 119.50 This is my comfort in my affliction for thy word hath quickned me Which may be thus construed that it was a comfort to him in his afflictions to think that the Word of God had been a quickning and inlivening word to him which to many others is but as a dead letter One end of Gods vouchsafing us his Word is said to be that we through patience and comfort in the Scripture might have hope Rom 15.4 and that we should endeavour to comfort others is evident from 2 Cor. 1.4 where God is said to comfort his people in all their tribulations that they may be able to comfort others that are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith themselves are comforted of God One thing more I think of that should be considered by us in a time of adversity but shall not presume to say that and the rest I have mentioned are all and that is how and by what means we may in Gods way and without sin in Gods due time obtain deliverance as Paul in another case cries out who shall deliver we read in 1 Cor. 10.13 that God will together with the temptation also make a way to escape How to finde out a way of escaping is the care of all men or of the most but how to finde out that way which God hath made for our escape which is alwaies a lawful and a regular way that should fall under our consideration as also how to avoid and shun all other waies of escaping though ever so easie to us Now have we so many things to consider of in an evil day then O my soul here is work for thee as much as ever thou canst turn thy self to Gird up thy loines and set about it Now if ever is a time for serious consideration for who knows not that it is a time of great adversity and rebuke and needs it must when the most famous City in these three Kingdoms that was lately such is become a very ruinous heap Now London the glory of three renowned Kingdoms is made almost like unto Sodom and to Gomorrah Surely that man hath lost his thinking faculty that cannot think of this and he that is not sensible of it is past all feeling and seared as with a hot Iron O my soul I scarce know what to think of thee that
thou hast considered this no more Much less know I what to think of those that have not considered it so much as seeming to think of nothing else but how they may make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof How many thought they could have said when time was If I forget thee O London let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth which yet have almost forgotten poor London and now God hath burned it round about scarce lay it to their hearts Methinks we are in an age in which are more Pharaohs than of any other sort of men infinite wisdome can scarce invent judgments that will awaken and make us look about us and consider The Iron age is a name too good for us Fire with the addition of some small matter besides as vinegar c. will melt Iron but will not melt us it will make that capable of any impression or to be cast into any mould but it will not do so by us Lord I see the heart of man will yield to nothing but thy self It can play with judgments and plagues though they were greater than those which came upon Pharaoh and so far forth contemn them as scarce seriously to consider of them at leastwise when past and gone Nor yet whilst present and incumbent as they ought to do Thou who hast created a day of great adversity such as we never lookt for create I beseech thee in me and in others a heart duly to consider it and together with it the things that do belong both to our present and future to our temporal and eternal peace DISCOURSE II. Of God's being a consuming Fire THree several times do I call to mind the holy Scripture saying expresly besides what it mentioneth elsewhere to the same effect that our God is a consuming Fire twice in the old Testament and once in the new First by way of caution Deut. 4.23 24. Take heed to your selves least you forget the Covenant of the Lord your God which he hath made with you and make you a graven Image or the likeness of any thing which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee For the Lord thy God is a consuming Fire even a jealous God Secondly by way of comfort Deut. 9.3 The Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee as a consuming Fire meaning to their enemies as the next words do show he shall destroy them viz. those children of Anak of whom they had learn'd to say who can stand before them vers 2. them and their Cities great and fenced up to Heaven as they are called vers 1. Thirdly by way of counsel or positive exhortation unto serving God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12.28 For saith the text vers 29. Our God is a consuming Fire And well may God be so stiled not only effectivé as he is the first cause and authour of all those fires that consume houses Towns and Cities as God is pleased to own Isa 42.25 That he had set Jacob and Israel on fire round about nor careth the great God who knowes yea he would have all the World to know that all evil of punishment as such and so far forth as it is only such is from himself Amos 3.6 Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it But not only in that sense may God be called a consuming Fire for that he is so essicienter as Christ upon such an accompt is called the resurrection and the life but also and chiefly because the fire of all Elements yea of all inanimate creatures seemes to bear the greatest resemblance of God in respect of more than one of his glorious attributes as namely of his irresistible power his awfull presence and affrighting Majesty his impartial and devouring severity his consuming anger c. Of the strength and power of Fire What creature here below so powerfull as fire who or what can stand before it how applicable unto fire are many of those expressions whereby God in his answer to Job sets forth some of the most untameable creatures as that which is spoken of the wilde Ass Job 39.7 He scorneth the multitude of the City Did not the fire do so and that of God concerning Behemoth Job 41.4 Will he make a Covenant with thee wilt thou take him for a servant for ever Who can master fire though it be never good but when it is as a servant also in some sense those words in the 27. vers may be applied to this powerful Element It esteemeth Iron as straw and Brass as rotten wood also those words in the last verse He beholdeth all high things He is a King over all the children of pride Methinks some lofty expressions which are used concerning God himself are more applicable to fire than to any other creature It is said of God Isa 40.15 That he taketh up the Islands as a very little thing So doth fire though not whole Islands yet things of great bulk as houses Churches and such like which are easily blown up by it as it were at one breath or puff It darts them up into the aire in an instant like a fleete arrow shot from a strong bow Cranes though made on purpose to mount heavy things yet are long in doing it yea seem to squeek and groan in raising one great beam at a time as if the burthen were more than they could well bear whereas this Giant Fire if I may so call it makes nothing of it to take whole houses upon its back with all their weighty beames massy stones leaden roofes lumbering goods and mount them into the aire presently Moreover it is said of God vers 16. That Lebanon is not sufficient for him to burn nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering Surely London was far before Lebanon and yet when the most of it was burnt up did the fire say it was enough Could not that ravenous Lion have devoured the Suburbs presently with as great an appetite as it had done the City if the great God had not stopt its mouth or pluckt away its prey Doth not Solomon rank fire amongst the Cormorants that are never satisfied Prov. 30.16 Who can write or almost think what Fire can do what building so high be it beacon or steeple that fire cannot presently climbe to the top of it What mettle so hard that fire cannot melt it such as the fire may be It was only for hast that it left the out-sides of Churches standing pickt out the meat as it were and left the bones untouched In length of time it could have so calcined those bricks and stones as to have made them good for nothing but ready like the Apples of Sodom presently to crumble to dust But should I think of all that fire can do I must think of nothing else I less wonder at those Heathens that did worship fire than at those who worshiped any other creature sith no visible creature is
so great an embleme or so lively a picture of the power of God Yet did they very ill to worship it sith the power of fire though great is but finite and as much transcended by the power of God as it self transcends the power of other things Of the Power of God transcending the power of Fire If a little Fire one single Fire taking its rise it may be but from a spark or two can do such great things what cannot he do who made all the Fires in the World and that of Tophet or Hell to boot which is greater than all the rest the Pile whereof is much wood and the breath of the Lord like a mighty streame of brimstone kindleth it Isa 30.33 How powerfull is he that hath all the Fires in the World at his beck ready to execute his pleasure Psal 148.8 Fire and haile fulfilling his Word He that hath an host of fires wherewith to fight his battles and avenge his quarrel can easily incounter all his enemies if all the World were such If it be made appear that the power of God be far beyond that of all the fires in the World who then can deny his power to be incomparably great and that it is so we may plainly see for that God suspends the influence of fire at his pleasure Witness the three Children who though in midst of a burning fiery furnace yet not so much as a haire of their heads was singed nor had the smell of fire passed upon them Dan. 3.27 He can do more than fire who can so limit fire its self that it can do just nothing God forbid I should adore fire as the heathen did but he that can do what he will by fire or without fire yea against Fire it self he I say must needs be worthy of humblest adoration and that in reference to his power Of the dreadfulness and terribleness of fire Neither do we see in Fire a representation of the power of God only but also of his awfull and terrifying presence If we do but hear people crying out either by day or night Fire Fire how doth it affright us as if a potent enemy were at out Gates but if we come and see it is so indeed and that we are not abused with a false alarme how much more terrour doth that strike us with our eyes then affecting our hearts and causing them even to sink and die within us how ghastly did men and women look how distractedly did they run about how did their haire even stand an end how little did they know what they said or did whilst with safety enough to their persons they did at a sufficient distance gaze at the Fire consuming their own and other mens houses had they themselves been in their houses at the same time as at other times they might have been burnt in their Beds some fast asleep others but newly awake the fire might possibly have had only dead Carcasses to consume as having been first killed by the greatness of their feares Read Heb. 12.21 where it is said so terrible was the sight of Mount Sinai that burned vers 18 that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake even that Moses that did not fear the wrath of Pharaoh could not without trembling stand and behold Mount Sinai all on fire And yet what is it to see the most dreadful Fires in comparison of what it is to feel or live amidst the smallest flames To lie or think of lying one hour in a fiery Oven were much more terrible than to have stood at a distance and beheld Sodom or any other City all in flames Wonder not then that sinners in Zion are afraid whilst they say who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire who amongst us shall dwell with everlasting burnings No execution so terrible to men as that which is performed by fire and therefore that is reserved for the greatest of malefactors as wizards witches and such like unless when bloody Papists have had the dispensinâ— of it and then it was the portion of the choicest Christians Saints and Martyrs They forsooth will provide fiery Chariots for Gods Elijah's to ascend up to heaven in But we know that kind of punishment is due only to the worst of men because the greatest of earthly punishments and the most like to hell If Fire be not exceeding terrible why did the generality of men flie before it as fast as they could and leave all that was near it to its mercy or rather cruelty yea it is commonly reported that some of the strongest and most undaunted bruits as Wolves and Bears and Lions are kept in awe by Fire and dare not approach it So that Fire is as it were a wall of defence to Men against those salvage enemies If the Lion roare saith the Scripture shall not all the â—easts of the Forrest tremble and yet himself trembles at the sight of Fire In a word if it be the professed opinion of Papists as I think it is that all persons and consequently themselves must abide for some time more or less in the Fire of Purgatory I wonder that every person so believing should not live in continual horrour crying out as those finners in Zion Isa 32.14 Who can dwell with devouring fire were it but for the space of a few moneths or daies much more for many years together and in a smaller time few of them seem to expech a release from that place of torment though they have advantages for that purpose above most other persons If it were possible for a man to lie but one day in fire unconsumed and he did know and believe he should do so would not the expectation thereof anticipate the comfort of hiâ— whole life From that natural dread of fire that is in men and every mans apprehensiveness of that kind of torment being intollerable I am led to think that all Papists are either miserable or hypocritical miscrable in believing an uncomfortable lie viz. the doctrine of Purgatory or hypocritical in not believing that which they profess to own as a great and necessary truth But enough as concerning the terribleness of our material Fire Of the terribleness of God Consider we now whether the great God be not also exceeding terrible in that respect fitly stiled a consuming fire Deut. 7.2 The Lord thy God is amongst you a mighty God and terrible also Deut. 10.17 and Nehom. 1.5 The great and terrible God that keepeth Covenant And Job 37.22 With God is terrible Majesty And Psal 65.5 By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us O God c. and Psal 66.3 Say unto God how terrible art thou in thy works Psal 68.15 O God thou art terrible out of thy holy places Psal 76.12 He is terrible to the Kings of the earth Jacob had a great dread of God when God spake no other than good and comfortable words to him when he saw God standing above the ladder which was shewed him in his
dream Gen 28.13 see v. 16. and 17. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep and said surely the Lord is in this place And he was afraid and said How dreadful is this place This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven The gate of Heaven and yet dreadful as God was in that place God at that time spake nothing but promises and encouragments yet did Jacob tremble at his presence Our God is fearful even in praises If Jacob did but dream of God he was filled with awe and that not only whilst the dream lasted but when he awâ—ke and knew he had but dreampt If God be so terrible when he is pleased what is he when he is angry Psal 76.7 Who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry God was friends with Moses when he told him Gon. 33.20 Thou canst not see my face for no man can see me and live And v. 22. whilst my glory passeth by I will put thee in a clift of the rock and will cover thee with my hand whilst I pass by v. 23. And thou shalt see my back parts but my face shall not be seen Much of the terribleness of God is insinuated in that strange passage Exod. 33.3 I will send an Angel before thee for I will not go up in the midst of thee lest I consume thee Here we read of God wishing the Israelites to let him go from amongst them because his terrour was such but elsewhere concerning the men of Bethshemesh sending God from amongst them like those Gadarens that besought Christ to depart their coast 1 Sam. 6.20 Who is able say they to stand before this holy Lord God and to whom shall he go up from us v. 21. And they sent to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim saying Come ye and fetch the Ark of the Lord up to you Namely because God had slain fifty thousand three score and ten of the Bethshemites for looking into the Ark. Much like to this were the words of Peter to Christ Luke 5.8 Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord. Let the Prophet Isaiah tell you how awful the presence of God is whom you finde thus crying out Wo is me for I am undone for I am a man of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts How full is the 18. Psalm of expressions setting forth the awful Majesty of Gods presence from v. 7. Then the earth shook and trembled the foundations of the hills moved and were shaken because he was wroth But to quote all that might be quoted to that purpose were to transcribe a great part of the Bible Of the Anger of God represented by Fire Therefore O my soul pass on and think of something else in which the parallel holds betwixt such Fire as that whereby our famous City was lately burnt to ashes and God himself who is stiled a consuming Fire Once again As the power and awfull presence of God are livelily represented to us by this material Fire so also is his anger and that both as to the essence and nature of it as also to several attributes if I may so call them of that attribute of God viz. his wrath As namely the impartialness of it like fire that spareth neither one thing nor another as also the fierceness of it and its consuming destroying nature to which might be added the intollerableness of it c. First we know it is the nature and property of Fire to act as if it were in a great passion and yet it never is in any nor is it capable of any Thus saith God of himself Isa 27.4 Fury is not in me that is I am in no passion neither can he be yet adds who will set the briars and thorns against me in battle I would go thorough them I would burn them together Such things as are the usual effects of anger are frequently done by God but such an affection as wrath in Man is can no wayes consist with those perfections which are in God no more than with the nature of fire upon other accounts I must not forget that I was even now speaking of the impartiality of Fire as one property of that Element by which it resembleth God Fire is no respecter of persons or things so their nature be but combustible it spares neither one nor the other May I not allude to those words 1 Cor. 3.12 If any Man build upon this foundation Gold Silver precious Stones Wood Hay Stubble Here are variety of superstructures mentioned but the Fire buries all in one common heape layes the gold and precious stones amongst the rubbish as well as the wood hay and stubble It mingles Flint stones and Diamonds Pibbles and Jewels in one and the same Grave As is said of Death Eque pulsat pauperam Tabernas Reguâ—â—que turres the like may be said of fire It as soon takes hold on the Pallaces of Princes as on the Cottages of Peasants And is there not the like impartiality in the great God His anger knowes no difference betwixt small and great high and low Psal 76.12 He cutteth off the Spirits of Princes he is terrible to the Kings of the Earth Did he not sink rebellious Pharaoh as low in the red Sea as any of his common Souldiers 〈◊〉 did he not give his carkass in common with theirs to be meat to the fishes of that Sea See Isa 9.14 15. The Lord will cut off from Israel head and taile The ancient and honourable he is the head c. Isa 10.12 I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of his high looks vers 26. And the Lord of Hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the Rock of Oreb Judg. 7.25 and the Psalmist speaking of Sisera and Jabin the latter of which was the King of Caâ—â—â—â— and had 9000 Chariots of Iron Judg. 4.3 〈◊〉 Sisera was his General saith of them that they perished at Endor and that they became as 〈◊〉 for the Earth Psal 83.10 See what God did to Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 5.21 He was driven from Men and his heart was made like the beasts and his dwelling was with the wilde Asses they fed him with Grass like Oxen and his body was wet with the dew of Heaven till he knew that the most high God ruleth in the Kingdome of Men and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will Must Jehojakim needs be buried in state because he was the Son of Josiah King of Judah and did succeed him in the Throne No saith God Jer. 22.19 He shall be buried with the burial of an Ass drawn and cast forth beyond the Gates of Jerusalem Thus the anger of the great God like fire puts no difference betwixt them that sit on Thrones and those that go from door to door Hence that in Psal 2.10 Be wise oh ye Princes c. Serve the Lord
with fear c. I observe another property in fire and that is great fierceness and eagerness so that for that matter there is no other creature comparable to it A shee Bear robbed of her Whelps A Bull in a Net full of the sury of the Lord is not half so fierce as fire I would see either of them two in an angry humour gnaw great beames of Iron in sunder and make them crumble to dust or let them but make some massy Oak beams presently fly in two in token of their rage but if they can do neither fire exceedeth them in strength and fierceness but yet not so much as its self is exceeded by the fierceness of the wrath of God for whose wrath the Scripture hath no Epithite more common than that of fierce Num. 25.4 32 14. and Psal 88.16 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me and in the abstract Psal 78.49 He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger and Nahum 1.6 Who can abide the fierceness of his anger The power and fierceness of fire may be conceived of and we may fear as much or more hurt than the fire can have opportunity to dous yea this time many of us did fear it would have done more hurt but the wrath of God is beyond all that our minds can comprehend Psal 90.11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath The wrath of God is a vast Ocean as I may call it his judgments are a great depth and fire is but one stream of that Ocean and therefore fire can be nothing like so fierce as is the wrath of God Sword and Pestilence are two other streames of the wrath of God and there are many more by which you may judge how fierce the main Ocean is every arm and rivulet whereof runs with such a mighty torrent In how many channels of distinct punishments did the wrath of God break out upon Pharaoh and his people and yet towards them he did not stir up all his wrath neither But the next property of the wrath of God viz. its consuming devouring nature which fire may represent to us as much as any earthly thing will plainly prove that divine anger is exceeding fierce Which of all the creatures God hath made is so able to destroy so profound to make slaughter as fire is And is it not in that respect an Embleme of the wrath of God What manner of expressions are those Deutr. 32.22 A fire is kindled in mine anger and shall burn unto the lowest Hell and shall consume the Earth with her increase and set on fire the foundations of the Mountains also Psal 90.5 They are like the grass which groweth up In the morning it flourisheth in the evening it is cut down and withered For we are consumed by thine anger Also Psal 46.8 Come behold the works of the Lord what Desolations he hath made in the Earth How doth the wrath of God consume persons not only as to their estates but as to their inward comforts which are far more precious Psal 39.11 When thou with rebukes doest correct man for iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth Yea how the wrath of God consumes Families Job 31.12 It is a fire that consumeth to destruction and would root out all mine increase Meaning that the wrath and curse of God which the sin he there purgeth himself from viz. Adultery would procure that which would do so that might root out all his increase both as to estate and off-spring c. might quite consume his Family Of Gods wrath consuming Towns and Cities we have many sad instances as namely in Sodom and Gomorrah in Jerusalem Sometimes the glory of the whole Earth And a much more modern and sad instance as to our selves in London its self with teares be it spoken which none of us ever thought to have survived Yea whole Kingdomes have been consumed by the wrath of God and turned upside down witness the Chaldean Persian and Grecian Monarchies with several others but when was it ever heard that a whole Kingdome was destroyed by Fire These things considered the consumptions and desolations which are made by Fire may justly put us in mind of those greater desolations which the wrath of God is able to make on persons families and Kingdoms Of the intolerable pain that Fire can put men to There is one thing more in Fire and that is the intolerableness of that pain and misery which it is able to put us to in reference to which I would yet further parallel it with the wrath of God I know no pain so exquisite as that which proceeds from Fire I know no person alive so patient as that he is able to bear it if he be grievously burnt or scalded till such time as the fire be taken out that is to say bear it without doleful moans and outcries Of the greater intolerableness of the wrath of God I think there is no man whose heart would serve him to think of lying in a siery surnace such as the three children were cast into Yet is not Fire its self got within us or about us so intolerable as the wrath of God It goes by the name of Fiery indignation Heb. 10 27. not as if it were no worse than fire but as fire being the most tormenting creature we know can best express it It is the sense of divine wrath that wounds the spirits of men and therefore it is said A wounded spirit who can bear that is none can bear Prov. 18.14 I read Heman saying Ps 88.4 I am ready to die from my youth up whilst I suffer thy terrors I am distracted And v. 16. Thy terrors have cut me off And David Psal 38. There is no rest in my bones because of my sins And v. 8. I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart as being under a sense of Gods wrath v. 1. Rebuke me not in thy wrath Whosoever said any thing may be borne but the wrath of God doubtless meant very well but he had spoken better and past all exception if he had said Any thing may be borne better than the wrath of God There is no viall that scalds like to that If Francis Spira whilst despairing in his bed had been burning at a stake instead thereof I question whether that material fire would have put him to so much misery as did the anguish of his mind overwhelmed with the apprehensions of divine wrath and of his future dwelling with everlasting burnings If hell its self be a fire kindled by the breath of Gods wrath as it is said of Tophet that the breath of the Lord like a mighty stream of Brimstone kindleth it Surely the wrath of God is much more intolerable than any visible or culinary fire whatsoever I see then the Spirit of God according to his manner hath couched much sense in a few words when he tells us that our God is a consuming
fire There being such a likeness as is betwixt the Creator of all things and this creature I desire as oft as I behold fire to think of God whilst I admire the scarcely resistible power of Fire let me ever adore the utterly irresistible power of him that made and governs it Whilst it amuseth me to think what work and havock Fire can make in a few daies or hours Be amazed O my soul to consider what greater desolations God can make in the twinkling of an eye and with a word of his mouth If he will but speak concerning a Nation to pluck it up or pull it down it will be done presently Jer. 18. with him it is but a word and a fatal blow Methinks it doth not only help my meditation of but facilitate my belief concerning the greatness of the power of God Impartialness of his revenging Justice Severity and Fierceness of his anger Intolerableness of his displeasure when I see so much of such things as these in one of his creatures which in our houses we prefer to no better place than our chimneys and are unwilling even there to place it or suffer it to ascend too high May I think of Fire more frequently and solemnly than otherwise I should for those resemblances of God which are to be found in it I confess to think of God by the name of Love as he is called 1 John 4.8 16. is more pleasing and may better suit us under great dejections but to meditate of God as a consuming fire may profit us more when our hearts which is too usual want that due awe of God which should preserve them from sinning wilfully against him If God be Fire to sinners let us not dare to be as Tinder or as Gun-powder to Sin and Temptation If we come not neer a dismal Fire but with trembling hearts let us not approach God but with holy reverence and let us learn to tremble at his word which also is compared to fire Yet lest I dwell too long upon this one subject to the prejudice of others I will content my self with the addition of a few plain Corollaries so easie to be drawn from Gods being a consuming Fire in the sense given of it that he which runs may read them If God be Fire woe to them that are briaâ—s and thorns Isa 27. he will consume them If God be Fire it concerns us to prove our selves and our work for the Fire shall make all things manifest 1 Cor. 3.12 If we lay chaff and stubble though upon a good foundation our work will be burnt up and our selves saved but so as by Fire that is with great difficulty and much ado What impunity can great ones promise themselves if God be as impartial towards all sorts of sinners as Fire is towards all combustible things If the wrath of God be more intollerable than Fire who would not fear to offend him If the power of God be more irresistible than Fire it self who would set himself against him or who can do it and prospâ—r yea who would not labour to have God on his side For who can be against us that is to any purpose if God be for us Is God so able to destroy let me be none of his enemies Is he Fire then O that I might be Gold for if so though he may purge me yet he will not consume me In a word is God a consuming Fire then knowing the terror of the Lord Let us consider what manner of persons we ought to be in all holy conversation and godlyness Meditations and Discourses of the Reasons that are found in Scripture of Gods bringing the Judgment of Fire upon a person or people MEDITATION I. Of the sins for which God sent Fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah THe first pernicious Fire of which we read in Scripture was that which fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah Gen. 19.24 The general cause of it was that which was told Abraham Gen. 18.20 And the Lord said because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous But their particular crimes are set down Ezek. 16.49 where God upbraiding Jerusalem saith Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom pride fulness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters neither did she sâ—rengthen the hand of the poor and needy v. 50. And they were haughty and committed abomination before me therefore I took them away as I saw good Now what that abomination was which they committed I think St. Jude tells us most plainly Jude 7. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities about them giving themselves over to Fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternalsire Now the three first crimes charged upon them viz. Pride Idleness and Fulness of bread did make way for the last viz. their being given up to Fornication Pride prepares for uncleanness as it disposeth persons to those habits and gestures which tempt others to tempt them to wantonness witness the great pride which some take in going extreamly naked whence it often happens to them as to Hezekiah after that he had shown the King of Babylons messengers more of his treasure than was fit for them to see Isa 39. it was not long after that the Babylonians came and took away all he had from his children and carried both them and theirs into captivity One meeting a boy with a basket of chickens wide open askt him how he would sell them who answering him they were not to be sold he replied to the boy again Then fool shut thy Basket But that by the way It comes to pass by the judgment of God that proud persons often prove unclean because uncleanness is a disgraceful sin and so the more fit for proud persons to be left unto in order to making them more humble For of him that committeth Adultery Salomon saith Prov. 6.33 A wound and a dishonour shall he get and his reproach shall not be wiped away Persons by that sin are said to dishonour their own bodies Rom. 1.24 Also that very complexion which is most samed for proud is generally observed as most prone to uncleanness and 't is too commonly seen that a fantastical which is a proud habit and a filthy heart go together and those places are generally most notorious for lust that are most infamous for pride as if those two weeds delighted to grow in the same soil proud spirits and proud flesh go usually hand in hand And as for Fulness of bread by which we are to understand Gluttony and Luxuriousness in the use of meats that is as great a hand-maid to Lust as Pride can be Jer. 5.7 When I fed them to the full then they committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots houses v. 8. They were as fed horses in the morning ever one neighed after his neighbours wife He adds v. 9. Shall I not
publick worship but in the very season of it in so much that there was more company sometimes in the fields on the Lords day than in the Churches was it for want of Churches to repair to how could that be when there were so many within the City it self that now the Fire hath destroyed above fourscore yet some remain It could not be for want of room in Churches for many were almost empty and some of those in which I doubt not but the sincere milk of Gods Word might have been enjoyed Why were Taverns and Ale-houses that stood in the fields so frequented on the Lords daies more than on working daies as if they had been the Churches and Bacchus the God that men ought to worship yea it is vehemently suspected that Stewes and Baudy-houses were not without their customers on that day as well as on any others Oh the wanton carriages that mine eyes have seen on that day in the open fields The greatest part of those I met seemed to be on the merry pin laughing jesting and disporting themselves one with another both young men and maidens By their behaviour one would have took it for some jovial time rather than for a day holy to the Lord in which men are enjoyned not to think their own thoughts speak their own words or finde their own pleasures How few have I heard taking the name of God into their months on that day otherwise than in vain and by cursed oaths as I have walked some miles an end I verily think that many people had wont to spend the Lords day worse generally than any day in the whole week Many did spend other daies in honest labour who mis-spent the Lords day in dishonest recreations So far were most from preparing for it before it came that few kept it holy when it was come Jews will not omit the preparations to their Sabbaths but Christians did not only so but pollute the Lords day its self I might speak of such as did take the boldness to work on the Lords day notwithstanding that they read to the contrary in Neh. 13.15 Jer. 17.21 and expresly in the fourth Commandement in which it is said Exod. 20.10 In it thou shalt not do any work thou nor thy servant and yet did not some hard masters exact all their labours of their servants on those daies when they had hast of work Have we not others set their wits on work to dispute against that day and to write against it witness many ill Treatises extant to that purpose And why might they not as well have written against the other nine Commandements as against the fourth Why must that only be thought Ceremonial when all the rest are confessed to be Morral If God have seemed to change it from the last to the first day of the Week can we take a just occasion from thence to abrogate it I doubt not but the day we now keep by the name of the Lords day was intended in the second Commandement as well as that which they under the Old Testament kept which was called the Sabbath A seventh day or one day in every seven is provided for by that Commandment to be kept holy but not alwaies the seventh day from the creation For it is not said that God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it but that he blessed the Sabbath-day or that day which himself had or should appoint to be kept as a Sabbath or time of holy rest which under the Old Testament was the last but under the New is the first day of the week called the Lords day for that Christ rose again as on that day Although the first administration of the Lords Supper was in unleavenned bread yet the institution of it is for the use of bread not of that which is unleavenned So though God rested on the seventh day from the Creation yet his legal Ordinance doth not precisely require the observation of that day but of one day in seven Who doubts but baptisme and the Lords Supper are now as much in force by vertue of the second Commandment as Circumcision the Passover were of old that Commandment referring to such Ordinances as God should appoint as well as to those which he had appointed and so the fourth Commandement to any day in seven that God should enjoyn as well as to that which he had enjoyned Why should not the practice of the Apostles be a sufficient warrant for changing of the day 1 Cor. 16.2 On the first day of the week let every of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him It appeareth that was their day of meeting for worship because on that day they made their Collections for the poor and in Act. 20.7 it is said that on the first day of the week when the disciples met to break bread Paul preached to them intimating that was their day for partaking of the Lords Supper and therefore in all likelihood for other religious services Now would the Apostles have ventured to change the day without leave and command from God so to do But if any man be not convinced by these arguments that the day ought to be so changed yet let him shew me the least colour of reason for abrogating of the fourth Commandment and observing no day in the week as a Sabbath to the Lord. Most men if they must keep one day in the week holy had as lieve it should be the first day of the week as the last Most of those that quarrel at the observation of the first day or Christian Sabbath I fear do it because they would observe none at all but as for those that conscientiously observe a seventh-day Sabbath I dare not call them Jews for Judaizing in that one thing but think they may be better Christians than many that are more Orthodox as to the Time and Day But as for those profane persons that have and do refuse to dedicate either the last or first day of the week to God as a Sabbath or holy rest I must be bold to tell them if they be English-men they had a great hand in setting London on fire which was a vast loss to the whole Nation and came doubtless for the sins of the whole Nation as well as for the sins of its inhabitants I say you had a great hand in it and particularly by your prophanation of the Lords day as the Text I quoted from Jer. 17.21 leads me to think I had almost said that was become a National sin as by the general practice of it so for want of due endeavours to restrain it such as Nehemiah used Nehem. 13.16 and therefore no wonder if God have punished with that which was is and will be a sore stroke upon the body of the Nation But besides the gross prophanation of the Lords day whereof wicked men were guilty viz. by working playing and doing more wickedness then than at other times I fear few of the better
charge to the sons of Levi to slay every man his brother and his companion and his neighbour v. 27. and all for their sin in reference to that Golden-calf and in v. 10. said God to Moses Let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them and that I may consume them By which we may plainly see that the Idolatrie I have been speaking of which is against the second Commandment kindleth fires as well as that which is against the first Commandment Therefore a Caveat is entred against Graven images Deut. 4.23 upon the account of Gods being a consuming fire and a jealous God a fire that can burn and full of jealousie which is the rage of God as well as of man so that he will not spare in the day of his anger Now if any should think it harsh to call that which is intended as the worship of the true God by the name of worshipping Idols when Idols are made use of only as memorials of God and helps to worship let them consider that if such worship any thing really and truly it is the Idol that is before them for it must be either that or God it is not God they worship for he accepts it no more than if they had cut off a dogs neck or offered swines blood Isa 66.3 See Acts 7.43 O ye house of Israel have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years yea ye took up the Tabernacle of Moleck He denies they offered to him because they corrupted his worship and so in effect he was not worshipped at all Amot 5.25 and Isa 1.11 Sring no more vain Oblations Therefore such persons doing that which God accounts now orship to himself are said to worship the Idol they pretend to worship by and so to bless an Idol Isa 66.3 and in 1 Cor. 10.20 The things which the Gentiles sacrificed they sacrificed to devils not to God not that they intended their Sacrifices for the service of devils least of all when they offered their sons and daughters Psal 106.37 Yet because it was a sacrifice acceptable to the devil and abominable to God it is said that they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils That is to the Idols of Canaan which they took for their Gods and not for devils v. 38. But moreover God punished worshipping by Idols as if it were worshipping of Idols because the former leads to the latter and will introduce it in time and presently too amongst a great many Many that are taught to worship before Images cannot distinguish of doing it Relatively not Absolutely mediately and not ultimately and so they do it absolutely and not relatively ultimately and not mediately Idols are brought in by the help of distinctions but when once brought in the distinctions are forgotten and the Idols only are remembred and the more ignorant sort of people will turn perfect heathens that is worshippers of stocks and stones The jealous God fore-seeing this forbids all use of Images in and about his worship seeing that kind of dalliance and kissing the calves will end at last in going a whoring from him by such Idolatrie as was amongst the blindest Heathens Now God would prevent the in-lets of evil and therefore he would not permit the Nazarites so much as to eat the stones of Grapes lest it should bring them by degrees to drink Wine which they had vowed against so neither will he suffer men to worship by or in the use of Images lest they come at last to worship Images themselves And to the end the worship of God might be kept pure care is taken in the second Commandment that men should present God with nothing as either medium or pars cultus but what himself hath prescribed for by the same reason that worshipping by Graven-images is forbidden are we prohibited the use of every other thing as any means or part of divine worship which Gâ—d hath not instituted Hence those words Mark 7.7 In vain do you worship me teaching for doctrine the traditions of men For the Pharisees to place Religion in washing before they eat whereas it was no more but cleanliness Mark 7.3 was very displeasing to our Saviour Christ Paul was very angry with those that pretended to a voluntarie humilitie in worshipping Angels Col. 2.18 that is they gave out that men ought to go to God by the mediation of Angels as being the more reverent way of addressing to God but Paul saith they were vainly puft up with their fleshly mind for that they intruded into those things which they had not seen any warrant for in Gods Word And as for those Galathians that did observe daies and moneths and times and years the Apostle saith plainly he was afraid he had bestowed upon them labour in vain namely because they thought to please and to worship God in and by those things which were never of his own appointment I wish then that whosoever shall read this Chapter may become convinced if not so before how greatly the sins of Idolattie and superstition do provoke God and kindle the fire of his wrath Saul gave Samuel a superstitious reason why the people took of the Sheep and Oxen the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroied namely that it was to sacrifice to the Lord in Gilgal Yet this their devotion besides and contrarie to Gods command is called Rebellion and said to be as the sin of witchcraft and as for Idolatrie if Idolaters do in Gods account sacrifice to devils how just is it for Idolatrie to be reckoned as the sin of witchcraft 1 Sam. 15.23 Witches are burnt by the Laws of our Land Now if that which God calls Witchcraft should grow common amongst us viz. Idolatrie so called also in 2 Kings 9.22 which God forbid and the wisdome of our Governours will I hope seek to prevent we may expect more burning yet behind and such a fire of judgment to ensue as will consume us to utter and endless destruction Now Lord if those men whose Religion teacheth them to insist upon their merits and if others have merited also to flie to their works of supererogation as their manner is to idolize themselves and their own works if such shall attempt to break in upon us like a flood grant that thy Spirit poured out upon our Rulers may lift up its self as a standard against them MEDITATION VII Of Oppression Theft Deceit false Ballances mentioned in Scripture as causes of God's contending by Fire I Am forced to put several sins together that have affinity each with other because there are so many to which the judgment of fire is attributed or against which it is threatned that to consider them singlely would take up too much time and room I finde God threatning the Jews Ezek. 22.20 That he would put them into a Furnace leave them there and melt them And the cause thereof is assigned vers 29. The people of the Land have
which were too common in the great City till the very time of its destruction by fire though possibly as common or more in some other place Was it considered at leastwise it is now time to consider what is spoken Zach. 5.4 The curse shall enter into the House of him that sweareth falsly by my Name and shall consume it with the timber and stones thereof How was the Land over-run with perjury What if few causes were tried in which there was not oathes against oathes men and Women swearing point blank one against another Both could not be true Contradictoria non possent esse simul vera How ordinary was it with men to swear what was impossible for them to perform How have oathes been bought and sold were there not those that made a trade of swearing Knights of the Post men called them they would pleasure any man with an oath that would but pay them for it How many have presumed they could carry almost any Cause defend any title how bad soever by a pack of swearers which were ready to serve them upon all occasions As long as they could have oathes for their money they feared nothing England hath driven a mighty trade in oathes forward and backward and made them so common that with many men they are grown contemptible and they have learnt to play with them as is said of some that they use Ludere Juramentis ut pueri tesseris Alas how many made nothing of it to swear a hundred oathes they would do this or that as namely they would pay such a debt by such a time and yet never mean to do it O England if thou hadst no sin but this it were no marvel that this Metropolis should now lye in the dust For such oathes as these doth the great City that was yea and the whole Land suffering with it mourn at this day Though some have exposed themselves to temporal ruine for fear of oathes yet have not others desperately said they would not be undone by refusing oathes of what kind soever they would trust God with their soules and not men with their estates If this sin were not as oile to the late flames I know not what was It is no whit strange that false swearing should be punished with temporal fire when meer lying or false speaking is threatned with that fire which is eternal Rev. 21.8 But then as for vain swearing how common was it as if men had never heard of the third Commandment which saith Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for he will not hold them guiltless Vain Oaths slew about like so much Musket-shot when two armies are in fight so that they struck every man his cars at leastwise that went along the streets Who that heard the needless Oaths men had wont to swear could but think of Davids words Be not merciful to any that transgress without a cause I am confident there were some that took a great pride in swearing and thought it a great piece of Gentility to abound in Oathes though many Tinkers and Tapsters could swear as fast as they but could they have had the monopoly of swearing to themselves and a prohibition upon all poor men to swear as wel as they would they not have accounted it a very great honour and priviledge Thus did they glory in their shame Unless they vaunted themselves in shewing how bold they did dare to make with God I see not why they should be proud of their vain swearing What wit was there in rapping out an oath Or what fool could not utter as many oathes as they who was so silly as to honour them for their swearing Or who did the rather believe them for it yea who did not infer that because they would swear without cause they would also lie How did men bid a daily defiance to that text that saith Above all things swear not and practise as if St. James had said my brethren above all things swear When London was become as full of oathes as the aire is of motes which spake the tongues of men to be set on fire of hell no wonder that there came a flying roll filled vvith a curse vvhich consumed the timber thereof and demolished the stones thereof Zach. 5.4 May then the horrid sins of lying svvearing and forswearing be buried as it vvere in London's ruines so as never to rise up more and may the late Inhabitants of the same mourne as it vvere in dust and ashes for those great provocations and if ever London be its self again may he pass for a monster and become a hissing and by-vvord that after so great a vvarning shall presume to svvear falfly or vainly or so much as to utter a vvilfull lie MEDITATION IX Of the abounding of Drunkenness as one cause of the Fire VVHo can think of England's yea of London's sins and not remember Drunkenness vvhich did so much abound Or vvho can think of the fire and that sin together and not recount that passage Nahum 1.10 Whilst they are drunk as Drunkards they shall be devoured as stubble fully drie Methinks it vvas but yesterday since London vvas as dry stubble before that Fire vvhich the bruitish sin of drunkenness amongst others did help to kindle What havock that very sin can make vve may read Isa 28.1 2. Woe to the Drunkards of Ephraim Behold the Lord hath a mighty and strong one such vvas our fire which as a tempest of haile and a destroying storme as a flood of mighty Waters over flowing shall cast down to the Earth with the hand Was not that Dutch-sin of Drunkenness grovvn to a very great heighth amongst us Whilst vve vvere in War vvith their Nation vve vvere in league vvith their grand vice vve vvere not more enemies to them than friends to it Paul observes in his time that Those that were drunk were so in the night 1 Thes 5.7 Better so than in the day time because it spake them ashamed of vvhat they did but so were not many of those Drunkards that helpt to fire the City who had the boldness to reâ—le and stagger along the streets all hours of the day so declaring their sins like Sodom Great ones had taken up that pittiful sin which men of their quality in former time had wont to scorn As they would have scorned to steale so as much almost to have been drunk Was not the Proverb in old time as drunk as an Apâ— afterwards it came to be as drunk as a beggar but now they say the Proverb is as drunk as a Lord. There seemes to be a design amongst some men to bring sin in credit and to overthrow that saving of Solomon that Sin is the reproach of any people Some think by their own espousing of this or that sin to put honour upon it as a Nobleman that by marrying of a Chambermaid advanceth her to the title of a Countess But alas they will finde that be they ever
persons I have described are past all question useless and meer cumber-grounds like dead trees fit for nothing but to burn I shall not take the boldness to say that England doth and London did abound with such persons as these or that such walking carkasses carried about by that evil spirit that possessed them and did as it were assume them were to be seen every day but whether it were so or no they better know that know London know all England better than I pretend to do And if it were so indeed it is not so much wonder that the houses of such men were burnt as that their persons did escape or that God did not rather consume their persons and spare their houses like Lightning that spares the Scabbard and melts the Sword Sin had made a great part of the inhabitants as much dry wood in one sense as want of rain had made their houses such I marvel not then that so great a Fire approaching such prepared fewel both within and without did so much execution but rather that it did no more May the issue of that dismal Fire which was lately amongst us be the same that husbandmen effect or design in burning their Lands viz. that we as they which before were barren and unprofitable may become useful and fruitful which Lord grant for Christ his sake MEDITATION XI Of the universal Corruption and Debauchery of a people punished by God with Fire I Need not go far from that Text on which I grafted the next preceding meditation To finde another that will plainly prove the universal corruption and degeneration of a people to have as it were inforced God though he be slow to anger and rich in mercy to contend with them by Fire yea and consume them The same Prophet furnisheth me with a large instance in that kind too large to transcribe and therefore I shall rehearse but part of it and refer to the rest For it reacheth from Ezek. 22.19 to the end of the 31 verse Thus saith the Lord because ye are all become dross therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem v. 20. as silver into the midst of a furnace and I will leave you there and melt you v. 22. And ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you That they were all become Dross signifies no more but this that they were universally depraved and debauched as appeareth plainly by that Indictment which is given in against their Priests and Prophets and Princes and common people that is against persons of all ranks and conditions in the sequel of the Chapter The like charge there is to be found Isa 9.27 For every one is an hypocrite and an evil doer and every mouth speaketh folly v. 14. Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail branch and rush in one day v. 18. For wickedness burneth as the fire it shall devour the briars and the thorns That is the wicked amongst them the best of which was as a briar or as a thorny hedg It is sad to consider that there have been certain times in which no sort of men have kept themselves pure and unspotted but all have defiled their garments in which the fire of sin hath spread as much more than in other ages as the late Fire upon London spread it self beyond all the Fires that City had known formerly Some time before the destruction of the old world by water it is said that All flesh had corrupted his way Gen. 6.11 and when God was about to rain Fire and Brimstone upon Sodom not ten righteous persons could be found to stand in the gap And a strange challenge it is which God makes Jerem. 5.1 Run through the streets of Jerusalem and see now and know if ye can finde a man if there be any that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth and I will pardon it Is it so with us at this day or is it not Are we universally corrupt and degenerate and debauched or are we not Have all sorts of men corrupted their waies and done abominably or have they not Possibly in this our Sardis there are some few names that have not defiled their garments but alas how few are they and what are so few names to the generality and body of a Nation Are those words of Isaiah applicable to us or not There is no soundness but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores from the sole of the foot even to the head Isa 1.7 and then followeth your Country is desolate your Cities are burnt with Fire Might I take leave to be particular I would say that City and Countrey and Court and Inns of Court and Universities all have exceedingly corrupted their waies what a corruption in judgment hath over-spread us some turning to Socinianism others to Popery others to Atheism yea great and Leviathan-like Atheism How great a corruption is there at this day in the habits gates and gestures of men and women which I would not trouble my self to speak of but that as little a thing as it may seem it is a symptome of great evil within for many times the habits of the mind are signified by those of the body A proud habit and a proud heart a wanton habit and a wanton heart do often if not alwaies meet For what modest woman would put on the attire of an harlot or who cares to make shew of more evil than is really in them and not rather to conceale that which is A modest habit is not so sure a sign of a chaste heart for that may be worn for a cloak of dis-honesty as an immodest habit is of one that is unchaste For what woâ—an that is conscious to her own chastity would render her self suspected for a whore It may seem a small matter for sick people to play with feathers and to make babies with their sheets but it is an usual fore-runner and consequently a sign of death So the habits of men and women when they carry with them a great appearance of Pride Levity Wantonness Inconsistency of mind Prodigality Fantastickness Inconstancy do give great jealousie to wise men who can discern much light sometimes through small crevices that the Age or rather persons of this Age do abound with such kind of vices and that there is some kind of Fatallity belonging to it because people use such antick postures and gestures as dying persons are wont to use I wish the fore-mentioned vices had get no neerer men than their skins that they were but skin-deep but as the Itch and such like diseases are first within and then strike out first insect the mass of blood and not till afâ—erwards the habit and surface of the body yeâ— and often strike in again and corrupt the blood a second time so it is to be feared that men and women are generally proud and wanton in heart before they are so in habit and become so in habit because they were
first so in heart Now if the hearts of many be such as their most fantastick and garish habits make show of those words of Solomon Eccles 9.3 Must needs be verified in them The heart of the Sons of Men is full of evil madness is in their heart whilst they live c. Yet for all this I would exercise charity concerning the habits of men and women though that be hard to do did not the common practise and course of this Age assure me that it is universally corrupt and degenerate and as it were expound the meaning of such suspicious habits It is no difficult thing to prove the sins of this Age because men now adayes declare their sins like Sodom and do as it were spread a Tent in the face of the Sun as did Absalom I am much mistaken and so are many more if the gross sins of swearing cursing Sabbath breaking drunkenness whoredome together with too great a connivance at and impunity to these and some others be not more chargable upon England at this day than they had wont to be Are not these the things which male-contents do alledge to justify their murmurings though neither are they or can they be thereby justified as I have plainly shewed in that Chapter in which I have discoursed of Rebellion against Moses and Aaron We must keep our stations and do our duties though other men should refuse to do theirs If a Wise play the harlot may her Husband in requital commit adultery no such matter This premised I may the more boldly say whatsoever the matter is and whence so ever it comes a very general corruption there is amongst us What is said of the soul viz. that it is Tota in toto tota in qualibet parte wholly in the whole body and wholly in every part may be applied to sin as if it were become the very soul that did animate and inform the Nation I was about to say I fear good men are generally not so good as they had wont to be and bad men are become a great deale worse the former having suffered like strong constitutions that have been impaired by bad aire and the other like unsound bodies which are almost brought to the Grave thereby And now let me say with Jeremy O that my head were a fountain of teares that I could weep day and night for the corruption as he said for the destruction of the daughter of my people and O that I could say with David mine eyes run down Rivers of teares because men keep not thy Laws at leastwise that with righteous Lot of whom it is said without the least hyperbole that he did vex his righteous soul with the conversation of the Sodomites so could I mine with the sins of England mine own and others O Lord thou seest how even the whole Mass of English blood is wofully corrupted by sin as it fareth with those that have had a Dart struck thorough their Liver in that sense Solomon is by some supposed to intend it viz. as a periphrasis of the fowle disease so that there is hardly any good blood in all our â—â—ines and arteries outward applications whether of judgments or mercies of themselves cannot cure us Inwardly cleanse us we beseech thee by the inspiration of thy spirit and purge our Consciences from dead works to serve thee that thy wrath may no more burn against us as Fire but that at length thou maist call us Heptzibah a people in whom thy soul may delight MEDITATION XII Of God's bringing Fire upon a People for their incorrigibleness under other Judgments WE have already spoken of twelve several causes of God's contending with a people by Fire and yet there is one behind as much in fault as any of all the rest and that is the sin of incorrigibleness I could presently produce three sufficient witnesses as it were to depose what I say One is that text in Isaiah Chap. 1. vers 5 7. Compared together Why should yee be smitten any more yee will revolt more and more your Countrey is desolate your Cities are burnt with Fire The next is Isa 9.13 compared with the 19. The People turneth not to him that smiteth them Through the wrath of the Lord of Hosts shall the People be as the Fewel of the Fire But Amos speaks out yet more plainly if that can be Amos 4.6 I have given you cleanness of teeth yet have you not returned to me saith the Lord vers 8. I have with-holden the Rain from you vers 9. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew c. vers 10. I have sent among you the Pestilence after the manner of Egypt Now the burthen of all the Indictment is Yet have yee not returned to me saith the Lord. Then in the next verse he brings in God speaking thus I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah vers 11. And how was that but by fire So that you see the judgment of fire came as it were to avenge the quarrel of other abused judgments when Famine and Pestilence had done no good upon them then God used Fire which as being the worst was reserved to the last Most of the judgments denounced by Amos go under the notion of Fire Chap. â— 2. and incorrigibleness you see is one main reason rendered of Gods inflicting those judgment Now England hold up thy hand at the Bar and answer Art thou guilty or not guilty of the great sin of incorrigibleness and you dispersed inhabitants of that once famous City which now lieth in the dust little did I ever think to have called you by that name speak out and say were you guilty or not guilty of much incorrigibleness under other judgments before such time as God began to contend with you by that Fire which hath now almost consumed you Plead your innocency if you can Either prove you were never warned or sufficiently warned by preceding judgments or make it appear that you took warning and mended upon it That war by Sea which hath been as a bloody issue upon the Nation for several yeares past and is not yet stanched was that no warning piece That impoverishing decay of trade which hath made so many murmur was it no warning to us to repent and reform If it were a great judgment did it not call upon us to reform and if but a small one why did we so much repine at it That devouring pestilence which in one years time swept away above a hundred thousand in and about London was it not a sufficient warning to us from heaven Yet after all this how few did smite upon their thighs and said what have I done I doubt few have been the better for all these and many the worse who since God hath so smitten us have revolted more and more which is such a thing as if Jonah should have presumed to provoke God more than ever even then when he was in the great deep and
in the Whales belly or Daniel whilst he was in the Lions Den or the three Children in the midst of the fiery Furnace I wish some of our greatest sins had not been committed in the time of our greatest dangers as is spoken to the shame of the Israelites that they provoked God at the Sea even at the red Sea God having threatned that if great judgments do not reform a people he will send yet greater it is no wonder that it is with London as it is but rather that the execution of this punishment was defer'd so long Concerning Gods heating his Furnace seven times hotter for a people when a more gentle Fire hath not consumed their dross we read Levit. 26.24 If yee will not be reformed by these things I will punish you yet seven times for your sins Also ver 18.21 24 28. I will bring seven times more Plagues upon you according to your sins How justly may God complain of us as he did of the Jewes in old time Jer. 5.3 Thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive correction they have made their faces harder than a Rock they have refused to return God hath made us as a boiling Pot but our sâ—â—â— is not gone forth of us Ezek. 24.10 As some Children though their Parents are severe enough are so bad that one would think they were never corrected but suffered to do what they list so hath it been with England Such as is the way of a Ship in the Sea which leaves no foot-steps behind it whereby it may be seen which way it went when it is out of sight So hath it been with the Plague and Sword and other judgments in England they have left little or no impression behind them whereby it might be discerned that God hath attempted to reform us by such terrible judgments We have cause to admire that God hath not in wrath ceased to punish us at the present intending to reserve us to the day of judgment and of the perdition of ungodly men to be punished It is one of the greatest punishments for God in wrath to give over punishing and to say as concerning Ephraim He is joyned to Idols let him alone or why should they be smitten any more they will revolt more and more It would kill the heart of an understanding patient when very ill to hear his Physician say let him have what he will and do what he will for then would he conclude he takes his condition to be desperate and hath no hope of his recovery O Lord sith thou art pleased to condescend so far as yet to chosten us For what is man that thou shouldst magnify him that thou shouldst visit him every morning and try him every moment Job 7.18 intimating thereby that thou hast not utterly cast us off but art in a way of reclaiming us be pleased to bless and sanctifie those thy chastisements and do us good by them as we would do by our Children if we knew how or if it were in our power Thou canst make less correction if thou so please to work a greater reformation in us One twig of thy rod and one lash of that twig being sanctified will do us more good than a Scorpion that is not Suffer us no longer by our incorrigibleness under judgments to add contempt and contumacy to all our other sins which is able to swell a small crime into a hainous offence When Christ who is compared to a refiners fire Mal. 3.2 Shall sit as a refiner and purifier of Silver let him purifie thy people and purge them as Gold and Silver that they may offer to the Lord in righteousness Then shall their Offerings be pleasant to the Lord v. 3 4. Do not thou alwaies correct us for our beeing incorrigible but vouchsafe to correct and cure our incorrigibleness its self so shalt thou receive more glory and we shall henceforth need less correction MEDITATION XIII Of the Aggravations of the sins of London O London how were thy sins out of measure sinful Consider thy sins without their aggravations and I doubt not but there were many places in England proportionably to their bigness more wicked than London was particularly many Sea-towns and some Inland most consisting of Innes and Ale-houses But how few of those places that equallized or possibly exceeded London in wickedness did ever come neer it as in reference to means of grace and other mercies I have heard of a Papist who in a storm did vow in case he were delivered that he would give to the Virgin Mary a ' Taper no less than the Main-mast of the Ship he was in but when the storm was over persideously said that he would make a Farthing-candle serve her turn Were not the means thou didst enjoy like the Taper he promised whilst those which other places enjoyed were but like the Candle which he performed Some wicked Towns have been like Aegypt for darkness whilst London was like Goshen for light Capernaum it self was not more truly lifted up to Heaven in the abundance of means than London had been For gifts and knowledge thou wert another Church of Corinth Had the mighty things which have been done in thee been done in other places who knows how they might have proved To be sure thou hast had line upon line precept upon precept here a little and there a little In thee an excellent Sermon might have been heard every day of the week and oft times more than one in a day The men that inhabited thee any long time for their time might have been all of them teachers though all did not profit accordingly They could not but know their masters will if they cared to know it and therefore if they did it not were worthy of many stripes I am loath to say what course fare the souls of men had in other places and what short commons whilst thou wert fed to the full Thou hadst Quailes whilst they had scarcely Mannah Thy Ministers spake like the Oracles of God whilst some of theirs could hardly speak sense Paul and Apollos and Cephas were yours whilst amongst them the blind lead the blind and no wonder if both fall into the ditch O London it is impossible thou shouldst sin so cheap as other places might do considering those words of Christ John 15.22 If I had not spoken to them they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin Had thy sins been but motes there was that sun-shine would have made them all to appear but alas how many of them were beams I know not those sins that were found else-where that were not to be found in the midst of thee Though thou hadst the Prophets of God crying to thee early and late O do not this abominable thing which my soul hateth Some body spake long since by way of admiration or aggravation rather what go to hell out of London England is presumed to have more knowledge in the things
sort ought not to be bad in contempt or to be needlesly put into a combustion Alas were it not that God had put a divine stamp upon Magistrates as he hath been pleased to call them Gods surely they could no more rule the people when in the calmest temper that ever they are in some being alwaies too rough then they could rule the Sea What wisdom can it then be to put so unruly a body into agroundless commotion If this Sea once become troubled work and rage and foam and swell how much is it to be feared it may overflow all its banks and invade us with a ruining inundation It was not cowardize but prudence in Herod to decline putting of John to death for fear of the people because they accounted him a Prophet Matth. 14.15 Likewise in the chief Priests and Elders of the people not to reply unto Christ that the Baptism of John was of men because of the people who all held him as a Prophet Matth. 21.26 For my own part I dread the Insurrection of people no less than the consequences of Fire it self the beginnings whereof have appeared very contemptible so that it hath been said as is reported that such a fire as that was at the first might be pissed out but the conclusion fatal beyond all imagination Now do I long to be at the end of this Meditation but having promised to shew what the matter of those particles is whereof Fire consists and considering with my self that some good morall may be gathered and infer'd from thence as I have already hinted that sulphurious or oily particles are those whereof Fire doth altogether or mostly consist so I shall now undertake to prove that so it is and consider how we may improve it It is manifest that all mixt bodies here below are compounded of five Elements or principles viz. Spirit otherwise called Mercury Water or Phlegme Sulphur or an Oily kind of substance Salt and Earth For each natural body be it of vegitables Animals or Minerals is by chymical art reduced or resolved into these five From any such bodie may be drawn a spirit or generous subtile liquor an Oile a Water a Salt and a kind of Earth saving that the two last are rather said to stay behind than to be drawn now if each body that is burning be as it is both its own fire and its own fuell both that which burns and that which is burnt then one or more of the fore-mentioned principles so modified must be the matter and form of fire As for the Watery and Phlegmatick part of each body no man will so confound two Elements so contrary each to other as to say that is the Fire which consumes Then as for that Salt and Earth which belongs to bodies they are not the Fire that burns them up for that which burns so far forth consumes and flies away but Salt and Earth they remain after the greatest burnings under the form of Ashes True it is that spirit or spiritous Liquor which is in Bodies is capable of taking Fire as we see spirit of Wine will burn and Feavers arise in the bodies of men by vertue of their spirits being inflamed but then we must consider that there is but little of that which is called Spirit or Spirits in Timber and such like materials of houses as are destroyed by Fire neither is the Fire of any great duration which hath only Spirits for its fuell as we see in the bodies of men that those Feavers which only fire the Spirits never last above three or four daies and many times not above one day and are therefore called Ephemeral Having therefore quitted Water Salt and Earth from being the causes of Fire and also proved that the Spirits of such kind of bodies which have but little of Spirits in them cannot contribute much to the maintenance of a desolating Fire Sulphur or the oyly part of each body will appear to be the great Incendiary and to be more the matter fuell and fomenter of Fire than any thing else And that it is so doth yet further appear in that such bodies of all others are most apt to take Fire and to burn fiercely when they have so done in which there is most of a sulphurious or oily substance as Oile it self Pitch Tarre c. Moreover we see that when any body is thoroughly burnt the sulphurious parts are all or most of them gone as if conscious of what they bad done they had fled for it and which is most of all demonstrative when those parts are once gone all or most of them what remains will burn no longer as you see we cannot make a fire with Ashes for that they consist only of Salt and Earth with little or no commixture of Sulphur Sith then Sulphur or Brimstone though in an acceptation somewhat different from that which in commonly called by that name is the great matter of Fire and the Agitation Commotion and Flight of it is the very Form of Fire I shall the less wonder hereafter to finde the Scripture still joyning Brimstone and Fire together So Gen. 19 24. The Lord rained upon Sodom Brimstone and Fire Psal 11.6 On the wicked he shalt rain Fire and Brimstone And Isa 30.33 The Pile whereof is Fire much Wood. The breath of the Lord like astream of Brimstone kindleth it viz. Tophet Fire most usually kindleth Fire A stream of Brimstone in violent motion is Fire and here you see the breath of the Lord is said like a mighty stream of Brimstone to kindle Tophet which kinde of expression is more genuine and philosophical than most men know it to be and may hint unto us that thorough our ignorance it comes to pass that many expressions in Scripture seem to us no more proper and significant than they do it faring with us in the reading of holy Writ as with those that ignorantly walk or ride over precions Mines little do they think what a world of Treasure they tread upon nor if they did could they be content till they had gotten within the bowels of that ground which now they flightly trample upon But I have been too long in this Philosophical contemplation because it was such and must endeavour to compensate my prolixity in this with greater Brevity in the rest at leastwise of that sort if any such shall occur CONTEMPLATION II. Touching the Nature of Sulphur which is the principal matter and cause of Fire and how it comes to be so mischievous in the World BEing credibly informed that the Element called Sulphur hath had the greatest hand under God in the late dismal Fire as it hath had in all other whereby Towns and Cities have been laid waste it is but fit we should take him under serious examination and strictly enquire what he is by what waies and means he brings such great desolations to pass Sulphur that is Brimstone so called by Chymists because it hath some assinity with that which
Church and State And now O Lord thou who art only wise cause Rulers every where to know what liberty may and what may not be given what liberty would truly make for them and what against them what would tend to kindle greater Fires than yet have been in the midst of us and what might help to extinguish those fire of contention which are amongst us already and to prevent others for the future Such things as quietly would breathe themselves and do themselves good and the world no hurt by their insensible exhalations suffer them to evaporate let them not be so pent in and shut up as thereby to become needlesly exasperated unavoidably united both in miserings discontents and will they â—â—l they to fall on fire like a move of â—â—lay laid too moistly and close together which otherwise had never fired in and of its self but now is forced to flame though its self must be both the fire and fuel all for want of vent And now O Lord thou who hast made me the father of many children grant I beseech thee to me and other parents that wise behaviour to wards them that we may neither like old Eli spoil and undo them with too much lenity nor like Saul enraged against his son Jonathan endanger them by overmuch severity but may so carry towards them and have so much comfort in them that we may be able to say concerning our children as good old Jacob that father of the Patriarks did concerning his These are the children which God hath graciously given us and to think of them as the Psalmist represents them Psal 127.3 Lo children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward CONTEMPLATION VIII Of Fire kindled by pouring on Water as in Lime IT is famously known that Fire is sometimes kindled otherwhiles encreased even by the pouring on of water By that means Lime is made to burn which though it flame not our yet both by its hissing and smoaking as also by its ability to burn other things doth appear it self to be set on fire And we may daily observe that Smiths do sprinkle water upon their forges thereby causing the Fire therein to burn so much the more eagerly The reason of the former viz. of Lime its burning when it meets with Water seems to be this Some particles of Fire do remain in Lime after it hath been burnt in the Furnace though cooled again but closely united with certain particles of Salt and by them moderated and kept quiet But when water is poured upon it then is the association that was betwixt the particles of Fire and of Salt dissolved and the earthy parts separated which before lay betwixt the fiery particles keeping them from joyning each with other which being done they all flock together and rendezvouz by themselves and so violently sally out together and forcibly take their flight in a considerable body or party and thence comes that Fire which is kindled in Lime which is true Fire though it flame not by reason of those watery parts which are commixed therewith which cause smoak instead of flame Now when I think of Fire kindled by water its known opposite in Lime as aforesaid me thinks the corrupt nature of man is just like Lime for when it meets with the holy Law of God which is as contrary to it as water to Fire I mean to the lusts and corruptions that are in it how is it inkindled and enflamed thereby Hence that complaint of Paul Rom. 7.8 Sin taking occasion by the commandement wrought in me all manner of concupiscence For without the Law sin was dead and v. 13. But sin that it might appear sin working death in me by that which was good that sin by the Commandement might become exceeding sinful Moreover whereas those particles of Fire which are in Lime are as it were so many forraigners or forraign guests that get into it when the Lime-stones were burning within the Furnace for in Lime it self there is little Sulphur as appeareth by the difficulty of burning all or most of it away and these forraign particles are they that do expose it unto being set onfire whenwater is put to it I cannot but thence think of the danger of Kingdoms and Countries which are over-stocked with forraigners especially if of a forraign Religion as well as Nation especially if men of fiery principles and spirits for though such persons may lie still and make no noise for a time so long as there are other parties to ballance and tie their hands as the particles of Salt doth that of Fire and whilst they are not suffered to imbody and flock together yet let an enemy come like water upon lime presently they hiss and smoak and reak and heard together and are ready to burn up all that comes neer them May the Popish party never verifie what I have now hinted from the nature of Lime Neither is it unapt to be significantly applyed that Smiths do intend the heat of their fires by ever and anon sprinkling on them small quantities of water Did they throw on much water it would extinguish it but that little they use now and then makes it to burn more fiercely What better resemblance can there be of the over-mild rebukes of parents towards obstinate and dissolute children As good or better not chide or not correct them at all as do it over-gently and Eli like who only said It is not a good report I heare of you my sons c. 1 Sam. 2.24 Were such deeds as theirs to be corrected only with words especially with such soft words as those v. 25. Why do you such things Nay my sons for it is no good report that I hear Did they lie with the women that assembled at the door of the Tabernacle and is this all he hath to say to them He had even as good have held his peace This was but water sprinkled upon the forge this was but like an over-gentle purge that stirs and troubles humors but brings them not away Thus to whip as it were with a fan of Feathers is but to make an offenders remedy which is correction contemptible and himself thereby more incorrigible When the water of rebuke or correction must be used take enough to quench the Fire though not to drown or sink the offender Lastly Lime that kindles at the approach of water which one would think should rather quench it if kindled before is methinks a good embleme of Christian zeale and a good pattern for us in that behalf Should not our zeal be heightned by opposition like flouds that swell when they come at banks that hinder them So did the zeal of David when Michal derided him for dancing before the Ark. 2 Sam. 3.22 I will yet be more vile than thus said he viz. if that were to be vile to rejoyce before the Ark of God So Paul when some perswaded him not to goe to Jerusalem
stand gazing on and not run to help The Fire hath now got such head and is so fierce would they say that there is no coming near it But why do they not pull down houses at a distance that is long work would some reply and seeing they cannot carry away the timber when they have done it will do but little good Do not the Magistrates would some say bestir themselves to put a stop to it It is like they do what they can but they are even at their wits ends or like men astonished They that stood and look't on would cry out See how it burns East and West at the same time not onely with the wind but against it Hear how it crackles like a Fire in thorns Hear what a rattling noise there is with the crackling and falling of timber Look you there saith another just now the Fire hath taken this or that Church which alas is full of goods now it is just come to the Royall Exchange by and by would they say See how presently such a stately house was gone it was but even now that it began to fire and it is consumed already Oh what a wind is here See how it is as bellows to the Fire or as the breath of the Almighty blowing it up You would wonder to see how far the sparks and coles doe sly It is strange they do not fire all the houses on the other side of the water where abundance of them do light I can think of nothing saith one but of Sodom and Gomorral when I see this sight Alas Alas cries one now do I see such a good friends house to take fire and by and by now do I see the house of another good friend of mine on fire in that house that you see now burning dwelt a Brother or Sâ—ster of mine or some other near Relation Others would come dropping in and say They had staid so long as to see their own houses on fire and then they came away and left them Such aâ— dwell near to London and to the Road would cry as they lay in their beds we hear the Carts rumbling and posting by continually Those that were within the City at that time would ever and anon say to one another Did you hear that noise There was a house blown up and by and by there was another house blown up Others would cry The fire is now come near the Tower and if the powder be not removed God knowes what mischief will be done with that One while the people would take an Alarm of Treachery and cry out that the French were coming to cut their throats Such whose houses the Fire had not yet seized but was hastâ—ing towards them you must suppose to have made this their discourse What shall we do for Carts to carry away our goods we have offered three four pounds a load for Carts to carry them but two or three miles off and cannot have them One while they cry there is an order to prevent the coming in of more Carts it being thought that whilst we mind the saving of our goods we neglect the putting out the fire and now will our houses and goods burn together and so we shall loose all Such as had the opportunity to convey their goods as far as the fields and no farther How did they discourse of the hardship they must undergoe if they should leave their goods they would be stollen if they should look to them themselves as many had no body else to do it for them they must have but little sleep and a cold open lodging and what if it should rain And some we may imagine were discoursing what they and theirs should do their houses and goods being burnt where they should put their heads as having neither money nor friends at leastwise so near that they knew how to get to them These were but some of those dreadfull stories that men and women talkt of I could tell you how women with child would say They had but a month or a week to reckon and this had frighted them almost out of their wits so that they found it would go very hard with them Others again would say They were but so many weekes gone but were so disturbed that they did never look to go out their full time Others it is like would say They were so ill with the fright they had taken that they thought verily it would kill them or that they should never come to themselves whilst they lived Would not others again report of some here and there who by venturing too much in the Fire or staying too long to bring away their goods had lost their lives and perished in the flames Neither were all sad discourses exstinguished with the fire For since that time it hath been the manner of Friends as they met to ask some accompt of the losses each of other Pray what lost you saith one by the Fire I lost the house I lived in saith one which was my own or as good as my own by virtue of a long Lease and a great Fine I lost my houses and goods saith another I lost to the value of two thousand pounds saith one I four I six saith another I have lost the one half of what I had saith one I have lost all saith another I am burnt to my very shirt I have lost more than all saith a third for I by this meanes am left in a great deal of debt that I shall never be able to pay I had many things belonging to other men committed to me which are swept away Saith another I am not only undone my self but so many of my Children and near Relations it may be all of them are undone by this Fire as well as my self But I need to say the less of this because every dayes converse will or may tell us what men talk since the dismall Fire of and concerning it O Lord I see thou who canst put a Song of deliverance into our mouths when thou pleasest canst also sill us with complaints and lamentations when thou wilt and make our own tongues as it were to fall upon us how thou canst make us out of the abundance of our hearts to speak such things as will terrifie both ourselves and others and cause both our own ears and theirs to tingle how easily thou canst find us other discourse than to ask and tell what newes is stirring for who regarded news whilst these things were in agitation who seemed to mind what became of affairs either by Sea or Land I see how easily thou canst imbitter our Converse one with another and make us speak so as to break each others hearts that use to delight and refresh each other by their pleasing conferences and communications so that solitude may become lesse afflictive than that good company which was wont to be very acceptable Would not our tongues rise up in judgement against us if we should ever forget the sad
is like to be will scarce pay for the houses they live in and if so wherewithall shall they and theirs subsist Men must have meat to eat and clothes to wear as well houses to dwell in but your rack-Rents and more than rack Fines do eat the very bread out of their mouthes When I think of the Fire the Carters the Pilferers and you extorting Landlords I cannot but recount what is said Ioel 1.4 That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten How contrary have you been to Jesus Christ who impoverishell himself to make others rich 2 Cor. 8.9 whereas you have inricht your selves by making others poor You have handled the poor City as the Sybils are said to have done their Prophecies when they had burnt the greatest part of them asking as great a price for the Remains as they did at first for the whole Book what ever reason they had for that I am sure you have none for this Ruminate I beseech you upon one Text I shall name to you with others of like nature and then if you think fit to keep all the Fines you have taken and to take all the Rent you have contracted for give me leave to think that your hearts do stand in no awe of Gods Word The place I mean is Zach. 2.9 10 11. Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house that he may set his â—â—st on high that he may be delivered from the power of evil Thou hast consulted shame to thy self thou hast sinned against thy soul For the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber shall answer it If you will not believe try at your peril if that saying of Christ be not true viz. that It will profit a man nothing to gain the world and lese his own soul MEDITATION VII Upon the burning down of many Churches VVHen men are better informed and lesse under the power of prejudice they will not be offended at calling those places by the name of Churches where people meet together for the publick worship and service of God though the living Temples of God or the faithful meeting together for such ends and purposes are in greatest strictnesse and propriety of speech called the Church or some part of the Church of Christ which is his Body each Believer a member of it and himself the Head There is a Figure in Rhetorick and such as we can hardly speak without which puts things containing for the things contained and if the Holy Ghost himself do use that Figure I am sure we ought not to quarrel with it I know not who can assure us that the Scripture doth not speak by that Figure when it saith 1 Cor. 11.22 Have ye not Houses to eat and drink in or despise ye the Church of God But not to contend about words I look upon it as a great misery that the places called by that name are so generally demolished He that shall look upon them but as great ornaments to the places where they stood or as strong and stately buildings that might have been employed to many good uses or at most but as places where first and last many fervent prayers have been offered to God many religious assemblies have met together many excellent and converting Sermons have been preached if he be consistent with himself cannot but bewail that they are now made a ruinous heap Most sober men do think there were some good and useful lights shining to the very last in those Candlesticks and for their sakes I wish if the will of God had been so that those Candlesticks might yet have stood as also for the hope I had that God in his good time might have thrust forth many more faithful labourers into those Vineyards if I may so call them Where now within the walls of that sometimes famous City can hundreds and thousands meet together to reap the benefit of one and the same Sermon I say in how few places can it now be done as formerly with convenience and safety We read of three thousand souls added to the Church by one of Peters Sermons Acts 2.14 But where now could a fifth part of that number with freedome and allowance converse together in order to such a purpose How many idle persons are there like to be in fields and alehouses on the Lords day under pretence they have no Churches to go to What a vast charge and trouble will it be to rebuild those Churches or many of them which if ever London come to be it's self again and Religion in any request as God forbid it should be otherwise must and will be done How forloâ—n would London have lookt if all its Churches had been burnt though all private houses had been yet standing I dare not give those reasons that some would do why those Churches were burnt I dare not say we may do as well without them as with them What reformed Church is there in the whole world that hath not such places as those for publick worship and that is not careful to maintain and uphold them I wish every private house were a Church as Pâ—ul Salities the Church that was in their house viz. in the house of Aquila and Priscilla Rom. 16.5 and yet I wish there were Churches every where besides those in private houses What if the blind zeal of Papists did build many of those Churches were they not converted to a better use I think they could no more infuse evil into those places than others can real and intrinsical holiness The Censers of Korah and Dathan howsoever they abused them were not cast out of the Sanctuary but made into broad plates as are vering for the Altar Numb 16.38 The destruction of Churches is pleasing to few men but those who have outrun the sobriety of Religion and who have made such haste out of Balylon that as one saith they are run beyond Jerusalem If some Ministers by the fire of their passion or other provoking sins have helpt to burn the Churches they did or should have preacht in over their heads and if some that were or should have been hearers have done the like the Lord forgive them they know not what they have done But may I or mine if God so please live to see London rebuilt Churches re-edified by the zeal and piety of Protestants every Congregation furnished with 〈◊〉 faithful Pastor every Candlestick filled with a burning and shining light all divine Ordinances purely administred all places for publick worship greatly and cheerfully frequented all good Christians united in the service of God then though our new structures should never be so great and magnificent as our old ones were we shall easily acknowledge that the glory of our second Temples is far greater than was that of our first MEDITATION VIII Upon the
burning multitudes of Books of all sorts VVHat the Prophet speaks in another case Habbak 3.8 Was the Lord displeased against the Rivers Was thing anger against the Rivers Was thy wrath against the Sea I may here allude to and say Was the Lord displeased against the Books Was his anger against the famous Libraries that were burnt I doubt not but there were many Books amongst them fit for nothing but the fire viz. wanton Poems idle Romances prophane Comedies lying Legends heretical Treatises scandalous and pernicious Pamphlets but were they all such It had then been a good riddance and this fire had proved the best Index Expurgatorius that ever was But alas Who knows not that better Books were not extant in the whole World than were thousands of those which this Fire consumed and amongst the rest an innumerable company of Bibles the best of Books I can hardly forbear expostulating as Abraham did Gen. 18.3 Lord Wile thou destroy the Righteous with the Wicked Thou didst do so in this case and yet wert certainly righteous in what thou didst Good Books are made for us and for our sakes too they were destroyed they had not offended but we We by our sins make the whole Creation groan and subject it to vanity Who can sufficiently lament the poor Booksellers more generally undone by this Fire than any one sort of men But Why No man can tell there being amongst them many honest and industrious men But O Lord thy Judgements are unsearchable and thy wayes past finding out The greatest visible crime wherewith I can charge them and but some of them neither was their printing and selling some Books not fit to see the light One Jonas disquieted and indangered â—all that were in the same ship and one Achan trouble all Israel and one Leviathan might mischief an Ocean of Books as we read of the Creature so called Job 41.31 That he maketh the Sea to bâ—il like a pot he maketh the deep to boil like a pot of â—inâ—ment Why did you set up Dagon by the Ark Scripture and Anti-scripturisme did do ill together in one and the same Shop Bibles at one end and Atheisticall books at another Books of Divinity in one corner of your Shops and Books of Obscenity in another What was this but from the same Fountain to send forth bitter and sweet This was like gun-powder put amongst other commodities which hazards the blowing up of all the rest This might be the great provocation on your part but I doubt not but the losse came as much for their sakes that were Buyers as for yours that were Sellers of Books for the sakes of your Customers that either were or should have been as much as for your own Some wanted a heart to buy Books though they could and should have done it others bought books enough but wanted industry to peruse them and so anticipated others that would have read those Books if they had had them or could have gotten them Others both bought Books and read them but did not too many do it onely for ostentation sake or out of curiosity as desirous to taste the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge both of good and evill with design meerly to inform not to reform and amend themselves thereby or for other such low and sinister ends In all this we played the Wantons with our books and Was it not just with God to take them from us as Parents use to take the meat from off their Childrens trenchers when they see they eat out of meer wantonnesse Put to no better uses they would but have risen up against us in the day when the Books mentioned Revelat. 20.12 Shall be opened and the dead judged out of the things therein contained But whatsoever the particular causes of this Judgement were sure I am the losse of so many excellent books was a great blow both to Religion and Learning We lost a far greater treasure in their worth than in their price though that also amounted to a very great sum far surpassing the price of those Books of curious Arts spoken of Act. 19.19 Which those that believed are said to have burnt though they reckoned them worth fifty thousand pieces of silver Alas What was that to four times fifty thousand pieces of Gold which some have judged this losse to amount unto Who seeth not by this instance that Books are of a perishing nature as well as other things he that by means thereof would raise to himself a lasting monument may fail of his end He spake like a vapouring Poet that said Jamque opus exegi quâ—d non Jovis ira nec ignes nec poterunt flammae â—â—câ—edâ—x â—bolere vetustas I doubt not but many of those Poems of his were at this time metamorphosed into flames and by the same reason all may be one time or other Books worth a thousand of that suffered in the same flames and yet I think their sufferings not to have been the same as is usually said Cum duo faciunt idem non est idem so Cum duo pâ—tiuntur idem non est idem is as true Good books burnt like Martyrs Bad ones like Malefactours the former ascended up to Heaven like sweet Incense the latter like the smoke of the Bottomless pit As some waters run by each other and yet mix not so in a morall sense may we judge of these flames which consumed the good Books and the bad ones Were it not in vain to wish for a resurrection of Books How should I long to see it Oh! that at least our forty thousand Bibles might be recovered again though all the other books were irrecoverably lost the next Age may be for books though this be all for News But since à privatione ad habitum non datur regressis in this as in some other cases since we can never look for them again let us remember the Italian proverb which saith Deliver us from that man that reads but one book intimating that he that doth so is like to be too hard for any man in defending the principles of that one Author and be thence encouraged to read those few books that are left us over and over so shall we find dimidium plus to to to be verified in this case a part so improved will do us more good than the whole had wont to do as one dish well fed upon refresheth us more than twenty that do but glut us with the sight and sent of them Let us take occasion from this to acquaint our selves more then ever with those four Books which are of more consequence than all the rest viz. The Book of Creation Providence Scripture and that of our own Hearts and Consciences The multitude of our other Books may have impeded us from looking so much as we ought into these and now they are diminished let us more then ever delight ourselves in these and meditate therein day and night If thou didst make an Idol of thy books
of it and went about to pull it down What quick work can sin and fire make How did that strong Building vanish of a sudden as if it had been but an Apparition How quickly was it taken down as if it had been but a sleight Tent the Cords whereof are presently loosened and the Stakes soon removed Oh that some Jonas might have been sent to tell us that within so many days that Exchange should be burnt down if we repented not Oh that howsoever a timely repentance might have prevented those ruins that we had commuted for our Exchange by parting with our sinâ— But since it lies in ashes and there is no prevention of it oh that we may not so much lament the burning of our Exchange as the sins that burnt it May the minds of men by this sad Providence be disposed to use another Exchange for onely honest Merchandise and the minds both of men and women to use the upper part of it no more as a Nursery of pride but in order to putting them and theirs into a decent equipage befitting their respective qualities and then may they live to see another Structure in the same place not inferiour to the first and that Royal Burse or Purse which is now a meer Vacuum as well filled as ever it was before and after that if the Will of God be so may it never perish at least wise by fire more till the Conslagration of all things MEDITATION X. Upon the burning of Hospitals and Rents thereunto belonging RIghteous art thou O Lord yet let me plead with thee concerning thy Judgments Why had the fire a Commission to burn down Hospitals Why didst thou dry up those pools of Bethesdah Why didst thou wither the Goards of those poor Jonas's who had nothing else to defend them from the scorching of extream poverty Was ever money given to better uses or with a better intent than what went to the maintaining those houses of Charity Or was it ever intrusted in better and safer hands than that which had so many persons of worth and integrity to take care of it and be as it were Overseers of the poor Or what charity was ever disposed of more according to the will of the Doners than that hath always been which few or none would accept but those that had need of it and for them it was intended I should have thought the Doors of those houses above all others would have been sprinkled that the destroying Angel might have passed over them and that Judgment should not have entered where onely Mercy did seem to dwell Did not Christ say The poor we have alwayes with us and shall we have no Receptacles for the poor The poor increase daily but the places of their relief are diminished and where those places are yet standing yet is not much of their Revenue impaired Shall the Foxes have holes and the Birds of the Aire nests but the poor not have where to lay their heads Came this for their sakes whose charity did maintain these places or for those that were maintained in them and by them or for the sake of others or for all the three Whilest some contributed to those places out of pure ends and principles might not others do it out of superstition and conceipt of merit others out of Ostentation though we may not impute those things to any in particular And as for those who were relieved in those places were there not sins amongst them also Some it may be were not more poor than wicked so that though their poverty made them the Objects of Mercy from men yet their wickedness exposed them to the Justice of God Doubtless men by sin may forfeit not only their superfluities and conveniencies but also their very necessaries or such things as they cannot live without and had not too many of these so done Though some whose miseries have brought them to such places are affected with the hand of God and fear to sin whilest his rod is upon them yet were there not others who no whit appalled by all their sufferings were it the loss of limbs or whatsoever else would swear and drink and rant at such a rate as if they had had all the world before them or thought scorn that as to these things even the greatest personages should go beyond them Had all been such as some were possibly the Great God had not forborn to set fire upon those Houses long ago But in relation to others might not this come First to try their sincerity whether their hearts would serve them to give to good uses though by this it appears they can have no assurance of raising any lasting monument to their names thereby Or Secondly to try their Faith whether they would cast their bread as upon the water so upon the fire as it were or that which may easily be burnt in hope to find it after many dayes But the probablest reason of all is that it came to prove and exercise their Charity and to call upon them so many as are able to make to themselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when they fail they may be received into everlasting habitations Why should the poor be alwayes maintained by an old stock of Charity Why should not this Age be as charitable as former Ages were Though many be poor at this time yet all are not yea there are many rich though not comparative to the number of such as are poor nor have rich men ever more to do than when there are most poor Poor men think it a blessed thing to receive but Christ hath told them It is yet a more blessed thing to give The Italians when they begge use to say to them of whom they begge Pray be good to your selves As much as iniquity doth abound I will not believe unlesse I see it that Charity is grown so cold that amongst all the rich men that are in England Nobles Gentlemen and others there will not be found enough to repair that breach which the fire hath made upon the poor Hospitals and the revenues formerly belonging to them You know or if I thought you did not I can tell you where and whence you may defaulk enough to rear up those Structures again as large and fair as before though one of them was sometimes the Pallace of a Prince even Bridewell it's self and to indow them as liberally as ever and not to misse what you have parted with when you have done Think how much extraordinary it useth to cost you every year upon your lusts one or more One mans Drunkennesse costs him an hundred pounds in a year extraordinary another mans Uncleannesse twice so much a third mans Gameing no lesse and so it is like to do from year to year Yea possibly some men have spent as much of their time upon one lust as would have built an Hospitall Now as God saith that he would famish all the gods of the Heathen so do you
give him time enough and he will perform it excellently and better than he that was quick at it How many Masters commit great errors for want of being able to judge of these things like unskilful Riders that either think a horse good for nothing because he cannot amble well though he have an excellent and an easie troâ— or keep him wholly to his pace though he do but shussle at it and can never be made to do otherwise whereas he would trot as fast as could be desired and as well as any horse can do if they would but give him leave The Scholar's Scholar-craft as I may call it in humoring his humorsome Master the Parent 's great bounty to the Master and his great affection to such his Scholars upon those two accounts makes too many partial and injudicious Masters Cry up the pregnancy of those Scholars that little deserve it and so vice versâ— And ought not Masters to be wise therefore also that they may be able to judge of the disposition of their Scholars whether fair means or fowl is like to do most good upon them whether fear or shame will most prevail with them whether emulation or correction will most spur them on A word or two will do more with some Children than many blows with others where Balsomes will serve the turn it is folly to apply Causticks and Corrosives which it is to be feared some Masters do for want of judgment Moreover wise and sage Admonitions are of great use to Children and therefore it is needful their Master should be a wise man that he may be able to dispense them Let me add A Master had need be furnished with Wisedom to govern and conceal his own weak humors and passions as there are many that abound with such for that the discovery thereof is like Noah's uncovering his nakedness in the sight of his Children which exposed him to their contempt and made some of them to sin And Masters that give way to such humors are like unsound Nurses that give suck who make the Children that draw their Breasts as unwholsome as themselves and fill them as they say with evil humours I might add That a Master should be no conceited man not one that thinks himself a good Philosopher because he is a good Philologer or the wisest man in the Nation because he is the wisest person in the School He that is a Man amongst Children may be but a Child amongst Men. I had not mentioned this but that I have observed some School-masters to have brought an ill report both upon themselves and their Profession by seeming as wise in their own eyes as they could be in the eyes of their boyes who oftimes think that no man knows so much as doth their Master as if they were proud of that high opinion which their Scholars have of them and did rest in the judgment of Children who scarce know the right hand from the left as if it were infallible Lastly To say nothing of that diligence and laboriousness that ought to be in School-masters I shall only add that they ought not to be either too milde or severe neither like that Beam which Jupiter as it is in the Fable gave to the Frogs for their King Which alwayes lying still when they were used to it a while they leapt and plaid upon it Nor yet like that Stork which was afterwards sent amongst them when they desired a more active Prince whose cruelty made them wish for their Beam again He that is over-mild is like to do little good upon some children but he that is over-harsh may do a great deal of hurt I read Acts 19.9 of the School of one Tyrannus I wish there were no more Schools that did deserve the same name We hear but of one Tyrannical Emperor that became a School-master before he died but Are there not many School-masters that domineer and exercise severity like Tyrannical Emperors or Imperial Tyrants Now if the character I have given of a good School-master be a Digression yet it may prove a useful one if Parents will thereby be directed in the choice of Masters for their Children or Masters that are guilty of any of the forementioned faults would thereby be prevailed with to amend But possibly what I have said about School-masters is no Digression considering that if those Masters that were fired out of London were men of such a good Character as I have given of a good School-master it informeth us what cause we have to bewail the losse of them and of those Schools which might have invited and incouraged a succession of such worthy Masters as themselves This poor Lads little lay to heart as being ignorant of what is for their good yea possibly what through dread of their Masters disaffection to their Books and love of their Play they are even glad their Schools are burnt so incident it is to humane nature to rejoyce in any little good to it's self yea to wish for it though it be brought to passe by unspeakably more hurt and prejudice to others being glad when their own eggs are roasted though it be by that fire that consumes the houses of other men Yet I wonder not at the evil that proceeds from degenerate men much lesse from Children but O Lord I rather wonder at Thy self Why thou didst suffer the Foxes to spoil those Vines the Fire I mean which came like Sampson's Foxes with fire-brands in their Tails consuming those Noble Schools as they did the Philistim's Corn considering that those Vines had tender Grapes Cant. 2.15 But I would answer my self with this Schools had their sins as well as other places which were more and greater than a Master's rod could punish Yea Masters themselves had deserved Correction and who but Thâ—â— self should give it them But oh that these useful Structures might not alwayes lie in the dust but that Piety and Charity might rebuild what Sin hath pull'd down Doubtlesse this Age hath many men in it as able to build Free-Schools as Reverend Colet and some other Founders were and why should they not be as willing If Parents want good Schools for their Children they will hardly come to any thing whilst they live For the errors of the first Concoction as Physicians observe cannot be corrected by the second or third Schools like Stomachs make the first Digestion which if naught will spoil all the rest Let me conjure men of Estates especially those that have no Children or if Children such as are unworthy I say let me conjure you by the regard you have to the honour of God to the renown of the English Nation to the increase of Knowledge to the happinesse of Church and State the chief Officers and Ministers whereof use to receive their first rudiments and seasoning in publick Schools liberally to contribute to the re-building of those noble Schools which the late sire hath deprived us of yea do it yourselves as some have done
true that coppy of them which is within his own breast may be lost or missing at leastwise for a time but then there is a counter-part of them kept in heaven which can never be lost for The foundation of God stands sure and he knoweth who are his It is happy for us that uncertain things are those of less value but that those things which are most valuable though indeed only they may be ascertained and insured in heavenly things Sad was the loss of Writings as they were Evidences of mens Estates but methinks more sad as they were the Vouchers of mens honesty or if by this meanes either honest men become suspected or those that have been otherwise cannot be detected and discovered But methinks where alwayes heretofore found faithful it is but equal to admit no jealousie of them upon this occasion No doubt but he that was faithful till the fire will be faithfull after it and not be worse for that Purgatory if I may so call it O Lord Art not thou he that didst find out a way to acquit those chast Women that were suspected of Adultery Numb 5.28 Art not thou he who didst furnish Solomon with wisdom to know which was the true Mother of the living child to which two Women laid an equal claim 1 Kings 3 Art not thou he that didst direct Queen Emma and others to passe the hot plow-shares bare-foot and blind-fold without hurting her self when by that ardent fire proof was to be made of her unspotted chastity Clear up I beseech thee the integrity of thy innocent servants whose Accompts and Acquittances this fire hath destroyed but as for others search out their wickedness till thou find none or as thou saidst thou wouldst search Jerusalem with candles Zeph. 1.12 What work hath this burning of Writings made for greedy Lawyers What a barvest are they like to have by that means One sire I doubt will beget another viz. that of endless contention and Law-suits Now the sire hath gotten mens Vintage I wish unjust Claimers on one hand and Lawyers on the other do not sweep awar their Gleanings They are newly leapt out of the fire and Most they presently come into the frying-pan Can the wisdom of our Governors find out no way whereby to prevent vexations Suits that will otherwise arise upon this occasion to preserve the rights of honest men now their Writings are gone and to prevent the unjust claims of those that are dishonest If ever Magistrates needed a Priest one or more to ask Counsel for them after the Judgment of Urim before the Lord Numâ— â—7 20 as Eleazar did for Joshuâ— now is the time Howsoever thou O Lord who girdest up the wrath of men or so much of it as will not turn to thy praise vouchsafe to put such a restraint upon the spirits of men that those who were half-undone by the fire may not be utterly so either by merciless Lawyers or by unrighteous Adversaries and unjust Claimers MEDITATION XV. Upon the Burning of Saint Pauls Church the unconsumed Body of Bishop Brabrook HOw long was this goodly Cathedral in building How leasurely did it proceed Insomuch that it became a Proverb when men did any thing slowly That they made Pauls-work of it But so did not the fire when it came to destroy it but consumed it presently as if it had been but Jonas his gourd which sprang up in a night Dying Persons are oft-times very restless they shift from one side of their beds to the other and talk much of removing to other places So have I observed this noble Structure not long before its fatal period to have shifted often First it was a Church then a Stable as some were pleased to make it within these few years but the argument was far fetcht if they think that because Christ himself did sometimes lie in a Stable and in a Manger that therefore one and the same place might well serve both for brutish and for sacred uses Otherwhile if not at the very same time it was made a Court of Guard without any intention as I believe to make it an Emblem of the Church Militant or to exhibit any other religious mystery And then of late it wheel'd about again to its Primitive use to be a place appropriated to Divine Worship Few expected it would continue long a Stable or a Court of Guard for great alienations like strong sticks that are much bent do quickly start back again but when it became once more a Church they that considered it had stood above five hundred years from its first Erection yea and Conflagration which latter was in 1087. after which it was soon built again and did observe it to bear its years well as if it were at most but of a middle age saw no cause to doubt but it might last as much longer But alas How were they deceived and How was its destruction at the very door Surely Papists are deceived in thinking Crucifixes to carry a safeguard and protection with them considering that this Cathedral was built in the figure of a Cross and yet when Fire did appreach had no relief by it It had been a comfortable sight to have beheld the first erection of that stately Church considering the Scituation and Dedication of it that whereas before in the same place stood a Temple Dedicated to Diama and as is supposed a Wood and Grove about it devoted to her use there was then another in the room of it the name whereof might speak the place alienated from heathenism to Christianity from the service of a false goddesse to the service of the true God and of his Son Jesus Christ Twice hath that famous Structure been fired before at leastwise part of it both times by lightning and thereunto exposed by the transcendent height of its Steeple One of those times it burnt a great part of the City of London if I mistake not and now the City by a kind of unintended retaliation hath helpt to burn it Great pity it is to see so noble a building in the dust and yet it is likely some will but little pity it if not rejoyce in the ruins of it especially it s disaffected neighbours whose houses that had wont to lean to the sides of it like Vines climbing upon a wall had at leastwise received sentence to be pulled down But should not men regard the honor of their Nation whatsoever became of private interests One strange and remarkable passage that did relate to this Cathedral I cannot but reflect upon viz. The unheard of continuance of a certain dead Body viz. the Body of one Dr. Bâ—aybroâ—k sometimes Bishop of London and Lord Chancellor of England which was there interred above two hundred years ago and as several that have seen it do inform was taken up since this fire and found to retain much of it's manly shape and most of it's external parts to the amazement of such as beheld it and did withall believe it
in comparison of Himself was but of yesterday for what is six thousand years to Eternity and He will Be still when the world shall be no more He was Light to himself when as yet there were no Sun Moon and Stars yea he was Light it's self so he is and so he will be when all those lights shall be put out We cannot better afford to burn a Rush-candle till we have burnt it out or when that is done misse it lesse than he can to burn up the Sun it 's self and to disfurnish all the Stars of their borrowed light God looks upon this world as that which is too good for wicked men alwayes to enjoy but not good enough for his Children alwayes to continue in Of whom the world is not worthy Heb. 11. and so being not fit to be the eternal Mansion either of the one or of the other hath resolved that when it hath served to the end for which it was made it shall be burnt His Friends shall have better Mansions his Enemies shall not have so good How soon the Conflagration of the World shall be Who can tell God prefixed the time in which he would destroy the first World viz. within a hundred and twenty years after warning given but hath not done so by this Of that day and hour knows no man no not the Son of man viz. as man It may be nearer at hand than we are aware of The ends of the world seem to be upon us If Saint John and others contemporary with him called the time wherein they lived The lâ—st time 1 John 2.18 Heb. 1.2 2 Pet. â— â— What may this be called Well might the Psalmist say This their way is their folly of them whose inward thought was that their House and Lands should continue for ever Psalm 49.11 whereas alas the world it self shall not do so Were they secure that were told The world should be drowned at the end of a hundred and twenty years and would not regard and are not we that know the world shall be burnt and that for ought we know within half that time or less and yet are not affected with it Ought not the very thoughts of that burning to be as a fiery Chariot to convey our minds from earth to heaven Ought it not to quench our affections to the world as one heat puts out another so the heat of the Sun puts out the Fire I observe Saint Peter to say that The earth and the works that are thereof shall be burnt by which I suppose he means the works of Art because he speaks of none of the works of heaven which are all natural such as are strong Towers stately Pallaces famous Cities and such like Now the day in which that shall be done saith he shall come upon the world as a thief in the night that is suddenly and unexpectedly Nor know I what better use can be made of the doctrine of the Worlds intended Destruction by fire than that which we read 2 Pet. 3.11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness MEDITATION XX. Upon the Fire of Hell VVHo can think on the late dreadfull fire without some serious reflections on the more dreadful fire of hell If that Tophet which is spoken of Isa 30.33 be the same with Hell methinks the description of it is such as doth not a little agree with our late fire The pile thereof saith the Prophet is much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it Was not the pile of our late fire much wood of Churches Houses and other Structures and did not the wind which may be called the breath of the Lord so kindle it or rather increase it as if it had been a mighty stream of Brimstone poured in upon it Some are not more hard to believe there is a Hell a Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is The second death than they would have been to believe that any such fire should or could have fallen upon London as that which lately did If more dreadful things than we could imagine do happen unforetold as the late Judgement for one Why should we think those incredible which the Scripture plainly speaks of though they far transcend our imagination and what we should otherwise expect Nothing can make the burning of London and the misery attending it seem small but to consider the fire of Hell and the misery of the damned and that considered this doth even vanish and disappear before it For What is a fire of four days continuance to that which shall last more millions of millions of Ages than there are minutes in the space of four dayes and nights Or What is a fire preying upon Houses and Goods to that which shall prey upon Bodies and Souls as Christ hath commanded us to Fear him who can cast sâ—ul and body into hell If one Soul be as it is more worth than many worlds how much lesse is one City worth than many thousand souls Neither is Hel an uncompounded torment consisting of fire onely but there are other ingredients to make the misery of it more unsufferable There is the worm that shall never die there it the darknesse that shall never end There is the heat of fire to Torment but not the light of fire to Refresh Oh the demerit of sin that fire which of it's self is so intolerable a torment should not be thought sufficient to punish it Shall I dread fire alone such as that which befell the City and shall I not dread more scorching flames than those accompanied with a gnawing worm and a perpetual night I can heartily say with that good man Hic ure hic seeâ— Domine sed in aeternum pâ—rce Here O Lord cut and burn and do what thou wilt with me onely spare in Eternity May the consideration of Hell-fire not onely deterr me from sin but also kindle love to Christ within me who is therefore called Jesus because he shall save his people from the wrath to come MEDITATION XXI Upon the coming of that most dreadful fire in so Idolized a year as 1666. VVHen will men give over groundlesse prophecying When will they learn not to be wise above what is written Did not Christ say to his Disciples It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own hands One said That an Itch of disputing was in his time the scab of the Church and in our time an Itch of prophecying hath been the same thing According to the manifold prophesies which have been concerning it -66. should have been a year of Jubilee I had almost said a time of the Restitution of all things but alas Whilst men lookt for light behold darkness whilst they cried Peace peace greater destruction then ever was coming upon them It is said that God hath set one over against
would I prevail with men not to lean upon the broken Reed of uncertain Prophecies Whereon if a man lean it will go into his hand and pierce him as was said of Egypt Isa 36.6 Pierce you they will more wayes than one as namely With shame when you see your considence disappointed With forrow when you see your hopes frustrated With reproach when others shall deride you and say Is this the good time you lookt for Is this the Deliverance you expected What now is become of all your Prophecies touching what would be such and such a year All this Reproach you might save if you would believe no more than what the Scripture warrants you to believe Where doth that speak of the glorious things that shall be in the year 1666 or give you to expect more from that than from any other year Are not Divine-Promises sufficient for your comfort unless you eake them out with human Prophecies as the Papists do the Counsels of Scripture with the Traditions of men It is well if some do not derive more comfort from fallible Predictions than from the infallible Word Is not the Name of the Lord a strong Tower Why then will you betake your selves to a refuge of lies It is enough for poor deluded Jews to be alwayes comforting themselves with one vain Prophecy or other as they are observed to be seldom without but it is below Christians so to do who have a sure Word of Prophecy which they should take heed to as to a light shining in a dark place Be consident Faith and Credulity are very different things The first builds upon a Rock the last upon Quick-sands Believe but be not Credulous many credulous people make many false Prophets as they say Receivers make Thieves There will never want people to make Prophesies so long as there are enough to entertain them and to trust upon them Jer. 5.31 The Prophets prophesie falsely and the People love to have it so There are too many that say in their hearts Si populus vult decipi decipietur If People will be deceived they shall Many small Prophets in this and other ages seem Merchant-adventurers for a little credit They will be the Authors of a Prediction right or wrong it is fit it be pleasing whether it be true or no If it come to pass they shall have a great deal of credit by it and in the mean time it makes them to be somewhat more taken notice of and if it be frustrated they are not the first that were mistaken there have been and are many false Prophets besides themselves When shall I see men so modest as to tell their uncertain Predictions as their Dreams not as heavenly Dictates in their own names and not in the Name of God saying Thus saith the Lord but rather My mind bodes me so and so Thus saith my imagination and I cannot withstand it At leastwise when shall I see others so wise as to hearken to them only as such and upon no other account till experience have proved them to be more than to It is time enough to believe a humane Prophesie when you see it fulfilled and you pay it a sufficient respect if in the mean time you suspend your judgment and forbear to censure it O Sixty-six Thou center of human Prophesies Thou Ocean into which all the Rivers of Conjectural Predictions did run If I live to see thee end as thou hast continued hitherto for thy sake if for nothing else yet upon other considerations too if men will find confidence to make a thousand Prophecies no wayes countenanced by Scripture I shall not find Faith to believe one of them MEDITATION XXII Upon the fire it 's beginning on the Lords-Day in the Morning VVAs there nothing in the Circumstance of Time in which that fire began viz. upon the Lords-Day Doth not Providence determine the times before-appointed as well as the bounds of our habitations Acts 17.26 Might not Herod read his sin in the time in which the Angel of God smote him and the Worms received a commission to eat him up which was immediately after he had received that Acclamation from the People saying It is the voice of God and not of man Acts 12.23 Neither can I think it was without its signification that London began to burn upon the Lords-Day Were not the Sabbath-Dayes-sins of London greater than its sins upon other dayes it being a certain truth that if mens actions be evil the better day the worse action as in case they be good The better day we say the better deed Justly might such a fire have hapned had it been only to punish the usual profanations of the Lords Day How many had been playing on that very day if by this sad providence they had not been set at work How many had been then imployed in servile and at that time unlawful Works if such a work of Mercy and Charity as was delivering themselves and their substance from the fire had not been put upon them How many had then been exercising themselves in Gluttony and Drunkenness in Rioting and Chambering in Filthiness and Uncleanness if the care of preserving themselves and their Goods had not diverted them How many that followed their honest Labours all the Week had wont to find their sinful pleasures on the Lords-Day Alass That the Day which God at first blessed as well as sanctified should then be cursed if I may so call it above any other dayes that went before it That Londoners should have the most restless Day that ever they had generally had both as to Body and Mind of that which was at first appointed for a Day of Rest On that Day in which God began to Create the World in the first Day of the Week did he begin to destroy that great City Yea The Day of Christ his Resurrection was the first Day of London's Death and Burial Did not good Men hope to have been Praying Hearing Singing of Psalms Eating and Drinking in remembrance of Christ on that very day in which they were forced to be quenching of Houses carrying out of Goods conveying away their Wives and Children How sadly were Churches filled on that Day not with Men and Women as upon other such Dayes but with Wares and Houshold-stuff And How much more sadly were they emptied some of them on that very Day not by exportation but by conflagration Poor Londoners carried their Goods to several Churches to sacrifice them to slames as it proved though with an intention to have secured them those places proving Sepulchres which they repaired to as Sanctuaries O fatal and never to be forgotten Sabbath No emblem as other of those dayes of that rest which glorious Saints injoy in Heaven but rather of the day of Judgment which is called The great and terrible day of the Lord Black-Sunday some will call it as formerly there was much discourse of a Black-Monday That was expected and came not this was not expected and
have since let them for moderate Rents such are honest gainers Others have let their houses at most excessive Rates and such have loaded themselves with dishonest gain But be their gains one way or another I think no man ought for the present to pocket the money which he hath clearly gotten by the fire if it be so they can spare it David would not drink of the waters of Bethlehem which were brought to him because as he said They were the price of Blood meaning his Souldiers had ventured their lives for it What men have gotten by this fire is little lesse than the price of Blood considering how many were impoverished that a few might be inriched or rather that the inriching of but a very few is by the undoing of many thousands Men may look upon their gains by this fire as Deodates Let as many as are able be their own Almoners and give it back to God Is it not a Sabbatical year in a doleful sense for that the poor City now injoyeth it's Sabbath and in a Sabbatical year that did bear a better interpretation the rich were not suffered to reap but were to leave the Crop to the poor as appeareth by comparing Exod. 23.11 with Levit. 25.5 If men who have only saved what they had before ought to contribute to them that have lost how much more ought they who have received an Addition by this very means To Build upon the Ruines of others is one of the worst Foundations that can be Let it never be said The fire hath made you rich whilst such multitudes continue poor miserably poor whom meerly the fire hath made so We use to say Men have gotten those things out of the fire which they came hardly by But what men got by or out of the late fire was easily come by well may it go leightly for it leightly came yet neither doth that go leightly which goes to the use of Charity When I consider how this fire which hath ruined many hath raised some it brings to mind what is said Luke 1.52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away How strangely and by seeming contraries doth the providence of God bring things to pass that when a dismall fire hapned some men should be made by it So a Prison made way for Joseph's preferment and Onesimus his running away from his Master for his returning to God and to himself and a better Servant to his Master than ever And Estate cast upon men by the desolating Fire sounds like such a Riddle as that of Sampson Out of the eater came meat and out the strong came sweetness Is it not as a Honey-comb found in the Carcase of a Lion You whom God by this fire hath unexpectedly enabled more than ever to eat the Fat and drink the Sweet you know what I allude to see that you send portion to them for whom nothing is provided MEDITATION XXVII Upon the Inducements unto re-building of London and some wayes of promoting it THat London should be re-built is so much the concern of England both in point of Honour and of Trade as hardly any thing can be more Whilst that lieth in the dust our Glory lieth with it Our Enemies rejoice to see it where it is but should we let it lie there long Oh! how would they scorn us for it and conclude it were because we had not wherewithall to build it up again They know as well as we that there is no part of England situate so commodiously for Trade as London is which name is said to signifie in the Language of the Britains it's first Inhabitants Shipton or a Town of Ships in regard that the famous River which runs by the side of it is able to entertain the greatest Ships that can ride upon the Sea which thing hath made it so famous a Mart those Ships bringing in all the rich commodities the world can afford Hence London for so many Ages past hath held it's Primacy over all other parts of England and none hath been thought fit to succeed it in that dignity though the shifting of Trade from one City to another and an alternate Superlativeness hath been frequent in other parts of the world where one place hath been as commodious as another But London never had rival that did or could pretend it's self as fit to make the great Emporium and Metropolis of England as was it's self The River of Thames made it so at first and that under God will and must make it so again It perished by fire and must be saved by water for that if any thing will make it once again what it was before as Job saith of a Tree onely the Root whereof is left in the ground that thorough the scent of water it will sprout again How venerable is London were it but for its Antiquity of which Ammianus Marcellinus reports that it was called an ancient City in his time which was above twelve hundreds years ago and Cornelius Tacitus seems to do the like three hundred years before him telling us that for multitudes of Merchants and Commerce London was very renowned fifteen hundred years ago nor can we suppose it to have presently arrived at that perfection Who would not assist the building of another City in that place hoping it may continue as many Ages as the other did and longer too if God be pleased to prevent the like disaster I confess I love not to hear men boast at such a time as this what they will do or what shall be done as to the building of London more glorious than ever The Inhabitants of Samaria are blamed for saying The Bricks are fallen down but we will build with hewen Stones the Sycamores are cut down but we will change them into Cedars We are but putting on our harness as to re-building let us not boast as if we were putting of it off This is not a time in which to say much though it becomes us to do all we can If we may see but such another City it will be a great mercy but one more glorious than that we may scarce expect till we see it Alas how many difficulties is that work clogg'd with How scarce and dear are all materials How poor are many that desire to build How hard and almost impossible will it be to satisfie the Interest of all proprietors Amongst all the Models that are presented for that purpose How hard will it be to know how to pitch upon that which may be most convenient If we build every where as before it will be incommodious for Passage dangerous for Fire if by a new Platform it is hard not to be injuxious to multitudes of People whose Houses stood inconveniently as to the Publick Lord Give our Senators double and treble wisdom that they may be satisfactory-Repairers of so great breaches But
lay submissively at the feet of London like an humble valley at the foot of a high mountain What multitudes of Citizens have flockt to it as glad to be free amongst those that were not free themselves the fire having as it were broken down the partition-wall betwixt those that were Free-men of London and those that were not If the Suburbs had been burnt VVhither would the Inhabitants have sled Trade within the VValls they might not as Citizens may without which liberty they having now taken as it is their due What are the Suburbs now beconâ— but as it were the in-side of the late-Famous City carried and placed without the Walls London its self by a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Soul of the City being now translated into the Body of the Suburbs So that he who would now look for London must look for most of it not within but without the Walls How easie is it with God to pull down one and set up another To pluck the mighty from their seat and to exalt the poor and needy VVe read though in another sense that every Valley shall be exalted and every Mountain and Hill shall be made low VVho can but think of â—â—annâ—h's words shewing how God turns the VVorld up-side-down like a VVheel the uppermost Spoke whereof is quickly down and the lowest at the top 1 Sam. 2.5 They that were full have hired out themseives for bread and they that were hungry have ceased So that the barren have â—orn seven and she that hath many children is waxen feâ—ble And Vers 7. The 〈◊〉 makes pâ—or and maketh rich he bringeth low and listeth up It is good counsel that an excellent man gives viz. That we should despise no mans present condition seeing we do not know his Destiny It should seem the poor despised Suburbs were destin'd to hold up their heads more than ever when the noble City should lie in dust and ashes as now it doth Let Lâ—ndoners not think much of it that the providence of God hath cast them without the Gates and VValls of London but rather consider of such expressions as those Heb. 13.12 13 14. How that Christ suffered without the Gate Let us go therefore to him without the Camp bearing his reproach For here we have no continuing City I say Let them think of those words and prepare for another-guise suffering without the Gate than as now they do and bearing another-guise reproach than now they bear for this is next to none it being more proper to say and think That they have made the Suburbs honourable than That the Suburbs have made them despicable MEDITATION XXXVII Upon the Tongue being a Fire c. James 3.6 VVHen the Scripture would express how mischievous a Member an evil Tongue is it saith It is a Fire Fire hath done a world of mischief one time or other and so have evil Tongues whereupon it is added That the Tongue is a world of iniquity There is a fire that is called Ignis fatuus quod efficit tales because it makes fools of men leading them out of their way So Solomon speaking concerning a young man seduced by a Harlot saith With her much fair speech she caused him to yield Prov. 7.21 Fire from small beglnnings spreads it self very far so do the evils of mens Tongues So Solomon speaking of a Fool faith The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness and the end of his talk is mischievous madness Eccles 10.13 They are high expressions which St. James useth concerning the Tongue telling us that it desileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature and it is set on fire of Hell By setting on fire the course of nature we may understand those great Combustions which the tongues of men have made in the VVorld of which there are three famous Instances that come to mind sufficient to demonstrate that so as men may use and imploy their Tongues by means thereof the whole VVorld may be put into a flame How did the Princes of Succoth fire Gideon by that upbraiding Question mentioned Judg. 8.5 Are the hands of Zeba and Zalmunnah now in thy hands that we should give bread unto thine Army To which he replyed VVhen the Lord shall give Zeba and Zalmunnah into mine hands then will I teâ—r your flesh with the briars of the wilderness and with thorns And we know he was as good as his word Did not Nabals churlish Tongue kindle such a fire in Davids breast as might have consumed all his family if the greater prudence of Abigail his wife had not seasonably extinguisht it 1 Sam. 25.10 It was gone so far that David had sworn He would not leave of them that did pertain to Nabal by the morning-light any that pissed against a wall Vers 22. And all this because of a provoking Answer he sent him saying VVho is David Many servants nowadayes break away from their Masters c. Yea the Tongue of David himself at what time he came with a lie in his mouth to Abimelech proved no otherwise than a fire which did consume at once four-score and five of the Lords Priests 1 Sam. 22.19 By the same reason that so great Combustions were raised by a few sparks falling from the Tongues of particular men may the whole VVorld be destroyed by the fire of mens Tongues such and so great as it may be which may give us an accompt of what the Text saith concerning the Tongue its setting on fire the whole course of nature Now whereas he adds that he Tongue it's self is set on fire of hell me-thinks he speaks of a wicked Tongue as if it were a sacrifice a Holocaust to the Devil as the Apostle saith in another case The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sâ—crifice to Devils and not to God 1 Cor. 10.20 For whereas the sacrifices which God did accept were kindled by sire from heaven a depraved Tongue is said to be kindled by a fire worse then that which is common viz. by fire from hell as if it were in token of the Devils preparing and challenging of it for himself Yet as ill a construction as calling the tongue a fire may bear in one sense yet in another acceptation of that Metaphor the Tongue ought to be a Fire and it is its excellency so to be The holy Ghost came down upon the Apostles in the form of fiery clâ—ven tongues Act. 2.3 God did touch the mouth of his prophet with a coal from his altar in token that his iniquity was taken away and his sin purged Isa 6.7 There are words that may be used to enemies which would be like heaping coals of fire upon their heads in that good sense that Sâ—lâ—mon wisheth us so to do May my tongue be such a sire as one of these may it be a flame breaking forth to vent and express a fire of God that burns within may it be a fire consuming the vices of others by faithful
admonitions and reproofs in kindling and increasing zeal in others by warm and affectionate counsels a fire refreshing the hearts of others by a due and seasonable application of divine and comfortable considerations They whose tongues are a fire in the worse sense viz. inflaming the world with contention concupiscence and other noisome lusts shall have for their reward sharp arrows of the Almighty with coals of Juniper Psal 120.4 Yea the time is coming when in case they repent not they shall cry out with Dives Father Abraham send â—â—zâ—arus that he may dip the tip of hiâ— singer in water and cool my tongue tormented in this flame Luk. 16. As fire is one of usefullest things in the world when well imployed so is the Tongue of man therefore called his glory but as that when it exceeds it's bounds is greatly pernicious so are the Tongues of men and therefore look what care is taken to keep fire within our Chymnies and other places proper for it the like should be taken to set a watch before the door of our lips that we offend not with our Tongues no wonder S. James should say that He who offendeth not in words is a perfect man â—ble to bridle the whole body For he that can master his tongue can master fire which of all creatures is most untameable MEDITATION XXXVIII Upon the Angels being called flames of fire Heb. 1. IS it for their Agility or for their spirituality or for their great power or for their likeness to God that Angels are called flames of five or rather is it not for all of these How quickly doth a flash of lightnings shoot its self from East to West Nor are the Angels of God less nimble Light and fire and slames comprehend both are as spiritual bodies as any we know the fitter therefore to resemble those who are meer Spirits and as the Text calls them ministring Spirits The power of fire and particularly in destroving we know to our cost And did that single Angel show himself less powerful who in one night destroyed a hundred fourscore five thousand men belonging to the host of Senacherib Isa 37.36 It is not for nothing that Angels are called Principalities and Powers Neither have good Angels less power to save than to destroy when they are appointed thereunto God himself being called a fire it is probable enough that Angels go by the same name because of the resemblance which they bear to God who have more of Gods image than man himself though man hath more of it then all other creatures The Chariots of fire which Elisha saw 2 King 6.17 What were they but so many Angels of God that were sent to guard him which made him say there were more with than against him Yea the fiery chariot in which Elijah was said to have been taken up to heaven possibly was no other then a convoy of Angels such as carried Lazarus into Abrahams bosom How happy are the Servants of God in having a guard of Angels How safe are they being compassed about with such walls of fire No wonder that the righteous are more bold than a Lion as Solomon speaks wild beasts are afraid of fire and if there be a sort of men as savage as they yet can those good Angels which God hath ordered to protect his people keep those Salvages in awe What a comfort is it that God hath such nimble Messengers to dispatch upon any expedition for our good An host of Angels can be with us presently even as soon as lightning can glance thorough the air It is well for believers that Angels are so powerful that they excell in strength seeing they are theirs appointed to minister for their good In how much less danger are Gods children many times than they apprehend themselves because their guard is spiritual and invisible which made Elisha's servant more afraid one while than otherwise he would have been than afterwards he was If every Angel be a flame of fire what the Prophet told his man in another case may be applied in this There are more flames and fires I mean with Gods people than are against them MEDITATION XXXIX Upon the word of God it 's being compared to fire Jer. 23.29 HOw shall we understand that question Jer. 22.29 It not my word like as a fire saith the Lord Wherein consists the resemblance betwixt the word of God and fire Surely it 's warnting the hearts of men in whom it takes place is one reason of it's being so called For so said the Disciples of Christ Did not our hearts even burn within us whilst he opened the Scriptures to us Luk. 24.32 Or else it may be so called from it's efficacy in which sense it is also called a Hammer which breaketh the rocks in pieces Fire is able to demolish the strongest places of which we many have sad instances at this day so the Word is said to be mighty through God to pull down strong holds We read of Gold tried by fire 1 Pet. 1.7 and is not the Word of God a trying thing It is said I shall not here examine in what sense that God sent forth his word and tried Joseph Psal 10.19 Who knows not the purifying nature of fire whereby metals are refined and did not Christ ascribe the like virtue to his Word saying Now are ye clean through the word that I have spoken to you What more piercing then fire and in that â—espect also it is much an Embleme of the Word of God which is said to be sharper than a two-edged sword piercing to the dividing a-sunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow Heb. 4.12 These are but some of the Parallels that might be made betwixt the word of God and Fire He whose word it is would have it to be as Fire And if it be Fire where it hath once broken out and got head it will be hard to smother or suppresse it as that Evangelical Fire which was kindled by Luther in Germany could never be extinguished to this day Saint Paul saith though he suffered bonds yet the word of God was not bound 2 Tim. 2.4 And in Phil. 1.12 he saith that the troubles which befell him had happened rather to the furtheranoâ—â—f the Gospel and many did wax confident by his bonds to speak the word without fear If the word of God be Fire as it is I wonder not that there are such combustions in the world by means of it as Christ telling us what through the corruption of men would insue upon his Gospel saith He came not to send peace upon earth but a sword Mat. 10.34 It is not Gods word but something else those men would have who would have nothing preached to them that should be as fire to consume their Lusts or to make their consciences smart at the remembrance of them That which is not apt to search and pierce is nothing akin to fire and therefore cannot be the word of God
which is said to be quick and powerful as fire its self The fires which God kindleth for the good of the world whereof his word is one of the chief woe be to any that shall go about to quench Quenching of prophecying is next unto quenching of the Spirit yea and is one way of doing it as Divines observe I see cause to blesse the God of heaven who hath created some fires as profitable as others are mischievous namely his word for one a fire that never doth hurt otherwise than by accident neither indeed would other fires kept within their due bounds but so much good as no tongue can express O Lord that through thine insinite goodness I might experiment in my self and others all those excellent properties of fire meeting in thy word of which I have now been speaking that my heart and theirs might burn within us at the hearing of it as did the hearts of thy Disciples that it may be mighty through thee to pull down all the strong-holds of Sin and Sathan that are within us that it might trye us as gold is tryed in the fire and at the same time resined and purisied that it might pierce unto the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow that the sin which is as it were bred in our bones may be gotten out of the very flesh May the fire of thy word have such influence as this upon us we shall then be sure to escape the fire of thy wrath and to arrive to that happiness which is called The inheritance of the Saints in Light Col. 1.12 MEDITATION XL. Upon the spoiling of Conduits and other Aqueducts by this Fire ME-thinks the several Conduits that were in London stood like so many little but strong Forts to confront and give check to that great enemy Fire if any occasion should be There me-thinks the water was as it were intrenched and ingarrisoned The several Pipes and Vehicles of water that were within those Conduits all of them charged with water till by the turning of the Cocks they were discharged again were as so many Souldiers within those Forts with their Musquets charged and ready to be discharged upon the drawing of their several Cocks to keep and defend those places And look how Enemies are wont to deal with those Castles which they take to be impregnable and dispair of ever getting by storm viz. to attempt the starving of them by a close Siege intercepting all provision of Victuals from coming at them so went the fire to work with those little Castles of stone which were not easie for it to burn down witness their standing to this day spoiled them or almost spoiled them it hath for present by cutting off those supplies of water which had wont to slow to them melting those leaden Channels in which the water had wont to be conveyed to them and thereby as it were starving those Garrisons which they could not take by storm What the Scripture speaks of the Land of Jordan that it was well watered every where before the Lord destroyed Sodom even as the Garden of the Lord like the Land of Egypt made fruitful by the River Nilus the same might have been said of London before this fire It was watered like Paradise its self yea whereas Paradise had but one River though it parted into four heads Gen. 2.10 London had two at least deviding its self or rather devided into many branches and dispersing its self several wayes For besides the noble River of Thames gliding not only by the sides but thorow the bowels of London there was another called the New-River brought from Hartfordshire thither by the industry and ingenuity of that worthy and never to be forgotten Knight Sir Hugh Middleton the spring of whose deserved fame is such as the late Fire its self though the dreadfullest of all that we have known hath not nor will not be able to dry up but continue it will a Fountain of praise and honour bubling up to all posterity As nature by Veins and Arteries some great some small placed up and down all parts of the Body ministreth blood and nourishment to every member thereof and part of each member so was that wholsome Water which was as necessary for the good of London as blood is for the life and health of the body conveyed by Pipes wooden or metalline as by so many veins into all parts of that famous City If water were as we may call it the blood of London then were its several Conduits as it were the Liver and Spleen of that City which are reckoned as the Fountains of blood in humane bodies for that the great Trunks of veins conveying blood about the body are seated there as great Roots fixed in the Earth shooting out their branches divers and sundry wayes But alas how were those Livers inflamed and how unfit have they been since to do their wonted Office What pity it is to see those breasts of London for so I may also call them almost dryed up and the poor Citizens mean time so loth as they are to be weaned from their former place They were lovely streams indeed which did refresh that noble City one of which was alwayes at work pouring out its self when the rest lay still As if the Fire had been angry with the poor old Tankard-bearers both Men and Women for propagating that Element which was contrary to it and carrying it upon their shoulders as it were in State and Triumph it hath even destroyed their Trade and threatned to make them perish by fire who had wont to live by water Seeing there are few or none to suck those Breasts at this day the matter is not so great if they be almost empty and dry at present may they but sill again and their Milk be renewed so soon as the honest Citizens shall come again to their former scituations O Lord that it might be thy good pleasure to let London be first restor'd and ever after preserved from Fire and when once restored let it be as plentifully and commodiously supplied with water as ever it was formerly Make it once again as the Paradise of God but never suffer any destroying Serpent any more to come there MEDITATION XLI Upon the Retorts and Reproaches of Papists occasioned by this fire ME-thinks I hear some Reman-Catholicks as they are pleased to call themselves saying Some of your Protestants did confidently foretel That within this present year 1666 Rome should down Babylon should fall Antichrist should be destroyed But now your own City is destroyed in the self-same-year which according to you doth show that London was the true Babylon and that the true Antichrist is amongst your selves Yet upon due examination it will be found that there is as little strength in the Argument which they have brought as there is sense in the name whereby they are called viz. Roman-Catholicks which is as much as to say Members of the particular
Lord did rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven Those places were destroyed by a meer miracle which was no small aggravation of the judgement as it is of mercy when men are saved by miracle but so was not London conceived to have been Nextly the fire upon Sodom and the three other Cities consumed with it destroyed not only a major part of those Cities but the whole But the Beesom of destruction which swept London did not sweep so clean but God hath left some small remnant of City that it might not be like Sodom and like Gomornish Isai 1.9 Thirdly the fire upon Sedom and Gomorrah did consume not only places but persons not only four Cities but the greatest part of their inhabitants Gen. 19.25 But to the praise of distinguishing-mercy be it spoken the inhabitants of London were generally snatcht as fire-brands out of the fire and so was part of their substance Fourthly Sodom and Gomarah are said to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. Which expression so far as it is refer'd to the places themselves doth signifie that they were irrecoverably destroyed by fire so as that they shall eternally lie wast But concerning London we hope and have reason to hope better things and that she may say to her insulting enemies Rejoyce not over me For though I fall yet shall I rise again c. Fifthly As if one destruction had been too little and that by sire too Sodom Gomorrah Admah and Zeboim were destroyed by water also that whole Countrey being turned into a standing stinking Lake which at this day is called the Dead Sea and in the Scripture the salt-sea Gen. 14.3 Though formerly it was even as the garden of God or as the land of Egypt for fruitfulness Gen. 14.10 The Salt-sea it is supposed to be called from the Sulphurous combustions first occasioning it and the Dead-sea because the Charnel-house of so many dead Carcasses then destroyed therein or because it is quickned by no visible motion or because it kills all creatures that come into it Several marks of God's curse it retains to this day Though it be a Sea yet neither can fishes live in it nor ships sail in it neither hath it intercourse with any other seas or communion with the Ocean lest it should infect other waters with its malignity neither doth any healthful thing grow thereon God having blasted it as it were as Christ did the barren fig-tree Solinus calls it a Melancholy Bay which the black-soil thereof being also turned into ashes witnesseth to have been blasted from heaven I read of nothing that appeareth good in about Sodom since its destruction but a certain Apple and that doth but appear so neither for though it appear fair to the eye yet within the rind of it is nothing but an Ember-like Soot which being lightly pressed evaporates into smoak and becomes dust Lastly I might adde that God would not permit Lot and his wife to testifie their respects and compassion towards Sodom when the smoak thereoâ— went up like a furnace by casting so much as one look back upon it which Lâ—â—'s wife presuming to do became a pillar of Salt Genesis 19.26 In all these respects was the destruction of Sodom greater than that of London Yet Who is able to say Their sins were greater all things considered London had wherewithal to make its sins more out of measure sinful than were those of the Sodomites It may be more tolerable for the Land of Sodom and Gomorrah at the day of Judgment than for some Londoners though the Judgement upon London at the present be less intolerable of the two Mat. 10.15 For if the mighty works which have been done in London had been done in Sodom possibly it had remained to this day Matt. 11.23 If any should say It is but just that the place where Sodom stood should he turned into a standing-Lake in memorial of the great Idleness of the Inhabitants That it should be turned into a Dead-Seaâ— so called from its killing all creatures that come near it in remembrance how the Sodomites did or would have corrupted all persons that came near them even the Angels themselves that were Lâ—ts guests That the place where those Cities stood should have no communion with any other place should be an exception from that rule that All Rivers run into the Sea viz. by way of punishment for that unlawful communion which they had wont to have one with another changing the natural use to that which is against nature or that it should be a Dead-Sea because the Inhabitants living in pleasures were dead whilst they live as is said of Widows that so live or that no good thing should grow there because so many good creatures of God had wont to be abused by them one of whose sins was fulness of bread meaning Luxury That the fair Apple which grows there having nothing within it but Soot and ashes was an emblem and signification of their being burnt to ashes for lusting after Beauty I say if any will so discant upon the destruction of Sodom how easie were it to assign as many and as strong Reasons why God might have dealt by London as he dealt with Sodom When Londoners are ready to say No misery like theirs let them think of Sodom and the Inhabitants thereof betwixt whom and themselves not their own merits but Gods great mercy hath made a very wide difference MEDITATION XLVII Of the burning of Troy and the circumstances thereof compared with that of London TIme was when that place which was since called London went by the name of new Troy and as it sometimes bore the same name so they both came to the same end viz. by fire Old Troy was fired not accidentally but wilfully and by Enemies and so some think was New Troy otherwise called London Admit the story of Troy be partly fictitious as things related by Poets are suspected to be yet give me leave to moralize it as followeth Is is reported that Priamus giving leave to his Son Paris to ravish Helena Wife to Menelaus King of Sparta was that which forced the Greeks who burnt Troy to renew their ancient quarrel against it I think there have been sew Tragedies acted in the world but the lust of the flesh hath born a share in and been one great occasion of them I cannot say it was that which did provoke men to burn London if it were done by wilfull â—nstruments but I doubt not but that was one of the sins which did provoke God to suffer that goodly City to be burnt Was not Paris his treacherous slaying of Achilles who was in treaty of Marriage with his sister Polyxena another incentive to the Grecians to destroy Troy The unrighteous shedding of blood is a sin that will as easily kindle a fire as most that can be mentioned The Greeks as is said had it revealed to them that unless they could do
the Scripture when it saith that temporal afflictions are but light 2 Cor. 4.17 Our light affliction saith Paul which is but for a moment c. Read but St. Pauls perils 2 Cor. 11.26 27. and his sufferings v. 23. In stripes above measure in prisons more frequent in deaths oft thrice stoned c. and then tell me if his temporal afflictions were light whose can be called heavie Add to what I have said that the pangs of conscience and the pains of hell which I have made appear do so infinitely outweigh all the troubles of this life are no other than what our sins have deserved and therefore our outward afflictions may be said to be light not only if compar'd with what is come upon others but also with what might justly have been inflicted upon our selves So that we may here take up those words of Ezra chap. 9.13 Thou Lord hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve If one that deserves to be put to a painful and shameless death comes off with a burn in the hand who saith not his punishment is light compared with his offence I am deceived if by this time I have not plainly proved all temporal afflictions to be but light though some are nothing like so light as others Now Lord what I have proved by Scriptural arguments let not me or others ever seem to disprove by anti-scriptural practices whilst we affirm Temporal afflictions to be but light let us not groan under them as if they were unsupportable or to be overwhelmed by them Oh mix not Spiritual afflictions with temporal If thou wilt rebuke me seem not to do it in thy wrath neither chasten me in thy sore displeasure Let me ready thy love in and with my temporal afflictions and I shall ever acknowledge that in comparison not only of eternal torments but even of inward and spiritual troubles they are but light DISCOURSE XVIII Of the shortness of Temporal Afflictions THough afflictions be not sweet in themselves yet it is one comfort they are but short And how can the troubles of this life be otherwise than short when this life it self is not long Paul exhorting Christians to weep as if they wept not 1 Cor. 7.29 promiseth this Brethren the time is short v. 28. and to shew the exceeding shortness of it he calls it a moment 2 Cor. 4.17 Our affliction which is but for a moment Persons under affliction are apt to think the time long as those that are in great pain be it but for a day or a piece of a day In the morning they cry Would to God it were evening Deut. 28.67 and in the evening would to God it were morning They are ready to expâ—â—stâ—late with the Sun saying why stay the wheels of his chariot so long though he be as a mighty giant that runs a race They would make morning and evening meet if they knew how and have it night so soon as it is day and day again so soon as it is night But is time long because men think it so is a Summer-day short because they that spend it in pleasure think it is night quickly and wish it were twice so long shall we say the time is long when God saith it is short Let God be true and ever man a liar We our selves shall say the same thing if we compare time with eternity as the Apostle did when he said Our affliction which is but for a moment is not worthy to be compared with the eternal weight of glory A thousand years with God because eternal are but as one day or as a watch in the night what then is fourscore years which few exceed yea few arrive to There are eternal sufferings how long are they and how short are these if compared with them If our miseries may end with our lives we shall have no cause to complain they have been long God hath made our daies as a span and our years are as nothing before him Why should we think that we are long deprived of those things that we could not have long enjoyed Do not persons that have the world at will bemoan themselves to think how soon their souls will be required of them and then whos 's all these things will be Had the City been standing had trade been flourishing had waters of a full cup been wrung out to you and had God given you a lease of all that mercy during life how soon would that life expire how soon must you be gathered to your fathers and go the way of all flesh how close doth eternity follow you at the heeles how suddenly will it swallow you up They that had but a little time to come in their leases and no hopes of renewing them count not their loss so great Thou hast but a little time to come in thy life which is without hope of being renewed and therefore what great matter is it that thou hast lost within a few years they that have great estates yet left will enjoy no more of them than thou dost of thine which the fire hath consumed Is it an eternity of â—â—â—piness that thou believest to be reserved for thee wait but a little while and thou wilt be in possession of it and then thou wilt have no more need of those things O Lord I shall not presume to ask how many daies or moneths or years my sufferings must last or whether all the residue of my life only be pleased to say that they shall be but temporal then shall I thankfully acknowledge that the sufferings of Time are mercifully short if compared with the joyes of eternity DISCOURSE XIX Of the needfulness and usefulness of Affliction VVE commonly say that a rod now and then is as good for children as their meat and God knows that it is so for his should he spate his rod and should his soul spare them for their crying he should spoil his children 1 Pet. 1.6 For a season if need be ye are in heavinass If God do not correct us for his own pleasure as it is certain he doth not for judgment is his strange act neither doth he willingly afflict the children of men then surely it is for our profit We read in Psa 55.19 Because men have no changes viz. from prosperity to adversity but the mountain of their bappiness stands strong therefore they fear not God And another Text saith Put them in fear that they may know themselves to be but men As if men but for Gods terrifying them by affliction would conceit themselves to be more than men It is tendered as a reason why the Moabites were so wicked because they had no affliction at leastwise of a long time Jer. 48.11 Moab hath been at ease from his youth and he hath setled on his â—ees and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel neither hath he gone into captivity therefore his â—aste remained in him and his sent is not changed Agur gives this reason why he
when he called him to it Are we better than Moses then Aaron the Saint of the Lord than David than Hezekiah than Job yea than Christ himself who had all learn'd to stoop to God in very difficult cases Can we be too good to do it if they were not When God told Moses he should go up to Pisgah and take a view of Canaan but that he should never enter into it Deut. 3.27 We finde not one word that he replyed after he had once made his request and God had said speak no more of this matter When God had by fire consumed Nadab and Abihu the two Sons of Aaron Moses did but say to him The Lord will be sanctified in them that come nigh to him and be glorified before all the people and Aaron held his peace Levit. 10.3 When old Eli had received a dreadfull message from God by a Child for so Samuel then was 1 Sam. 3.18 How meekly did he resent it saying It is the Lord let him do as seemeth him good When David was flying from the face of his rebellious Son Absalom and taking leave of the Ark of God 2 Sam. 15.26 If the Lord say I have no delight in thee behold here am I let him do to me what seemeth him good At another time when David was even consumed by the blow of Gods hand Psal 39.10 he saith I was dumb and opened not my mouth because thou didst it vers 9. And as for Hezekiah though a King also as well as David yet see how his spirit buckled to God when the Prophet brought him word that God had taken away the fee-simple of all he had from his children who should be Eunuches to the King of Babylon Isa 39.7 And left him but his life in it Good is the Word of the Lord saith he which thou hast spoken vers 8. As for Job who had been the greatest of all the Men of the East when he had lost all but a vexatious Wife prompting him to curse God vet cried he out Blessed be the Name of the Lord Job 1.21 Behold a greater instance of patience and submission than any of these both for that his person was more excellent and his sufferings far greater having been a Man of sorrowes all his time Isa 53.7 He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a Sheep before the Shearer is dumb so he opened not his mouth When he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2.23 Was not this written for our imitation vers 21. Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example Did he who is God equal with the father submit even to the painfull and shamefull and cursed death of the cross and shall we think our selves too good to stoop to lesser sufferings and humiliations he that can submit to God may be happy in any condition he that cannot will be happy in no condition this World can afford him in which all our roses are full of prickles and all our wayes strowed and hedged up with thornes more or less Yea not only the Church militant upon Earth but even the Church triumphant in heaven could not be free from misery if the will of glorious Saints were not melted into the will of God Abraham would be ever and anon grieving to think of Dives and others in his case if his will were not perfectly conformed to the will of God Many things fall out in this life which we would not for a World should be if we could and might prevent them but when the pleasure of God is once declared by events even in those cases ought we to sit down satisfied Abraham would not have sacrificed Isaac for the whole World but that God made as if he would have him so to do and then he yielded presently If blinde fortune did govern the World whose heart would it not break to think of so famous a City in a few dayes laid in ashes but sith it was the will of God it should be so who ordereth all things according to the counsel of his will let all the Earth be silent before him let us be still and know that he is God Who should rule the World but he that made it and that upholds it by the Word of his Power He can do us no wrong if he would such is his essential holiness which also makes it impossible for him to lie he would do us no wrong if he could such is his infinite justice He can do nothing but what is consistent with infinite wisdome patience goodness mercy and every perfection and how unreasonable is it not to submit to that which is consistent with all of these so doubtless was the burning of our renowned City as ghastly a spectacle as it is to behold else it had never come to pass O Lord I am sensible that I have need of line upon line precept upon precept and example upon example to teach me this hard lesson of submission to thee though the object of that submission seem to be only my condition in this life for I no where finde that thou requirest me and others to be willing to perish everlastingly Thou knowest how much thy glory and the comfort of thy poor Creatures are concerned in it that we should know how to resign up our selves to thee inable us to be contented with whatsoever thy will hath been or shall be concerning us and then be pleased to do with us as to this World what thou wilt DISCOURSE XXIV Of taking occasion by this to study the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly things IF a glorious City turned into a ruinous heap in four dayes time when no visible enemy was at hand to do it if the reducing hundreds of Families to almost beggery that liv'd in good fashion in less than one week before by an unexpected meanes and in a way not possible to be foreseen if knocking a Nation out of joynt all of a sudden like a body that had been tortured upon a Rack be not loud Sermons of the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly things surely there will be none such till that time shall come that St. Peter speaks of 2 Pet. 3.10 When the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with servent heat the Earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up What a Comment was this providence upon that Text Psal 39.5 Verily every Man at his best state is altogether vanity How did it evince the Psalmist to speak right Psal 62.9 Not only when he saith Men of low degree are vanity which most people do believe but also when he saith Men of high degree are a lie to be laid in the ballance they are altogether lighter than vanity which few assent unto If things are called vanity as most properly they are from
were purer then snow whiter then milk their visage was become blacker then any coal so to think how they that lived in great port and fashion are many of them as in the turning of a hand brought exceeding low they and theirs should much affect us The desolation of so many houses is a sad sight but the ruine of so many families as this fire hath ruin'd is yet a sadder consideration Surely it hath fallen heavy both upon rich and poor rich men in the loss of their estates poor men in the loss of their friends The rich man hath lost his talent and the poor man hath lost his steward that improved it for him in a way of relief and charity Is it not worth our adding and throwing into the ballance that this loss by fire trod upon the heels of two other greater losses viz. By war and pestilence the latter of which not only diminished our estates but which was worse deprived us of near and dear relations yea moreover that this judgement came before the other two were gone or either of them for is not the sword yet drawn and doth not the pestilence still devour so that these three judgements have appeared together like three terrible Comets or Blazing-stars threatning utter destruction and God hath come out against us riding as it were upon three several dreadful horses black red and pale to allude to what is spoken in the Revelations And as for what concerns mens estates it is well known that the sword and pestilence in several years hath not so much exhausted them as this fire did within a few days Meerly to avoid tediousness I shall here add but two things touching London's loss though otherwise much more might be added one is that it is Invaluable and the other that in the eye of reason it is Irreparable It is in the first place Inestimable namely how great the loss is for the present but more especially what sad products consequences it may draw after it for the future whither the tayl of the Comet as I may call it may reach It is a common and I believe a true saying amongst the sufferers by this fire that they have lost so much that they themselves cannot tell what they have lost Only he that can tell the number of the Stars and call them all by their names doth know what the sum total of this loss is and what are all the particulars of it and what influence this Judgement may have upon the times to come for certain it is the children which are yet unborn will in time fare the worse for it Who can estimate how great a dammage and confusion will arise first and last from one branch of this losse viz. the burning of Bills Bonds Leases Conveiances Books of Debts and Accompts and other Writings of great consequence which was all that many men had to shew for the greatest part of their Estates what contention and confusion this one loss may produce no heart can conceive who knows not that paper and parchment such as the contents thereof may be may be of greater value than Pearls and Diamonds How many had rather yea had better have lost thousands of pounds than some few sheets of paper that went to feed those flames O fire inestimably dear O loss unvaluable Could this loss be repaired the matter were not so great but it either is or seems to be irrepairable â—t leastwise in the memory of any man now living So that we may here take up the same complaint which the prophet did Lam. 2.13 Thy reach is great like the Sea Who can heal thee Or as he Jer. 30.15 Why criest thou for thine affliction thy sorrâ—w is incurable I question not the Omnipotency of God but according to what is usual with God to do in the world we can none of us expect to see that breach made up in many years which was made upon London in a few dayes Now put all these things together and then tell me if his heart be not harder then the nether Milstone that can see what London hath suffered and not mourn with a very great mourning If so a mazeing a Judgement will not awaken men they are like to sleep in their security till they come to wake in Hell where none can sleep for the smoke of their torment ascendeth continually and they have no rest day nor night But are there any that call themselves Englishmen that do not only not mourn over but rejoyce and triumph in the destruction of London Let them believe themselves to be legitimate if they can at leastwise let them not think that others will ever believe that there is one drop of true English Blood running in their veins Or let the parents of their Bodies be who they will I am sure that in another sense they are of their Father the Devil and his works they do If there could have bin mirth in Hell there would have been rejoycing there at the firing of London as there is in heaven at the Conversion of a sinner How worthy were they to have danced in those flames who if any such be have sung and danced at the remembrance of them But what if some not only rejoyce in this being done but had the heart to do it How long was it ere I could believe there was any such Monster in the World till I heard of one convicted for the same and that by his own sensible and persevering Confession Lord What mischief have they done Is there any sacrifice for their sin One would think if there were no Hell God would prepare one on purpose for such miscreants to burn them in who have burn't up the Estates and Livelihoods of so many thousands But Lord thou knowest it is not my desire they should nor is it my opinion that the blood of Christ laid hold on by faith is not able to save their souls And oh Though their bodies should be given as meat to the fowles of the air or fewel to temporal flames yet that their souls might be delivered from the wrath to come Let them rely upon no pardon from that triple crowned blasphemer of Rome who cannot so much as pardon his own sins and it is well the light of such men considered and how they hold the truth in unrighteousnesse if they be not unpardouable He that cheats men into sin let him not cheat them into Hell by causing them to rest upon his mock indulgences who is easie enough to pardon such peccadilloes in his account as are the burning of Protestant Cities yea can be willing to enroll them amongst his Saints I confess a red letter would do well before their names but onely in token of blood and cruelty But Lord I desire to look higher than those instruments of our late sire even unto thee Thou hast set us on fire round about and oh that we could lay it to heart as becometh us We would hold our peace because thou
Lord hast done it If thou hadst so pleased London might have been like the Bush which did burn but was not consumed but thou didst give it up to the flames Lord at what a rate hath London yea England sinneâ— that thou hast thus punished it Thou dost manâ— times punish men lesse than their sins deserve but never more Which of us have not contributed by our iniquities to this as well as to other judgements Which of us have not cause to say Lord forgive us that by our sins we have infected London and England with a devouring Plague that we have helpt to embroil it in a consuming War yea that we have had our hands as by way of demerit in kindling the late Fire which burnt London to the ground MEDITATION II. Upon sight of the Weekly Bill for London since the Fire VVIth how sad a heart have I read that Bill finding but sixteen Parishes within the wals now pretended to and considering with my self by how great a Synecdoche some of those Parishes do at this day go by their former names It is that figure which puts a part for the whole yea a small part too the compounding Figure as I may call it that takes as it were five shillings or half a Crown for a pound which alone warranteth us to call London London still and severall parishes said to be now standing by the names which they did bear formerly The unjust Steward Luke 16.7 used substraction onely where a hundred was owing he bid them set down fifty but we as if that were to be more just proceed by way of multiplication setting down a a hundred for ten or twenty We view our City as it were through a microscope which represents the leg of a Flea so big as if it were the leg of some creature far bigger than its whole Body So might we call a sometimes great and samous Inne the Crown or Miter as it was formerly called though burnt down to the proportion of a Cottage because the sign and sign post are still to be seen and there is yet some small part of the old Building Is it not rather the Epitomâ— of London which we now have than London it self as if the abridgement of a Book in Folio be it Aquinas his Summes or any other such should go by the name of Aquinas his Sums or what other name it bore in Folio when contracted into a smal Manual or Pocket-Book It is London in short hand such as might contain the Decalogue within the compasse of a single penny rather than so at length if yet we may call it London Is it not rather Londons Remains and Ruins its â—â—rn and Ashes than London it self So a Burgesse or two in Parliament stands for a whole Town a Knight or two for a whole Shire so Lords Spiâ—ual and Temporal write themselves London Yorke Lincoln Canterbury as if they were whole Cities or Towns being indeed but single and individual persons Methinks it is as if Judah and Benjamin were called Israel being indeed but two Tribes of Twelve Nor am I lesse affected with that dolefull parenthesis in two short words viz. Now standing How am I pusht with the two horns of that parenthesis putting me upon this dilemma that I know not whether more to be thankfull that all London is not fallen or more to lament that so small a part of it is yet standing The late Plague gave us to see and expect London without many Inhabitants at leastwise for a time but to see London with but a few habitations was that we never lookt for We have lately known a Plague that laid thousands of Citizens under ground but who dreamt of a Fire that would lay the City it self upon the ground Hear O Heavens and be astonished O earth I find as many sorts of diseases in the Bill now as ever They find men out go whither they will they crowd into Families that have scarce room enough to turn themselves in Death will not spaâ—e as if it pitied those whom the fire hath not spared Mens tabernacles must go to wrack as well as their houses But to confine my self to the business of the sire Methinks London at this day is a lively Emblem of a Professor fallen from his first Love or rather a backsliding Professor is just in such a condition as London is at this day He goes by the same name as formerly but How far is he from being the same person he was How like is he to those Churches the outsides whereof are yet standing their walls and steeples make such a fair show that they who should view them at a distance would think they were just as before but alas Their insides are gone they are fit for no use yea their very out-sides are so frail and brittle that in a windy day men are loth to pass by them for fear of being knockt on the head What havock hath sin made in all the faculties of such men which if the Soul may be compared to a City may be called the several streets of that City How hath error destroyed their understandings ill habits their wills and inclinations to good the World consumed their spiritual affections all these things conspired to desolate and lay waste their Consciences and now those men though called Christians still and glorying in that name lie just like London in dust and rubbish and ashes O Lord Give England to meet thee in the way of thy judgements by a timely repentance yea give these three Kingdomes so to do lest it come to pass that hereafter England should be called England and Great Britain Great Britain and the three Kingdomes so by as great a Synecdoche as the poor Remains of London are now called London and the Reliques of some streets said to be now standing by the name those streets had when in their beauty and glory MEDITATION III. Upon the Discourses occasioned by the late Fire both thâ—n and since SOme came to London in the time of the Fire having heard of it but not seen it and probably their first question was Is the Fire out Alas no would they say that answered them It is so far from being out that it rageth more and more They that heard it was not out would be asking how far it was gotten whereabouts it was Then would men begin to reckon up the Streets and Churches that were burnt down already Thames street is gone and Fish street is gone and Gracious Street is down and now it is at such a place and such a place and so they would proceed Is the Fire abated would others say Is there any hope of extinguishing it We see little sign of it would some reply It is seared it will consume the whole City and Suburbs too Why do they not play their Engines would some cry Alas they are broken and out of Kelter we little expecting such a sad time as this Some it may be would say Why do so many people