Samaria thought it beneath them to own Religion any further than it was subservient to their civil interests They were all of Jeroboams Religion who looked on it as a meer politick thing and fit to advance his own designs by I am afraid there are too many at this day who are secretly of his mind and think it a piece of wisdom to be so Blessed God that men should be so wise to deceive themselves and go down with so much discretion to Hell These are the Grave and retired Atheists who though they secretly love not Religion yet their caution hinders them from talking much against it But there is a sort of men much more common than the other the faculties of whose minds are so thin and aiery that they will not bear the consideration of any thing much less of Religion these throw out their bitter scoffs and prophane jests against it A thing never permitted that I know of in any civilized Nation in the world whatsoever their Religion was the reputation of Religion was alwayes preserved sacred God himself would not suffer the Jews to speak evil of other Gods though they were to destroy all those who tempted them to the worship of them And shall we suffer the most excellent and reasonable Religion in the world viz. the Christian to be profaned by the unhallowed mouths of any who will venture to be damned to be accounted witty If their enquiries were deeper their reason stronger or their arguments more perswasive than of those who have made it their utmost care and business to search into these things they ought to be allowed a fair hearing but for men who pretend to none of these things yet still to make Religion the object of their scoffs and raillery doth not become the gravity of a Nation professing wisdom to permit it much less the sobriety of a people professing Christianity In the mean time such persons may know that wise men may be argued out of a Religion they own but none but Fools and mad men will be droll'd out of it Let them first try whether they can laugh men out of their Estates before they attempt to do it out of their hopes of an eternal happiness And I am sure it will be no comfort to them in another world that they were accounted Wits for deriding those miseries which they then feel and smart under the severity of it will be no mitigation of their flames that they go laughing into them nor will they endure them the better because they would not believe them But while this is so prevailing a humour among the vain men of this Age and Nation what can we expect but that God should by remarkable and severe judgements seek to make men more serious in Religion or else make their hearts to ake and their joynts to tremble as he did Belshazzars when he could find nothing else to carouse in but the vessels of the Temple And when men said in the Prophet Zephany chap. 1. 12. that God neither did good nor evil presently it follows therefore their goods shall become a booty and their houses a desolation the day of the Lord is near a day of wrath a day of trouble and distress a day of wasteness and desolation as it is with us at this time Thus we see how sad the parallel hath been not only in the judgements of Israel but in the sins likewise which have made those judgements so severe 4. The severity of the judgement appears not only from the Causes but from the Author of it I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah God challenges the execution of his justice to himself not only in the great day but in his judgement here in the world Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it When God is pleased to punish men for their sins the execution of his justice is as agreeable to his nature now as it will be at the end of the world We all know that he may do it if he please and he hath told us that he doth and will do it and we know withall that without such remarkable severities the world will hardly be kept in any a we of him We do not find that love doth so much in the world as fear doth there being so very few persons of tractable and ingenuous spirits It is true of too many what Lactantius observes of the Romans Nunquam Dei meminerunt nisi dum in malis sunt they seldom think of God but when they are afraid of him And there is not only this reason as to particular persons why God should punish them but there is a greater as to communities and bodies of men for although God suffers wicked men to escape punishment here as he often doth yet he is sure not to do it in the life to come but communities of men can never be punished but in this world and therefore the justice of God doth often discover it selr in these common calamities to keep the world in subjection to him and to let men see that neither the multitude of their associates nor the depth of their designs nor the subtilty of their Councils can secure them from the omnipotent arm of Divine Justice when he hath determined to visit their transgressions with rods and their iniquities with stripes But when he doth all this yet his loving kindness doth he not utterly take from them for in the midst of all his judgements he is pleased to remember mercy of which we have a remarkable instance in the Text for when God was overthrowing Cities yet he pluckt the inhabitants as firebrands out of the burning and so I come from the severity of God 2. To the mixture of his mercy in it And ye were as a fire-brand pluckt out of the burning That notes two things the nearness they were in to the danger and the unexpectedness of their deliverance out of it 1. The nearness they were in to the danger quasi torris cujus jam magna pars absumpta est as some Paraphrase it like a brand the greatest part of which is already consumed by Fire which shews the difficulty of their escaping So Joshua is said to be a brand pluckt out of the fire Zech. 3. 2. And to this St. Hierom upon this place applyes that difficult passage 1 Cor. 3. 15. they shall be saved but so as by Fire nothing the greatness of the danger they were in and how hardly they should escape And are not all the inhabitants of this City and all of us in the suburbs of the other whose houses escaped so near the flames as Firebrands pluckt out of the burning When the fire came on in its rage and fury as though it would in a short time have devoured all before it that not only this whole City but so great a part of the Suburbs of the other should escape untouched is all circumstances considered a
A SERMON Preached before the Honourable House OF COMMONS At St. MARGARETS WESTMINSTER Octob. 10. 1666. being the Fast-day appointed for the late dreadfull Fire in the City of LONDON By Edward Stillingfleet B. D. Rector of St. Andrews Holborn and one of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary Published by Order of the said House The Fourth Edition LONDON Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock and 〈…〉 sold at his Shop at the Sign of the White 〈◊〉 in Westminster Hall 1666. AMOS 4. 11. I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Soodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. IT is but a very little time since you met together in this place to lament the remainders of a raging pestilence which the last year destroyed so many thousand inhabitants of the late great and famous City and now God hath given us another sad occasion for our fasting and humiliation by suffering a devouring fire to break forth and consume so many of her habitations As though the infected air had been too kind and partial and like Saul to the Amalekites had only destroyed the vile and refuse and spared the greatest of the people as though the grave had surfeited with the bodies of the dead and were loth to go on in the execution of Gods displeasure he hath imployed a more furious Element which by its merciless and devouring flames might in a more lively manner represent unto us the kindling of his wrath against us And that by a Fire which began with that violence and spread with that horrour and raged with that fury continued for so long a time with that irresistible force that it might justly fill the beholders with confusion the hearers of it with amazement and all of us with a deep and humble sense of those sins which have brought down the judgements of God in so severe a manner in the midst of us For whatever arguments or reasons we can imagine that should compose the minds of men to a sense of their own or others calamities or excite them to an apprehension of the wrath of God as the cause of them or quicken them to an earnest supplication to him for mercy they do all eminently concurr in the sad occasion of this dayes solemnity For if either compassion would move or fear awaken or interest engage us to any of these it is hard to conceive there should be an instance of a more efficacious nature than that is which we this day bewail For who can behold the ruines of so great a City and not have his bowels of compassion moved towards it Who can have any sense of the anger of God discovered in it and not have his fear awakened by it Who can as we ought all look upon it as a judgement of universal influence on the whole Nation and not think himself concerned to implore the mercy of Heaven towards us For certainly howsoever we may vainly flatter and deceive our selves these are no common indications of the frowns of heaven nor are they meerly intended as the expressions of Gods severity towards that City which hath suffered so much by them but the stroaks which fall upon the head though they light upon that only are designed for the punishment of the whole body Were there nothing else but a bare permission of Divine Providence as to these things we could not reasonably think but that Gâ—d must needs be very angry with us when he suffers two such dreadful calamities to tread almost upon each others heels that no sooner had death taken away such multitudes of our inhabitants but a Fire follows it to consume our habitations A Fire so dreadfull in its appearance in its rage and fury and in all the dismal consequences of it which we cannot yet be sufficiently apprehensive of that on that very account we may justly lie down in our shame and our confusion cover us because God hath covered the daughter of Sion with a cloud in his anger and cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel and remembred not his footstool in the day of his anger For such was the violence and fury of the flames that they have not only defaced the beauty of the City and humbled the pride and grandeur of it not only stained its glory and consumed its palaces but have made the Houses of God themselves a heap of ruines and a spectacle of desolation And what then can we propose to our selves as arguments of Gods severe displeasure against us which we have not either already felt or have just cause to fear are coming upon us without a speedy and sincere amendment If a Sword abroad and Pestilence at home if Fire in our Houses and Death in our Streets if Forreign Wars and Domestick Factions if a languishing State and a discontented People if the ruines of the City and poverty of the Countrey may make us sensible how sad our condition at present is how much worse it may be if God in his mercy prevent it not we shall all surely think we have reason enough this day to lay to heart the evil of our doings which have brought all these things upon us and abhor our selves repenting in dust and ashes That would seem indeed to bear some analogy with the present ruines of the City and the calamities we lie under at this time but God will more easily dispense with the pompous shews and solemn garbs of our humiliation if our hearts bleed within for our former impieties and our repentance discovers its sinâ—erity by bringing us to that temper that though we have done iniquity we will do so no more That is the true and proper end which Almighty God aims at in all his Judgements he takes no delight in hurling the world into confusions and turning Cities into ruinous heaps and making whole Countries a desolation but when he sees it necessary to vindicate the honour of his Justice to the world he doth it with that severity that may make us apprehend his displeasure and yet with that mercy which may incourage us to repent and return unto the Lord. Thus we find in the instances recorded in the Text when some Cities were consumed by him so that as far as concerned them they were made like to Sodom and Gomorrah yet he doth it with that kindness to the Inhabitants that they are pluckt as firebrands out of the burning and therefore he looks upon it as a frustrating the design both of his Justice and of his Mercy when he is fain to conclude with that sad reflection on their incorrigibleness Yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. Thus ye see what the design and scope of the words is which I have read unto you wherein we may consider 1. The severity of the Judgement which God was pleased to execute upon them I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom
for the gaining of that which may be now lost in an hours time If these flames be so dreadful what are those which are reserved for them who love the world more than God! If none can come near the heat of this Fire who can dwell with everlasting burnings O what madness then will it be to sin any more wilfully against that God who is a consuming fire infinitely more dreadful than this can be Farewell then all ye deceitful vanities now I understand thee and my self better O bewitching world then to fix my happiness in thee any more I will henceforth learn so much wisdom to lay up my treasures there where neither moths can corrupt them nor Thieves steal them nor Fire consume them O how happy would London be if this were the effect of her flames on the minds of all her inhabitants She might then rise with a greater glory and her inward beauty would outshine her outward splendour let it be as great as we can wish or imagine But in the mean time who can behold her present ruines without paying some tears as due to the sadness of the spectacle and more to the sins which caused them If that City were able to speak out of its ruines what sad complaints would it make of all those impieties which have made her so miserable If it had not been might she say for the pride and luxury the ease and delicacy of some of my inhabitants the covetousness the fraud the injustice of others the debaucheries of the prophane the open factions and secret hypocrisie of too many pretending to greater sanctity my beauty had not been thus turned into ashes nor my glory into those ruines which make my enemies rejoyce my friends to mourn and all stand amazed at the beholding of them Look now upon me you who so lately admired the greatness of my trade the riches of my Merchants the number of my people the conveniency of my Churches the multitude of my Streets and see what desolations sin hath made in the earth Look upon me and then tell me whether it be nothing to dally with Heaven to make a mock at sin to slight the judgements of God and abuse his mercies and after all the attempts of Heaven to reclaim a people from their sins to remain still the same that ever they were Was there no way to expiate your guilt but by my misery Had the Leprosie of your sins so fretted into my Walls that there was no cleansing them but by the flames which consume them Must I mourn in my dust and ashes for your iniquities while you are so ready to return to the practice of them Have I suffered so much by reason of them and do you think to escape your selves Can you then look upon my ruines with hearts as hard and unconcerned as the stones which lye in them If you have any kindness for me or for your selves if you ever hope to see my breaches repaired my beauty restored my glory advanced look on Londons ruines and repent Thus would she bid her inhabitants not weep for her miseries but for their own sins for if never any sorrow were like to her sorrow it is because never any sins were like to their sins Not as though they were only the sins of the City which have brought this evil upon her no but as far as the judgement reaches so great hath the compass of the sins been which have provoked God to make her an example of his justice And I fear the effects of Londons calamity will be felt all the Nation over For considering the present languishing condition of this Nation it will be no easie matter to recover the blood and spirits which have been lost by this Fire So that whether we consider the sadness of those circumstances which accompanied the rage of the fire or those which respect the present miseries of the City or the general influence those will have upon the Nation we cannot easily conceive what judgement could in so critical a time have befallen us which had been more severe for the kind and nature of it than this hath been 2. We consider it in the series and order of it We see by the Text this comes in the last place as a reserve when nothing else would do any good upon them It is extrema medicina as St. Hierom saith the last attempt that God uses to reclaim a people by and if these Causticks will not do it is to be feared he looks on the wounds as incurable He had sent a famine before v. 6. a drought v. 7 8. blasting and mildew v. 9. the Pestilence after the manner of Egypt v. 10. the miseries of War in the same verse And when none of these would work that effect upon them which they were designed for then he comes to this last way of punishing before a final destruction be overthrew some of their Cities as he had overthrown Sodom and Gomorrah God forbid we should be so near a final subversion and utter desolation as the ten Tribes were when none of these things would bring them to repentance but yet the method God hath used with us seems to bode very ill in case we do not at last return to the Lord. For it is not only agreeable to what is here delivered as the course God used to reclaim the Israelites but to what is reported by the most faithfull Historian of those times of the degrees and steps that God made before the ruines of the British Nation For Gildas tells us the decay of it began by Civil Wars among themselves and high discontents remaining as the consequents of them after this an universal decay and poverty among them after that nay during the continuannce of it Wars with the Picts and Scots their inveterate enemies but no sooner had they a little breathing space but they return to their luxury and other sins again then God sends among them a consuming Pestilence which destroyed an incredible number of people When all this would not do those whom they trusted most to betrayed them and rebelled against them by whose means not only the Cities were burnt with Fire but the whole Island was turned almost into one continued flame The issue of all which at last was that their Countrey was turned to a desolation the ancient Inhabitants driven out or destroyed and their former servants but now their bitter enemies possessing their habitations May God avert the Omen from us at this day We have smarted by Civil Wars and the dreadful effects of them we yet complain of great discontents and poverty as great as them we have inveterate enemies combined abroad against us we have very lately suffered under a Pestilence as great almost as any we read of and now the great City of our Nation burnt down by a dreadful Fire And what do all these things mean and what will the issue of them be though that be lockt up in the Councils of