and blessed by him who is all power wisdom and duration and therefore can be neither abbreviated or defeated in his volitions and resolves All things working together for the good of his Elect and his counsel ever standing like Mount Sion which can never be removed As I say in his paths of kindness and obligement to man he predisposes and forecalls severalties to their Randezvous and draws forth such services from them as conduces to his own honour and his holy servants security and comfort by them so in order to judgements does he ripen and forward them by such assistances and proper adjuncts that the beauty of penal providence is maintainable from them in spight of all artifices of wickedness to Eclipse or cashire it Thus when he will destroy a sinner he hardneth his heart against his fear and when he will give Victory to his Armies he causes a noise of horsemen and Chariots and drives them away in fear when none pursues them yea he will and does prove a Terrour to wickedness even in the pleasure of it as he did in the hand-writing upon the wall to Nebuchadnezzar What alas signifies Haman's rage if God deny him favour with Ahasuerus as wontedly and bring in Ester his Enemy to his supersedal What avails Sampson's strength if God give a key to the secret of it which resides in its unshavenness To what purpose is Achitophel's policy if God turn it into foolishness and conntermand the aids and co-operations with it we put all our endeavours and attainments in a broken bag if God be not the blessing of them if he speaks no fiat folly is the best prognate of our contrivances so necessary is Gods allowance and aid that without it all is abortive and amort As then when God is in mercy or judgment present all things are as they are properest to be so in his absence on either side there can be no thorow effect of either for all things observe him and as when he says Goe they Goe so when he says recede they depart as he gives heavenly influences in mercy so he withdraws them in wrath he makes the light darkness and the rain fruitlesness the suppression the exaltation the death the life of his manifests to the world what He is and when He has famine pestilence sword or any other noyance to charge a man or Nation with he withholds seasons showers salubrity of air and causes the â—ire of animosity to break out into war and no endeavour of honourable peace to be offered or accepted he withdraws remembrance of old leagues and ancient obligements he casts a veil upon true Christian advantage and will not render its amability to the view of judgment and impartiality and he suffers such intricacies to clog breaches once made that they are reconcileable by no Tertian nor are they admissive of any expedient beneath that dubious fatal and I had almost said uncharitable one of aut Vincere aut vinci either get or lose all And thus God paâ—esies the way to his displeasure in that he drys up the pooles of supply in the wilderness of need and as a moth of corrosion in place of a horn of salvation And if the drought and scantness of water upon a Land be a judgment as God testifies it to be 50 Ier. 38. where he says of the Caldaeans a drought is upon her waters and they shall be dryed up for it is a land of graven Images and they are mad upon their Idols and God is said to call for a drought on the Land upon all things man and beast Hag. 11. as a token of his displeasure then to want water when fire burned and to have the buckets of heaven and the lodges of earth exhaust of water to quench it there being no rain of a long time before the fire and both the Springs low and the Water-works at the Bridge-foot which carryed water into that part of the City burnt down the first day of the fire Thus thus for it to be was no small judgment for as it is a mercy to have God a ready help when trouble is near so is it a judgment to have his creatures denyed when there is most use for them when their presence is salviâ—ique and repulsive when God gives a stomach to eat and no food to satiate it When he opens his peoples hearts to pray and yet hides himself from them and will not be found of them when he that is all plenty becomes a barren wilderness and he that is all power contracts his arm and will not out-stretch it When he that commands the Seas Winds Fire and they obey him raises those Elements by evil instruments and remands them not into their restraint but suffers them of servants to become Masters and instruments of spoil and terrour This unconcernedness of God when his great arrows are thus shot forth of his Almighty bow and fixed in the very hearts of mens delights and recumbencies so that they see all that was dear to them ruined before them and they rendred helpless to themselves can not chuse but be a signal of Gods indignation And we may conjecture God sends his fire to punish our â—â—e his wind to reward our wind Levity and zealesness for Reformed Religion and enmity and uncharitableness in matters of no moment compared to provoking one another to love and to good works has undone all repining against God and against one anotehr has had a notable share in this judgement and as this puts the charge into Gods Cannon so has undervaluation of God ramm'd home the charge to fit it for fataller execution in 78 Psal. 21. God had smote the rock and the waters gushed our and yet the people questioned Can God give bread in the wilderness The Lord says the Psalmist heard this and was wrath and a fire was kinâ—led against Iudah and anger also came up against Israel And I pray God this late harrass of us by a more than Gottish and Vandallique fire be not the stroke of some such brutish and unchristian provocation of God For greater and more express indications of Gods power and goodness has no Nation ever had then we never any Nation less conformed to the call and mercy of it then we Gods Jewels have had their righteous souls vexed amongst us and they cry out to God as David did 57 Psal. 4. My soul is among â—yons and I lye among them that are set on fire even the sons of men whose teeth are Spears and Arrows and their Tongue is a sharp Sword And may not God to revenge this offence to his little ones hang the Milstone of his fury about our necks and cast us into a Sea of misery and into the pressure of a helpless condition may not he pour out the fury of his anger and the strength of battle May not his anger set us on fire round about and we lay it not to heart though we be burned by it as
to be from a supernatural cause that is from Fire darted upon it from Heaven yet does it not nor can it in the least drive at making it a bare accident and a nude casualty but a just and severe judgement of God upon the place and nation auxiliated and perfected by concurrence of circumstances benign to and corresponding with a vastative event nor is any evill of punishments on Cities or Men or Nations but from God concurring with it and exciting and carrying forth instruments to the accomplishing of it The deliverance from the captivity of Aegypt The raising of the Syrians against Israel The defection of the ten Tribes from Rehoboam The captivity into Babylon The desolation of Ierusalem by Vespasian The afflictions of David from his childrens lust and insolency the misery of Iob from Satans inrode upon him and his The storm upon Ionah for his disobedience The temptation of Peter for his self-confidence The thorn in the sâ—esh for Saint Pauls elevation The persecution of the Primitive Martyrs which were the Churches Spawn The Translations of Empires The advance and reducements of families The Marches and Counter-marches of men and things out of one posture into another all these are circumacted by God imploying instruments of his in the managery of them Thus though by good and evil spirits God leads about the world and all in it bringing them into the mold and method of his own good pleasure both of wisdom and power yet are these instruments so purely passive compared to God that they are drowned in his omnipotence whose vassals and visible puppets of agency they only are nor are men to respect them but as bubbles raised up and flatted as God the Master-builder of them informs or deserts them Which rectified notion proves a just medium of expediency to those equally boystrous extremes of seduced man who on the one side will have this judgement miraculous and Fire from Heaven without any natural assistance Gods finger heavier than all the loyns of nature or on the other side ascribe it so to second causes that they will allow no more judgement of God in it than that which accompanies common casualty whereas indeed in this case of London there are so many concurrencies which have their attending cheques which possible are to be but actually were not improved in remedy that the prevalence of the Fire against and in despight of those wonted prudences and usual resistances and the Latitude of effects seconding such a neglect of impeding means where so well understood and so dexterously at other times practised this I say duely and impartially considered must evince some more than ordinary concurrence of God to arm and enable those arising pimples to such a general distemper and mortification And I pray God that this judgement that has thus begun at the House of God For such I dare account London let prophane and superstitious defamers of it say what they please God had more marked ones for Mourners over and livers against the abominations done in the Land in London then I believe in a great part of the Nation beside may stay there and not proceed to those that are yet preserved who are no more righteous than their ruined neighbours Which the Lord of mercy grant for his Sons sake Having thus Sir made way to the more Historical part of this Narrative which falls in properly with the circumstances of co-operation with the Fire whereby it unhappily as to man though happily as to God propagating his power by it prevailed against the City I come to the particularization of such instances as were by wise men observed Fautive of its progress and conclusion And the first circumstance notable in it is that of the time when it began which was ominous as it was about 3. of the clock on a Sunday morning a time when most persons especially the poorer sort were but newly in bed and in their first dead sleep for Saturday being the conclusion of the weeks labour and the day of receipts and payments the markets last not then only all the day but some part of the night especially in Butcheries and too often in Ale-houses the Poors pockets then stored with mony overflowing mostly that way And thence might the Fire get a more than ordinary rooting from the leisure of its burning before it met with checque or suppression Yea and when it was discovered the usuall custom being to lye longest in bed on Sunday might make men more indulge their ease and remit their early stirring and wonted vigour than otherwise they would and besides this amazements in the night are most terrifying to men even of courage whom the dangers of the day are not at all discomforting to because known and distinguished to be what they are by them whereupon in that it pleased God to permit it then to break forth it was not without intimation of some displeasure For usually it is with God to make dayes places and persons peculiarly and devotedly his the instances of his eminent and wasting judgements thus he is said in commissionating judgements to begin at his Sanctuary to give his beloved into the enemies hand to tread the Daughter of Judah in a Wine-press to make Shiloh the mark of his anger to abhorre his people and to hate Sacrifices and to cause the Sabbath to cease from a Laâ—d to cast down the Prince and the Priests his own Vicegerents to make Jerusalem a hissing and an astonishment and to give up his Temple and people into the spoil of the Nations to suffer the Bloud of Iesus that speaks better things than did the bloud of Abel to be the bloud of execration and indictment against them who cryed out Let him be crucified These things thus by God ordered and the method of his ordinary providence inverted and corrosion coming into the room of Balsamittiqueness this ruling of Wine into Vinegar and of Oyl into Aqua Fortis as I may say argues God highly incensed and resolved upon destruction and vengeance For some provocation unnatural unusual persisted in with obstinacy and in opposition to and despight of the meanes and motions of â—eclaimer And applicable hereunto seems Londons case as to the time to be suitable for did he not God make His holy day of Rest a day of labour and disquiet did he not cause the Church to be thin of people to pray to him and hear his Word from him did he not cast off the care of his Sanctuaries and Ministers and give them and theirs up as a prey to the Fire because many of the people would not be present at their Churches according to the Law nor many of the Ministers spiritually expend themselves but according to the law of man has not God dis-parished and scattered them Priest from people Neighbour from Neighbour Indeed Sir these things are to me observable and
if the Lord had not been on our side may London now say If the Lord had not been on our side when the Fire rose up against us then the Fire had swallowed us up quick when its rage was kindled against us Yea certainly God never mingled a Cup of wrath with more Mercy than this which was rather Physick than Poyson more a Paternal chastisement then an extirpating Vengeance For whereas he Marched against Ierusalem of old charging her from his pale horse of fury bringing truculent and bloudy Enemies against it Romans Syrians Arabians all which accompanyed â—espasian against it and that then when there were 270000 Jews which came to Sacrifice shut up by the siege in it as in a Prison and were slain and starved during the siege and at its rendition whereof 600000. were cast out of the City in such distress that a Bushel of Wheat was sold for a talent which is 600 Crowns and the dung and raking of the City sinks was â—â—â—d good Commons and necessity made a Mother kill her Child and dress it and whereas the dead Bodies lay so thick that the way by them was not passable the whole City flowing with bloud so that many parts set on fire were quenched by the bloud of them that were slain and after all the City was burned whereas God thus punished Ierusalem by giving it a Cup of trembling and filling it brimful with deadly Poyson leaving no remnant from which succession should arise or rebuilding and re-inhabitation become probable and effective yet to the praise of the glory of his Grace be it written and be this loving kindness of the Lord never forgotten by London It was not with London as Tacitus writes of Rome Sequiter clades omnibus quid urbi per violentiam ignium acciderunt gravior atque atrocior Annal. lib. 15. p. 791. Edit Dorleans No bloud of the Londoners was mingled with their Sacrifices that is no violent essusion of bloud was in London no Famine during the fire was in London God indeed made the Inhabitants of London during the distraction like Reeds shaken with the wind its Streets were confusedly walked and hurried about in thwack'd with Carts pester'd with Porters and Portadges every house threw out its Furniture which they could not carry away more orderly Men Women Children of all degrees and ages carried out somewhat either to safety or spoil some sent their Goods into the Countrey others into the Feilds and other Open places watching them many nights and others removed them from place to place to lose them at last yet though this was sad God gave them their lives for a prey and they had had the Pity Presence and Comfort of their Good King and the Noble Duke of York with the most Generous Lord Craven and others for Guards and Securers to them and theirs There were indeed bruits of fear and there were companies of suspicious persons who at the best live upon the vices of the Nation and who like Coasters ride out at Sea to expect prey from wrecks and small Boats which they can Master and prey upon such Cormorants of pillage and snaps of ruine My Lodgings were an eminent instance of before they were burned yet open violence there was none to speak of but much even of exemplary Justice and charitable Mercy In the time of the Fires raging and of the distractious impetuosity which I write not to vindicate the dissolute Multitude of pretended Labourers and other instruments of carriage who exhansed the rates of their own portadge while perhaps their Wives Children and Servants or some of them were busie at other work all becoming theirs which their hook could reach or their Net drag away Nor yet do I mention This to atone the displeasure had against those Country Carts and Labourers some of whose wages exceeded the worth of their Lading or the ability of the persons they in this distress exacted it from From these so dreadfully Mercenary to their sensual gain as no more Justice or Courtesie is to be expected than is haveable from a Spoyler who must leave what he cannot carry away and who does not take all not because he cannot find in his heart so to do but because he is afraid so to do whose avoydance of extortion is from wisdom of caution to prevent trouble not upon Conscience of duty to approve himself to God and to Humanity From These I say as no Mercy or Justice is upon resolution to be expected so the Justice and Mercy of These do I not in the least intend to mention by way of praise the Justice and Mercy then remarkable was that of many Honest persons who well understanding the Duties of Constables and Officers became voluntarily such to preseve peace and prevent disorders assisting Government against the common rout apprehending and deteining suspicious persons till they brought Good vouchers and cleared themselves And other Guards and Foot Souldiery upon duty answered the end of their array and did not only not do violence to any but secured all against the violence of any that attempted it it was not with the Sufferers in this Fire as with the Iews when the Romans besieged and Mastered them and they were envyed the Gold that was supposed to be in their Bellies it being noysed that they had swallowed down much which caused some of the Roman allyes in one night to rip up the Bellies of 2000 of them to search for that they found not which Vespasian hearing of and the cruelty of it abominating caused them to be compassed about with Horse and to be destroyed No such truculency was acted here but the Citizens wer fuffered to secure what they could and to pass and repass with what possible freedome and security the exigency of affairs would permit The Souldiers riding about and being their guard and help Thus did King Duke Peers People Souldiers do their parts but Gods Counsell stood and he did with the Buildings and Riches of the City what came in his Soveraign mind to do by reason of which the beauty vastness order of Lond. came down to its Chaos in four dayes which had been climing up to its Meridian above 2000 years exchanging its name of a goodly City for the reproach of a graceless heap The rumination of all which particulars that God suffered a City saved by the Lord from the miseries of War and the mercylessness of Insurrection Risen by grave pauses and Centuries of time into a Miracle of stature accommodated with all ingredients and concentrations to publish and establish it in request and value Whose appositeness for Trade was Magnetique of all Nations and Merchandises to it Whose Credit for order and honesty lewred Strangers out of their Countrys to reside in it and kept them here and naturalized them to it Whose Government was effectual and sweet To ends of terrour and obligement whose Customes and Franchises were beneficial and stated Whose Cittizens were
Rich and Hospitable Whose appearances were pompous and becoming their Descents and Fortunes That London which was so celebrious for publique Edefices of State and Religion that it was not possible almost to wish better or more remarks of Christian Devotion and Politique Grandeur in such dimensions as it stood upon That this City which once deserved the Union of all Characters of glory vying with Rome for Religion with Naples for Nobility with Millan for Beauty with Genoa for Statelyness with Florence for Policy which Venice for Riches That this which was compleat usque ad Invidiam mundi as I may so write should become inglorious and be the Subject as well of her Enemies insult as of her Friends pity This Inscription of Gods fury on the Roll of her Judgment Lamentation and Mourning and Woe ought to call us From joy and melody from pleasure and riot which God has caused to cease unto prostration and confession before God And that not by Hanging down the head like a Bulrush for a day and returning to our Sin the next day like the Dog to his Vomit not by presenting our selves in the Congregation of God which too few do and there only counterfeiting Devotion for an hour only but following it with unmortified bestiality and inhumane luxury not by bare words of piety without any reflexion of them on the heart or any evidence of the truth of its radication in the Flower of it the life Humiliation that God commands and accepts is deep and setled the souls contusion and exinanition such abhorrence as Iob speaks of 42 Iob. 6. an abhorrence of a Mans self and of that Sin that cleaves closest to him and is most connatural with him and a repenting in dust and ashes that is an evidence of self condemnation in the vivid'st and most exact note of it in that which is Emblematical of the lowest dejection such a frame of Soul as weeps bitterly with Peter and makes restoration with Zachaeus and rejects the former allurements to Sin with Mary Magdalen and resigns up it self wholly to Christ Jesus as consternated Saul did when Christ dismounted him and he became his Convert such a humiliation as Manasses and the Good men in Nehemiah presidents us to in the 9. Neh. where 't is said the Children of Israel were assembled with fasting and Sackcloth and with Earth upon them and the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquity of their Fathers Such a humiliation as pulls with indignation sin from its Root and suffers no corner of the Soul or Land to be fantive to it or polluted by it such a humiliation as is in sincerity and truth commensurate to the God of Truth whom it is devoted to such an humiliation as includes the Kings the Peers the Prelates the Clergy the Laity does God call for and that in proportion to that Epidemique mercy that he hath obliged all by and suitable to that heavy and repeated judgment he hath already brought and farther may bring upon all such a humiliation as excuses no degree no age no person from it dres the Lord require from thee O England and from thee O London To whom he hath shewed Mercies of a former or latter date parallel with if not paramount to his manifests to any Nation He hath called us Beloved who were not beloved and caused us an Island to become the Head and not the Tail of the Nations He hath brought us into the marvellous light of Christianity who sate in darkness of errour and in the shadow of death through Ethnicism he hath not been a wilderness to us nor planted us in a barren soil but given us a Canaan flowing with Milk and Honey a Land rich in Corn Pastures Cattel Fruits Fish every thing that necessity and delight calls the glory of any Land God has raised us up Kings Rulers and Iudges not è Fece populi but derived from loins Noble the Sons of Honour and Majesty who have been Nursing Fathers to our Pieties Persons and Laws God has preserved us from Vassalage and made us free in our persons and properties safety and propriety being in the Kings Protection and his peoples subjection according to the Law God has preserved the Rights and Renown of England so that the Subjects of it are famous for Valour and Success in their Enterprises by Sea and Land God hath made this little spot that in the Map of Chorography is hardly discernable a Mart of Trade and a Mine of Wealth which the inexhaustion of this last twenty six years by Sums unsummable and in their possibility to be adjusted would be incredible yet have not drawn low but preserved pregnant to carry on its just and necessary Interests against her potent combined Enemies These Mercies to Engl. ever since her Christianity recognised by those abridgements of them in the Reigns of the five last Princes equalling all other anteceding them The Reformation of Religion by E. 6. The deliverance from the cruelty of Popery in Queen Maryes Reign The Restoration of Protestancy in Quen Elizabeths dayes in spight of the Jesuited Plots Spanish Invasion expensive Wars purposely raised to distress and divert her In the Reign of King Iames whom God brought in rightfully setled quietly and deliverd from the fatal Powder-Plot to leave his Crown Rich and Great to his Successor the late Glorious King Charles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose Reign was as beneficial and peaceful for the most part of it as any preced-ed and had made the Nation as happy after a Cloud had not God punished and polluted the glory of it with the storm of Contradiction in a Civil uncivil War and with the guilt of the bloud of that Solomonique Codrus whose life was sacrificed to vindicate the Religion and Laws of Loyalty and Liberty against the Oppressions and Insolencies of Antiscriptural Errour and Antimonarchical avarice These five last Reigns in which the Princes and people of England were kept from either the sufferings of publique mischief or the long and grievous detinue under it shew Gods Mercy to this Nation and call for humiliation from it And if these so long past are not fresh in our Memories as God forbid they should being done but within the Age of those that yet Live and God forgive if they be which ought to be had in everlasting remembrance yet there are Obligations of late which are Monitory to us of Mercy abused and ingratefully deported to And here give me leave Sir to Apostrophize as God did by his Prophet Isaiah Hear O Heaven hearken O Earth bear witness Angels and Men and our own Consciences whether God has not nourished us up that are now alive as his Children and yet We we have rebelled against him O Sir the Mercies shewed to our Glorious Lord and Renowned Soveraign of England our Gracious King Charles the Second whom God long preserve and
Sanctifie thoroughout both in Body and Soul are the Marrow and Fatness of all Gods Treasury of Mercies concerning this life His seasonable departure and safe arrival beyond the Seas when he might have been in the same hands his blessed Martyr Father was His Conduct and Preservation while abroad in the condition of a Pilgrim under the Eclipse of a Pensioner His preparation to reduction by his opposites dimnion and his Subjects better prospect into their Seduction combination against those Artificers of their former delusion His Generals and ever Glorious Father in fidelity to him and success for him and us I make bold with His Majesties gracious Pardâ—n humbly implor'd to use the Compellation that I have heard reported to be given him by His Majesty the now beloved and deservedly admired Duke of Albemarâ—â— his sagacity in carrying his intents undiscovered till he had both enabled himself and disabled the opposites to discover or defeat them The honest and wise Parliament of 1660 1 their plyableness first to publish and after to act the security and seasonableness of his Restoration The passivity of a potent Army and Party formerly against him which fore-seeing what is come to pass yet opposed nothing at all at least to no purpose but rather in a great measure forwarded the mercy by their activity The advantage that accrewed to His Majesty upon his reverter not only of Money and Monyes worth by Offices but by Improvement of Lands by other valuable perquisites and besides all the love of his Subjects who adoring the rising Son of so blessed and lamented a Father and accounting themselves delivered by him and Establishable against relapse only from him Sacrificed all to him Their persons and fidelity to him by Oath Their Laws Liberties and Purses to him by Parliamentary playbleness Their Prayers to him by thinking that best done which he did and their prayses of what he did as acceptable to them and magnified by them This this Sun-shine in the harvest of their hopes This This Rain of Fertility after Englands Sultre of war and dissention This mercy of Inundation in the joy of Englands King Charles returned is a mercy from the Womb of the Morning which the light sprung from on high visited us with a Visitation it was of Gods Light and of his Truth Of the light of his countenance in making our Captivity like the Rivers of the South a reaping in joy after a sowing in tears of the Truth of his Promise The seed of the Righteous shall not be forsaken of the truth of his Paternity to us who thus remembred us in our low estate For his mercy endureth for ever This this prosecuted and perfected by his deliverances from Insurrections at home from Confederacies against him abroad from the violencies of ungoâ—ly men and from the dangers and uncertainties of war This raising of him in his Reputation and making his Adversaries appear little to him Is the Matchless mercy of God to him and is Gods Envoy and Herald to beseech His Grace to suitable subjection to him and to circumspect Sanctimony before him And if O England and O London God has thus obliged thy Monarch and his Peerage and his Prelacy and his people of all degrees Then what O England does God require of this Renowned Recipient and Lodge of thy mercy by the distributions from whence thou art refreshed and inriched then that thy Monarch with all his Train of dependants do execute Justice love Mercy and walk humbly with his and their God Answer God O England Prince and people in this requiry of his Do Iustice upon sin the abominable thing that he hateth upon sin of all sorts of all degrees in all persons Execute the Laws impartially while they stand in Force Repeal them if they be supernumerary mitigate them if vexatious explain them if dubious adde to them if too short to reach and redress emergent evils and be not over-come of the evil of partiality but over-come that and all other evil with the goodness of publique spiritedness which aims at entailing Gods blessing upon him and his For he hath not only said he will forgive the sins of those that execute judgment 1 Isay 17. 18. But has promised that those that Execute judgement make their shadows as the Night in the midst of the Noon-day hide the out-casts and betray not him that wandereth to have their Thrones be Established in mercy and their Posterity sit upon them in truth 16 Isa. 5. yea with execution of judgement God whose Throne is Established by Righteousness whose ways are Mercy and Truth is so taken at that He promises to pardon a great and sinful City Ierusalem if in the streets and in the broad places thereof there can be found but one man that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth 5 Jer. 1. Thus to do Justice is to please God if it be seconded by Love of mercy to Gods poor and afflicted Ones Relieve the oppressed visit the Fatherless and Widow in their extremity be not a terrour to those that do well do not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoaking flax Let the long-sufferance and patience of God to you make you compassionate to those whose errours you ought to pity and pray for rather then punish Let Gods Longanimity in your renewed Conscience break out upon their passions in Victory over them and in vertue expressed to them that are contrary minded to you and think that the noblest Conquest that makes you triumph over mortal wrath which accomplishes not the Righteousness of God and that carries you out under every weight that would suppress your heavenly ambition to take heaven by force and to lay hold of eternal Life and to carry away the assurance of God yours in the Talons of an Eagled faith which looks upon the Son of Righteousness boldly and which mounts to the Throne of glory with humble confidence This O Prince and People of England is to love mercy To seek out every true and sacred object of it To neglect no manifestation of it to such To be unwearied in such welldoing To expend every measure of it with Eye to him in heaven that doth command cannot but accept will without fail reward it He that remembers that Gods Extraordinary benevolence to Man is phrased by shewing mercy 14 Num. 18. 3. Lam. 22. 103 Ps. 8. 11. 17. and that he promised his mercy and loving kindness he will never take from His cannot but promise himself great comfort in shewing mercy and greater in loving mercy For God delights in the mercy which is complacential and flows from the bowels and beeing of the shewer and because he delights in mercy and is a God merciful and gracious therefore he requires Men his Vicars to love mercy Evil men may occasionably shew mercy But good men only love mercy Thus O England thou hast invitations from thy God to performances of doing justice and loving mercy
Nor is this all but there is another requiry aequivalent to these in the coordination of which Gods postulation of thee is answered walk humbly with thy God This This O England is thy duty and interest to propagate also for there can be none of the two former without this latter there is no demeanour national or personal under-mercies true and uniform without the Condiment and Ballast of this Humility in owning God the spring of all authority and enablement to do justice and love mercy is that which carries the grace of resolution to its period of performance Let God O England O London have all the glory of what ye have arrived at while some put confidence in Charriots and Horsemen and say their Bow hath brought them their Venison and their Councel and their Confederacies has thus befriended them while they boast of their hearts desires 10. Ps. 3. and of a false gift 25. Prov. 14. while they boast in their Idols 97. Ps. 7. and of too Morrow which they know not what it may bring forth 17. Prov. 1. do thou O England boast only of God all the day long 44. Ps. 8. and so moderate your minds under all your mercies that ye may be termed the Ministers of our God that ye may eat the riches of your Enemies and in that glory shall you boast your selves 61 Isaiah 6. O England O London the Countrey the City of my birth breeding and love how considerable an Interest is this to thee praeponderating all those of Moneys Men Navies Armies though all admirable and useful yet without thee thus prostrate and devoutly nothing in thine own Eyes thou art nothing before God nor wilt thou be any thing against thy Neighbours but in this and in the strength of Gods might by this Thou wilt be more than a ballance to them Thou wilt be a Victor over them for God saveth the afflicted people 18. Ps. 27. that is the humble people 2. Sam. 22. c. v. 28. 49. Isa. 13. and To England and To London thus afflicted paenitent for their sins God I trust will commiseratingly say as once he did to his Church by his Prophet O Thou afflicted tossed with Tempests and not Comforted Behold I will lay thy Stones with fair colours and lay thy Foundations with Saphires and I will make thy Windows with Agates and thy Gates of Carbuncles and all thy Borders of pleasant Stones and all thy Children shal be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy Children This is the cause why I humbly provoke the Nation to humiliation before God upon view of his mercies immerited we have not been worthy of the least of those Myriaded ones that we have enjoyed nor improved them to such a degree of Melioration and gratitude as we might and ought For if those mighty wonders that had been amongst us had been done in any other Nation or City they would have repented long ago in Sackcloth and Ashes whereas We are still setled in our Lees and return not to him that smites us neither bring we forth fruits meet for repentance Further Sir I do humbly pray and wish that England and London would consider the necessity of their humiliation before God for the Judgments past present probably to come upon it and them that are Impaenitent in it and unreformed by them And here methinks I hear the Nation crying to its Neighbours inhabitants as Ierusalem is personated to cry out 1 Lam. 12. Is it nothing to you all yee that pass by behold and see If there be be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger Is it nothing to you that after above 80 years peace I should have an Intestine War an Irish Rebellion a Scotch Insurrection and an English Discord By the Tragickness of all which in Battails fought in Violencies committed in Depraedations made I lost Hundreds of Thousands of Men Millions of Wealth Multitudes of Buildings of State suffered Havock of Religion Humanity Timber and what not that was valuable to keep or get Is it nothing to you that I had wickedness setled in me by a Law and that the Rulers of the People caused me to erre turning judgment into Gall and righteousness into Wormwood till at last the light of our eyes the Annointed of the Lord fell in their snare and the blood of that Holy and Just one Charles the First my once Lord and Master was slain in me Is it nothing to you that I was made another Absyrtus and my seameless coat was torn in pieces and divided between those that then were chief That I was in a good progress to Anarchy and to an impossibility ever to have been recollected and reduced into my orderly and consistent way of regularity and harmony wherein our Governours might be as at the first and our Iudges as at the first no Neighbouring eye pitying me in this day of contempt or saying unto me Live had not God made this time of my pollution the time of his Love Is it nothing to you that God has given me a Horn of salvation in this house of his Servant David and we that under his shadow and protection sit under our own Vine and under our own Fig-tree and enjoy our good things with Peace yet do repine at the Anchor that holds us all together from wreck and think necessary aids granted to him burthens and his Proclamations and Manifests against Prophaneness and contempt of God disobeyed by many of those who will Ram and Damn themselves to be his best friends all Phanatiques who refrain from the same excess not to be heeded with them Is it nothing to you that God has brought a War upon me from my Neighbours in Situation and Religion and made the two Earthen Vessels placed in the Sea and insuperable while inseperable dash each against other and they that in their Union are a terrour to all their opposites become in Hostility the advantage of those that abet their feuds looking for that day which I hope they shall never see wherein they promise themselves the spoil of them Is it nothing to you that the God of Heaven hath brought upon many great Cities and Towns in me and into my London in Anno 1665. the grievous Plague and Pestilence wherein above a hundred thousand dyed Many of its Inhabitants were scattered into several corners of the Nation and impoverished by high expences loss of Trade and Debts and by other unavoidable accidents And when they were but a little returned and were in their way of settlement and recovery Is it nothing to you that God hath by this Dreadful fire of Londons havock given the Enemy of the setled Religion of England occasion to account England and London forsaken of God And now to be as vituperious of me and mine as their Predecessors