up, and to all whose houses have escaped the furious flames. Whilst the remembrance of London's flames are kept alive in the thoughts and liearts of men, tliis treatise will be of use in tlie world. My Lord, I do not dedicate tlii.s tractate to your lordship as if it stood in need of your honour's patronage ; I judge it to be of age both to plead for itself and to defend itself against all gainsayers. Veritas vincit, Veritas stat in ajycrto cam2)oA Zeno, Socrates, Anaxarchus, &c., sealed the lean and barren truths of philosophy with the expense of their dearest blood, as you may see in the heathen martyrology. Oh, how much more should we be ready to scnl all divine truths with our dearest blood, when God shall call us forth to such a service ! My Lord, I humbly lay this treatise at your lordship's foot, to testify that love and honour that I have in my heart for you, both upon the account of that intrinsecal worth that is in you, and upon the account of the many good things and great things that have been done by you, and publicly to testify my acknowledgment of your lordship's undeserved favours towards me. My Lord, of right this treatise should have been in your hands several months since, and in that it was not it is wholly from others and not from me. If your lordship please but to favour the author so far as to read it once over for his sake, he doubts not but that your lordship will oftener read it over for your own soul's sake, and for eternity's sake, and for London's sake also. My Lord, by reason of my being remote from the city several weeks, I have had the advantage but of reading and correcting two or three sheets, and therefore must beg your lordship's pardon as to all the neglects and escapes of the press. A second impression may set all right and straight.
My Lord, that to your dying day you may be famous in your gene- ration, and that your precious and immortal soul may be richly adorned with all saving gifts and graces, and that you may daily enjoy a clear, close, high, and standing communion with God, and that you may be filled with all the fruits of righteousness and holiness, and that your soul may be bound up in the bundle of life, and crowned with the highest glory in the other world, in the free, full, constant, and uninterrupted enjoyment of that God who is the heaven of heaven and the glory of glory, is, and by divine assistance shall be, the earnest prayers of him who is your honour's in all humble and due observance,
^ My Lord, some sacrifice their labours to great Jfrccenases, that tliey may be atoned to shield them from potent antagonists ; but these sermons, which here I present to your honour's perusal, being only the blessed truths of God, I hope they need no arm but his to defend them.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 13
THE FIERY JESUIT'S TEMPER AND BEHAVIOUR.
I fain would be informed by you what ails These foxes to wear firebrands in their tails. What ! did you teach these cubs the world to burn, Or to embottle London in its urn ? Are Huguenots as rank Philistines grown With you, as dwelt in Gath or Askelon ? Bold wretches ! must your fire thus antedate The general doom, and give the world its fate ? Must hell's edict to blend this globe with fire Be done at your grave nods when you require ?
LONDON'S LAMENTATIONS ON THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION.
Who gave Jacob to the spoil, and Israel to the robbers ? did not I the Lord? he against ivhom ive have sinned; for they wotdd not icalk in his ivays, neither were they obedient to his laiu.
Therefore he hath poured uj)on him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he kneio not; and it burned Mm, yet he laid it not to Iteart. — IsA. XLII. 24, 25.
The Lord in this chapter, by the prophet Isaiah, doth foretell heavy- things against the people, and, by the way, marks the Lord's dealings. He ever gives warnings before he sends any plagues. He lightens before he thunders, that the i)eople might not say, they did not hear of it, and that the wicked might be the more inexcusable, and that the godly might make an ark to save themselves in. These words contain in them five several things. (L) The author of this destruc- tion or judgment. {'!.) The causes of it. (3.) The judgment itself. (4.) Who they were on whom this judgment was inflicted. (5.) The effects of it. Now by divine permission I will open these words in order to you.
1. For the first, The author of it. Now this is laid down by question and answer : ' Who gave Jacob to the spoil, and Israel to the robbers ?' There is the question. ' Did not I the Lord ?' There is the answer. God is the author of all the plagues and judgments that befall a nation.
2. Secondly, The causes lohy the Lord did this to a people tliat he had chosen to be a sjjccial people unto himself; to a peojile nj^on whom he had set his love ; to a people that lie had owned for his portion, and that he had formerly kept as the apple of his eye, and carried as upon eagles' wings, Deut. vii. 5, 8, and xxxii. 10-12. Now the causes are set down, first, more generally, in these words, ' Because they have sinned against the Lord;' secondly, more particularly, in these words, ' For they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient to his law.'
IsA. XLII. 24, 25.] London's lamentations, etc, 15
3. The third thing observable in the words is, the dreadful judg- ments themselves that God inflicted upon his sinful people, his sinning people ; and these you have in ver. 25.
' Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger : ' not only his anger, but the fury of his anger, to shew the greatness of it, the extremity of it. Mark, he doth not say that God did drop down his anger, but he poured down his anger and indignation. This phrase, ' he poured out,' is an allusion to the clouds pouring down of water violently all at once, in an instant, as they do many times in the Levant seas, in Egypt, at the Indies, and in several other parts of the world ; as they did in the deluge, when the windows of heaven were broke open, Gen. vi. 11. Now, by this similitude, the Lord shews the dreadfulness, the grievousness, the suddenness, and the vehemency of the judgments that were fallen upon them,
' And the strength of battle.' The Lord appears in arms against them in the greatness and fierceness of his wrath ; he sent in a very powerful enemy upon them, that with fire and sword overran them and their country, and destroyed them on every side, as you may see by comparing 2 Kings xxiii. 33, seq., with the 24th and 25th chapters following.
'And hath set him on fire round about.' That is, say some, all the countries, cities, and towns round about Jerusalem were set on fire.