as great an argument of a profane heart as any that can he found in the whole book of God. Fourthly, Because Sabbath-days are the saints' market-days, the saints' harvest-days, the saints' summer-days, the saints' seed-days, and the saints' feasting-days, Prov. x. 5, and xvii. 16 ; Isa. xxv. 6 ; and therefore they will not be such fools as to sleep away those days, much less Avill they presume to profane those days, or to toy and trifle away those days of grace. Fifthly, What singular thing do they more than others, if they are not strict observers and conscientious sanctifiers of the Lord's-day ? Mat. v. 47. Sixthly and lastly. Of all the days that pass over a Christian's head in this world there are none that God will take such a strict and exact account of as of Sabbath-days ; and therefore it highly concerns all people to be strict observers and serious sanctifiers of that day. Now, upon all these accounts, I cannot charge such throughout saints as lived within or without the walls of London with that horrid pro- fanation of the Sabbath as brought the late fiery dispensation upon us, and that turned a glorious city into a ruinous heap. Whatever there was of the hand of man in that dreadful conflagration, I shall not now attempt to divine, but without a peradventure, it was Sabbath-guilt which threw the first ball that turned London into flames and ashes. When fire and smoking was on mount Sinai, God was there, Exod. xix. 18 ; but when London was in flames and smoke. Sabbath-guilt was there. Doubtless all the power of Kome and hell should never have put London into flames, had not London's guilt kindled the first coal. But,
We come now to the use and application of this important point.
10. Tenthly, The profaneness, lewdness, blindness, and ivickedness of the clergy, of them in the ministry, brings the judgment of fire, and provokes the Lord to lay all loaste before him : Zeph. iii. 4-6, ' Her prophets are light and treacherous persons : her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. I have cut off the nations : their towers are desolate ; I have made their streets waste, that none passeth by : their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant.' Their prophets and priests were rash, heady, and unstable persons, — they were light, faithless men, or men of faithlessness, as the Hebrew runs. They were neither faith- ful to God, nor faithful to their own souls, nor faithful to others' souls. They invented and feigned prophecies of their own, and then boldly maintained them, and imposed them upon their hearers ; they were profane and light in their carriages, they fitted their doctrines to all fancies, humours, parties, and times ; they betrayed their trust, they betrayed the lives of men into the hand of divine justice, and the souls of men into the hands of Satan ; they polluted the sanctuary, they polluted the holy things of God, by managing of his worship and service in a profane carnal way, and with a light, slight, perfidious spirit, and by perverting the true sense of the law in their ordinary teaching of the people. They did violence to the law, or they con- temned, removed, or cast away the law, as the original runs : the Hebrew word here used signifies also to ravish, Ps. 1. 17. Their pro- phets and priests did ravish the law of God by corrupting the law, and
116 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
by putting false glosses upon it, and by turning of it into such shapes and senses as would best suit the times, and please the humours of the people. Now for these abominations of their prophets and priests, God denounces a dreadful woe against the city of Jerusalem in vcr. 1, * Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city :' Lam. iv. 11-13, ' The Lord hath accomplished his fury: he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundation thereof. For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquity of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of iier.' God sent a consuming flame into Jerusalem, which did not only burn the tops of their houses, but also the foundations themselves, leaving no mark whereby they might know where their houses stood, nor any hopes of building them up again. But why did God kindle such a devouring fire in Jerusalem, which was one of the world wonders, and a city that was not only strong in situation and building, and deemed impregnable, but a city that was God's own seat, the palace of his royal residence ; yea, a city that the Lord had for many years, to the admiration of all the world, powerfully and wonderfully protected against all those furious assaults that were made upon her by her most potent and mighty adversaries ? Ans. For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, a's God himself testifies, who can neither die nor lie. You may see this further confirmed, if j^ou please but seriously to ponder upon these scriptures, Ezek. xxii. 25, 26, 31 ; Jer. xxiii. 11, 14, 15, 39, 40.1 Look, as the body natural, so the body politic cannot be long in a good constitution, wliose more noble and essential parts are in a consumption. The enormities of ministers have the strongest influence upon the souls and lives of men, to make them miserable in both worlds. Their falls will be the fall and ruin of many ; for people arc more prone to live b}^ examples than by pre- cepts, and to mind more what the minister does tlian Avhat he says : Prcecepta docent, exemi^la movent, Precepts may instruct, but examples do persuade. The complaint is ancient in Seneca,- that commonly men live, not ad rcdionem, but ad similitudinem. The people com- monly make the examples of their ministers the rules of their actions ; and their examples pass as current among them as their prince's coin. The common people are like tempered wax, easily receiving impressions from the seals of their ministers' vices. They make no bones of it to 8in by prescription, and to damn themselves by following the lewd examples of their ministers. The vulgar unadvisedly take up crimes on trust, and perish by following of bad examples. I will leave the serious reader to make such application as in prudence and conscience he judges meet. But,
11, Eleventhly, Sometimes the sins of princes and ridej^s bring the fiery dispensations of God upon p)€rsons and places .•'•^ Jer. xxxviii. 17, 18, 23, ' Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saitli the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of I3abylon'8 princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city
' Micah ii. 11 ; Isa. xxx. 10, 11 ; Jer. v. 31 ; ITosca iv. 9 ; Isa. ix. 16 ; Lam. ii. 14 ; Ezek. iii. 18. - Seneca, de vita beata, c.ip. 1.
• It is a stranp:e snyinp in Lipsius, viz , that the names of all good princes may easily be cni;raven or written in a email ring. — Lipsius, de Constautia, lib. ii. cap. 25.