live carelessly and securely ? Were they ever so "Secure and inappre- hensive of their danger than at this very time when the flames broke forth in the midst of them ? They had newly escaped the most sweep- ing plague that ever was in the city and suburbs, but instead of find- ing out the plague of their hearts, and mourning over the plague of their hearts, and repenting of the evil of their doings, and returning to the Most High, 1 Kings viii. 37, 38; Isa. ix. 13-15; Jer. viii. 6, they returned to their sins and their trades together, from both which for a time the plague had frighted them, concluding in them- selves that surely the bitterness of death was past, 1 Sam. xv. 32. They thought that the worst was past, and that after so dreadful a storm they should have a blessed calm ; and dreamed of nothing but peace, and quiet, and safety, and trade, striving with all their might to make up those losses that they had sustained by the pestilence. They having escaped the grave when so many score thousands were carried to their long homes, were very secure ; they never thought that the city, which had been so lately infected by a contagious plague, was so near being buried in its own ruins ; they never imagined that the whole city should be put in flames to purge that air that their sins had infected. 1 And therefore no wonder if desolation came upon them suddenly, in a moment, in one day. No marvel that so great a fire was kindled in the very heart of the city, and they not see the hand that kindled it, nor have no hands nor hearts to quench it. Judgments are never so near as when men are most secure, 1 Thes. V. 3. The old world was very secure until the very day that Noah entered into the ark : Luke xvii. 27, ' They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.' Luther observeth that it was in the spring that the flood came, when everything was in its prime and pride, and nothing less looked for than a flood. They neither believed nor regarded Noah's preaching, nor his preparations for his own and his children's security, but merrily passed without intermission from eating to drinking, and from drinking to marriage, till the very day that the flood came and swept them all away. Their destruction was foretold them to a day, but they were drowned in security, and would take no notice of Noah's predictions nor their own peril. They had made their guts their god ; they had buried their wits in their guts, and their brains in their bellies, and so were neither awakened nor bettered by anything that either Noah said or did ; and so they perished suddenly and unex- pectedly. So Sodom was very secure till the very day that fiie and brimstone was rained from heaven about their ears, ver. 28, 29. ' Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded ; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all,' Gen. xix. 23, 24. Lot was no sooner taken out of Sodom, but Sodom was as soon taken out of the
^ In the month of September the plague was at the highest, and in the same month the flames of London were at highest. Doubtless there is some mystery in this sad providence. London was judgment-proof, plague-proof in September ^G5, and therefore God set London in flames in September '66.
134 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
world. Their fair fniusliine morning had a foul di.snial evening ; they had a handsel of hell on this side hell. They passed through fire and brimstone here to an eternal fire in hell, as Jude speaks, ver. 7. So the Jews were deadly secure before the first and latter destruction both of their city and country by sword and fire. All the world could not l)ersuade tiiem that their temple and.city should be laid in ashes, till the Chaldeans at one time, and the Komans at another, had set both their city and temple in a flame before their eyes. Compare these together: Amos vi. 3; Lam. iv. 11, 12; Ezek. xii. 22, 27, 28; Hab. i. 7 ; Luke ii. 19, 41-44. Now mark, sudden and unexpected judg- ments do always carry a great deal of the anger and severity of God in them : Deut. vii. 4, ' So will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.' God being greatly angry with Jerusalem, Isa. xxix. 1-4, he tells her that her judgment should be at an instant, suddenly, ver. 5. Ps. Ixiv. 7, ' But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded ;' Hab. ii. 7, ' Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them?' Prov. vi. 14, 15, ' Frowardness is in his heart ; he deviseth mischief continually, he sowcth discord. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly ; sud- denly shall he be broken without remedy.' Here is a dismal doom ; not bruised, but broken — yea, suddenly broken, when they least dream or dread the danger. And this without remedy ; there shall be no possi- bility of piecing them up again, or putting them into a better condition: chap. xxiv. 22, ' Their calamity shall rise suddenly.' "When they think that they have made all cock-sure, then ruin and desolation lies at their door. Certainly there are no judgments so dreadful and amazing as those which come most suddenly and unexpectedly upon the sons of men ; for these cut off all hope, they hinder the exercise of reason, they cloud men's minds, they distress men's spirits, they mar men's counsels, and they weaken men's courage, and they daunt men's hearts so, that they can neither be serviceable to themselves, nor their friends, nor the public. All this was evidently seen upon the body of the citizens when London was in flames. The more eminent cause have we to take notice of the hand of the Lord in that late fiery dispensa- tion that has passed upon us. The year 166G, according to the com- putation of several sober, wise, learned men, should have been the Christian's jubilee. Many men's expectations were high that Rome that year should be laid in ashes ; but it never entered into any of our hearts or thoughts that tliis very year London should be laid in ashes. 0 unexpected blow ! Berlin in Germany [Scultet. Annal.] who in the puli)it charged the apostle Paul Avith a lie, was suddenly smitten with an apoplexy, while the words were yet in his mouth, and fell down dead in the place. The parson of Chrondall(?) in Kent, having got a pardon from Cardinal Pole, as the pope's substitute in that work, the next Lord's day in his own parish presses all his peo])le to do the like, witli this argument, that he was now so free from all his sins, that he could die presently; and God presently so struck him in his jmlpit, that he died, and never s])oke more. As Bibulus, a Roman general, was riding in triumph in all his glory, a tile fell from the house in the