IsA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 135
street, and knocked out his brains. Otho the emperor slew himself with his own hands, but slept so soundly the night before, that the grooms of his chamber heard him snort. And Pkitarch reporteth the like of Cato. Lepidus and Aufidius stumbled at the very threshold of the senate and died ; the blow came in a cloud from heaven. Sophocles died suddenly by excessive joy, and Homer by immoderate grief. Mr Perkins speaks of one who, when it thundered, scoflingly said it was nothing but Tom Tumbril a-hoopiug his tubs, and pre- sently he was struck dead with a thunderbolt. Olympus, the Atian heretic, bathing himself, uttered sad words against the blessed Trinity, but suddenly a threefold thunderbolt struck him dead in the same place. 1 Attilus, king of the Huns, proudly gave out that the stars fell before him, and the earth trembled at his presence, and how he would be the scourge of all nations ; but soon after he died by a flux of blood breaking out of his mouth, which choked him on his wedding-day. King Henry the Second of France, upon the marriage of his sister with the king of Spain, was so puffed up, that he called himself by a new title, Tres lieureux 7^oi, The thrice happy king ; but, to confute him, in solemnising that marriage, he was slain at tilt by the captain of his guard, though against his will, but not without God's determinate counsel, in the very beginning of his supposed happiness. Now every one that is a man either of reason or religion, will certainly say that in these sudden judgments that befell these persons there was the angry and displeased hand of God to be seen. Oh how much more, then, should we see the angry and displeased hand of the Lord in that sudden, dreadful fire, that has turned our once renowned city into a ruinous heap, Jer. viii. 15. In this year 1666 many thought that there had been many great and glorious things in the womb of providence that would have been now brought forth, but they were mistaken ; for un- expectedly London is laid in ashes. But,
[3.] Thirdly, Consider the force, violence, velieme^icy , and irresist- ihleness of it, despising and triumphing over all those lueak endeavours that ivere used.^ This fire broke forth with that violence, and raged with that fury, and appeared in that dreadfulness, and spread itself with that dismalness, and continued for so long a time with that irre- sistibleness, that discouraged hearts and weak hands, with their buckets, engines, ladders, hooks, opening of pipes, and sweeping of channels, could give no check to it. This fire broke in upon the inhabitants like an arm of the sea, and roared and raged like a bear robbed of her whelps, until it had laid our glory in ashes. When the fire was here and there a little allayed or beaten down, or put to a stand, how soon did it recover its force and violence, and make the more furious onsets, burning down water-houses, engines, churches, and the more strong, pleasant, and stately houses, nothing being able to stand before its rage ! How soon did the flames mount up to the tops of the highest houses,
^ Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments, lib. i. cap. 9, p. 64.
' Many authors speak much of the Greek fire, some of which burned the Saracen's fleet, to be of such force, that the ancients accounted no other means would extinguish it but vinegar. And certainly several fires th;it have been enkindled liy Romish Jesuits have not been less furious. Stone walls and brick walls, and those noble and strong- pieces of architecture, were all but fuel to those furious flames.
136 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.