and as soon descend down to the bottom of the lowest vaults and cellars ! How did they march along, Jehu-like, on both sides of the streets, with such a roaring, dreadful, and astonishing noise, as never was heard in the city of London before ! London's sins were now so great, and God's wratli was now so hot, that there was no quenching of tlie furious flames. The decree for the burning of London was now gone forth, and none could reverse it. The time of London's fall was now come. The fire had now received its commission under the broad seal of heaven, to burn down the city and to turn it into a ruinous heap ; and therefore it defied and contemned all remedies, and scorned to be suppressed by human attempts. Whoever kindled this fire, God blew the coal ; and therefore no arts, counsels, or endeavours of men were able to quench it. If God commission the sword to walk abroad, and to glut itself with blood, who can command it into the scabbard again ? No art, power, or policy can cause that sword to lie still that God has drawn in the nations round us, until it hath accomplished the ends for which he has drawn it. As to our present case, when I weigh things in the balance of right reason, I cannot but be of opinion that, had magistrates and people vigorously and conscientiously dis- charged their duties, much of London, by the blessing of God upon their endeavours, that is now ruined, might happily have been pre- served. When in a storm, the ship and all the vast treasure that is in it, is in danger to be lost, it is sad to see every officer and mariner to mind more, and endeavour more the preservation of their chests, cabins, and particular interests, than the preservation of the ship, and the vast treasure that is in it. Now this was just our case. Cicero in his time laughed at the folly of those men, who conceited that their fish-ponds and places of pleasure should be safe Avhen the common- Avealth was lost.^ And we may well mourn over the folly and vanity of those men who were so amazed, confounded, distracted, besotted and infatuated, if not worse, as not to improve all heads, hands, hearts, counsels, and offers that were made for the preservation of the city. This is, and this must be for a lamentation, that in the midst of public dangers, all ranks and sorts of men should take more care for the preservation of their trifling fardels — for so is any particular man's estate, though never so great, when compared with the riches of a rich, trading, po])ulous city — than they do for the preservation of the public good. That there might have been rational and probable anticipations of those dreadful conflagrating progresses, I suppose all sober men will grant : that these were either hid from some men's eyes, and seen by others and not improved, was London's woe. When London was almost destroyed, then some began to blow up some heuses for the preservation of that little that was left, and God blessed their endeavours ; but had some had encouragement, who long before were ready for that work, and who offered themselves in the case, it is very probable that a great part of London might have been preserved. But what shall I say, divine justice does as eminently sparkle and shine in the shutting of men's eyes, and in the stopping of men's ears, and in the hardening men's hearts against the visible and probable
' Lib. i. Ep. If), ad Atticum.
ISA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION, 137
means of tlieir outward preservation, as in any one thing. This we must seriously consider, and then lay our hands upon our mouths, and be silent before the Lord. The force and violence of this fire was so great, that many that removed their goods once, twice, thrice, yea, and some oftener, yet lost all at last. The fire followed them so close from place to place, that some saved but little, and others lost all. Now how well does it become us, in the rage and fury of the flames, to see the hand of the Lord, and to bow before him, as this fire being like time, which devours all before it.^ Jerusalem was the glory and beauty of the whole earth ; and the temple was one of the world's wonders ; but when Titus Vespasian's soldiers had set it on fire, it burnt with that rage and fury that all the industry and skill that ever could be used, imagined, or thought on, could not quench it, though Titus would gladly have preserved it as a matchless monu- ment. They threw both the water and the blood of the slain into it, but it burnt with that violence that nothing could extinguish it. King Herod, for eight years together, before the ruin of it, had employed ten thousand men at work to beautify it ; but when once it was on fire, it burnt with that fierceness, that there was no preserving of it, the decree of heaven being gone out against it, &c. But,
[4.] Fourthly, Consider the sioiftness of it. It flew upon the wings of the wind, that it might the sooner come to its journey's end. It ran along like the fire and hail in Egypt, destroying and consuming all before it, Ps. xviii. 10; Exod. ix. 23, 24. The apostle James speaks of fierce winds, James iii. 6, 2. The wind was so boisterous, that it scattered and carried the fire, the flames, sometimes one way, sometimes another, in despite of all the restraints, resistances, and limits that the amazed citizens could have set to it. I shall not trouble you with the various notions of philosophers concerning the wind, partly because they mil do no service in the present case, and partly because our work is to look higher than all natural causes.2 All that either is or can be said of the wind, I suppose, may be thus summed up: that it is a creature that maybe (1.) Felt; (2.) Heard; and (3.) Little understood. Very wonderful is the rise of the winds ; when it is so calm and still upon the seas, that scarce a breath of air is perceivable, upon a sudden the wind is here and there, and every- where : Eccles. i. 6, ' The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north : it whirleth about continually ; and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.' Ps. cxxxv. 7, ' He bringeth the wind out of his treasuries.' But what those treasuries are, and where they are, no man on earth can certainly tell us. The wind is one of the great wonders of the Lord, in which, and by which the Lord's name is wonderfully magnified: Ps. cvii. 24, 25, ' They that go down to the sea, see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.' What wonders ? ' He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind.' Although something may be known of this creature in the
' Ungrammatical, but the meaning plain. — G.
* The winds are the fan of nature to cool and purge the air. But at this time God brought the winds out of his treasury, to scatter the flames of liis indignation, that so London might become a desolation.
138 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.