the supremo comniaiuler of the winds, will have them to destroy a l)eople, and to helj) on the destruction of their houses, when the flames are kindled, or to break and dash in pieces their ships at sea, it shall soon be accomplished : 2 Clirt)n. xx. 37, ' Because thou hast joined thy- self with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works. Ancl the ships were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish.' Boisterous winds at sea or ashore are the arrows of God shot out of the bended bow of his displeasure ; they are one of the lower tier of his indignation that is fired upon the children of men : Nahum i. 3, ' The Lord hath his way in the vvliirlwind and in the storm, and in the clouds are the dust of his feet.' The great Si)anish Armada that came to invade our land in [L5]88, were broken and scattered by the winds : so that their dice-games were frustrated, and they sent into the bottom of the sea, if not into a worse bottom. And when Charles V. had besieged Algiers, that pen of thieves, both by sea and by land, and had almost taken it, by two terrible tempests the greatest part of his great fleet were destroyed, as they did lie in the harbour at anchor.^ Ships, houses, trees, steeples, rocks, mountains, monuments cannot stand be- fore a tempestuous wind: 1 Kings xix. 11, 'A great strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks.' What more strong than rocks and mountains ? and yet they were too weak to stand before the strength of a tempestuous wind. Oh the terrible execution that God doth many times by the winds both at sea and ashore ! Ps. xviii. 7, ' The earth shook and trembled ; the foundations of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth ;' ver. 8, ' There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it ;' ver. 10, ' He rode upon a cherub, and did fly ; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind ;' ver. 12, ' His thick clouds passed; hailstones and coals of fire;' ver. 13, 'The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice ; hailstones and coals of fire,' &c. The fire in London carried the noise of a whirl- wind in it: and that made it so formidable and teriible to all that beheld it, especially those that looked upon it as a fruit of God's dis- pleasure. The wind was commissionated by God to join issue with the raging fire, to lay the city desolate. I think the like dreadful instance cannot be given in any age of the world. We cannot say of the wind that blew when London was in flames, that God was not in the wind, as it is said in that 1 Kings xix. 11. For assuredly, if ever God was in any wind, he was remarkably in this wind. Witness the dismal effects of it amongst us to this very day ! Had God been pleased to have hindered the conjunction of these two elements, much of London might have been standing which now lies buried in its own ruins. I grant that it is probable enough that those that did so long before prophesy and predict the burning of London, before it was laid in ashes, were the prime contrivers and furtherers of the firing of it : but yet when they had kindled the fire, that God by the bellows of heaven siiould so blow upon it as to make it spread, and turn, like the flaming sword in paradise, every way, Gen. iii. 24, till by its force and fury it hail destroyed above two third parts in the midst of the city, as the phrase is, Ezek. v. 2, ' This is, and this must be for a sore
' Val. Max. Cliristian., p. 1 .^2.
IsA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 141
lamentation.' God, who holds the winds in his fist, who is the true ^olus, could either have locked them up in his treasures, or have com- manded them to be still ; or else have turned them to have been a defence to the city, Ps. xiii. 5 ; Mark iv. 39. God, who holds the bottles of heaven in his hand. Gen. vii. 11, could easily have unstoj^ped them ; he could with a word of his mouth have opened the windows of heaven, and have poured down such an abundance of rain upon the city, as would quickly have quenched the violence of the flames, and so have made the conquest of the fire more easy. But the Lord was angry, and the deci'ee was gone out that London should be burnt ; and who could prevent it ?