know where it was, and liow it began ! but all former fires were but small fires, but bonfires, to this dreadful fire that has been lately amongst us.
In the twentieth year of the reign of William the First,^ so great a fire happened in London, that from the West gate to the East gate it consumed houses and churches all the way. This was the most grievous fire that ever happened in that city, saith my author. And in the reign of King Henry the First, a long tract of buildings, from West Cheap in London to Aldgate, was consumed with fire. And in King Stephen's reign, there was a fire that began at London Stone, and consumed all unto Aldgate. These have been the most remark- able fires in London. But what were any of these, or all these, to that late dreadful fire that has been amongst us ? London in those former times was but a little city, and had but a few men in it, Eccles. ix. 14, in comparison of what it was now, London was then but as a great banqueting-house, to what it was now. Cant. ii. 4. Nor the consump- tion of London by fire then was nothing proportionable to the con- sumption of it by fire now. For this late lamentable devouring fire hath laid waste the greatest part of the city of London within the walls by far, and some part of the suburbs also. More than fourscore parishes, and all the houses, churches, chapels, hospitals, and other the great and magnificent buildings of pious or public use, which were within that circuit, are now brought into ashes, and become one ruinous heap. This furious raging fire burnt many stately monuments to powder ; it melted the bells in the steeples, it much weakened and shattered the strongest vaults under ground. Oh, what age or nation hath ever seen or felt such a dreadful visitation as this hath been! Nebuzar-adan, general to the king of Babylon, first sets the temple of Jerusalem on fire, and then the king's royal palace on fire, and then by fire he levels all the houses of the great men ; yea, and all the houses of Jerusalem are by fire turned into a ruinous heap, according to what the Lord had before foretold by his prophet Jeremiah, 2 chap. Hi. 12-14. Now this was a lamentable fire. Some hundred years after the Koman soldiers sacked the city, and set it on fire, and laid it desolate, with their temple, and all their stately buildings and glorious monu- ments. 3 Three or four towers and the wall that was on the west side they left standing as monuments of the Eomans' valour, who had surprised a city so strongly fortified. All the rest of the city they so plained, that they who had not seen it before, would not believe that it had ever been inhabited. ^ Thus was Jerusalem, one of the world's wonders, and a city famous amongst all nations, made desolate by fire, according to the prediction of Christ some years before, Luke xix. 41-44. There was a great fire in Eome in Nero's time ; it spread itself with that speed, and burnt with that violence, till of fourteen regions in Eome, there were but four left entire.^ I know there are some who would make the world believe that this fire began casually, — as many now would persuade us that the late fire in London did, — but I rather join issue with them who conclude that Nero set Eome on fire, and when
^ Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle, pp. 31, 47.
* Jos. Ant., p. 255, A. M. 3356. =* Jos. Ant., p. 741, A. M. 4034.
* Jos. Aut., p. 745. *> Tacit. An. 15.
146 London's lamentations on [Isa, XLII. 24, 25.
he had done, he laid it upon the Christians, and thereupon grounded liis persecution — as all know that have read the history ot" those times, [anno 64.] Anno 80, Kome was set on fire by fire from heaven, say some : it burned three days and nights, and consumed the capitol, with many other stately buildings and glorious monuments ; it burnt with tliat irresistible fury, that the historian concludes that it was more than an ordinary fire. And in the time of Commodus the em- peror, there happened such a dreadful fire in Rome, as consumed the temple of Peace, and all the most stately houses, princely palaces, glorious structures, and rare monuments that were in the city.
In the reign of Achmat, the eighth emperor of the Turks, i about the beginning of November, a great fire arose at Constantinople, wherein almost five hundred shops of wares, with many other fair buildings, were destroyed by fire ; so that the harm that was then done by fire Avas esteemed to amount to above two millions of gold. But alas ! what was this fire and loss to the fire of London, and the loss of the citizens in our day ?
In Constantinople in a.d. 465, in the beginning of September, there brake forth such a fire by the water-side, as raged with that dread force, and fury, and violence, four days and nights together, that it burnt down the greatest part of the city, the strongest and the stateliest houses being but as dried stubble before it. It bid defiance to all means of resistance ; it went on triumphing and scorning all human helps, till it had turned that great and populous city, once counted by some the wonder of the world, into a ruinous heap. This of all fires comes nearest to the late fire of London : but what is the burning of a thousand Homes, and a thousand Constantinoples, or the burning of ten thousand barbarous cities, to the burning of one London, where God was as greatly known, and as dearly loved, and as highly prized, and as purely served, as he was in any one place under the whole heavens ? 0 sirs, it is our duty and our high concernment to see the hand of the Lord, and to acknowledge the hand of the Lord in the least fires : how much more then does it become us to see the hand of the Lord lifted up in that late dreadful fire that has laid our city desolate ? But,
[8.] Eighthly, Consider how all sorts, ranl's, and degrees of men were terrified, amused, amazed, astonished, and dispirited in the late dreadful fire that ivas kindled in the midst of us. When men should have been a-strengthening of one another's hands, and encouraging of one another's hearts, to pull down and blow up such houses as gave life and strength to the furious flames, how Avere their hearts in their heels, every one flying before the fire, as men fly before a victorious enemy ! What a l)alsy, what a great trembling had seized upon the heads, hands, and hearts of most citizens, as if they had been under Cain's curse ! Most men were unmanned and amazed ; and therefore no wonder if the furious flames received no check. In former fires, when magistrates and people had resolved hearts and active hands, how easily, how quickly were those fires quenched ! - But now our rulers'
> Knollcs' General History of the Turks, p. 1275.
' peut. xxviii. C6 ; 1 Sam. xiii. 7, 14, 15 ; Acts i. 12. AVhy stand ye gazing ? Oh the feeblenesB, the frights, the tremblings, the distractions, that "was then in every house, in
ISA. XLIl. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 147