Use 2. The second use is a use of lamentation and mourning. Is London laid in ashes ? Then let us all lament and mourn that Lon- don is laid desolate. Shall Christ weep over Jerusalem, Luke xix. 41-44, when it was standing in all its glory, knowing that it would not be long before it was laid even with the ground ; and shall not we weep over London, whose glory is now laid in the dust ? Who can look upon London as the ancient and noble metropolis of England, and not lament and mourn to see it laid in ashes ? It might have been said not long since, ' Walk about Sion,' Ps. xlviii. 12, 13, — walk about London, — ' and go round about her ; tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her j)alaces : ' look upon her stately houses, halls, and hospitals, take notice of her shops, and fair warehouses, and Royal Exchange, &c., and lo, the glory of all these things is now buried in a common ruin ! i Oh the incredible change that a devour- ing fire hath made in four days' time within thy walls, 0 London ! so that now we may [say] lamentingly, Alas, poor London ! ' Is this the joyous city whose antiquity is of ancient days ? ' Isa. xxiii. 7, 8. Is this the crowning city, whose merchants were princes, and whose traffickers were the honourable of the earth ? Who can but weep to see how the Lord ' hath made a city an heap, and a ruin of a defenced city, and a palace to be no city ' ? Isa. xxv. 2. Who can look upon naked steeples, and useless chimneys, and pitiful fragments of ragged walls — who can behold stately structures, and noble halls, and fair houses, and see them all laid in ashes, or turned into a heap of rubbish, without paying some tears as due to the sadness of so dreadful a spectacle ? Who can with dry eyes bear London thus speaking out of its ruins : ' Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger ' ? Lam. i. 12. Who can look upon the Lord as making London empty, as laying it waste, as turning it upside down, and as scattering abroad the inhabitants thereof, and not mourn? 2 Isa. xxiv. 1. Be- loved, under desolating judgments God does expect and look that his people should lament and mourn : Jer. iv. 7, 8, ' The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way ; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate ; and thy city shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant. For this gird you with
^ London, the crown of England, hath lost its jewel of wealth and beauty.
' Sir Edward Turner, in his speech to the king on Friday the 18th day of January, hath these words : — ' They find ' — meaning the parliament — 'j'our majesty engaged in a sharp and costly war, opposed by mighty princes and states that are in conjunction against us, they see with sorrow the greatest part of your metropolitan city buried in ashes.' [Query, Sir William Turner ? See Epistle Dedicatory. — G.]
154 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us.' Under wasting judgments God expecteth not only inward, but also outward, expressions and demonstrations of sor- row and grief. Shall our enemies rejoice over the ruins of London, and shall not we mourn over the ruins of London? Shall they that are afar off lament over London's desolation ; and shall not we lament over London's desolation, who are every day a-walking up and down in London's ruins and rubbisli ? 0 sirs ! as ever you would see London's breaches repaired, her trading recovered, her beauty re- stored, her riches augmented, her glory advanced, and her inhabitants rejoiced, make conscience of mourning over London's ruins. After Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, many of the Jews obtained leave of the Roman emperors, once a year — viz., on the 10th of August, which was the day whereon their city was taken i — to enter into Jeru- salem, and bew^iil the destruction of their city, temple, and people, bargaining Avith the soldiers who w^aited on them to give so much for so long abiding there, and if they exceeded the time they conditioned for, they were to stretch their piu'ses to a higher rate, which occasioned Jerome to say, ' that they who bought Christ's blood were then glad to buy their own tears.' 0 sirs, what cause have we once a year, yea, often in a year, to bewail the desolation of London ! The statue of Apollo is said to shed tears for the afflictions of the Grecians, though he could not help them.- Though we could not prevent the burning of London, yet let us weep over the ruins of London. The leprosy of the citizens' sins had so fretted into London's walls, that there w^as no cleansing of them but by the furious flames of a consuming fire, Lev. xiv. 35-46. In the law you know that when the old fretting plague of leprosy was so got into the house, and spread in the walls, that no scraping within or without could cleanse it aw^ay, then the house was to be pulled down. This seems to be London's case. God by former judgments laboured to scrape away the leprosy of sin out of London, but that deadly leprosy was so got into men's hearts and houses that there was no getting of it out but by pulling them down. This is, and this must be for a lamentation. Now the better to work you to lament and mourn over the ruins of London, consider with me these ten following particulars : —
[L] First, Who can look upon the htirning of London, as ushered in by such sad j^i'odigics and dreadful forerunners as it was, and not lament and mourn over its ruins? By what a bloody sword, and by what a dreadful plague, was this late judgment of fire ushered in ! First, God sends his red horse amongst us. Rev. vi. 4, 8 — viz., a cruel, bloody war ; and then he sends his pale horse amongst us — viz. , a noisome, sweeping pestilence. Oh the garments that were rolled in blood ! Oh the scores of thousands that were by the hand of the destroying angel sent to their long homes, to their eternal homes ! Now in the rear of these judgments follows such a devouring fire, as hath not been known in any ages past. Not long before Vespasian came against Jerusalem ,2 there happened divers prodigies : (1.) There was a comet in form of a fiery sword, which for a year together did hang over the city. (2.) There was seen a star on the temple so ' Joscphus. » Josephus, pp. 73S, 739.
ISA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 155