(9.) The ninth support to bear up the hearts of the people of God under the late fiery dispensation, is this — viz., That there ivas a great mixture of mercy in that dreadful judgment of fire that has turned London into a ruinous heap. At the final destruction of Jerusalem there was not one stone left upon another, Luke xix. 41, 45. This might have been thy case, 0 London, had not mercy triumphed over justice, and over all the plots and designs of men. Though many thousand houses are destroyed, yet to the praise of free grace, many thousand houses in the city and suburbs have been preserved from the rage and violence of the fiames. What a mercy was that, that Zoar should be standing, when Sodom was laid in ashes ! Gen. xix. And what a mercy was this, that your houses should be standing, when so many thousand houses have been laid desolate ! Is more than a third part of the city destroyed by fire ? Why, the whole city might have been destroyed by fire, and all the suburbs round about it. But in the midst of wrath, God has remembered mercy, Ps. cxxxvi. 23 : in the midst of great severity, God has exercised great clemency. Had the fire come on with that rage, fury, and triumpli, as to liave laid both city and suburbs level, we must have said with the church, ' The Lord is righteous,' Lam. i. 18. Had the three children their songs in the midst of the fiery furnace ; and why should not they have their songs of praise, whose houses, by a miraculous providence, were pre- served in the midst of London's flames ? 0 sirs, what a mixture of mercy was there in this fiery calamity, that all your lives should be spared, and that many of your houses should be preserved, and that much of your goods, your wares, your commodities, should be snatched as so many firebrands out of the fire ! If ever there were an obliga- tion put upon a people to cry, Grace, grace, grace ! the Lord has put one upon you, who have been sharers in that mixture of mercy that
186 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
God has oxtended to tlie iiuuiy thouKand sufferers by London's flames. Had this judij^nient of fire been inflicted wlien the rai^jini,^ })estilence swept away some tlionsands every week, and wlien the (aty was even left naked as to her iidiabitants, and wlien the whole nation was under a dreadful fear, trembling, and dismayedness of spirit, Josh. ii. 9-11, niiglit there not have been far greater desolations, both of houses, goods, and lives, in the midst of us ? Had God contended with Lon- don by })estilence and fire at once, who would have lodged your per- sons in their beds, or your goods in their barns? Had these two dreadful judgments met, Londoners would have met with but few friends in the world. Well, when I look ujjon London's sins and de- serts on the one hand, and upon the principles, old hatred, plots, de- signs, rage, and wrath of some malicious persons, on the other hand, Ezek. XXV, 15, instead of wondering that so much of the city and suburbs is destroyed, I rather wonder that any one house in the city or suburbs is preserved.! Whilst London was in flames, and all men under a high distraction, and all things in a sad confusion, a secret, subtle, designing, powerful enemy might have risen u[) in the midst of you, that might have spoiled your goods, ravished your wives, de- flowered your daughters, and after all this have sheathed their swords in all your bowels : and in that it fell not out thus, what cause have Londoners to bow for ever before j)reventing and restraining grace ! Since the creation of the world, God has never been so severe in the execution of his most dreadful judgments as not to remember mercy in the midst of wrath. When he drowned the old Avorld, who before were drowned in lusts and pleasures, he extended mercy to Noah and his family. When he rained hell out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, turning those rich and pleasant cities into ruinous heaps, lie gave Lot and his daughters their lives for a ])rey. And when by fire and sword he had made Jerusalem a dreadful spectacle of his wrath and vengeance, yet then a remnant did escape, Isa. vi. 11-13 ; Jer. v. 10, 18. This truth w-e citizens have exi)erienced, or else we and our all before this day had been destroyed. Every citizen should have this motto written in characters of gold on his forehead, ' It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed,' Lam. iii. 22. God might have made London like Sodom and Gomorrah; but in the day of his anger some beams of his favour darted forth upon your London. By which means the hopes of some are so far revived as to expect that London yet may be rebuilt and blessed. That is a dreadful word, ' When he begins he will make an end ; and the fire of his WTath shall burn, and none shall quench it,' 1 Sam. iii. 12 ; Jer. iv. 4, and xxi. 12. These eradicating judgments had certainly fallen upon London, had not the Lord in the midst of his fury remembered mercy. ' If the Lord had not been on our side,' Ps. cxxiv. 1-3, may London now say, 'if the Lord had not been on our side when the fire rose up against us, then the fire had swallowed us up quick, when its rage was kindled against us.' Doubtless God never mingled a cup of wrath with more mercy than this.
' Tacitus, writing of Konio, saith, Scquitur cladea, omnibus i/uce urbi per violentiam ir/niitm acr.iderant grarior atque alrocior. — Annal., lib. xv. p. 791. It was rich mercy that it was not bo with London.
ISA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATIOX. 187
Though the fire of London was a very great and dreadful fire, yet it was not so great nor so dreadful a lire as that of Sodom and Gomorrali was : for that fire of Sodom and Gomorrali,
[1.] First, It loas a miraculous fire — a fire that was, besides, beyond and against the course of nature.i Gen. xix. 24, ' Then tlie Lord I'ained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from tlie Lord out of lieaven.' Fire mingled with brimstone hath been found, (1.) Most obnoxious to the eyes; (2.) Most loathsome to the smell; and (3.) JMost fierce in burning. He hit the mark who, speaking of fire and brimstone, said, Facillime incenditur, pcrtinacissime fervet, et diffi- cillime extinguihcr, It is easily kindled, violently swelled, and hardly extinguished. Brimstone and all that vast quantity of sulphureous fiery matter, by which those rich and populous cities were turned into ruinous heaps, were never produced by natural causes, nor after a natural manner, no culinary fire being so speedy in its consumptions, but immediately by God's own miraculous power and almighty arm. But the fire that lias laid London in ashes was no such miraculous or extraordinary fire, but such a fire which divine providence permitted and suftered to be kindled and carried on, by such means, instruments, and concurring circumstances as hath buried our glory under heaps of ashes. But,