[1.] First, The bloody sword is a more dreadfid judgment than that of fire. Fire may consume a man's house and his estate, but the sword cuts off a man's life. Now at what a poor rate do men value the whole world, when it stands in competition with their lives. He very well knew that man was a very great life-lover, who said, ' Skin for skin,' or skin upon skin, ' and all that a man hath will he give for his life,' Job ii. 4. God might have brought upon England, ay, and upon London too, the sword of a foreign enemy, as he did upon Jerusalem and the land of Judea. In that one only city of Jerusalem, during the time of the siege by Vespasian's armies, which were made up of Romans, Syrians, and Arabians, there died and were killed a thousand thousand. i At this time there were slain in all Judea in several places to the number of twelve hundred and forty thousand Jews. The whole city of Jerusalem flowed with blood, insomuch that many parts of the city that were set on fire were quenched by the blood of them that were slain. In seventeen years' time the Car- thaginian war only in Italy, Spain, and Sicily, consumed and wasted fifteen lumdred thousand men. The civil wars between Pompey and Cffisar swallowed down three hundred thousand men. Caius Ceesar did confess it, and gloried in it, that eleven hundred ninety and two thousand men were killed by him in wars. Pompey the Great writ upon Minerva's temple that he had scattered, chased, and killed twenty hundred eighty and three thousand men. Q. Fabius killed a hundred and ten thousand of the Gauls. C. Marius put to the sword two hundred thousand of the Cimbrians. jEtius, in that memorable battle of Catalonia,^ slew a hundred sixty and two thou- sand Huns. Who can number up the many thousands that have fallen by the bloody sword in Europe, from the year 1620 to this year 1667 ? Ah London ! London ! thy streets might have flowed with the blood of the slain, as once the streets of Jerusalem, Paris, and others have done. Whilst the fire was a-devouring thy stately houses and palaces, a foreign sword might have been a-destroying thine inhabitants. Whilst the furious flames were a-consuming thy goods, thy wares, thy substance, thy riches, a close and secret enemy, spirited, counselled, and animated from Ptome and hell, might have risen up in the midst of thee, that might have mingled together the blood of husbands and wives, and the blood of parents and children,
^ Josephus, dc Bello Jud.
^ Chalons : Greg. Turou. ii. 7 ; Joniandcs de Rebus Get. 3G. — G.
190 LONDDX'.S LAMENTATIONS ON [IsA. XLll. 24, 25.
and tlio blood of masters and servants, and the Wood of ricli and poor, and the blood of the honourable with the blood of the vile. Now had this been tliy doom, 0 Ijondon ! which many feared, and others c-xpected, what a dreadful day would that have been ! It is better to see our houses on fire than to see our streets running down Avith the blood of the slain. But,
[2.] Secondly, God might have inflicted the judgment of famine upon London, whi(;h is a more dreadful judgment than that of fire.^ IIow sad would that day have been, 0 London ! if thou hadst been so sorely pnt to it, as to have taken up that sad lamentation of weeping Jeremiah : Lam. ii. 11, 12, ID, 20, iv. 4, 5, 7-10, and v. 4, 6, 9, 10, ' Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people ; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets. They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wdne ? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured into their mother's bosom. Arise, cry out in the night ; in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord : lift up thy hands towards him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street. Shall the woman eat her fruit, and children of a span long ? The tongue of the suckling child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst : the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets : they that Averc brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in the body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire. Their visage is blacker than a coal ; they are not known in the streets : their skin cleaveth to their bones ; it is withered, it is become like a stick. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger ; for these pine away, striclcen thi-ough for want of the fruits of the field. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children ; they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. We have drunken our water for money ; our wood is sold unto us. We have given the hand to the Egyptians and Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible famine.' So great was the famine in Jerusalem,^ that a bu.shel of wheat was sold for a talent, Avhich is six hundred crowns, and the dung and raking of the city sinks was held good commons ; and such pinching necessities were they under, that they acted against all piety, honesty, humanity, &c. Women did eat their children of a span long; yea, the hands of pitiful women did boil their own children, and men eat one another; yea, many did eat the flesh of their own arms, according to what the Lord had long before threatened : Isa. ix. 19, 20, ' Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire : no man shall spare his brother. And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry ; and he shall eat on the left hand, and
' Oen. xlv. 4fi ; Joel i. 2, and ii. 3 ; .fcr. xxiv. 10 ; Ezck. vi. 11 : '2 Sam. x.\i. 1. * Josephus, lib. vi. cap. 16, de Belio Judaico.
'IsA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE late fiery dispensation. 191