A SHORT NARRATIVE Of the late DREADFVL FIRE IN LONDON TOGETHER VVith certain Considerations Remarkable therein and deducible therefrom Not unseasonable for the Perusal of this Age. Written by way of LETTER to a Person of Honour and Virtue LONDON Printed by W. G. for Rich. Thrale at the Crosse-Keysand Dolphin in Aldersgate-street over against the Half-Moon Tavern and Iames Thrale under St. Martin's Outwich Church in Bishops-gate-street 1667. To His Noble Friend And Kinsman Sr. EDWARD TURNOR KNIGHT Speaker of the Honorable House of COMMONS in this Present PARLIAMENT SIR BEcause I know you were at a distance when that furious never to be forgotten and never enough to be lamented Fire begun the 2. of Septemb. desolated our Native City the glory of England and of Europe London In which I your Compatriot formerly happy in it am now a great sufferer with it I think it a just service to the publique and no unacceptable present to you to endeavour such an account of the commencement progress and conclusion of it as both mine own view and the faithful report of others assists me to that as God may have the glory of his just judgement on a populous and rich City dispersed and impoverished so men may see the dreadful effects of providence untutelar to their acquisitions and call off their hearts and confidences from these sublunaries to God who only can bring them to us and preserve them with us and by whom only they can be transformed into comforts which as elementary and vicissitudinarious they can in no true sense be For the fashion of this world passeth away and the glory of it being but as a Flower of the Field to set the heart upon that which has wings and flyes away will we nill we is to be as accessary to our own deception as weakness and wilfulness can make us or misery and judgement can continue us to be And because Sir it is bruited abroad by some that this fatal accident had a more than ordinary express of fury that is that London was fired from Heaven as was Sodom and Gomorrah of old though say they God restrained the Fire from such dismal effects as then were permitted it And others referr it to the spight and furtherance of male-content Villanes and mischievous Forreigners greedy thus to revenge themselves of us for our stout demeanours towards them and our great successes against them which they judge no otherwise ballanceable than by this spoil and non-such disappointment equal if not paramount to any other diversion because Sir I say men are so variously acted in this Euroclydon of Providence which has been so stupifying to every mans senses that either was a compassionate spectator or a concerned sufferer in the spoil and loss of that once famous place which Tacitus so long ago terms Nobilissimum emporium commeatu negotiatorum maxime celebre I have adventured to write my thoughts of the rise nature and circumstances of the Fire and to beg your patience and pardon both to them and me And here Sir I must confess though I adore the greatness of God and deplore the grievousness of the sin of London for which God may justly bring upon it not only what he has but greater and more eradicating judgements such as he expresses when he begins he will make an end by and the fire of his wrath shall burn and none shall quench it Though whatsoever of this that might have been more is the deserved severity of God to its many and monstrous sins yet doe I not believe that this Fire was like that of Sodom and Gomorrah for that was fire from the Lord out of Heaven Gen. 19. 24. Fire not only of wasting things combustible but Fire of exinanition to to the earth and soyl incapacitating it to produce necessaries for the life of man and beast converting the substance of the place into Brimstone and Salt and Burning as the Lord paraphraseth on Sodoms judgement Deut. 29. 33. so that it became desert never to be dwelt in again Isaiah 13. 19. for such fire like the waters on the old world God may be only thought once to exemplifie his power by and to fix the fear and awe of him in the minds of men insolent against him whose greatness it can reach whose obduration it can penetrate whose fixation in the world it can dissettle God who has said his spirit shall not always strive with man forasmuch as he is but dust lest the spirit that he hath created should fail before him makes all judgement his strange work and therefore such stupendious ones as this he may be thought to account much more his strange work once indeed he has appeared in flaming Fire and devouring Brimstone to Sodom and the City of the rich and fertile plain who were sinners before the Lord that is who because they were rich were riotous and because they had abundance from the soyl which was rank and lusty gave themselves up to luxury and pride For the sins of Sodom were idleness and fulness of bread Once more he will send his Son in flaming Fire to dissolve the world and render vengeance to his enemies but his intercurrent judgements of Fire between this first that last president of unparallelledness are alloyed by mixtures of mercy in them And I perswade my self of this nature was the late judgement by Fire upon London a City not like Sodom without Priest and without Magistrate whose vices and insolencies bore down both ordinances of Church and State Londons fulness of bread and idleness were no publick and owned effronteries no such wickedness as Sodom had was setled by a law or practised against law in her no rioters against Angels were her inhabitants as the Sodomites were no murmurers were they against Gods soveraignty as the Sodomites were ver 13. Therefore God in the midst of judgement remembred mercy to London God overthrew not only Sodom and Gomorrah but all the Cities of the plain giving Zoar only for a Sanctuary to one Lot but God has not destroyed the Suburbs of London or the neighbouring City to it but reserved them for a shelter to her many thousand inhabitants God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in a moment Lament 4. 6. by a special and not to be disputed finger of God no mortal instrument co-operating no culinary fire being so speedy in its consumptions but God exercised his judgements on London gradually that the spectators might by the sight of their punishment bewail the ingratitude of their sin deserving it God overthrew all the Inhabitants of Sodom and that which grew upon the ground of it but God has preserved the Inhabitants of London and much of their riches to be a seed of succession and a door of hope to its future restauration God petrified Lot's wifes body as a standing monument of his wrath upon her but for looking back upon Sodom whence she was delivered with commiseration of it and wish of better fortune to it
and blessed by him who is all power wisdom and duration and therefore can be neither abbreviated or defeated in his volitions and resolves All things working together for the good of his Elect and his counsel ever standing like Mount Sion which can never be removed As I say in his paths of kindness and obligement to man he predisposes and forecalls severalties to their Randezvous and draws forth such services from them as conduces to his own honour and his holy servants security and comfort by them so in order to judgements does he ripen and forward them by such assistances and proper adjuncts that the beauty of penal providence is maintainable from them in spight of all artifices of wickedness to Eclipse or cashire it Thus when he will destroy a sinner he hardneth his heart against his fear and when he will give Victory to his Armies he causes a noise of horsemen and Chariots and drives them away in fear when none pursues them yea he will and does prove a Terrour to wickedness even in the pleasure of it as he did in the hand-writing upon the wall to Nebuchadnezzar What alas signifies Haman's rage if God deny him favour with Ahasuerus as wontedly and bring in Ester his Enemy to his supersedal What avails Sampson's strength if God give a key to the secret of it which resides in its unshavenness To what purpose is Achitophel's policy if God turn it into foolishness and conntermand the aids and co-operations with it we put all our endeavours and attainments in a broken bag if God be not the blessing of them if he speaks no fiat folly is the best prognate of our contrivances so necessary is Gods allowance and aid that without it all is abortive and amort As then when God is in mercy or judgment present all things are as they are properest to be so in his absence on either side there can be no thorow effect of either for all things observe him and as when he says Goe they Goe so when he says recede they depart as he gives heavenly influences in mercy so he withdraws them in wrath he makes the light darkness and the rain fruitlesness the suppression the exaltation the death the life of his manifests to the world what He is and when He has famine pestilence sword or any other noyance to charge a man or Nation with he withholds seasons showers salubrity of air and causes the â—ire of animosity to break out into war and no endeavour of honourable peace to be offered or accepted he withdraws remembrance of old leagues and ancient obligements he casts a veil upon true Christian advantage and will not render its amability to the view of judgment and impartiality and he suffers such intricacies to clog breaches once made that they are reconcileable by no Tertian nor are they admissive of any expedient beneath that dubious fatal and I had almost said uncharitable one of aut Vincere aut vinci either get or lose all And thus God paâ—esies the way to his displeasure in that he drys up the pooles of supply in the wilderness of need and as a moth of corrosion in place of a horn of salvation And if the drought and scantness of water upon a Land be a judgment as God testifies it to be 50 Ier. 38. where he says of the Caldaeans a drought is upon her waters and they shall be dryed up for it is a land of graven Images and they are mad upon their Idols and God is said to call for a drought on the Land upon all things man and beast Hag. 11. as a token of his displeasure then to want water when fire burned and to have the buckets of heaven and the lodges of earth exhaust of water to quench it there being no rain of a long time before the fire and both the Springs low and the Water-works at the Bridge-foot which carryed water into that part of the City burnt down the first day of the fire Thus thus for it to be was no small judgment for as it is a mercy to have God a ready help when trouble is near so is it a judgment to have his creatures denyed when there is most use for them when their presence is salviâ—ique and repulsive when God gives a stomach to eat and no food to satiate it When he opens his peoples hearts to pray and yet hides himself from them and will not be found of them when he that is all plenty becomes a barren wilderness and he that is all power contracts his arm and will not out-stretch it When he that commands the Seas Winds Fire and they obey him raises those Elements by evil instruments and remands them not into their restraint but suffers them of servants to become Masters and instruments of spoil and terrour This unconcernedness of God when his great arrows are thus shot forth of his Almighty bow and fixed in the very hearts of mens delights and recumbencies so that they see all that was dear to them ruined before them and they rendred helpless to themselves can not chuse but be a signal of Gods indignation And we may conjecture God sends his fire to punish our â—â—e his wind to reward our wind Levity and zealesness for Reformed Religion and enmity and uncharitableness in matters of no moment compared to provoking one another to love and to good works has undone all repining against God and against one anotehr has had a notable share in this judgement and as this puts the charge into Gods Cannon so has undervaluation of God ramm'd home the charge to fit it for fataller execution in 78 Psal. 21. God had smote the rock and the waters gushed our and yet the people questioned Can God give bread in the wilderness The Lord says the Psalmist heard this and was wrath and a fire was kinâ—led against Iudah and anger also came up against Israel And I pray God this late harrass of us by a more than Gottish and Vandallique fire be not the stroke of some such brutish and unchristian provocation of God For greater and more express indications of Gods power and goodness has no Nation ever had then we never any Nation less conformed to the call and mercy of it then we Gods Jewels have had their righteous souls vexed amongst us and they cry out to God as David did 57 Psal. 4. My soul is among â—yons and I lye among them that are set on fire even the sons of men whose teeth are Spears and Arrows and their Tongue is a sharp Sword And may not God to revenge this offence to his little ones hang the Milstone of his fury about our necks and cast us into a Sea of misery and into the pressure of a helpless condition may not he pour out the fury of his anger and the strength of battle May not his anger set us on fire round about and we lay it not to heart though we be burned by it as
that God who is a God of Peace and a God of Order should bring distraction and disorder upon a City Regular and Religious upon his own day and in the morn of it to anticipate as it were their conventions of expiation and to avocate them from the use of a probable and prescribed remedy argues indignation For Gods promise to Solomon as a Type of Christ was If my people that call upon my name shall humble themselves and seek my face and turn from their evil way then will I hear in Heaven my dwelling place and have mercy and heal their I and For I have chosen this place to my self for an house of Sacrifice yet God seemed to walk contrary to his people of London in this for he drew them as it were off from the remedy that his hands being loosened he might punish and not be prevailed with to pardon which aversion of Gods from being intreated imponderates the judgement with a weightier note of Gods displeasure which the pensive Prophet Ieremiah rehearseth to this sense The Lord saith he hath swallowed up all the habitations of Iacob and hath not pitied he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the Daughter of Iudah he hath brought them down to the ground he hath polluted the Kingdom and the Princes thereof This this is that which is not ordinary that God began the Fire of his wrath on the day of his rest and solemn worship and with reverence be it utter'd prophaned his Sabbath which he commanded to be sanctifyed as if the sins of the Nation punished in London the head and heart of it were such as had procured a violation of all the methods of kindness and paternal goodness whereby God wontedly corresponded with us and as if he had recalled his former condescension and would be in Covenant with us and a Patron to us no longer This advantage given the passers by to clap their hands to hiss and wag their head at London saying Is this the City that men call the perfection of Beauty the joy of the whole earth This this brought upon London upon a Lords day wherein were more Sanctifyers of his Holy day and Name than in most of the Nation besides gives the judgement a tincture nay a deep woad of intense displeasure He that commands we shall not do our own works nor think our own thoughts upon that day would not himself have set a foot this work this strange work upon that day nor have thought thoughts of ruine to a populous and ancient City called upon by him on that Holy day But that the Notation of the day might lesson us displeasure extraordinary Which I mention not to comply with any party whose constructions of Gods meaning are calculated to the Meridian of their interest which has couched in it a secret reak of enmity to their opposites and of applause of themselves such as are on the one hand the outed party who expound it to be for their ejection or the other party who averr it to be a punishment of Phanaticism which they will have favoured and advanced by London or of that proud party who will have it sent for the pride of London who because the Citizens in it thrive and provide well for their Wifes Children and Relations are accounted proud in their suitable livings to their births and Gods blessing upon their industry and thrift or of that prophane party who will intrude their loose sentiments into Gods counsel and confirm themselves in their libertinism to live and speak as they list because they see themselves delivered when the Precisians of London as they deridingly and perhaps sinfully call them are plagued and punished by Fire I say not to dance after these mistaken Pipes whose notes are besides Gods Gammuth All that I see or dare believe inscribed by God upon the judgement is that the sin of the Nation punished by War and Plague last year and yet unrepented of is further prosecuted by God thorough the sides and heart of the chief Corporation and Master-City of this Island London whose burning is the Herald of God to the Nation calling it to view its remaining doom upon its persisted impenitence For as they were not the greatest sinners on whom the Tower of Siloam fell so were they the greatest sinners in England on whom the Fire of London fell and whose Fortunes and habitations it has levelled but except we punished and others yet priviledged therefrom repent we shall all and altogether perish The next remarkable circumstance in this Fire was that of Place wherein it first began which was Pudding-lane a place so called but from some eminent seller or sellers of Puddings living of old there it being usual to take denomination of Lanes and Streets not only from mens names chief owners of and dwellers in them but from some other accidents from whence they are denominated thus as the Lord Baynard Lord of Baynards Castle gave name to Castle Baynards Ward and Sir Iohn Basing to Basing-hall Ward so streets have been called according to several occasions as Lothbury because Founders and Brasiers living therein made every one Loth the Street for the noise Bread-street Milk-street Wood-street Candlewick-street and infinite others were called from the Bakers Milk-women Wood-buildings and Chandlers that in quantity dwelt there which is evident in the Survey of London so is this Pudding-lane called For that Lane bordering upon Thames-street and Billings-gate where people of labour and poor condition ply and are early in the morning and late at night when the Tyde serves to bring up Fishermen Passengers and other Boats and Portages the vicinity of such a good house as they call them wherein Pudding the general beloved dish of English men was sold might reasonably bring the place in request and thence give denomination to the corner wherein the seller lived This little pittyful Lane crowded in behind little East-cheap on the West St. Buttolphs-lane on the East and Thames-street on the South of it was the place where the Fire originated and that forwarded by a Bakers stack of wood in the house and by all the neighbouring houses which were as so many matches to kindle and carry it on to its havock thus the Fire meeting with the Star Inn on Fish-street-hill on the back of it and that Inn full of Hay and other combustibles and with the houses opposite to it and closed with it at the top burned three ways at once into Thames-street the lodge of all combustibles Oyl Hemp Flax Pitch Tar Cordage Hops Wines Brandies and other materials favourable to Fire all heavy goods being ware-housed there neer the water side and all the wharfs for Coale Timber Wood c. being in a line consumed by it unto Fish-street-hill till it met the other Fire at the Bridge to the Interval of Building and to Butolphs-lane into Mark-lane in Tower-street and in all this Savage progress met with no
opposition from Engines or other Artifices because it was impossible in such a strait and in such a rage of Fire they should be serviceable for if all the Engineers of mischief would have compacted the irremedyable Burning of London they could not have laid the Scene of their fatal contrivance more desperately to a probable success than there where it was where narrow Streets old Buildings all of Timber all contiguous each to other all stuffed with aliment for the Fire all in the very heart of the Trade and Wealth of the City these all concentring in this place put a great share of the mischief upon the choice of the place And hence there may be a more than ordinary argument that this choice was not a thing of accident but contrivance and meditation for some time If it were by the Instrumentality of Man only permitted by God for so was the Plot by Mendoza as Throgmorton and Parry confessed So was the Vault under the Parliament House in the case of the intended Powder ruine by Faux great enterprises alwayes requiring grave perpendment of the method by inspection circumspection and retrospection before they be reduced into act forasmuch as in the defect of due adjustments and prudent libration of what weight they will and will not beare suitable whereunto must every particle of the composure be framed and disposed not only the whole Fabrick sinks and proves effete but the actors in it and the well wishers to it prove ridiculous if not ruined which causes that axiom to be so acclamated among Politicians Deliberandum est diu quod constituendum est semel nor do wise men and fools differ in any thing more than in those specifique actions which are denominative of them fools running hand over head and wisemen going fair and softly surely though slowly and probable it is that the many forraign minded and addicted subtilists amongst us adjuuated by the needy miscreants and desperadoes at home might do much to the production of this Centaure which so speedily devoured more houses of State and Residence and more wealth and value in Merchandizes and other better things than many years wars could spend or many years labour can get yea the victory of any thing beneath an Indies will be but a ten groats composition for a 20 s. lost And if God who knows all things and whose infinite wisdom is past finding out or hiding from stirred up evil men to act his counsell to punish England by London this way that should need as it were no second to it then we have all great cause to take off our thoughts from evill instruments men and place them penitently upon evil Sin for which Gods thoughts are upon us for evil and not for good and we have just ground to bemoane our ways and doings which have not been right before God for the punishment whereof he sends such sweeping and unchecqued judgements such as a Fire is which has no ears to hear the cryes of the sick weak aged lame who are in danger to perish by not being able to remove themselves from it nor happy in being tendred by others who will in that disorder pity them nor eyes to see the cryes and moans of those Widdows Orphans and spoyled Creatures whose tears are Orators potent enough to prevail with any thing but its inexorability When God gives the inhabitations of London for Fuel to the Fire when he sets his face against them that they shall go out from one fire and another fire shall devour them then this had 't is sad And this was the case of London the fire removed from in one place followto another yea sundry there were that removed two or three times yet lost at last and that not only by evil instruments who forfeited their trust and took advantage of the confusion incumbent on all men but by the very Fire which broke in like waves of the Sea and raged like a Beare robbed of her Whelps untill it had executed its errand and made that predicable of London which Florus writes of Samnium so destroyed by Papyrius the Roman Consul Vt hodie Samnium in ipso Samnio requiratur So that though the advantage of place was much in this as in other cases ubi plus valet locus quam virtus and though there might have been rational and probable anticipations of these conflagrating progresses yet were they altogether hid from the eyes of those whose interest in comfort and fortune it would have been to have improved them The third circumstance of furtherance to the Fire was that of the wind which was not only not still but boysterous and such as carried it to not from the City and turned to fan and blow up the Fire East West South and North at some time or other during the Fire like that judgement God threatned upon Elam 49 Ier. 36. Vpon Elam will I bring the four Winds from the four quarters of Heaven and will scatter them toward all these winds and there shall be no Nation whither the outcast of Elam shall come So Iosephus sayes the providence of God turned the Fire the Romans put to the wall of Ierusalem upon the City by reason of which the Fires natural tendency was carried forth to oblique as well as direct effects of wasting that is spread it self this and that way till it had prevailed every where spreading it self like an Armys wings first drawn forth and the main body marching up to it Which complication of circumstances inductive to and in augmentation of a mercyless fate argues this Fire to be no ordinary judgement but to be sent as an evidence of God incensed and of sin the meritorious cause of it out of measure sinful For if the punishment of one single element be dreadful as the water was to the old world and the Air is in pestilential infections and the Earth was when it opened its mouth to swallow up Corah and his company how dreadfully sinful are those provocations of a land or person That God punishes with double and treble judgements in their judgement what vengeance is that like to prove which has Gods Armies of fire and wind united when his single army of Insects are enough to destroy Aegypt and when his negative hostility is productive of Famine to consume his enemies Whom because they would not serve in the abundance of all things he will press to serve their enemies and be ruined by his bringing upon them the want of all things And if Ionas his storm at Sea was so dreadful that he swallowed up in it is said to call to God out of the belly of Hell 2 Ionah 2. What a Hell of confusion and torment were the inhabitants of London delivered from when their lives were in the rage of Fire and Wind and when the Fire carried the noyse of a whirle-wind in it and was so informed with terrour that it surprised the eyes and hearts of men with fear as well as
their houses and goods with flame So that this wind from the Lord was not a wind like that of Numb 11. 31. which brought the Israelites quayles a wind of benignity nor such a wind as God made to pass over the earth to return the waters into their Trench after they had inundated the earth and absorped all the gayity of it Gen. 8. 1. but a wind it was that carried away and rent asunder by leading on the Fire upon its prey a wind it was that was commissionated to joyn with the Fire to devour above 2 third parts in the midst of the City as the phrase is Ezek. 5. 2. And this is that which in the concurrence of two such potent circumstances renders it more than ordinary as well in the intention of the chief cause as in the operation of the mediate ones For had God antipathized and severed their conjunction they had not done that complicated mischief they did but in that they corresponded each with other and both performed a savage charge upon London routing her Beauty Riches and being in a great degree it is not to be doubted but as the instrumental enemies rage is glutted with the booty of his option and designment those that prophesied of its firing before it happen'd being probably the principal contrivers and furtherers of the firing of it those that blew the coals heated the iron and made all things ready to further it so the Lords anger in permitting such a success was great and the humiliation for it ought to be serious and sacred for if God made the wind winged I allude to that passage in Zach. c. 5. v. 9. to proportion the fire to its breadth as well as boisture of fury if this judgement like that of the Caldaean God speaks of in 1 Hab. 16. must march through the breadth of the City if the flying rowl of Cursing had its length and its breadth as the Prophet Zachary has it 5 ch v. 1. then this fire and wind in its length and breadth of procedure and subversion being a great judgment calls for length and breadth of humiliation before God for it yea not to be sutably affected for the provokings of sin is to be deservedly punished once for all incorrigibility is next door to final impenitency the merit of utter subversion And truly when to all this it is considered that the Fire burned at some time contrary to the wind and as it were in opposition of it and then did as much spoil unto whatsoever it approachâ—â— was as unchecquable then as when it had the winds raising and chasing it then surely there must be great ground to conclude that this wind as well as this Fire come from the Lords anger and that whatsoever in it was besides the usual import of Fire in a place of so great help and experience to obviate and Master it was by the precise appointment and commission of God who does not only Authorize the Sword to do execution upon the world but imploys Air Wind Fire Water as well as other Creatures to be his Baliffs to Arrest if not his Devils to ruine them And if further it be ruminated that Gods proceeding by pauses which though not very deliberate compared with fatal protracted ones yet mild weighed against the method of Gods firing and consuming all in a moment as Sodom was seems to insinuate that God in this might expect a man or men holy before and accepted with him to stand in the gap and propitiate as it were for the City whereby the Fire might have been forced back and carryed off the non appearance of such whose spirits God touched with holy Charity to Gods cause and their Nations weal shrewdly insinuates a suspicion that God by removing or suspending the impediments might conclude the formidable issue that it had when God not only hides himself from his people that pray but calls off his peoples devotion from prayer for pardon that so his wrath may take its full course and burn so that none can quench it In such a case Gods expectation being defeated it is time to sit down under Judgments with confession of our doing wickedly and justification of Gods righteousness in whatever he has done The fourth circumstances of aid to the Fire was the drought of the season and the want of water which had not only prepared the combustible matter for a speedier reception of igneous Attoms and Contacts but prevented application of remora's and extinguishments to both wind and fire For as showers usually lay winds so winds abated usually mitigate fires Here then was another instance of propagation to this fire that God suffered it to carry all before it and to be impeded by nothing specifiquely its check whereby is argued in a good measure Gods allowance of the quarrel and his conduct of this his artillery of havock and besom of severity God having created all things in proportion to the whole of his design and placed in nature ballances and repulsives as well as insolencies and pestilences of assaults on harmony when these repulsives shall be exinfluenced and their vigour not only be abated but their contraries prevail and be effectual then is doom inevitable and the consequence as fatal as the counsell of it unsearchable And this was Poor London's case God had given us a long brightness of weather and made every thing so dry that it was of it self by the length and efficacy of that exhaustion in potentia proximâ to fire and the Springs were so low and the Engines of raising water so destroyed that there was no suitable appease to it applicable whence it came to pass that as a Buck that is not able to run must yield and die and a Vessel that cannot bear steerage and sails must be surprized and taken by wanting the conveniencies to flight and a Souldier that has lost his sword and shield must submit to his Enemies quarter how manly soever his courage be so in the defect of those obstacles to fire it unavoidably must follow that whatever the fire can do it may and will do for all natural stays being absent the battel is gained without stroake and the possession got without so much as challenge For as in ways of mercy God makes every thing ancillary hereunto as he suspended the fires consuming in the case of the three Children and in the bush which burned but consumed not and as he does in invigorating dry bones and in making the weak things of his justitution to confront and evict the mighty oppositions of flesh and bloud as he bears down the daring Monarchs of humane Learning and precipitates the fiery Sciolists of superstition by the piety zeal and humility of illiterate men Apostoliz'd and made by him unopposable God making his little and low Ordinances as the world esteems them the foolishness of preaching and the faith of a Crucified and derided Saviour paramount to all more subtil projects of captivation because conducted
the words of the Prophet from God are Ier. 42. last O that this were seriously considered that it might work a penitential reflexion in us upon our ways and doings which have not been good For which God has both lengthened and strengthened the sphere and activity of the Fire to inundate things sacred and civil and to be repulsed from neither the water manageable against it nor the wind dormant in it but has been provoked by every thing that might make our guiltness suspect that God having kindled the Fire in our gates made it unquenchable till it had left nothing almost further to ruine And I pray God it were not a Saboth days punishment for many Sabbath and Fast days prophanation 17. Ier. last This I subjoyn to shew that where God shews his displeasure he does it by all instruments of advantage to his purpose not only desolating chief and remarkable places but by denying all combinations of aid against it that so the judgement might not so much sip as swallow down its full draught of waste and consumption that as he made them all things in perfection so he may shew us that he can so perfectly destroy them that the place of their once being shall be known no more The fifth circumstance of augmenting it was that of the choice of place that this Fire was to work its woe upon the Heart of the City both for Houses of State Trade Charity publick Magistracy most of which it took into its Cyclopique arms and crumbled into ashes for its burning was from London Bridge to neer the Temple both upon the Street side and on the bank of the River its expansion was from a good way low into Fanchurch-street to all the houses that were upon the hilly part of London Candlewick-street Gracious-street Lombard-street Cornhill a part of Broad-street Thred-needle-street Throgmorton-street and so up Coleman-street and so all up to Cripplegate to Aldersgate all Newgate-market to Holborn-bridge Thus from the East to the West it prostrated Houses Halls Chappels Churches Monuments all which it so flaked and enervated that it has left few standing walls stout enough to bear a roof without new raising or charge of repair equivalent to new building which argues the Fire more than ordinarily in earnest when it was not only not impartial but not copable with by those Gyants of strength that usually outstand the shock of Fire yea it brought to ashes that Goodly and Generously useful Pile Sion-Colledge the place of my then comfortable and beloved Residence whose foundations laid by Dr. White and perfected by Mr. Simpson Twins of precious memory and the ever to be celebrated benefactors to Londons Clergy and Religions Increment it demolished For which I cannot but grieve as much as for mine own great losses both in and out of it because it was a publick Dedication to God in a good and graceful accommodation to persons of Learning and aged Poverty the former sort of which had access with welcome to its fair and well-furnished Library six hours in the day duely and freely open to all commers whom the honest and understanding Mr. Spencer the trusty and Aboriginal Librarier yet living and yet faithfully attending the remains of the Books for which he deserves to be well rewarded with a fixed Pension during the little restancy of his life conscionably and with much diligence and humility attended And the latter sort persons of Poverty being twenty of both Sexes chosen Alms-folk into the Colledge were quarterly relieved out of lands appointed thereunto by our Reverend Founder This Colledge I say not added to God knows in Lands by any since its Foundations Gifts though God has made its Library a good part of which is preserved and safely lodged in an upper Gallery by the Favour of the Honorable Government of Sulton's Hospital increase by the gifts of pious and charitable Gentlemen Citizens and their Widows and Children as also by good additions from the London Clergy and by others formerly well addicted to it amongst whom that Learned Grandaeus long since deceased and now with God Mr. Walter Travers Bachelour of Divinity ought as he deserves to be remembred the greatest Benefactour to it of any Clergy man whatever since the two Reverend Founders This this Beloved Sion so nobly design'd and so kept up in its Credit and Reputation till the unhappy dissolution hereof by this Fire was burned down and ruined only the Case of the Library and some of the Gate-piece yet remains but so shattered that long it cannot stand nor suddenly is it like to be repaired the site of the Colledge lying for three Months since the fire open many of the Materials embezzelled too few resenting the detriment that Religion and Learning will receive by the neglect of it so that the remains within the Freedom that were exempted this fire were only from Leaden-hall to the Barrs without Algate from Bishopsgate-street Corner in Cornhil to the Barrs without Bishopsgate and from Moore-fields first postern Gate along the wall with Broad-street from the Church up into Bishopsgate-street from Cripplegate to the Barrs in that Parish from Aldersgate-street to the Barrs above in that street and all the compass without the wall from thence to the end of Cow-lane and from Holborn Bridge to Holborn Barrs these together with the houses from near Iron-Mongers Hall in Fanchurch-street up to Algate and down Mark-lane till within near twenty houses of Tower-street end with Crutched Fryers and the Appendixes thereto were all that of the Liberties of London were preserved which I reckon not above the twentyeth part of the City Freedom in quantity nor the hundereth part of it in value of houses and all this waste committed by the mercyless flames in four dayes the speed whereof added to the quality of what it preyed upon argues the judgment remarkable and past president For it was wont to be computed amongst the choice mercies of God to London that it was specially protected from fires notwithstanding the houses were most of Timber very contiguous each to other and had constant and fierce fires kept in the hearths of them night by night and those later than in any City of the world the good Government thereof making the night as safe for Passengers as the day which gave occasion to more free and more lasting hospitalityes in her then otherwhere are practicable And yet so has God in all times preserved London that such a fire as this never before was kindled in her thus to prevail over her I read indeed of great Fires of old in her In Anno 764 when many Cities and places were destroyed igne repentino London Dunelmensis sayes was one and in Anno 798 London is again storied to be burned repentino igne cum magna hominum multitudine consumpta In Anno 982 Temps Ethelred there was a great Fire In Anno 1087 Cambden tells us the Spire of S. Pauls was so high quae
approaching Fire as well as in the actual consuming by the Fire the houses only excepted and probably those in a good part had been saved had they restrained their hands from theft and imployed them to master the Fire by handing water pulling down houses ridding away materials mingled with the Fire and observing the commands of provident and knowing leaders in that so imployed saving service But their design being not what wontedly though stealing has been ever in fashion in those cases so much to stay the Fire and aid the sufferers and their neighbours yea and the whole City which ought to be concerned in the misery of any part of it as to prog for themselves and to pilfer from them whom the Fire sufficiently threatned and at last preyed upon the Fire had no impediment from their labour nor the removers any benefit by their fidelity but they either valued their labour so high that no losers purse could well reach to it by reason of which some ordinary House-keepers were put to 40. pound charge but to remove from the Fire and some few of the more stored sort as I have been informed at neer 400. pound or accepted ingagement that under pretence of it they might colour and act their designed falshood for though many there were that gave and could give great rates for honest Carts and Labourers yet others there were that could not reach it monies being not so flush with them nor they so stored with it on Saturday nights men then paying out all on Saturdays their pay day and those who had thus drayned themselves were certainly put to great straits being either forced to give one part to carry away the rest or to leave all to the fire the mercies of which was cruelty to all that it came neer the flight from which gave opportunity to mis-carriage of thousands of pounds worth of goods and to many thefts of goods lodged in open places Fields and others for present riddance out of danger and hoped for security from it which as it frowardly proved became a removal out of the danger of Fire into the Den of Thieves so that indeed in some sense the City that rich and glorious seat of Merchants and other Tradesmen who were as those of Tyre are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Honourable of the Earth Members of the Crowning City which imployed the Nations younger Brothers and Sisters and restored them in their posterities of elder Brothers Fortunes and Honours The City that I think I may say was one of the wonders of the world if Pope Innocent the fourth were a competent judge who desired not with Moses to see Gods glory but to see with Satan the World and the glory of it summed together in the riches of London and the rarities at Westminster this riches in some degree and the subsistance of the inhabitants thereof was as well devoured by the Suburbian thieves and by the Countreys extortion for their Carts and conveniencies as by the Fire all which had their respective share in laying load upon Londons broken back and upon the general distraction of and in it Which I note not to lay an Imputation upon all assistants either as Labourers or as Carts for some and many I hope and know by relation to have been very honest and reasonable but into those honest and happy hands God knows many of my goods fell not nor the goods of thousands more but into the hands of those Harpyes that devoured all they took and cryed Give give never to return again whereupon the argument must stand good that the riches of London being only the posessors during the vigour of Laws and the ability of the Magistrate to circumspect every part of his charge all disability of thine so to do and so this distraction of the Fire must demolish the wall of seperation and draw a line of level to whatever industry and villany during that rage will prey upon For as Inter arma silent leges so inter flammas cessat proprietas and in such case Occupancy is judged by men unconscionable the best title and the after Proclamations may endevour return and threaten detension of goods so unjustly gotten and some out of honesty and othes out of fear may return some parts and others out of envy to those that have more than they may disclose things that by these means may come to the owners hands yet notwithstanding all these there will not be thetenth of the goods restored that were carried away purely in theft so great and effectual a temptation is opportunity to need where it is not restrayned by conscience nay in this harrass of Fire and that so generally absorptive of the City then there is somewhat towards authorizing a scruple of conscience and absolving persons from the guilt of theft In that what they took being in a kind of Landwreck wherein no body owned goods and they deserted and left to the Fire must have been consumed better they were taken away by any to whom they would do good then consumed by the Fire which does nothing but hurt And if they will now part with their dubious titles upon reasonable terms they that took away goods in a sort wrongfully will prove themselves preservers not raptors which I in a great measure distrusting do conclude that though the Fire in London might not come yet it might be negatively continued from those needy numbers who fish in troubled waters being like the vultures in publico malo falcies carrying more from two or three dayes such disorder then they will by labour or patrimony get or save to themselves all their lives There is a story in Iosephus of the Fire in Antioch which consumed the four square Market-place the publick place where all Writings and Registers were kept as also the Kings Houses which Fire so increased that it threatned firing the whole City Antiochus accused the Jews to be the incendiaries and all the Jews were like to be slain upon the suspition and bruit of it but Collega appeasing the people and further inquiring into the matter found the Jews wholly innocent but certain inpious people had done this being imdebted thinking that when they had burned the Market places and the publick writings that then their debts could not be required at their hands And though if men thought seriously upon the judgements of God on such evill works and ways such gains would prove but like the hire of a Harlot or like the wedge of Achan or the Babylonish garment a curse to them and theirs yet posession being nine points of ten of the Law to them the advantage they in present for further they look not have by it carries them out to withdraw assistance from hindring its progress which by their manual labour they might probably have done so that though what has been written is intended to satisfie so full as it can You Sir and all that read this from concluding this
ignem caelestium provocavit as his words are that it was set on Fire by Lightning arsitque non sine Magno totius vrbis damno in King Stephen's time there was a Fire that began at London Stone and consumed all unto Aldgate Not to mention the smaller Fires which have been many the damage whereof has returned only upon private persons These have been the remarkable Fires yet none of them were such as this not only because London was not then near what now it was nor the consumption of it by them proportionable to what it was by this Fire which was not a Fire that pick'd and chused but a Have at all Fire a Fire that took into its possession 81 Parish Churches and at least 6 or 7 Chappels other Churches answerable to them amongst which the famous Cathedral of St. Paul was one so incinerating the Glory Emasculating the vigour and firmness of them that the standing Walls are for the most part unable to bear new roofs the sturdy Supporters of them being enervated the Monuments in them burnt to powder the Bells in the Steeples melted the Vaults under-ground pierced the Stones of the outside so scaled as if the Fire was greedy to eat out all firmness in them Thus God spared not Shiloh in the day of his feirce wrath but destroyed the Gates of Sion together with the habitations of Iacob Add to this that the Fire reached the very Wombs and Mynes of Charity the Worshipful Societies of London to whose honour I dare erect this Trophe That of all the Societies in England or Europe none excell if any parallel them in discharge of their Trusts which they punctually and indispensably do Modo forma statutis not transgressing any appointment of the Donors will except it be in enlargement of his charity as it improves These that were the maintainers of aged Poor whom they housed decently and salaryed competently These who were Benefactors to Young men of their Societies whom upon security to make good the Principal they lent hundreds a pounds to persons upon none or very small Interest to begin the world with by which with Gods blessing â—hey grew rich and wealthy in after times These that gave out Portions to Maids Marriages brought up poor Children fitting them for all Callings let good Peny-worths to their Tenants hospitably treated Strangers and their Members at their Halls allowed comfortable exhibitions to Young Scholars at Universities gave Presentations of Livings in City and Country to worthy Clerks maintained bravely their Guilds Common Halls Servants and Utensils These that upon all publique occasions of Triumph made up the renowned Pomp of Londons Festivals and appearings These These are in a great measure ruined Eleven of the Twelve chief Companies Halls the goodlyest buildings one with another in any one Town in Christendome being burnt down the Furniture and Utensils of some of them wholly lost besides the spoil done to the 24 Companies very many of whose Halls and Incomes are likewise destroyed Amongst which that of the Company of the Stationers is sad the Common Stock of which valued re vera at between Twenty and Thirty Thousand pound was imployed to yeild the profit of the Joint Stock to those Old men Widdows and others qualified according to the Laws of their Society who were allowed respective proportions in the same None of which exceeding above 360 l. made way for the more accommodation of perticulars than if they had allowed men to have put in greater Sums This so good a security and so gainful a proceed to many aged Stationers their Widows and Children This Dreadful Fire has wholly consumed and over and above destroyed of the Members of this Society and other Booksellers and Printers in London near to the value of 150000 l. in Printed Books and Copies besides the loss of their Common Hall and other Houses and valuable things belonging to them And if one and but a mean Society compared to other Societies of the City has thus suffered what incredible detriment have the Societies joyntly suffered How many asking hearts hungry bellies bare backs will this Winter shew us helpless by want of their Charity How many impoverished Tenants how many wandring Pilgrims outed of Houses Callings Acquaintance has this caused Yea how many not only valuable parts of intrinsique wealth but Writings Evidences Charters â—oyntures Contracts Morgages Bonds Acquittances Books of Accompt has this consumed It were endless to wade into the confusions hereby made into Hospitals laid wast and their Inhabitants Children and other aged persons turned out to the cold weather helpless in themselves because decrepit through Age or tender by reason of Childhood yet uncapable to be helped by others whose hearts prone enough to it are not seconded by their Purses provided for it Churches levelled and their Poor and painful Clerks at once robb'd of their Tithes and over and above of the charities of those that are now companions with them in Misery Poverty Publick places of Magistratique dispatch bare of all Beauty and visible only in their deplorable Ruines The Houses of Hospitable and Wealthy Aldermen Merchants and Shop-keepers swept away and they themselves either fled or cooped up in some hole of Covert the Maintenances of Widows Orphans and others ill Marryed brought to nothing and they by means thereof either forced to beg or to work for a Livelihood and glad they can get the Bread they and theirs may Eate This is that God has done to London He hath not spared in the day of his fierce wrath but hath covered the Daughter of London with a cloud in his anger he hath swallowed up most of the habitations of its Jacob he hath thrown down the strong hold of the Daughter of England and hath polluted the Kingdom he hath violently taken away his Tabernacles he hath abhorred his Sanctuaries the Elders of the Daughter of London sit upon the ground and keep silence to allude to the Prophet Jeremiah writing of Jerusalems ruine Behold O Lord and consider to whom thou haste done this To London the Chamber of Englands Kings To London the chief of Englands Empire To London the Native place of Princes Prelates and men of Renown To London that Ancient and Rich Magazine of Trade and Wealth whom men called the Perfection of Beauty the glory of the whole Earth To London the Citizens whereof were men of Bloud Fortune Valour men of Renown as those of Tyre was To London the Non-such of orderly Government and of frequent and fervent Religion Adeo ut Religio pietas hic sibi delubrum collocasse videatur as the Learned Antiquaries words are To London the inexhaustible Secret of her Princes To London the Treasury of Men Money Arts the Rome the Athens the India of England To this London hath God done this Weep O Daughters of England for this London who cloathed you in Scarlet but now is her self cloathed with Confusion Mourn
to be accounted any thing tending to the Pen of a ready Writer nor indeed is it but I hope it will be accounted prove it self to be the Pen of a veracious well meaning Christian Englishman whose glory it is not so much to subdue Divels of danger to level Mountains of difficulties as to be owned a Friend to Learning a Servant to Religion a Native of London And if I forget thee O London let my right hand forget her cunning and they that forget thee by their cold Prayers heartless Tears Vituperious Sarcasms Secret rejoycings at thy ruins had best to remember that the Inundation of thy Thames may cool their courage and thy tutelar Angelique Patron become thine avenger on them for God has fixed an immortal spirit in London the horn and branch of which will sprout out to her detractors amazement and though she sit now in darkness yet the Lord shall be a light to her While England is an Empire London will be the Metropolis of it let who will dote on that Northern Prophecy which some thought fulfilled in stout Bishop Montaigne Lincoln was London is York shall be yet the very Learned and Noble Geographer Dr. Heylin is so far from cherishing that which has any reflexion of Ecclipse to London whose misfortune is as it were the prodromus of the Nations misery that he discreetly docks the recitall â—incoln is London was c. And Ingenious Dr. Fuller who will be more valued in after ages as most are than in their own upon this Proverb thus writes But as for those whose hope is York shall be the English Metropolis they must wait until the River of Thames run under the great Arch of the Ouse bridge However York shall be that is shall be York still as it was before for if York I write for my Native City and no City or person ought to be offended with me for my zeal for London would ever have overpoysed London it was probablest to have been when the union of England and Scotland into Great Britain was because of its neer situation to the Two Kingdoms then conjoyned But then it failing by the advantage London gave to the seat of Government above that or any part of the Nation the River of Thames that flowing up to her caused her foundation at first will I trust in God forever keep her in her Metropolitical station and add to her Paramouncy of renown as the Vrbs aeternabilis as Rome is called For so she seems to be framed after the Protoplast of the Nation that she answers every feature and digestion of parts in the Greater Body As if the Providence of God and the Policy of Antiquity had set her as a Glass before her Monarchs to see the paths and perfections of the greater Government in the methods and manageryes of her the less And so far does London answer the favour of her Soveraigns in their indulged liberties to her that she hath the suffrage abroad to be one of the most August Regular Religious Subaltern Governments in the world And now Sir after a more than usually long digression I come to the last Circumstance promoting this desolating Fire which was that Dread and pavid manlessness that seised the Inhabitants by reason of which they not only fled before the Fire leaving it to its forradge and not checquing it while dealeable with nor anticipating its Progress by pulling down or blowing up buildings before it For by this did every mans unmanly example discourage till at last the hearts of men were in their heels and every hand as it were became Palsie thorough terrour of apprehension there being a kind of Divination in men introductive to and fautive of the victory of the Fire over both their houses and endevours For as Iosephus well observes when God has designs to accomplish he puts upon men the guilt of humane errour and incredulity by which they think it not lawful for them to avoid their future calamity neither shun they irrecoverable destiny which as it was the case of the Iews when Nebuzaradan led the Iews captive into Babylon burning the goodly Temple and razing the City So was it in a great measure the condition of London for though the Inhabitants had seen many Fires and seen them soon again upon Gods blessing on their endevours quenched yet This This Fire was from the begining of it a Fire of amazement a Fire bespoke by them to be portentuous they gave up all by common Opinion mistrust of vote unto it God stopped some ruling mens ears against Counsel and filled other mens hearts with terrour the rich packed away effaeminating their endevour by the securings they made of their Wives Children and Goods and those not only near and within view but remotest from the Fire when no colour or prudent probability gave judgment to warrant such doings But yet was it done and thereby the City undone for had not that exportation been their diligence and success against the Fire would have been trebled and sutably for ought any knows have prov'd successful the prayers and tears of some cooperating with the hands heads of others being more probable securities to communities then such courses of astonishment which tended to presage of depopulation and was a holocaust to nothing but the extortion and thefts of Forraigners and had not God been more merciful to Outrage and Savageness Which seisure of the Inhabitants and over early pregustation of Woe disarming them of all agible judgment and prudent succour was if not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the judgment For as in the body natural when the Sun and the Moon and the Stars be darkned when the keepers of the house shall tremble and the strong men shall bow themselves as the Preacher describes old Age c. 12. v. 2 3. Death is at the dore so in the body Politique when manly Courage flags and the spirit of people fail them so that they crep about like walking Ghosts there is a sign that God is the cause of it and punishes by it when God turns mens pleasure into fears 21 Isay 4. when fear prepares for the pit and the snare 24 Isay 17. when fear is on every side 6 Ier. 25. when God sends a voice of fear 30 Ier. 5. and when he seconds the voice with real fear 48 Ier. 43. and those that fly from fear shall fall into the pit v. 44. when God sends a fear from all those that be about men c. 49. Ier. 5. This fear of exatlantation arising from guilt and its punishment poorness of spirit is that which is the Judgement and Curse of fear Now this God does to make way for his execution and to render the endeavour against it less potent and to save himself the drawing forth of his Almighty Artiller This he doth to shew that his wrath is perfected by rendring enemies passive
if the Lord had not been on our side 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 Yea certainly God never mingled a Cup of wrath with more Mercy than this which was rather Physick than Poyson more a Paternal chastisement then an extirpating Vengeance For whereas he Marched against Ierusalem of old charging her from his pale horse of fury bringing truculent and bloudy Enemies against it Romans Syrians Arabians all which accompanyed â—espasian against it and that then when there were 270000 Jews which came to Sacrifice shut up by the siege in it as in a Prison and were slain and starved during the siege and at its rendition whereof 600000. were cast out of the City in such distress that a Bushel of Wheat was sold for a talent which is 600 Crowns and the dung and raking of the City sinks was â—â—â—d good Commons and necessity made a Mother kill her Child and dress it and whereas the dead Bodies lay so thick that the way by them was not passable the whole City flowing with bloud so that many parts set on fire were quenched by the bloud of them that were slain and after all the City was burned whereas God thus punished Ierusalem by giving it a Cup of trembling and filling it brimful with deadly Poyson leaving no remnant from which succession should arise or rebuilding and re-inhabitation become probable and effective yet to the praise of the glory of his Grace be it written and be this loving kindness of the Lord never forgotten by London It was not with London as Tacitus writes of Rome Sequiter clades omnibus quid urbi per violentiam ignium acciderunt gravior atque atrocior Annal. lib. 15. p. 791. Edit Dorleans No bloud of the Londoners was mingled with their Sacrifices that is no violent essusion of bloud was in London no Famine during the fire was in London God indeed made the Inhabitants of London during the distraction like Reeds shaken with the wind its Streets were confusedly walked and hurried about in thwack'd with Carts pester'd with Porters and Portadges every house threw out its Furniture which they could not carry away more orderly Men Women Children of all degrees and ages carried out somewhat either to safety or spoil some sent their Goods into the Countrey others into the Feilds and other Open places watching them many nights and others removed them from place to place to lose them at last yet though this was sad God gave them their lives for a prey and they had had the Pity Presence and Comfort of their Good King and the Noble Duke of York with the most Generous Lord Craven and others for Guards and Securers to them and theirs There were indeed bruits of fear and there were companies of suspicious persons who at the best live upon the vices of the Nation and who like Coasters ride out at Sea to expect prey from wrecks and small Boats which they can Master and prey upon such Cormorants of pillage and snaps of ruine My Lodgings were an eminent instance of before they were burned yet open violence there was none to speak of but much even of exemplary Justice and charitable Mercy In the time of the Fires raging and of the distractious impetuosity which I write not to vindicate the dissolute Multitude of pretended Labourers and other instruments of carriage who exhansed the rates of their own portadge while perhaps their Wives Children and Servants or some of them were busie at other work all becoming theirs which their hook could reach or their Net drag away Nor yet do I mention This to atone the displeasure had against those Country Carts and Labourers some of whose wages exceeded the worth of their Lading or the ability of the persons they in this distress exacted it from From these so dreadfully Mercenary to their sensual gain as no more Justice or Courtesie is to be expected than is haveable from a Spoyler who must leave what he cannot carry away and who does not take all not because he cannot find in his heart so to do but because he is afraid so to do whose avoydance of extortion is from wisdom of caution to prevent trouble not upon Conscience of duty to approve himself to God and to Humanity From These I say as no Mercy or Justice is upon resolution to be expected so the Justice and Mercy of These do I not in the least intend to mention by way of praise the Justice and Mercy then remarkable was that of many Honest persons who well understanding the Duties of Constables and Officers became voluntarily such to preseve peace and prevent disorders assisting Government against the common rout apprehending and deteining suspicious persons till they brought Good vouchers and cleared themselves And other Guards and Foot Souldiery upon duty answered the end of their array and did not only not do violence to any but secured all against the violence of any that attempted it it was not with the Sufferers in this Fire as with the Iews when the Romans besieged and Mastered them and they were envyed the Gold that was supposed to be in their Bellies it being noysed that they had swallowed down much which caused some of the Roman allyes in one night to rip up the Bellies of 2000 of them to search for that they found not which Vespasian hearing of and the cruelty of it abominating caused them to be compassed about with Horse and to be destroyed No such truculency was acted here but the Citizens wer fuffered to secure what they could and to pass and repass with what possible freedome and security the exigency of affairs would permit The Souldiers riding about and being their guard and help Thus did King Duke Peers People Souldiers do their parts but Gods Counsell stood and he did with the Buildings and Riches of the City what came in his Soveraign mind to do by reason of which the beauty vastness order of Lond. came down to its Chaos in four dayes which had been climing up to its Meridian above 2000 years exchanging its name of a goodly City for the reproach of a graceless heap The rumination of all which particulars that God suffered a City saved by the Lord from the miseries of War and the mercylessness of Insurrection Risen by grave pauses and Centuries of time into a Miracle of stature accommodated with all ingredients and concentrations to publish and establish it in request and value Whose appositeness for Trade was Magnetique of all Nations and Merchandises to it Whose Credit for order and honesty lewred Strangers out of their Countrys to reside in it and kept them here and naturalized them to it Whose Government was effectual and sweet To ends of terrour and obligement whose Customes and Franchises were beneficial and stated Whose Cittizens were