certain testimony of my upright and honest meaning in this so weighty a cause from which I collect this positively that not to be prudently zealous and politickly severe to men of bloody and active principles who are by the Breves of their holy Father commanded not to take The Oath of Allegiance because this Oath cannot be taken with safety of the Catholick Faith and of their souls health since it containeth many things that are plainly and directly contrary to their Faith and and Salvation and who embrace this as Divine Canon which I do not believe all Romanists do whom Secretary Wallsington styled Papists of softnesse and conscience though the Jesuited sort Papists of Faction undoubtedly do I say not to take notice of these dangers is much a blemish to the integrity of Reformed Religion in the hearts of those that are guilty of it which to clear themselves from as of old there has been prudent regard to those Engineers of disturbance who to relieve their Religion from Captivity as they pretend have in the days of Queen Elizabeth and King Iames Princes of Eternal memory raised invasions and conspiracies and of latter days have carryed them on hanging forth Pirats colours to suppress true men till they displayed a Papal interest under the Vizzard of a popular Reformation which though it were by wise men perceived yet was permitted by God to punish our too much favour to them who do not only maintain Parracides and Rebellions some of which the Raign of Hen. 8. shews who was a Prince of their own perswasions though he opposed the Popes power over him for which many of his Popish Subjects opposed him though they paid dear for it as still many such would do if they had power and if the maximes of their State Fathers the Iesuites had that power with them that heretofore they had for though it must be acknowledged many of the English Romanists are and may be good Subjects because they have and will I hope take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy without Papal dispensation or mental reservation which declares their fidelity to the Crown and Government yet are there many that are so far from so doing because they are taught that salvis principiis they cannot do it that they will rather hazzard any thing than do it and I am contented they that will not do it should rather hazzard their any thing then the Kings and our All. As I say these preliminations ushered in Laws of purgation prevention and punishment heretofore to be made so do they upon presumptions of equivalent prudence prompting thereunto solicite and warrant the revival of those laws vigours Now in this nick of time wherein the Gangreen of enmity against Englands glory and its Empires prosperity is so combined against And I bless God and the Great King and Parliament of England now sitting for their vigilance and zeal in this provision lately concluded against the evil instruments and evil effects of such disloyalty as the Iesuited Engineers have raised against us not only that of Wars which their Campanella has long since counselled to and is now brought about but also all other ways of subjecting this Crown and Subjects to their Catholick Tyranny which not only that Anonymus author Revelatio consillii Tridertini set forth in French and then suppressed though since about 1620. printed in Latine has made good by irrefragable instances which I here would have set down verbatim had not my copy with other things of mine been burned in Syon Colledge but many other Authors have given us severalties which summed up together makes out such secret Policies bloody Practises tending to the like funest issues Witness the boast of the Duke of Alva a little before his death that he had caused neer 18000. persons to be under the Executioner for several sorts of punishment for Religion sake Witness that speech of Phillip the Second of Spain that he had rather lose all his Provinces than seem to grant or favour any thing which might be prejudicial to the Catholick Religion so in the pacification of Colen Anno 1580. the Spanish Ministers of State declared openly that the Protestants would be well served if they were stripped of all their goods and forced to go seek new Countreys like Iews and Egyptians who wander up and down like Rogues and Vagabonds Witness that boast of Cardinal Granuellanus who was wont to say that he would reduce the Catholick Religion in all places though 100000. men were to be burned in an hour and reported it is that in less then 30. years the Spanish Inquisition did consume by various torments and sundry kinds of death 150000. yea so hateful is any thing of Reformed Religion to them that not only doth a man of note of their Church blame Charles the fifth Emperor for keeping his word with Luther which he says he kept vanum clementiae famam aucupans affecting the vain fame of clemency and that which reason of State ought to have excused him from but if says he he did well in such a punctilio yet post in domuitione illum eundem opprimere debuisset atque principes Protestantes jam suppressos prorsus extinguere That is when he was upon his return home he ought to have surprised him and utterly extinguished all the Protestant Princes he had power over And if I am not mis-informed it was disputed amongst the Inquisitors whether the bones of Charles the fifth were not to be digged up and burned because before his death he seemed to be inclined to the opinion That man is only saved through faith in Christ. Yea that Learned and Good Son of a Matchless Father Dr. Du Mouliu evidences the kindness and charity of Jesuited Romanists to consist in no better fruits of piety to us than to censure the Protestant Reformers Soveraign Princes and their Loyal Subjects and the Reformation it self though done by their authority guilty of Rebellion and High Treason calling it the new Gospel Iustifies Mariana and the Iesuites against those that object to them their Doctrine of King killing cryes down Protestants as persons not to be trusted with the Government of the State or suffered to live in any Common-wealth bestows upon them the most odious terms that he could devise Traytors Diabolical Cockatrices Infernal Spirits and such wilde terms And yet while that Author reviles the Religion that our Gracious King his Loyal Parliament and Subjects are of and inveighs against them as unworthy the trust of Government he has the impudence to style himself Philanax Anglicus And King Iames of blessed memory has long ago charged it as an abuse of his Lenity that though he had honoured many Papists with Knighthood that they were known and open Recusants though he did indisserently give audience and access to both sides bestowing equally all Favours and Honours on both professions all Ranks and Degrees of Papists had
ye Princes and Grandees for this because the mighty City is fallen which once was the Market of what brought you Wealth and Peace For this London who took off your younger Sons making them thrifty Common-wealths men and in time returned them to you Great and Noble for your Daughters who into it were comfortably bestowed and from it were richly provided for in their Persons and Issues For their Eldest Sons whose Wives portions the provisions of Younger Children were hence plenfully had without sale of Land or diminution of Income Weep O Peasantry who had London for a Market swallowing up all Provisions for it and all quantities brought to it Weep O Poor that in London had great relief Weep O Aged who in London were refreshed and prepared by constant Devotions and hourly Sermons for their dissolutions Weep all High Low Honourable Mean for London was but is not London despise it who will and dare the Great and Flourishing Sprig in our Princes Plumes the Pyramyd of conspicuity in the admired Pile of Britain The Graecatrojan Horse out of which marched many of the Hectors of Englands courage The great Academy of Arts wherein the Learning and activity of all parts united The Hospitable Sanctuary of all distressed strangers who thither came numerously and there were entertained civilly London the great Bulwark of reformed Religion against the assaults and batteries of Popery and Prophanness is in a great measure destroyed O tell it not in Gath declare it not in the Streets of Askalon lest the Uncircumcised Levellers rejoyce and the Enemies of God and the King the Parliament and the Religion say Ah Ah so would we have it O Day O Month September not more inauspicious to many Famous Cities such as Ierusalem begirt the seventh and entred the eighth of Sept. such as Constantinople which was wasted by sire Anno 465. In the beginning of September such as Heidleberg which was taken by the Imperialists about Anno 1622. And now to London in this Fire of September 1666. I mention no more though probably those forty which Caluesius mentions in his Chronology might yield more in execration of September I say not more trist to other parts of the World and to this Nation in general then to Me in particular For it hath been successively within eight years Productive of a Quaternion of unhappinesses to Me The loss of an Excellent Wife of an Indulgent Father the affliction of a terrible Sickness all which happened to Me in September 1658. and now were added to by this of September 1666. wherein it pleased God to give me a fourth tryal by Fire that I may for the future learn to devote my portion of Soul Body to him in the sacred and serious service of him Which O Lord I desire to do as and when thou shalt call enable and accept Me This is my particular apprehension of Septemb. which Sept. thus the time of Londons firing and Englandâ— Misery let it be Discalendred and not be numbered amongst the Twelve let it be accounted the Iudas Month that betrayed all the rest to infelicity Let that day that first opened the Wombe of fire be darkness and let the shaddow of death stain it let a Cloud dwell upon it let the blackness of the day terrifie it as for that night let darkness be upon it let it be solitary and no joyful voice come thereon let the Stars of the Twylight hereof be dark let it look for light but have none as holy Iob's pathetique is upon a like dismal accident and occasion because it produced a Monster and diminished the enjoyment of present and the hopes of after-ages and cast into the Widows disconsolacy Her that sat as a Queen upon a hill of plenty and honour viswing all the Nations doing homage to her as to the Faithful City as to the City of Righteousness 1. Isaiah to 26 as the City of praise the City of all Joy as Damascus was called 49. Ieremiah 25. as the City of Renown who was strong in the Sea that caused their terrour to be upon all that haunt it as the Prophet Ezekiel describeth Tire c. 26. v. 27. London the Earthly Paradice of Cities having the glory of Gods Ordinances and the light of his Reformed Truth in her shining like a Jaspar stone clear as Crystal The foundation of the Wall of which City was garnished with all manner of precious Stones Its Government its Magistrates its Ministery its Fraternities its Franchises being all Emblematical of and Symmetrious with the Greater Ones of the Nation in the best and clearest instances of its Royalty This London ancienter as is thought than Rome and more potent though less politique then she that has her Oar in every Boat This London which its learned Native and Englands admired Antiquary terms such that none hath better right to assume to it self the Name of a Ship Road or Haven than she For in regard of both Elements most blessed and happy it is as being situate in a rich and fertile soil abounding with plentiful store of all things and on the gentle ascent and rising of a Hill hard by the Thames side the most mild Merchant as one may say of all things that the World doth yield hath swelling at certain set hours which the Ocean Tides by its safe and deep Channel able to entertain the greatest Ships that be daily bringeth it so great Riches from all parts that it striveth at this day with the Mart Towns of Christendom for the second Prize thus her Cambden This London I say who was to those that lived in it whatever Heaven and Earth could indulge a Militant condition and a viatory state did God give up to the destruction of Fire So that now there is little resting in it but Piles of Rubbish and Mountains of wast no neatness of Pavement no Magnificence of Structure no vestige of Majesty there only now is to be seen the the tops of Steeples Belless and the Stones of Structures Mortarless and the figures of Beauty disfigured no Pallaces have the Magistrates to sit in no Prisons as wontedly to hold Offendors in no conveniency almost to sustain Order to its future hopes but God has made it a Bochim and scattered the Inhabitants of it into all quarters Thus has God done to London our English Ierusalem the joy of which was heard even a far off More I could Write and more of this I had written in a Commentary on the Chartar 9. H. 3. For election of the Lord Mayor of London but that with many other Manuscripts fitted for the Press together with the general collections of the study of my life being burned I can only weep my kindness to her Quid faciam vocem pectori negare non audeo amor ordinem nescit And if London the place of my Birth and of my longest dwelling should not have all the right my poor Pen can do it It deserved not
Rich and Hospitable Whose appearances were pompous and becoming their Descents and Fortunes That London which was so celebrious for publique Edefices of State and Religion that it was not possible almost to wish better or more remarks of Christian Devotion and Politique Grandeur in such dimensions as it stood upon That this City which once deserved the Union of all Characters of glory vying with Rome for Religion with Naples for Nobility with Millan for Beauty with Genoa for Statelyness with Florence for Policy which Venice for Riches That this which was compleat usque ad Invidiam mundi as I may so write should become inglorious and be the Subject as well of her Enemies insult as of her Friends pity This Inscription of Gods fury on the Roll of her Judgment Lamentation and Mourning and Woe ought to call us From joy and melody from pleasure and riot which God has caused to cease unto prostration and confession before God And that not by Hanging down the head like a Bulrush for a day and returning to our Sin the next day like the Dog to his Vomit not by presenting our selves in the Congregation of God which too few do and there only counterfeiting Devotion for an hour only but following it with unmortified bestiality and inhumane luxury not by bare words of piety without any reflexion of them on the heart or any evidence of the truth of its radication in the Flower of it the life Humiliation that God commands and accepts is deep and setled the souls contusion and exinanition such abhorrence as Iob speaks of 42 Iob. 6. an abhorrence of a Mans self and of that Sin that cleaves closest to him and is most connatural with him and a repenting in dust and ashes that is an evidence of self condemnation in the vivid'st and most exact note of it in that which is Emblematical of the lowest dejection such a frame of Soul as weeps bitterly with Peter and makes restoration with Zachaeus and rejects the former allurements to Sin with Mary Magdalen and resigns up it self wholly to Christ Jesus as consternated Saul did when Christ dismounted him and he became his Convert such a humiliation as Manasses and the Good men in Nehemiah presidents us to in the 9. Neh. where 't is said the Children of Israel were assembled with fasting and Sackcloth and with Earth upon them and the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquity of their Fathers Such a humiliation as pulls with indignation sin from its Root and suffers no corner of the Soul or Land to be fantive to it or polluted by it such a humiliation as is in sincerity and truth commensurate to the God of Truth whom it is devoted to such an humiliation as includes the Kings the Peers the Prelates the Clergy the Laity does God call for and that in proportion to that Epidemique mercy that he hath obliged all by and suitable to that heavy and repeated judgment he hath already brought and farther may bring upon all such a humiliation as excuses no degree no age no person from it dres the Lord require from thee O England and from thee O London To whom he hath shewed Mercies of a former or latter date parallel with if not paramount to his manifests to any Nation He hath called us Beloved who were not beloved and caused us an Island to become the Head and not the Tail of the Nations He hath brought us into the marvellous light of Christianity who sate in darkness of errour and in the shadow of death through Ethnicism he hath not been a wilderness to us nor planted us in a barren soil but given us a Canaan flowing with Milk and Honey a Land rich in Corn Pastures Cattel Fruits Fish every thing that necessity and delight calls the glory of any Land God has raised us up Kings Rulers and Iudges not è Fece populi but derived from loins Noble the Sons of Honour and Majesty who have been Nursing Fathers to our Pieties Persons and Laws God has preserved us from Vassalage and made us free in our persons and properties safety and propriety being in the Kings Protection and his peoples subjection according to the Law God has preserved the Rights and Renown of England so that the Subjects of it are famous for Valour and Success in their Enterprises by Sea and Land God hath made this little spot that in the Map of Chorography is hardly discernable a Mart of Trade and a Mine of Wealth which the inexhaustion of this last twenty six years by Sums unsummable and in their possibility to be adjusted would be incredible yet have not drawn low but preserved pregnant to carry on its just and necessary Interests against her potent combined Enemies These Mercies to Engl. ever since her Christianity recognised by those abridgements of them in the Reigns of the five last Princes equalling all other anteceding them The Reformation of Religion by E. 6. The deliverance from the cruelty of Popery in Queen Maryes Reign The Restoration of Protestancy in Quen Elizabeths dayes in spight of the Jesuited Plots Spanish Invasion expensive Wars purposely raised to distress and divert her In the Reign of King Iames whom God brought in rightfully setled quietly and deliverd from the fatal Powder-Plot to leave his Crown Rich and Great to his Successor the late Glorious King Charles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose Reign was as beneficial and peaceful for the most part of it as any preced-ed and had made the Nation as happy after a Cloud had not God punished and polluted the glory of it with the storm of Contradiction in a Civil uncivil War and with the guilt of the bloud of that Solomonique Codrus whose life was sacrificed to vindicate the Religion and Laws of Loyalty and Liberty against the Oppressions and Insolencies of Antiscriptural Errour and Antimonarchical avarice These five last Reigns in which the Princes and people of England were kept from either the sufferings of publique mischief or the long and grievous detinue under it shew Gods Mercy to this Nation and call for humiliation from it And if these so long past are not fresh in our Memories as God forbid they should being done but within the Age of those that yet Live and God forgive if they be which ought to be had in everlasting remembrance yet there are Obligations of late which are Monitory to us of Mercy abused and ingratefully deported to And here give me leave Sir to Apostrophize as God did by his Prophet Isaiah Hear O Heaven hearken O Earth bear witness Angels and Men and our own Consciences whether God has not nourished us up that are now alive as his Children and yet We we have rebelled against him O Sir the Mercies shewed to our Glorious Lord and Renowned Soveraign of England our Gracious King Charles the Second whom God long preserve and
Prophets of Truth have been lightly set by yea shrewdly set against When the Lords Day set apart for Sanctification and Devotion hath been prophaned and made common and not only mocked at by Religions Adversaries but thought too long by Religions seeming friends and the perparatory duties to them and the performed duties on them too severe for Christians When the Judgments of God face us to humilitie as the testimony of our sorrow for sin so destructive of us yet mirth and jollity is so applauded and countenanced that no man almost Remembreth the afflictions of Ioseph The desolations that sin has already made further may and without prevention by repentance will make It is to be doubted Thy ways and doings which have not been good O England O London have procured the evils thou feelest and fearest upon thee Thy Incorrigibility and Obduration has brought the Pestilence Exod. 9. 15. Thy contrary walking to God has raised up Enemies against thee Prov. 16. 7. Deut. 28. 48. The pride we have had in our Strength hath made God contend by Fire with us and by such a Fire as hath eaten up not the great deep of England but a part of it London And yet God that has pulled some of us out of the Fire and kept others from the Fire is not returned unto as he upbraids the people Amos 4. 11. These Judgments have been upon England and London the Lord deliver us from what followed upon Israels impenitency Gods abhorrence of the Excellency of Jacob and his hating of his Pallaces God forbid that Iudgment of Gods delivery of England into her Enemies hand from his smiting of the great House of England with breaches as he hath done the little House of London with clefts ver 11. Be that Judgment O Lord be that undecreed by thee and may our repentance reverse the first thoughts of thy severity this way to us This be O Lord the punishment of those who are as Children of Ethiopians to thee sinners that swear by the sin of Samaria and say to the Deities of their own Erection thy God O Dan liveth and the Maner of Beersheba liveth Amos 8. last v. Let those who forsake thee and Follow lying vanities be thus given up to fall and never rise up again But let England and London that have trusted in the Lord be saved by thee and that with A mighty Salvation O be gracious to England that as it hitherto has so yet hereafter it may stand in thy sight a faithful Witness to thy Truth and a signal Instance of thy Patronage for ever and build thou up the walls of London that lye waste and let it once more be called the Perfection of this Nations beauty for my Nations sake I cannot be silent for my Nativities sake I cannot hold my peace I cannot contain my Pen but it will bewray my hearts Language for my Brethren and Companions sake I will wish thee Good will O London in the Name of the Lord The Lord send thee prosperity out of Sion And if the Question be asked of me By whom shall London arise for it is small my Answer shall be God only knows how by what for he can make dry bones live Yet there seems to me som ground of comfort from this That the root of London being left that which now seems arid and sapless may kindle in the womb of Providence and take root downward and bring forth fruit upward first and chiefly in repentance for past Provocations and in Vows of renewed conversation in her Inhabitants and then in making her Buildings her Judges and her Magistrates as at the first and the Renown and Authority of them as in the beginning This Sir is that which I would promise to my self and fore-speak to be the great mercy to England after revived London The late loss of which I believe to be great which my prayers are may be compensated with ten times ten Myriads of Increase and that to render it terrible to Gods and the Kings Foes and supportive to the Crown Religion Lawes under which it happily flourished till the late disastre upon it and God Almighty who knows all secrets and commands all hearts raise it up for these general and honest ends Friends and Benefactors who may not only further its acceleration to what it was but to what of further addition it may be improved to And may all the Timagenesses who hate London as he did Rome augment their grief upon the cause he did the fear and assurance he had Rome would be rebuilt more glorious than it was before The prosperity of which must be the joy and prayer of every sober English man and sincere Protestant and I hope whosoever is not both these shall never have the power to hinder it as I am sure he never will have the will to further it I could enlarge in this Subject which is so pleasing to me to expectorate my self by but over-doing is Vndoing and there is no straine but comes home with a halt Yet this I must subjoyn in comfort to London and England changes will and must come and those to great Kingdomes mighty Governments rich Cities Seneca has languaged this appositely to us All that now Noble Sir remains for me to write is to beg mine excuse for thus addressing you whose greater affairs may be judged unreconcilable with the perusal of such papers as these which carry the memoires of what is as unpleasing for you to remember as impossible to forget But I am not at all diffident of your Civility to them and me because I am in them wholly acted by the cogency of publick spiritedness to both Propose Londons case to the Nations piety and to publish mine own Gratitude to it the place of my birth and of the breeding and conversation of my Worthy Generous and most Religiously sincere and Dear Father who both lived long creditably and belovedly in it and also had the publick respect and Honour from it to be chosen Chamberlain of it upon the death of Chamberlain Harrison tho he was made incapable when his hand was upon the book to be sworn in the Office by one of those Orders that then were in date to exclude those whom that Power termed disaffected These things together with my experience conversation and search into the City Records Customes and Story in which I may modestly say I have desired not to be unknowing court me to appear thus to you Sir and to the Nation in her behalf And since Sir I have no design to promote her happiness by any black arts of injury and impiety to others Interests leaving those mysteries of iniquity to such as Clement the seventh who to advance his own Family sometimes changed the Face of the affairs of Europe and Cardinal Wolsey who to be made Legate a Latere and to be enabled to visit not onely Monasteries but all