we commonly call Brimstone though it be not the very same for our common Brimstone is a compounded body so is not that we treat of is one of those Elements or principles with which all terrestrial bodies are made up and whereof they consist It hath pleased the God of nature who is called Natura naturans that amongst all things here below even those which go by the name of Elements as Air and Water and Earth there should be no one pure and unmixed and which is more strange that the principles of which each body is compounded should be of different and contrary natures viz. hot cold moist and dry heavy and light active and unactive weak and strong Yea that contrariety which is betwixt those Elements of Fire and Water Earth and Air which are the Ingredients of each Sublunary makes for the good of each and for the benefit of the whole so long as they quietly draw together in that yoak of mixture in which God hath placed them So that as the Apostle speaks in another case 1 Cor. 12.21 The eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of thee nor the head to the feet I have no need of you Fire cannot say to Water or Water to Fire or either of them to Earth I have no need of you Though some of them do curb and limit the Activity of others yea the more ignoble put some restraint upon those that are more noble than themselves yet in all this they do but what is necessary for the well-being if not also for the very being of the compositum Mercury and Sulphur would be too volatile and apt to vanish if Earth and water did not hold them in Water and Earth would be too dull and sluggish if Sulphur and Mercury did not put life into them Elements are said to abide in mixtion refractly that is brokenly not one of them being able so fully to execute its own pleasure and inclination as it might if it were all alone and it is best it should be so for if one of them get an absolute unlimited power and make vassals of all the rest presently all goes to wrack So in acute Feavers when either the spirits are too high or the sulphurious part of the blood and so in chronical Feavers or Agues when salt is become too predominant in the blood and hath sowred it like Ale in Summer you see what work it makes how it threatens no less than death and dissolution Yet give me leave to say though no one Element have unlimited power where there is a due mixtion yet neither is Anarchy or Ataxy to be found in mixt bodies no not in vegetables which have the lowest degree of life nor yet in minerals which have none For some one Element is still predominant over all the rest hence amongst men some are connted fanguine others phlegmatick c. there being no where found in bodies that which is called I empeâ—â—mentum ad pondus that is just so much fire as water and air as earth weight for weight as if Nature were a Levelker but temperamentum ad justitiam as in a Medicine in which are scruples of gentle purgers to a few grains of those that are stronger and in each a basis which is supreme over all things in the medicine yet not put without its correctives lest it should work too violently You will see anon whether all this tends I said before that sulphur is one Element or Ingredient of all terrestrial bodies and now I shall add that it is one of the most active noble and useful amongst them all If that which is called the Spirit or mercurial part do excell the sulphur as it is said to do yet doth sulphur as much excel the other three Principles viz. Salt Water and Earth so long as it remains in a convenient mixture and dwels peaceably with all the rest It were casie to expatiate in the commendation of Sulphur so placed and qualified as God hath originally placed and qualified it in and with other Elements Sulphur say Chymists and truly is as it were the warm bosom in which the spirituous parts of all bodies do lodge the bond of union or copula betwixt spirits and more gross substances as Cartilages or gristles are betwixt hard bones and more tender parts It is that to which most bodies do chiefly owe their acceptable colour taste sent and amiable texture From thence most vegetables do derive their maturity sweetness and most other perfective qualities It doth such service in bodies as nothing doth more namely it curbs the sharpness of that salt which is in them it blunts the acrimony of the spirits by its supple oily quality it cements and sodres other elements which otherwise would never hold together being somewhat glutinous it contributes to the consistence of bodies which would be otherwise over flaid and volutile in a word it hath a faculty of resisting patrefaction more than any thing else in so much that by means thereof Ale may be kept from sowring in the midst of Summer and Juices of Plants from corrupting All this and much more may be truly affirmed of Sulphur whilst it keepes its proper place and station But when this noble and useful Element once becomes impatient of the Yoak of mixtion with other Elements and will no longer indure that water should allay it Salt should fix it Earth should clog and retard it nor yet that the spirits though more excellent than its self should govern it then doth it play the maddest pranks imaginable it breaks away from those other Elements that were joined with it like an unruly servant from his Master that flings open the doors that who will may come out or go in leaves all exposed to rapine and spoile and not content with that musters together all the debauched youth such as himself that he can come neer drawes them away from their respective Masters and engageth them in the same Rebellion with himself and by this meanes it not only ruines all that society whereof it was before a profitable member and those which it hath drawn into the same conspiracy but its self also For it can no more subsist without those Elements which it hath cast off than they can subsist without it and so it quickly vanisheth and comes to nothing I say not only the Elements which are left behinde do moulder and crumble to dust and ashes but by that meanes its selâ— is quickly almost annihilated which is far worse Now methinks there should be some morality if not Divinity also to be learned from this discourse of sulphur which if I had despaired of I would never have dived so far into it How naturally then do the following considerations offer themselves from what hath been discoursed as touching sulphur viz. In the first place how useful many men of sulphurious tempers that is active subtle and vigorous might be could they but skill of it to be contented and peaceable
the Vine-Tree which I have given to the fire for fewell so will I give the Inhabitants of Jerusalem They shall go out from one Fire and another Fire shall devour them Be the Fire there spoken of literal or analogical it may come all to one For what is Fire equivalently is as terrible as what is really so Now if I mistake not great unprofitableness was the sin for which God did threaten that Fire See v. 2. and so onwards What is the Vine-tree intending to compare the Jews thereunto shall Wood be taken thereof to do any work or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessell thereon v. 5. Behold when it was whole it was meet for no work how much less shall it be meet for any work when the Fire hath devoured it and it is burnt As if God had told them that they were become as useless and good for nothing as is a branch of the Vine cut off from the Tree and half burnt in the Fire Now for this it was that God told them he would give them for fewel to the Fire that were good for nothing but to burn May I presume to say and why should I not it being manifestly true London did swarm and a residue of England at this day doth swarm with useless persons who did and do drink in the former and latter rain of Gods good Ordinances and Blessings but have brought and do bring forth nothing but briars and thorns and concerning such ground the Scripture saith That it is nigh unto a curse and the end of it is to be burned Heb. 6.8 It will be enough for me to tell what persons may be justly reckoned unprofitable and then leave it to others to judge if there are not and were not many such in the midst of us of all sorts and conditions though blessed be God all were not such He is an unprofitable Christian whose converse edifies no body neither doth his communication minister grace to any that hear it He is an unpofitable master of a family or parent who takes no care with Joshua that his farâ—ily might serve the Lord nor doth command his children and houshold to keep the way of the Lord as God testifies for Abraham that he would do Gen. 18.19 or that with old Eli suffers those that are under his command to do what they list He is an unprofitable Magistcate that is neither a terror to evil doers nor an encouragement to them that do well but much more if vice versâ he doth worse than bear the sword in vain He is an unprofitable Minister that neither instructs the people by wholsome doctrine nor by a holy life that wants both Urim and Thummim that doth not calculate his Sermons for the good of souls that either shoots over peoples heads by too much profundity and ostentation of Learning such as they understand not or shoots under their feet by such weak and sensless discourses as make both his person and doctrine contemptible He that treats his people as if Non-sense were the only Nectar and Ambrosia for immortal people to feed upon as one phraseth it In a word he that studies only to provoke his soules by medling with what he should not or only to please them by not medling with what he should and lastly he that fleeceth the flock but feeds it not is an unprofitable Minister if he may so much as be called a Minister Again he is unprofitably knowing and learned that suffers no body to be the better or as we say the wiser for his knowledge and learning though he might To be useless out of necessity is but a mans misery but to be so out of choice is a very great sin and yet a greater sin it is to make many more useless as well as our selves by that old rule Quod efficit tale est magis tale The Pharisees who shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men neither going in themselves nor suffering others that would to enter Matth. 23.13 were worse than unprofitable Again they are unprofitably rich who have great estates but no hearts to do good with them or to make to themselves friends of the unrighteous Mammon or to lend to God in giving to the poor that they might be repaied with the most gainful interest Such as are spoken of Jam. 5.2 Whose riches are corrupted and their garments are moth-eaten their gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them is a witness against them But especially such who are so far from being merciful notwithstanding their great estates that they cannot finde in their hearts to be just Jam. 5.4 Behold the hire of the labourers which is of you kept back by fraud crieth God hath sent them great crops and they thought much to pay poor men for reaping of them The cries of them which have reaped are entred into the ears of the Lord God of Sabbaoth that is of Hosts who is pleased sometimes to fall upon such misers in a hostile way even by Fire and Sword and snatch that from them which they would not voluntarily part with to any good uses Moreover he is an unprofitable member of a Town County or Kingdom that only seeks great things for himself and cares not what becomes of the publick weale whereas we see that things without life as Aire and Water and such like will forsake their own centers and vary from their natural motion to comply with the good of the Universe by preventing a vacuum But worse than unprofitable are they who as our Proverb speaks Do set other mens houses on fire to rost their own egges that is do others the greatest mischief to do themselves a small courtesie Lastly he is an unprofitable member of the world who lives meerly to eat and drink and rise up to play The Apostle saith that the widdow who liveth in pleasure is dead whilst she liveth Seneca would say such men might be said to be or have a being but not to live People that have no calling nor know how to betake themselves to any but to be servants to divers lusts and pleasures to read Romances and Play-books and wanton Poems to run about to Play-houses to court Ladies to talk idly to women that love such discourse to pass the time in Cards and Dice and Wine and Jests when the weather constrains them to be within doors and at other times in Hunting and Hawking and Fishing and such-like divertisements Of such voluptuosoes if I may so call them we read Job 22.12 They take the Timbrel and Harp and rejoyce at the sound of the Organ They spend their daies in mirth c. and in a moment go down to the grave As they say it is a Proverb amongst thieves A merry life and a short life For many such persons do shorten their daies by their excess as to Wine and Women and ride post out of the world upon the back of those head-strong lusts which run away with them The
for fear of being bound there made this answer Acts 21.13 I am ready not to be bound only but to die at Jerusalem for the name of Christ Thus were their disswasions like water thrown upon Lime which did meerly kindle it Thus you see the way of kindling Lime shews us both what our Corruptions are and what our Graces should be and woe unto us that our Corruptions have that vigour which our Graces want Henceforth then by the help of God I will endeavour that my lusts may be like green wood which though it lie upon the fire will hardlie burn as being choked with its own moisture and that the Graces of Gods Spirit may be in me as so much Lime the fiery particles whereof meeting with their old enemy water presently break off their association with other Elements firmly unite among themselves and of potential fire become actual and send up those watery particles in smoak which went about to extinguish them If I cannot flame as Lime cannot yet I will endeavour to be as smoaking Lime or Flax which Christ will not quench and when I can do no more at present against those lusts which fight against my soul I will as it were hiss at them as lime doth at the approach of water that is testify my displeasure and indignation against them FINIS Sixty One MEDITATIONS AND REFLECTIONS UPON The most Remarkable Passages and Circumstances of the late DREADFUL FIRE PART III. BY SAMVEL ROLLE Minister of the Word and sometime Fellow of Trinity-Colledge in Cambridge LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst Nathaniel Ranew and Jonathan Robinson 1667. To the Right Worshipful Sir JOHN LANGHAM Knight and Baronet Sir THOMAS PLAYER Knight And Chamberlain of the City of London AND TO RICHARD HAMPDEN of Hampden in the County of Bucks Esquire AND To all his dear Friends and sometime Pastoral-charge the Inhabitants of Thistleworth in the County of Middlesex S. R. Dedicateth this part of his Meditations and wisheth the Blessings of the Life that now is and of that which is to come MEDITATIONS Upon all the Remarkeable Passages and Circumstances of the late dreadfull Fire MEDITATION I. Of the Weight of Gods Hand in the late destruction of London by Fire REmarkable are those expressions of Job cap. 6. ver 2. 3. O that my grief were thoroughly weighed and my calamity laid in the Ballances together for now it would be heavier than the sand of the Sea therefore my words are swallowed up and ver 4. For the Arrows of the Almighty are within me and the poison thereof drinketh up my spirit the Terrors of God do set themselves in array against me How fitly may the people of England but especially the late Inhabitants of London take up the same expressions How justly may they wish that their Calumities were weighed by others as well as felt by themselves But as it is is impossible to find Ballances able to contain the sands of the Sea so is iâ— next to impossible to find any in which the Calamity of London may be weighed or any thing able to weigh against them such is the heaviness thereof besides the sands of the Sea Yea iâ— Joâ—s particular grief and misery were heavier than those sands may not the like be said of what hath now befallen thousands all whose losses and crosses put together though not any of them singly are certainly heavier than his either was or could be I think it is so far from being a sin to put the judgements of God as it were into a scale that we may learn how heavy they are so far as we can attain that I question not but it is a duety and am sure it was the practice of that sensible Prophet holy Jeremiah Lam. 4.6 The punishment of the Iniquity of the Daughter of my People is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodome c. There we see he layes the punishment of Sodome in one scale and that of Jerusalem in another and weighing them against each other concludes the latter to have been the heavier of the two Yea indeed the whole Book of Lamentations is as it were a pair of Ballances hung up into which the Prophet is casting in the severall miseries of Ierusalem parcell by parcell as he could take them up till he had thrown in all that he and others might understand to what weight the whole sum did amount Though there are some that are ready to faint under the chastisements of the Lord yet more are apt to despise them especially after some time and when the surprize is over and in case they themselves are not so immediately or so deeply concerned in them as others are Then are they ready to say to others in reference to their losses as the chief Priests and Elders did to Iudas in reference to the trouble of his mind Mat. 27.4 What is that to us look thou to that Or to shew themselves Gallio like of whom we read that when the Greeks took Softhenes the chief Ruler of the Synagogue and beat him before the Judgement-seat Gallio cared for none of those things Though he saw a Person of Quality and of Integrity unjustly beaten in a publike way he regarded it not Let the Gallio's of this Age read what I am now to write us touching the miseries of poor London and be perfectly unconcerned if they can or exempt themselves if it be possible from having any share in that Calamity which they seem to slight as if it were nothing to them or as if the late fire had not so much as singed one hair of their heads neither would at the long run I dare warrant them that gray hairs of misery are upon them also and upon that account though they know it not When I enter upon the Meditation of Londons destruction I had need to fortifie my self with those words of Solomon viz. that It is better to go to the House of mourning than to the House of feasting Eccles 7.2 For such a discourse can be no other than as it were a House of mourning yea As the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon Zach. 12.11 And now methinks the Book of Ieremy called Lamentations doth so wonderfully suit the present case of London as if it had been calculated for the Meridian of that City rather than of Ierusalem or as if God had stretched out upon London the same line of confusion as he did upon Ierusalem or as if those divine thunder bolts which were shot against both those famous Cities had been made in one and the same mold or as God speaks Amos 4.11 I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodome and Gomorrah So as God overthrew Ierusalem in like manner and with many the same circumstances hath he destroyed London Our sins were much what the same with theirs as I have shewed when I ennumerated the procuring causes of fire and it is but just that our plagues and punishments should be the same
with his earnest prayers that assisted by the spirit of God they may kindly co-operate together with the late judgment and all others upon the heart both of the writer and readers The Author doubts not but there is a great deale of hay and stubble in the superstructure of this work of his as in and with all other his performances and it may be thine too though not so much Pray for the pardon of his defects and miscarriages as he would do of thine cover them with love which covereth a multitude of infirmities if there be any passage in this work one or more that God shall make to thee as Gold Silver or precious Stones give God the glory of it for he it is must make it so and take to thy self these following words on the unworthy Author his behalf viz. that though all that hay and stubble which is found upon him or upon any service of his must be burnt up yet himself may be saved though as by Fire in which and all other needfull requests he desireth heartily to reciprocate â—â—â—h thee who is Yet an unprofitable Servant to Christ and his Church but desirous to be otherwise S. R. THE Heads of the ensuing Discourses Meditations and Contemplations PART I. Discourses 1. OF the great duty of Considering in an evil time Discourses 2. Of Gods being a consuming Fire Meditations 1. Of the sins for which God sent Fire upon Sodâ—m and Gomorrah Meditations 2. Of destroying Fire procured by offering strange Fire Meditations 3. Of Fire enkindled by murmuring Meditations 4. Of Rebellion against Moses and Aaron procuring a destructive Fire Numb â—6 Meditations 5. Of Sabbath-breaking mentioned in Scripture as one great 〈…〉 God 's punishing a people by Fire Meditations 6. Of Gods 〈…〉 by Fire for the sins of Idolatry and Sâ—â—â—r 〈…〉 Meditations 7. Of 〈…〉 Theft Deceit false Ballances mention◠〈…〉 Scripture as causes of Gods contending by Fire Meditations 8. Of lying sâ—â—aring and for-swearing as further causes of Gods contending by Fire Meditations 9. Of the abounding of Drunkenness as one cause of the Fire Meditations 10 Of Gods punishing a People by Fire for their great unprofitableness Meditations 11. Of the universall Corruption and Debauchery of a people punished by God with Fire Meditations 12. Of Gods bringing Fire upon a people for their incorrigibleness under other Judgments Meditations 13. Of the Aggravations of the sins of London PART II. Contemplations 1. COncerning the Nature of Fire and the use that may be made of that Contemplation Contemplations 2. Touching the Nature of Sulphur which is the principal matter and cause of Fire and how it comes to be so mischeivous in the World Contemplations 3. Concerning the true cause of Combustibility or what it is that doth make Bodies obnoxious to fire together with the improvement of that consideration Contemplations 4. Of Fire kindled by Fire Contemplations 5. Of Fire kindled by Putrefaction Contemplations 6. Of Fire kindled by the collision of two hard bodies Contemplations 7. Of Fire kindled for want of vent as in Hay c. Contemplations 8. Of Fire kindled by pouring on Water as in Lime PART III. Meditations 1. OF the weight of Gods hand in the destruction of London by fire Meditations 2. Upon sight of the weekly Bill since the fire Meditations 3. Vpon the discourses occasioned by the late fire both then and since Meditations 4. Upon the dishonest Carters that exacted excessive rates Meditations 5. Upon those that stole what they could in the time of the fire Meditations 6. Upon unconscionable Land-lords demanding excessive Fines and Rents since the Fire Meditations 7. Upon the burning down of many Churches Meditations 8. Upon the burning multitudes of Books of all sorts Meditations 9. Upon the burning of the Royal Exchange Meditations 10. Vpon the burning of Hospitals and Rents thereunto belonging Meditations 11. Vpon the burning of publick Halls Meditations 12. Of the burning of publick Schools Meditations 13. Vpon the burning of Tombs and Graves and dead bodies that were buried therein Meditations 14. Upon the burning of Writings as Bils Bonds c. Meditations 15. On the burning of St. Pauls Church and the unconsumed body of Bishop Brabrooke Meditations 16. Upon the visibleness of Gods hand in the destruction of London Meditations 17. Upon burning of the Sessions-house in the Old-Baily Meditations 18. On the Gates and Prisons of London that were burnt Meditations 19. Upon the Conflagration of the Universe Meditations 20. Upon the Fire of Hell Meditations 21. Upon the coming of that most dreadful Fire in so idolized a year as 1666. Meditations 22. Upon the Fire its beginning on the Lords day Meditations 23. Upon the place where this dreadful Fire began viz. at a Bakers-house in Pudding-lane Meditations 24. Upon the great pitty that ought to be extended to Londoners since the Fire Meditations 25. Upon those that have lost all by the Fire Meditations 26. On those that have lost but half their Estates by this Fire or some such proportion Meditations 25. Vpon those that have lost nothing by the Fire Meditations 26. Vpon those that were gainers by the late Fire Meditations 27. Upon the enducements unto rebuilding of London and some waies of promoting it Meditations 28. Upon the Wines and Oileâ— that swaâ—â— in the streets and did augment the flames Meditations 29. Upon the water running down hill so fast as that they could not stop it for their use Meditations 30. Upon mens being unwilling there should be no Fire though Fire hath done so much hurt Meditations 31. Upon the usefulness of Fire in its proper place and the danger of it elsewhere Meditations 32. Upon the blowing up of houses Meditations 31. Upon preventing the beginning of evils Meditations 32. Upon the City Ministers whose Churches were saved from the fire Meditations 33. Upon those Ministers whose Churches were burned Meditations 34. Upon the killing of several people by the fall of some parts of ruinous Churches Meditations 35. Upon the Fire it s not exceeding the Liberties of the City Meditations 36. Upon the Suburbs comming into more request than ever since the Fire Meditations 37. Upon the Tongue its being a Fire c. Meditations 38. Upon the Angels their being called flames of fire Meditations 39. Upon the Word of God its being compared to Fire Meditations 40. Upon the spoiling of Conduits and other Aqueducts by this Fire Meditations 41. Upon the retorts and reproaches of Papists occasioned by this Fire Meditations 42. On the pains which the Kings Majesty is said to have taken in helping to extinguish the Fire Meditations 43. Upon meer Worldlings who lost their All by this Fire Meditations 44. Upon that forbearance which it becometh Citizens to use one towards another since the Fire Meditations 45. Upon such as are said or supposed to have rejoyced at the comming and consequences of this Fire Meditations 46. Of the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah compared with the burning of London Meditations 47 Of
persons I have described are past all question useless and meer cumber-grounds like dead trees fit for nothing but to burn I shall not take the boldness to say that England doth and London did abound with such persons as these or that such walking carkasses carried about by that evil spirit that possessed them and did as it were assume them were to be seen every day but whether it were so or no they better know that know London know all England better than I pretend to do And if it were so indeed it is not so much wonder that the houses of such men were burnt as that their persons did escape or that God did not rather consume their persons and spare their houses like Lightning that spares the Scabbard and melts the Sword Sin had made a great part of the inhabitants as much dry wood in one sense as want of rain had made their houses such I marvel not then that so great a Fire approaching such prepared fewel both within and without did so much execution but rather that it did no more May the issue of that dismal Fire which was lately amongst us be the same that husbandmen effect or design in burning their Lands viz. that we as they which before were barren and unprofitable may become useful and fruitful which Lord grant for Christ his sake MEDITATION XI Of the universal Corruption and Debauchery of a people punished by God with Fire I Need not go far from that Text on which I grafted the next preceding meditation To finde another that will plainly prove the universal corruption and degeneration of a people to have as it were inforced God though he be slow to anger and rich in mercy to contend with them by Fire yea and consume them The same Prophet furnisheth me with a large instance in that kind too large to transcribe and therefore I shall rehearse but part of it and refer to the rest For it reacheth from Ezek. 22.19 to the end of the 31 verse Thus saith the Lord because ye are all become dross therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem v. 20. as silver into the midst of a furnace and I will leave you there and melt you v. 22. And ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you That they were all become Dross signifies no more but this that they were universally depraved and debauched as appeareth plainly by that Indictment which is given in against their Priests and Prophets and Princes and common people that is against persons of all ranks and conditions in the sequel of the Chapter The like charge there is to be found Isa 9.27 For every one is an hypocrite and an evil doer and every mouth speaketh folly v. 14. Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail branch and rush in one day v. 18. For wickedness burneth as the fire it shall devour the briars and the thorns That is the wicked amongst them the best of which was as a briar or as a thorny hedg It is sad to consider that there have been certain times in which no sort of men have kept themselves pure and unspotted but all have defiled their garments in which the fire of sin hath spread as much more than in other ages as the late Fire upon London spread it self beyond all the Fires that City had known formerly Some time before the destruction of the old world by water it is said that All flesh had corrupted his way Gen. 6.11 and when God was about to rain Fire and Brimstone upon Sodom not ten righteous persons could be found to stand in the gap And a strange challenge it is which God makes Jerem. 5.1 Run through the streets of Jerusalem and see now and know if ye can finde a man if there be any that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth and I will pardon it Is it so with us at this day or is it not Are we universally corrupt and degenerate and debauched or are we not Have all sorts of men corrupted their waies and done abominably or have they not Possibly in this our Sardis there are some few names that have not defiled their garments but alas how few are they and what are so few names to the generality and body of a Nation Are those words of Isaiah applicable to us or not There is no soundness but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores from the sole of the foot even to the head Isa 1.7 and then followeth your Country is desolate your Cities are burnt with Fire Might I take leave to be particular I would say that City and Countrey and Court and Inns of Court and Universities all have exceedingly corrupted their waies what a corruption in judgment hath over-spread us some turning to Socinianism others to Popery others to Atheism yea great and Leviathan-like Atheism How great a corruption is there at this day in the habits gates and gestures of men and women which I would not trouble my self to speak of but that as little a thing as it may seem it is a symptome of great evil within for many times the habits of the mind are signified by those of the body A proud habit and a proud heart a wanton habit and a wanton heart do often if not alwaies meet For what modest woman would put on the attire of an harlot or who cares to make shew of more evil than is really in them and not rather to conceale that which is A modest habit is not so sure a sign of a chaste heart for that may be worn for a cloak of dis-honesty as an immodest habit is of one that is unchaste For what woâ—an that is conscious to her own chastity would render her self suspected for a whore It may seem a small matter for sick people to play with feathers and to make babies with their sheets but it is an usual fore-runner and consequently a sign of death So the habits of men and women when they carry with them a great appearance of Pride Levity Wantonness Inconsistency of mind Prodigality Fantastickness Inconstancy do give great jealousie to wise men who can discern much light sometimes through small crevices that the Age or rather persons of this Age do abound with such kind of vices and that there is some kind of Fatallity belonging to it because people use such antick postures and gestures as dying persons are wont to use I wish the fore-mentioned vices had get no neerer men than their skins that they were but skin-deep but as the Itch and such like diseases are first within and then strike out first insect the mass of blood and not till afâ—erwards the habit and surface of the body yeâ— and often strike in again and corrupt the blood a second time so it is to be feared that men and women are generally proud and wanton in heart before they are so in habit and become so in habit because they were
as if they had Eagles wings as we observe fire to do Sith then it is clear to us that Fire is nothing else but a mighty stream of atomes which we shall prove anon to be sulphurious O my soul apply this ere thou proceed any further Surely this notion hath its use I see the great God can terrify the World yea and destroy it too with any thing yea with that which is next to nothing 2 Pet. 3.7 But the Heavens and the Earth which are now are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment vers 10. The Elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also and the workes that are therein shall be burnt up I cease to wonder at God his making Locusts yea flies yea lice so great a Plague to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians that Pharaoh himself began to relent whilst those Plagues were upon him Those Creatures were Giants if I may so speak in comparison of those motes of brimstone which the great God imployed to destroy our City and shall be his only Executioners at last in the destruction of the whole World as I proved but now How many parts do belong to each flie or flea For even all their parts were down in Gods Book head eyes eares legs intrails and now each of these parts and for ought I know count bones and all they may be some scores of them are I presume as big or bigger than any one of those sulphurious Atomes or Motes of which Fire consists A man would scarce believe till he had well considered it that swarâ—nes of Locasts Canker-wormes Cater-pillars and Palmet-wormes commissioned by God to introduce a Famine should be all that God intends by those amazing expressions which he is pleased to use in Joel 2. from verse 1 to the 11. Let all the Inhabitants of the Land tremble for the day of the Lord cometh c. vers 1 and vers 2. A great people and a strong there hath not been ever the like nor shall be any more after it to many Generations vers 3. The Land is as the Garden of Eden before them and behind them a desolate Wilderness yea and nothing shall escape them The appearance of them it as horses and as hors-men so they shall run Read to the end of the eleventh verse Dreadful expressions yet were all verified in an Army of Locusts and such like despicable insects by which God did such execution upon them as did demonstrate those expressions not to have been so strange as true yea to have been no hyperbolies Joel 1.4 Now how easie is it for us to believe this might be so who have seen the great God working wonderfull desolations by far weaker instruments viz. by an army of little motes of brimstone all in an uproare and joint conspiracy to take their flight from those bodies in and with which they lately dwelt in a profitable peace and Amity Goliah in proportion did not more exceed David in strength and stature and dimensions every way than Locusts and such like insects do exceed those little Atomes whereof Fire consists Besides those Insects are living creatures which is a great matter but the sulphurious particles I am speaking of otherwise called fire are as we all know things without life and yet so nimble when God sets them on as if they had vigorous souls to actuate them or rather as if they themselves were all soul and spirit which are indeed some of the contemptiblest shreds or rather silings of meer matter I see then that the great God can make a formidable Army of any thing even of the dust of the earth for why not of that as well as of these I have therefore done wondring that such things should be spoken of Locusts and such like insects as are in Joel 2.11 The Lord shall utter his voice before his Army for his Camp is very great The words that follow in the same verse are a sufficient Comment For he is strong that executeth his word surely they do their work in his strength whose glory it is to make weak things confound the mighty and things that are not bring to naught things that are I further learn from hence the great danger of an enraged multitude though every one of that number fingly and by himself considered be very mean and despicable yet all put together may be terrible as an Army with Banners The Psalmist seems to speak of the tumult of the people as if it were so hard to still and pacifie as the very raging of the Sea Psal 65.7 Which stilleth the noise of the seas and the tumults of the people Multitudes of people are compared to great Waters or Inundations and they as well as Fire it self though each single person is but as one poor drop will bear down all before them It is God-like to still the Tumults of the people but to raise tempests and commotions amongst them as Jonas did upon the Sea is neither the part of a Christian nor of a wise man Who would conjure up those spirits which possibly he shall never be able to lay again Oh the strength of weak things united and combined by whole millions together oh the greatness of little things met in such infinite swarms what vast things are the Sands of the Sea-shore take them together What huge mountains do they make and how do they give Law to the Sea its self and say to it under God hitherto shalt thou go and no further Jer. 5.22 Fear ye not me saith the Lord which have placed the sands for the bounds of the Sea that it cannot pass it and though the waves thereof toss themselves yet can they not prevaile though they roar yet can they not pass over Yea what smaller and more despicable thing than each of those by its self considered They have more passion than pollicy that stick not to inrage the body of a Nation without a just and enforcing cause though to humour them in every thing any more than children is not commendable or convenient What goodly ships have stuck fast in those heaps of dust called sands so as they could never get off again yea been swallowed up by them as Jonas was by the Whale or Corah and his complices by the earth when it opened its mouth upon them so that no discreet pilot ventures to come neer them or offers to say what hurt can so strong and stately a vessel receive from those sands which are but a heap of dust thousands of which run thorough a little pin-hole in an hour-glass in the space of one hour If an Ocean of Atomes did as we know to our cost bring greater and speedier ruine on our famous City than an hoast of men could have done for that they much exceeded any army in number though their power singly were next to nothing If so I say it appeareth that vast and innumerable multitudes at leastwise of people though of the weaker and more despicable
sort ought not to be bad in contempt or to be needlesly put into a combustion Alas were it not that God had put a divine stamp upon Magistrates as he hath been pleased to call them Gods surely they could no more rule the people when in the calmest temper that ever they are in some being alwaies too rough then they could rule the Sea What wisdom can it then be to put so unruly a body into agroundless commotion If this Sea once become troubled work and rage and foam and swell how much is it to be feared it may overflow all its banks and invade us with a ruining inundation It was not cowardize but prudence in Herod to decline putting of John to death for fear of the people because they accounted him a Prophet Matth. 14.15 Likewise in the chief Priests and Elders of the people not to reply unto Christ that the Baptism of John was of men because of the people who all held him as a Prophet Matth. 21.26 For my own part I dread the Insurrection of people no less than the consequences of Fire it self the beginnings whereof have appeared very contemptible so that it hath been said as is reported that such a fire as that was at the first might be pissed out but the conclusion fatal beyond all imagination Now do I long to be at the end of this Meditation but having promised to shew what the matter of those particles is whereof Fire consists and considering with my self that some good morall may be gathered and infer'd from thence as I have already hinted that sulphurious or oily particles are those whereof Fire doth altogether or mostly consist so I shall now undertake to prove that so it is and consider how we may improve it It is manifest that all mixt bodies here below are compounded of five Elements or principles viz. Spirit otherwise called Mercury Water or Phlegme Sulphur or an Oily kind of substance Salt and Earth For each natural body be it of vegitables Animals or Minerals is by chymical art reduced or resolved into these five From any such bodie may be drawn a spirit or generous subtile liquor an Oile a Water a Salt and a kind of Earth saving that the two last are rather said to stay behind than to be drawn now if each body that is burning be as it is both its own fire and its own fuell both that which burns and that which is burnt then one or more of the fore-mentioned principles so modified must be the matter and form of fire As for the Watery and Phlegmatick part of each body no man will so confound two Elements so contrary each to other as to say that is the Fire which consumes Then as for that Salt and Earth which belongs to bodies they are not the Fire that burns them up for that which burns so far forth consumes and flies away but Salt and Earth they remain after the greatest burnings under the form of Ashes True it is that spirit or spiritous Liquor which is in Bodies is capable of taking Fire as we see spirit of Wine will burn and Feavers arise in the bodies of men by vertue of their spirits being inflamed but then we must consider that there is but little of that which is called Spirit or Spirits in Timber and such like materials of houses as are destroyed by Fire neither is the Fire of any great duration which hath only Spirits for its fuell as we see in the bodies of men that those Feavers which only fire the Spirits never last above three or four daies and many times not above one day and are therefore called Ephemeral Having therefore quitted Water Salt and Earth from being the causes of Fire and also proved that the Spirits of such kind of bodies which have but little of Spirits in them cannot contribute much to the maintenance of a desolating Fire Sulphur or the oyly part of each body will appear to be the great Incendiary and to be more the matter fuell and fomenter of Fire than any thing else And that it is so doth yet further appear in that such bodies of all others are most apt to take Fire and to burn fiercely when they have so done in which there is most of a sulphurious or oily substance as Oile it self Pitch Tarre c. Moreover we see that when any body is thoroughly burnt the sulphurious parts are all or most of them gone as if conscious of what they bad done they had fled for it and which is most of all demonstrative when those parts are once gone all or most of them what remains will burn no longer as you see we cannot make a fire with Ashes for that they consist only of Salt and Earth with little or no commixture of Sulphur Sith then Sulphur or Brimstone though in an acceptation somewhat different from that which in commonly called by that name is the great matter of Fire and the Agitation Commotion and Flight of it is the very Form of Fire I shall the less wonder hereafter to finde the Scripture still joyning Brimstone and Fire together So Gen. 19 24. The Lord rained upon Sodom Brimstone and Fire Psal 11.6 On the wicked he shalt rain Fire and Brimstone And Isa 30.33 The Pile whereof is Fire much Wood. The breath of the Lord like astream of Brimstone kindleth it viz. Tophet Fire most usually kindleth Fire A stream of Brimstone in violent motion is Fire and here you see the breath of the Lord is said like a mighty stream of Brimstone to kindle Tophet which kinde of expression is more genuine and philosophical than most men know it to be and may hint unto us that thorough our ignorance it comes to pass that many expressions in Scripture seem to us no more proper and significant than they do it faring with us in the reading of holy Writ as with those that ignorantly walk or ride over precions Mines little do they think what a world of Treasure they tread upon nor if they did could they be content till they had gotten within the bowels of that ground which now they flightly trample upon But I have been too long in this Philosophical contemplation because it was such and must endeavour to compensate my prolixity in this with greater Brevity in the rest at leastwise of that sort if any such shall occur CONTEMPLATION II. Touching the Nature of Sulphur which is the principal matter and cause of Fire and how it comes to be so mischievous in the World BEing credibly informed that the Element called Sulphur hath had the greatest hand under God in the late dismal Fire as it hath had in all other whereby Towns and Cities have been laid waste it is but fit we should take him under serious examination and strictly enquire what he is by what waies and means he brings such great desolations to pass Sulphur that is Brimstone so called by Chymists because it hath some assinity with that which
to rebate the petulancy of sulphur so are those soules lest obnoxious to the injuries of temptation that have the most grace which in scripture is compared sometimes to water and other times to salt let your words be seasoned with salt that is with grace Seeing then in this life more or less of sin will alwayes cleave to us as so much sulphur ready to set us on fire labour we to weaken the power of it by the predominancy of grace so shall the remainder of our very sins in some sense contribute to our good as sulphur to the good of those bodies it is mixed with as tending to keep us from pride security self-confidence trust in our own righteousness and such like evils to weaken in us the salt sharp humour of censuring others to make our spirits more serious and consistent by the shame and grief which they occasion in us so shall we improve them as vipers in treacle which so mixed make it the better antidote and that which was as down-right fire in the commission of it shall become as profitable sulphur in our reflection upon it and accommodating of it to the forementioned uses and purposes CONTEMPLATION IV. Of Fire kindled by Fire THe most usual way of kindling sire as we all know is by fire one fire begets another That which is actually fire makes actual fire of that which before was but potentially or rather habitually such The reason is plainly this things of the same kinde do naturally resort one to another and consort each with other as we say proverbially that Bards of a feather flock together and fire hath a name above all other things for congregating or calling together things that are homogeneous or of the same nature as also for segregating or separating things that are heterogeneous or of a different kinde in so much that that was made the very definition of fire by them that knew no better Now actual Fire when it bath once separated the fulphurious particles of other bodies from those more quiet Elements which did restrain them whilst mixed therwith and when it hath brought those wilde Atomes together which before were conveniently dispersed and dis-joyned each from other the product is this that each of these being habitually fire as flints are out of which fire may be struck what with the irritation they receive from actual fire and what with that greater strength they have acquired by being united in such great multitudes presently they begin to kindle and show themselves in actual fire and as it were to brandish their glittering swords which before they kept as it were in scabbards as by way of triumph that they had now cast off the yoak of mixtion with discenting and restraining Elements and possest themselves of that liberty which they were alwayes desirous of but could not sooner attain Here me thinks I see a lively embleme of ungodly youth some are actually so others are so but habitually as being under restraint from Parents Masters and other Governors who do all that in them lies to keep those fiery mettalsome youths from consorting each with other lest by that meanes they should inflame each other as beames of the Sun concentered in a burning glass are able to kindle fire which scattered and dispersed they could never do Now when some or more of these young men or maides actually wicked and debaucht as having already cast off the yoak of all government and run away from those that did and should restrain them either openly or secretly lights into the company of those that are habitually such as themselves and have great propensions to the same things first he tempts and inticeth them away from under the jurisdiction and society of those that have hitherto restrained them as to their lusts then he joynes them to as great a number as he can of such young ranters as themselves who mutually encourage one another in an evil way and strengthen the hand each of other to do that in heards and troops which they would dread to do singly and one by one and when it is come to that then doth the wickedness which heretofore they smothered flame out they are presently all on a light fire and so continue if God extinguish it not till having utterly consumed themselves by sin they come to just nothing or what is worse than nothing as that which we call Fire domineers a while and carries all before it but by and by it vanisheth and we know no more of it save that it oft-times leaves an ugly stink behind it To give this fair warning to young men and women ready to be debauched by the next ill company is all the use I shall make of that most known way of kindling fire which is by fire its self where the allegory you see holds in every thing and improves a truth to our hands which might seem not worth our taking notice of because every foole knowes it To which I shall add but thus much though fooles can apprchend it yet can they not apply it at leastwise to their own good and he that can do so is no fool CONTEMPLATION V. Of Fire kindled by Putrefaction THey say that fire is sometimes kindled by means of Putrefaction it seems evident from experiments both without and within our selves that so it is What are Feavers but as it were so many fires kindled in the bodies of men Else how do they make the blood to boile in our veines and so exceedingly rarisie it that the vesels are painfully distended by it and are scarce able to contain it or how come they to make such a heap of ashes in the body as appeareth to be made by that deep sediment that is in the urine when the disease begins to decline or as it is vulgarly called to break away These hints may sufficiently prove that Feavers are Internal fires and whence are most of those sires at leastwise that are of any long continuance but from Putrefaction and thence called Putrid Feavers Now as for Corruption or Putrefaction it is thus defined viz. that it is the separation of those parts and principles which were before mutually combined the band of their union being dissolved or that it is the dissolution of or resolution of a compounded body into all or most of those principles or elements of which it was compounded some taking their flight one way and some another Now this separation or divorce of the principles of bodies one from another contributeth to the inkindling fire by this means viz. because when the sulphurous particles get loose from the rest then do they combine together and break away with great heat and violence from those less active Elements to which they were joyned before and thence comes Fire Thus in putrid Feavers the due mixture and composition of the blood is very much destroyed the thicker and thinner parts affecting as it were to be each by themselves like the whey and curds in
Church and State And now O Lord thou who art only wise cause Rulers every where to know what liberty may and what may not be given what liberty would truly make for them and what against them what would tend to kindle greater Fires than yet have been in the midst of us and what might help to extinguish those fire of contention which are amongst us already and to prevent others for the future Such things as quietly would breathe themselves and do themselves good and the world no hurt by their insensible exhalations suffer them to evaporate let them not be so pent in and shut up as thereby to become needlesly exasperated unavoidably united both in miserings discontents and will they â—â—l they to fall on fire like a move of â—â—lay laid too moistly and close together which otherwise had never fired in and of its self but now is forced to flame though its self must be both the fire and fuel all for want of vent And now O Lord thou who hast made me the father of many children grant I beseech thee to me and other parents that wise behaviour to wards them that we may neither like old Eli spoil and undo them with too much lenity nor like Saul enraged against his son Jonathan endanger them by overmuch severity but may so carry towards them and have so much comfort in them that we may be able to say concerning our children as good old Jacob that father of the Patriarks did concerning his These are the children which God hath graciously given us and to think of them as the Psalmist represents them Psal 127.3 Lo children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward CONTEMPLATION VIII Of Fire kindled by pouring on Water as in Lime IT is famously known that Fire is sometimes kindled otherwhiles encreased even by the pouring on of water By that means Lime is made to burn which though it flame not our yet both by its hissing and smoaking as also by its ability to burn other things doth appear it self to be set on fire And we may daily observe that Smiths do sprinkle water upon their forges thereby causing the Fire therein to burn so much the more eagerly The reason of the former viz. of Lime its burning when it meets with Water seems to be this Some particles of Fire do remain in Lime after it hath been burnt in the Furnace though cooled again but closely united with certain particles of Salt and by them moderated and kept quiet But when water is poured upon it then is the association that was betwixt the particles of Fire and of Salt dissolved and the earthy parts separated which before lay betwixt the fiery particles keeping them from joyning each with other which being done they all flock together and rendezvouz by themselves and so violently sally out together and forcibly take their flight in a considerable body or party and thence comes that Fire which is kindled in Lime which is true Fire though it flame not by reason of those watery parts which are commixed therewith which cause smoak instead of flame Now when I think of Fire kindled by water its known opposite in Lime as aforesaid me thinks the corrupt nature of man is just like Lime for when it meets with the holy Law of God which is as contrary to it as water to Fire I mean to the lusts and corruptions that are in it how is it inkindled and enflamed thereby Hence that complaint of Paul Rom. 7.8 Sin taking occasion by the commandement wrought in me all manner of concupiscence For without the Law sin was dead and v. 13. But sin that it might appear sin working death in me by that which was good that sin by the Commandement might become exceeding sinful Moreover whereas those particles of Fire which are in Lime are as it were so many forraigners or forraign guests that get into it when the Lime-stones were burning within the Furnace for in Lime it self there is little Sulphur as appeareth by the difficulty of burning all or most of it away and these forraign particles are they that do expose it unto being set onfire whenwater is put to it I cannot but thence think of the danger of Kingdoms and Countries which are over-stocked with forraigners especially if of a forraign Religion as well as Nation especially if men of fiery principles and spirits for though such persons may lie still and make no noise for a time so long as there are other parties to ballance and tie their hands as the particles of Salt doth that of Fire and whilst they are not suffered to imbody and flock together yet let an enemy come like water upon lime presently they hiss and smoak and reak and heard together and are ready to burn up all that comes neer them May the Popish party never verifie what I have now hinted from the nature of Lime Neither is it unapt to be significantly applyed that Smiths do intend the heat of their fires by ever and anon sprinkling on them small quantities of water Did they throw on much water it would extinguish it but that little they use now and then makes it to burn more fiercely What better resemblance can there be of the over-mild rebukes of parents towards obstinate and dissolute children As good or better not chide or not correct them at all as do it over-gently and Eli like who only said It is not a good report I heare of you my sons c. 1 Sam. 2.24 Were such deeds as theirs to be corrected only with words especially with such soft words as those v. 25. Why do you such things Nay my sons for it is no good report that I hear Did they lie with the women that assembled at the door of the Tabernacle and is this all he hath to say to them He had even as good have held his peace This was but water sprinkled upon the forge this was but like an over-gentle purge that stirs and troubles humors but brings them not away Thus to whip as it were with a fan of Feathers is but to make an offenders remedy which is correction contemptible and himself thereby more incorrigible When the water of rebuke or correction must be used take enough to quench the Fire though not to drown or sink the offender Lastly Lime that kindles at the approach of water which one would think should rather quench it if kindled before is methinks a good embleme of Christian zeale and a good pattern for us in that behalf Should not our zeal be heightned by opposition like flouds that swell when they come at banks that hinder them So did the zeal of David when Michal derided him for dancing before the Ark. 2 Sam. 3.22 I will yet be more vile than thus said he viz. if that were to be vile to rejoyce before the Ark of God So Paul when some perswaded him not to goe to Jerusalem
stand gazing on and not run to help The Fire hath now got such head and is so fierce would they say that there is no coming near it But why do they not pull down houses at a distance that is long work would some reply and seeing they cannot carry away the timber when they have done it will do but little good Do not the Magistrates would some say bestir themselves to put a stop to it It is like they do what they can but they are even at their wits ends or like men astonished They that stood and look't on would cry out See how it burns East and West at the same time not onely with the wind but against it Hear how it crackles like a Fire in thorns Hear what a rattling noise there is with the crackling and falling of timber Look you there saith another just now the Fire hath taken this or that Church which alas is full of goods now it is just come to the Royall Exchange by and by would they say See how presently such a stately house was gone it was but even now that it began to fire and it is consumed already Oh what a wind is here See how it is as bellows to the Fire or as the breath of the Almighty blowing it up You would wonder to see how far the sparks and coles doe sly It is strange they do not fire all the houses on the other side of the water where abundance of them do light I can think of nothing saith one but of Sodom and Gomorral when I see this sight Alas Alas cries one now do I see such a good friends house to take fire and by and by now do I see the house of another good friend of mine on fire in that house that you see now burning dwelt a Brother or Sâ—ster of mine or some other near Relation Others would come dropping in and say They had staid so long as to see their own houses on fire and then they came away and left them Such aâ— dwell near to London and to the Road would cry as they lay in their beds we hear the Carts rumbling and posting by continually Those that were within the City at that time would ever and anon say to one another Did you hear that noise There was a house blown up and by and by there was another house blown up Others would cry The fire is now come near the Tower and if the powder be not removed God knowes what mischief will be done with that One while the people would take an Alarm of Treachery and cry out that the French were coming to cut their throats Such whose houses the Fire had not yet seized but was hastâ—ing towards them you must suppose to have made this their discourse What shall we do for Carts to carry away our goods we have offered three four pounds a load for Carts to carry them but two or three miles off and cannot have them One while they cry there is an order to prevent the coming in of more Carts it being thought that whilst we mind the saving of our goods we neglect the putting out the fire and now will our houses and goods burn together and so we shall loose all Such as had the opportunity to convey their goods as far as the fields and no farther How did they discourse of the hardship they must undergoe if they should leave their goods they would be stollen if they should look to them themselves as many had no body else to do it for them they must have but little sleep and a cold open lodging and what if it should rain And some we may imagine were discoursing what they and theirs should do their houses and goods being burnt where they should put their heads as having neither money nor friends at leastwise so near that they knew how to get to them These were but some of those dreadfull stories that men and women talkt of I could tell you how women with child would say They had but a month or a week to reckon and this had frighted them almost out of their wits so that they found it would go very hard with them Others again would say They were but so many weekes gone but were so disturbed that they did never look to go out their full time Others it is like would say They were so ill with the fright they had taken that they thought verily it would kill them or that they should never come to themselves whilst they lived Would not others again report of some here and there who by venturing too much in the Fire or staying too long to bring away their goods had lost their lives and perished in the flames Neither were all sad discourses exstinguished with the fire For since that time it hath been the manner of Friends as they met to ask some accompt of the losses each of other Pray what lost you saith one by the Fire I lost the house I lived in saith one which was my own or as good as my own by virtue of a long Lease and a great Fine I lost my houses and goods saith another I lost to the value of two thousand pounds saith one I four I six saith another I have lost the one half of what I had saith one I have lost all saith another I am burnt to my very shirt I have lost more than all saith a third for I by this meanes am left in a great deal of debt that I shall never be able to pay I had many things belonging to other men committed to me which are swept away Saith another I am not only undone my self but so many of my Children and near Relations it may be all of them are undone by this Fire as well as my self But I need to say the less of this because every dayes converse will or may tell us what men talk since the dismall Fire of and concerning it O Lord I see thou who canst put a Song of deliverance into our mouths when thou pleasest canst also sill us with complaints and lamentations when thou wilt and make our own tongues as it were to fall upon us how thou canst make us out of the abundance of our hearts to speak such things as will terrifie both ourselves and others and cause both our own ears and theirs to tingle how easily thou canst find us other discourse than to ask and tell what newes is stirring for who regarded news whilst these things were in agitation who seemed to mind what became of affairs either by Sea or Land I see how easily thou canst imbitter our Converse one with another and make us speak so as to break each others hearts that use to delight and refresh each other by their pleasing conferences and communications so that solitude may become lesse afflictive than that good company which was wont to be very acceptable Would not our tongues rise up in judgement against us if we should ever forget the sad
of it and went about to pull it down What quick work can sin and fire make How did that strong Building vanish of a sudden as if it had been but an Apparition How quickly was it taken down as if it had been but a sleight Tent the Cords whereof are presently loosened and the Stakes soon removed Oh that some Jonas might have been sent to tell us that within so many days that Exchange should be burnt down if we repented not Oh that howsoever a timely repentance might have prevented those ruins that we had commuted for our Exchange by parting with our sinâ— But since it lies in ashes and there is no prevention of it oh that we may not so much lament the burning of our Exchange as the sins that burnt it May the minds of men by this sad Providence be disposed to use another Exchange for onely honest Merchandise and the minds both of men and women to use the upper part of it no more as a Nursery of pride but in order to putting them and theirs into a decent equipage befitting their respective qualities and then may they live to see another Structure in the same place not inferiour to the first and that Royal Burse or Purse which is now a meer Vacuum as well filled as ever it was before and after that if the Will of God be so may it never perish at least wise by fire more till the Conslagration of all things MEDITATION X. Upon the burning of Hospitals and Rents thereunto belonging RIghteous art thou O Lord yet let me plead with thee concerning thy Judgments Why had the fire a Commission to burn down Hospitals Why didst thou dry up those pools of Bethesdah Why didst thou wither the Goards of those poor Jonas's who had nothing else to defend them from the scorching of extream poverty Was ever money given to better uses or with a better intent than what went to the maintaining those houses of Charity Or was it ever intrusted in better and safer hands than that which had so many persons of worth and integrity to take care of it and be as it were Overseers of the poor Or what charity was ever disposed of more according to the will of the Doners than that hath always been which few or none would accept but those that had need of it and for them it was intended I should have thought the Doors of those houses above all others would have been sprinkled that the destroying Angel might have passed over them and that Judgment should not have entered where onely Mercy did seem to dwell Did not Christ say The poor we have alwayes with us and shall we have no Receptacles for the poor The poor increase daily but the places of their relief are diminished and where those places are yet standing yet is not much of their Revenue impaired Shall the Foxes have holes and the Birds of the Aire nests but the poor not have where to lay their heads Came this for their sakes whose charity did maintain these places or for those that were maintained in them and by them or for the sake of others or for all the three Whilest some contributed to those places out of pure ends and principles might not others do it out of superstition and conceipt of merit others out of Ostentation though we may not impute those things to any in particular And as for those who were relieved in those places were there not sins amongst them also Some it may be were not more poor than wicked so that though their poverty made them the Objects of Mercy from men yet their wickedness exposed them to the Justice of God Doubtless men by sin may forfeit not only their superfluities and conveniencies but also their very necessaries or such things as they cannot live without and had not too many of these so done Though some whose miseries have brought them to such places are affected with the hand of God and fear to sin whilest his rod is upon them yet were there not others who no whit appalled by all their sufferings were it the loss of limbs or whatsoever else would swear and drink and rant at such a rate as if they had had all the world before them or thought scorn that as to these things even the greatest personages should go beyond them Had all been such as some were possibly the Great God had not forborn to set fire upon those Houses long ago But in relation to others might not this come First to try their sincerity whether their hearts would serve them to give to good uses though by this it appears they can have no assurance of raising any lasting monument to their names thereby Or Secondly to try their Faith whether they would cast their bread as upon the water so upon the fire as it were or that which may easily be burnt in hope to find it after many dayes But the probablest reason of all is that it came to prove and exercise their Charity and to call upon them so many as are able to make to themselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when they fail they may be received into everlasting habitations Why should the poor be alwayes maintained by an old stock of Charity Why should not this Age be as charitable as former Ages were Though many be poor at this time yet all are not yea there are many rich though not comparative to the number of such as are poor nor have rich men ever more to do than when there are most poor Poor men think it a blessed thing to receive but Christ hath told them It is yet a more blessed thing to give The Italians when they begge use to say to them of whom they begge Pray be good to your selves As much as iniquity doth abound I will not believe unlesse I see it that Charity is grown so cold that amongst all the rich men that are in England Nobles Gentlemen and others there will not be found enough to repair that breach which the fire hath made upon the poor Hospitals and the revenues formerly belonging to them You know or if I thought you did not I can tell you where and whence you may defaulk enough to rear up those Structures again as large and fair as before though one of them was sometimes the Pallace of a Prince even Bridewell it's self and to indow them as liberally as ever and not to misse what you have parted with when you have done Think how much extraordinary it useth to cost you every year upon your lusts one or more One mans Drunkennesse costs him an hundred pounds in a year extraordinary another mans Uncleannesse twice so much a third mans Gameing no lesse and so it is like to do from year to year Yea possibly some men have spent as much of their time upon one lust as would have built an Hospitall Now as God saith that he would famish all the gods of the Heathen so do you
have since let them for moderate Rents such are honest gainers Others have let their houses at most excessive Rates and such have loaded themselves with dishonest gain But be their gains one way or another I think no man ought for the present to pocket the money which he hath clearly gotten by the fire if it be so they can spare it David would not drink of the waters of Bethlehem which were brought to him because as he said They were the price of Blood meaning his Souldiers had ventured their lives for it What men have gotten by this fire is little lesse than the price of Blood considering how many were impoverished that a few might be inriched or rather that the inriching of but a very few is by the undoing of many thousands Men may look upon their gains by this fire as Deodates Let as many as are able be their own Almoners and give it back to God Is it not a Sabbatical year in a doleful sense for that the poor City now injoyeth it's Sabbath and in a Sabbatical year that did bear a better interpretation the rich were not suffered to reap but were to leave the Crop to the poor as appeareth by comparing Exod. 23.11 with Levit. 25.5 If men who have only saved what they had before ought to contribute to them that have lost how much more ought they who have received an Addition by this very means To Build upon the Ruines of others is one of the worst Foundations that can be Let it never be said The fire hath made you rich whilst such multitudes continue poor miserably poor whom meerly the fire hath made so We use to say Men have gotten those things out of the fire which they came hardly by But what men got by or out of the late fire was easily come by well may it go leightly for it leightly came yet neither doth that go leightly which goes to the use of Charity When I consider how this fire which hath ruined many hath raised some it brings to mind what is said Luke 1.52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away How strangely and by seeming contraries doth the providence of God bring things to pass that when a dismall fire hapned some men should be made by it So a Prison made way for Joseph's preferment and Onesimus his running away from his Master for his returning to God and to himself and a better Servant to his Master than ever And Estate cast upon men by the desolating Fire sounds like such a Riddle as that of Sampson Out of the eater came meat and out the strong came sweetness Is it not as a Honey-comb found in the Carcase of a Lion You whom God by this fire hath unexpectedly enabled more than ever to eat the Fat and drink the Sweet you know what I allude to see that you send portion to them for whom nothing is provided MEDITATION XXVII Upon the Inducements unto re-building of London and some wayes of promoting it THat London should be re-built is so much the concern of England both in point of Honour and of Trade as hardly any thing can be more Whilst that lieth in the dust our Glory lieth with it Our Enemies rejoice to see it where it is but should we let it lie there long Oh! how would they scorn us for it and conclude it were because we had not wherewithall to build it up again They know as well as we that there is no part of England situate so commodiously for Trade as London is which name is said to signifie in the Language of the Britains it's first Inhabitants Shipton or a Town of Ships in regard that the famous River which runs by the side of it is able to entertain the greatest Ships that can ride upon the Sea which thing hath made it so famous a Mart those Ships bringing in all the rich commodities the world can afford Hence London for so many Ages past hath held it's Primacy over all other parts of England and none hath been thought fit to succeed it in that dignity though the shifting of Trade from one City to another and an alternate Superlativeness hath been frequent in other parts of the world where one place hath been as commodious as another But London never had rival that did or could pretend it's self as fit to make the great Emporium and Metropolis of England as was it's self The River of Thames made it so at first and that under God will and must make it so again It perished by fire and must be saved by water for that if any thing will make it once again what it was before as Job saith of a Tree onely the Root whereof is left in the ground that thorough the scent of water it will sprout again How venerable is London were it but for its Antiquity of which Ammianus Marcellinus reports that it was called an ancient City in his time which was above twelve hundreds years ago and Cornelius Tacitus seems to do the like three hundred years before him telling us that for multitudes of Merchants and Commerce London was very renowned fifteen hundred years ago nor can we suppose it to have presently arrived at that perfection Who would not assist the building of another City in that place hoping it may continue as many Ages as the other did and longer too if God be pleased to prevent the like disaster I confess I love not to hear men boast at such a time as this what they will do or what shall be done as to the building of London more glorious than ever The Inhabitants of Samaria are blamed for saying The Bricks are fallen down but we will build with hewen Stones the Sycamores are cut down but we will change them into Cedars We are but putting on our harness as to re-building let us not boast as if we were putting of it off This is not a time in which to say much though it becomes us to do all we can If we may see but such another City it will be a great mercy but one more glorious than that we may scarce expect till we see it Alas how many difficulties is that work clogg'd with How scarce and dear are all materials How poor are many that desire to build How hard and almost impossible will it be to satisfie the Interest of all proprietors Amongst all the Models that are presented for that purpose How hard will it be to know how to pitch upon that which may be most convenient If we build every where as before it will be incommodious for Passage dangerous for Fire if by a new Platform it is hard not to be injuxious to multitudes of People whose Houses stood inconveniently as to the Publick Lord Give our Senators double and treble wisdom that they may be satisfactory-Repairers of so great breaches But
admonitions and reproofs in kindling and increasing zeal in others by warm and affectionate counsels a fire refreshing the hearts of others by a due and seasonable application of divine and comfortable considerations They whose tongues are a fire in the worse sense viz. inflaming the world with contention concupiscence and other noisome lusts shall have for their reward sharp arrows of the Almighty with coals of Juniper Psal 120.4 Yea the time is coming when in case they repent not they shall cry out with Dives Father Abraham send â—â—zâ—arus that he may dip the tip of hiâ— singer in water and cool my tongue tormented in this flame Luk. 16. As fire is one of usefullest things in the world when well imployed so is the Tongue of man therefore called his glory but as that when it exceeds it's bounds is greatly pernicious so are the Tongues of men and therefore look what care is taken to keep fire within our Chymnies and other places proper for it the like should be taken to set a watch before the door of our lips that we offend not with our Tongues no wonder S. James should say that He who offendeth not in words is a perfect man â—ble to bridle the whole body For he that can master his tongue can master fire which of all creatures is most untameable MEDITATION XXXVIII Upon the Angels being called flames of fire Heb. 1. IS it for their Agility or for their spirituality or for their great power or for their likeness to God that Angels are called flames of five or rather is it not for all of these How quickly doth a flash of lightnings shoot its self from East to West Nor are the Angels of God less nimble Light and fire and slames comprehend both are as spiritual bodies as any we know the fitter therefore to resemble those who are meer Spirits and as the Text calls them ministring Spirits The power of fire and particularly in destroving we know to our cost And did that single Angel show himself less powerful who in one night destroyed a hundred fourscore five thousand men belonging to the host of Senacherib Isa 37.36 It is not for nothing that Angels are called Principalities and Powers Neither have good Angels less power to save than to destroy when they are appointed thereunto God himself being called a fire it is probable enough that Angels go by the same name because of the resemblance which they bear to God who have more of Gods image than man himself though man hath more of it then all other creatures The Chariots of fire which Elisha saw 2 King 6.17 What were they but so many Angels of God that were sent to guard him which made him say there were more with than against him Yea the fiery chariot in which Elijah was said to have been taken up to heaven possibly was no other then a convoy of Angels such as carried Lazarus into Abrahams bosom How happy are the Servants of God in having a guard of Angels How safe are they being compassed about with such walls of fire No wonder that the righteous are more bold than a Lion as Solomon speaks wild beasts are afraid of fire and if there be a sort of men as savage as they yet can those good Angels which God hath ordered to protect his people keep those Salvages in awe What a comfort is it that God hath such nimble Messengers to dispatch upon any expedition for our good An host of Angels can be with us presently even as soon as lightning can glance thorough the air It is well for believers that Angels are so powerful that they excell in strength seeing they are theirs appointed to minister for their good In how much less danger are Gods children many times than they apprehend themselves because their guard is spiritual and invisible which made Elisha's servant more afraid one while than otherwise he would have been than afterwards he was If every Angel be a flame of fire what the Prophet told his man in another case may be applied in this There are more flames and fires I mean with Gods people than are against them MEDITATION XXXIX Upon the word of God it 's being compared to fire Jer. 23.29 HOw shall we understand that question Jer. 22.29 It not my word like as a fire saith the Lord Wherein consists the resemblance betwixt the word of God and fire Surely it 's warnting the hearts of men in whom it takes place is one reason of it's being so called For so said the Disciples of Christ Did not our hearts even burn within us whilst he opened the Scriptures to us Luk. 24.32 Or else it may be so called from it's efficacy in which sense it is also called a Hammer which breaketh the rocks in pieces Fire is able to demolish the strongest places of which we many have sad instances at this day so the Word is said to be mighty through God to pull down strong holds We read of Gold tried by fire 1 Pet. 1.7 and is not the Word of God a trying thing It is said I shall not here examine in what sense that God sent forth his word and tried Joseph Psal 10.19 Who knows not the purifying nature of fire whereby metals are refined and did not Christ ascribe the like virtue to his Word saying Now are ye clean through the word that I have spoken to you What more piercing then fire and in that â—espect also it is much an Embleme of the Word of God which is said to be sharper than a two-edged sword piercing to the dividing a-sunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow Heb. 4.12 These are but some of the Parallels that might be made betwixt the word of God and Fire He whose word it is would have it to be as Fire And if it be Fire where it hath once broken out and got head it will be hard to smother or suppresse it as that Evangelical Fire which was kindled by Luther in Germany could never be extinguished to this day Saint Paul saith though he suffered bonds yet the word of God was not bound 2 Tim. 2.4 And in Phil. 1.12 he saith that the troubles which befell him had happened rather to the furtheranoâ—â—f the Gospel and many did wax confident by his bonds to speak the word without fear If the word of God be Fire as it is I wonder not that there are such combustions in the world by means of it as Christ telling us what through the corruption of men would insue upon his Gospel saith He came not to send peace upon earth but a sword Mat. 10.34 It is not Gods word but something else those men would have who would have nothing preached to them that should be as fire to consume their Lusts or to make their consciences smart at the remembrance of them That which is not apt to search and pierce is nothing akin to fire and therefore cannot be the word of God
which is said to be quick and powerful as fire its self The fires which God kindleth for the good of the world whereof his word is one of the chief woe be to any that shall go about to quench Quenching of prophecying is next unto quenching of the Spirit yea and is one way of doing it as Divines observe I see cause to blesse the God of heaven who hath created some fires as profitable as others are mischievous namely his word for one a fire that never doth hurt otherwise than by accident neither indeed would other fires kept within their due bounds but so much good as no tongue can express O Lord that through thine insinite goodness I might experiment in my self and others all those excellent properties of fire meeting in thy word of which I have now been speaking that my heart and theirs might burn within us at the hearing of it as did the hearts of thy Disciples that it may be mighty through thee to pull down all the strong-holds of Sin and Sathan that are within us that it might trye us as gold is tryed in the fire and at the same time resined and purisied that it might pierce unto the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow that the sin which is as it were bred in our bones may be gotten out of the very flesh May the fire of thy word have such influence as this upon us we shall then be sure to escape the fire of thy wrath and to arrive to that happiness which is called The inheritance of the Saints in Light Col. 1.12 MEDITATION XL. Upon the spoiling of Conduits and other Aqueducts by this Fire ME-thinks the several Conduits that were in London stood like so many little but strong Forts to confront and give check to that great enemy Fire if any occasion should be There me-thinks the water was as it were intrenched and ingarrisoned The several Pipes and Vehicles of water that were within those Conduits all of them charged with water till by the turning of the Cocks they were discharged again were as so many Souldiers within those Forts with their Musquets charged and ready to be discharged upon the drawing of their several Cocks to keep and defend those places And look how Enemies are wont to deal with those Castles which they take to be impregnable and dispair of ever getting by storm viz. to attempt the starving of them by a close Siege intercepting all provision of Victuals from coming at them so went the fire to work with those little Castles of stone which were not easie for it to burn down witness their standing to this day spoiled them or almost spoiled them it hath for present by cutting off those supplies of water which had wont to slow to them melting those leaden Channels in which the water had wont to be conveyed to them and thereby as it were starving those Garrisons which they could not take by storm What the Scripture speaks of the Land of Jordan that it was well watered every where before the Lord destroyed Sodom even as the Garden of the Lord like the Land of Egypt made fruitful by the River Nilus the same might have been said of London before this fire It was watered like Paradise its self yea whereas Paradise had but one River though it parted into four heads Gen. 2.10 London had two at least deviding its self or rather devided into many branches and dispersing its self several wayes For besides the noble River of Thames gliding not only by the sides but thorow the bowels of London there was another called the New-River brought from Hartfordshire thither by the industry and ingenuity of that worthy and never to be forgotten Knight Sir Hugh Middleton the spring of whose deserved fame is such as the late Fire its self though the dreadfullest of all that we have known hath not nor will not be able to dry up but continue it will a Fountain of praise and honour bubling up to all posterity As nature by Veins and Arteries some great some small placed up and down all parts of the Body ministreth blood and nourishment to every member thereof and part of each member so was that wholsome Water which was as necessary for the good of London as blood is for the life and health of the body conveyed by Pipes wooden or metalline as by so many veins into all parts of that famous City If water were as we may call it the blood of London then were its several Conduits as it were the Liver and Spleen of that City which are reckoned as the Fountains of blood in humane bodies for that the great Trunks of veins conveying blood about the body are seated there as great Roots fixed in the Earth shooting out their branches divers and sundry wayes But alas how were those Livers inflamed and how unfit have they been since to do their wonted Office What pity it is to see those breasts of London for so I may also call them almost dryed up and the poor Citizens mean time so loth as they are to be weaned from their former place They were lovely streams indeed which did refresh that noble City one of which was alwayes at work pouring out its self when the rest lay still As if the Fire had been angry with the poor old Tankard-bearers both Men and Women for propagating that Element which was contrary to it and carrying it upon their shoulders as it were in State and Triumph it hath even destroyed their Trade and threatned to make them perish by fire who had wont to live by water Seeing there are few or none to suck those Breasts at this day the matter is not so great if they be almost empty and dry at present may they but sill again and their Milk be renewed so soon as the honest Citizens shall come again to their former scituations O Lord that it might be thy good pleasure to let London be first restor'd and ever after preserved from Fire and when once restored let it be as plentifully and commodiously supplied with water as ever it was formerly Make it once again as the Paradise of God but never suffer any destroying Serpent any more to come there MEDITATION XLI Upon the Retorts and Reproaches of Papists occasioned by this fire ME-thinks I hear some Reman-Catholicks as they are pleased to call themselves saying Some of your Protestants did confidently foretel That within this present year 1666 Rome should down Babylon should fall Antichrist should be destroyed But now your own City is destroyed in the self-same-year which according to you doth show that London was the true Babylon and that the true Antichrist is amongst your selves Yet upon due examination it will be found that there is as little strength in the Argument which they have brought as there is sense in the name whereby they are called viz. Roman-Catholicks which is as much as to say Members of the particular
else how was Christ heard and delivered as to the cup which he beg'd might pass from him Luke 22.42 Which nevertheless he was made to drink unless his being strengthened to undergoe it as the next verse tells us that then there appeared an Angel from heaven strengthening him as also his being inabled to triumph over principallities upon the Cross as is said Cor. 2.15 might be interpreted an eminent Deliverance vouchsafed him in and upon the Cross I am mistaken if the Apostle Paul in Rom. 7.25 doth not give thanks to God thorough Jesus Christ for delivering him as to the body of Death which yet he carryed about with him and therefore was not delivered from but under it as the foregoing words do shew O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Death And in 1 Cor. 10.13 the Apostle saith God is faithful who will with the temptation also make a way to escape or to be delivered that ye may be able to beat it seeming thereby to insinuate that Deliverance and Temptation may stand together and do so when a man is not tempted above what he is able but together with the temptation hath assistance to bear it Were not the Israelites delivered in the red Sea Jonas in the great deep and Whales belly Daniel in the Lions den the three children in the fiery furnace I say were they not first truly delivered in each of these as afterwards from and out of them To be kept under water from drowning and in the midst of fire from being burnt is Deliverance with a witness Had the bush that did burn and was not consumed been presently quencht or snatcht out of the fire it had not been so eminently delivered as it was Deliverances under great troubles though least observed by many are of all others most oblervable and Emphaticall what more admirable promise than that Isa 43.2 When thou passest thorough the rivers they shall not overflow thee when thou walkest thorough the fire thou halt not be burnt neither shall the flame kindle upon thee No place can be more pertinent than that is to prove there is such a thing as Deliverance under trouble the notion is worth our pursuing because it is full of Comfort it opens as it were a new spring of consolation to those that are under trouble which many did overlook before as Hagar did those wells of water which were nearest to her Many people have no more joy and comfort than they have hopes of having their losses repaired in kind and their temporal troubles removed and God knows whether that may ever be when they themselves despair of it their hearts faile within them he that thinks himself utterly undone and that it will not be worth while for him to live if London be not suddenly rebuilt trading speedily restored when these things appear unlikely will be at his wits ends but he that knows and believes that God who is onely wise can make him and his happy though London should still lye in ashes and trade not revive in many years to come that God can work a Deliverance for him in and under all publick calamities and in despight of all and every of them he I say will in patience possesse his soul St. Pauls words 1 Cor. 1.4 are much to be heeded where he saith Blessed be God who comforteth us in all our Tribulations he doth not say who delivereth us out of all but who comforteth us in all our Tribulations and what is that but a Deliverance under trouble when God doth comfort us in it If there be such a thing as Deliverance under trouble many may and will rejoyce in the hopes of that who are past all hope though I think that should not be neither of ever seeing an end of their present troubles They look upon Deliverance out of the present calamities to be at so great a distance that they think the steed will starve whilst the grass grows and their carkasses will fall in the wilderness ere the time come for entring into Canaan But now by virtue of the notion I am speaking of though I should grant men of misgiving minds there are as great unlikelyhoods as they can suppose that they should ever re-enjoy such houses trades estates conveniencies as formerly or any thing comparable thereunto yet may they live in a dayly expectation of a comfortable Deliverance with and under those calamities which are like to continue upon them that God together with their temptations will make a way for their escape men so perswaded will be able to say with Habakkuk though the fig-tree blossome not and the labour of the Olive faile yet will or may they rejoyce in the Lord and joy in the God of their Salvation When Paul praved that the Messenger of Sathan which buffetted him might depart God gave him no assurance of that at least-wise for the present but yet told him that which satisfied him though that evil messenger were likely to continue namely that his Grace should be sufficient for him The Israelites knew that their captivity in Babylon would certainly last seventy years Therefore it was not thehopes of a speedy Deliverance from thence that did bear up the hearts of believers amongst them but the hopes they had that God would be good to them in and under their captivity and show them mercy in a strange land If the Israelites knew as it is like they did that they must wander no lesse than sorry years in the wilderness ere they came to Canaan it was the Mercy and Deliverance which they did expect in the wilderness not out of it during all that time that did support them as hoping that in that howling desert God would be no wilderness or Land of Darkness to them If God spread a table for his people in the wilderness if he give them water out of the Rock and Manna from heaven are not those things to be reckoned Deliverances namely from the evils that in such a place they might expect though Quailes should be with-held Though the famine were not removed yet seeing Elijah was sed the mean time though but by Ravens it must be acknowledged that he was delivered in and under famine If to the righteous there arise light in darkness as is promise there shall is not that Deliverance Though Paul and Silas were in prison and their feet in the stocks yet if they were so chearful there as to sing praises to God at midnight Acts 16.25 was not that a greaâ— Deliverance Surely Paul and others of whom he speakes were greatly delivered even under chastisement sorrow poverty and a kind of Death yea Deaths often or else he could ever say as he doth 2 Cor. 6.9.10 As dying and behold we live as sorrowfull yet alwaies rejoycing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing yet possessing all things as if he had but the shadowes of evill but the reallity and substance of good things He is delivered from
death as to whom the sting of death is taken away and he from the noisome pestilence who is secured that the evill of it shall not come nigh him which is all that seems intended by that promise Psal 91.3 verse compared with the tenth David somewhere prayes that God would bring his Soul out of trouble and his Soul out of prison The Soul of a man is the man if that be brought out of trouble in whole or in part though his body his name estate relations are yet introuble the man himself is delivered A man may be sick and well at the same time as Baul was poor and yet rich at the same time according to that of the Prophet the inhabitants shall not say they are sick for their sins shall be forgiven them a man can be but well in Prosperity and it may be as well with us yea and better with us in adversity all things considered as David saith it was good for him that he was afflicted and in that case is not a man truly delivered even under affliction It may be God will be more with us in the water and in the fire than â—ver he was out of it As prospective-glasses do represent the object near at band though it be some miles distant so may this notion represent Deliverance at the very door or as that which may come the next mornine when sorrow came but the evening before viz. Deliverance in and under trouble which may be sufficient for us though Deliverance out of trouble may seem as far from us as the East is from the West thus may we hope in one kind whilst we despair in another and with Abraham in hope believe even against hope If outward calamity and misery might not confist with more real happiness and comfort than plenty and prosperity had wont to afford how could that promise of Christ be sulfilled that they who forsake all for him shal have a hundred-fold in this life and yet with persecution or in despight thereof Lord if my heart ceceive me not I had rather partake of those Deliverances which many of thy servants have had with and under great and sore trouble than of those Deliverances out of trouble into greatesâ— earthly prosperity which thou hast sometimes vouchsafed to wicked men Thou who gavest to Paul and Silas imprisoned and in thâ— stocks songs in the night but didst make Belteshazzer tremble and his knees smite together in the midst of his ful cups and jovial company thou caust imbitter the best of earthly conditions and sweeten the worst Lord give me rather a bitter cup of thy sweetning than a sweet cup of thy imbittering As for all the troubles which at this day are upon my self or any of thy people if thou wilt never deliver us out of them thy will be done but oh faile not in such manner as hath been spoken and how else thou pleasest to save and deliver us under them that experience henceforth may tender it no paradox to me and others that there is real Deliverance under trouble as well as our of it that the snare of evil may not be visibly broken and yet thy people may be delivered DISCOURSE II. Of this that the life of man consists not in the abundance of what he possesseth SUrely it is from a vain conceit that the life of man consists in his abundance that those who have not an abundance of earthly comforts do so much covet after it and those that have do so much blesse themselves in it as some are brought in saying Zach. 11.5 Blessed be the Lord for I am rich those who have lost of their abâ—ndance do mourn so inordinately for the want of it But whatsoever men think Christ assures us it is not so Luke 12.15 For there saith he the life of a man consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth I think at present of six or or seven instances wherein that saying of Christ is verified First The length or prolongation of mans life doth not consist in the abundance of what he possesseth The oyle of riches cannot feed the lampe of life Psal 49. from the 6. to the 11. verse They that boast themselves of their riches none of them can redeem his brother or give to God a ransome for him that he should still live for ever and not see corruption for he seeth that wise men dye and leave their wealth to others Look abroad and you will see more poor men that have lived to a great age than rich yea in proportion to the humber there is of one and of the other Some diseases which poor people generally escape out of and make but light of them how often do they prove fatal and deadly to them that are rich as if corruption were ambitious to claime kindred of them more than of others and the hungry wormes to feed upon their well fed flesh rather than that of others to allude to Job 17.14 I have said to corruption thou art my father to the worme thou art my mother and my sister poor men lengthen their lives by labour rich men too too often shorten theirs by Luxury Neither doth the end of mans life consist in possessing an abundance man was not sent into the world to load himself with thick clay or to adde house to house and land to land as if he meant to dwell alone upon the earth to possesse himselfe of so many hundreds or thousands by the year and so leave it to his posterity That these are trifles to the great end which man was sent into the world for appeareth by Acts 17.27 where Paul tels us that God hath set man upon the face of the earth to seek after God there is the end of life if nappily he might find him out Nor in the third place doth the Credit of a mans life consist in the meere abundance of the things which he possesseth they that have nothing to commend them but their riches though they are flattered by many are truly bonoured but by a few most men wil bow downe to those idols of Silver and of God as I may cal them because it is the fashion so to doe but when their backs are turned upon them they are ready to say of them as the Apostle concerning idols in the general 1 Cor. 8.4 we know that an Idol is nothing in the world we know such a one for all his brave outsides and the caps and knees that are given him to be a worthlesse person and to signifie just nothing He is like a rich tomb without which is so ill furnished within that it is not worth opening Fourthly Neither doth the usefulnesse of mans life consist in the abundance of what he possesseth Solomon tels of a poor man that by his wisdome delivered a City Eccles 9.15 That a rich man void of wisdom could not have done with all his wealth some do more good in the world with a little
prayed against riches Prov. 30.9 Lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord David himself saith Psal 119.67 Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy word Believe these passages of Scripture and judge afflictions needless if you can Wind to which actions may be compared may do some hurt but if there were no winds the aire would putrifie and there would be no living in it Standing waters as some moats and lakes and such like to which persons alwaies in prosperity may be compared how unwholsome and unuseful are they As it is necessary that the Sea and some other waters should ebbe as well as flow and that the Moon should sometimes decrease or wane as well as wax and increase at other times so for us to have our ebbs as well as our tides our wanes as well as our waxings It is a hard thought of God that he should make us drink bitter and loathsome potions when we need them not We cannot finde in our hearts to use our children so nor yet to correct them so much as gently when we think there is no occasion for it Oh that we should think more meanly of God than of our selves or more highly of our selves than of the great and ever blessed God Do we hear him crying out Hos 11.8 How shall I deliver thee up Ephraim how shall I make thee as Admah and Zeboim my heart is turned within me c. And shall we think he will do such things where there is no need Take heed of charging God with hypocrisie who is truth it self Far be it from us to say Afflictions are not needful because our partial selves do not see how needful they are When will our children confess that they want whipping spare them till then and you shall never correct them Had Paul no need yea he saith he had of a messenger of Sathan to buffet him lest he should be lifted up with the abundance of revelations we have not his revelations yet are we not as proud as he either was or was in danger to have been Some humble servants of God have said they never had that affliction in all their lives which they did not first or last finde they had need of He that wants no correction is better than any of those worthies we read of in Scripture and he that thinks himself so I am sure hath need of it to humble him Read the third chapter and see how many lessons afflictions do teach us and then judge if there be none of them you have yet to learn at leastwise better and more perfectly than you have yet done Can nothing profit us but that which pleaseth us Physicians know that bitter drinks in many cases are more profitable though loathsome than those which are most pleasant O Lord why am I so childishly averse to that which is so needful for me If those to whom I commit the care of my body do counsel me to bleed or purge or to be cupt or scarified and do advise me to it as necessary for my health I submit to it and why do I not submit to thee when thou orderest me unpleasant things which yet are more needful for me Are not frosts and nipping weather as necessary to kill the weeds as warm Sun-shine to ripen the corn Though no chastening be joâ—ous for the present but grievous yet if it worketh the peaceable fruits of righteousness Heb. 12.11 I desire not only to be patient under it but also thankful for it DISCOURSE XX. Of the mixture of mercies with judgments NO man hath truly either a heaven or a hell in this world For as all our wine here is mixt with water so all our water is mixt with wine God in this life doth still in judgment remember mercy God hath set the one over against the other Prov. 7.14 meaning mercy over against judgment It is not for nothing that the Apostle exhorteth us in every thing to be thankful and saith that is the will of God concerning us But therefore it is because there is a mixture of mercies with all the afflictions of this life Some may sit in so much darkness as to see no light at all but some light there is in their condition only they see it not Our late Fire was as great a temporal judgment as most have been yet he seeth nothing that discerns not a mixture of mercy with it Was it not great mercy that when God burnt the City yet he spared the Suburbs that when mens houses were consumed yet their persons were delivered yea and much of their goods and substance was snatched as a firebrand out of the fire your flight was on the Sabbath-day but it was not in the winter in which the shortness of daies and badness of the waies had scarce permiâ—ted you to have conveied away the one half of what you did not only by day but by night It was no small mercy that the Plague was gone before the Fire came For had it been otherwise who that fled into the Countrey to save his life durst have come into the City to have saved his goods Yea were not many fled so far from the face of that destroying Angel that they could not have returned till it had been too late Would the Countrey-men have brought their Carts and ventured their persons if the plague had still been raging Where could you have bestowed your goods yea where could you have bestowed your selves if the pestilence had bin then amongst you who would have received them yea who would have received you if you had come from thence The City could not dread the fire more than the Countrey would have done the pestilence and such as had come from the place where it was So far would they have been from putting your goods into their houses that they would not have received your persons into their barns and stables which in the height of the plague they refused to do When the fire burnt your City there was no more it could do but had an invading enemy set the City on fire would they not also have rifled your goods ravished your wives deslowred your daughters and put your selves to the sword Was it no mercy that God by sparing a remnant of the City kept it from being like to Sodom and to Gomorrah that there is something left out of which to make a little of every thing Some places for affemblies yet to worship God in some for Magistrates to dispence justice in some for Merchants and traders to meet and hold commerce in some houses for persons yet to dwell in who cannot convenicutly dwell any where else though now men crowd together as in the winter-time three or four might do into one bed or the most in a family into some little warm parlour which in the heat of weather had wont to keep in spacious rooms Archimedes had wont to say Give him but a place to stand in