A29696:102
London's lamentation, or, A serious discourse concerning the late fiery dispensation that turned our…
London's lamentation, or, A serious discourse concerning the late fiery dispensation that turned our (once renowned) city into a ruinous heap also the several lessons that are incumbent upon those whose houses have escaped the consuming flames / by Thomas Brooks.
London: printed for John Hancock and Nathaniel Ponder, 1670
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
First, God by these means designs a further and a fuller discovery of their sins. In standing waters you cannot see §1the mud that lies at the bottom of the Pool or Pond; but 1when once the water is drawn away, then it appears. In ⟨p. 35⟩times of prosperity there is a great deal of mud, a great deal of Atheism, unbelief, discontent, murmuring, impatience, passion, pride, &c. that lies at the bottom of mens hearts undiscovered. Oh but when God shall once empty them of their Estates, and burn up all their outward comforts, and set them with Job upon the dunghill, then the mud appears, then a whole army of lusts discover themselves, as we see in many this day, whom you shall rarely find without tears in their eyes, sighs in their hearts, and complaints in their mouths. Severe Providences are pills made purposely to clear the eye-sight. 1 Kings 17. 18. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? If God had not taken away her son, her sin had not been brought to remembrance. O Sirs! if God by this late dreadful Fire had not taken away your houses, your goods, your estates, your trades, many of your sins had not been brought to your remembrance, though now you have lost most or all. You may say with the Psalmist, My 2sins are ever before me: my pride is ever before me, my unbelief is ever before me, my frowardness is ever before me, my murmuring is ever before me, my discontent is ever before me, and my impatience is ever before me, &c. Good men never come to know how bad they are, till they come to be exercised with severe Providences and smart Trials It was the speech of a Holy man in a great sickness, In thi• disease I have learned how great God is, and what the evil of sin is; I never knew to purpose what God was before, nor what sin was before. Afflictions are a Christians Glass, in which they may run and read the greatness of God, and the vileness of sin. But,