London's lamentation, or, A serious discourse concerning the late fiery dispensation that turned our…

Now seeing that Intemperance and Luxury is so great▪ a sin, is it any wonder to see divine Justice turn the most glorious Cities in the world into a ruinous heap, when this sin of Intemperance is rampant in the midst of them? Ah, London! London! the Intemperance and Luxury that has been within and without thy Walls, has brought the desolating Judgment of Fire upon thee, that has laid all thy glory in ashes and Rubbish. How many great houses where there once within and without thy Walls, that should have been public Schools of Piety and Virtue, but were turned into mere Nurseries of ¹Luxury and Debauchery? How have the •ules of the Persian Civility been forgotten in the midst of thee? How many within and without thy Walls did make their belly their God, their Kitchen their Religion, their Dresser their Altar, and their Cook their Minister, whose whole felicity did lye in eating and drinking, whose bodies were as sponges, and whose throats were as open sepulchres to take in all precious Liquors, and whose bellies were as graves to bury all Gods Creatures in? And how have many men been forced to unman themselves, either to please some, or to avoid the anger ⟨p. 82⟩or wrath of others, or else to gain the honourable Character of being a high Boy, or of one that was strong to drink among o•her•, or to drink down others? O the drunken Matches that have been within and without thy Walls, O London! the Lord has seen them, and been provoked by them to kindle a fire in the midst of thee. Luxury is a sin that never goes alone, it hath many other great sins attending and waiting on it; it is as the Nave in the wheel, which turning about, all the Spokes turn with it. Idleness, fighting, quarrelling, jewling, whoring, cheating, stealing, robbing, ²are the hand-maids that wait on Luxury; and therefore no wonder, if God has appeared in flames of fi•e against it. I have been the longer upon this Head, because Luxury, Intemperance is one of the great Darling-sins of our Age and day, 'tis grown to Epidemical, not only in the City, but in the Countries also, and 'tis a very God-dishonouring, and a God-provoking, and a Soul-damning, and a Land-destroying sin: and, O that what I have writ, might be so blest, as to put some effectual stop to those notorious public Excesses and Luxuries that have been, and still are rampant in most Parts of the Land.