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

So Bribery is a sin that brings desolating and destroying Judgments both upon Persons and Places. Amos 5. 10, 11. For as much therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat; ye have built houses of hewen stones, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them; for I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. Bribery is one of those mighty sins, or one of those bony or big-boned sins, as the Hebrew hath it; for which God threatens to turn them out of house and home. Bribery is a bony sin, a huge sin, a heinous sin, a monstrous sin, a sin that is capable of all manner of aggravations; and therefore the Lord punisheth it with desolating Judgments. Job 15. 34. And fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery (or the receivers of gifts, as both the Hebrew and the Septuagint may be read.) When wicked men build their houses, their Tabernacles by pilling and polling, by bribery, cheating, defrauding, or over-reaching others, 'tis a righteous thing with God to set their houses on fire about their ears. Thus Diocletian had his house wholly consumed by Lightning and a flame of fire that fell from Heaven upon it, as Eusebius tells ¹us. Upon such a generation of men as build their houses by bribery, or oppression, or deceit, &c. God many times makes good that word, Job 18. 15. Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation; and that word, Micah. 3. 11, 12. The Heads thereof judge for reward, and the Priests thereof teach for hire, and the Prophets thereof divine for money. Therefore ⟨p. 88⟩shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. Bribery and Covetousness had over-run all sorts of such as were in Power and Authority, whether Civil or Ecclesiastical, and for this Zion must be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem become heaps, and the Mountain of the House as the high places of the Forest. By these exquisite terms the total and dismal desolation and destruction of Zion, Jerusalem, and the Temple, that famous House that was once worthily reckoned one of the seven Wonders of the World, is set forth unto us.