A29696:206
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.
Oppression lays a people open to Gods fury, it provokes the Lord to turn their all into unquenchable flames. Psal. 12. 5. For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy: now will I arise (saith the Lord) I will set him in safety from him that passeth at him. Upon these words, Chrysostom saith; Timete quicunque pauperem 1injuriâ afficitis: habetis vos potentiam & opes, & judicum benevolentiam; sed habent illi arma omnium validissima, luctus & ejulatus, quae à coelis auxilium attrahunt. Haec arma domus effodiunt, fundamenta evertunt, haec integras nationes submergunt: Fear ye, whosoever ye be, that do wrong the poor, you have power and wealth, and the favour of the Judges; but they have the strongest weapons of all, sighings and groanings, which fetch help from Heaven for them. These weapons dig down houses, throw up foundations, overthrow whole Nations. Thus you see by all these clear Scriptures, that oppression is a sin that brings wasting and destroying Judgments upon a people.
- 1Chrys. in Psal. 12.
Ah, London! London! was there no oppression and cruelty to be found within and without thy Walls? Eccle. 4. 1. So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the Sun, and behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter: and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. And behold the tears of such as were oppressed. The original word signifies lachrymam, non lachrymas, a tear, not tears; as if the oppressed had wept so long, and wept so much, that they could weep no longer, nor weep no more, having but only one tear left them. Were there not, O London! many of thy poor oppressed Inhabitants that wept so long, that they could weep no longer; and that wept so much, that they had but one tear left? O the cries and tears of the oppressed within and without thy Walls, did so pierce Gods ears, and so work upon his heart, that at last he comes down in flames of