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

Thirdly, God inflicts great and sore Judgments upon the §3Sons of men, and upon Cities and Countries, to express and make known his Power, Justice, Anger, Severity, and Indignation against sinners and their sinful courses, by which ¹he has been provoked. Deut. 32. 19. And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters. Vers. 21. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities, and I will provoke them to anger with a foolish Nation. Vers. 22. For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. Vers. 24. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat (or with burning coals) and with bitter destruction. There is a knowledge of God by his Works as well as by his Word, and by his Judgments as well as by his mercies. In his dreadful Judgments every one may run and read his Power, his Justice, his Anger, his Severity, and his Indignation against sin and sinners: 'Tis irrevocable sins that bring irrevocable Judgments upon sinners; whilst men hold on in committing great iniquities, God will hold on in inflicting answerable severities. When God cannot prevail with men to desist from sinning, men shall not prevail with God to desist from destroying of them, their habitations, and all their pleasant things. Jer. 2. 15. The young Lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his Land waste; his Cities are burnt without Inhabitant. Vers. 17. Hast thou not procured this unto thy self, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, when he led thee by the way? When Nicephorus Phocas had built a mighty strong Wall about his Palace for his own security, in the night time ⟨p. 18⟩he heard a voice crying out unto him, [Greek or Hebrew], &c. O Emperor, though thou buildest the wall as high as the clouds; yet if sin be within, it will overthrow all. Sin, like those Traitors in the Trojan Horse, will do Cities & Countries more hurt in one night, then ten thousand open enemies could do in ten years. Cities and Countries might flourish, and continue as the days of Heaven, and be as the Sun before the Almighty, if his wrath be not provoked by their profaneness and wickedness: