CHristian friends , out of this Text of Scripture several Doctrines may be laid forth to this sinful Nation of England , and to the inhabitants thereof , the Lord is at a controversie with you for your abominable sins committed in the Land , not by a man alone , but by the general inhabitants of the whole Earth , you know and sée daily how the poor people of this Kingdome hath béen afflicted by grievous diseases ; there is not one town in the whole nation hath béen frée from the like affliction . O the heavy wrath of God is revealed from Heaven , and with fury is poured upon ungodly men ! Repent and return from your evil way , and make your ways and doings good ; for except we repent , we shall all likewise perish . O let us learne to bear the afflictions of God with patience ; for know you whom God afflicteth , he loveth : for shall a Father never correct a Son with no affliction , but let him have his own will , he would not stand in awe of his threatnings , neither would he fear him at all : what then there is no other way for that man to bridle his son but by affliction , bringing him into some strait ; as want , poverty , sickness , or imprisonment , or in any other tribulation ?

Lo , thus God deals with us chiefest by those whom he loveth : for when God finds us running into any abominable transgression , He afflicts first , our conscience ; 2ly . Our bodies ; And 3ly . our souls , which is an everlasting affliction , and terriblest of all . But first when our Conscience is afflicted , it tells us inwardly of all our filthy and evil abominations committed , both in thought , words and actions : what then by that affliction we should take warning and prevent the future danger , but most or all of us doth in a wretched manner , so slight our conscience for thinking of it that we take no heed at all till destruction comes and takes us away , running still into all manner of evil , and offending of our Lord God ; nay we run into all dangers of sining as can be nominated . O but think of the infinite mercy and goodness of God , who desireth not the death of a sinner , but had rather he would repent and live . O how kindly deals the Lord with us , he lays upon us some affliction to win us to trust in him , some he punisheth more then other some , according as they are able to bear , and according to his swéet and blessed will , some he strikes sick , some lame , some dead in the twinkling of an eye ; none of us all knows at this present time whether we shall live till to morrow : for severall causes God deals to people several properties ; for some God takes out of the world because the world is not worthy of them : others again he takes out of the world because they are not worthy of the world . Lo thus God deals with the world , O the changes and chances of the world are such we are to day merry , to morrow sad , to day rich , to morrow poor , to day well , to morrow sick , to day alive , to morrow dead ; Nay , we are none of us certaine to live one hour longer , had we not néed to have a great care to provide and make ready our selves for God at what time soever he pleaseth to take us out of this world ; for after death comes judgement to give to every man according to the fruits of his doings .

So now let us consider the great affliction at this present time amongst us , and how we ought to call upon God in time of any trouble , as sicknesse , famine , fire , water , or any eminent danger , with the words of holy David , Psal . 25.16 , 18. verses , turn unto us ô God and have mercy upon us , for we are desolute and afflicted , the trouble of our hearts are enlarged : O bring us then out of our distresses , look upon our afflictions and our pains , and forgive us our sins . Dearly beloved Friends , have patience in afflictions , and murmure at nothing , for verily I say unto you , I do rather believe that it is our murmuring against the handy works of God , which is the chiefest cause of our dearnesse of Grain , and great Diseases . O how doth the rich Misers of the world vaunt themselves of their vain glory , thinking Grain never dear enough , nor uses no conscience in dealing falsely with the poor . O your wretched dealing wi●h the poor is the cause of Gods most wrathful and just indignation thus fiercly laid upon us ! O how dare you presume to sin thus wilfully to the face of God , O it is the great mercy of the Lord we are not utterly destroyed : for lo the sword has béen a long time amongst us , and hath tain thousands out of the world , and at this present sicknesse abound and grain is at an excéeding great rate , which foreshowes a famine in the Land , except a spéedy and earnest repentance ; if then these will not convince , nay , if these threatnings of the Lord will not recall you from your sins and turn you to the Lord by prayer , I do hold you to be absolute a reprobate , and on us the Lord will bring utter destruction ; for the Lord will not be mocked at the hand of sinners ; for saith God , I will shew mercy unto thousands of them that loves me , but them that hates me shall utterly be destroyed ; I am pitifull abundantly to sinners , but such as provoke my passion shall not go unpunished : what mad men of the world would provoke the Lord God to anger on this manner , the covetous man by his covetousness provoketh God sorely in making a God of his riches , the man by pride exalts himself in bravery ; the adulterer , swearer , sabbath-breaker , liers , murderers , stealers , and all other extortional sinners , that the Lord is even weary of such a perverse Generation . O friends sow to your selves in righteousnesse , reap in mercy , break up your fallow grounds , for it is time to séek the Lord till he comes and raigns righteousness upon the earth ; yea you have plowed wickednesse , you have reaped iniquity , and have eaten the fruit of lies , because thou didst trust in thine one way and mighty men , Hosea 10.9 . Séek God my friends and repent of your abominable transgressions , and walk not in wayes that are evil , but say with holy Job , though terrours are turned upon us , and the day of affliction have taken hold on us , and our bones are pierced in the night , nor our sinews take no rest by the great force of our disease , Job 30.15 , 16. but shall we receive good at the hand of God , and shall we not receive evill : our God is the God of health and sicknesse , who can by his Almighty appointment throw us to day into great sicknesse , and in his good time raise us to our former health , give God thanks , for he hath loosed , and he will bind us up . Oh our sin of murmuring against the handy-works of God , doth so abound , disliking of Gods handy-works and the fruits of the earth before they came upon our grounds , saying , our crops are small , making themselves discontented at Gods love to the world ; but the swéet counsell of the Apostle Paul , saith , at all times be content : this discontent dear friends and murmuring with God is the chiefest cause of this our great affliction . Dear Christian friends do you think that God is beholding to us for any thing , is not all things in his power to send plenty or scarcity according to his blessed will ; neither doth God care for the murmuring of men , but will reward you according to the works of your doings , & will utterly consume all things from of the land , Zep . 1.2 . I will consume both man and beasts ; Lo thus will the Lord deal with us for our iniquities , therefore O Nations gather your selves together before the decree that the Lord brings forth , before the day passeth as chaffe , before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you , seek you the Lord all the méek of the earth which have wrought his Iudgement , séek méeknesse and righteousness , it may be you may be hid in the day of the Lords wrath : for as I live saith the Lord thou shalt be as Sodome and Gomorrah , a perpetual desolation shall befall you , and the residue of my people shall spill them , Zep . 2.10 . O England , England look to it , this is thy reward for thy murmuring against the Lord of Host , because you have reproached and magnified your selves against the people of God , but we say , shall we give our first born for our transgression , the fruits of our body for the sins of our soul ; O man the Lord hath shewed us what is good , and what he doth require of us , but to do justly , to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God , Micah 6.8 . this is all the sacrifices the Lord desireth of the children of men , it is but a very small matter to do this , but with wicked and carnall men it is a hard and strait matter , but the righteous will perform it with ease & joy unspeakable & full of glory ; ye the righteous will glory in the works of the Lord . Friends I intreat you not to glory in that which is evil , but in that which is good ; for if you do not speedily repent you will utterly be consumed , ye utter ruine & utter destruction will suddenly come upon you ; therefore to prevent the future glorifie God at your going out & coming in , at your lying down , and rising up , for thus saith the Lord , I will be glorified in the midst of thée for thou shalt know that I am the Lord for I will execute judgment against thee , and I will send pestilence and bloud in your stréets , and the sword shall be on every side to consume thee . And O London , thou proud City remember Jerusalem , and forget not God ; for thou art threatned by Gods most heavy wrath as was Tirus , for behold , the Lord is against thée for thy abominable pride , thy haughtiness , thy fullenness : I néed not look back on him who is the sender of these good things , but most wilfully dost thou offend thy Maker ; thou a trade in buying and selling on the Sabbath day , O abominable transgressors , more evil then the Divel ; for he both believes and trembles : neither will you fear nor dread , your Maker and Almighty God . O bewail your wretched condition , and I beséech you with earnest desires to lay aside these vices , as gaming , or selling , buying , exalting pour selves in bravery , dishonouring of God on this manner as you do , God threatens you for this corrupted vice to shower down his wrath and vengeance upon you , the Sabbath-breakers of his glory , it is Gods market day ; rob not God of his glory , and hinder not any coming to buy his Merchandize which is far more better then rubies , and you may have it without mony and without price , a regard also that hinders any man from coming to Christ ; what , St. Paul saith , Thou child of the Divell , wilt thou not come in thy self but hinder others also : But mark the threatnings of the Lord to thee , O London , thy daughters shall be slain with the edge of the sword , and I will set Ingens of war against thy Towers , and will break down thy walls for thy Idolatry and will slay thy people , and bring thy garisons unto the ground and I will spoil thy riches and make a prey of thy merchandize , & will throw down thy famous buildings and pleasant houses with the stones and the timber ; yea all thy famous works will I bring to nought , thy great riches , thy abundance of bread , thy brightness and multitude of wealth that is in thée hath brought vengeance upon thée yea in the midst of thée for thy haughtiness I will destroy thée , for thy heart hath lifted up it self with pride , yea and hatest the ways of God , by reason of whom the way of truth is defiled ; yea a trafick that is used in this city have defild you , your abominable trafick on the sabbath day : thy whoring and ranging after other vices , by opinions , seditious heresies , and by ten thousand other vices which doth confound us ; nay faith the Lord , I will bring a fire in the midst of thee which shall devour thee , and quite consume thee from the earth , in the sight of all beholders , and those that knew thee amongst the people shall be astonished at thee , and thou never shalt be more , Eze . 28.18 . O England and London in chiefest , gather your selves together , for it is time to séek the Lord ; for great néed have we at this present time , for you sée that sicknesses , as plagues and pestilence are like to ensue except a timely and spéedy repentance , and the Lord of his infinite mercy defend us from a cruel famine which is much to be feared by our scarcity of grain , and unseasonable weather ; O mighty God amend it ! O how shall we prevent this eminent danger ; whither shall we sly for safety , but to the living God , who is a rewarder of the just , and a sore punisher of the unjust ; repent therefore I beséech you , and gather your selves together before the decrée comes forth , before the day of the Lords fierce anger comes upon you : O séek the Lord all ●… he méek of the earth , séek to live righteously , ●… s your sins may be hid in the day of the Lords ●… rath , Zeph . 2.23 . O let his Majesty the King ●… ok to all vices in his land , and to séek daily to ●… unish the wickedness of sin , and to establish ●… ighteousness through his Realm , it will both ●… trengthen power , and establish his throne in ●… eace , to the blessed happines of this his King●… ome . O let no man in power and authority ●… o wrong , but with all power to stand up in a rightful cause ; ye let all the land rich and poor give praise to God with tears & expression that cannot be uttered . O but let me look back upon the rich ma● , & consider his miserable estate , I mean such a rich man that rejecteth the poor ; O but alas I bewail his unhappy condition , for I say unto you the estate of that rich man that despiseth the poor is most damnable , a compa●… ion for the Devil , and cursed upon earth ; and ●… t is easier for a Camell to go through the eye of a néedle , and a damned soul shall sooner ●… e eased of the torment of hell , then such a rich man to gain the glory of heaven ; as for example , we have Dives in the gospel , that rich glut●… on , who despised poor Lazarus : nay he had no charity to relieve him with the crums that fell from his table , but rather reviled him with scourges , and I fear we have too too many of these cater-pillers , rich men that despise their poor brethren ; yea they would let a poor man starv●… and die in the stréets , ere they would reliev●… him ; but the reward of those are to be pun●…shed in the everlasting fire of hell , where thei●… ugly and filthy damnable carcasse shall be tormented both body and soul ; yea I say hi●… wretched carcasse will never die , nor the fire 〈…〉 hell will never be quenched . O Friends , wha●… will it then profit a man to gain the whol●… world to lose his own soul . O be charitable ric●… men , and grind not so the poor for gain ; for I must tell you 't will profit you better to lay yo●… up one spark of grace in , by meriting gifts t●… the poor in great necessity , then it is to lay u●… and have in store the wealth of the whole world for the wealth and the glory of the world is a dust and filthy dung in comparison to the wort●… of Heaven : you had better be a door-kéeper i●… the House of God , then to sit on the throne o●… an earthly tabernacle . O rich men , regard I beséech you what here is spoken , & look upon you poor brethren that cryeth for food in the stréet and remember the words of Christ , Luke 12●… 20. The poor they are alwaies with you , but 〈…〉 am not alwaies with you ; but neverthelesse a●… much as you doe to the meanest of these poo●… people , I take it in as good part as you did i●… unto me , and your reward shall be great i●… the Kingdom of Heaven . Rich and poor I entreat you to serve the living Lord ; for alas we have surely transgressed his Lawes and Commandments : O for a long season we have followed the frowardness of our own hearts , and the waies of God we have not known . O perverse generation who have wallowed in sin and followed pleasures a long time . O let us ●… ie in sackcloth and ashes , and bewail our sad conditions ; for sickness overtakes us , and famine destroys us , the sword has afrighted us , and our trading decays , yea all comforts forsakes us , and all comes through our abominable filthiness , and our woful sinning against the Almighty : But woe , woe , saith the Lord , Isa . 3.14 . to you rich men : O it shall be evil for you , because you have eaten up the vineyard , and the spoil of the poor is in their houses . O what mean you saith God , to grind the faces of the poor , and to beat my people to pieces through your covetousness , and through pride : you do witness and declare as did Sodom ; O but woe to your poor souls , for you have rewarded evil to your selves : O how haughty are your daughters who walk with stretched out necks , wantonnesse , walking and mincing as they go , and making a tinkling with their féet ; Therefore saith the Lord , will I smite this land with affliction of great diseases , and will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments , and it shall come to pass that instead of your sweet smells you shall have stinks , instead of brave attire , most filthy rags , and instead of pleasures , everlasting pain , & they who spent their time in worldly vanities upon earth which had end , shall lie in hellish torments in the next world without end . O friends , this is the portion of our famous City & the proud wantons therein , yea and by pride shal the great ones fall by the edge of the sword , and the land shall mourn and be desolate , Isa . 4.17 , 26. O Christian brethren ▪ I beséech you to return unto God with your whole hearts before utter destruction comes upon you . Ah how doth the Lord give us now warning by his afflictions laid upon us , to turn and spéedily repent of our sins and he will have mercy ; for we may trust and rest upon our swéet Saviour for mercy if we truly repent ; for he is still as gracious a God as he was to our Forefathers . O remember the loving kindness of God unto Nineveh , who said , within forty days shall Nineveh be destroyed ; but by the prayers and repentance of the Ninevites it still was preserved ; yea , their obedience and ardent desires of the whole land , yea the incense of their prayer ascended up before God and he repented of the evil and did it not . Ah , there is nothing better and more accceptable to the Lord then prayers and supplications are ; yea , I say it is good both to prevent the wrath of God , and to bring his blessings upon the land : Ah , but this pride , this hardnesse of heart , this cruelty of these rich men is such to the poor of this Kingdom , which makes the Lords fierce anger thus wrathfully afflict us : Ah how doth the Lord try the hearts of these Cormudgels , who would , if God would give them leave , even grind the faces of the poor to pieces : Ah , but woe , woe to you rich men for the misery that shall come upon you ; Ah your riches are corrupted , your garments shall be moth eaten , and the rust of your gold and silver shall one day witnesse against you , and shall eat your flesh as it were fire , you have heaped up treasures to the last day , you have kept back by fraud and deceit the wages of your hired labourers , and the cries of the poor have entered into the ears of the Lord , you have lived in pleasures upon earth , and have béen wanton and turned your selves from the poor ; yea , you have condemned the just , & have slain the poor from off the land , James 5.3 . Rich men are you not ashamed of these reproofs , you covetous worldlings return I say and be converted : Ah , you are not ashamed to hourd up your grain , and not let the poor to be relieved ; nay , you will sée them die and starve at your doors before you will part from a morsell of bread ; but take héed you worldlings , that God doth not one day let you stand knocking at the door of grace , saying , Lord , Lord , open to us , who shall answer you , depart you cursed into everlasting fire , prepared for the Divel and his Angels . O Brethren , remember this in time , and lay aside these sins that so easily besets thée ; for certainly these sins are the cause of our present calamities ; for sée you not how the fields are wasted ? the land mourneth for our Corn , it wasts and languishes away : be you ashamed you husbandmen for your grievous using of the poor ; are not your hearts ready to melt within you for your sore transgression ● great cause have we to howl and lament , for the wheat and the barley of the fields are like to perish , for the vine is dryed up the figtrée languisheth , and the aprletrée : yea , all the trées of the earth because joy is departed from the sons of men : lament and howl you Ministers of the Gospel , and h●sten to offer up sacrifices acceptable to the Lord . Ah , let s lie in sackcloth let s sanctifie a fast , call a solemn assembly , and let all the inhabitants of the earth cry unto the Lord with tears that cannot be numbred , alasse , for ths day of the Lord is at hand , and a most swift and sudden destruction will come from the Almighty , our meat is cut off , yea joy and gladness is departed from us , and our séed is rotten under the clots our garners is laid desolate and our barns are empty , and our grain is withered . And ah how do the beasts groan , our hearts are perplexed and our pastors are dried up , and our flocks of shéep are consumed . O let us look unto him that hath wrought great works , to whom else ought we to cry for help and succour : O Lord therefore hear our prayers and deal by us as it séems good to thy blessed will ; for O Lord amongst us there is nothing wrought that is good in us , but swearing and lying , & whering , and stealing , and bloud touching bloud . O Lord , of these abominations , give us grace to repent . Christian friends , I beséech you to repent as did Niniveh , that the Lord may repent him of his judgements and take away his fierce anger from amongst us ; for as Jonah entred into Nineveh , said within 40 days shall Nineveh be destroyed : but the City of Nineveh believed the Lord God by the mouth of his Prophet , and they proclaimed a Fast from the greatest to the least of them ; nay , the very King put from him his Royal robes , and covered himself with sackcloth and ashes : this I say , shewed their humility , and how they humbled themselves to the service of God , and God did repent of the evil and destroyed them not , Jonah ● . 5 . O England , England , if thou dost not with as frée a heart truly repent thée as did this City thou canst not possibly stop the wrath of God : but alas , our carnal minds are drawn away with the bewitching vanities sinful lusts , deluding temptations of this sinful life . O friends , your fasting is feasting , your praying is playing , being filled with fulness of bread , wanting nothing like to Sodom and Gomorah , but if like to them you must partake of their punishments . O you attenders and hearers of this book , be you not so call'd but be you the doers of the same , and practise it in your lives and conversations . O hearken further what God saith to those that repent . Zech . 10.1 . My mercy shall be above your affliction ; for if you seek the Lord , you shall have rain with the latter rain , and in season shall the weather be , and every one shall have grasse in the fields , and I will have mercy upon you , and you shall be as though I afflicted you not . O Christian Brethren , do , not you sée that repentance & prayer is the greatest thing that God regardeth : I would intreat you all with loving advisement to séek God by prayer ; for Sodom had not the sins as we have : Sodom had not béen destroyed had there béen but ten righteous , and in another place saith God ▪ find but one acceptable to stand in the gap to stay my wrath , & pacifie my fierce anger from coming more amongst you . Dear Friends , though some goes astray , let s not all perish in our wickedness : perhaps some of you here present God may accept to pacifie hi●… wrath ▪ therefore I pray you séek to please Go●… as you live and raign with him for evermore for you all have séen and known that your divers sins have brought diverse calamities upo●… us , our haughtiness our wantonness , our drunkenness , & unjust dealings hath cruelly brought this plague upon us ; this foggy winter past makes the summer unseasonable to the abounding of great diseases , except the Lord of his gracious clemency , and good providence , doth pervert it , great scarcity of grain is likely to be through the murmuring of our gréedy rich misers of the land , who heaps from the poor in a most wretched manner : O but we have a just God that will punish these gréedy Caterpillars with the wants of their great store which they had upon earth , their conscience in hell will be griped with scorching fire , they shall burn as straw under a furnace , and their hearts will burn with fervent heat ; and as they kept food from the poor upon earth so wil the Lord kéep them from the spiritual food of Heaven ; and as the poor lay under their Curse , so shall the rich man lie under the Curse of Gods wrath for evermore , and his delicate fare will be turned into odious toads , and griping hunger instead of Claret wine , boyling lead and extreme thirst , their musick and noble companions will be the hideous crying of frightful divels , his rare attire & sumptuous seat is the flames of flashing fire , & his bed of down is burning coles of hellish fuel and though the miserable pains of poor Lazarus on earth had an end , yet the damnable torments of the rich glutton in hell hath no end : take héed of this you rich men which despise the poor , remember this , 't is the punishment that is reserved for all such at the last day : All men fear God & truly consider these words , & take warning lest the heavy wrath of God do utterly consume you from the land , & I intreat you to truly trust in God , & he will relieve all your necessities whatsoever & confound those that séek to do him wrong , for the Lord's merciful , slow to anger & of great kindness : but to the rich man a word more I have to say , are you not ashamed to sée the poor starve both for hunger and cold ▪ neither will you give them bread nor cloth to cloath 'em they may lie 7 years in prison with iron fetters ere you l part from a penny to relieve them : O you hard hearted Iewes , no Christianity is remaining in you : nay , your poor labourers that labours amongst you of his wages you wil kéep back & hath at home a wife and 8 children perhaps that starves for bread , yet by defraud you thus deceive them : alas at their best estate they are not able to maintaine their charge with the wages pou allow them , but you forget the poverty of the poor being pamper'd up with plenty of delicate fare ; but alas , for your hypocrisie there is a day of account that God wil deal by you as you have dealt by others ; yea , if one drop of water would serve your turn , if should not be granted you ; ah , in with a strait wil you be brought to at this hour , if you were to begin your life anew , how would you carry your se●ves : O how chatitable then would you be to merit heaven : but take warning whilst you are here upon earth , for after death there is no remorse : and I beg of you for Christs sake to say to heart what has been said , & strive to serve the living God , & instead of poverty you shal have plenty , nay you shal have your daies lengthned ▪ as was Hezekiahs , Isa 38.7 . By his prayers and true desire there was added to his days 15 years ; But if you refuse to labor you mus● eat the bread of hunger , to labor is beautiful both to natural and spiritual life , but for a long time we have perverted the waies of God , and the waies of truth , but what has be falen us for our iniquity , The earth is empty , & made waste , yea it is turned upside down , and the Inhabitants , the children of God are scattered abroad in all parts ; but alas as it is with the people so with the Priest , as with the servant so with the master , as with the buyer so with the sellar , for the Land shall be destroyed and quite confounded . Isaiah 24.3 . For the earth mourneth , the world languisheth and fadeth away , yea the mighty are weak , and the whole earth is defiled by blasphemous cursed words and evil thoughts , confused actions . O we have sorely transgressed the laws of God , we have changed his ordinances , nay we have broken his everlasting covenant , therefore hath the curse devoured the earth , and they that dwel therein are desolate , Isa . 24.5 , 6. for lo I wil bring evil upon this people , even the fruit of their thoughts , because they have not hearkned to my words .

O let us speedily repent with unfained hearts that the Lord may turn his wrath into mercy , his fury into favour , his anger into loving kindness ; and make our barren land fruitful , turne our dearness into cheapness , our sickness into health , our adversity to prosperity , for he wil be to us a God if we wil be to him a people . O how great and manifold have the sins of this nation been , and how greatly hath God manifested his love unto us , and how little have we truly served him ; we may wel say with the Prophet , our best righteousness is filthy rags , yea filthy indeed have we been in our lives and conversations , strive to amend dear friends before the heavy wrath of God sweep you away , yea seek the Lord by prayer , for thus saith God , Seek & ye shall finde , knock and it shall be opened ; if we truly seek God he wil be found of us , if we earnestly Knock for mercy , he will have mercy on us . And so I do humbly request every man in his own house and family to look to his own sheep , and walk circumspectly before man , humbly before God , and have a care of your last end , of your departing out of this life , committing your soul to God that gave it , and your body to the grave there to rest till the general day of judgment , with certain hope of a blessed resurrection ; and the grace of the most wise God the Father , and of our Saviour Iesus Christ , with the blessed Spirit the holy Ghost , go along with you , and guide you all for ever more . Amen .