Introduction

Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in the city, and the Lord has not done it? The Lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy? (Amos 3:6, 8) When the Pharisees spoke to our Saviour to rebuke his disciples for their loud praises of the Lord with Hosannas, he tells them, if they should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out (Luke 19:39-40). And we read in Habakkuk (Habakkuk 2:11) of the stone crying out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber making answer. Certainly we in London have lately heard the cry of stones and walls, of timber and beams in their fall and flames; I mean in the late dreadful fire which has laid out Jerusalem in heaps; or rather we have heard the voice of God in this and other terrible things which have come upon us. Let none then rebuke, if one so unfit do make an attempt to speak something of the meaning of London's fire, or of God's Terrible Voice in this and other judgments, when by the mouth of babes God can declare his will.