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VVHat Wooden-Houses are those that many Cittizens of good fashion are now forced, yea glad, to dwell in? May we call than Houses? or are they any thing but Sheds, and Hovels, or Boothes, at most? Such as had wont to be set up
against Bartholomew-Fair, and took down again, when the Fair was ended: But now it is, as if some such Fair as that, were continued all the year long. How are the Cittizens in Moore-Fields like an Army incamped, and lodging only within tents? How doth it bring to mind that feast of Tabernacles, Booths, or Bowers, which the Israelits were commanded to keep Lev. 23.34. and that in the seventh month; it be∣ing also the seventh month (according to our ac∣compt, beginning the year in March) which brought Londoners to this. The reason of observ∣ing the Feast of Tabernacles is set down, Lev. 23.43. viz. That your generations may know that I made the Children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the Land of Egypt. I suppose, it was in thankful acknowledgement, that, now they dwelt in houses, they were much better accommodated than either themselves or their Ancestors were, when they dwelt in Booths.
Far beit from us to despair that Londoners in Gods good time may keep a Feast of Tabernacles in thankful remembrance that God, who sometimes (as at this day) made them to dwell in Booths hath brought them to Houses again; mean time, I wish they may be well contented with that small conve∣nience they enjoy and may consider with them∣selves, how much better it is to dwell in Tents (as it were) as now they do, than to lie in the open fields with only the Canopy of Heaven over their Heads (sub Dio, sub save frigid••) as in the time of the fire many of them were constrained to do. Jacobs lodging was not so warm and so easy as is yours within those tents, when he took stones for his pillows and slept upon them in the open air, and yet no night ever pleased him better, (as to the Dreams and Visions of it); nor yet so much as that. From thence
he said of the place where he lay, That 'tis the gate of Heaven, Gen. 28.17. Of the Stones that were his Pillows, he made a Pillar of Thankfulness, and poured Oil upon the top of it (I suppose by way of Thank-offering); and vowed a Vow, that if he came again in peace, that Pillar should be God's House, ver. 22. meaning, that he would build a House for God in that place. How much better and more comfortable are such Booths, than those mountains, Dens, and Caves of the Earth, where the primitive Christians were forced to hide them∣selves? Yea, was not Christ himself worse accom∣modated, when he lay but in a Manger? nay, doth not another Text say, that The son of man (sometime) had not where to lay his head? It was a long time, that God himself dwelt amongst the Israelites but in a Tent or Tabernacle, the Ark I mean, which was the visible Symbol of Gods pre∣sence amongst the Jews, (and is somewhere called by the name of God): For, till Solomon's time, there was no House or Temple for God to dwell in. Shall men think much to dwell a few months or years in such a way as God himself dwelt a∣mongst men for many ages together? Is the ser∣vant greater than his Lord?
Bless God that you have weathered out a sharp Winter, in which your cold lodging in those thin paper-houses (not much better Fences against wind and weather, than Moses his Ark of Bull rushes was against the water), and now a warm Sum∣mer is before you, in which those slender Tabern••∣cles may prove, not only tolerable, but pleasan•• and serve, as it were, for Countrey houses.
If men had had materials, as at other 〈◊〉〈◊〉 wherewith to have built strong and 〈…〉〈…〉 tations, where their booths now stand, 〈…〉〈…〉
scarce have done it, because they wait for a re∣move, and expect the good time when they may have opportunity, to dwell in or near the places where they dwelt before. Is there nothing to be learnt from thence? Why should not all the pro∣vision we make for this World, be only such, and so slender, as may argue us mindful, that We have here 〈◊〉〈◊〉 City, but look for one to come, a City that hath Foundations, whose maker and builder is God?