Innumerable such prescriptions were to be had, built on the experience of many who have practised them, but nothing of all this ever comes up to the grand experiment which I have recommended in this work I mean that of separating ourselves, and retiring wholly from conversation, whether in families or otherwise, and laying in store of provisions, to shut themselves as entirely up as if "Lord, have mercy," and a cross, was set on their door.

Frequent sweatings by those that are retired, as above, cannot but be very useful to them, as well for preventing the mischiefs which frequently follow being too closely confined and want of air, as to keep the body from any mischief received, or like to be received, from the nearness of the contagion ; but then those sweatings should be very moderate and gentle, and chiefly occasioned by some little stirring and exercise, such as running up and down stairs, or any brisk motion, but with a first reserve against over-tiring the spirits or heating the blood.

I object nothing against the medicines prescribed by the physicians. Every one will act in that case as their opinion of the several physicians they use prompts them; all that I have thought needful of that kind I have tied down to preparative physic, as above. What is to be done when the distemper is come, when the body is infected and the distemper has seized the blood, that is not the business or design of this undertaking, nor does it come within the compass of what we call preparations.

When the blood is once tainted, and the body infected, preparations are then at an end. Then you

must look upon the fortress as effectually besieged and formally attacked, and you must muster up all the strength of nature and art for your relief.

But this is not my part, as I have said; but having brought up the several states of health to this length, I leave it to talk of the other part - I mean preparations for the plague. What preparations I have mentioned yet are such as are needful to preserve the body from the plague. And when the person has the plague really upon him, I have no more to say but this: he must turn his thoughts another way, viz., he must make preparations for death; I see nothing else before him, nor ought he to expect anything else. And this brings me to the second part of my work.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE PLAGUE

This is the hardest part of the work by far; but of the two, infinitely of greater consequence, as the eternal state into which we are all to pass from this, is of more consequence than the present state.

Life and time are indeed of an inestimable value, but they are only so, or principally so, as on the happy conclusion of them depends the eternal welfare of the person to whom they are so valuable; and especially, the preparations for an eternal state are only to be made in time, which, once slipped away, lost and unapplied, is irrecoverably lost for

ever.

The approaches of death are oftentimes imperceptible, and the attacks sudden; the distempers by

which we are carried away are violent; and it is a double terror to the dying person to have the work of dying and the work of repentance both upon his hands together. Oh, sinner! remember that the terrors of thy conscience will be a weight too heavy to be borne at the same time with the terrors of death. Nay, the terrors of conscience are those alone which give terrors of death, which make the passage out of life dreadful; and these many times make a disease mortal which would not otherwise be so. Were the diseases and casualties of which people frequently die in this populous city rightly given into the bills of mortality, many would be set down of other distempers than as we find them. Instead of hanged themselves (being distracted), and cut their own throats (being distracted), it would be said, hanged themselves (being in despair), and cut their own throats (being in dreadful trouble of mind); instead of pain in the head, it would be pain in the mind; instead of convulsions, it would be said, horror of conscience, and the like. I doubt not but these horrors I speak of throw the body into fevers and convulsions, and at least assist those distempers to destroy us. It is enough to have a violent fever drink up the moisture and life, and not to have the arrows of the Almighty drinking up the spirits; that, therefore, Christians may prepare in time for the dreadful moments which are approaching; that when the call is heard, no other noise may drown their comforts; and that the business of life may now without any delay be to prepare for death, I say, that they may be moved to do thus, this tract is written.

The apprehensions we are under at this time of the approaching calamity which afflicts our neighbours, are a kind of summons to this preparation, and that more forcible than can be given from the mouth of man; and many thousands will have reason to be thankful for so long a warning, so timely a summons; even all those who listen to the voice of it. Let me add a mite to this treasury. The goodness of God is very conspicuous in this, that as a pestilence sweeps whole towns and cities of people away, and death rages like an overwhelming stream, that there is little or no time given for repentance or calling upon God - little time to look up or to look in so that notice given of its approach ought to be taken for the time of interval, for both looking up and looking in, and be improved to that purpose.

I

Nay, so merciful is God to us, that we really have more time usually given to us in the case of a plague, say, more time than we have in most sorts of other distempers, and that time blest with greater advantages. This is so much against the common notions we have of it, that it requires some explanation, but you will be more fully informed of it in a short discourse which happened between some relations in a family in London, just before the last great plague.

The time before that dreadful visitation was, as this is, a time of apprehension and terror; something like this, it is true, the warnings were not so long or the danger so very remote. The distemper, according to that eminent physician Dr. Hodges, was brought to Holland on board a ship, in some bales of goods from the Levant, I think from Smyrna, as

this contagion now raging in France was said to be brought in bales of goods from Zidon and the Isle of Cyprus.

From Holland it came over hither; how it was brought over to us, or by who, that was never particularly known, or at least not publicly. The first that died of it here, at least that was put into the bills openly as dead of the plague, was in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. It was reported that the whole family died; and I have some reason to believe they did too, but there was but one entered in the weekly bill, and this was about December 1664.

This was Heaven's first alarm to the city of London, for it was remarkable that the infection began in the heart of the kingdom, as I may call it. It did not begin in a remote place, as has been the case in France, where it began at Marseilles, above 400 miles off Paris, and so came on gradually; but it first appeared in London itself, and, as I have said above, the first that was publicly given in in St. Giles's parish, about the 20th of December 1664. As this blow was near the heart, so it more nearly touched the people, and their apprehensions seemed to be in proportion more serious and affecting.

Two brothers and a sister, the children of one pious and serious mother, a widow, lived together in one house in the city; they were all grown to years of discretion, the sister (the youngest) being about nineteen, and one of the brothers near forty, the other about twenty-six years of age. The sister was a most religious and well-instructed young woman,