Besides, I am far from being singular in my apprehensions; the Government are evidently in the same concern; and therefore we have had several Proclamations, Orders of Council, and other directions for ships performing quarantine, and for goods to be opened and aired which come from suspected places; and one Act of Parliament has been passed to enforce those orders upon the highest penalties, nay, even upon pain of death. And so cautious was the Parliament in this point that they put the nation to the expense of £25,000 sterling to burn two Turkish ships which were but suspected to have goods on board which might contain an infection, and which might bring the plague among us, which £25,000 has been paid to the merchants and owners of the ships and cargo in satisfaction of the damages done them.

Can any man say that the Government have not had occasion for these measures? Let such look to what has been done in Holland, where they not only burned two ships, but hanged a man for attempting to save some goods out of the wreck of one ship that was cast away, and which should otherwise have been burnt as coming from places infected or supposed to be infected with the plague.

Now, while we receive daily such afflicting and melancholy accounts from abroad of the spreading of the plague and of its approaches this way, and find not only private persons but even the Government itself, and neighbouring Governments also, justly alarmed, who can be wholly unconcerned about it? Certain it is, that if it proceeds much farther, noth

ing but the distinguishing goodness of God can be said to keep it from reaching hither, the intercourse of commerce and the many necessary occasions of passing and repassing between the two kingdoms being so great, and a full stop of that intercourse being so many ways impracticable, as we see

it is.

If, then, we are in expectation and under just apprehension of it, what appearance is there of our preparations for it? Never less, I think, was to be seen in any nation under heaven, whether we speak of preparations to avoid and escape it, or of preparations to wait and expect it; whether we speak of preparations for the soul or for the body. And this alone has been the occasion of writing this book.

We have, indeed, some physicians who have given their opinions in the matter of our managing ourselves with respect to medicine, in case of the plague breaking out among us, and unto this purpose they treat a little (though very superficially) of the nature of the disease, the best preventive remedies, &c. But even in this part, however (as I said, superficial at best), yet they differ with, contradict, and oppose one another, and leave their readers as uncertain and dissatisfied, as far to seek, and at a loss for their conduct, as they were before.

As to the other part, and what we should think of doing when we set such an awful providence in a clear light before us, with respect to our religious preparations, and for our meeting and submitting ourselves to all the dispensations of Providence of what kind soever, which, doubtless, is the duty of every

Christian of this, indeed, I have seen, I may say,

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nothing at all offered in public; on the contrary, the whole world is intent and busy on their ordinary occasions. Men pursue the usual course of the world; they push their interest, their gain, or their pleasures and gaiety with the same gust, or rather more than ever. Nay, the cry of the nation's follies ✔grows louder and louder every day, and so far we are from considering that, when God's judgments are abroad in the earth, the inhabitants should learn righteousness, that we are rather learning to be more superficially wicked than ever; witness the increase of plays and playhouses, one being now building, though so many already in use; witness the public trading and stock-jobbing on the Sabbath day; witness the raging avarice of the times, by which the civil interest of the nation is ruined and destroyed; witness also our feuds, divisions, and heats, as well in religious differences as those that are political, which are all carried up to dreadful extremes.

Upon these many accounts this work has been set on foot, which, though in the design of it 't is calculated for the present particular occasion of the terrors we are under about the plague, which I may very well call impending, yet may be useful many ways, both to us and to posterity, though we should be spared from that portion of this bitter cup which I verily believe is reserved for us.

To make this discourse familiar and agreeable to every reader, I have endeavoured to make it as historical as I could, and have therefore intermingled it with some accounts of fact, where I could come at

them, and some by report, suited to and calculated for the moral, endeavouring by all possible and just methods to encourage the great work of preparation, which is the main end of this undertaking.

The cases I have stated here are suited with the utmost care to the circumstances past, and more especially as they are reasonably supposed to suit those to come; and as I very particularly remember the last visitation of this kind which afflicted this nation in 1665, and have had occasion to converse with many other persons who lived in this city all the while, I have chosen some of their cases as precedents for our present instructions. I take leave so far to personate the particular people in their histories as is needful to the case in hand without making use of their names, though in many cases I could have descended to the very names and particulars of the persons themselves.

But 't is the example that is the thing aimed at. The application to the same measures is argued from the reason and nature of the thing as well as from the success, and I recommend the experiments said here to be made no farther than they appear rational and just, with whatever success they have been practised. As to the religious history here mentioned, till I see some just exception raised against the pattern laid before us in every part of it, I cannot suggest there will lie any against the manner of relating it, and for that reason I make no apology for that part, but proceed direct to the work itself.