The Puritan Thomas Brooks would preach about the Great London Fire and the collapse of St. Paul’s, calling his hearers to faith in Christ. He would write, “London’s sufferings should warn others to take heed of London’s sins. London’s conflagration should warn others to take head of London’s abominations. It should warn others to stand and wonder at the patience, long-suffering, gentleness, and goodness of God towards them who have deserved as hard things from the hand of God, as London has felt… It should warn others to search their hearts and try their ways and break off their sins and turn to the Lord, lest His anger should break forth in flames of fire against them.

Today, September 6, in 1666, Old Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London burned to the ground in the Great London Fire.

Old St. Paul’s was a centerpiece of Puritan outreach and the filth and worldliness within its courtyard was frequently alluded to in the preaching of the day. Booksellers peddled the latest Puritan works while other wares were also peddled: from vanity faire to the common whore; St. Paul’s Walk had everything that your heart could desire.

Old St. Paul’s construction began in 1087, following an earlier London Fire. As early as 604 a church was built on that location. One Pre-Norman scholar claimed that a Temple to Diana was toppled to begin the first St. Paul’s Church. The massive church yard hosted rental booths that extended for hundreds of yards.

One scholar said, “St. Paul’s was the very heart of the city [of London].” A pastor at the time said that St. Paul’s offered everything from “the south alley for popery and usury, to the north for simony, and the horse fair in the midst for all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawling, murders, conspiracies, and the front for ordinary payment of money, as well known to all men as the beggar knows his bush.”

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