Notes and Queries, Number 173, February 19, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

One of the most striking predictions occurs in Daniel Baker's Certaine Warning for a Naked Heart , Lond. 1659. After much invective against the evil ways of the metropolis, he proceeds:
A fire, a consuming fire, shall be kindled in the bowels of the earth, which will scorch with burning heat all hypocrites, unstable, double-minded workers of iniquity.... A great and large slaughter shall be throughout the land of darkness where the unrighteous decrees and laws have been founded. Yea, a great effusion of blood, fire, and smoke shall encrease up in the dark habitations of cruelty; howling and great wailing shall be on every hand in all her streets.
Thomas Ellwood disposes of the city in a very summary manner:
For this shall be judgment of Babylon (saith the Lord); in one day shall her plagues come upon her, death , and mourning , and famine, and she shall be utterly burnt with fire; for great is the Lord who judgeth her. — Alarm to the Priests , Lond. 1662.
George Fox also claims to have had a distinct prevision of the fire (See Journal , p. 386., ed 1765.) He also relates the story of a Quaker who was moved to come out of Huntingdonshire a little before the fire, and to—
Scatter his money up and down the streets, turn his horse loose, untie the knees of his breeches, and let his stockings fall down, and to tell the people 'so they should run up and down scattering their money and goods, half undressed, like mad people, as he was a sign to them,' which they did when the city was burning.
Lilly's celebrated book of Hieroglyphicks , which procured the author the dubious honour of an examination before the committee appointed to inquire into the origin of the fire, is well known. In one of the plates, a large city, understood to denote London, is enveloped in flames; and another rude woodcut, containing a large amount of graves and corpses, was afterwards interpreted to bear reference to the Plague. Aubrey seems to be a
little jealous of the renown which Lilly acquired by these productions for he asserts that—