If we were to lie stricken of mortal illness, should we think it a Christ-like act for all men to flee away from us?
But inasmuch as we ought all of us to take every care not to run into needless peril, so must we take every right and reasonable precaution to keep from ourselves and our homes this just but terrible visitation, which God has doubtless sent for our admonition and chastisement." After this preface, Harmer proceeded to tell his household what he had himself resolved upon.

His two apprentices--other than his own son Joseph--were sons of a farmer living in Greenwich; and he purposed that very day to get his sailor son Dan to take them down the river in a boat, that he might deliver the lads safe and sound to their parents before further peril threatened, advising them to keep them at home till the distemper should have abated, and arranging with them for a regular supply of fresh and untainted provisions, to be conveyed to his house from week to week by water, so long as there should be any fear of marketing in the city.

He foresaw that very soon trade would come almost to a standstill.

The scare and the pestilence together were emptying London of all its wealthier inhabitants.

There would be soon no work for either shopmen or apprentices, and he counselled the former, if they had homes out of London to go to, to remain no longer in town, but to take their wages and seek safety and employment elsewhere, until the calamity should be overpast.