Death or otherwise of undoing them And what to do I pray but to commit Idolatry that those ye prefer may set up Imaginations of their own and you as they worship that Calf But you will say This is no Idolatry if so then let it go for Idiotrey and that hath but one Letter difference pray let it go for both as being guilty of both Those Calfs you set up after them you low and run but continue to neglect Gods Ministers whom you will neither hear nor prefer lest you should be converted and so become poor What out of love would you have us with that seeming righteousness zeal and godly party which to be of will certainly prefer us No bewitcht we are with it and for these reasons will be of no other judgement It is you that talk foolishly we profitably And this kinde of Idolatry in all ages hath caused Gods wrath to continue even against his own people How long did these disobediencies keep them from entering into the promised Land which indeed was so near them as we may truely say even at hand Moses goeth but up to the Mount to converse with God the people mutiny and will have him no more govern as King And for Priest and Prophet why not others as well as those God onely had set over them seeing they took too much upon them What is the event of this madness up goes a Calf presently worship it they will they will have Governours and Teachers of their own making as well as a God which shall not take so much upon them yet ruled they will be too but it shall be by themselves Tell not us say they of Gods Mission of your Prophets or Ministers onely we know better he that can do all without book learning or reason then he is sent if so gifted if we like him also it is good warrant Thus your contempt neglect and persecution of those men who undoubtedly would teach you from Heaven and better things than you either hear or practice on earth is another good reason in all ages it hath gone for a good one And yet one of your little ones must not be offended but if he cries and bawls for the life and estate of the most considerable in the Kingdom to please it must be given him or them Babes of Grace for you say the fat of the earth is for you the seeming Saints But you shall finde and know too anon God will do something for the thus persecuted but penitent Sinners Turn you turn you you great Hypocrites and you shall see these things come to pass in a short time And therefore gave I that Text to that worthy Doctor Mollines to let you all see that he which covers his sins shall not prosper but who confesseth and forsakes them shall find mercy and there is the reason It is true that good man Mr. Evans goes on to tell you one fault more an error it may be I think it is I am sure it makes way for a great one in giving the year its beginning from the Conception which should take it from the Birth of our Lord. And because you may fill the world with confusion you keep no day for the Commemoration of that neither which helps to make that ever to be observed good day no otherwise apparent than your charity whose right hand never yet knew what the left did But you trouble me and I long to be rid of you Are not these reasons if you have any for the wise delay of Gods mercies and restore of our so much desired King who if he comes not yet years months of which opinion I am not yet I will wait and believe for God hath said it He whom you have persecuted shall shortly come and that in Honour too and because he sowed in tears he shall reap in joy and bring his sheaves with him Oh! could I but perswade every man that reads me or hears of what the Lord is in mercy doing for these Kingdoms the King and Protestant Religion but to turn to him with all his heart and Soul for that is the taking way in new obedience and to leave no sin unrepented of and no commandment unconform'd unto in sincerity of heart and true obedience you would then All see that suddenly come to pass and be fulfilled in your dayes and eyes which I do as truely believe will come to pass and I shall see it nay I do already and enjoy it also as I do believe the Heavens to be over my head and the Earth under my feet Which if it fail I am content that you take me and put me to death These Reasons given for its Defer I am brought from what I had of Vision or my own Dictates to that which is most certainly Prophesie and the word of the Lord. Which although spoken out of my mouth by my tongue pronounced yet the matter no more my conceptions than I now dictate or write unto you the words or thoughts of the most Remote King or Emperour in the World for I never so much as had things of that nature in my minde Hear the manner and the matter they are both of the Lord To whom be given for ever Honour Praise Glorie Obedience and Thanksgiving Amen O Lord Amen And now before I proceed give me leave to tell you that this Fryday the 5 of August is come to my observe this of Jeremiah the 23 Chap. and the 28 vers The Prophet that hath a Dream let him tell a Dream and he that hath my word let him speak my word faithfully what is the Chaff to the Wheat saith the Lord. O Lord this being thy command I will obey thee So help me God for now I come to thy own words SECT IV. SOme three dayes after I returned the second time from the Lord of Broghills to my Lodging the Widdow Merricks house in Youghal upon the 3 or 4 of January 1653. lying there in bed and having spent most part of that night in Meditation and Prayer rejoycings weepings for of that nature were my weepings the fullest of joy imaginable that indeed I often conceived not feared I might sooner die of an over-joy than any grief In that night I say from lying in my bed I was upon a sudden taken up that is to say made to sit up somewhat bowing and when so I did then with a loud voice somewhat altered from my ordinary speaking pronounce these words which words I say are the words of the Lord of Hosts God Almighty are these There is an end of all the Wars in the Christian World The Jews shall come in also the Heathen and shall be converted to the true Religion The Church of Rome shall fall The Irish shall not be transplanted This said I was laid down and wondring with my self that I should be thus taken up made to speak what I knew I uttered yet not have any of those thoughts or conceptions in my
convenient place quietly demeaned my self until Sermon was ended Here I cannot but observe to you that although Doctor Mollines had his Sermon in readiness yet by reason of a sore throat preached not but the ordinarie Lecturer for that day And yet as if he had been in some measure privy to my Prophesie and Intentions which be could not be his Sermon was very much for amendment of life And observe also he did that Enoch and Elias were translated into heaven having walked with God and kept his commandments on earth so that as I after observed to him his Sermon seemed to me to be a Prophesie of a Prophesie But I have had many of these to my consolation as formerly observed from a mercifull God Sermon ended I then desired the people to stay and suffer me a few words I told them I had to communicate unto them which was certainly of the Lord consisting of Dream its observe and interpretation Vision also and Prophesie all of the Lord. I then reached to me the Church Bible kissed it and did promise upon that holy Evangelist I would not speak other to them than I did believe the Lord had spoken to me no man living ever dictating a word to me or disposing me thereunto nor now to this which as I could not do other then but speak so now here but publish by Printing unto them and all those concerned of the World Begin I did as you have heard declared my Dream its Interpretation my Vision and other dictates of mine own which I penned not yet so to them related as here recited the Prophesie I read to them as I wrote it verbatim the morning after the Lord caused me to speak it When I came to proclaim the King away goes the Governor Colonel Saunders after him the Major of the Corporation When of the Protestant Religion I spake and the flourishing of that again and how that none should ever prevail that rose up against the word of God and his Discipline now to be established and his Sword also put into the hand of his King CHARLS STUART away goes as I conceive the disaffected to both for certainly Congregations are now adays made up of Goats and Tares lovers of our selves we are more than God and yet be we must together until the Harvest come then the Prophesie as the most sure written word of God tels you the Goats must to the left when the Sheep onely go to the right hand Chaff and Tares to their own home In this Church although a Sermon-day but one Servant of the Earl of Corks not one of the Lord of Broghills as I saw and remember and why that one and who must that Servant be but my Cosin their Secretarie one whom they knew I loved and would be much ruled by Well how governs he I suspect by their order too he comes to me almost as soon as I was entered upon what I intended and had to do desires me to desist weeps to me I refuse him he after pulls me by the Cloak and Arm uncivil more than enough hales me by both prayes and weeps to have me out I took faster hold told him if they would burn me they might but I would not stir from that place nor from that imploy of the Lords untill I had done that work the Lord commanded me of his Then crying like a great yet Childish Kinsman he went away whilest I was over-joyed being so well rid of him so thanking God I went quietly on to do all I intended to a word without any other violence offered me Yet my Congregation grew very thin in the end It is the unhappiness of these times that where He stands up that is not sent thither the people run to which ill advised we may fitly use that of the Spaniard who when he sees one do so observe saith he what haste that man makes to leave his wits behinde him Yet to the comfort of those that hold out to the last though but a few if in well-doing the blessing is to them But its prayers must remedy this not conceits the loving kindness of the Lord must do it Which when he shall be pleased to restore to us wiser Teachers we may then hope to see In the mean time it calls for our prayers and tears that we see it not It was a witty one of long since deceased Mr. Shuit officiating in Lombard street I heard it from him indeed he married me may his memory and his works ever live in us in a Sermon complaining of these Times which he foresaw hastning upon us for such are the true Prophets of the Lord and therefore as I conceive called Seers The age is now grown so Chimical said he that from a Tailers shop-board or Weavers loom we have those now will extract Learning enough to stand 3 hours in a Pulpit before an apron'd giddy Auditory with applause too that should a wise Man put his head in at the Church-dore he would judge the Famine to be very sore among us to see an Asses head valued at so many pieces of silver Mais donne aux ausnes le Chardons let Asses feed on Thistles But I must go on Of a like nature was one I heard praying in the Pulpit for a Reformation in those over-active times dispairingly say How can we hope for it to Gods glory when there is not one in our Universities or Cathedrals but what are Factors for that Whore of Babylon Sure he was never there he was so ignorant mistake me not I mean the University if otherwise give him the Whet-stone having thus preach'd for it Truely I would not make these Aberrations but for this Reason There was with me all the time of my imprisonment at Youghall and a prisoner also a person of great Honour as I firmly believe M. David Rooche the Eldest Son of the Viscount Lord Rooche a Gentleman of very great integrity and faithfulness where trust and devoir lies upon him He is a great Devotery and admirer of the Church of Rome and hath often told me how like I was to be deluded because part of my Prophesie was that the Church of Rome should fall which he laboured to have me believe the Gates of Hell should never prevail against as being what Christ promised to his Church That being it and no other He told me We could shew no Church neither were we any since fallen from them the onely Conspicuous in all ages visibly shining as upon an hill That with him was the strength of his argument any thing that ever was in Ours that looked like a Church see because it was but like one how God had now annihilated that also And for the Preachers of our Church as we would have the World yet misbelieve we were a Church now amongst us what were they but men unsent who filled the world with Schismes Falshood Heresie strange and lying Opinions few or none of them agreeing whereas Unite was the best devote
taken up into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ that never shall have end These are the very words of this the Lords Prophesie his almighty dictatings of which words and their strangeness I may say as the prophet Zacharia did in a vision the Lord gave him referring to the rebuild of his Temple restore of his worship and delight in his service to which all are enjoyned to be assisting begging and inviting them as mine doth first to seek the Kingdom of Heaven his glory worship and service on earth This Prophet Zacharia in the 5. verse of that 4. Chapter you may there read having seen that Vision was asked by the Angel of the Lord if he knew what the Vision shewed him was he answered no my Lord. A second time he answered the very same words in the 13 verse no my Lord read on and you shall finde informed he was by the Angel that Prince and Nobels the High Priest and the other Priests under him are the Persons the two Olive Trees betoken and the Candlesticks there lighted let us see the perfection of beauty and brightness the Lord will have to be in his house Certainly where holiness is commanded beauty richness and decency were never forbidden in the house of God And now to do this doth not the two green Olive Trees on each side drop golden Oil to carry on the work King House of Peers Bishops Priests Deacons see here all your duties Prince Priest people must be assisting with purse and hand to the rebuild of Gods house for his publick Worship and service which when done nay doing observe how he blessed the Land never the like before for peace and plenty And here learn also not to wonder if I yet know not in what manner to understand those words they shall never die There was a time untill the Angel gave that so emiment Prophet to understand what himself did reply to he understood not A Prophesie is a wonder sent to posterity least they complain of want of wonders it is a letter sealed and sent which to the bearer sometimes is but Paper but to the receiver and opener is full of power To such another non ultra was the Prophet Daniel brought in his 12. Chapter and the 8. verse where he saith I heard but I understood not what should be the end of these things the next verse tells that Prophet the words were closed up and sealed untill the end the last verse of that Chapter assures him he shall stand in the Lot at the end of the dayes A thousand difficulties might arise out of the particularities of so strange a message as all this his Prophesie is yet observe when things of such nature have been dictated to the most blessed Saints in holy writ as our ever blessed Lady and others from these we hear of no more objections no more interrogations The faithfull heart when it once hears or knows the good pleasure of God Almighty argues no more but sweetly rests in a quiet expectation Behold the servant of the Lord be it unto me according to thy word And thus without all sciscitation we are to go blind-fold whither he will lead us All disputations with God after his will known arise from infidelity Great is the mystery of Godliness and if we will give nature leave to cavil we cannot be Christians as good B. Hall observes T is true we read in holy Writ that wise valiant and good Kings and other persons of Honour have been so eminently just holy communicably good to all here on earth as of them it is said They shall not die Nay we see their renown lives now That is the meaning of not dying there in one place and though to wicked mens sense such Godly persons seem to die as in the book of Wisdom the 3 Ch. second verse yet it did but seem to them so dead they are not their renown shall never die Again we read of Enoch and Elias those good Prophets so lived they with God though here on earth as that he took them to himself most miraculously by translation never suffering them to lie buried in the earth nor their bodies to return to dust whose Souls were all heavenly mindedness and conversation so continually above that the took their bodies thither also they did never die Be it in either of these two senses here is as much honour happiness as mortality is capeable of agreeable to thy word O Lord it must be or it can never stand nor as I believe come to pass But my hand is upon my mouth thy will be done and by man for ever be thou praised O Lord and now seeing the events of things are the best commentaries upon Prophesies the best way for these eighteen persons all others is to walk with God as Enoch did all his dayes on earth in a Godly sorrow for sin weeping for his own and others and then taken up into Heaven also they may be as Enoch was who never died but was translated into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ that never shall have end You have heard what the Lord is doing The conversion of the Jews and Heathen at hand also the downfall of the Church of Rome things mighty strange and wonderfull which to pass he will bring for his own glory name and mercies sake making these things marvellous in our eyes And did he not also formerly work wonderfull things that we Gentiles might be wrought upon to come into the knowledge of his Law whose fulness is now with the Jews to come in The Heathen a people that have not heard of the Scriptures the Jews not believing in the Gospel who although the beloved seed of Abraham to whom the promise is for conversion yet an obstinate crooked and wilfull generation Even to convert Schismaticks we may also look for signs in or from Heaven all whose conversion we have little hopes to see effected otherwayes than by signs wonders in or from Heaven For this sixteen hundred years past the Gospel not heard of by the one not heeded by the other who remembers not our selves cost our Saviour deer and many wonders he did before the people would confess him the Son of God in Heaven signs on earth opening the Graves the dead bodies shewing themselves to those that knew them himself ascending up into Heaven also in the presence of many witnesses need of all for conversion I have done But remember Reader and all you that hear of what the Lord is doing and bringing by his Almighty power of his good will to pass in the World for the honour of his name and this professed Protestant Religion and good of such as fear him Take warning go not on in your sins break off by speedy and unfeigned repentance and practice you as well as invite others to a more holy obedience than ever least that when God giveth deliverance to his Church and people you be found to be of the number
long since it was so All these together were grounds I say more than enough to beseech God for redress to a distracted people and a divided Land This Fryday I repaired to that Church of Lismore in it and places fit for Contempaltion I passed that day Saturday I could not but return thither again and there pen the subject matter of my prayer on that Thursday afternoon also my Dream that night And decline I must not nay could not to impart all so penned to the now most Honourable Earl of Cork and his so well accomplished Countess And home I must press them forthwith to re-build that Church of Lismore The reasons cannot but be good and many who considers the Lord should be publickly served and the people well instructed from the mouth of him whose lips should preserve knowledge and tongue speak a word in due season Such men are the men certainly sent and deputed by God himself for the better turning of sinners from the evil of their wayes to serve the everliving God His Temple 's the fittest place also where holiness is injoined us Beauty and decency not forbidden To this Earl and Countess of Cork I apply my self in their Garden and private Bed-Chamber they were pleased to hear me to the full I may not here omit to let you know that in the morning of that very day when going to pray for Gods guidance in this his business of rebuilding his House to his own glory and good of others and haveing omitted that morning to read any part of the Scriptures or Psalms appointed for the day the reading of Gods Word first a good way to prepare for acceptable devotion and praying aright from my knees I rose took the Bible and there opened to me the Prophet Haggai which tied my eye upon the place a Scripture God be mercifull to me I was not at all acquainted with Thus opened I could not go on to Devotion nor to read the Psalm untill I had read that Prophet out being but two Chapters directed and over-ruled as I firmly then and now believe by God Almighty For in the whole Book of God there is not any place fuller for the business I had in hand It is well worth your and all mens observe and retention that have too low esteem of Gods House But what speak I of too low esteem Indeed none at all that good is of the Churches or Temples built and set apart to the glory for the publick Worship and Service of God Humble men they seem to be A Stable or Kitchin will serve their turns and truely good enough too for many who have the impudence to abuse Gods House and endeavour there to seduce the more ignorant sort of people These Schrich-Owls cannot well endure the light of his House therefore have they their corners and sculking places A judicious and publick Auditory who love the place where his Honour dwelleth which they best love to frequent and thither go with prepared hearts to learn that they may understand what 's fit to practice These will not be decoyed by them With those it matters not what becomes of the House of God Yet observe and remember I beseech you what that Prophet Haggai there gives for reason of all the evils that were sent and continued upon the Land The not-building of Gods House The lying of that waste caused the Lord to have no delight in the people He there adviseth and enjoyns to rebuild his House then he assures them he will dwell with them and bless them beyond all compare nay he will take pleasure in them verse the 8. He there goes on He will shake the Heavens the Earth the Sea and the dry Land All is his to his for the glory of his House that he will fill with his own glory and bless the Land with peace and plenty such as was never seen untill the building or laying of that Foundation From that very time he blesseth them when they rebuild his House for his publick worship and service The Lord makes that a business fit for the imploy of another Prophet also the Prophet Zechary Of so much concernment you see it is with God But lest these things being Old Testament we should conclude they concern us not under the Gospel so wicked are we grown and so out of love with any thing that costs us ought in the Service of God or is most to his glory and honour that as any place is good enough so indeed any Calf fit to offer Thus shift we off the thing in which our happiness most lies that we may make our selves most miserable Foolish men why consider we not that Christs Courts on earth are his Churches And in representation thereof he hath a Throne in the midst of his Temple and sits thereon before whom all fall down and worship But these times call for our lamentation nay deep mourning for in this business we deal with the House of God and his Worship although we pretend much to both as Amnon dealt with his sister Tamar first Ravish her then Defile her and after turn her out of doors But to return Truely I could not but commend those two short but most full Chapters of this Prophet Haggai to that so Honourable Earl and Countess for the better dispose of them whose affairs of concernment are wisely managed by joynt consent Their quick discern a far off and sound judgement at home give them great advantages for the well-ordering of all their affairs Who having heard me out before I once so much as pressed them to it the Earl met me with this readiness to the work My Father intended the building of that Church I will do it It is onely by me for a short time deferred untill these troubles blow over or time afford a better opportunity for the carrying on of the work for the rebuild of which Church I have many things already fitted c. I most heartily wish and do so pray that there might be found in all men this readiness to make themselves happy here and so certainly bless'd hereafter You have the way love Gods House the place where his Honour dwells also his Ordinances with sound judgement and you cannot but be beloved of him When David and Solomon think to build God an House to his glory worship and service and do so see how the Lord declares himself in the second of Samuel to the 14. that he will establish their Houses for ever And are not the best of Kings the best of Patterns in Gods service who can and will do for thee also so governing or assisting to his glory as shall be most for thy lasting Honour and happiness here but everlasting hereafter Thus ends all then done most happily in nothing disappointed which God put me upon This happy day was Fryday March the 11. 1652. SECT II. A Short time after I fell into several sicknesses and diseases of that Countrey so that most of the following
like that of the Apostle Peter when the Prison door was set open for him and his Irons fell off so was the effect of that Call Come away the doors are opened to me the very next day But close up my mouth O Lord I may not complain every defer of thine is as my self suspended for a further good I know it thy own time and workings have none like them Thou wilt make discoveries of men and let us see as well who would be good if there were no law as who would practice wickedness by a law doth not God Almighty put us often into his sive several wayes also discovering the Wheat from the Chaff pray we must believe we must that all works for the best to them that fear God and patiently abide his good pleasure Return I must go on to my former intentions yet this believe me in you worthies of Parliament this insert was not begot by either of the Protectors two speeches to your good selves for I take God Almighty to witness I had not then read either of them Inlarged from Prison I gather in all my material papers as commanded which were not a few I now see them of very great concernment for the carrying on of this work I believe I wrote in Prison then twice as much as this Book and twice over also This Call thus directing Come away bring your Papers come away was certainly of God Well my self gotten out of Prison and my Papers gotten into my possession I hasten for England and in Easter week 1654. came to my own house where I now do and have resided twenty years being in Broadstreet near the Church over against Gresham Colledge at which Church once but not long enough officiated that so eminent and renowned Doctor Oldsworth but thank you invisible Parliament and such Oakes our then wicked Governours you sequestred imprisoned and destroyed him as you did hundreds and thousands of others God sent unto you of which you were unworthy but you could not help it the Jews your brethren did so persecute those sent unto them and aud truely you could not but follow the worst of examples the best are to be conformed to by these which are wiser men and therefore a true Parliament You long since as your actions have been the dishonour of the Protestant Religion and the Nation all the World over and future times will never call you a sober Parliament but as we desire not to believe you were English men so well constituted Parliaments for time to come will look upon you as upon Lots wife a lasting monument of her shame for looking towards Sodom when God had set her face towards salvation But I go on SECT VI. HAving passed a few dayes in my house I could not be in longer quiet untill I took me a lodging near Saint Jame's his house attending all opportunities and possible means to speak with the General whom not meeting with I wrote unto him several times to give him to understand that I had received of the Lord the most considerable and highest things imaginable to communicate to his good self being therein concerned as much as any and to whom from prison in Youghall God had pleased to send me for that very purpose therefore besought him to hear me After much attendance and not a few disappointments I had first at White-Hall the opportunity onely to speak to him made my self known to him but he had not the conveniency at that time to hear me in the things I so much desired yet then told me he would speak with me That further opportunity I had not though continued seeking it it and reminded him by Letters of his promise untill one Saturday in June a little before the death of the Portugal when and where it pleased Almighty God to afford me a most convenient one at Hampton Court and his Lordship there pleased to hear me out to the full affording me both his patience and attention too as I firmly believe There was present Sr. Gilbert Pickering and a Gentleman or two more whom I knew not for all which I returned as in duty Obliged first to God next to his Lordship all possible prayers and humble thanks And now least any thing might scape his Lordships observe which it is possible did my recital he hath this second review of it but printed more particularly for the World of men in it so highly concerned for I cannot be quiet untill to them I publish it also this being a light not to be hid the universal splendor of the Protestant Religion must break forth also the obedience of men to the Lord who I conceive and believe is now coming in mercy and wayes of making himself known to the Christian World Jews and Heathen in mercy but in judgement to others for the evil doer shall not abide in this so great and wonderfull a change On earth whom is the Lord pleased to make his Viceroy for rule his favour and loving kindness is the highest to our King CHARLS the Second CHARLS the Great CHARLS the good King of the whole World these are the words and declared pleasure of the ever living and our most mercifull God which I dare not conceal nor longer keep uncommunicated but must publish them to all concerned to have an end of all the Wars in the Christian World with the rest in the Prophesie is certainly considerable I confess after I had wrote to the General I could not but also do so to his Majesty my King the import of both refers onely to my duty in the discharge of which I onely can have quiet The Original of all Letters to them I have being to each five in all ten in any of them not the least thing advised to but as I conceive and so believe the minding both of them to the perform of such their duties as are most acceptable with God Almighty the one how to rule well the other so to obey things the most to be desired of good Kings good Subjects of which I wish the whole world were made up of I have therefore in the end of the book given two of those Letters to publick view that at once my inward thoughts may appear to the excite of walking as best becomes the most excellent of Kings and the highest of Subjects where the meanest also have to observe that in fearing God and honouring their King they are blest here and ever so to be hereafter omitting it miserable to all eternity From which sin of Rebellion because compared with that of witchcraft we have good reason to pray The Lord be pleased to deliver us especially when covetuousnes is joyned therewith the root of all evil sins which some men therefore will have the World justly condemned as a Witch in the end to be burnt because it and its lying vanities hath so bewitched us as to prefer them before the ever living God and our walking according to his
of all to love true Religion your just interest brotherly love in which onely we can be happy in that good way and best example I beseech God be you the first and most eminent I may not doubt of it for whom God Almighty hath reserv'd nay declared such everlasting loving kindnesses Sir I do truely tell you I could with the most ardent desire greatest hazard endeavoured to have hang'd or murdered all your Enemies but God hath reproved me I can now do nothing with more delight than to pray for them yet let 's not trust them that 's a folly I beseech God to deliver us from the wisdom of the Serpent is not denied though the innocency of the Dove be injoyned both most excellent for imitation Sir I have no intelligence more than with the common it is believed that some dayes since from Holland came expresses of the confirmation of peace I believe after this summer within a short time there will be an end of all the Wars in the Christian world Sir I have seen letters reporting your affairs at Ratisbon to be well advanced and in good condition humane wisdom the strength of allies and confederates for the probable carrying on or promoting of your just interest may not be neglected or refused but Sir I do hope Nay believe that the Almighty will do this great work for the good of all without bloudshed if we give over to abuse his mercy and provoke not his wrathfull indignation then for his mercy honour name sake he hath promised to bring all these things to pass for you this Land Protestant Religion and although mighty strange and wonderfull these things are yet he will do it for the reasons above and it shall be marvelous in our eies as in my first Papers you have it at full consisting of ten sheets numbred in the margent as they should be read Sir the time is now at hand in May you shall see the fulfilling of another part of that Prophesie which the Lord was pleased to have spoken by me his most unworthy Servant and Prophet the not transplanting of the Irish Nation I beseech you Sir let Doctor Earls first read my Letters for I spell ill write ill and point not well he is a good man let him also chuse your Clergie and be you Sir advised by him God Almighty be pleased to preserve you give you abundantly of his grace mercie and wisdom and with it all things that good is Sir So prayes the humblest and unworthiest of the servants of the Lord my God and you my King April 21. 1654 Walter Gostelo My second Letter to the PROTECTOR O. C. Most excellent Sir MY belief as my hopes is that what your Lordship was pleased to say unto me I shall in the best fittest time reap the speaking with you I did return to my Lodging at Saint James the Tuesday I promised your good self but there I met with this affront as to have it disposed of in my absence contrary to my order and expectations affronts in other places also Indeed Sir I meet with little else but aversness to good in men I have since expected your Lordships Command or the happiness of seeing you neither yet come to hand or eye did not the goodness of God from the mouth of such as his Providence guided me to hear Preach let me see what I am to expect from man though of my own Religion my Spirits would fail me the Jews so ill treated the Prophets sent to them in their times and we no better follow their bad examples My Lord be not backward to hear and consider the great good the Lord is pleased to do and bring to pass for the honour of the Protestant Religion the general good of all men amongst whom more particularly our Soveraign CHARLS STUART and your good self so sure as the Heaven is over my head and the Earth under my feet I do believe his Majesty and some others of which number you are to be blest with long life honour as much as mortality is capable of here everlasting happiness hereafter My Lord as these things are the decree of heaven so are they to all assured the strongest Obligations of the strictest obedience upon Earth I have already wrote to my King I could not do otherwayes First to let him know what God is pleased to assure shall be done for him next to minde him of his dayly duty how that without holiness no man shall ever see the face of God to his comfort Further that he forgive all his Fathers Mothers and his own Enemies for no man yet ever lost by referring all to God in this he will best imitate his glorified Father certainly in Heaven who prayed dying for forgiveness to those that put him to death For the remitting of the highest injuries we have the best of patterns our Lord himself My Lord if I have any other end than the glory of God the honour of the Protestant Religion the discharge of my duty to the command of my God in my desire to speak with you then do thou O Lord whom I believe hath deputed me to these very ends never suffer me to see your face Therefore good my Lord be not backward to let me speak with you which done as God shall direct I shall afterwards haste as concerned into other Kingdoms to those in Ireland and this when communicated to your good self I have done my duty and shall I presume then have quiet and after see the fulfill of all to Gods glory who for his name and mercy sake hath assured me he will bring it to pass and it shall be marvelous in our eyes My Lord I ever shall continue to pray that God would bless and preserve you to the overcoming of all your Enemies but more especialy your corruptions So prayes the unworthiest of the Lords servants and yours S r Walter Gostelow At my house in Broadstreet May 25. 1654. A POST-SRIPT MY Lord be pleased to allow this Post-script I dare not omit it your Lordship hath heard me and now read my Prophesie I believe divers others also that of Elenor Channel who was sometimes taken dumb a Prophesie very highly considerable failing out in a time much about mine the matter one with mine sent upon that imploy of the Lords to your good self as most considerable in this Kingdom disquieted as I was untill she had communicated or made known the whole to you onely addressed Now because it is so very full and falls in such a conjuncture of time with mine and but short I have printed it at the end of this My Lord I well remember you were pleased after the good Admonition given me to serve God and to walk according to his will revealed in his word to let me understand your self formerly had and now lately also some things presented unto you which were since come to pass also but to rely on Visions or Revelation we
CHARLS STUART AND OLIVER CROMVVEL UNITED Or Glad tidings of PEACE To all Christendom To the Jews and Heathen Conversion To the Church of Rome certain downfall The Irish not to be TRANSPLANTED Extraordinarily declared by God Almighty to the Publisher Walter Gostelow Psalm 85. vers 10. 13. Mercy and Truth are met together Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other and shall set us in the way of his steps Printed for the Author 165â— OF GOD. C. R. RESTORED AND OLIVER CROMVVEL BLESSED READER TO Dedicate this Book to any other than to whom God Almighty hath directed it I dare not it is first to all you Christian Kings and Princess more especialy our own Charls Stuart and therein it shews you That when you govern best and most pleasing to the will of the Almighty whose Vice-Royes you are And of him made rulers on Earth for the general good you then live in a general Peace into which happy condition he hath now put you that his Temples may be rebuilded his Worship and his Ministers restored with what hath been stollen from both also your Subjects Gods people well educated in his houses by his Ministers sent in the wayes of Justice Peace and Holiness without which no man shall ever see the face of God to his comfort next it shews you that the so antiently beloved Seed of faithfull Abraham the Jews are now in his best times remembred and brought into the Faith of Christ our Lord the onely Son of God whom they Crucified the fulness of the Gentiles coming in with them also to the knowledge of his Gospel his that is the onely Shilo the onely Messia by the Heathen not yet heard of by the Jews hoped for he I say comes to both making himself known in such a manner as they expect not most strange wonderfully affording them his Vice-Roy Charls Stuart for their Defence Protection he professing that Gospel now to be Preached to the whole World against whose rule and Gospel none shall ever prosper that Rebels Disobeyeth or Schismatically riseth up therefore is the Church of Rome at this time sentenced to certain down-fall The Church of Rome shall fall The poor Irish whom wicked men would have transplanted upon the same principles as obdurate Pharoah would not let the children of Israel go covetuousness and hard-hartedness God doth continue in their own Land yea under his and their own Kingly Government also to the joy of their hearts That Nation being neither such a Bear as we misapprehended them nor their skin fit to be sold by us that did it before warrant is given from God to deliver it they shall not be transplanted God now shews us That wicked Rebellion was the design contrive of a few in that bloudy and ever Rebellious Church of Rome not the allowance of the Nation this also God shewed unto our now happy and glorious King in Heaven whilest good on Earth it is proved to you in his Letters taken at Naseby written to her Majesty My Heart you will finde the Irish with you Knaves they might deceive the one they could not deceive the other And since that how hath God fully cleared their Majesties as now the Nation from any allowance of that hideous Rebellion Own it Church of Rome it will match well with the Gun-powder Treason thou didst both as many others Thy Nuntio was in Ireland yet thou shalt fall Hath not God made his late Majesties abominating that wicked act clear as the day to be none of his ollowance you know or may That Sr. Phillemon O'neal upon his Trial at Dublin though pusillanimous and timed in all other things yet when he was to give an account from whence he had his Commission God sent him a courage gave him abilities to speak boldly and truely to Gods glorie the honour of the Protestant Religion and the Kings just Vindication he took Heaven and Earth to witness he had neither Commission from King or Queen for that Rebellion he affirmed that himself with others of the Roman stamp made them that he might play the best of his own Game it further appears in that Oath imposed on those he subdued to his own obedience These are things I have had from very good hands when my self at Dublin but that Traitor was executed a little before I came thither Now see what God doth who is the searcher of all hearts the King is in Heaven the Queen declared for Heaven the Nation not to be transplanted the contrivers and aspersers of both gone to their own home or truely discovered to us by the Lord who now throws down that wicked Church Well you shall now see we must all live together in brotherly love under Kingly Government also but you will say how can these things be considering what manner of Persons we have been this book will shew you It proceeds onely from the good pleasure and mercifull loving kindness of the Almighty The Lord hath made our Salvation not our destruction his glory when all we thy people O God had sinned beyond any help then O Lord thou sayest lo I come But after how wonderfull a manner and how certain our deliverance is read and know Actions salved up with a free forgiveness are as not done and as a bone once broken is much stronger after well setting so is love after reconcilement God forgives us our iniquities and in mercy restores us our King again who deals with us being guided of God as Joseph did with his brethren when onely of God made ruler in Egypt and had power to punish according to their demerit then he treats them kindly following the example of our Lord. He forgives all past injuries he loades them with good things he weeps over them when he tells them he is Joseph least they not seeing his heart might doubt of their forgiveness he drops Tears as Bloud from pitying eyes and heart they well knew what themselves had been to him unfaithfull brethren and it s not improbable when they saw themselves by God cast under his power and dispose they might fear tremble and expect the reward of so high demerit for the affronts they had put upon Joseph But least such fears should too much sadden their unquiet Souls he weeps over them more abundantly imbraceth them afresh gives them all they stood in need of and doth not so much as once remember them of the evil measure they had dealt him so allows them no ground at all to suspect their safety whose injuries he had fully forgiven Most happy Re-union meeting that sweetens more in its return than it imbitâ—ered in its absence Protection my book commands not craves under Oliver Cromwel Protector also his conformity thereunto yet I beseech both God hath now declared him to be beloved first in Heaven as you shall read then of his King CHARLS STUART and all good men on Earth the Almighty both deputed him to be highly instrumental for the bringing of
great and strange things to pass in this Kingdom and Christian World which God will make marvelous in our eyes As the promote of the Protestant Religion and Honour of his King I may not detain you longer nay I dare not from Gods word of Prophesie in this Book agreeable to his own in nothing contrary Proclaim it I must to all concerned and so I do though the unworthiest of my Lords servants a faithfull Communicator of his mercifull loving kindness I am commanded to be unto all the Sons and Subjects of the Protestant Church and Gods Vice-Roy on Earth CHARLS STUART To the Church of Rome and the Rebellious faithfull will I also shew my self that Church shall fall and no Rebellion ever prosper God hath said it and if it come not to pass put me to Death I may not for fear or favour be unfaithfull to my trust that is a sacriledge of the highest nature and therefore in spite of the Devil or danger I tell you wickedness shall not longer prosper on Earth Did not the ground open and swallow quick those first Rebels and Schismaticks Corah Dathan and Abyram and did not Absolons Mule in the midst whilst he was acting of his Rebellion go from under him leaving him hanging by the head Such shall no more prosper than their Church of Rome which shall fall good men shall be Honourable and rule but for the ungodly whilest I pray for their conversion I fear their confusion WALTER GOSTELO THE Protestant RELIGION more conspicuously glorious than ever the Defendors of that Faith CHARLES STEWART and OLIVER CROMVVEL United Sect. I. HAving past from Bristol the Seas and much foul weather in December 1652. I arrived at Cork Where I heard the sentence of death pronounced upon some 30 or more of the Irish Gentry and others for several Barbarous Murders by them committed The last that spoke from the Bench to those unhappy men after sentence of death read unto them was the Lord of Broghill Who well minded them that they were not proceeded against upon the accompt they shed our blouds either as we were English men or else because not of their Religion both unwarrantable We should not kill him we conceive out of the way but rather shew him the way to walk in 'T was murder justly condemned them to suffer not rash zeal with which God is not well pleased who would that all men should live and come to the knowledge of his truth But for the Murderer the Law of God was he should die for it So they suffered not as they were Irish or Roman Catholicks This I could not but observe passing the rather because it tended in that so mixt Assembly highly to the setting right the judgement as I conceive to the glorie of God And indeed the first I ever saw or heard pronounced from those new erected High-Courts of Justice Against which I have heard so many bitter Invectives that they were like Hell from whence is no returning There it was not so where I also saw many acquitted From thence my business commanded me to Youghill in March following A season more fit for travel and observance I removed from thence to Lismore 11 miles off cituate upon the Black-water A Seat very ancient and not a little eminent and honourable Where having well viewed the improvements and good contrivances of the late deceased Earl of Cork who had there purchased caused to bebuilt made many fair and commodious Seats governing in the well mannage of Affairs as born for the publick good for so he was communicable to the imploy of the poor to the improve of those Lands to the good example of others and to the honour of this Nation That had not War prevented and death put an end to his dayes both broken in upon us as a stream too violent to withstand those inundations of evil heightened by our sins and follies of all sorts the onely inlets of all Gods judgements upon us it might be presumed before this time it had in some measure risen again from the ashes which former Wars I conceive had buried it in A very fair strong built Scholehouse with Almes-houses on both sides of it that Earl lived to finish there And now I believe he really intended to re-build the Church So that like Him that was a man after Gods own heart in this he followed him that he loved the place where his Honour dwelleth And therefore he would so provide for it that in publick he might be worshipped and that youth might early be taught the wayes of godliness Thus being instrumental to well-accomplish them he might best serve God and his Nation in being communicably good to all the end for which we were born This observing I sometimes was prone to think That what he happily begun might in future time by his posterity and others be carried on to the making it what is to be desired and what it once was as informed an University So conveniently is it situate naturally affording the delights and good accommodations that may best commode serve and adorne an University As also that part of the Land in regard of its being well inhabited and remoteness from Dublin called for and stood much in need of the Church indowments being there and thereabouts full for incouragement and invitation fit to help on with so good and pious a work were not the possessors of those profits more lovers of themselves than lovers of God and his service Is it reasonable that our Fore-fathers certainly out of love and zeal 't is possible not misguided too should so largely give and endow for the Glorie Worship and Service of God Almighty and we who have more inlarged Fortunes should have more streitened hearts and more cruel hands Indeed onely strongly bent alwayes ready to pull down and by Thieving Sacriledge Covetousness which is the root of all evil make that ours which neither God Man or law ever meant should Nay they have all forbid it with a curse to the Robber which in the end will prove that Cursed Thing that will make us and our posterity most miserable A Cole from that Altar fires all our ill gotten nay other goods or else fits us and our Posterity for the slaughter which is the end of the ill-advised Into the remain of this Church of Lismore Thursday the 3 of March 1652. I came as well might for it had neither door to keep out the unclean beasts nor in it any thing becoming a House set apart for the worship and service of God Almighty as inform'd this Church had belonging to it 8 thousand pounds per Annum before the War Out of it I often hunted Beasts of several sorts which indeed by their dung recreating themselves in the ruins of it had help to make it with their fellows more like a Den of Thieves than a House of God This seeing I could not but lament and did there kneel down and supplicate God Almighty not
to suffer us longer who pretend to the most and best of Piety to carry on a War and continue such actions as should prove so scandalous to the Protestant Religion deterring from the profession of it Such as there lived among us who could not certainly be drawn to the profession of it by our so bad example living as it were like men of dispositions onely born to cruelty and irreligion Beseeching that he would be pleased to return to us in mercy set every mans sins in order before his face to the detest of them resolving never to return to folly And that of his goodnes he would cast theÌ„ all behind his back that we might once more come into the Houses built for his Worship and Service with prepared hearts devout Souls forgiving one the other all desirous to be taught of God that we might live hereafter more according to his will revealed in his word and so knowing his good pleasure we might readily apply our selves to do it Further that the Ministers appointed to officiate in those places might be men sent from God who understanding his word aright might to us so divide it And that we might all harmoniously agree together not onely to Preach and talk down Sin but that we might all live for the time to come to serve him in sincerity of heart and in the beauty of holiness So that others observing Gods mercies towards us and our amendments towards him might also with us be drawn to glorifie our Father which is in Heaven Sometime of that Thursday after-noon I spent in that Remain of Church so praying meditating and reading and could not do otherwise Indeede the more I prayed the more I wept the more I wept the more I joyed and from my Devotions I remember not that I ever went away with a better return being very highly comforted and so assur'd that God would hear and have mercie and from thenceforth and in that place bless me giving me for consolation that a well-guided zeal for his House Worship and Service made great our own and establish'd it also That night I went home to a little House I then and there lodged at and had this dream Me thought there was a very gross and thick Darkness over the face of the whole Earth dark beyond compare I then heard a very terrible Thunder which more affrighted me and looking up to Heaven I saw a glimering Light not clear about the bigness and of the proportion of a round Table some two yards over In that Light there appeared to me as the Body of an Oak about a yard long Root it had not nor Top nor Leaves nor Fruit Full of Sangs it was and offensive Knots not fit for Timber or other use than the Fire This soon vanished yet the darkness continued but grew greater than the â—ormer and the Thunder answerable indeed so terrible that it seemed to me to waken and rouze up all the people of the Land which when risen I prayed in these words O Lord the people are now risen up and stand in readiness to do thy will wouldst thou be pleased to let them know it I beseech thee O Lord give them a sign in Heaven or from Heaven of thy good pleasure and we will readily obey thee There then appeared as formerly such another Light not clearer but bigger and as the former was over our heads about the height or distance of the Clouds having in it such a Body of an Oake as the other in this onely differing 't was bigger and more offensive As we stood thus gazing anon the Heavens began to grow light in the East as approach of day and Sun We standing as it were in the midst of the Kingdom of England the Light encreased and came on And with it rose and came toward us the most glorious Crown ever eyes beheld the richest for Jewels the most transparently cut every way the beautifullest imaginable Having in it and through it standing as the three Plumes of Feathers in the Princes Arms a bunch of Bayes or small Bay-trees beautifull for verdure bearing Berries as having Root Waiting upon this Crown came many goodly Ships which Crown Bayes and Ships came all along thus together in the Light from the East toward us the people who with fixed eyes stood looking into Heaven All which we perfectly discerning and being come almost over our heads we the people all of us with one voice gladness and consent cried out O Lord we praise thee this is of Heaven we will follow it I then looked behinde me for the former Glimmering Light and Offensive Oake in it and I saw them flying away so fast that immediately they were gone and no more to be seen The people seeing it so gone out of the Heavens reitterated the former words and said all with one consent Come this Crown is of Heaven we will follow it so bowed down and worshipped praising God The Light then went over all the Heavens towards the West and great was the Light the Crown Bayes and Ships continued in the Heavens now light all over After this immediately from the Heavens I heard most sweet and pleasing Sounds as the voice or murmur of many waters and on the Earth shining appeared nothing but Beauty and Plenty amongst the people of the Earth loving kindness and good affections all with one consent praising God Thus ravished with an over-joy I wakened and found my self very wet with tears My greatest joyes and greatest weepings seldom are divided I spent most of that night in Meditation and casting what this dream might import for truely this is but one though the most considerable as I conceive of the many I have had from Heaven demonstrating several things The next day being Fryday a day in the week which for some seven years past I have set apart though not alwayes spent God be pleased to have mercie upon me and forgive me as I ought or should for fasting and examination of my self That as I am one Fryday nearer my end so I may in one measure or another grow fitter for it in regard of the many mercies God Almighty hath been pleased to afford me from my Cradle hitherto As that he hath been pleased to preserve me from the noisom Pestilence from the violence of the War where be pleased to observe I have been committed and taken into custody three times on the Kings side and five times on the Parliaments yet never was in action or imploy on either part from so many great and eminent dangers both by Sea and Land from Men lying in wait particularly for my bloud And lastly that the Lord hath not cut me off in the midst of my sins and already given me my portion with that so sad company in Hell from whence is no returning These were certainly grounds enough for every mans Fasting and Prayer especially living in a Time when wickedness seemed to be practiced by a Law at least it was not
Summer I past in changes from one malady to another At last I broke out into very many Boyls so that I may truely say from the Crown of my Head to my Foot I was furnished with them forty or fifty at a time of all sizes My condition in that and some other things too very like that of Job's which escaped not my observe in a Letter to that so eminently good Countess of Cork beseeching some of her remedies of which she is free and do heal as Balm from her munificent and answerable hand To God Almighty and that Honorable Countess I owe most humble thanks for recovery from my so long and tedious sickness About Michaelmas I went to Dublin in the company and safe conduct of that most Honorable Lord the Lord of Broghill where I stayed untill near Christmas then returned to Youghall After six dayes there I could not be quiet untill I had sapplied my self by Letter to his Lordship giving him to understand I had a Dream at Lismore some 9 moneths past Which Dream together with what Observance or Interpretation God was pleased to put into my heart and minde I was to communicate to him Which I could not decline and therefore besought his Lordship that in his presence and some more persons of Honour in that Letter named he and they would be pleased to lend me half an hours time and their attention The Gout at that time was violent upon his Lordship by reason of which incommode he was disinabled to sit up so that his Lordship was pleased to answer my Letter that for that reason onely he desired my forbearance untill it past over of which when so I should have notice and in presence of these persons desired also admittance so soon as convenient His Lordships Letter I have and reaped what promised a few dayes after Being in his Bed-Chamber Those I desired present I recited my Dream as formerly The Observance or Interpretation I gave thus The customary sins we were guilty of and had unhappily involved our selves in had now begot our security as in the dead of night and sleep from which we were not to be wakened or rowzed but by the Almighty power of God And therefore to let us see our condition and his displeasure for sin whom our Impieties had irritated he therefore came in Thunder to shew us that our seeming righteousness reached not Heaven nearer then the Clouds our pretentions to good went not higher like an Ignis-fatuus they were or a Gloe-worm Light they had but not substantial enough to shew us we were strong as the Oak which we might there see our wicked selves compared to Strong we were to work wickedness Governours and all to which Oak they and we may be compared as in the Prophet Zechary the 11. and the 2. Bad we were of choice so of practice so for works so for offence No Root no Top no Leaf no Fruit not so much as virdure Offensive on all sides in regard of the Snags not fit for Timber such our Governours onely for the Fire such their unprofitableness just like the Stag's horn when the velvet of Hypocricy is fallen from it as most excellently his Majesty observes in his Book which wicked Governours when the people once fail them and truely understand them how unprofitable how offensive how dangerous how hurtfull they would then sufficiently hate them When once as this Oak stript of his bark nakedly seen and well observed then fit onely for the fire I command you read the 3 last verses of the first of Isaiah and see if this Interpretation be not of the Lord yea his own I will give you the words For they shall be ashamed of the Oaks which you have desired Ye shall be confounded for ye shall be as an Oak whose leaf fadeth and the strong shall be as tow and the makers of it as a spark and they shall both burn together Here are the Oaks ye have chosen when ye forsook the Lord. Is not this a Vision and the Interpretation of the Lord I made it before I observed this I now interline it 'T is of God the Interpretation Therefore the Oak abides not having no allowance or establishment from God in Heaven Fly away it doth when the Light and Crown appear To both which they being enemies and haters of God makes them vanish and be no more seen Though they lift themselves as high as the Clouds yet their place is below whither he throws them Of his allowance they are not neither do the people when they desire to do the will of God and he hath opened their eyes to discern aright what is of God as they confess that Light Crown and Bayes they then know the Crown and Him deputed to govern to be onely of God And because it hath its allowance of Heaven with one consent praising God they invite All to what themselves are now convinced of Obedience to Him and It onely and so breaking forth they altogether cry Come this is of Heaven we will follow it And that it may have their best affections and firm allowance they give it their Second the wisest and best Thoughts resolvingly too they reitterate the words Come this is of Heaven we will follow it And so down to God and It and worshiped and praised the Lord. Now although this were and yet is our depraved condition and that we have added wickedness to wickedness and made our selves strong to do so which the Second greater Light with the offensive and unprofitable Oak in it fully implied yet observe the loving-kindness of God Almighty We no sooner got into a frame to beg of him inablements to know his Will resolving then to do it and are gotten into a posture of readiness standing up but He lets us see that his displeasure is blown over The Thunder that ceaseth those wicked Governours as offensive Oaks they are fled the seeming Light that 's annihilated It is his mercie that endures for ever and his Compassion assures us he delights not in the death of a sinner but rather that he would turn from his wickedness and live And thus expostulating with us brings from him this expression Why will ye die O ye house of Israel Repent be ye converted and return from whence ye are fallen the contempt of Gods House and Worship Obedience unto whom I have set over you for good would you but see it did not your continuance in sin blinde your eyes and deprave your understandings yea could not but be happy Bless us he would and that to the full too as he assures us in that Prophet Haggai and divers other places even from that time we rebuild his House and obey whom he hath set over us for good And if thus we would readily apply our selves and herein obey God and our King mark and behold The Heavens they invite you and demonstrate their allowance rejoycing at it by their pleasant sounds the Earth also its gladness
shining with variety of Flowers and abundant Fruitfulness the Seas their over-joy thinking it no burden to their best and well-rigged Ships to give way and bow down that all she brings from forreign and the rich returns of Trade that plough her Ocean may when so loaden in their best dress also wait upon the Crown peaceably attending suffering themselves to be led by it All which they did being Merchant Ships not Men of War And now tell me is it not pitie the greatest too that whom God hath made the more reasonable Creature Man should onely be averse and stand in Rebellion going on in disobedience to his own undoing But I may not complain as anon I shall let you see He also is or shall come in for who can resist when God will have it so He hath in store nay he is now distributing to you the greatest mercy in the world which I dare not longer conceal from all the Sons of Men but more especially from the so much belov'd of the Lord the Seed of Abraham the Jews Here 's the hope of Israel as also to the Heathen towards whom his Compassions fail not and to this our Orthodox true Protestant Religion for the honour of it to the unparalel'd joy of all good mens hearts These things observed I then applied my self to Doctor Mollines who was one of the ten Persons I desired to be present And because I knew him to be a person of good life believed him of sound judgement I made it my beseech to him That in a short time he would be pleased to give us a Sermon upon this Subject or Text He that covers his sins shall not prosper but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall finde mercie For to me it seemed that Gods return is in mercy was onely witheld by our going on in iniquity Here also I may not omit but observe to you that before I came to the Lord of Broghills I was taken from my knees and could not go on to beseech Gods blessing upon what I had to deliver to him untill I turned to the Reading Psalms But as I was cast formerly upon the Prophet Haggai with good success for the rebuild of that Church so here I was cast upon the 84 and 85 Psalms both as full as is imaginable to any that well considers and compares what I observed out of my Dream and desire to the rebuild of Gods House Oh how amiable and how much to be delighted in is thy House how should our Souls long after thy Worship Which when I had read and considered the manner of my being cast upon them having already disputed all I intended or almost all what I would speak to that Company at the Lord Brougills I could not but conclude what I believe every well-observing man will That it was the onely Providence of God Almighty who for my further confirmation gave me those Psalms of Scripture to strengthen me and dispose others to their duty who he was willing should reap the unparalel'd blessings there assured Pray well observe it the one lets you see what desires we should have for the rebuild of worship in Gods House the other his return in mercy blessing the Land when we so fear and serve him Righteousness as that Light shall then go before him Mercy also and Truth shall meet together Righteousness and Peace shall kiss each other and so set us in the way of his steps Full to all Having done all of Interpretation in reference to my Dream I could not pass this lightly over but observe it to them as also how that God had many times shewed me several things in and from Heaven called me to the search and often advised the reading of his Holy Word giving me to understand that by so doing I should be abundantly happy and blessed In particular one time it seemed to me he took me into a great Light when all the World was in darkness he placed on each side of me an Angel of the Lord that on the right hand opened a great Book to me bid me read therein and took an Angel of Gold off that Book into his hand and put it into mine when received I folded my arms and bowed before him believing it was no other but as the Bush of Moses the presence of the Lord He then told me he gave it not to be folded up or hid but to be improved were his Talents given and so advised me to read Another time one night about the hour ten walking at the end of Broad-street in which I then and now live looking up into the Heavens and observing so great a number of Stars I called to minde the promise made to Abraham That his Seed should be as numberless as the Stars in Heaven So praising God I there stood in or near that place about half an hour where I did see the Heavens opened my Saviour on the Throne the Patriarks Prophets Apostles Martyrs Saints and Angels waiting round about it and to my comfort my own Father This I saw when I was awake and really there standing Something hath been shewed me of our ever-blessed King dead but in Heaven glorious this also I did observe to his Lordship but made no other use of it than this That forasmuch as all I ever dreamed or saw of that nature was above in the Heavens or came from thence nothing ever from the bottomless pit the Earth or Seas which gave me to believe it was the further from Delusion and much the more to be believed True because that which is of Heaven is Heavenly And although the Crown was upon no mans head yet being waited upon by the Ships it implied He was to come from beyond the Seas whose undoubted right it was And who that Man was to whom it properly belonged his Star demonstrated which at Pauls Cross appeared when there was a Sermon preached there upon the day he was born on being the same as I conceive our Lord rose on and his our Kings Birth also early in the morning as his our Saviours Resurrection whose Vice-roy certainly he this CHARLS STUART is as ye shall hear anon his Father our late King then present And as the Gentleman that preached about the hour of eleven was giving thanks to God Almighty That to our then Soveraign Lord the King and to us his Subjects was that day born a Son and Prince in whom our hopes were and assurance might be He would prove most Eminent in his Church on Earth to Gods glorie and his Majesties and our comfort So thanking God for this for I present was I looked up to Heaven and there at almost eleven a Clock in the moneth of May a most clear day very near the Sun also did I see that his Star appear which wondering at being just over as it were his place of Birth White-Hall or his Fathers head who was come to give God praise for him at the Cross which was also
sung by the Quire on the Leads his Star then appearing I my self shewed it to very many hundreds if not thousands witness this So that the Heavens haveing now again demonstrated Him the Seas waiting on him the Earth flourishing under him what remains but that we get our selves into a readiness to receive so great a blessing from so good a God Whom in mercy he hath appointed over us as I firmly believe The Lord of Broghill I confess I advised never to right or draw sword against this King For the war of Ireland I now understood it better than formerly and therefore did believe that to his Lordship who was born there at Lismore too as I conceive and resided in that Kingdom the devices and subtleties of the Church of Rome in that Rebellion or since in the carrying on of that War were better known than to his late Majesty whose goodness by some was too too much abused seeing it not with his own eyes but hearing it by others misrepresented His Lordship who had that great advantage as to be amongst them himself which was denied his late Majesty did see that his Unholiness of Rome had onely a modest design to suppress the Protestant Religion and cheat the King of that Kingdom that he might the better be soon usurper of all the rest This I now firmly believe was the ground of the Lord of Broghills fighting in that Kingdom So never at all against the King but for him And I do the rather believe this because I never had any Commission or desire to treat him other than with all respect as a person of Honour that had great and good accomplishments For I told him that day before I went out of his presence that I believed he never was against the King Further I never had desire to apply my self to any man in that Kingdom but his good self And see now as you shall anon how God honoureth that Man above all the sword-men in that Kingdō as Oliver Cromwel only of the sword-men the most in the Kingdō of England And more than to these two onely did I never apply my self sent of Heaven to these so glorious Saints first on Earth that they may be most glorious ones hereafter in Heaven But thou Church of Rome shalt fall as anon I shall shew you God will down with thee These two Persons of Honour have and shall the most of any two Subjects in the world help down with her I had all most forgot my then last observe to his Lordship A material on it is that although every man stood up bowed and Worshipped God following the Crown and with one consent crying out O Lord we praise thee for this Crown is of Heaven come we will follow and obey it yet I say this of all people wherein no one man dissented did not seem for number to exceed four or five hundred persons which occasioned from me then this observe to his Lordship That I feared our sins and the punishment for sin would almost lay waste our Land we having so highly provoked the Lord by our too much delighted in iniquities and rebellions of all sorts which we had just ground to bewail least they consumed us But truely since I have better hopes nay firmly believe I do that if we would turn to God with all our hearts and do the things here God adviseth to by me his unworthy servant in much mercy sent unto you that you might repent finde deliverance and so live abundantly happy this number of men which as I former observed past for the whole people in the Land of which none dissented I now hope and pray will most happily prove to be that number of men which represent the whole people of the Land and yet exceed not 4 or 5 hundred persons now of this Parliament to which purpose I beseech every good mans prayers and every bad mans amendment of life and for dissenting persons in that body believe as I do there will not be found one or not one to hurt us Who can be unhappy when all agree to fear God and honour their King keeping the commandments of the one the wholesom and well constituted Laws of the other in which doing there cannot but be happiness here and ever hereafter into which good old way of thine and ours good Lord be pleased to set us that we may be certainly blest our feet being then found in the way of thy steps Thus ended all I then observed and to my Lodging I retired to the Widdow Marricks house in Youghall SECT III. VEry few dayes past but by accidental rancounter I met and fell into discourse with a Gentleman who had commanded formerly a Troup of Horse in the Parliament service we argued and to this we came whether Kings were made so originally of God or the people the latter he held I the former which I proved to him out of the Word of God that first the Choice next the Anointing of them was of God onely and his Prophets sent by his command as in Saul David and others so not at all in the people 'T is true the people were all along commanded to pray for them and to obey them when thus set up by God So we ended the discourse and quietly parted Some four dayes after one Sunday morning as I best remember having lain most of that night in Meditation Prayer about day I did see sitting at my beds foot behinde the curtain a Man sent of God whilest He continued there sitting there fell a Showre of Fire thick and in drops like Rain all about my beds foot Full in my eye was the Spirit there sitting and the fire falling down Awake I conceive my self to have been for at that very time I called to minde the Fire that came down from Heaven upon the heads of the Apostles to their inablement Anon the Spirit called me by my name Walter Gostellow I indeavoured to reply did open my mouth tried twice but my tongue doubled in my mouth and I could not bring forth my words or speak He called me the second time by my name Walte Gostellow I indeavoured the second reply but my tongue doubled as formerly and I could not speak He called me the third time by my name Walter Gostellow to which I then answered Here I am he asked and said unto me Did you see the fire come down from Heaven as a shore of Rain I replied Yes I did he then strook by the Curtain looked me full in the face so I him He wept and said unto me you do well interpret Scripture clearly referring as I believe to this That the Choice of Kings this of ours especially is onely in God and not at all in the people This over I wrote to the Lord of Broghill that nights Vision for other I cannot call it besought his Lordship that once more he would be pleased to admit me before him there and then to be present also some
ten or twelve persons by me desired He was pleased to afford me the favour so also most of the others By this time it pleased Almighty God to let me know he had deputed me to go to Oliver Cromwell and after to his Majesty that now is CHARLES STUART Charles the Second The imploy he would inform me of and for the Commission it self I must believe that from strength to strength He would inable me untill I came to perfect Peace in Zion And although the things to be done were great mighty strange and wonderfull yet for his Honour Mercy and Names sake he would bring them to pass and they should be marvellous in our eyes Thus began and thus ended my Commission of the Lord. I then bethought me of what I would say to Oliver Cromwell and thus resolved that from God I would reprove him set his sins in order before his face and tell him he was that great Deceiver the scandal of the Protestant Religion the Dishonour of our Nation a Whited wall he was a great and close Hypocrite a Man of bloud and Son of Belial and more than all this for I never loved him all this I resolved to say to him but the Lord reproved me and gave me to remember that my self prayed in my Dream That God would be pleased to let the men of the world who were desirous to do his will know it from Heaven or in the Heavens by a sign which I have given thee and they would readily obey applying themselves to walk in conformity thereunto Having thus altered me and as before again reproved me letting me know God judged not as man did He commanded me to treat and use him kindly the dispose of the heart being in the hand of God So that now from former hating of Him for so I did no man more I now cannot do other than pray for him for so I should and for all others that God would be pleased to inable him for the overcoming of all his enemies more especially his corruptions And firmly believe I do that the Lord will make Him highly instrumental for the promote and carrying on things of very high concernment for his glory to his Honour and the astonishment of the world For I know what apprehensions the most have of him both at home and abroad but God judgeth not as man doth Before the Lord of Broghill I came the second time and so began with him as you read upon Oliver Cromwell I then told him what I firmly believed the Lord put into my heart and tongue by his dictates and Visions and how that the Souldery men of Valour and Honour should submit to the King who would not onely forgive them but give unto them all so doing Indempnity Honours Preferments Lands places and Hereditaments Seal and confirm them unto them in the surest Tenure of this Kingdom as at or after that of East Greenwich Further that as the Light came on in Heavens from the East haveing in it the richest Crown ever eyes beheld the Bayes rooted and flourishing standing in that Crown as the three Plumes of Feathers in his own Arms Coronet upon which Bayes was store of Berries which implieth a provision for Posterity both waited upon by good store of Shipping so the King should come from beyond the Seas Land in the East of Kent or thereabouts and come on towards the West See thus comes the Lightning in the 24 of Matthew the 27 verse out of the East and shineth even unto the West so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be O my God and my King well I go on This would fill the Men of the Kingdom as the Heavens with rejoycing the people praising God and the Souldiery for their good affections to Gods glory and the Kings interest the Earth giving her encrease All Animosities thus taken away we should agree better than ever dwell together in brotherly love and the most sure bond of peace and great should be the praise of God Honour of the King and the Souldiery also the true Protestant Religion receive its Lustre upon the Earth and flourish beyond compare Among the Persons present I then told the Lady Frances Boyl eldest Daughter to the so excellent Countess of Cork lamed in her infancy to so much debility that she halteth the deepest imaginable but God Almighty hath been pleased to more than recompence that debility by the more noble endowments of her Soul and minde which speak her not onely in them the lively image of her most excellent Countess Mother but the dearly beloved of God her Father which is in Heaven To this Lady I say I applied my self and told her what I believe God Almighty had put into my heart and tongue That if she were present when the King came into England and so received with content in State which would not be long ere it was so she should then see waiting on him whom God had deputed for her Husband a Man unspotted of the flesh with whom she should be abundantly happy I after besought her second Daughter the Lady Elizabeth Boyl to stand forth before her I kneeled told her if she were then present she should see Him the Lord had deputed for her Husband CHARLS STUART Charls the Second King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith Here I could not for bear but seeing the glory of God and the Honour of this his Vice-Roy on earth to be so great I fell on my face as in the first of Corinthians the 14 and 25. And so falling down on his face he will worship God I take the God of Heaven to witness I know no other reason of it it never was the least in my intentions Since I have read the Prophet did so as in the 43 of Ezekiel the 2 verse and because the words matter and manner of his Government there is so very full to my business give me leave to observe them to you the rather because All of mine whether of Action or Interpretation are so long since past and by me this never observed untill Thursday the fourth of August 1654. as we accompt I look upon it as a further confirm to me of my so interpreting the Vision and over-ruled deportment in that action of falling upon my face the words are these And behold the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the East and his voice was like a voice of many waters and the earth shined with his glory and it was according to the appearance of the Vision I saw and I fell upon my face And so he goes on that the glory of the Lord filled his House See what his Providence hath guided me to do and all to observe to you were there but this in it it migh confirm you it is no delusion O Lord let the World as I do stand amazed love thee and fear thee for ever This done I told them I should go into
not to be altered the Book of Common-Prayer in some things altered and amended as by a Council lawfully called whom God shall direct shall stand and flourish all over the whole World The Doctrine and Faith of the Church of England being the purest in the World against which word of God and his sword put into the hands of this King CHARLS STUART no Power on Earth shall ever prevail that of Rome is now tumbling down and melting away like a mighty Snow-ball The King and Queen of France with that whole Nation shall ere long be converted to this Faith which Kingdom of France and all others upon the Earth under the Sun and Heavens shall be obedient to this Charls the Second and his Rule in the Kingdom of England The Lady Elizabeth Boyl second Daughter to the Earl and Countess or Cork is this Kings Wife The General of all the English Forces Oliver Cromwell shall never die so I here wrote him and could not otherwise though I tried often and varied to give him several Titles but could not the Reason you shall have anon Be pleased to observe in the pronounce of the Prophesie it is onely Oliver Cromwell all other Persons of Dignity Honour by their Titles as Signiories his onely Oliver Cromwell the Reason I promise I went on The Irish Nation should not be removed but possess their own just Rights converted to this true Faith they should be And so praying that God would enlighten them and all men that we might all live in brotherly love and Unity one with another return again into his Courts with praises and there serve him in sincerity of heart and in the beauty of holiness for so his house ought to be fitted for his service that others might be invited by us and with us to glorifie our Father which is in Heaven whose will be done on earth by men as it is by Saints and Angels in Heaven Thus I concluded writing as fast as possibly which done I could not be quiet but hasted immediately to that so every way eminently good Countess of Cork read the Paper to her and after made it my request very often sollicitous I was by my Letters that she would send her Letters abroad to invite in the Nobles Gentry and Countrey to the Town of Youghall against that day the 12 of January my self having read and communicated the whole to her Honour was by her and Doctor Mollines over-perswaded to retire for a time to my Chamber which I did But when there I could not be quiet but wrote and sent abroad to several inviting them to Youghall that 12 of January to hear as before recited all to be divulged by me that day in the Church after Sermon I continued soliciting that Countess that she would do the like untill I knew I became troublesom yea very troublesom even unto two dayes before this 12 of January did I thus be stir my self In Fine my Kinsman M Leonard Gostelow Secretary to the Earl came to me brought me back from her Honour divers of my own Letters told me weeping that the Countess and his Lord with divers others believed me certainly Mad that I would so impertinently to no purpose trouble my self and others He then asked me what I would have I told him onely the Countrey Nobles Gentry and All to come in to hear the Sermon and Prophesie that day the 12 of January He replied to me if it be company you would have trouble not your self there will be enough here for on that day will be several Horse-matches which hearing I was very much joyed and after that time never troubled my self in the least particular in that business to move further which I take God Almighty to witness untill his telling me of it it came not into my minde although I confess I had formerly heard of it but all the time untill then it was no more remembered by me than it was known to the most remortest man in the World But I shall observe to you anon the wisedom and good pleasure of God Almighty in casting and bringing to pass what fell out upon that day the day I was most active upon after the divulge of all I had to say and did say it in the Church I cannot but observe to you that when perswaded to retire to my Lodging and did so the Lord of Broghill's Physician came to me closely attended me sweat I must keep my bed not stir not write at any hand not do any thing but as prescribed all which I now see were clear Artifices of the Lord of Broghill and that otherwise-good Countess of Cork lest I should proclaim in the Church what I had penned in the Paper for to her Honour I made always my first addresses untill it pleased God to direct me to the Lord of Broghill as more considerable for the carrying on of this work of the Lords For it is the Lords and shall and will come to pass though I must tell thee Reader whosoever thou art I have met with very little other then aversness and derision if not scorn from almost All and to be called Mad hath been in many of their mouths Yet I praise God though some have endeavoured to make me the sooner Mad by very uncivil carriages and affronts no man living can say nay I challenge them to it that they divulge it if they ever saw in any of my actions or Papers which I have Copies of the most considerable and some Letters returned me ought of Levity if so let them shew it to the World spare me not I beg not their favour I scorn it it is no new thing O Lord to bestow ill and false Appellations in all ages upon men thy servants sent upon the like imploy to turn others from the errour of their ways that delight in general wickednesses To declare ought from the Lord that suites not with their fancies love and over-carnal apprehensions it must be madness in their judgements to advise the Great Rich Covetous Proud High-minded to deny themselves madness it must be Assuredly our portion is like that of our Saviours from the Scribes and Pharisees who were so they heard all that was said unto them yet being proud and covetous they derided him But thou O Lord be thy name for ever praised and so magnified thou assistest thou deliverest me thou providest for me of thy alsufficiencie rich mercie and everlasting loving-kindness which I now most humbly beseech thee may increase in me not onely in a firm dependance on thee but a walking before thee all my days in the true practice of pietie and ways of thy commandments which onely can through thy mercie deliver in all the Inundations of evil and practices of proud and obstinate Sinners from whom good Lord deliver me But I hasten Thursday the 12 of January came in bed I would not stay up I got to the Church I went took a seat in the most
Elder Brother gave me his Bond Parrole and Honour to pay those Bills of exchange given me for repayment in England This his Brother was killed in the Wars of Ireland my money not paid by him the Bills were drawn upon nor ever by that his elder Brother the principle killed and my whole debt seemingly dead also being very great My self now in Ireland I reminded this Lord of Broghill of what by Parrole he was debter to me with its consideration for 17 years upon Bill of exchange signed by his elder brother but never paid his Lordship not being at age became not bound otherwise than in point of Honour by his Parrole Truely the long time and my discontinuance beyond the Seas having made no former Application to him had worn both out of his memory but upon discourse both came to his Lordships reminde No sooner so but we consented to refer all allowances and demands of Interest to the Earl his Brother and M. Robert Boyl his youngest This done by consent his Lordship a few dayes after told me Well if my brothers to whom we have referr'd this business see no ground in Law possibly to proceed upon his Lordship haveing not given either specialty or promise since his being at age to pay the moneys so not liable in Law If thus they proceed said his Lordship to me yet come you to me and I will compose you in conscience But his Lordships brothers whom I found conscientious also in six words as I may say composed me and I have my money and these grounds I have for the taking of his Paroll my imprisonment and the preserve of his Paroll with Honour and to those that will preserve it Honour is due as here to his Lordship for the publishing of this Act I was debter either to the invite or else to the shame of others that have more of Title but less of good conscience Good Men direct into not lead out of the way I am where I was and go on to let you know that this day Thursday the 12 of January all those Persons being thus there and in such good equipage upon the same place the sign given me for my confirmation and others also is fully made good to me considering also my not commitment that day together with the great concourse of people from parts far more remote than I intended my Summons for the invite in of the Gentry and Country that day to that place for to let them know this business of the Lords Thus the work of the Lord is carried on to the greatest advantage and so brought to pass whilest we onely think to do our own wills how doth he make us to effect his Every Creature walks blindfold onely he that dwells in light sees whither they go We are for Hors-races yet see how we fall under his decrees unawares that we might the more adore the depth of his Providence For the rumore of what I had said and done that day and the next spred over the Country Post it went to Dublin in England it was in a short time and as the Cloud of Elias raised from the Sea at first appeared but as an hand-breadth so this rumour raised upon the Strand of Youghall by the Sea-side little then as it was now as that Cloud raised by that Prophet spread over the whole Heavens and Earth and falls upon it also what to do but even as his To glad the people and make fruitfull the Earth Publick meetings and great concourses of people fittest to disperse general mercies to the Sons of men The Irish desire to know nothing more nor enjoy any thing on Earth before their own habitations not to be transplanted and to have the Kingly Government restored Why they are ready to die of an over-joy Oh the wisdom and loving kindness of the Lord Who can do other than obey him Well the third day in Prison I am and for Treason too there I pass a moneth or six weeks no offer for inlargement On a sudden If I will go out I may but I must go presently aboard a Ship there bound for England ready to depart Many requests I made before that time that I might be sent over Prisoner to the General Oliver Cromwell to whom I was deputed but not in any hearkened unto Well Go I would yet positively I said that untill I had once more been with the Lord of Broghill and given him my Prophesie in writing under my Hand and Seal delivered and left with him the most material parts of it I would not go that done I would go and then his Lordship should dispose of me as he pleased I would afterwards in all things readily obey him His Lordships Secretary and the Earl of Corks both with me then making the offer of inlargement upon the terms as before which when I refused except upon my own terms they fairly told me I should ly there three moneths longer then be proceeded against and for Treason hang'd To which I replied Let them burn me also if they could I would not go out but upon those terms Appear to the people I would had they put me in publickly and will they take me out privatly I would appear to the people even to all that were there that I was enlarged Mad I was not the business was the Lords and he would bring it to pass and deliver whom he had sent and commissionated in the fittest time I bade them be gone told them I would do all that and more which was to leave another of my Prophesies under my own hand at the House I lodged in the Widdow Merricks written in Parchment boxed up and hanged over my Beds head in the Chamber I lodged in which I pronounced should be called the Chamber of the great Prophet for ever My Prophesie I wrote gave it to the Widdow Merricks Son in writing a Man grown he is he keeps it ten dayes or more then returned it me and told me his Mother durst not suffer it to be hanged up Here was obedience to Governours I would it had always been so Well the Ship is gone in Prison I remain my Keeper again begins new it now was not to practice some of his former Tricks upon me False Prophet he calls me a Child of his some 2 or 3 years old is also taught to call me so himself owns the teaching of it which when I desired him to forbear or else tell me upon what ground he did it he replied to me he had good grounds You are said he for the Superstitious keeping of Dayes and Times as in particular that in the time of Lent we should do well to fast pray and examin our selves that so through Gods mercies we may as you say become worthy receivers of his most blessed body and bloud for the Remission of sins at the feast of his Resurrection at Easter Nay you are for a Passion Sermon also upon good Friday as you call it when all dayes
will is not clear for the glory of God and Honour of his King but our Sovereign CHARLES STUART whose power unquestionable right with Parliament Oliver Cromwell takes into his own hand suffers it not to come into yours onely he remembers very well when you formerly forced it from the King into a Parliament onely where God and our Laws had never placed it How you abused it Though your pretentions Oaths and Votes at the first were high deep and many to the contrary all that you might not be distrusted his person and his honour also you would preserve yet see misimployed this Militia you did and turned it was to the destruction of his person honour the last you first wounded him in that you might the better kill him in his body done it was to the perpetual shame of them that did it profess you what you will for Religion Presbytery Anabaptism Independency or any thing that is unwarrantable distinctions multiplied with your Novelties and successes Truely my charitie leads me to believe there were some Gentlemen refused to settle the Militia in the hands of Oliver Cromwell that it might the sooner return into those hands which their consciences are now troubled that they ever forst it from which unhappie Act I am of opinion first set us together by the ears most hastened and so enabled the Contrivers of that unnatural War which the Lord in mercie hath now put an end to If such another Vote engage us not afresh from returning to which Red sea of Bloud good Lord deliver us as Mr. Thomas Goodwin preached advised and prayed But this Militia is now safe where it should be in the hands and power of the best Subject Oliver Cromwell for the warrantable interest of the best of Kings his Master Charls Stuart See how the ways of God are past finding out O Lord never any man lost by referring all to thy good time and best way I do not in the least doubt thee Oliver Cromwell I know God hath or will fit thee for the work who onely hath thus directed and over-ruled that his name may have the glorie and thy person the greater honor forsaking all on earth for the command of heaven The interest in the Militia is a Crown-Jewel which God will have thee O Cromwell not suffer to be divided from the Crown but give it to the supply and making of a better than that which bad men have by violence taken and shared amongst the Self-deniers as they call themselves But thou Oliver Cromwell wilt prove thy self one they onely promised to do what thou canst not but do make him a Glorious King for by thy means God will have it so Distrust him not you Members yet dissenting who have a clear mind to do the work of the Lord. Obey God and your King with him Gods Word and the known Laws of the Land will best direct in both Comply with Oliver Cromwell he is for the service of God and his duty to his Kings just interest with a Parliament you understand not how highly God will make him subservient to both My Book is coming to you to let you know how much we are mistaken in him and how transcendently much we are for ever obliged to our mercifull God whose work this is alone to the amazement of the World both for time and manner his goodness making it marvelous in our eyes I could not sleep the night of that active day the instrument for subscription was presented God keeping me waking to his glory and my own content for as his Gun and Call hath set me to work at other times so here I rose and wrote this Letter to Oliver Cromwell the very next morning because but short I here give it you that you may see my actions are all above-bord and that this work on Earth comes from above in Heaven to pass it must come God will have it so Sr. Yesterdays actings last nights wakings and this day God directing hath set these words upon this paper for your Lordships observe Prudence it is not to trust the Militia in those hands who after they had forced it from whence God Almighty had placed it whatsoever they pretended used it to the distroying of him Sir you are not of these bad men beloved neither is there clear thoughts in all of them to do good some are not fit to be trusted Pray God amend them all Sr. Part with nothing out of your own power that is or may be mis-inployed hurt the Church of God or Regal rule You are of Heaven directed doubt it not in the least to be highly sub-servant to both have courage Sir fear not the least I know you are hated and not understood by the most who would destroy you Sr. I had a Book ready to publish 20 dayes or more before the Parliament opened the highest imaginable for your advantage and effecting what God will have done by the turning of good men to comply with you in all things and not to fear any ill because God is on your side Sr. All my friends have abandoned me and money I could not get to Print it most men conceiving this Parliament would ruin you so hang me if I sided with you Thus deserted and opposed by all I could not get it out but I see God works for me when man opposeth so doth he for you Go on Sir you are blest of Heaven Your most faithfullest W. Gostelow Septemb. 13. 1654. This Letter I sent to that hand I have sent divers others which I know are delivered to his Lordship so sure as God is in Heaven my Commission is from thence and that the effect will shew you all from thence deputed I am And now you Honourable Members of this Parliament who may if you will readily apply your selves to be good just mercifull and wise live the Honour of our Nation the beloved of God of our King and of all good men your selves may have the Honour to be such a Parliament so wise so just so well constituted so for ever renowned as those will be if you should be wanting to your devoirs which is the applying of your selves to the extirpation of all villany and the giving to every men his just interest to which ends we have chosen you and should all pray that God would so of his mercy inable you by such a Parliamēt our already glorified King adviseth in his last words our now so abundantly happy Soveraign his Son ever to be ruled by for Parliaments so principled would readily apply themselves to give the King his just rights as truely as they would to every subject theirs which doing King people and Kingdom could not be other than mutually happy and blest living in rules of Justice and loving kindness the strongest hold-fasts And now this thy Call O Lord and workings when my self at my wits end is like that afforded me of bring thy Papers and come away A deliverance it is
will revealed in his word which is to fear God honour the King not to side with those that are given to change but to keep his Commandments do the thing that is Just Honourable and good that is to all men as we would they should do unto us If we will take any thing by violence let it be the Kingdom of Heaven which ought to be our devoir not other mens rights whether of birth or estates which ought to be our restore Write O Lord all these things in our hearts and incline us to keep thy Law which is the Commandments of God and not of men I have now done referring to all of Dream and my own Interpretation of that yet what God was pleased to have me observe also finished some of my Visions which refer to this as I humbly conceive most material and therein I have observed what I could not but observe For that of Prophesie truely I believe I may without any delusion or spirit of pride call it the words and good pleasure of the ever living God and so far am I from believing it to be other or that it will not come to pass that I could not depart Youghall before I had given it under my hand sealed with the Coat of the Right Honourable Lord of Broghill and upon my knees delivered it before no less than twenty other Honourable and good witnesses that if it came not to pass they put me to death Now that I may not appear other than what I was at that time to the praise and honour of God well in my sences not mad but true to what I have received of the Lord no impostor nor yet a lying Prophet or one that would delude by lying vanities and speak when and what not commissioned of the Lord I do here again confirm agree unto and consent that if it come not to pass the things in the Prophesie I refer to onely which are of the most wonderfull and strangest nature there is the most improbability by outward appearance if these come not to pass I say I consent that you first shew me to the World from place to place afflicting my body and after that burn my book and by death put an end to my dayes as I conceive deservedly I ought to suffer if I speak as from the Lord when never sent For allowance of which to me it seems there is good warrant in that Deuteronomy the eighteenth Chapter from the twentieth verse to the end being the word of God to which words of God and its interpretation I refer all I have said and Prophesied to be tried by as being the most sure rule against and contrary to which word of God no Prophesie or Prediction of man can stand as I firmly believe which indeed the Lord Cromwell well observed to me when I gave him the knowledge of my Prophesie by word of mouth But if this be besides Scripture yet not contrary to Scripture then I say in my Judgement it is a work fit for the mission of a Prophet or if it be for further explain of some things in Scripture not untill now or yet fully revealed or well understood then also hath it warrant but any new or giddy Tenets I will never force to my own destruction out of this holy word O Lord which to do I believe is the greatest sacriledge in the whole world But willingly I do as I wish all men would refer all to thy most holy word of which I conceive wise men and the body of that ministery thou hast sent into the world to be the fittest Interpreters to our well understanding of it for to and with such thou hast promised to be assisting with thy holy Spirit for their enablement unto the end of the world and that neither Hell nor the Devil shall ever prevail over or against them And those thus blest and so sent I believe are not the Pope nor his Cardinals who for their own ends make marchandise of the Kingdom of Heaven that they may keep up their own upon earth so do Schismaticks others to the dishonouring of God the scandalizing of his Protestant Religion which shall now flourish beyond all compare But those shall suddenly fall and melt away as greater and lesser snow-bals this is certain And now methinks I hear some as I read those did in the first of the Acts of the Apostles and the sixth ask our Lord Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom Truely I know nothing to the contrary but it will be so if you will but break off from your so much beloved and too long lain in sins and impieties it may now presently be Certainly there is no better way to hasten its coming yet the next verse tells you It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power Read it the case there just as ours The Scepter departed from Judah the Government forst out of the hands of the Jews the people desire nothing more than the return of it Nay the Apostles themselves are the Persons that enquire if it may not be at this time Yet observe our Lords answer even to them It is not for you to know what the Father hath put in his own power for shame seek the Kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness which doing all other things shall in due time be given unto you Your selves are the cause it is not already come to pass by your continuance in sin Suffer me but a few words and I have done there is an end you hear of all the Wars in the Christian World but as yet you see it not God be thanked for what you do see more probability than ever Is it not very far advanced here on earth Have we not that already with some Nations People we never had before leagues of perpetual peace as I have heard and are we not with others in treaty Nay very far agreed towards that purpose Who well understand the Scriptures know it is very frequently in them used that very expression by the Prophets sent of God the present tense for the future there is an end that is it is so decreed in Heaven and it shall be so on Earth it being the ordinary phrase of the Prophets by reason of the infallible certainty of the events to speak of things to come as already past the instances are obvious and infinite See here another motive to repentance that you may forthwith reap this so great a blessing of peace on Earth that which makes Heaven so desireable and lovely having in it the blessing of peace And yet will you be mad to go on in sin and make the Prophets sent to you for amendment of life mad also as your iniquities continued in will do it did so to that good Prophet Hosea the 9. and the 7. as before I hasten to an end there are 18 persons you read of that shall never dye but be
of his adversaries to whom he renders vengeance at the same time Remember I have warned you and believe me also I could not have any quiet untill I had done so Thus in all ages God hath sent his Prophets to forewarn before he consume a people or in mercy deliver them I have done my duty do you yours repent and live The number was but few I told you though all that were then in being who when they saw this Crown in heaven worshipped God and said This is of Heaven we will follow it Which when done with my self hear we did pleasant sounds in Heaven and saw the earth shine with plenty amongst men good will all praising God and participating those blessings I once more tell you they were but a small number make haste be you of it Before judgement is gone out repentance is seasonable but you may cry to late From this Citie was the Kingdom fyrced let O Lord if it be thy good pleasure the inhabitants tears and thy mercy spare it from an heap of ruin a City that hath been and yet is the harlot mother of Bastard conceptions and prodigious births confusion she hath brought forth that hath filled the world and land to her dishonour with God and men Spare us O Lord we beseech thee and have mercy upon us even upon us also thy most unworthy servants Here I have ended but because God hath as I formerly observed to you of his wise delay suspended the publishing of this book for his own time which certainly is the best and fittest as also that my Dependency on him may be the more as his mercies the greater when deliverance afforded us I must yet a little go on and one insert more be pleased to allow me it being for the General good Let me therefore present your eye and entertain your ear as of Gods mercy he hath done mine for your benefit upon the day and night of the 5. of November last being our Lords day on which we did commemorate Gods deliverance afforded us from the Gun-powder Treason I dare not but do it mark it it is considerable of the Lord himself being the Lord of Hosts who hath delivered us doth deliver us and will deliver us all good grounds to trust him and a set Text of Scripture it is for that day to be Treated on A good Act of Parliament we have for the thankfull and perpetual commemoration of that so great a mercy that God was pleased then and so to deliver Our so good so wise so well-accomplished King and his posterity to sit upon his Throne and to sway the Scepter of these Kingdoms for ever as we see God hath now so appointed whose ways admit of no variation or shadow of turning Deliver he did we see the house of Peers and Persons of Honour in duty waiting upon their King Deliver he did the wise and learned Authors of the Protestant Church and Religion with them also the Judges both together the best interpreters of his word and his Laws Deliver he did also those Worthies of the house of Commons called thither by their King and sent thither by the wise obedient and then quiet people of the land who were and because so shared in that deliverance and long enjoyed they and we the Blessings that succeeded of peace order riches beauty in Religious worship of God Almighty in his Churches to the wonder as well as to the envie of the world Here was a Parliament of Gods and good mens choise and blessing For Majesty and Honour well met together And this when so he delivers from that horrid unparrall'd Treason until those times the like not heard of And what to do I beseech you but to let us see how precious in his sight we are when met together as those to fear God honour our King love brotherly love all applying our selves to live and do according to his will revealed in his word and our known Laws the onely rule we should go by and conform unto applying our selves to these not to our own willdered thoughts for confusion covetuousness rebellion irreligion murder of those people whose persons peace and propriety we come to preserve and maintain not for our self-ends to kill that we may divide the spoil Something like him I have heard of in the Church of Rome who upon the words spoken in a vision to the Apostle S. Peter Arise kill and eat all things are now Common to please the then Pope of Rome at difference with the Venetians gave this gloss upon that Text that is saith he your Holiness may make War with the Venetians kill them and devour their estates up and do it arise take kill and feed upon them Thus his unholiness suitable Cleargy force mis-interpretations of holy Writ to their own and others destruction Peter's successors they pretend to be and in the worst of things they certainly follow him nay exceed him draw their sword they do cut not off the ear onely with Peter but the heads of Kings and Potentates which wicked action our Lord reproves healing the person wounded when but an ear to let us see his Kingdom was not to be carried on by the sword and shew us he doth he had no need of a fighting Clergy he made no Apostle to offer violence no Bishop in Buff with back-sword to help on with Presbytery no Priest or Deacon to kill and supplant that he might get his more pious and therefore more peaceable brothers living because it is better than his own which when he hath by violence gotten he inricheth himself but starves or poysons those he pretended to feed better and do more good for both in body and soul No these are not the men fit to build God a Church he needs no such hackers or hewers in Field or Pulpit such furious fighters and rash zealous Clergy Go on to imitate Peter further the very next apprehension of danger they deny their Lord and Saviour for swearing him also if once in custody or times of persecution come upon them then they are Sidonians or Samaritanes no more Jews and they have a Temple not yet dedicated to any God which you their profitable master so they get by you shall call them and it what you please for they are resolved to side with the seeming strongest to get by so doing Cura Romana non capit ovem sine lana Oh! and have not we such Peters if but one too many but the more the pitie well I have shewed you what those furious boote-feux have done set us and the Christian World on fire I would to God I could shew you them imitating that blessed saint Peter repenting which would be not onely ours the Churches and their own rejoycing at the conversion of such sinners there is joy in Heaven and though by words actions misunderstood they have engaged us with Curse ye Meros so carried on the cause falsly perswading they are the Lords
Person yet to this good King was laid the false charge of his being guilty of all the bloudshed in the three Kingdoms To witness this truth in my Kings defence when his Majesty was upon his Trial I being near a hundred miles from London heard of their quick proceedings against him and had the Saturday night before his death a very strange Vision concerning him I made haste towards London that he might have the benefit of this my witness in that killing and false charge but upon the way met with the sad news of his being Martyred so that in this action the wickedness that was done was quickly done but I will not wound afresh or grieve a man of you that did it or had a hand in the bringing to pass what God would have done that his name might have the more glory and you now no less happy in his Sons rule over you can you but repent of this as of all your other sins God forgives and of the Kings forgiveness you may not doubt the Stuarts as the Kings of Israel are very mercifull Kings King James a Beati Pacifici King CHARLS of ever blessed memory praieth God to forgive all his Enemies when inquisition is made for bloud then O Lord let them be found that shed mine be sprinkled with thine I beseech thee CHARLS the second our King will not consent that his seeming greatest Enemy in the World Oliver Cromwel shall privately be taken off an act pleasing enough to many when the remove but of that one man onely might probably without more bloud-shed set him upon his Fathers his own Throne yet see how he Governs he will not so much as hear of it you have it observed to you in the wise Admonition to Oliver Cromwell when Wiseman and others proposed his murther to him no at no hand he allows it not he will wait upon God in all his lawfull wayes contenting himself to be Charls the good if not Charls the Great And being thus principled see what is the happy successes of his so doing God gives to him the Crown for ever and Oliver Cromwell his ready subjection this is counsel I have given him but first given me of God his Majesty had it from me in April last as I take it to forgive all his Enemies even O Cromwell and to refer all to Gods own times way it may be thou O Cromwell doth owe me something for thy well being at this day I am sure thou doest to God Almighty give him the glory and praise of it in thy better obedience for the times to come and I have all I desire I have but done my duty and my reward is above in Heaven whither I most humbly beseech God of his infinite goodnes and never to be dispaired of mercie take my good King thee me and all men even the greatest sinners now on earth Whom though the greatest yet how often is God pleased to make of such the most glorious Saints when repenting their former wickedness then it is turn and live for ever you have the opportunity lay hold on it If any man now distrusts his own safety and forgiveness it is onely he that keeps close his sins or as Hypocrites seem onely to repent he that covers his sin shall not prosper but he that confesseth and forsakes them shall finde mercy of God and his King I fear you think me too long before I give you the reasons promised why plain Oliver Cromwell and no more in the over-ruled dictate of Prophesie when all others by their known Titles and Signiories I will onely shew you the Crown on the other side and there Proclaim my King as in Gods Prophesie commanded that done go on to let you read what follows more of my observe as also Gods disposing of Oliver Cromwell to the well liking of all good Subjects these worthy Gentlemen I hope now met in Parliament with them also assisting readily to the bringing in of his Majesty CHARLS STUART whose unquestionable the Crown is right When given unto him the joy of all good men the Protestant Religion then more gloriously conspicuous than ever as clearly appearing to bring forth good fruits not pretensions onely by which our Saviour lets us know we cannot judge and thus in the end as well as in the beginning you have C. S. and O. C. United This my so long and just defence you must forgive I know God hath put me upon it though thus late that his name may have the more glorie my self with you the better esteem and your selves the clearer satisfaction that I am sent of God with others to the Worlds happiness as his Prophet for this very imploy of my God my King whom God preserve Amen CHARLS the Second KING of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith KING of the whole world To this Charls the good and Charls the Great is Oliver Cromwell by God also Honoured to be General of all his Forces Long live my King and his Lieut. O. C. Amen Amen Yea let all the people say Amen BUt I am to give you what I promised why Oliver Cromwel and no more in the dictate of the Lords Prophesie when as all others have accompanying them their Titles and Seignories and further why I could not pen him by any other Title than the General of all the English Forces although I did upon the then writing of that Prophesie so much endeavour it yea I tried and varied it several times but could never do it forthwith when done was given me this for reason which indeed I have already given the General himself when I declared the whole to him as now to you the Reader The fountain of honour is Originally in God derivative in Kings not at all in the people for proof of this you have the written Word of God his most holy Scriptures confirmed to me further by God when the fire fell down from Heaven in that Vision all about my Beds feet and his messenger called me three times by my name Walter Gostelow also spake to me saying you well understand the Scriptures Kings are of God especialy yours from thence issues true honour not from the people for this reason is it in the Prophesie Oliver Cromwell and no more by him that ers not the Lord. See it is then true honour and worth having onely when conveyed in its right Channel otherwayes it is just as the Calf the people set up which wise-men know is not of God and therefore worship it not Sleep yet a little in Windsor Chappel my most glorious and immortal King for dead thou art not Garter Spur and Star yet lie still in your Beds of Honour untill your Son arise we see already his Aurora as plain as we did his day-Star at his birth so visible to us is his and all your resurrections Welcome my King welcome now for ever thou shalt set no more the day and year that brings
thee must terminate but the Kingdom thou shalt be taken up into is that of Jesus Christ's that never shall have end Wharton where art thou what the best Astronimer at sometime a Prophet and doth not thy rich sublime Transcendent wit and Pen yet appear make us Te Deums and Laudamus Domine I have left thee a break in this Book more than fill it and the world of good hearts with Gods thy Kings just praises but thy own duty were not those thy verses I have so much inquired after as well as thy most worthy self since returned from Ireland thine or Cleavelands sure but not yet so happy as to see either Verses that Prophesied the King being inbalmed at Windsor the Garter and Spur should lie dormant untill some Prophet sent of God should raise them from there locked up and sealed Wardrop raised they are make haste adorn them thou hast for thy enablement a Mine of Excellencies Cleaveland and thee have all give God and your King the glory of it they have your hearts already pen us Songs and Praises to our God the Quoristers and Church-men did sing us such at St. Pauls Cross upon his Birth-day that good example was given by the Angels who did so at the glorious King of Kings Birth-day who now sends our King CHARLS the Second his Vice-Roy on earth to rule the Sons of men Honours he brings with him from the Almighty fountain to be derived and conferred upon such as fear God Obey and Honour this his Vice-Roy our King C. S. Come now come O Cromwell take not a share but thy full measure God judgeth not as man doth we thought thee not at all worthy now shall that celestial Colour Order Ribbon of the Garter I had the Honour to sell it to my King but never thought the least to be so Honoured as to repossess him of it from God Come I say let this badge of the greatest Honour now on Earth given from the greatest King thine also C. S. let it now be put on thee I said it in Ireland the Honourable and good Souldiery submitting to their King whom God would dispose and over-rule so to do of which thou art found the most eminent they should have honours conferred upon them indempnity forgiveness and large rewards given unto them of by the King when restored put on this rich Garter which hath for its inscription Hony soit qui maly pense the other Order Ribin worn upon the body remembers all Subjects we should not so much as think an evil thought of the King in our hearts And now complain not but rejoyce for ever O Cromwell thou seest with whom God hath ranged thee with the greatest and happiest of Kings Queens and Princes now thy Honour is worth having there was something in it that thy good aged and so lately deceased Mother was as I hear a Stuart she is gone to the common Wardrop of the world the grave Be comforted thy Father is a Stuart too he lives the Father of his Countrey and the King of all good Subjects for their Consolation of which blest number we may not doubt thou art Son and Subject since God hath so declar'd it made you United Sons of the now more visible and glorious Protestant Church than ever in Heaven glorious to all eternity This our King hath now largely given to him of the fountain and as our blessed Saviour came to his universal Dominion not by fighting but winning his Subjects by dying for them so by merit and of purchase had the ends of the Earth for the bounds of his Kingdom which being but earth the rule of it he now gives to his Vice-Roy CHARLS STUART whom in his uncontrolable and unsearchable wisdom and mercy he hath made worthy of as much Honour Command and rule on Earth as Mortality is capable of not of merit but to let us see that he which gives himself to do the will of his Saviour which is in Heaven and denies him not on Earth which thy now blessed Father our King did in obedience to the Commands of his God for such a witness the Almighty made of him and such a Martyr we have put to death and such a glorified Saint was the Crown of your rejoycing my most blessed and for ever happy Queen when he your Majesties on Earth now in Heaven glorified Be not troubled Madam they were Villains and Rebels that aspersed your Honour and his Majesty you see it as also your no otherways vertuous and for ever happy Sister now Queen of France See how the Lord loves your Souls Honours your Persons and establisheth your posterity to you Madam Behold the Lord now gives his and your Son but our so much Honoured and ever blessed Soveraign to be King of the whole World and to you Madam the best of France's Queens whose two Sons good men saw what God did for you gave you them both from Heaven 't is true to make your patient expectancies hopes and faithfull dependencies on him the Almighty visible to the World as they were to Heaven he defers it in his wise delayes which are always the best for 23 years untill your glorified King also was going thither in whose last dayes his graces as his blessings were at the highest for your comfort Madam and the Worlds thankfull and happy acknowledgement had they but grace to see it as now all may Was there ever two such Kings and Mother Queens on Earth yet see how the Devil and his instruments would eclipse them and hath aspersed both but God witnesseth for you and hath now declared you and yours beloved in Heaven and to be obeyed on Earth Most excellent Queen of France you were pleased some sixteen years past my self being at Saint Jermains I came thither with the now Lord Jermain your Majesty after honours and favours by your most excellent and good self afforded did interrogate me what Religion I was of I then humbly satisfied your Majesty I was a Catholick your Majesty further demanded of me what Catholick I answered the best said your Majesty it is then Roman Catholick is it not I bowed before your Majesty as in duty and replied it was Catholick è Protestant a la mode d' Angleterre point de Rome Your Majesty whom God hath made to your power communicably good to all pitying my condition was pleased to offer me a Letter to your Kings Confessor of good will desiring my conversion I humbly acknowledge the favour but replied my Religion I liked so well as not to change it Madam be pleased to see now how God more than retributes and no otherwayes recompenseth this your good will to Gods glorie and my good as intended my unworthy self Madam is now sent unto you by the Lord not onely to your so pious and so eminently good self but also to more than your whole Kingdom to bring your Majesty and them into his only true Church that Church which is not
that of Rome into one of whose Chappels at Saint Jermains your Majesty was that day further pleased to Command me when returned from seeing the then Dolphin now King of France your Majesties Son then in his Cradle to wait upon you to that Chappel to hear the Musick and Vespers Madam in obedience I did so be pleased to let me assure your Majesty I have heard very many Sermons and some good ones too in the Churches of France and Spain tending to mortification yet never was I of the Roman Catholick Religion in all things No Madam it is their unwarrantable Innovatious Traditions Superstitions Excesses and Idolatries of the Priests and Factors for Rome and his unholiness the Pope and that Hierarchy That your Majesty and all must turn now from that is the cup of fornication she hath made the Kings and Princes of the Earth drunk with for which wicked acts of hers they and all shall now hate her God hath said it in this his Prophesie down she shall her fatal time is come and her self must drink the dregs of that cup of fornication hers it is and take it she shall the Lord will have it so she shall fall Yet Madam the Lord is good to all his though of that Church for he will purge her as your Majesty shall further read anon Be pleased so excelling Queen I most humbly beseech your favourable allowance that I go on to wait upon my own King and Gods true Church in this his business and my imploy And now O my King rejoyce fully there is no place for sorrow but for sin how like thy Saviour was thy Father who dying prayed his Father in Heaven to forgive those Murderers on Earth that so despitefully used him it is not all the indigne cruelties of men that can rob him of those rich mercies thou my King prayedst for them dying wicked sinfull people you would be miserable but he will not let you Father forgive them they know not what they do Blest art thou O Land when thy King is the Son of Nobles who because faithfull unto death I will give him a Crown of life as in the 11 of the Ecclesiastes and the 17. also Revelations the 2. and 10. I am now in Heaven in the this dayes discharge of my duty I fear you Rebels and all evil doers as I do the Devil not at all But I return to thee O. Cromwell the so much beloved of the Lord which we now seeing wonder it should be so But God judgeth not as man doth when he pleaseth the Lion shall lie down with the Lamb 't is so here Oliver Cromwell I expect thee nay I believe thee no more ill byassed if ever no more rebellious no more ambitious except it be of being more just and good in all wayes of Honour and obedience now endeavour thou or encrease to be communicably good to all the high end thou was born for there now lies thy choice and complacencie and for thy former wayes as errors of thy judgement not want of zeal to God's glorie be comforted it offends not that our affections are moved with zeal but that they are inordinate thou art not onely now thy self a detestor of them when inordinate but a dehortor of others from the like phrensie-practises so that of the mercie of God changed or to us made known thou here helpest to make good what our already glorified King Prophesied to his now so Highly Honored and restored happy Son and people That those his Subjects which had erred by the artifice of others or misguided zeal would when they saw the errors of their wayes and the villenous practises of those that had deluded and seduced them their eyes so opened they would then most hate them and best obey their King here is this now fulfilled in our dayes and eyes O you people of this Land and the world also judge now was not my King and Soveraign a great Prophet as well as the best of Kings O you deceivers who traduced him in his Honour that you might the better Murder his Person and divide the inheritance if there yet lives any of you for your time is but short except you repent the bloud-thirsty and deceitfull man shall not live out half his dayes Whether can you turn to be in quiet or to be beloved who hates you not that is either wise or good But God is mercifull he is the best of Paterns his mercie is over all his works and his compassions fail not I must obey him and let you know where your well-being lies you bad men once gave the worst counsel and it prevail'd now take the best and follow it from God me come forth humble your selves leave no sin unrepented of Murder and Hypocrisie are two great ones confess to God and to his glory forsake all that was of the Devil in you contempt of Gods house Ministers Worship and Service violence to Man thy Brother restore to God and Man what is not your own but stollen from both make all possible amends you can for otherwayes I do tell thee whomsoever thou art whether yet in this Kingdom or fled already into another that God will give deliverance to his Church and people but render vengeance to his adversaries both at once Deuteronomy the 32. verse the 43. and this he will do that so wherein the wicked dealt proudly God might shew himself above them Exodus the 18. and the 11. My next observe is how doth God Honour that Religion which to have been of the World hath counted madness The Jews the Heathen the Roman and our sneaking Schismaticks those that either despised Christ or falsly told you with them he was and no where else they are all now truely shewed his delight was and favour is where they thought and taught him not to be with the faithfull Professers of that so ancient true Church of God but lately so much despised and by them contemned Church of England to whom because the purest God is now pleased to give so much Honour beauty and renown for the former contempt persecution and ashes of her glorified Professers and Martyrs of which number it is now demonstrative our late King is the greatest see God judgeth not as man doth This is righteous judgement which himself Prophesied you should have hereafter when falsly condemned him and had provided your selves of those at your backs and about your Bar of Justice for so it was a Bar of Justice where you had placed your Criers for Justice Justice as their fellows did against our Lord Crucifie him Crucifie him spit upon him you did too as I have heard condemn him you did that I am sure of no end of your malice his bloud you thirsted for as also the Ministers of the Lord you had it you have taken them yet see as he prayed you are found besprinkled with the bloud of Jesus when inquisition is made for his and others and thus he prayed for