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A28194 Ostenta Carolina, or, The late calamities of England with the authors of them the great happiness and happy government of K. Charles II ensuing, miraculously foreshewn by the finger of God in two wonderful diseases, the rekets and kings-evil : wherein is also shewen and proved (I.) that the rekets after a while shall seize on no more children but quite vanish through the mercy of God and by means of K. Charles II., (II.) that K. Charles II is the last of kings which shall so heal the kings-evil / discovered by the hand of the Lord upon his unworthy servant and His Majesties subject, John Bird ... Bird, John, 17th cent. 1661 (1661) Wing B2954; ESTC R5738 69,269 100

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OR ●HE Calamities of ENGLAND With the AUTHORS of them 〈◊〉 ●●eat HAPPINESS and Happy GOVERNMENT OF K. CHARLES II ENSUING Miraculously FORESHEWN by the Finger of GOD in two wonderful Diseases the REKETS AND KINGS-EVIL Wherein is also shewen and proved I. That the ●EKETS after a while shall seize on no more Children but 〈◊〉 VANISH through the MERCY of GOD and by MEANS of K. CHARLES II. II. That K. CHARLES II is the LAST of KINGS which shall so HEAL the KINGS-EVIL Discovered by the Hand of the Lord upon his unworthy Servant and his Majesties Subject JOHN BIRD And by 〈…〉 publike for the Glory of GOD Honor of the KING and comfort of the PEOPLE of God Joh. 16 13. and he will show you things to come 〈◊〉 Printed for Fra. Sowle and are to be sold by Robert Harrison the next Shop to Gre● Church in Leaden-H●●● Street 1661. To our Dread Soveraign Lord CHARLES II By the Grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland King SIR I Here humbly offer into your Royal Hands a Message sent from Heaven for your Majesties acceptance Written it is in the mystical Characters of Two Diseases and partly upon your Royall Hands which now heal one of these Diseases and shall do the other The signification whereof in summe is to shew How miserable your Kingdomes have been through want of your Royal Father first and since of your Majesty How happy these your Dominions shall most certainly be made by your Religious Just and Merciful Government and lastly what shall be done by Almighty God for you here upon the earth in recompence of your Royall Fathers our Late Soveraigns precious blood your Majesties Wrongs and Afflictions your Constancy in the true Religion against so many Temptations your Maintaining of the Honor of God in your religious care of Gods Worship and your Compassion and Love toward your Majesties poor oppressed Subjects Nor let it seem more strange unto your Majesty that Diseases should portend such great matters than a Star that Star which with the next rising Sun after your joyful Nativity shining with the glorious Sun as gloriously in his ascension and even at mid-day should designe your Majesties Person and future Glory which undoubtedly it did For there is a similitude and proportion betwixt sins and calamities on the one side and bodily Diseases on the other for both disquiet and disease us as likewise therefore betwixt the healer of the one and the taker away of the other Far be it from me Gracious Soveraign to require from your Majesty credit to what I shall affirm nor is it just I should upon my bare assertion Let your Majesties Reason and Royall Wisedome judge whether that I deliver be probable or not For such Reason as is grosse and depraved or meerly Naturall cannot pierce into those deep matters but such which is fine and yet helpt and directed by rule of Holy Scripture For Ignorance Prejudice and Rashness cannot and Interest will not discern these Mysteries Let not the meanness of the discoverer discredit the truth of these things to your Majesty which may call to minde that the glad tidings of our Saviours Nativity was by the Angels first made known to Shepherds If I shall speak Royal Soveraign in some places very freely or peradventure too boldly give me leave or pardon me Merciful Prince who being a great King cannot but be very sensible what a crime it should be for a credited Messenger to temper the Message of the King of Kings It now remains that these things which are to come be beleeved that Almighty God be entreated and have the Glory of all on your Majesties part that you prepare your self for the embracing so great Hopes on your Subjects that we all repent and with humble thankfulness for so great mercies toward us our Love and Reverence toward so blessed a Prince our Soveraign be encreased And that all this may be done is and shall be the continual prayer and earnest endeavour of Your Majesties ever Loyal and Loving Subject JOHN BIRD The EPISTLE to the READER IT is now twenty years ago since when this formerly united Kingdom divided into parties that I also clave in my opinion to one for who could do otherwise even to that side which so much pretended to the love of Religion and Justice that these and not self-love was their end What I did was altogether from the first to the last peaceably which notwithstanding the distinction spoiled my aged Father for the same cause and myself of our goods and quiet habitation We bare it patiently But this Virgin Assembly quickly forgat the guide of her youth although she still wiped her mouth and said She had committed no evil to the neglect and perverting of all Justice And here I left them What comfort had I then in this my condition If I lost what I had for Christs sake as God and my Conscience are witness I did I am promised Recompence in this world a hundred-fold and do acknowledge that I have found it though not in riches For first I am hereby more assured because I abhor all Injustice that I am in that small number which the Scripture so often cals Just men Secondly I am comforted that such times have been of old and such as God detests and will punish Jer. 5. 1. Lastly in abundant recompence to the utmost of what the Lord hath-promised such Secret Mysteries from the first to the last have been from God revealed unto me as may appear in a Treatise written by me called ROMAVATUM wherein the History of the Religion Policy and Destruction of the City of Rome is discovered to have been portended in the Theology and Fables of the ancient Heathen Greek and Latine c. not quite finished Next through the mercy of God in my Annotations upon Ezekiel chap. 1. c. now ready for the Press beside this here presented Reader farewell and let God have the praise of all which is true herein as from whom it came all the errors and imperfections I challenge as mine own excepting some few mistakes of the Printers From my Chamber in Sion College in London Jan. 24. 1660. JOHN BIRD LEst I should incur your blame for not presently falling upon the main work in shewing you instantly how the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL foreshew and declare the promised things and that I may not justly deserve worse in telling you so great a Paradox having not first made known unto you how such a matter may be done I judge it here fit to let you know that I have prepared this other as a better way which may by Gods assistance bring you to a fuller and clearer view of whatsoever is pretended in the Title if you enter upon it and go along orderly as it here lies before you IN old time when Israel was in Egypt and afterward when Israel and Judah dwelt in their own land and when the Jews were carried into Babylon the Almighty
were there among them Prophets of another sex some also Prophetesses Miriam Deborah Huldah and Types of our Savior Christ I will not dispute here the reason thereof in them but great cause there is that this Disease should be common to both sexes First because it is laid upon us by the Lord as a Punishment and so indifferently to lye upon both sexes in regard of their parents sin Secondly to premonish us how the Afflictions and Calamities should lye hard upon women as well as men But yet as the Prophets and Prophetesses both aimed at a Christ to come who was a male who sometime by ceremony was designed to be such as in the Paschal lamb enjoyned to be a male of the flock so did and do both males and females in this childes Disease point out unto us a Son of a King a King to be our Deliverer Now it remains that I give the like account concerning the Struma as it is healed by the touch of the hand of the French King Which healing in such manner Guido Tagautius and Laurentius specially French Authors do averr and Sennertus a famous and very judicious Physician of Germany acknowledgeth in his Cure of the Struma but unjustly ascribeth the work by a Divine Dispensation to the French King only Of which briefly As those calamities and corrupt sores which shall be removed and healed by King Charles II in the kingdom of England in such manner must certainly the putrid sores and bruises and wounds be healed in the Kingdom of France For the Disease is one in both Kingdomes the Form of healing the same by the Touch and the Healers of like Dignity being Kings as to shew unto us these things shall be accomplished by the hands of a King But as in these fore-named things there is a Parity in the healing of the Kings-evil by the King of England and French King so is there a Difference in the qualifications of the first Healers For the First Healer of the Kings of France was not the Son of a Martyr as was our Soveraign but the French Stories tell us how Clovis the First of that name and Fifth King of France who reigned about the year of our Lord 500. had first of the Kings of that Kingdom this gift of healing the Struma which since we call the Kings-evil bestowed upon him And what was this King The Story tels us That he was first a Heathen and an Idolater and being afterward converted to the Christian faith then this great gift of healing the Struma was from the Mercy and Power of God bestowed upon him which hath continued thorow the several families of their Kings unto them all even to this day This King Clovis therefore who first cured this Evil in France is to be the Type according to the Example in England of him that is to be the Antitype in France to do all those fore-named things which are prefigured thereby after which time also no King of France shall be able to heal in such a manner the foresaid Malady Whereupon I conclude When the French King or King of France from being such a one as King Clovis was becomes and is turned ro such a Christian indeed as he was after stiled then at that time by such a King of France shall the wounds bruises and putrid soars of that distressed Kingdom be healed I need not here be large but by what hath already been said will the Judicious Reader understand that I mean the corruptions of Religion and Justice and by such a King who is of the Reformed Religion which dependeth for salvation only upon Christ the Head Nevertheless to determine what Person individually shall be that King who shall there perform that great and incredible work by what is contained in the Type is not so easie a thing because the Antitype if what I assert be granted doth not declare what that man shall be nor at what time it shall be done For if the Antitype must necessarily answer to the Type may some say as the Type is of a single Person who first was an Ethnick and afterward became a Christian so ought the Person which shall perform these great matters be a single Person who from a false religion shall be converted to the true To which objections I make this Answer That although it be not clearly contained in the Type when and by what Person or Persons King or Kings of France these works shall be brought to pass yet other circumstances there are pertaining thereunto which help to signifie both Time and Person For Almighty God when he is pleased to work deliverances for his people is wont sooner or later to express the Time when such mercies shall be wrought and who shall be the Deliverer That nothing may be wanting to the comfort of the Lords people and that his children may follow and cleave unto those that are so appointed to be their deliverers That the children of Abraham should be no longer servants in Egypt but that in the Fourth Generation they should come out from thence it was foretold Abraham Gen. 15. and that Aaron and Moses should bring them out of Egypt God called them by name Exo. 6. 26. The abiding of the Jews in Chaldea was determined to be for 70 years and their Deliverer Cyrus by name exprest Therefore it is not without precedent when God hath appointed Salvation and a Saviour to name the Time and Person as well as the thing But where it is laid down for a Rule That the Antitype must be a single Person as well as the Type this I deny Because the Type of a single Person may prefigure One or More according to the nature of the things Adam a single Person was the Type of all man-kinde The Image of one mans Person seen by Nebuchadnezzar was a Type of the several Princes of the four ensuing Monarchies So the meaning of the Healing of the Struma by King Clevis when of a Heathen he turned a Christian is to this effect When a King of France from the false shall be of the true Reformed Religion then shall by such a King these evils of that Kingdom be taken away Which may be affirmed both when the same Person is converted and when another King of the true Religion comes in the room of a former of the false Having therefore this liberty to place the Antitype of King Clovis either on Two Kings or else on One as need requires I here place it upon Two and of all Kings upon King Levis the 14 and King CHARLES II our reigning Soveraign the later of which by being inthron'd King of France God our Mighty and Merciful Lord will enable and encline to do those great things For as the Things fore-named shall most certainly be brought to passe by a King of France the Lord hath left the rest touching the Time when and the Performer who to be collected from probable Arguments Which probable Arguments are all for and none
against our Gracious Soveraign and by designing his Majesty the Time and Person are both made known For it is not probable that from the present French King such fruit shall proceed by his conversion to the Reformed Religion or so easing the burthens of his Subjects having seized already lately on Aurange and Marseilles two great receptacles for those of the Religion and their ancient Liberties and who still threatneth Geneva Now here I must take leave to assume liberty to draw an Argument from that which is not yet fullfilled but begun only accounting it as already done For thus doth S. Paul from the certain conversion of the Jews which was then to be but neither in his time nor to this day fulfilled Rom. 11. perswade the Christians not to despise that people but account them as brethren And the Holy Ghost assuring us of the burning of the City of Rome a thing not yet accomplished adviseth the people of God to leave that City lest they should perish with it Revel 18. 4. Thus I having already declared and by the fore-going reasons proved that K. Charles II will perform by Gods Grace undoubtedly in England all the promised matters do by probable conjecture infer that it shall in France be performed by him also For to do such great matters is not every day seen None of all the Kings of France since King Clovis nor French Kings have cured the putrid sores of that Kingdom None of the 27. Kings and Queens of England from the Confessor have done that till now Nor is it probable that any of the French Kings there educated would be of the Reformed Religion And as much unlikely it is that any of those Kings should take away all the Corruption in Justice and Manners But since it must be done how probable may it seem that it can be done by none else but by him who hath done the like in England and may do the same in France unto which Kingdom he hath a most just Title So much for my first Argument Secondly It is not likely that God will honour him who hath not the right as him who hath the just Title to that Crown with so glorious a work in that place For the Crown of France by just Title is devolved upon our Gracious Soveraign from Edward III King of England in right of his mother Queen Isabella She was daughter unto Philip the Fair King of France which Philip had three sons successively Kings of France viz. Lodowik Hutin Philip the Tall and Charles the Fair all which dying without issue Isabella their only sister remaining alive was married unto Edward II King of England by whom she had issue Edward III to whom our Royal Soveraign is the next heir by descent from him Against whose right the French do only pretend the Salique Law by which no daughter of France is admitted to the Crown but when and by what sufficient authority there enacted their Lawyers give us no satisfaction And the Reasons why the Person is not so expresly designed for France as here before for England are of moment 1. Because by setting us to enquire after that Prince who shall work so great a happiness to that Kingdom we are thereby driven to finde out the causes for which most probably God may give as He hath formerly given Kingdoms to Princes and extraordinary possessions to others Princes such an opportunity and blessing we may thereby light upon the very Person For God hath made all things for his own Glory and all men but specially Princes induing them for that purpose with great power and those which suffer great things for his sake and stand for him and love his people he seldome sends them away without some ample recompence in this life Yet it was needful that the King whom the Lord had appointed for the happiness of England should be more clearly discovered as it hath pleased God to do touching our Royall Soveraign For who could conjecture that a Prince who had been so exceedingly enraged by the wickedness of some should be so merciful as to spare his cruel enemies and to be so loving and merciful to his people so tender toward those whose consciences cannot admit that for fear of man which their sincere love to God made them to deny if God had not more expresly shewn King CHARLES II to be that Good Prince For which cause the King which shall be the Deliverer of France is more obscurely figured because he is already discovered in the Type of Englands Helper 2. Because the assurance of what shall be by our Soveraign done in France to Gods people there which cannot be until he rule there as King shall appear unto his Royal Majesty when God shall move his Heart to begin in England first so that the Lord would have him to hasten that great weighty and heroick work Now let us look back to the causes which the Lord seemeth to have respect unto in making King CHARLES so happy and see if we can finde like Examples Observe his unjust and cruel sufferings Shall a Prince who after the murther of his Royal Father under the pretence of Justice by the most unjust Judges which ever sate in Judgement and by feigned Holiness was banished with the whole Royal Family as malefactors and the King himself made a Traytor and his precious life hunted after shall his Innocence with the rest of that Royal house against none of whom the least crime or cause was objected only make his people happy May a King who hath suffered such wrongs and done such excellent things for God and his people expect no blessing but a bare restitution God owes no man any thing but what we receive is of gift yet the Lord Almighty hath not wont but in such cases to shew his acceptance and make recompence Nebuchadrezzar for fighting against the City of Tyre which rejoyced at the captivity of the Jews when they were carried unto Rabylon received the Kingdom of Egypt as a reward of his labor Ezek. 29. ver 18. Son of man Nebuchad-rezzar King of Babylon caused his Army to serve a great service against Tyrus every head was made bald and every shoulder was peeled yet had he no wages nor his army for Tyrus for the service which he served against it Ver. 19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God Behold I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchad-rezzar King of Babylon and he shall take her multitude and take her spoil and take her prey and it shall be the wages for his army Ver. 20. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor wherewith he served against it because they wrought for me saith the Lord God And did not the Lord bestow upon Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory for her imprisonment for maintaining of Gods true Religion for resisting the Spaniard befriending the French against the League and protecting the Neatherlands the Kingdom of Ireland For what of that Kingdom had all her
enjoy to the gladding of our hearts for the establishing of Gods own and true Religion and Justice in the Land and for shewing Mercy to the poor afflicted and oppressed Among which mourners and opp●essed the Writer of this Relation is certainly not the least but who hath continually prayed unto our Gracious God to bring us once again our King our good Josiah The Lord is my witness I flatter not for if I should use flattering Titles God would soon take me away This Elihu hath taught me Job 32. 21. But what I judge to be truth and fit to be spoken I here deliver That as Josiah had the praise of being the best of all the Kings of Judah which went before and followed after him 2 Kin. 23. 25. And like unto him was there no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the law of Moses neither after him arose there any like him So shall King CHARLES II. prove unto us the best of Englands Kings and the expresse Antitype unto good Josiah And it is not without example for one eminent person to be Type of the other Antiochus Epiphanes the Greekish King in sundry chief respects for small and single serve not the turn was the Type of the Bishop of Rome For in as many and such nay more ways doth our Soveraign resemble Josiah and how he shall express him more exactly in what of his Majesty in his blessed Government we shall enjoy will follow by Gods assistance in this Discourse Josiah was named three hundred years before he was born and by the name Josiah designed to defile the altar of Bethel by burning mens bones thereon 1 King 13. 2. which was so fulfilled by that King according to the Prophecy 2 King 23. 16. So shall it be made apparent anon in due place that King CHARLES II. was appointed by Almighty God to the great work of reforming Church and State which Josiah also did before him twise three hundred years before his restoring to his Three Kingdoms by a plain description of his Royal Person K. Josiah made a covenant with God both he and his people 2 Chr. 34. 31 32. and he caused them to stand to it and he himself kept it so hath and will our Gracious Soveraign King Josiah was the son of a murthered father so was the precious Innocent bloud of our Royal Soveraigns Father shed King Josiahs Father King Amon was conspired against by his own servants and slain in his own house 2 Chron. 33. 36. In like sort our Soveraigns Father King CHARLES I. was designed to death in his House of Parliament adjudged to death by some of his servants and kill'd at the gate of his own House and all by conspiracy But the People of the land they were the Commons in the Jewish Parliament slew all those which conspired against K. Amon v. 25. So let the Parliament of England imitate them to the full whom they imitated in this part which made Josiah his son king So much in this place touching the great Instrument of Gods glory and our deliverance sent from heaven until I shall proceed to make this my assertion good touching his Royal Majesty our Soveraign I have declared and proved unto you how probable it is that Almighty God had given us warnings and forewarnings of these our evils and the issue and do now proceed in order to declare that it is not only likely so to be but so in truth and in deed But here I shall first admonish those that have read thus far or hear of this Treatise that they prejudge not the thing esteeming it a Fable but to follow the advice of S. Paul who admonisheth us not to despise Prophecy and not to streighten the word in its due signification as if it were only to be understood of preaching knowing that the commandments of God according to the Psalmist are exceeding broad in which breadth many things there are on the right hand commanded as on the left hand forbidden which do not at first sight appear For I cannot but foresee that some will smile at what they reade whom I advise they take heed of contemning that which for ought they or any man living can deny may all prove true which if it do they despise not me the writer but him who sent the Message who hath told us That he will not be mockt Others no doubt unwilling to have these things fall out true because it serves not their particular interesses will shew their teeth not laugh at what I have here written like those Jews which for the like cause censured our Saviours miracles as Diabolical even against their knowledge To these and the like men I say they despise not this but him which sent it As for such men who more favourably will call it pretty and censure the Discourse to be the fruit of a melancholike phansie if it did extend no farther then to touch the person of the Writer as if the argument were not skilfully enough handled and no more all this I say will be easily confest by me but when it pierces to the matter it self as if it were an argument to play withall and not rather as it ought to be thought a Discovery to be admired let every such commender know that God despises such cold praises It was truly spoken by Agellius book 19. c. 3. Turpius esse exiguè atque frigidè laudari quàm insectanter graviter vituperari that is It is more to the disgrace of a man to be sparingly and coldly praised than bitterly and most reproachfully to be reviled But he that will ponder and well consider the things which are delivered shall I trust in God finde the words of reason and soberness and no melancholy nor other humour in them at all The man who is weak of understanding although the book be little yet is it too big for him to swallow such a one is desired to lay it by Let the man of wisedom and judgement reade it with the strictest observation and the Lord give him understanding Now to make what I have promised to appear true in every part that as well our sins and with them our troubles the Lord was pleased before they were in being to make known unto us as that after all our vexations and afflictions we shall be delivered from all those burthens which lye upon us and that by the hand of our Gracious Soveraign whom God preserve CHARLES II. we shall be freed I say and made a happy people and that we only may not be thought to reap the benefit of his Royal Government what Recompence shall accrue from God unto our good King first take a view strictly of Isaiahs Prophecy Chap. 1. In this Chapter you shall finde the same sins to have been committed then by the Jews which we labour under at this day the same Hypocrisie and sin of Murther
wonderful Disease in its Nature this is much more to be wondred at in the CURE What notable Cures have been done in QUEEN ELIZABETHS time by her Royal Hand reade the Learned Treatise of D. Tooker de Charismate Sanationis Let those which doubt hereof which I know some do which nevertheless love and honour the King repair to the Court with his Majesties leave and there behold multitudes toucht by his Royall Hands and comparing the condition of such who have been toucht afterward with what it was before shall finde this vertue ascribed to his Majesty true and so resolve their doubts Yet what doth this wonderful Remedy work in the mindes of those which behold and feel it more then wonder and astonishment Doth it cause any other effect in the most wise and learned Certainly it doth not only they account the utmost of the thing to be a singular blessing to our Nation whose King God hath indued above other Princes with such a blessing to his subjects But we know that miraculous mercies have been Signal also else the raising of the dead man by the touch of Elisha's dead body 2 King 13. 21. and the restoring of life unto the childe of the Shunnamite by him had not been wrought but to shew the vertue of Christs death and the applying of Christ unto us who are dead in sins as the Prophet joyned his own unto the childes body 2 King 4. 34. although they were mercies withall Moreover it encreaseth the wonder of our Kings Gift of Healing that his power extends not so far as to heal all other diseases like as the Struma why not the Feaver the Gout Palsie c. and that all Patients and why every one receive not benefit by his Royal Hands All this must of necessity cause wonder in those that consider all this even to astonishment But wonder never was the utmost end for which the Lord at any time did send his Miracles which indeed is nothing more than an inthralling and captiving of the understanding and reason that it can move no farther which comes short in us of the end which the Lord aims at in his marvellous works Much less doth wonder distinguish one work from another Our Saviour did his Miracles to shew and make them know he was the promised Messias which when they saw all men as the Evangelist tels us marvelled But did this effect answer the end which the Lord intended thereby Plainly it did not Much less doth astonishment and amazement at the sight of the Lords mighty and strange works make any the least difference between them but that one Answer must be given of them all as I wonder at these strange things or God knows what they mean Admiration indeed is the way which God hath ordained for men to look up for a higher Workman than ordinary as when a man is led into a maze or labyrinth he is taught by nature to seek a way out which needs must be the Author of so great a matter and as the work it self is not light and vulgar that is wrought so must it be for some extraordinary end which ought to be sought out The wondring at these two Diseases hath seized upon many but it hath pleased Almighty God of his meer mercy to make known unto me the Causes why they were sent his love unto King Charles II and his Pity toward the long distressed people of England by the Gracious and Happy Government of our Royal Master For what am I in knowledge or learning more nay I am less then others that I should attribute the knowledge of these Mysteries to my self But in a time of great wickedness and affliction in a time of the sadness of my heart presently after the Lord had delivered me from a sickness past hope of recovery about ten years since which is not hard to prove the Lord made this known unto me Blessed be his Holy Name so that there is nothing altered in the Interpretations saving that of late some few things have by Gods Grace been added as an enlargement But that I may finde out the signification of the second Disease the KINGS-EVIL it will be necessary that it be enquired whether the cure of this Disease hath alwaies been performable by our Kings of England and if not who and what he was who first of our English Kings had this Gift of Healing given unto him as it is called the Disease of the KINGS-EVIL for being cured by the King The Gift of healing the Struma now called the KINGS-EVIL we shall finde to have been given by the Lord first of all Kings of England to King Edward III before the Conquest commonly named Edward the Confessor by the following words of Ailredus Abbot of Revesby De Vita Miraculis Edwardi Confessoris among the ten English Historians printed at London for Cornelius Bee 1652. page 390. Adolescentula quaedam nuptiis tradita duplici laborabat incommodo nam faciem ejus morbus deformaverat amorem viri sterilitas prolis ademerat Sub faucibus quippe quasi glandes ei succreverant quae totam faciem deformi tumore faedantes putrefactis sub cute humoribus sanguinem in saniem vertebant indè nati vermes odorem teterrimum exhalabant A little after he annexeth this which follows Jubetur autem in somnis adire Palatium ex Regiis manibios sperare remedium quibus si lota si tacta si signata foret reciperet ejus meritis sanitatem In English thus A very yong woman which was married was afflicted with two infirmities for her face was not only disfigured by a Disease but she was barren also which drew away the affection of her husband from her For under her jaws there grew a sort of kernels which by their swelling made her look deformedly and the humours corrupting under her chin turned her blood into mattur which breeding worms sent forth a very stinking savour At length she was warned in a dream to go to the Court and that the King should cure her so that if she were washt stroak'd and sign'd by the Kings hands she should receive a perfect cure by the Kings merits Then this Author declaring her repair to King Edwards Court and likewise the performance by the King in the Ceremony of what was desired adjoyns to his former Discourse that which follows Subitò ruptâ cute cum sanie vermes ebulliunt resedit tumor dolor omnis abscessit ammirantibus qui aderant tantam sub purpurâ sanitatem tantam Sceptrigeris manibus inesse virtutem that is All on the sudden the skin breaks the worms and mattur drop out the swelling fals all the pain goes away all that stood by being amazed to see such a cure to be performed in Royal Robes and such vertue to proceed from hands which held a Sceptre For not only the mention of healing the Struma in this manner is first found in the History of King Edward and the praise thereof attributed to him but those
last words of Ailredus Ammirantibus qui aderant tantam c. declaring that those which saw this cure performed by the King were thereupon amazed seeing so strange an effect do argue that this kinde of cure was not performed by any other King before nor by himself until this time And to this Prince Tagautius a French Writer ascribes the first cure of this disease in such manner in England Institution Chirurg lib. 1. In the next place let us consider the Nature of the Kings-evil which is a Malady most like to the Disease in Isaiah spoken of before consisting in Bruises and putrified and corrupt Sores and to this we may joyn the other part of the Description in Wounds also For what are those apostemous Swellings in this Disease but of the nature of Bruises which contain corrupt blood or 〈◊〉 in them And nothing more common in the Disease then Corrupt and Mattury Ulcers And wounds are properly taken for solution of continuity as Physicians call it without sanics or corruption and from an outward cause so the word here expounded wounds signifies such a solution of continuity and is a part of the disease of that state not of sin but of suffering from cruel men and unjust as in this disease of the Kings-evil where the swellings if the bones be rotten or the corruption cannot otherwise easily break out are oftentimes wounded by the Chirurgians knife Thirdly We are to consider more accurately the Person to whom the Lord first gave this great Gift of Healing the Kings-evil First in respect of his DIGNITY and DESCENT Secondly in regard of his ORDER and PLACE of SUCCESSION Thirdly in the addition of his new SIR NAME Fourthly In respect of his ADVENTURES For all which in few words this may suffice First he was by his DIGNITY King of England and by his DESCENT King Edward III before the Conquest was the natural and legitimate son of Egelred which Egelred was the son of King Edgar and yonger brother unto King Edward II who for that he was innocently murdered by the counsel of his Stepmother as is supposed Queen Alfrith after that he had reigned King a very short time was sirnamed the Martyr according to Ailredus in the said History pag 409. speaking thus A●●rat interim boati regis martyris Edwardi hujas nostre pricipis patrui praeclara solemnitas qui ab impiis sine culpâ perc●●ptus creditur innocentiae martyri● coronatus that is to say It was upon the great Feast day of S. Edward King and Martyr Uncle to our Soveraign that now is who for that he was causlesly murdered by wicked 〈◊〉 is beleeved to have received the crown of martyrdome for his innocence Thus much for this K. Edwards DIGNITY and DESCENT who first of our English Kings healed the KINGS-EVIL Secondly for what concerns this King Edward in his ORDER and PLACE of SUCCESSION he being the brothers son as was abovesaid to Edward the Martyr was notwithstanding the Fifth King in ORDER and COURSE of reigning from the former Edward taking both terms inclusively and accounting those Kings which reigned together for one and by the name of one of which Holy Scripture affords us more then one example Thus Edward the Martyr the First Egelred the Second Edmund Ironside the Third Hardicanutus the Fourth Edward the Confessor the Fifth Thirdly for his new SIRNAME the CONFESSOR that he was ordinarily called Edward the Confessor and for his HOLINESSE witnesseth Henry Knighton Canon of Leicester in his first book ch 8. De Eventibus Anglia Iste supradictus rex sanctus Confessor dictus est Edwardus III saith he that is This holy King Edward III was named the Confessor Whereunto adde the words of the Chronicle attributed unto John Brompton Abbot of Jereval pag. 956. of the Edition 1652. Iste rex Edwardus ab infantiâ deum diligens bonas consuetudines suas primarias pro honore terreno non commutavit fed cunctis diebus magis ac magis omni sanctitate casitute humilitate munditiâ Deum sanctam Ecclesiam dilexit panperesque ob amorem Dei tanquam fratres suos charos habuit dilectos nos largis elecmosynis aperto corde voluntate bona saepe respexit plures in Angliâ statuit leges bonas quae pro majari parte adhac in regno tenentur Which in English is This King Edward the Confessor from his childehood fearing God did not change his wonted goodnesse for earthly honour but daily encreased in all kinde of sanctity chastity humility and purity loving God and holy Church and such was his love toward God that he loved the poor tenderly accounting them his brethren and bestowing large and continuall almes upon them in singlenesse of heart and true affection and enacted more good laws in England then were before which for the most part are of force in the kingdome at this day Fourthly In what pertains to King Edward the CONFESSORS ADVENTURES he was by reason of an Usurper forced to shift for himself and to live as a banished man in Normandy for so writes Ailredus De Sancto Edwardo Confessore ac Virgine pag. 366. in the forenamed Volume of Historians Edwardus frater Edmundi filius Edelredi qui in Normanniâ exulabat that is Edward the brother of Edmund Ironside who lived in Normandy in Banishment From which place of his exile he was sent for by the testimony of the History called John Bromptons Abbot of Jerevall not written but set out by him Edwardus à Normanniâ vocatus King Edward saith the Historian was sent for out of Normandy But how welcome the King was and to whom Let us hear the words of Ailredus in the place aforesaid Veniens igitur in Angliam Edwardus ab universo clero populo cum maximâ exultatione suscipitur But when King Edward came into England saith he he was welcomed by all the Clergy and People of the land with all expressions of joy and some of the reasons of that great and universal gladness are in the same place exprest by the same Ailredus in this manner Homo mansuetus magis pace quàm armis regnum protegens habebat animum irae victorem avaritia contemptorem superbiae expertem which is He was a milde Prince who defended his Kingdom more by peace then by war of such a frame of minde that he could bridle his anger hated covetousness and was void of all prids Now I shall by Gods grace shew unto you in what manner it hath pleased Almighty God out of these Two Diseases the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL to foreshew unto us our Publike SINS and MISERIES and the AUTHORS of them and DELIVERANCE from them in One and the SINS we have been publikely guilty of and our MISERIES which we have within these twenty years undergone with the PERSON who shall by GODS mercy deliver and set us free from these long and miserable afflictions in the Other KING CHARLES II our DELIVERER Of which
be denied that many children have recovered from the Rekets to a soundness in every part yet is the conclusion false To assert thereupon That this Disease hath been so cured by Physical Medicines And the seeming contradiction is thus reconciled to the truth by example of the Leprosie No Leper was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian saith our Saviour in the place abovesaid yet we read under the Law a Prescription of the Rites and Ceremonies to be used in Cleansing of Lepers under this Title Lev. 14 2. This shall be the Law of the Leper in the day of his cleansing Moreover it is acknowledged by the words of Almighty God that in the Legal times Lepers were cleansed ver 3. And the Priest shall go forth out of the Camp saith the Lord to Moses and the Priest shall look and behold if the plague of Leprosie be healed in the Leper Hence by comparing the words in Moses with the speech of our Saviour Christ the one acknowledging Lepers to have been healed and the Form thereupon of their cleansing prescribed the other denying any then to have been cleansed but Naaman the Syrian we are taught to finde aneasie way out of this appearing Labyrinth and which doth exactly fit the cure of the REKETS by looking up to God by whose hand we must know many untoucht by man were healed although by mans Art and Power until our Saviour came no Leper was cured It is most apparent to our eyes that very many children labouring under the REKETS have recovered in their Limbs Ribs Heads and Body but such as enjoy this mercy are not made partakers thereof by Physical helps For we deceive our selves while we think whatsoever is applied to such children in such a time in which it pleaseth the Lord to be in healing them to be the very causes of their recovery As it cometh to pass that such medicines which are applied unto persons sick of Agues or Toothe-ache although most of them are known to be of no force against those griefs at all if in the use of such Applications the Agues and Tooth-ache leave such Patients which ever almost sooner or later go away of themselves are famed for most approved Helps against the said Diseases Whence ariseth such a multitude of False Remedies against those and other Griefs And if it be peradventure of little credit most confidently to protest mine own experience which here I do of the Remedies against the Rekets were it a Naturall Disease and such as those which write of it report it to be applied by me before the Lord gave me this knowledge to have been without the least success let the anxious Reader consider and weigh that some have been healed without the least Application of Natural means others have died of that disease others have retained the Symptomes still against all use of means Of the First kinde of whom Almighty God is pleased blessed be his Name to make my little Son a welcome Example Wherefore by the way I advise every man in the fear of the Lord and for the foregoing Reasons to abstain from Humane help in the REKETS as the Jews did most religiously in their Leprosie and to implore Divine assistance by Prayer and Fasting For as in the Leprosie when our Saviour was come and performed his work he came about of our Redemption first leprous persons were healed afterward all Leprosie vanished so when He our Gracious K. CHARLES II who now is come hath performed the work he is come to do of Reformation the Disease of the REKETS will be heard of no more in the Land But this may not be expected from our Royal Soveraign now at his first coming into his Kingdom until that shall be accomplished which undoubtedly by Gods grace will be for till the things typified are come the Types will remain Thus the Leprosie and the cure thereof did so designe our Saviour the Physician of Soul and Body and so point at him as it were with the finger that unto the Baptist who sent to know of him whether he were the Messias he gave no other answer but bid them tell John that the Lepers were cleansed c. yet notwithstanding was not the Leprosie taken away till after his Passion when the Type was fulfilled His Royal Majesty shall take away the Disease of the Rekets in two kindes First the Typified Rekets and each Symptome thereof removing from us that which he hath put his Royal Hand to already the Pining of our even famished Body the Common-wealth so that betwixt the Head and Body there shall be a due and meet Proportion By whose Gracious Favour neither the Doubling of the Joynts of Armies with their Generals and Commanders nor of the Parliament with their Substitutes not the Ribs doubled in multiplying Ships to guard our Seas or Garrisons to fortisie our Land-Coasts These will not be needful The Lord will restore unto us as he promised the Jews by his Prophet our Judges as at the first and our Counsellors both Houses of Parliament as in the beginning The Two Legs Houses of Parliament shall be no more crooked and unjust but upright The Breast-plate Armour and Ships in great number shall be put off and layd by and liberty shall not fly away The Childe of England shall be healed of all her Maladies Her teeth shall no more hide themselves yea the sound teeth of Orthodox and unblameable Preachers shall fill their empty places The subordinate Heads of the People shall purge their own corruption In such manner as when our Saviour did cleanse the Lepers he did signifie thereby the taking away of sin Secondly God Almighty hath ordained our Lord King CHARLES II to take away the Typical Rekets even the Bodily Disease it self And as our Saviour cured Both the Typified leprosie of sin and Punishment by his Suffering and the Typicall in Persons first and took the Leprosie away at last and He and none but He could do it so King CHARLES II first taking away the signified Disease by his Gracious Goodness and Wisedom shall take the Bodily Rekets quite away when this work is done which the LORD hasten And his Majesty hath given us a great Essay thereof already in his Gracious Assent to the Disbanding the Army in his Edicts against Drunkenness and Rioting c. To conclude concerning the REKETS As the Leprosie was such a Disease which infected no other Nation but the children of Israel excepting Naaman the Syrian intimating thereby that Christ should by his Death cleanse the Leprosie of the sins of the Gentiles and seems by Tacitus the Historians words to be imputed to them and no other Nation beside although he falsly concludes that for such a Disease they were drove out of Egypt So is the REKETS the proper Disease unto the Nations of England Scotland and Ireland and to the Kings Dominions and to no other people beside unless living in his Majesties Kingdoms And as the Leprosie did portend the Physician thereof
should be the Lords Christ our King so doth the REKETS point at the Lords Anointed to be the Healer thereof our King But my Reader peradventure will say This being all granted to be true and that all this must be performed by a King yet it still remaineth doubtfull by what King all these things shall be wrought The resolving of which doubt by necessity brings me to examine the other strange Disease the KINGS-EVIL These two Diseases do portend and foreshew one and the same thing the greatness of our calamities Both and that we shall be delivered from them through the mighty Hand of the most merciful God For is it not a very wonderfull thing and above the thoughts of man among all other Infirmities of the REKETS perfectly cured in like manner to see and consider the crooked bones of Arms and Legs to become straight of their own accord Albeit the Wise-man saith Eccles 1. 15. That which is crooked cannot be made straight Touching the cure of the Struma no man of judgement can deny the Hand of God therein Which Two Maladies as in part they do agree so do they also thus differ the REKETS beside the Disease sheweth who should be the Authors of our evils under the name of the Disease the KINGS-EVIL who should cure us with the Title of his Dignity Again the REKETS explaineth Fully what the KINGS-EVIL delivereth more Briefly and this is to be done by one Person our Dread Soveraign who by the Grace of God given unto him as he healeth the Bruises and Putrified Sores of those whom he toucheth will take away the Falsness of Doctrine and Blasphemy in Religion Injustice Oppression in the State and wicked living from all Which may well be signified by corruption and putrid Ulcers by a Metaphorical name because these things proceed from a Diseased Soul are loathsome and odious to God and man and stink in their nostrils To prove therefore King CHARLES II and no other to be that King which shall perform those great things in England it will be necessary to shew this unto you by Example of the Leprosie and thereof who was or were the First Cleansers and who the last that so in like manner Who he was who first cured the KINGS-EVIL being known we may know the last and he that was presaged thereby The First Cleanser of the Leper was the Priest as appears in Lev. 14. But the Person foreshewn thereby was our Saviour Christ a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech From which Example of the Leprosie two Rules are to be laid down 1. That the Type and Antitype be both alike 2. That there be as much and more in the Antitype than in the Type in the most perfect Antitype As in the Precedent of the Leprosie The Type and Antitype were Both to be Priests and not so only I speak of the Persons but lest it might be thought that any of the Priests the Sons of Aaron succeeding the First Cleanser before Christ might be the Person prefigured therefore a more excellent Priest was to be still expected not such an one as offered up Buls and Goats like the Typical Priests but himself once for all According to which two Rules our Dear Lord King CHARLES II is the Antitype unto the First Curer of the KINGS-EVIL But because Christ had many Types of himself which being put together did so describe him that no man might mistake him when he was come for he was not fully prefigured by Priests but partly by Prophets by their foretelling their raising the dead as Elias and Elisha did c. by Solomons wisedom Jonas's being in the Fishes belly c. But our Lord the King having no such Types of him beside the First healer of the KINGS-EVIL as our Saviour had therefore his whole Type is pourtrayed in Edward the Confessor Secondly it will follow that more must be in the Cure of our Soveraign the Antitype then was in King Edward the Type from the second Rule lest some other of the Kings of England might be thought Edwards Antitype but in the outward and bodily cure they are alike and equal therefore that more in the Antitype must be of those fore-named things signified thereby I now will shew you according to the First Rule a Full Equality betwixt King Edward and King Charles so that no other King but King Charles II can be the parallel to his Royal Predecessor King Edward the Confessor King Edward was banished his Countrey so was our Liege Lord King Charles King Edward was sent for to come and govern thus was our Dread Soveraign humbly entreated by Both his Houses of Parliament to Assume the Government of his Kingdomes and was sent for And how welcome our King was unto the Clergy who expected restitution into their places and to all Ministers which before expected to be deprived of all maintenance as they were threatned and how far above the welcome of King Edward the Confessor to his who felt and feared no such evil the different reasons will plainly determine And with what gladness of heart his Subjects received King Charles after their intolerable oppressions and never otherwise likely to be removed no man can doubt nor can tongue express but their Presents their Triumphs their Attendance their incessant Shouts and Acclamations as in a continued Street from Dover to London of yong and old to see their King do plainly testifie But above all King Edward the Confessor was the Son of Edward the Martyr even so our Gracious K. Charles the Confessor was Son to King Charles the Martyr And lest it trouble my Reader to imagine how Edward the Confessor may be called the son of Edward the Martyr since in property of speech and by general consent he is not the Son but Nephew and brothers son to Edward the Martyr All this notwithstanding Edward the Confessor by the Phrase of Holy Scripture which we for the most part follow and ought to follow in this Divine interpretation is the Son of Edward the Martyr For we reade 1 Chro 3 16. And the sons of Joakim Jeconiah his son Zedekiah his son when indeed and in nature Zedekiah was not the son but the uncle of Jeconiah but cause Zedekiah was Jeconiahs Successor he is called his son as by the same rule Edward the Confessor being Successor to Edward the Martyr is called Edward the Martyrs Son And yet a farther reason thereof common to both is That in orderly and legal Succession the son of either ought to have succeeded his Father that is of Jeconiah and Edward the Martyr Here likewise is brought in the second Rule in some part Edward was stiled the Martyr only as it is declared because he was murdered innocently Edward was sir-named the Confessor because he was a Pious and Charitable man and enacted good Laws But for far better cause is our Royal Soveraign King Charles I named the Martyr which name his Majesty took unto himself is
called the seventh from Adam Jude 14. in which place son is to be understood For Henry VII is the First Margarite his daughter Q to James IV. King of Scotland the Second James V the third Mary Q. of Scotland his daughter the Fourth James VI King of Great Britain the fifth King Charles I the sixth K. Charles II the seventh And this is a good Argument to prove that King Charles II the seventh of a sea earth is not to be understood so to cure the Kings-evil as in a literal sence which some of these and more of his Predecessors have done but in some speciall and mystical way as I have declared And this computation agrees in another account if we reckon by the daughter of Queen Margarite and her issue for Queen Margarite daughter to King Henry VII first married to King James IV had issue James V after married to Archibald Douglas Earl of Angus by him had issue Margarite As King Henry VII the first Margarite Queen to King James IV the second Margarite her daughter by Archibald Earl of Angus and Wife to Matthew Stuart Earl of Lenoix the third Henry Lord Darley her son husband to Mary Queen of Scotland the fourth King James his son King of Great Britain the fifth King Charles I the sixth King Charles II the seventh For which cause I do humbly beseech the Kings Majesty that a Law may be enacted by the King and his Parliament for the deserved punishment of such diabolical impostures as this is which is frequently committed in this land by seventh sons taking upon them the Royal Prerogative of our Kings with the touch of their hands to cure the Kings-evil For the practice here of tends much to the dishonour of God and of our good King and to the delusion of his Majesties Subjects But one thing more touching the Rekets must not be forgotten that is to say the time when that Disease first seized upon Children in this Kingdome and had that name of Rekets given unto it It was the third year after our Royall Soveraigns Nativity or the next unto it when the weekly Bill of Mortality mentioned one to have been buried of the Rekets in the Moneth of May and no mention thereof in any of the said Bils before that time As I have found by search in the Parish Clerks Register kept in their Hall For as the time when Darius took the Babylonian Kingdom is exprest Dan. 5. 31. to be when he was about threescore and two years old that the Jews might observe as judiciously H. Broughton hath noted upon that place that at the time they were carried into captivity which was about the time of Darius his birth the Jews might then know the Lord had a Deliverer born for them So the Nation of England may learn Gods special care that he did not send them the Disease of the Rekets till He was born who should free them from the Miserie 's signifyed thereby and from the Disease it self Hitherto of the Kings-Evil as it pertaineth to the King and Kingdom of England Whereas I said The sins and calamities of this Nation with the Causers of them were pointed at by the Name and Disease of the Rekets and not the Name of our Deliverer but in the other the Kings-Evil yet notwithstanding it doth appear who shall be our Deliverer albeit not in the Name of the Disease or the Symptomes of the Rekets yet in the quality of the Persons which are troubled therewith The Patients so afflicted are Children and no other partly but not principally that we might be left without all pretence of any other inferior cause but be constrained to look up to the Hand which hath smitten us and yet we will not but in despight of reason seek about after this and that cause most vainly Again partly it is to let us understand that the afflictions foreshewn thereby should fall upon the childe of God Thirdly and principally the Rekets is laid on children that by the quality of the person afflicted by it it being the childs disease we may understand him that shall free us from it and what is signified thereby As it is called the Kings-evil not because it is caused by or laid upon but cured by the King So is it called and to be called the Childes disease because a childe shall heal it Surely you will ask me What childe We finde in Holy Scripture that our Saviour hath called himself barely by the name of the Son If the Son shall make you free saith our Savior you shall be free indeed And since we finde that God doth communicate his own Name to Princes calling them Gods and hence it seems to have been first used among Princes to name themselves in the plural number though single by the word we and us imitating as it were the Lord Almighty who is One and Three he doth seem to express by this word the childes Disease the Disease of the childe above all other children the childe a son of the King After which manner the son and daughter of the King of Spain is called infante and infanta that is the son and daughter childe as being well enough exprest alone to understand what son and daughter is meant thereby So when we say the childes Diseases 〈◊〉 may be well understood that Disease which the Childe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all children that is the Kings son shall heal In which expression of childe is also shewn first that our King shall be when this is done a childe albeit not according to the vulgar use of the word in our English tongue yet according to the signification of that word which in the Hebrew signifieth sometimes a childe in years else where a yong man although not very properly by the Translators rendred also a childe where in Daniel it signifieth a yong man calling the three companions of Daniel three children that he shall then be yong in years How great a matter of comfort is hereby administred unto us that are the people of the land that the Lord is so pleased that the King shall not differ the making us a happy nation to his old age but go about it and perfect the Lords work while he is yong Secondly here is an Argument of Almighty Gods great Power and Mercy that he should frame his Majesties heart to clemency as not to suffer him although his Royal Father was murthered to break out in cruel and unjust revenge It is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes And lest any man should thus object This Disease of the Rekets is common to women children as well as to men as that it should not seem thereby to point at a cure to be performed by the King in regard of the sex as to be performed by the son more than the daughter of a King let him take a view of those great Types of our Savior the Prophets whereof although the most part were men yet
aright of things by any Signes or Wonders whatsoever nor which do profess the knowledge of Gods Mystical and Miraculous Messages whether of things past present or to come or if perchance some few do they are all by constant experience found either willful and impudent Impostors or Brain-sick or down-right Mad-men Whereunto passing by all those Testimonies formerly alleaged albeit among the rest Machiavil is not to be despised a man neither so foolish nor yet of so easie belief that he should affirm there were presagers of future troubles if haply a wise man might judge such presages casual and by Cicero comprehended under the general acknowledgement of all nations I may say there are that think Savanarola had a foresight of such a Propheticall nature in certain things and some also of our own nation to have had the like which I shall not name in this place But although I should grant that no man hath been able to interpret Prodigies or Visions which we have met with it doth not therefore necessarily imply that the thing is not to be attained by any man May a man therefore determine that there was no way to attain the knowledge of the Greek tongue in England because until Linacre brought the same into this Kingdom peradventure there was no man found skilful therein Some Arts have quite perished if we may believe Authors which no man yet hath regained yet we must not therefore conclude that the refinding of them is impossible for it might rather have been thought so before their first invention Shall we say because the Natives of America are wholly ignorant of the Mathematiks that therefore those Sciences are impossible to be learned by them For it is not a firm Argument to reason from what is not to what cannot be As little reason have we to argue That Divine and Miraculous Visions cannot be understood because men every where perswading themselves that such strange Signes are natural seduced by the false Doctrine of the Peripateticks School which feigneth such causes of their generation oftentimes grosly absurd neglect the study of them and wonder at it in others As for those which pretend their Revelations of which there have been many these last years partly mere Impostors to fill their bellies and to get a name partly men of more Phanfie then Judgement which strongly imagine what they desire should be and what they much think of in the day dream of peradventure in the night and byassed by their desires and hopes give such interpretations to their dreams which they call Visions as serve their turns and fit their phansies and publish them for truths such men with the Astrologians and monethly Prognosticators all their foundations being false no man may expect truth from them In which sort of men we may plainly discern the malice and subtlety of the devil who as he hath ever been accustomed as well by fraud as by force to hinder Gods Glory and the good of the Church and to steal honour unto himself doth by waies sometimes alike othertimes contrary oppose whatsoever makes for the foregoing ends At that very time when Jeremiah prophesied truth Hananiah a false Prophet prophesied lies to please the people and discredit the Prophet Jerem. 28. 10 11. In those days in the land of Chaldea unto the Jews did Daniel and Ezekiel prophesie as true Prophets But at that time of their captivity how many were there which in that place being false Prophets divined lies unto them For thus saith the Lord Jer. 29. 8. Let not your Prophets nor Diviners which be found in the midst of you deceive you neither hearken to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed When Elijah was a faithful Prophet and with him Micaiah unto Ahab 1 King 21. and 22. beside Zedekiak who smote Micaiah on the cheek for speaking truth it is apparent that there was a great number of false Prophets like unto Zedekiah 1 King 22. 23. And lest the Apostles should gain credit to their preaching by working miracles and prophesying things to come the devil opposeth this work by his Prophets For then were Simon the Sorcerer Act. 8. Elymas the Sorcerer Act. 13. a Damosel having a divining wicked Spirit Chap. 16. and certain vagabond Jews and 7. sons of one Sceva a Jew Exorcists or Conjurers Chap. 19. Even so lest at such a time when there is great need in times of great fears troubles and dangers to be forewarned of the issue of things when the Church of God is in great distress and greater fears yea when Divine Premonitions Visions and Prodigies are found the devil instructs and perswades hypocrites and crack-brain'd men and women with Astrologians to delude some whose apparent deceits joyned with the Doctrine of Aristotles School harden others which are more wise in an obstinate incredulity to the dishonour of Almighty God making them affirm that no future thing is foreshewn in these days miraculously and that such and such things which indeed are be no portentous Signes And which is more as if it were true as it is indeed true that we may expect in troublesome times miraculous Signes and Tokens as well and as much as the children of Israel their usual Signes the devil hath so much prevailed with some that they have feigned that they have seen Visions some of them only that people may wonder at them others that they may get a little money by publishing their false Visions to the belying of God Almighty a fearful sin and delusion of the people Besides God hath not granted to every man such a measure of wisedom as if he would he should be able to understand the meaning of Gods secret Messages For as Quintilian saith even in Schools we may pick out some fit to make Souldiers others husbandmen God hath given sundry sorts of gifts to several men according to the words of Paul speaking of the diversity and dispersing of divine gifts 1 Cor. 12. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. saith To another he giveth the working of miracles to another not every one Prophecy Nor were there under the Law very many presaging Prophets much less in one place and at one time In Davids time we reade of Samuel Nathan and Gad who was called the Kings Seer In the time of Eli the priest no Prophet before Samuel and after Malachi unto our Saviour there were as few When those Prophets were most in number so much as we have light from Holy Scripture the Jews for the space of seventy years the time of their Babylonish Captivity enjoyed two in Judea Urijah Jer. 26. 20 in the days of K. Jehojakim and Jeremiah under Jehojakim Jehojakin and Zedekiah two likewise in Chaldea Daniel from the beginning of Jehojakims reign Dan. 1. Ezekiel in the fifth year of Jehojachins captivity Ezek. 1. toward their coming out of their captivity Haggai and Zechariah in both places By which account the Jews for the space of their captivity in those whole 70 years had but
six Prophets sent unto them and in the time of miserable afflictions Now although I cannot but acknowledge that I have not heard almost of any Prophet of future events in these times who hath not been a deceiver or deceived or who hath used any lawful way to expound Divine Visions saving Interpreters of Holy Scripture whose rules if men would follow them and adjoyn fasting and prayer after the Prophet Daniels example in the like cases they would some of them using the right means undoubtedly attain the desired end For it maketh no difference but there is still the same way of interpreting Visions sent from God and enrolled in Scripture or sent from him and presented before our eyes yet so as what I laid down before as a rule be remembred what the old Prophets understood in an instant or soon after and fully we have it not given to us to finde out but by labour and by degrees and using fasting and prayer as common to both not to perfection Whereunto let this be added because Christian people are according to promise more enlightened in their understandings then those of old times those Prophecies and Visions which are now to be interpreted are by those that hear them expounded to be examined in the ballance of right reason agreeable to the Holy Word when most of the old Visions were to be credited because a Prophet pronounced them who could not lye For this was appointed to be the touchstone of a Prophet the certainty of his predictions in the event Deut. 18. 22. When a Prophet speaketh saith the Lord in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not be afraid of him Now let us see since the Lord hath used in evil and wicked times to send among his people Admonitions and Forewarnings also of their sorrows like as of their deliverances their captivity in Egypt and going out their going into Babylon and their return and when there is no cause imaginable why he should not do the like unto us in England if God hath not by immediate and wonderful Messages from himself warned us of our sins and forewarned us of our afflictions and what will be the end of them For the calamities which the children of God have suffered in these Three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland are so great as like and equal to them never any Nation upon whom the Name of God hath been called hath undergone by whomsoever considering that monstrous and universal Massacre in Ireland as the chief part and the general Injustice and Hypocrisie in England and sufferings from our own brethren who profest so frequently love pity and compassion toward us a treachery which we never suspected the next If therefore the Lord is wont to foreshew great troubles is it improbable that he hath forewarned his dear children of the greatest which ever befell the Church of God And if all injustice be a sin and oppression a crying sin is it unlikely that the greatest Injustice and Murther that ever was committed all circumstances considered since the crucifixion of our Saviour Jesus Christ the Murther of our Innocent Soveraign Lord King CHARLES the first and the revenge thereof should be also foreshewn us Nor is what I speak concerning Gods foreshewing of matters concerning the Church so strange a Doctrine and incredible but that divers Reverend and Learned men have observed the Portents and applied the Events unto the Signes when they have plainly seen them fulfilled among the rest and above others the Magdeburg Century Writers have done it carefully collecting the Signes and Portents which befell in every age and while others say That Signes are interpreted when they are fulfilled implying thereby that they were of that nature that they were capable of being expounded before their fulfilling Whensoever such miraculous Signes are expounded though after their events God procureth unto himself the praise of his Providence Fore-knowledge Power and Truth c. but if we neglect to consider such Signes we deprive our selves of our own mercy by neglecting those comforts which the Lord of tender mercies sends expresly to support his fainting children under the rod of their enemies For but consider if the Signes which are sent by him to premonish if as it is in Job man regardeth not we do not unthankfully frustrate the end I say and scope for which they were sent As for the end and issue of these evils in this and in the two other counited Kingdoms as he hath dealt with other nations it is not improbable but he hath in his great and endless Mercy so dealt with us signifying together with their calamities how he would farther and at last shew himself toward them The Lord unto the servitude which the Israelites were to endure in a land which was not theirs 400 years doth annex this comfortable news and the issue of their captivity and in a Vision that in the fourth generation they should come out thence and with great substance Gen. 15. and by Moses did promise them the possession of the land of Canaan On the contrary he hath unto the pomp pleasures and delicacies of the City of Rome foretold and foreshewn the burning and devastation thereof and that it shall never be built again by the Type of a Milstone cast into the Sea by an Angel and saying Rev. 18. 25. Thus with violence shall that great City Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all Wherefore it is full as likely that Almighty God with our Sins and Sorrows hath foreshewn whether he will utterly forsake England and cast us off or with our true repentance which he will give us take away our long continued miseries Listen now O Reader I bring you glad glad tidings from a far Countrey as cold water to thy thirsty soul but according to the sense of the holy Proverb that i such news as have been expected these twenty years but hitherto in vain and therefore almost despaired after so many changes and frustrated expectations said to be from a far Countrey when they are long in coming as if from far and so in great danger of miscarrying because I tell you what is much feared And this is sent thee O England from thy merciful God by the hands of him from whom considering the crimes of too many undeserved in respect of so many frustrations of hopes and promises made by all others much feared even by our Gracious Lord King CHARLES through the Power and Mercy of God Almighty restoring him unto his just and undoubted Right and Inheritance of his Three Kingdomes and for the sakes of that small number who have mourned and do mourn for all the abominations of this Kingdome so long continued and who have continually sought the Lord to give us our True and Lawful Soveraign whom blessed be the Lord we now