resting upon them they continued to prophesie in the Camp and he was solicited to forbid them Then Moses said to him that would have had it forbidden Envyest thou for my sake would God that all the Lords people were Prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them So it plainly appears that our great Patriarch and Prophet Moses was absolutely in his own judgement inclined to favour a liberty of Prophesying and that his judgement too was seconded by Divine approbation for what he then spoke was from the very mouth and dictate of the Spirit of God himself The Parallel Thus we see what Philosophers assure us is very true that Omne bonum est sui diffusivum All good is diffusive of it self nothing indeed is so proper to its nature as to be communicable much more then must the Spirit of all goodnesse be so that is this Spirit of God himself the Holy Spirit of prophesie What else made our great and gracious Patriarch so willing to part with some of his spirit as the Text tells us he did to the seventy that he set round about the Tabernacle nor onely so but to endeavour and desire as we have seen in the Ascent That all Gods people were Prophets too and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them O words worthy to be written in Letters of Gold with a Pen of Diamond And was not this the very sense and true Prophetick Spirit of our second Moses too Has he not alwayes endeavoured to impart that spirit of his to and improve it in the hearts of all his people that were capable of it Has he not alwayes incouraged the free use and exercise of it throughout these Nations whilst some cruel greedy envious and exterminating spirits were not onely striving in private but enacting in publick to make a monopoly of this holy Spirit and engrosse it to themselves Nor onely so but went about to extirpate and root out all those that desired the free use and exercise of it O Antichristain Tyrany But this sufficiently argued that theirs was not the true spirit of prophesie neither of nor from the Lord at all for that no spirit whatsoever can have a true union with God that has not a commixture of charity is evident by the drift of the whole Chapter of that Epistle to the Corinthians cited in the last Parallel From whence then must this spirit of bitternesse amongst men proceed is it from the more brutal part of man An ancient Father in an elegant gradation of his tells us no for Homo homini Lupus A man is a Wolf to a man that will not reach it for Saevis inter se convenit No beast so savage that will prey upon his own kinde Is it from any devilishnesse that may possesse humane nature no Homo homini daemon will not reach it for those wicked spirits do agree well enough within themselves for our Saviour himself testifies of their union when he sayes That if their house were divided it could not stand From whence then can this spirit of bitternesse amongst men proceed even from men themselves Homo homini homo That alone can reach this malice for nothing is so mercilesse an enemy to man as man himself No creature in the earth besides Canibal-men will prey upon their own speices nor can any but barbarous Christians think that the God of all mercy delights in humane sacrifices like those devilish deities of old and still in America that will be propitiated by no other means From whence then must this spirit of bitternesse amongst Christians proceed is it from any principle of faith or primitive practise surely no for the first children of the Christian Church bore neither rod nor stick in their hands wherewithal to plant faith in the hearts of men How comes it to passe then that we see some sort of people have publisht a Religion all bristled over with swords and pikes all sooted with the smoke of musket and canon all sprinkled over and besmear'd with the blood of Christians Must now the ancient Armes of our Christian forefathers which were prayers and tears be laid aside and none but killing weapons taken up no Schooles to decide controversies between Christians but bloody Campanias nor way to save the souls of men but by destroying their bodies Did God refuse to have his Temple built by David though a man after his own heart because onely his hands were bloody and can he now be contented to have the very morter that is to bind up the stones and ciment the walls of his Church be tempered with blood and her breaches made up with skulls and carkases Will he now suffer the stones of his house to be all polisht with such stroakes as are smitings of Brethren who would not endure in that of Solomons building so much as the noise of hammer ax or iron or brasse toole From whence then can proceed this spirit of bitternesse amongst brethren that the red Dragon should begin again to play Rex and that Whore prepare to dye her Scarlet anew and the pale Horse of imprisonment and exile threaten a range about the streets till his late most Serene Highnesse was pleased to oppose himself and all his power against those cruel and as I said before Antichristian designs From whence I say could arise this root of bitternesse between Brethren from nothing but a meer Machiavillian trick too a pretence forsooth of conformity or uniformity in the Church which has been and is undoubtedly the greatest cheat that ever the Devil invented to make men run a mading in Religion and to embroile Christendom in direful wars perpetual confusions and most bloody ruins The witchcraft of that Jezebel it was that so long troubled this our Israel and that our great Jehu as well as second Moses so furiously marcht against and thanks be to God has pretty well dissolved her inchantments Her painted face he has now likewise discovered in its pure naturals to all the World and pulled off the vizard of all pretenses whatsoever for let the ends of these conformity-mongers be never so plausible to ciment the State forsooth against all division we find it has been throughout all Europe the onely mother and nurse of all disturbances whatsoever in matters of Religion and the greatest occasion of civil bloodshed that ever was in the World for there can be no War so passionate as the War of conscience All these horrid inconveniences and mischiefs his Highnesse's great Mosaick prudence most timely lookt into and prevented amongst us How often have we seen the furious Furnace heating by several parties so could expect no lesse than a fiery-trial But he would neither suffer King nor his Court though he was the pretended head of that pitiful Body nor yet Bishops Arch-Deacons Deans Chancellors and Officials with their long-tailed c. Nor yet any Superintendent with his Classes and pretended Directories to impose any
but from the Sun or water but in Rivers and heat but in Fire and where think you to find true Strength but in the God of the strong I mean not that strength of body that Milo had to carry a heavy beast but the strength of soul and courage to carry a man through all extremities which hath its root in reason its encrease in piety and its Crown in true glory and this courage our second Moses had to the full and that I hope there is no man but will grant is so far from being lessened that it is onely heightened by Religion and godliness His sacred Highnesse therefore chose for his Companions in arms none of those roaring ranting fellows that think there is no way to be esteemed valiant but to dare to be impious to make the pillars of heaven to tremble with their blasphemies and have nothing of souldiers in them but to pill and ravage in their Quarters like Harpyes and to feed themselves with humane blood and in a word have but this one shame left to them that is not to be shamelesse What a ridiculous thing is it in the mean time for people to live like Cyclopes that they may be accounted valiant and act the part of Turks to gain the reputation of good Christian souldiers But here his Highnesse his pious wisdom most eminently after the example of his Great Master Moses has ever shewed it self and made us to know such persons well enough his inspired judgement could never be subject to so much fallacy as to take chaff for Gold hemlock for Parsly or an Ape for a Man and he has plainly taught and proved to us that all their pretended courage is nothing else but despair and rage boiling in their passionate breasts and counterfeiting vertue So I hope we shall have no more such false spectacles clapt over our eyes by that spirit of lyes forged in the shop of Hell to make us take that glass for Diamond and those Kestrells for Faulcons indeed fitter for Stallions than War-horses all their courage is nothing but a boiling fury in their hearts like to that of some Lunaticks or possest with an evil spirit which makes very children and women to be sometimes stronger than many men But such as these were none of our second Moses his election for he being to go on God Almighties errand would have no associats but such as the Lord should approve of and were free from all manner of uncleannesse as that Great Master of War and his incomparable President both prescribed and practised The twelfth Ascent MOses was well entered into years but retained a strong sense still and understanding before he was called out upon Publick Employment he was a most vigilant faithful and skilful Officer in the field For his age we find it was not over-great considering how men lived about that time but his vigour was very extraordinary for the Text tells us that he was a hundred and twenty years old when he died yet his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated Now by all the computations of Chronologers he was above fourscore years old when he was called out upon this great Action of Delivering the Lords own people out of bondage and by consequence he must have been then of a much more vigorous constitution than afterwards For his vigilancy there is none sure will doubt that pleaseth to peruse the sacred Text where he is to be found alwayes watching and praying for his people and either pleading something for them to God or for God to them for his care and fidelity the Lords own acknowledgement likewise may serve turn who has expressely testified of him that he was faithful in all his house The Parallel By equal calculation of our Modern Naturalists as well as Chronologers we do finde that God indulg'd double the life to men before the Flood to that he has done since the very next Age after and yet to them too vouchsafed twice so much time of living as he has done to us So that if those great Secretaries of Nature and Antiquity do not deceive us our second Moses his forty years and upwards may appear parallel to the former's fourscore at or about which times they both were prest forth into Publick employment By which we may observe How the Lord is pleased to honour a well-seasoned age for as the late Learned Philosopher tells us Prudentiae mater adjutrix est experientia quam aetate provectiores multorum observato curriculo temporum negotiorum exemplorum comprobatam magis habere possunt quippe quam dies dat qui ut posterior prioris fit discipulus seris venit usus ab annis The Mother and Nurse of Prudence is experience which the more ancient by the observation of a larger course of times practices of businesses and presidents must of necessity have in a greater proportion This skill dayes are commonly the Donors of for we find the following day is still the Scholler of the former and as the Poet tells us True experience is not got without processe of time Thus we find the best incense alwayes comes from old Trees and Torches made of Aromatick wood cast out their best and most odoriferous exhalations when they are almost wasted O that I had never said that word my tongue falters to speak my pen is palsie-strook to write and my heart trembles to think that our second Moses his dayes were so soon to have an end for we had no temporal good thing more to pray for in order to the State or our selves but that the blessednesse we enjoyed under his late Highnesse might be eternal and that we might perpetually live and flourish under the comfortable and pleasant shadow of his Palms but we have too lately seen that he as a Moses is gone as he came and left us nothing but our own peace and his precious memory behind him But I must passe by this passion lest it make me guilty of too great a digression it being a discourse more proper for the close of our Parallels And indeed however we finde our second Moses Parallel to the first for number of years That I cannot so certainly determine as I can for the vigour of his soul and acutenesse of his sense no one of which to the very last Scene of his life was any whit dulled or diminished more than the eye of his Great Master Moses was an extraordinary blessing doubtlesse vouchsafed by the Divine goodnesse to his dear servants to get youth by years and beauty it self by time as we have seen perfectly proved in the person of his late most Serene Highnesse our second Moses as has been recorded of that our first Great Patriarch his Prototype Then for his great diligence fidelity care and skill in discharging all Trusts committed to his Charge no man can at all dispute that has either seen or heard of the indefatigable labours of his Life His Highnesse knew that
we will exclude the Spirit without whose concurrence all other Teachings are ineffectual He doth speak to the Hearts and Consciences of men and leadeth them to his Law and Testimonies and there he speaks to them and so gives them double teachings according to that of Job God speaketh once yea twice and that of David God hath spoken once yea twice have I heard this Those men that live upon their Mumpsimus and Sumpsimus their Masses and Service-Books their dead and carnal Worship no marvel if they be strangers to God and the works of God and to spiritual dispensations And because they say and believe thus must we do so too we in this Land have been otherwise instructed even by the Word and Workes and Spirit of God To say that men bring forth these things when God doth them judge you if God will bear this I wish that every sober heart though he hath had temptations upon him of deserting this CAVSE of God yet may take heed how he provokes and falles into the hands of the living God by such blasphemies as these according to the tenth of the Hebrews If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remains no more sacrifice for sin It was spoken to the Jews that having professed Christ apostatized from him what then nothing but a fearful falling into the hands of the Living God They that shall attribute to this or that Person the contrivances and production of those mighty things God hath wrought in the midst of us and that they have not been the revolutions of Christ himself upon whose Shoulders the GOVERNMENT is laid they speak against God and they fall under his hand without a Mediator that is if we deny the Spirit of Jesus Christ the glory of all his works in the World by which he Rules Kingdoms and doth administer and is the Rod of his strength we provoke the Mediator And he may say I 'le leave you to God I 'le not intercede for you let him tear you to pieces I 'le leave thee to fall into Gods hands thou deniest me my Soveraignty and Power committed to me I 'le not intercede nor mediate for thee thou fallest into the hands of the Living God Therefore whatsoever you may judge men for and say This man is cunning and politick and subtile take heed again I say how you judge of his Revolutions as the Products of mens inventions Then how much he valued the interests of God and his influence upon all his actions we may see what he sayes in the same Speech and were it not that I can make some Dilemma's upon which to resolve some things of my Conscience Judgement and Actions I should sinck at the very prospect of my Encounters some of them are general some are more special supposing this Cause or this Businesse must be carried on either it is of God or of Man if it be of Man I would I had never touched it with a finger if I had not had a hope fixed in Me that this Cause and this Businesse is of God I would many years ago have run from it If it be of God he will bear it up If it be of Man it will tumble as every thing that hath been of man since the World began hath done And what are all our Histories and other Traditions of actions in former times but God manifesting himself that he hath shaken and tumbled down and trampled upon every thing that he hath not planted and as this is so the All-wise God deal with it If this be of humane Structure and Invention and it be an old Plotting and Contrivance to bring things to this Issue and that they are not the Births of Providence then they will tumble But if the Lord take pleasure in England and if he will do Us good he is able to bear us up Let the difficulties be whatsoever they will we shall in his Strength be able to encounter with them And I blesse God I have been inured to Difficulties and I never found God failing when I trusted in him I can laugh and sing in my heart when I speak of these things to you or elsewhere Here is a piece of Divine Policy indeed and fetcht doubtlesse from the Gates of the City of God Thus was his late Mosaical Highnesse alwayes pleading to acknowledge the truth of that most excellent Maxim delivered by Augustin Cui bonum non est Deus sibi ipsi vult esse bonum suum sicut sibi est Deus He that holds not God for his greatest good would be to himself his own good as God is to himself He that thinks to escape from the bands of dependance that he has on God makes himself his own blessing and his end his God His Highnesse therefore so constantly steer'd himself and all his actions by his obedience to Divine Commands that he chose alwayes to perish with a good conscience rather than to flourish without one and though he was from the very beginning like a pure Oriental Pearle in the salt-sea so continually involved in the cruel acerbities and confusions of our times yet he alwayes kept his Noble luster in then midst of them and by his invincible affection toward and confidence in his God he arose still from them with more and more splendour and made all those his perplexities which threatned him with many an imminent ruin but higher ascents and steps to the Temple of glory Vertue and Piety he always compared to and took for the Geometrical Cube of his life which we know in Mathematicks on what side soever it be cast alwayes finds its Basis Where are you now all you I say who are the pitiful followers of Nicholas Machiavells policy poor tricks of carnal wisdom What will become now of all your mighty Maxims of hypocritical knavery Let this one example onely of our Christian Moses parallel to that of his Great Master the Patriarch which we have seen in his Ascent serve now for all to inform you That there are none but such as are perfectly blind that seek after your Principles and miserable they must be who find them the sottish who will descend to serve them and the utterly reprobate and forlorne who can stoope to tye themselves unto them but the wisdom that is of Heaven our Mosaical wisdom is so transcendently sublime above all your untrue and trivial inventions as the light of Stars surpasseth all the sparklings and petit sprey fiers of the Earth And though such humane interests and designs may possibly and will still hold the Ascendent in the hearts of some sort of people yet we finde how my Lords high holy Mosaical spirit could no more than that of his Grand Archetype condescend to steer his course or counsells that way nor yet more than those Angels now standing in glory follow the example of those Luciferian spirits which fell by such Machiavillian counsells into the pit of Perdition No our most
and all the Elements under his feet than he could possibly be here with beholding them over his head In short who would think it much I am sure his Highnesse did not to give up the life of a Pismire for the greatest Prince's upon earth is no better in exchange for immortality he had alwayes we know like a good Christian death in his desire and life in patience This truly I should presume sufficient to satisfie and comfort any reasonable Christians for the losse as we call it of his late Highness But setting Christianity aside methinks it should be satisfactory enough for common men to consider that as the Poet tells us Lex est non paena perire and what the Philosopher assures us that mors naturae lex est mors tributum officiumque est mortalium death is a law of nature no punishment it is the very tribute and duty of mortals And what Plutarch not more elegantly than truly concludes Homines sicut poma aut matura cadunt aut acerba ruunt Men like Apples must either fall ripe or be pulled down green and sower Now I would fain know what have we to complain of Did not his Highnesse live to a very fair and good old age to a true Mosaick maturity For as was said before if by Chronological Computation our second Moses his forty years were parallel to the fourscore of the former when he came into publick employment then his threescore and upwards when he came to dye stands still parallel with the others hundred and twenty and as for their strength of body and mind none can affirm him to be lesse his parallel to the very last For his Highness eye was not dim nor any of his natural force abated Thus his gracious God and benigne nature plentifully provided for that great and most incomparable person that his most invincible spirit should never quaile under any sensible decay of flesh What more of favour I would fain know could his most Serene Highnesse receive from the bountiful hands of Heaven Yet some spirits there are so disposed to quarrel with the Almighty that they will not yet be satisfied in the divine dispensation but think and say I pray God not impiously that the heavenly and eternal Father should have permitted some more time of life to a person so deserving it but let them remember that mors aequopede pulsat and that intervallis distinguimar exitu aequamur greatnesse nor goodness neither can give any priviledge from death mors omnium par est per quae venit diversa sunt id in quod desinit unum est death though by several waies brings all to the same end These considerations sure though drawn from meer Heathens would be enough to satisfie any common understandings of men but these quarrelsome persons that we speak of sure are of opinion that all happinesse is determined to this poor life and are I fear very neer akin to those whom Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose souls are so great lovers of their bodies that they would tye themselves to their flesh as closoe as they could and after death would as he prettily expresseth it still walk round about their bodies to see if they could find a passage into them again How much is this pittiful humor of Christians below the divine Philosophy of Pagans themselves Amongst whom we find that there were a certain people who by positive laws forbad any man of fifty years of age to make use of the Physitian saying that it discovered too much love of life and yet some Christians we find at the age of fourscore who will not endure to hear a word of death but of this sad sottish temper we know his Mosaical Highnesse was not he never valued the putting off his life more than the shifting of his shirt and when he received his citation from Heaven he as readily obeyed as his Master Moses did to ascend his fatal Mount I pray you then be quiet you cruel friends and do not disturb his honored dust now sweetly resting in his Tabernacle of Repose for if you consider rightly you are bound as the Orator tells you Non tam vitam illi ereptam quam mortem donatam censere not so much to think him bereft of life as to have been endowed with death in a ripe old age and after the enjoyment of the fruits of all his labours Hath not this most incomparable person resembled truely the great Ark in the deluge which after it had borne the whole World in the bowels of it amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of nature at length reposed it self in the Mountains of Armenia So this most admirable Prince after he had carried in his heart and entrals a spirit great as the universe it self amonst so many tears dolours and cruel acerbities of contradictions and had delivered himself of that painful burthen that is had brought forth our most happy and establisht peace he stopt upon Mount Nebo and from thence went to take his rest in the Mountains of Sion Thus the Lord like an indulgent Father of a Family sends his servants to bed so soon as they have done their work it being all the justice and reason in the World that they who rise betimes to serve him and work hard all the day for him should go in as good time to sleep with him Let us I beseech you therefore passe over this death in the manner of holy Scripture which speaks but one word onely of the death of so many great personages Let us never so much as talk of death in a subject so wholly replenisht with immortality O what a death is that to be esteemed to see vice and sin trodden down under his feet and Heaven all in Crowns over his head to see men in admiration all the Angels in joy and the arms of God ready to receive him and fully laden with recompenses for his great services Nay that the Lord did purposely and expressely intend to make his Highness his death appear to be a most signal reward and perfect victory to him and that he should carry off the spoiles of life it self with more triumph than ever mortal did is made manifest in that it pleased his divine Majesty to take him to himself upon that most memorable day the third of September the greatest day of all his humane glories that he was pleased to put an end to his life in this World that very day that he had got such an immortality in fame to set a period to his labours that very day that he had performed so many Herculian ones for the glory of his God and his Countries good and to crown his daies with so glorious a close nay to give him a heavenly Crown that very day that he had gotten so many earthly ones and loaden his Victorious Temples with so many flourishing Laurels of eternal renown Then for the glorious burial of our second
this folly though Scripture it self were sufficient I shall produce further evidence First Philo the Jew in his Book of the Life of Moses gives us the exact History of his education and assures us that he learned of Egyptian Masters Arithmetick Geometry Musick both Theorical and Practick together with all sorts of Philosophy and the Secrets of Hieroglyphicks In all which pieces of learning he grew to such perfection that he was acknowledged for a Master by the very Egyptians themselves insomuch that when Pythagoras and Plato came to learn the Sciences in Egypt they would first of all study the Doctrine of Moses whose name in those times as we find by them was in great admiration through all Egypt and it is more than probable that from his Books they did conceive all that Divinity which they have delivered and the reason of God which they declare under the notion of the first cause After them Numenius the famous Pythagorean wrote many things concerning Mosaical Doctrine as Basil the great restifies and Numenius addes that Plato himself was no other then Moses speaking in Greek Nay Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius both say that the Gentiles received all the very mysteries of their Religion from the Books of Moses though enfolding them in some odd fables and Orpheus himself confesseth that he learned divers things from the Doctrine of Moses especially in the Book which he made of the Sacred Word that he sayes himself he took out of the Mosaical Tables as also that which he sang concerning God known to the onely Chaldean Moses which Verses of his one Francis George has reduced into Latine in his Book of the Harmony of the World Nemo illum nisi Chaldaeo de sanguine quidam Progenitus vidit Now some have been of opinion that Orpheus meant by this Chaldean Noath and others Enoch and the Platonists took him for Zoroastres who was the son of Cham but the following words convince it could be no body else but Moses Priscorum nos haec docuerunt omnia voces Quae binis tabulis Deus olim tradidit illis Now to none of them were the Tables of the Commandments given but to Moses onely Thus we see he was not onely a perfectly well bred Schollar but the very Fountain of all our Learning A most excellent Natural Philosopher he must needs be for that learning then flourisht most there and besides sure he must needs know the true causes of all things that was so well acquainted with all the Almighties Counsels of Creation then for his skill in Moral and Politick Philosophy it must be altogether as undeniable being intrusted with the supream Civil and Military power over Gods own people for so many years and holding forth to us still such Moral Political Laws and Constitutions that will never be matcht by any Legislator in the World Then for his Divinity there need be sure as little doubt who had the constant conversation with God himself and did by particular direction from him couch all the sacred Mysteries of Religion in the several joynts and pieces of the Tabernacle and the very hems of Aarons garments as may appear more at large in his last four Books The Parallel We have hitherto convers't in the Mosaical out-works onely and seen these two high Favourits of Heaven our first and second Moses marching hand in hand together in most amicable Parallel through some remarkable Ascents of their Infancy We are now happily entering into the Inner Moses and to reflect something upon the dispositions of their Adolescency which there is no doubt but we shall find very agreeable to their Births And indeed one of the greatest benefits which youth can receive at the hands of God is the favourable blessing of a good education it is that which polisheth and purifieth humane Nature as one would do a precious Stone obscured with earth or base ordure it is that which as a late Doctor tells us makes of men as it were Angels and without it doubtlesse the goodliest and most precious natures would perpetually dwell in a sad brutishnesse But above all others Princes ought to have an extraordinary advantage of Learning for it is highly necessary sure that their souls should be fullest of lights and flames which are to serve others for so great guides and to be most exquisitly adorned with good letters who know as doubtlesse our second Moses did from his Cradle that they are to be set aloft upon pinacles to change their words into Laws and lives into examples And he that was to be Supream Magistrate of so many Nations ought sure with incessant study read unite and incorperate in his sole self the vertues and faculties of many others And so our glorious second Moses did who was no lesse remarkable for his true Liberal Noble Princely education than the former And truly for this we must acknowledge eternal obligations to his Highnesse his most honourable Parents who had a principal care to perfect the natural endowments of their Child with those of Art to the shame of many fathers and mothers at this day who too much resemble Ostriches who lay their eggs in the open way without hatching them abandoning their children to become a prey to misery ignorance and impiety But his Highnesse most illustrious Parents desirous to live in the honour of their incomparable Child and to give him a breeding equal to his Nobility Beauty and Ingeny and to those miraculous preservations by which he was pointed out by Providence to be a future Instrument of Divine wonders as the former Moses was would give him an education equal to his And it is notorious that he suckt in a very great proportion of Philosophy with the first milk that he drew from his Mother University as also he devoured many other Pieces of prophane learning which may be were supererrogatory in a Prince yet by that means he merited to be then as much thought the glory of the Gown as he has since prov'd himself the honour of the Sword for he attained to so stupendious a pitch of Learning in so few years that all that knew him then thought it rather came which was suspected upon the former Moses too by inspiration than acquisition and who could then but admire those fair blossomes of which we have seen since such excellent fruits Nor can there be lesse doubt of his perfection in Political knowledge made by any man that will but look upon his most Serene Highnesse his Government either Civil or Military over us or the Laws that he has establisht for the eternal safety and comfort of these Nations And as for Divinity I mean that of the heart that Grand Cardinal Piece and most principal part of Royal Learning we all know that was bred and born with him a Divinity I say not lodg'd in the Schools that is too knotty sure for Princes heads but that which is reposed in godly hearts and
I have often considered those three difficult questions which the Angel proposed to Esdras to weigh the fire to measure the wind and to number the veins of the Abyss and really I find the intricacy of an exorbitant ambition to be all that Ambition is a devouring fire who can poise it It is a most robustious violent wind who can hold or fathom it It is a bottomlesse Abyss who can count the issues and the sources of it The middle of the Earth hath been found the depth of the Sea hath been sounded the height of the Alpes and Riphaean Hills themselves has be taken and measured the remotest limits of the hollow caverns of Caucasus have been dived into the head-spring of Nilus it self hath not escaped the discovery onely in the hearts of men we cannot find the bounds of desire of commanding This I say is too true in the community of men but his Mosaical Highnesse has ever given such visible and apparent proofes of his divine self-denying spirit and such irrefragable arguments of his reall reluctancies against all offers whatsoever of wordly greatnesse that malice it self cannot object the least spot of ambition to have possest his inspired bosom For first we have seen how long he was pleased to conceal himself like his dear Master Moses in the backside of the Desart near to the Mountain of God where he could have no conversation but with him and his own soul and we all know how unwilling he was to forsake that his beloved humble retreat which sure he had never done if he had not studied most thoroughly the best of Poets so often repeated Sic vos non vobis and been more divinely taught that all which is most excellent in creatures is not for the creatures which possesse it as light is not in the Sun for the Sun it self nor waters are in the Ocean for the Ocean it self The great God of the Universe who gave Brightnesse to the one and Rivers to the other would that both should tend to the publick commodity of men and has thereby ordained them to passe on to the glory of the Soveraign Being His inspired Highnesse full well knew that Kingdoms were not made so much for Kings as Kings for their Kingdoms for they are made so and set over them to this end onely to do them not themselves good and to protect them and preserve them as the goods of God himself His Highnesse likewise considered that so soon as a man is born with and bred up to fair and worthy parts he is to employ himself and them for the publick good and he who would retain to himself what Divine Providence gave in common commits a sacriledge in the great Temple of the God of Nature and he that perpetually reflects on himself in all things and draws as it were all to himself as if he were so made onely for himself opposeth his Creator and Judge and makes himself corrival with the Soveraign Majesty of Heaven Now after that our second Moses had upon these Divine considerations been drawn to put himself forth upon publick Services we all know how unwilling he has been to receive the dues of his own honours and how desirous he was rather to wrap himself up nay to bury himself if he could have done it in his first colours than to proceed to higher Commands which being still enforced upon him by his own Mosaical merits we have seen likewise with what humility and great candor of spirit he has ever managed them And when the pressing necessities of State required that one single person should sit at the Helme and that he was pointed out both by God and man for that purpose how unwilling was he to accept the Charge insomuch that when the Protector at of these Nations was so violently pressed upon him by the then wearied Parliament who knows not with what sighs and groans not to be uttered and sad regrets lesse to be understood he was at length pleased to undergo the Charge Nay yet further Is it not most evident how to his very last day he has with an incomparable constancy and magnanimity of spirit refused and resisted all those urgent importunities of Parliament and People Council and Army pressing the Crown and the Title of King upon him And in all this has he not most perfectly proved himself the follower of his pattern and great Master Moses who was not onely unwilling to receive the honour of Captain General over his Brethren but refused and contemned the whole Court and Kingdom of Pharaoh Thus our blessed Saviour the Pattern of all patterns to convince the World that he was the Example of all perfection would appear onely great in refusing of a whole world which the Devil did as it were unfold to him before his feet So doubtlesse it was his Divine will likewise that the vertue of the greatest men should appear clearly in the refusal of the greatest honours when as by his Spirit the blessed Baptist refused the greatest of all Titles which was to own the high honour and name of the Messiah Indeed it is a most particular grace and favour afforded by God to make a man to open his eyes upon himself to know himself as he ought to measure himself and to set limits upon his own desires Now this especial grace we see the Lord has largely bestowed upon these his two extraordinary Servants our first and second Moses And indeed my Lord alwayes lookt upon those spirits with pity who outragiously mad after greatnesse pursue it with all manner of toil and sinister practices and never counted them to be otherwise than as bubbles that rise on the water in the time of a Tempest which both encrease and crack in a moment That wretched sordid ambition it was which made the great Roman Emperours of old to sit so slippery upon their Thrones and to live indeed but the age of flowers still driving one another out as nailes do or as the waves that are still beating one another to be broken against Rocks No our glorious second Moses like the first was ever elevated to so high a pitch of Holy and Divine contemplations that he lookt upon all the greedy Great ones of the World but as so many pitiful Ants furiously contending for a poor simple grain of earth and truly the vast distance of his high spirit from all sublunary things made the whole Globe of the World appear to him no otherwise than as a little point and that almost imperceptible good reason therefore had his Mosaical prudence to be unwilling to trouble himself at all about it but enough has been said as to that so we 'l hasten from the unwillingnesse of these our two Grand Masters to accept to celebrate their promptnesse fidelity and activity in the glorious execution of their several Charges which will abundantly appear in our after Ascents and Parallels The eighth Ascent MOses found the Lord faithful in the performance of
idlenesse was a meer moth of Noble mindes and iron it self sure if it had the reason to discourse understanding to chuse its one commodity would cry out to us that it better loved to be kept in constant use and exercise than to lie rusting and consuming in the corner of a horse Wherefore we see that God does not ordinarily entertain great souls in the pleasures of an idle life but in the rigid exercises of vertue for we know that there are many most excellent fishes that will die in standing waters and are delighted in the most bubbling sluces and turbulent seas and rivers and the best birds will alwayes be abroad in the most troubled air Our glorious Eagle therefore was alwayes seeking out for action and never to be found lazing or beating of his wings in the lower Regiment of the air but soaring alwayes aloft amongst the furies of Lightnings Tempests and Whirle-winds playing with Thunder-claps and ever having his eye where the day was to break His painful vigilancies were so great in Court as well as Camp City and Field that we may say of him as was once of the Great Constantine Tam assiduus in actione sua constitit ut vel labore refici ac reparari videretur He was so conversant in action that it seemed to be nothing but his continual recreation Gaudent siquidem saith the same Author divina perpetuo motu jugi agitatione se vegetat aeternitas His constitution was so strenuous that it must needs have been akin to those celestial bodies that refresh themselves with their own motion and perpetual agitation So true it is what Seneca tells us Contempta res est home nisi supra humana se erexit A man is a very pitiful vile and contemptible thing unlesse he be ambitious to raise himself above all the ordinary courses of the World but that saying is to be verified in no sort of men so much as the Noble Souldier whose honour depending upon the most superlative degree of vertue must seek out and pursue wayes beyond all equality and such a person is sure of attaining his end for Polyaenus has assured him that Voluntas ad laborem propensa cuncta vincere superare consuevit A propense will or a soul prone to labour has been ever wont to conquer and overcome all difficulties And Appian gives the like encouragement when he proclaims Nihil tam arduum quod industria animi fortitudine superari non possit Nothing so high or hard but is to be compassed and overcome by industry and a willing valiant mind What these and all the Philosophers Poets Orators or Historians have said or could prescribe his late most Serene Highnesse has alwayes fully understood and most perfectly practised as no one of the Army that has served under him but must bear him witnesse how present he would be upon all Guards and Watches as if he were ubiquitary how incessant in all his Actions and Labours as if he were impassible how alwayes taking order for and moving about his body as if he were immortal Indeed this laborious vertue which is no small one in an officer his Highnesse was more Master of than any that I ever heard or read of If any Work were to be raised his hand must be in it first if any duty to be done his president must be still the foremost so by rare skill mingling the Captain and the common Souldier together he did both intend the diligence of others from whom he might though not so effectually have exacted it and ease the burden of their labour by making himself a companion and partaker of their pains and travel But of this and his other great pieces of Conduct we shall say more in our next Ascent where we shall represent him a most compleat Captain-General The thirteenth Ascent WE have found our Moses a most valiant and vertuous Souldier and a most vigilant skilful and careful Officer but that he might be all and yet not fit to command in Cheif and a shepherd is not very likely to make a great General fitter he must be sure in the opinion of most to lead his flocks than to conduct an Army of men Yes we shall find him a most glorious and accomplisht Captain-General otherwise he would never have been selected sure by the Divine Wisdom to conduct and command so great and troublesome a body as that of the most mutinous perverse and rebellious people in the World and to carry them in his bosom as a Nurse beareth her sucking child or if there could be yet any danger of doubt in any of this I would refer that doubting person to the whole current of holy Scripture where he shall find by the exact discipline observed in his Army the ordering of his several Marchings and Encampings the Election of his ablest Officers as well as Souldiers and the fighting of his Battels his extraordinary and incomparable skill in Military Conduct The Parallel Good Souldiers get honour to their Captains and Officers and all together being gallant men must of necessity make a glorious General It highly concerns him therefore who is to Command in Cheif to let his prime and principal care be placed in the Election of his inferiour officers as our first and second Moses have so exemplarily done for this is the first step of all Military Conduct wherein I am sure he has out-done all the Generals that ever were before him unlesse this to which he is so parallel Is it not plain that his Highnesse found such horrid abuses in all the former Armies that he was faine to new modell this to bring about those his great and mighty workes that he has done And what sort of Officers were they that he chose and instruments that his inspired wisdom pickt out and fitted for his purpose even such as his Souldiers were before spoken of men of clean hands and purer hearts that were to fight the Lords Battels He rejected ever those gay gawdy outsides of the world those petit spirits of the Abyss before spoken of sprung from the race of Cadmus I mean those silly fencing fellows swaggering swashbucklers and Hectors aforesaid who appear like Comets of fire and blood to bring murder pestilence and poison into houses who as I said make the Pillars of Heaven to tremble with their blasphemies have nothing else of souldiers in them but to pill and ravage in their Quarters like Harpies and feed themselves with humane blood who are ever readier to shew their valour for a cold countenance an extravagant word or a Caprichio of spirit than they would either be for God their Country or the whole World A most wretched and abominable sort of men that never think of or look up to Heaven but to blaspheme it indeed more like Centaurs than men and have their hearts all spotted over like the skin of a Panther No these were the pitiful things as we have said
resembling those Rivers which run under the earth choosing to steale from the eyes of the world to seek for the sight of his God onely So his Devotions did ever study solitude and retirements and were alwayes best when shut up within themselves Nay farther yet after the example of a greater than Moses that is our Blessed Saviour himself he used to spend many whole nights in prayer pernoctans in oratione as the Scripture expresseth it and like those best of Christians in the Primitive times that were called the Crickets of the night because at any time if some interruption of sleep happened they ever made it out with ejaculatory prayers and elevations of the heart Those that love God truly will have recourse to him at all hours and upon all occasions not confining their devotions to time or place Jonas and the three Children found sufficient Chappels in the Whales belly and the fiery Furnace because the love of God the wisest Architect had erected them and the Lord was as near them in the intrails of a Fish or the midst of Flames as he would have been in his own most holy Temple In fine our second Moses has not onely reacht after the former as we have already seen but he has sum'd up all example to perfect himself in the practise of this Divine duty He ever distributed his fastings watchings prayer repast counsel study with so prudent an oeconomy for the service of his God and held his life so admirably interlaced between action and contemplation that he made on earth a perfect figure of Angels ascending and descending receiving already a tast of those benefits which he was to hope for in the other insomuch that he seemed to have his soul in Heaven whilst he was on earth to understand mysteries and enjoy an antipast of Paradise it self O thrice and four times happy were we if we could have known our own happinesse to have had such a Person set over us by God and his own Divine vertues that had so clear and free accesse to the Throne of Grace and so near an union to God himself as a finite was capable of with an infinite and might be stiled as the former Moses was The familiar friend of God and was not onely alwayes ready to stand in the gap between us and the Divine vengeance as the first Moses did but was wont to storm Heaven for us and pull down blessings by force upon us though we were a most ungrateful and undeserving people nor so onely but that was alwayes ready to instruct us by his precept as well as practise if we could dare to follow him in all other pieces of Piety and Divine duty as we have in part seen already and shall more at large in the next succeeding Ascents and Parallels The one and twentieth Ascent MOses was a most exemplary Person in all the practical parts of true Piety He had alwayes so reverend and faithful a feeling of the Majesty of God as not to serve him with exteriour shews and semblances onely of Religion but sincerely cordially and constantly Sentiendo de domino in bonitate as the Book of Wisdom describes it alwayes thinking on the Lord with a true good heart This was most eminently visible in the whole current of his thorough Religious life but principally remarkable in the denial of himself and all his own desires when any thing that concerned the glory of his God lay at the stake or was called into the least question submitting alwayes all worldly ends and humane reluctancies to the interests of Heaven and pure Religion Was not this I say first notorious in him when he would hazard the disoblidgement of his wife a thing that men ordinarily fear more than a disobedience to God nay would incur her displeasure so far as to be thought and called by her a cruel hard-hearted person and a bloody husband rather than omit the performance of one Tittle of his Almighty Masters commands Nay State Policy it self which now adayes is held to be almost inconsistent with true Piety could not hinder his heroick practise of piety And this did most manifestly appear in his refusal of all the favours that Pharaohs Court or his daughters countenance could afford him for the service of his God postponing every thing of his own affection and interests to the zeal for his Religion and the quiet of a good conscience This is I say a most remarkable piece of Princely piety indeed to hold all the Maxims of State and proper interests whatsoever under the rules of Religion and Conscience and to be disposed rather to hazard all than to lose God by one sole sin This noble Princely piece of piety to its perfection both of profession and practise our great Patriarch shewed in the whole course of his life loudly proclaiming and as strictly observing to love the Lord God with the whole heart and him onely to serve which no man can do that mixeth any thing of humane with divine obligations that is but to serve God by pieces The Parallel We have alreay gone far in the discourse of our great Patriarchs and his happy Parallel's most Princely and exemplary piety clearly to be collected from the visible zeal they ever bore to Gods glory and devotions to his Service but all this may be said to be as indeed it is in most of this Age but a meer outside onely the very heart and marrow of Religion consisting in the interiour which we can make no other judgement of than by the apparent practise of piety true godly and religious lives of men and a dutiful submission of all humane interest to God and if all this were ever eminent in any Persons it has been in these two great Princes our first and second Moses Now it is very observable that all this Princely practise of true piety is but an effect or consequent at least of that zeal to Gods glory before spoken of and of that precious spirit of prayer for true Devotion as the great Aquinas has described it is nothing but a prompt will to the service of God his words are these Voluntas quaedum prompta tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum a very prompt and affectionate vivacity in things which concern Gods businesse Nay we may find as much said by Porphyry himself a Pagan and one of the most Atheistical ones that ever lived Deus saith he omnium pater nullius indiget sed nobis est bene cum eum adoramus ipsam vitam precent ad eum facientes per inquisitionem imitationem de ipso that is God the Creator and Father of this great Universe hath no need at all of our service but it is our good to honour serve and adore him making our life a perpetual prayer to him by a diligent inquiry after his perfections and a holy imitation of his vertues All this holy Augustin the Oracle
of the Latine Church recites out of that Heathen to teach us faith from the Philosophy of the most perfidious and Religion from the writings of the most irreligious man that ever lived just as if an honest man should pull a thing stolne out of a Theeves coffer And it is indeed a most evident truth that the best life is the best prayer and therefore holy Nazianzen tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dumb work is better than the most eloquent Oration a golden tongue and a leaden heart seldom march together yet we know that some there are who have apparence enough of the spirit and will pray like Angels but practise like Devils resembling the Asse in the Fable that carries to the Hot-house daily wherewithal to shift and cleanse others and yet go themselves perpetually bemired and slovenly or yet more truly like the impertinent drone they can go buzzing up and down with their empty prayers and yet neither make honey nor wax To what purpose in the mean time is it to be Vox praeterea nihil to warble like a Nightingale or a well-touch'd Lute and to be deaf to all harmony Is it not to be as the Apostle tells us but as sounding brasse at best or as a tinkling symbal Undoubtedly all the devotion of a soul truly Christian tendeth to practise as the line to its center and therefore holy Cyprian likewise tells us Philosophi factis non verbis sumus nec magna loquimur sed vivimus Our Philosophy and Christian wisdom saith he is a prudence of workes not of words and we are to live not talke great things We should march in our Christian warfare like the brave souldiers of Gideon with the torch in our hands as well as the Trumpet on our lips and therefore it was said of the great and holy Athanasius that his voice was a Thunderclap and his life a Lightning flash and truly words let them be never so good can never thunder well if the living example enlighten not All which our most gracious late Protector and second Moses knew full well and practised accordingly in imitation of his great Master the first Moses our Princely Patriarch who was not onely ready to exercise his holy spirit of prayer in the behalf of and for his people but also to make practise of his piety before them to inflame their lives to holinesse and charity as well as to preserve their persons in peace and plenty to be active in his obedience to the Almighties will as well as outwardly zealous for his glory Now by this onely it is plain that our first and second Moses have clearly been of a quite contrary Religion to Machiavel before cited and all his Crew who would have a Prince or Statesman practise Religion onely according to the necessity of their affairs and to learn how they may sometimes be wicked that is to make shew of Religion and honesty so far forth as may serve their turns but in very deed to be compleat knaves Every man in power forsooth must be a Hypocrite his face alwayes maskt and the vizard too ought to be more lovely than the visage he must make his apparencies better than his substance and court opinion more than conscience O rare Machiavillian divinty and very pious policy But our Patriarch Moses a wiser man sure than a million of Machiavels we find was clean of another opinion as well as practise too he understood sufficiently how the Lord Almighty had ever reproved condemned and chastised with a most particular indignation of his heart that abominable plaistered kind of life in Princes as well as common people and therefore he ordered in his Law that the Swan and the Ostrich should never be made use of in Divine Sacrifices Upon which Mosaical ordinance all the Interpreters of Scripture are joyntly of opinion that the Swan was first rejected notwithstanding the whitenesse of her feathers and sweetnesse of note so much ascribed to her because under those pure white plumes she hides so black a flesh Then for the Ostrich which carries onely an ostentuous boast of fair large wings and very little or no flight at all she could never be admitted into the number of Divine victims so much the Lord abhors apparencies fruitlesse and effectlesse Now I would very fain know of all those pitiful Politicians who pursue like Machiavillian Maxims with such corrupt hypocritical spirits as the Florentine proposeth what they will answer me further upon this Ascent of our Moses and his Parallel For the first it is clear that if he had been to choose and cherish onely a Religion that suited best with State policy or temporal designs it had been much more prudence in him to have joyned himself with the Religion of Egypt and to have been associated with the Magicians themselves than to have kept so close to the Commandments of God And if he had been to value his private interest before his honesty and conscience sure the powerful favours of a great Kings Court and more inticing importunities of a Princesse would have been greater attractives to his ambition than a poor simple Shepherds life in a Desart Nay before we approach our precious Parallel Moses what can they I mean the Disciples of that wise Secretary say to another glorious Countryman of ours one of the most Christian and Victorious Princes that ever swayed a Scepter and that was Constantine the Great First we shall find upon a clear account twelve or thirteen great Persons at that very time all arguing upon the Diadem of the Empire with him Now if there had been any necessity for him to dispoile himself of honesty and innocency that he might be invested with the Crown and Pall imperial Why did he take the way of the Empire by that of sanctity If use must be made of Religion onely as of an Instrument of State and that alone to be taken up which hath the greatest vogue and credit in the opinion of the people be it right or wrong Why went he about then to fix himself upon Christian Religion and at that very time when the greatest part of the World was ingulpht in Gentilisme We see how Maxentius like a miserable Machiavillian courted that interest and according to the ordinary custom of the people of Rome caused all the pretended Books of the Sybylls to be turned over consulted with the Augures and Aruspices and accordingly offered sacrifices to his Pagan gods all this gave him a reputation of piety with a people then as Infidel as himself Why did not our Constantine pursue the same politick wayes Why did he fix the sign of the Crosse upon his Standards which was enough too to disoblige his own Army that very figure being then esteemed most fatal and of an ill presage by the most part of the World Moreover what help or succour could he possibly expect from the poor Christians at
reprimit omnium irritat Fear is no good Master and frequent punishments provoke more ill blood than they do suppresse The reason is plain for men that lie under any oppression especially if it be for matter of conscience though they are at some times possibly wise and temperate enough doe ordinarily become mad and usually trample down all relations to make way for a deliverance where they have least hopes given them of a remedy and as the condition of mens beings alter so they do most commonly vary their interests and principles His Mosaick Highnesse therefore would not as was said before of him that Cum victor extiterit lictor protinus evasit appear at all severe upon Brethren of the same Faith though differing it may be in some Doctrines he provided more Doctors than Executioners for them knowing that the apprehensions of God and true Religion are to be instilled into the hearts of men by the true Spirit of Prophesie and help of tongues and not by the dint of swords he knew that God had not in these dayes refused his wonted appearance in a soft voice and chosen to remain in thunder as our Boanerges's would have it now as also he considered that to go about to reform any thing in Religion by humane strength is quite contrary to the nature of Reformation it self and as extravagant a course as to attempt the repair of a Castle-wall with a needle and thread He never went about to make decisions of Faith with the edge of his sword or determine controversies in Religion by his armour of proof No the sword of the Spirit he knew did never use to make way to the conscience by cutting through the flesh and he that by force of armes cruelty and persecution goes about to reform or defend any Religion doth but take such courses as are condemned by the same Religion that he would defend His Highnesse therefore alwayes took a softer and securer course like a true Mosaical Prophet indeed knowing that the true Spirit of Prophesie like Amber sweetly draws the slightest straw and like Adamant will court and attract the hardest iron He had observed likewise what some Naturalists tell us That fountains of troubled water would be cleansed with a Honey-comb while violent stirring of them would but foul them worse He reflected frequently upon the Speech of Abner to Joab Num usque ad internecionem hujus macro defaeviet an ignoras quod periculosa est desperatio usque quo non dicis populo ut omittat persequi fratres suos Shall the Sword devoure forever Knowest thou not that it is not a little dangerous to drive men into despairation How long shall it be then ere thou bid the people return from persecuting their Brethren An excellent piece of counsel and as good an example and was as well followed by his late most Serene Highnesse He ever held those to be best and most godly Laws that were least sanguinary and yet maintained order all others he accounted meer Phalarismes and leges Draconis And though it may be objected that to give factions the bridle to entertain and propagate new opinions is the highway to scatter contentions and sow divisions amongst the people and as it were to lend them hand to make a disturbance of the Publick peace there being no bar or obstacle of Lawes to hinder their course yet it may be as well urged that to give factions that very bridle to uphold their opinions is by that facility and gracious favour the ready way to mollifie and reform them at least to blunt their edge which would be otherwise sharpned by rarenesse novelty and difficulty Clemency is a vertue sometimes of as great policy as piety as we have shewed in our former Ascents because it begets love and love breeds loyalty commands the very soul and layes the body at the feet of the obliger Mercy kindles fire and zeale in the hearts of Subjects pitty and pardon as they make the obligation of the offenders greater so it makes them repent to have offended him who hath so obliged them the reason is infallible fidelem si putaveris facies The way to make a faithful friend is to believe him to be so But what has prophesying to do with faction that good spirit sure cannot be guilty of making any publick disturbance for it is a spirit of peace Several prophetick spirits certainly and diversities of perswasions in matter of Religion may live and cohabit together without destruction of one another and though they come not into one Church Congregation or Meeting-place yet may converse together in one Market City or Common-wealth Symmachus though a Pagan yet a most Learned and Vertuous one could say in a Speech that he made to Theodorick That in matter of Religion every man ought to have his rights and ceremonies as his opinion free and gives his reason thus God is a great Secret no wonder therefore if we endeavour to find him so many several wayes And Constantine though a very good Christian profest in a solemn Oration Not to force any man in his Religion but to leave to every one that as free as the Elements I would very fain know now what these men of mighty uniformity will say to these great reasons and greater authorities of our first and second Moses the greatest Princes and gravest Persons in the World and what possibility they can propose to reduce the diversities of mens spirits to this their wonderful accord For it is against common sense and reason that ever men shall be one in opinion we know the Heathen could declare Quot capita tot sensus So many men so many mindes So that they which endeavour this specious unity seem to me to go about to imprison Aeolus and his two and thirty sonnes in a bag as it is said the Lâ—planders use to do since opinion will blow still from every point of the Compasse And as any confinement of the winde torments nature with an earthquake so to rob the soul of its freedom which is far more agil and diffusive must needs cause a cholick with an inflammation in the bowels of a Kingdom Till then these pitiful uniformity-mongers be pointed at as the onely enemies of a State and this wretched perswasion be wrought out of the hearts of men that they ought to make all men walke that way par-force which their byassed Priests cry up for the onely right and till men be lesse in the Letter that they may be more one in the Spirit which none but the spiritual can apprehend and until they leave crying for fire from Heaven against Brethren in the Faith we shall alwayes have our Churches and Country too in a flame though perhaps themselves may be first in the ashes In the mean time it shall satisfie me and I hope all the good people of the Land to contemplate the Idaea and blessed example of our gracious second as he did alwayes that of the first Moses
inferiour spirits may be capable of it but this I am sure of that they which lie buried in a base condition have nothing of an equal latitude to expresse it for the great Ones of the Earth onely are they that are most roughly assaulted with the storms of Pride and so consequently must receive more glory and praise from the repulse of it Nay I will be bold to assert yet further in the behalf of our Mosaical high Humility that all the vertues in the World signifie nothing at all without it no more than as was said in the Ascent a wholesom Medicament would do to a mans health with a mixture of poison in it amasse all that can be called good in any single person and let this one thing onely be wanting those very vertues will prove but specious vices nay holy traytors to his soul and betray it to the very worst of impieties Let a man have all the liberality and munificence in the World if he be once proud of it it will presently degenerate into a very foul prodigality and as the wise Socrates expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes men by the sottish usage and management of the graces themselves turne those Virgins to be prostituts forgetting that to know how to give well is a great Science and that the distribution of gifts and graces is to be made with a prudent oeconomy Give a man constancy and let him grow up to a pride of it the nature of the vertue will be presently destroyed and soon passe into plain obstinacy and perversity the most dangerous condition that a man can possibly fall into though otherwise he may be the learnedst and most knowing person alive It was most excellently well observed therefore of the Learned Gerson If you see one to walk saith he in the way of his proper judgement and stiff in it although he had one foot in Paradise he must presently withdraw it for it is better to walke in the shades of death under the conduct of humility than to have a Paradise it self in any pitiful pride or the pleasures of proper phansie Nay the vertue of fortitude it self the most consistent sure with pride and self-conceit of any vertue yet if it be but infected with it it proves presently presumption and where that once gets entrance it puffs up so prodigiously that it makes of a man as it were a meer Baloon filled with winde a scarcrow of honour a pitiful temerarious nothing void of courage an undertaker without successe a phantastick without shame which in the end will become burdensome to it self and odious to all the World and makes men come into a field of honour as it is said some of our neighbours do with a clattering noise and fury like thunder but vanish presently like smoke and yet such men as these will think themselves it may be valiant because they fear nothing as they say but the wise Velleius tells us that Nemo saepius opprimitur quà m qui nihil timet and that frequentissimum calamitatis initium est securitas To be secure in ones own opinon and to fear nothing is the ready way to ruin fear indeed is most commonly the mother of safety and the true means not to be afraid of a misfortune is to fear it alwayes A Motto therefore fit for a true valiant man to carry in his colours is that which I have seen in a Noble hand Pauca timeo Pauciora despicio I fear few things and despise fewer Now this unhappy spirit of Pride is the mother of this cursed security and what is worse insolency with which true fortitude can no way cohabit as the wise Italian tells us Sempre é congiunto in un medesimo suggetto l'insolentia con la timiditate Insolency and timidity are never found asunder but alwayes accompanying one another in the same subject So by consequence without this Mosaick meeknesse of spirit no man can be accounted much lesse be truly valiant I have seen a man in like manner by a ridiculous conceit of his own patience which it may be he had at first to a vertuous proportion fool himself into the opinion of a Stoick but indeed grew worse than any Stock or at least as stupid I should be infinite to enumerate the many massacres which this unhappy pride of spirit makes continually upon the whole chained of holy vertues it is apparently the plain murderesse and envenomer of them all So much onely as has been said may serve to shew how this high Mosaick Ascent of Humility and Meeknesse of spirit is the very ratio formalis as the Schooles speak of all and every one of the vertues that can be seated in the heart of man No wonder then that the All wise Spirit of God took such particular care to recommend it to us in the person of our first Moses and as easie must it be to conceive a reason why our gracious second his precious Parallel should so faithfully endeavour to imitate him in that as well as his other perfections they being both pre-ordained by God to be the greatest Magazines of all vertuous goodnesse amongst men that either this or that Age has produced We have seen them both in their humble retreat from and modest avoidance of worldly honours advancements to humane greatness which after they were so violently compel'd unto by Divine precept behold and admire with what moderation humility and meeknesse of spirit they have ever managed them excellently therefore does holy Cyprian stile this tanscendent vertue of Humility Primum religionis introitum ultimum Christianitatis exitum The Gate of all Religion and the Crown or highest Ascent of Christianity for who can think that he will be faithful to Jesus Christ that can be unfaithful to that virtue which shined so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in him to wit that of humility and truly I cannot cease from wonder when I consider the little reason that any man in the earth has to be proud of any thing and it was doubtlesse the holy consideration of his Mosaical Highnesse too First the highest petigree of the greatest man upon Earth is but to have been an eternity in nothing for if we mount still upwards ascending to the prime source and origine of time when we shall have reckoned millions of Ages we shall find nothing but inexplicable Labyrinths and abysses of one great eternity without beginning or end and when we shall present to our thoughts all that time which has preceded be it reall or imaginary we shall be ashamed to see so many millions of years wherein we had not so much as the being of a rush a silly gnat or a butter-flie Nay that blustring insolent Rodomont be he what and where he will that threatneth this day to hew down mountains and thunder-strike his fellow mortals and thinks the whole house of Nature was created onely for him and so prepares to swallow it all by
Moses though we cannot hold up our Parallel to the heighth of that honour which the first had to be conveyed to his grave by God himself and put into the earth by those Almighty hands which had made him out of it yet we may say that he was interred with as much state and carried to his mother earth with as much solemnity and magnificence as ever person in the World was nay his very Effigies was honoured with so great a reverence as if some divinity had attended the Royal procession And yet this is not all the glorious Sepulture that his Highnesse had for what the Orator said of his Prince we may mutato nomine most aptly conclude of him Totum nec capiet Olivarium brevis ista tumuli clausura Britannum nomen pectus unumquodque nobile vivum stabit defuncto monumentum vivet ipse suo letho superstes multam aetatem feret etiam mortuus gloriaeque plenus deducetur ad Posteros c. The whole great Oliver cannot be contained within so scanty an enclosure as is the vault that holds his body the British Name it self and every noble breast of the Nation shall stand a living Monument to his memory Thus shall his Highnesse outlive his death and grow great in glory whilst he is consuming in his grave and be conveighed into the arms of posterity with everlasting acclamations Good Princes as well as Poets find their honours to swell from their last ashes and like Phoenixes spring afresh from their funeral Piles as we shall more at large make out in our next which is our last Mosaical Ascent and closing Parallel The sixth and last Transcendental Ascent MOses built himself a Monument in the hearts of all his people and left a blessed Memorial behind him and all this was attested by the Spirit of God himself after his death expressely assuring us that there arose not a Prophet since in Israel like unto Moses whom the Lord knew face to face in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the Land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and to all his Land and in all that mighty hand and in all that great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel The Parallel Thus the Lord is pleased to make the memory of his Saints precious in the language of the Spirit as sweet ointment poured forth for we see here how he will make his dead servant Moses to ascend still in this World by the fragrancy of his memory and indeed it is the last Ascent that humane perfection is capable of to mount up after a blessed death to a happy and honourable remembrance amongst men a most particular grace and prerogative which the Divine goodnesse indulgeth to none but to his most dear servants For some there are as Ecclesiasticus not Apocryphally observes which have no memorial at all who are perished as though they had never been and are become as though they had never been born and their children after them but the righteousnesse of merciful men hath not been forgotten c Then again their bodies are buried in peace but their name liveth for evermore nay further the people will tell of their wisdom and the Congregation will shew forth their praise Has not our most Serene second Moses received this precious Transcendental favour likewise from the hands of his gracious God has he not so filled the mindes and mouthes of all the good people of the Nation that they have nothing almost left to think and speak on but the memory of their late great Protector Insomuch that we can compare this glorious Ascent of his Highnesse his happy death to nothing so properly as to the expiration of the Phenix upon the Mountain of the Sun in the sweet odours of his heroick vertues O what a memory has his Highnesse left us of his unspotted piety and undefiled policy amidst all the depravations and corruptions of the Word O what a memory has he left us of his arriving to the highest honours and dignities by flying them and to have ennobled all his Charges by the integrity of his manners O what a memory of a life lead truly according to Christianity that has alwayes daunted the most audacious Libertins and like a Divine Mirrour killed Basiliskes with the repercussion of their own poison O what a memory has he left us of having governed a Church and State so as if it had been a clear copy of Heaven and an eternal pattern of holy Policy holding himself alwayes to those heavenly Poles of piety and justice that support the great policy of the Universe esteeming them as Democritus did the two divinities of Weales publick or great wheeles upon which all the affaires of the World were to move so establishing himself still upon those holy Columnes as the one has given him immortality with God so the other has perpetuated his memorial amongst men O what a memory has he left behind him of having borne upon his shoulders so happily all the interests and glories of this Nation and the very moveables of the House of God! O what a memory has he left of having so many times trampled the heads of Dragons under his feet and rendered himself the wonder of the World For who indeed is it but must remember how this brave valorous and Princely person who was to joyne the kingdom of his vertues to the force of his armes was alwayes of so vigorous and sublime a spirit that he measured still all his most difficult undertakings by the greatnesse of his own courage and like a Caesar indeed but more like a true Moses resolved to break through all obstacles to Crown his inspired purposes O what a memory of a blessed death in a good old age and full fruition of all his labours to have died as in a field of Palmes and all planted with his own hand manured with his constant industry and water'd with his own painful sweats O what a memory after death to be acknowledged by all to have built himself before his death a most stately Tombe stufft with the precious Stones of his own most goodly and incomparable vertues all which rightly now to represent would require a recapitulation of all our Parallels and take up a bulk bigger than this small Volume is intended to bear And it is enough I conceive to our present purpose to say that this Nation shall for ever preserve the memory of him as of a Prince that has proved it possible though miraculous to hold a conjunction of piety with the Supreme power and Soveraign authority sweetly tempered with goodnesse things before thought utterly incompatible in Kings and truly I know not what just quarrel any man can have against his memory but that he hath shewed a path to mortall men and trod it by his own example to prove it possible to arrive at so much perfection and that may be a fault