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
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
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
by which not only our late Soveraign but divers of his Innocent Subjects have had their blood spilt to the defiling and making guilty too many of this our land Our great Oppressions and Oppressors are parallel to those there named in the Prophet And as they were promised deliverance but that afar off and not yet accomplished so are we and ours near at hand through the Mercy of God toward those that fear him by the administration of our Good King V. 16. Wash you make you clean saith the Prophet put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil V. 17. Learn to do well seek judgement relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless pleade for the widow Have not our Sins been such as that the Cause of the Oppressed the Poor the Fatherless and the Widow hath not so much as come before those which sate in Parliament a Court of the utmost redress Or if peradventute by unwearied labour and violent importunity they have prevailed so far as to be heard have they judged the cause of the Poor and Fatherlesse and not perverted their Judgement and have they pleaded for the widow and not wrested her cause to please and favour the rich man Who is ignorant that they have not so done And thus complaineth the good Prophet V. 23. Thy Princes are rebellious and companions of theeves every one loveth gifts and followeth after rewards they judge not the fatherless neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them Our great Governors also were Companions of Theeves because they suffered us without all remorse to be robbed or spoiled no great matter of whom and yet farther because they took bribes by doing whereof they become Thieves fellows in that they require gifts as a Thief doth a Travellers purse or else we and our cause shall fall under them Of which sort of gifts though given secretly and in the bosome some have come to light notwithstanding and of the rest we may definitively pronounce They were Receivers and Expecters of Bribes because then them no greater Respecters of Persons in Judgement to be found as we learn from Solomon Pro. 28. 21. To have respect of persons is not good because for a piece of bread that man will transgress May we not likewise say properly with the Prophet ver 21. How is the faithful City become an harlot it was full of judgement righteousness lodged in it but now murderers The hypocritical service of God which the Jews performed consisting in outward and formal worship how like was it to our wonted frequent Praying Fasting and Thanks-giving and the most strict enjoyning of rest on the Sabbath For the Lord took no pleasure neither in those because not proceeding from syncerity nor in the outward hypocritical worship of the Jews saying v. 13. Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination unto me the New Moons and Sabbaths the calling of Assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn Meeting And for the reason for which God did despise all this was not the cause of the Jews and ours here in England all one expressed v. 15. Your hands are bloods that is defiled and polluted with innocent blood To which people for their great sins their heavy punishment the Prophet expresseth v. 7. Your Countrey is desolate your Cities are burnt with fire your Land strangers devour in your presence and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers Part of this hath been fulfilled upon the Nation of the English in Fire Sword and Famine in the Kingdom of Ireland by the bloody Irish and the other part in England when we were devoured by friends and foes in a consuming war of our own nation and our neighbours as if we were eaten up by strangers All which sins of these sinfull Jews of which the Lord complains as well of the great as of the small and the negligence of those which should have applied the remedies and the general despair none hoping for amendment the Prophet doth Allegorically describe in the nature of a spreading disease from head to foot and seizing upon the vital parts For thus speaks the Prophet v. 6. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying fores they have not been closed Heb. crushed neither bound up nor mollified with ointment and before ver 5. The whole or every head is sick and the whole or every heart faint Yet to put them in comfort in such a hopeless condition of sin and sorrow when he had before told them in the same verse Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more he foretelleth them of better times and a change from all their wickedness and afflictions by sending them good Magistrates and taking away wicked men in the following verses Ver. 24. Therefore saith the Lord the Lord of hosts the mighty One of Israel Ah I will ease me of mine adversaries and avenge me of mine enemies Ver. 25. And I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy drosse and take away thy tinn Ver. 26. And I will restore thy Judges as at the first and thy Counsellors as at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the City of righteousnesse the faithfull City In which part of the Prophecy as the Jews estate runs parallel to England as I have shewn and as under the Type of a disease in the same Chapter the Prophet describes allegorically their sins and sufferings so hath the Lord God miraculously by two Diseases of the body of man described unto us mystically the people of England and such as resemble the Diseases set down in the Text our sins and our calamities And as by Isaiah are described the instruments of their wo under the notion of a disease no lesse are the Authors of our miseries comprehended in the mystery of the fore-named diseases and over and above what Person shall be our deliverer Observe that it is there said ver 5. Every Head is sick and every Heart faint and v. 6. From the sole of the Foot even unto the Head there is no soundnesse in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying or corrupt sores Like unto this Disease are those Two Maladies one whereof is called the Rekets the other the Kings evil They are thus alike the Rekets is a disease of the head yea of every head for it is not that disease if it be without that Symptome any time the Kings-evil is a noysome infirmity full of bruises or hollow apostemated swellings and sores which run with filthy mattur But that I may perswade my Reader that these Two Diseases may signifie somewhat more then what all diseases do Gods just displeasure against and punishment of sin I shall shew examples of diseases in Holy Scripture which do plainly confirm what I here affirm of these One of these diseases is mentioned Exo. 9. ver 8. And the Lord said unto
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
Ancestors who were called Lords and Kings thereof but charge and trouble beside a bare Title But to her was the Kingdom conquer'd and quieted that as the Author of the History called Pacata Hibernia in the Epistle to the Reader speaks Q. Elizabeth might have it justly written upon her Tomb Pacata Hibernia or Ireland Tamed But our Royal Soveraign is doing more and hath begun it already and suffered longer and worse than ever Queen Elizabeth did Yet not thou O Charles but God which is in thee Secondly If we consider his Majesties Constancy and Patience in the mids of his great Tentations Shall K. Charles II who was by wicked men banished from his own Kingdome forced to remain in the Dominions of a Popish Prince such a King who by no Necessities nor Sollicitations could be drawn to forsake God to advance himself shall he I say be miraculously preserved in his escape from his cruel hunters and more miraculously in France and Flanders from Idolatry and only be kept to make us happy God forbid Had not Joseph whose bow abode in strength whom the archers sorely grieved shot at and hated Genes 49. 23 24. a double portion to him and his posterity Ezek. 47. 13. having one portion for that cause above his brethren given him by his father taken out of the hand of the Amorite with the sword and with his bowe Gen. 48. 22. But our Soveraigns bowe abode as much and more in strength when for the sollicitations of the Egyptian Romish harlot he started not aside Beside in the very letters of their names there is a parity between the Type and Antitype and this sometime happeneth not by chance but providence as when Mary Aarons Sister a virgin and Jesus Moses successor prefigured in deed and names the virgin Mary and Jesus our Savior betwixt Clovis and C and Clovis as to note those great evils shall be taken away when C and Lovis meet as now they do Concerning the Healing of the Kings-Evil in France and what is prefigured thereby thus far If any of my Readers shall object which doubtless most will do that what I do presage touching our Royal Soveraign and the Kingdom of France is no more then probable to him I will be bold to say and let him well consider that even among the Sages of the Law great Probabilities have the esteem of Certainties and according thereunto Sentence is pronounced by them And we know that in the difference of the two Harlots about a surviving childe who should be the true mother thereof when King Salomon gave sentence on her side who shewed pity toward the Infant as to be mother thereof judgement thus given from probable conjecture is said to be the Wisedom of God in him 1 King 3. 28. Or are our children known to be the fathers but by probability Yea although we are enjoyned to give diligence to make our calling and election sure how few of the elect ever attained to that height in this life that all his mis-doubtings were taken away and that he was fully assured of a future happinesse I must acknowledge that there are degrees of likeliness some things which are probable are not yet firm enough to conclude others of so high a degree of probability that according to the example commended by the Spirit of God in Solomon they are as strong as the clearest certainties And of that sort of probable things which are the strongest or very near them I here maintain these sore-named to be Thus much pertaining to the cure of the Struma performed by the French King and what is signified thereby And here at last it will not be unseasonable to explain what before was partly touch'd by me whence it is that neither our Soveraign nor yet the French King do heal of the Struma all that are touch'd by their hands 2. That they do not likewise help such as are troubled with the Gout Feavers Palsie c. but this Evil onely 3. Kings of this Kingdom and of the French nation although they have erred in the faith and have been of a false Church have healed this Disease as well as those which have been sound in the faith and members of that true Church of which Christ is Head in which small number our Royal Soveraign is one and a principal 4. That in some few although healed at present the foresaid disease through some occasion breaks out again In answer to the first Objection first acknowledging if the healing of this Evil were perfectly miraculous like unto those cures wrought by our Saviour it should be perfect in any of which our King should lay his Royal hands Joh. 7. 23. Are ye angry at me saith our Saviour because I made a man altogether whole upon the SÃ bbath day Then was there no unsoundness left behinde therefore we may conclude this power given unto our Kings was not for the same cause for which our Saviour and his Apostles healed the sick To the second Objection I confess that whereas our Saviour healed all that were sick and likewise the Apostles yea the Pool of Bethesda all with what infirmity soever they were troubled it was to signifie that which the Scripture elsewhere saith He healeth all thy Diseases that is all both outward and inward Diseases of which sort are sins specially Wherefore for some other distinct cause doth our Soveraign cure the Struma only Nevertheless it cannot be denied that this vertue given to our Kings is miraculous although not to perfection To the next Objection I say That even miracles themselves were wrought by the hands of the evil as well as the good sometimes For is it not written that at the last day some reprobates should say unto our Saviour Have we not in thy Name cast out devils And this was given unto them not as it was unto the Apostles who represented Christs person and were as in Christs stead so the gift of healing this Evil because it was given as a signe of what was to come so much as they were Types in being Kings of such a Kingdom was given to the evil as well as to the good Kings Thus to the last thing which is objected I say I cannot deny but to have known how some after a long continued soundness and being cured of their mattury ulcers have began to fall back into the same Disease and Symptomes but being touch'd again have recovered All which notwith standing doth not disprove the miraculous cure but pointeth at somewhat else therein Now to satisfie the first and second objection to the full Our Royal Soveraign doth not take away the Struma by that power which is given him from above because it is a great evil for there are greater which he cannot cure nor yet because it is a little one as if his vertue could extend it self to small Diseases for we know there are less which he cannot take away but for that this Disease which we call the Kings-evil is such a malady which is parallel to the things which are signified his Majesty shall help and other Diseases are not like them For what likeness is there in the Gout Feavers and Palsie to the bruises and putrid sores full of corruption of which Isaiah speaketh the corruption of Doctrine and manners leath some to the eyes and unsavory to the nostrils of God and man Erasmus though tormented with the Stone rejoyceth that he did not suffer under some disease which might make his presence leathed But the Kings-evil we know hath bruises and putrid sores full of corruption This Malady therefore the Providence of God did make choice of to demonstrate what sins and afflictions our Royal Soveraign through Gods mercy will cure not for it self nor for the sick Patients sakes but for the cause of that which being most like unto it was to be taken away Nor is it done to perfection in all some being remediless which are touch'd that we may know that corruption in justice unsoundness in faith and doctrine shall not and cannot be so universally taken away by our Good King but that some do what he can tares and wicked men will continue among the wheat and good men And touching the last Objection where it is said that some which have been healed of this Evil have relapsed it doth indeed plainly inferr that this healing of the Evil by our Kings must be in that respect different from the like miracles of old The smiting of the rock twise by Moses was his sin as if the doing of it once had not been sufficient and the virtue of causing the water to flow out of the rock had been in his hand If once touching by the Royal hand be not ever and altogether sufficient for the cure and the second be helpfull it may well signifie that in this our good Josiahs reformation men shall not be so fully reformed as that none shall endeavour to fall back again but yet by his Royal hand they shall be reduced A PRAYER In the mean time let us beseech Almighty God to plant in our Soveraigns Heart the awful Fear of his Holy Name and that his unerring Word may be the Measure and Rule by which alone Religion and Justice may be reformed as by Josiah his Royal Type was done Hasten him O Lord herein that thou mayest hasten to reward him with another Crown upon the earth and a Crown of Glory hereafter which is void of cares and fadeth not Make me O Lord and all his Subjects unfeignedly to love and honour him for thy sake and grant we may never forget what by woful experience we have found true the counsel of thy wise servant King Solomon My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them which are given to change For their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both Amen Lastly of all which hath been spoken to God alone be given the Praise and Glory for from him and by him and to him are all things He revealeth the deep and secret things he knoweth what is in darkness and the light dwelleth with him For thine is the Power and the Glory and thou hast now made known unto us the Kings matter FINIS
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