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
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
all this scarcely did they then beleeve the Prophets For how soon had they forgotten the miracles which Moses did before them when being told more then once that God had promised to bring them into the land of Canaan to give it them for a possession after that he had performed his promise in bringing them out of the land of Egypt had led them by a pillar of fire and a cloud yet being pursued by the Egyptians they murmured against the Lord beleeved not his servant Moses concluding they should be then slain by the Egyptians Exo. 14. 12. Isaiah who was so far acquainted with the Lords mind that he expresly told King Hezekiah as a signe which was required by the king by the going back of the shade of the Sun on the Diall of Ahaz ten degrees the recovery of the king and the lengthening of his life fifteen years 2 King 20. yet complaineth the Prophet that what he prophesied was neither understood nor beleeved Isa 53. 1. Who hath beleeved our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed Likewise when Jeremiah prophesied to the Jews and what he foretold of their captivity came fully to pass then false Prophets which prophesied of their sudden return were more credited by the People For that remnant of the People which was left behind by Nebuchadnezzar in Jerusalem after thrise carrying them away into Chaldea the first in the third year of Jehojakim Dan. 1. 2. the next in Jehojakims the third in Jehojachins reign and with him plainly did not beleeve Jeremiah nor Ezekiel prophesying unto them the destruction and burning of their City and Temple boasting notwithstanding that they should not be nor the City any more taken calling Jerusalem the Caldron and themselves the flesh Ezek. 11. 3. concluding thereby that the City was made for them and they for the City so as that they should not be parted So for the Necessity of the work that the children of God might have a firm foundation on which their faith should be built the Holy Pen-men of Scripture were fully inspired by God so as no word in Holy Scripture written by the Prophets and Apostles is there found which God did not miraculously inspire into the mindes of those Holy men Concerning his Apostles and Evangelists Christ promised that they should be guided into all truth Joh. 16. 13. and Peter saith 2 Pet. 1. 20. That no Prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation whose meaning is not as the Papists pretend That no private or single person may expound the Scripture nor as it is by us commonly expounded That every Pen-man of the Books of God was inspired by Gods Spirit and wrote not his own private conceits but this No Prophecy of the Scripture so called because it contains the Almighty's counsel is of any private interpretation not only as it is free from the mixture of humane inventions which are contrary to the mind of God but there is not one word therein nor syllable which was not dictated unto them by the holy Ghost And this is fully to my purpose For we know that the Scripture is the Word of God and he that expoundeth and applieth it as he ought preacheth nothing but the Word of God but the first is of no private but the other is of private interpretation But for the times which followed the Lord promised they should be such as that in them old men should dream dreams and young men should see Visions and that their Sons and their Daughters should prophesie Act. 21. 17. and that their servants and handmaids should have Gods Spirit poured upon them Joel 12. 29. signifying that in those times which began sooner after our Lords Ascension and now are very ordinary and mean persons should have such an extraordinary measure of Divine knowledge exceeding the foregoing ages as that they may be accounted all Prophets and Prophetesses But Daniel declareth in what manner and by what means this great knowledge shall be attained thereby expounding what the Prophet Joel and out of him S. Luke speaketh Dan. 12. 4. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be encreased Where by running to and fro is to be understood Labour and Search that is Study So for that these times are within the ages of great light which as it was promised so we have by experience found it fullfilled that common people which are bred up under able Teachers and Prophets and which give themselves to search into the written Mysteries of Salvation are not so fat-hearted and stupid as not to understand and not to beleeve the Word of God preached unto them but are able by Gods Spirit to search the Scriptures and to discern whether those things which are delivered unto them from their Prophets be true or not And therefore for this cause there is no need of a fully illuminated Prophet to be among us either lest we should want sure guides or be deluded with errors having both the Old and New Testament for our direction which sure word of Prophecy the ancients were partly or wholly without As for the foreknowledge of things which are to come there is neverthelesse still and will be a profitable use and necessity thereof and a part thereof contained in the Visions which are written in Holy Scripture and the searching of them commended unto us by the Spirit of God saying Whatsoever was written in former time was written for our learning another part in those Signes which God hath sent and will send into the world as miracles to be considered by us For the words of our Saviour fully declare that there should be Signes of things which were to follow in the heavens on the earth and in the waters Luk. 21. 25. And there shall be Signes saith he in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the earth distress of Nations with perplexity the Sea and waters roaring v. 26. Mens hearts failing them for fear and looking after those things which are coming on the earth But to what purpose had the Prophecies and Visions of Daniel and Ezekiel and the most mystical Vision of the Canticles and those of the Revelation of S. John with others been as they are left unto us unexpounded if God had denied wholly unto us a Prophetical Spirit to presage what was to be afterward and what was contained in the Holy Visions For there is little difference whether the Lord sends the Vision to us at first or by them unto us what he intends to do Therefore it is to be gathered from the fore-named Scriptures by diligently weighing and comparing them one with another that the distinction of the Old Prophets which lived and prophesied before our Saviours Incarnation I understand Prophets or Seers most properly so called for the other were their ordinary Preachers as may be collected from sundry Scriptures especially from Neh. 6. 7. from those which have since and now live under the Gospel doth
aright of things by any Signes or Wonders whatsoever nor which do profess the knowledge of Gods Mystical and Miraculous Messages whether of things past present or to come or if perchance some few do they are all by constant experience found either willful and impudent Impostors or Brain-sick or down-right Mad-men Whereunto passing by all those Testimonies formerly alleaged albeit among the rest Machiavil is not to be despised a man neither so foolish nor yet of so easie belief that he should affirm there were presagers of future troubles if haply a wise man might judge such presages casual and by Cicero comprehended under the general acknowledgement of all nations I may say there are that think Savanarola had a foresight of such a Propheticall nature in certain things and some also of our own nation to have had the like which I shall not name in this place But although I should grant that no man hath been able to interpret Prodigies or Visions which we have met with it doth not therefore necessarily imply that the thing is not to be attained by any man May a man therefore determine that there was no way to attain the knowledge of the Greek tongue in England because until Linacre brought the same into this Kingdom peradventure there was no man found skilful therein Some Arts have quite perished if we may believe Authors which no man yet hath regained yet we must not therefore conclude that the refinding of them is impossible for it might rather have been thought so before their first invention Shall we say because the Natives of America are wholly ignorant of the Mathematiks that therefore those Sciences are impossible to be learned by them For it is not a firm Argument to reason from what is not to what cannot be As little reason have we to argue That Divine and Miraculous Visions cannot be understood because men every where perswading themselves that such strange Signes are natural seduced by the false Doctrine of the Peripateticks School which feigneth such causes of their generation oftentimes grosly absurd neglect the study of them and wonder at it in others As for those which pretend their Revelations of which there have been many these last years partly mere Impostors to fill their bellies and to get a name partly men of more Phanfie then Judgement which strongly imagine what they desire should be and what they much think of in the day dream of peradventure in the night and byassed by their desires and hopes give such interpretations to their dreams which they call Visions as serve their turns and fit their phansies and publish them for truths such men with the Astrologians and monethly Prognosticators all their foundations being false no man may expect truth from them In which sort of men we may plainly discern the malice and subtlety of the devil who as he hath ever been accustomed as well by fraud as by force to hinder Gods Glory and the good of the Church and to steal honour unto himself doth by waies sometimes alike othertimes contrary oppose whatsoever makes for the foregoing ends At that very time when Jeremiah prophesied truth Hananiah a false Prophet prophesied lies to please the people and discredit the Prophet Jerem. 28. 10 11. In those days in the land of Chaldea unto the Jews did Daniel and Ezekiel prophesie as true Prophets But at that time of their captivity how many were there which in that place being false Prophets divined lies unto them For thus saith the Lord Jer. 29. 8. Let not your Prophets nor Diviners which be found in the midst of you deceive you neither hearken to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed When Elijah was a faithful Prophet and with him Micaiah unto Ahab 1 King 21. and 22. beside Zedekiak who smote Micaiah on the cheek for speaking truth it is apparent that there was a great number of false Prophets like unto Zedekiah 1 King 22. 23. And lest the Apostles should gain credit to their preaching by working miracles and prophesying things to come the devil opposeth this work by his Prophets For then were Simon the Sorcerer Act. 8. Elymas the Sorcerer Act. 13. a Damosel having a divining wicked Spirit Chap. 16. and certain vagabond Jews and 7. sons of one Sceva a Jew Exorcists or Conjurers Chap. 19. Even so lest at such a time when there is great need in times of great fears troubles and dangers to be forewarned of the issue of things when the Church of God is in great distress and greater fears yea when Divine Premonitions Visions and Prodigies are found the devil instructs and perswades hypocrites and crack-brain'd men and women with Astrologians to delude some whose apparent deceits joyned with the Doctrine of Aristotles School harden others which are more wise in an obstinate incredulity to the dishonour of Almighty God making them affirm that no future thing is foreshewn in these days miraculously and that such and such things which indeed are be no portentous Signes And which is more as if it were true as it is indeed true that we may expect in troublesome times miraculous Signes and Tokens as well and as much as the children of Israel their usual Signes the devil hath so much prevailed with some that they have feigned that they have seen Visions some of them only that people may wonder at them others that they may get a little money by publishing their false Visions to the belying of God Almighty a fearful sin and delusion of the people Besides God hath not granted to every man such a measure of wisedom as if he would he should be able to understand the meaning of Gods secret Messages For as Quintilian saith even in Schools we may pick out some fit to make Souldiers others husbandmen God hath given sundry sorts of gifts to several men according to the words of Paul speaking of the diversity and dispersing of divine gifts 1 Cor. 12. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. saith To another he giveth the working of miracles to another not every one Prophecy Nor were there under the Law very many presaging Prophets much less in one place and at one time In Davids time we reade of Samuel Nathan and Gad who was called the Kings Seer In the time of Eli the priest no Prophet before Samuel and after Malachi unto our Saviour there were as few When those Prophets were most in number so much as we have light from Holy Scripture the Jews for the space of seventy years the time of their Babylonish Captivity enjoyed two in Judea Urijah Jer. 26. 20 in the days of K. Jehojakim and Jeremiah under Jehojakim Jehojakin and Zedekiah two likewise in Chaldea Daniel from the beginning of Jehojakims reign Dan. 1. Ezekiel in the fifth year of Jehojachins captivity Ezek. 1. toward their coming out of their captivity Haggai and Zechariah in both places By which account the Jews for the space of their captivity in those whole 70 years had but
enjoy to the gladding of our hearts for the establishing of Gods own and true Religion and Justice in the Land and for shewing Mercy to the poor afflicted and oppressed Among which mourners and oppâ—essed the Writer of this Relation is certainly not the least but who hath continually prayed unto our Gracious God to bring us once again our King our good Josiah The Lord is my witness I flatter not for if I should use flattering Titles God would soon take me away This Elihu hath taught me Job 32. 21. But what I judge to be truth and fit to be spoken I here deliver That as Josiah had the praise of being the best of all the Kings of Judah which went before and followed after him 2 Kin. 23. 25. And like unto him was there no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the law of Moses neither after him arose there any like him So shall King CHARLES II. prove unto us the best of Englands Kings and the expresse Antitype unto good Josiah And it is not without example for one eminent person to be Type of the other Antiochus Epiphanes the Greekish King in sundry chief respects for small and single serve not the turn was the Type of the Bishop of Rome For in as many and such nay more ways doth our Soveraign resemble Josiah and how he shall express him more exactly in what of his Majesty in his blessed Government we shall enjoy will follow by Gods assistance in this Discourse Josiah was named three hundred years before he was born and by the name Josiah designed to defile the altar of Bethel by burning mens bones thereon 1 King 13. 2. which was so fulfilled by that King according to the Prophecy 2 King 23. 16. So shall it be made apparent anon in due place that King CHARLES II. was appointed by Almighty God to the great work of reforming Church and State which Josiah also did before him twise three hundred years before his restoring to his Three Kingdoms by a plain description of his Royal Person K. Josiah made a covenant with God both he and his people 2 Chr. 34. 31 32. and he caused them to stand to it and he himself kept it so hath and will our Gracious Soveraign King Josiah was the son of a murthered father so was the precious Innocent bloud of our Royal Soveraigns Father shed King Josiahs Father King Amon was conspired against by his own servants and slain in his own house 2 Chron. 33. 36. In like sort our Soveraigns Father King CHARLES I. was designed to death in his House of Parliament adjudged to death by some of his servants and kill'd at the gate of his own House and all by conspiracy But the People of the land they were the Commons in the Jewish Parliament slew all those which conspired against K. Amon v. 25. So let the Parliament of England imitate them to the full whom they imitated in this part which made Josiah his son king So much in this place touching the great Instrument of Gods glory and our deliverance sent from heaven until I shall proceed to make this my assertion good touching his Royal Majesty our Soveraign I have declared and proved unto you how probable it is that Almighty God had given us warnings and forewarnings of these our evils and the issue and do now proceed in order to declare that it is not only likely so to be but so in truth and in deed But here I shall first admonish those that have read thus far or hear of this Treatise that they prejudge not the thing esteeming it a Fable but to follow the advice of S. Paul who admonisheth us not to despise Prophecy and not to streighten the word in its due signification as if it were only to be understood of preaching knowing that the commandments of God according to the Psalmist are exceeding broad in which breadth many things there are on the right hand commanded as on the left hand forbidden which do not at first sight appear For I cannot but foresee that some will smile at what they reade whom I advise they take heed of contemning that which for ought they or any man living can deny may all prove true which if it do they despise not me the writer but him who sent the Message who hath told us That he will not be mockt Others no doubt unwilling to have these things fall out true because it serves not their particular interesses will shew their teeth not laugh at what I have here written like those Jews which for the like cause censured our Saviours miracles as Diabolical even against their knowledge To these and the like men I say they despise not this but him which sent it As for such men who more favourably will call it pretty and censure the Discourse to be the fruit of a melancholike phansie if it did extend no farther then to touch the person of the Writer as if the argument were not skilfully enough handled and no more all this I say will be easily confest by me but when it pierces to the matter it self as if it were an argument to play withall and not rather as it ought to be thought a Discovery to be admired let every such commender know that God despises such cold praises It was truly spoken by Agellius book 19. c. 3. Turpius esse exiguè atque frigidè laudari quà m insectanter graviter vituperari that is It is more to the disgrace of a man to be sparingly and coldly praised than bitterly and most reproachfully to be reviled But he that will ponder and well consider the things which are delivered shall I trust in God finde the words of reason and soberness and no melancholy nor other humour in them at all The man who is weak of understanding although the book be little yet is it too big for him to swallow such a one is desired to lay it by Let the man of wisedom and judgement reade it with the strictest observation and the Lord give him understanding Now to make what I have promised to appear true in every part that as well our sins and with them our troubles the Lord was pleased before they were in being to make known unto us as that after all our vexations and afflictions we shall be delivered from all those burthens which lye upon us and that by the hand of our Gracious Soveraign whom God preserve CHARLES II. we shall be freed I say and made a happy people and that we only may not be thought to reap the benefit of his Royal Government what Recompence shall accrue from God unto our good King first take a view strictly of Isaiahs Prophecy Chap. 1. In this Chapter you shall finde the same sins to have been committed then by the Jews which we labour under at this day the same Hypocrisie and sin of Murther
is the effect and fruit of burning as we see in ashes of wood 2. for that salt whether it be taken inwardly or applied outwardly causeth a sense of burning We use to say As salt as fire understanding so salt as if we were burnt with it as with fire Touching the continuance of the Pains of Hell Salt signifieth that also for the property of salt is to keep from corruption and decaying In which sense the phrase of Holy Scripture is a Covenant of salt signifying a Covenant which is never to be broken but to endure for ever The Lake of Sodom the moniment of Gods vengeance upon those sinsul Cities Sodom and Gomorrha and the Cities about them is used by the Holy Ghost as a Type of Hell the place and condition of the damned and called the Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone Rev. 19. 20. because in that lake called the Dead Sea and Asphaltitis is found much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine Bitumen which by the Poet Ovid is shewn to be a matter apt to take fire and unquenchable though by him distinguisht from Brimstone and is a pitchy substance known to Apothecaries although in some place it is by the Interpreters of the Bible called Slime Gen. 14. 10. it is called by another Hebrew word and by a Greek word so interpreting it Brimstone Deut. 29. 23. and in the above-named place in the Revelation Ovids words make it of the nature of Brimstone notwithstanding Metamorph. Book 14. Lurida supponunt faecundo Sulphura fonti Incenduntque cavas fumante Bitumine venas Blew-burning Brimstone's cast into the Spring And smoaking Earth-pitch fires the veins within This place as it is a Figure of Hell in respect of the matter of unquenchable fire contained in it being a remainder of that Brimstone which being kindled fell from Heaven and destroyed those Cities and so likewise was it a Type of Hell in relation to the saltnesse of that Lake called also the Salt-sea being so exceeding salt that no living creature is found therein as it were painting unto us the Duration of their Torments and their bodies preserved from Corruption All the qualities of this Lake for which it is by God Almighty constituted a Modle of Hell are not necessarily to be reckoned up but some of them are sufficient to have been exprest to instruct and direct us while the other are not mentioned that we may take pains to search after them For thus we finde in an expression of that Lake Brimstone sometimes left out of the description and only Fire mentioned Rev. 20. 14. And death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire But of the Saltnesse of that place and as to a Punishment it is confirmed Deut. 29. 23. And that the whole land thereof is Brimstone and Salt and Burning that it is not sowen nor beareth nor any grasse groweth therein like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrha Admah and Zeboim which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath I might take a view of some other things pertaining to this disease of the Leprosie wherein some other matters are pointed at but what I have already spoken will be enough to denote what it typifies in the Nature of Sin and the Punishment But the great thing which was intended by this strange disease and for which cause it was sent and when that was come ceased to be any more and the chief Scope unto which the Leprosie by the Wisedom of the Lord aimed was his Son Christ Jesus which was then to come the Leprosie the Shadow Christ the Substance And as when the Body comes the Shadow thereof gives place in like manner when our Lord and Saviour had suffered the pains of death for the sins of the world and made us clean being our High-priest from our uncleannesse so many as he ordained to eternal life whom he pronounced clean as a good and skilful Priest saying Joh. 13. 10. You are clean but not all then afterward began the Leprosie quickly after his death to depart For the chief thing which was signified by the Leprosie was now come and the Mystery sulfilled our Priest was come and made us clean For now no such Leprosie found in Palestina nor any where among the nation of the Jews And the Ceremonies and Rites used in cleansing the Leper do point out our Saviour and what he did and suffered for us In the Cleansing of a House healed of the Leprosie use was made of two living Birds Cedar-wood Scarlet and Hyssop one of which birds was to be killed over running water in an earthen vessel and dipping the living bird the Cedar-wood Scarlet and Hyssope in the blood of the slain bird and in the running water and sprinkling the House seven times it is said Lev. 14. 52. that with all the fore-named things the Priest shall cleanse the House and ver 53. But he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields and make an atonement for the House and it shall be clean Who to whom God hath given but an ordinary understanding willl not acknowledge here that the shedding of the blood of one bird and the other let fly into running water and in an earthen vessel into running water as to go into the Sea whither all running water is carried and all rivers run to be conveyed all the world over for from thence come all fountains did signifie so much touching the shedding of our Saviours blood for all the world Or who can then doubt that the receiving of it in an earthen vessel did betoken our Saviours taking our flesh upon him whose bodies as his being originally from the earth are called earthen vessels Nor can we gainsay the flying away of the other bird one of the same kinde did declare our Saviours resurrection and ascension into Heaven as birds are called fowls of Heaven It will certainly be granted that the Cedar signified two things his Cross as it is a tree on which he suffered death and the excellency of his person above all other men as the Cedar in loftinesse excelleth all trees And eminent men are metaphorically by the Prophet called Cedars Ezek. 17. 3. 22 31. and by the Holy Penman 2 King 14. 9. The Scarlet being lambs wool so died figured his innocent patient and bloody death But the Hyssope a low shrub growing upon the wall as Scripture calleth it and in a relation of Solomons History of Trees is opposed unto the Cedar the lowest to the highest and in the Ceremonials appointed in cleansing the leprous House being joyned to the Cedar pointeth at our Saviour Jesus Christ in his humility who humbled himself to take our trail nature upon him yea the form of a servant descending from heaven and disrobing himself of his transcendent glory With this dipt in blood of the Paschal Lamb were the lintels and two side-posts of the Israelites doors to be sprinkled for ever Exod. 12. 22 23 24. And a sponge filled with
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
OR â—HE Calamities of ENGLAND With the AUTHORS of them 〈◊〉 â—â—eat HAPPINESS and Happy GOVERNMENT OF K. CHARLES II ENSUING Miraculously FORESHEWN by the Finger of GOD in two wonderful Diseases the REKETS AND KINGS-EVIL Wherein is also shewen and proved I. That the â—EKETS after a while shall seize on no more Children but 〈◊〉 VANISH through the MERCY of GOD and by MEANS of K. CHARLES II. II. That K. CHARLES II is the LAST of KINGS which shall so HEAL the KINGS-EVIL Discovered by the Hand of the Lord upon his unworthy Servant and his Majesties Subject JOHN BIRD And by 〈…〉 publike for the Glory of GOD Honor of the KING and comfort of the PEOPLE of God Joh. 16 13. and he will show you things to come 〈◊〉 Printed for Fra. Sowle and are to be sold by Robert Harrison the next Shop to Greâ— Church in Leaden-Hâ—â—â— Street 1661. To our Dread Soveraign Lord CHARLES II By the Grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland King SIR I Here humbly offer into your Royal Hands a Message sent from Heaven for your Majesties acceptance Written it is in the mystical Characters of Two Diseases and partly upon your Royall Hands which now heal one of these Diseases and shall do the other The signification whereof in summe is to shew How miserable your Kingdomes have been through want of your Royal Father first and since of your Majesty How happy these your Dominions shall most certainly be made by your Religious Just and Merciful Government and lastly what shall be done by Almighty God for you here upon the earth in recompence of your Royall Fathers our Late Soveraigns precious blood your Majesties Wrongs and Afflictions your Constancy in the true Religion against so many Temptations your Maintaining of the Honor of God in your religious care of Gods Worship and your Compassion and Love toward your Majesties poor oppressed Subjects Nor let it seem more strange unto your Majesty that Diseases should portend such great matters than a Star that Star which with the next rising Sun after your joyful Nativity shining with the glorious Sun as gloriously in his ascension and even at mid-day should designe your Majesties Person and future Glory which undoubtedly it did For there is a similitude and proportion betwixt sins and calamities on the one side and bodily Diseases on the other for both disquiet and disease us as likewise therefore betwixt the healer of the one and the taker away of the other Far be it from me Gracious Soveraign to require from your Majesty credit to what I shall affirm nor is it just I should upon my bare assertion Let your Majesties Reason and Royall Wisedome judge whether that I deliver be probable or not For such Reason as is grosse and depraved or meerly Naturall cannot pierce into those deep matters but such which is fine and yet helpt and directed by rule of Holy Scripture For Ignorance Prejudice and Rashness cannot and Interest will not discern these Mysteries Let not the meanness of the discoverer discredit the truth of these things to your Majesty which may call to minde that the glad tidings of our Saviours Nativity was by the Angels first made known to Shepherds If I shall speak Royal Soveraign in some places very freely or peradventure too boldly give me leave or pardon me Merciful Prince who being a great King cannot but be very sensible what a crime it should be for a credited Messenger to temper the Message of the King of Kings It now remains that these things which are to come be beleeved that Almighty God be entreated and have the Glory of all on your Majesties part that you prepare your self for the embracing so great Hopes on your Subjects that we all repent and with humble thankfulness for so great mercies toward us our Love and Reverence toward so blessed a Prince our Soveraign be encreased And that all this may be done is and shall be the continual prayer and earnest endeavour of Your Majesties ever Loyal and Loving Subject JOHN BIRD The EPISTLE to the READER IT is now twenty years ago since when this formerly united Kingdom divided into parties that I also clave in my opinion to one for who could do otherwise even to that side which so much pretended to the love of Religion and Justice that these and not self-love was their end What I did was altogether from the first to the last peaceably which notwithstanding the distinction spoiled my aged Father for the same cause and myself of our goods and quiet habitation We bare it patiently But this Virgin Assembly quickly forgat the guide of her youth although she still wiped her mouth and said She had committed no evil to the neglect and perverting of all Justice And here I left them What comfort had I then in this my condition If I lost what I had for Christs sake as God and my Conscience are witness I did I am promised Recompence in this world a hundred-fold and do acknowledge that I have found it though not in riches For first I am hereby more assured because I abhor all Injustice that I am in that small number which the Scripture so often cals Just men Secondly I am comforted that such times have been of old and such as God detests and will punish Jer. 5. 1. Lastly in abundant recompence to the utmost of what the Lord hath-promised such Secret Mysteries from the first to the last have been from God revealed unto me as may appear in a Treatise written by me called ROMAVATUM wherein the History of the Religion Policy and Destruction of the City of Rome is discovered to have been portended in the Theology and Fables of the ancient Heathen Greek and Latine c. not quite finished Next through the mercy of God in my Annotations upon Ezekiel chap. 1. c. now ready for the Press beside this here presented Reader farewell and let God have the praise of all which is true herein as from whom it came all the errors and imperfections I challenge as mine own excepting some few mistakes of the Printers From my Chamber in Sion College in London Jan. 24. 1660. JOHN BIRD LEst I should incur your blame for not presently falling upon the main work in shewing you instantly how the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL foreshew and declare the promised things and that I may not justly deserve worse in telling you so great a Paradox having not first made known unto you how such a matter may be done I judge it here fit to let you know that I have prepared this other as a better way which may by Gods assistance bring you to a fuller and clearer view of whatsoever is pretended in the Title if you enter upon it and go along orderly as it here lies before you IN old time when Israel was in Egypt and afterward when Israel and Judah dwelt in their own land and when the Jews were carried into Babylon the Almighty
Lord was wont to send them Prophets in evil and sinful times Prophets so inspired with his Spirit that they knew infallibly and did shew unto that people most certainly what things both good and bad and how they should befal them that their oppressors and the wicked might not live secure nor the oppressed and righteous be discouraged But in a short time after our Saviours Ascension such Prophets which were thus miraculously instructed ceased to be among men By which difference of the times those from these it might at first seem either that God loves not the Christians so tenderly as formerly he did the children of Israel or at least that the Christians now adays have no need of such forewarnings as the children of Israel were wont to have Divine and miraculous premonitions were so usuall to them that they accounted it and complained of it as an affliction when they wanted them This appeareth true from the words of Asaph a man left in Judea when the rest were carried into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar complaining of the want of a Prophet and Signes which they were formerly accustomed unto to declare and foretell how long their captivity after the present destruction of the City and Temple was yet to last For thus he speaketh Psa 74. 9. We see not our Signes there is no more any Prophet neither is there among us any that knoweth how long Albeit Jeremiah the Prophet had formerly prophesied unto them of 70 years captivity and Daniel and Ezekiel were both now in Chaldea and did prophesie Whereby it appeareth as I said that Asaph was left in the land and that he speaketh of the remainder of the Jews which were left in the same place with him and lastly that this Psalm was written after the carrying away of Jeremiah into Egypt Concerning the difference of those old times before our Saviours coming from these although we should grant it true and we must grant it to be so in some kind touching Prophets yet is the Assumption false to conclude from thence That God loves not the Christians so tenderly as formerly he did the children of Israel for how little soever the Lord loveth any of his children he accounteth and nameth them his Jewels and is as tender of them as of the apple of his eye who spared not his onely and beloved Son but gave him to dye for the least of them all But this is an inestimably greater favour then to premonish and forewarn them of that which is to come a thing which he hath done even to his greatest enemy the devil though for a different end from that for which he forewarns his children letting him know his secret counsel touching Saul and his Sons For did not the Lord reveal unto Satan that Saul and his three sons should be slain even as it came to pass and the Spirit told Saul the day following 1 Sam. 27. 19. And while we consider that the Lord is unchangeable in his love For he is not a man that he should repent this cannot be the cause want of Gods love that Christians are without divining Prophets In the second place as little reason is there to say That we which are Christians have no need of forewarnings of our suffering nor of our deliverance As if the oppressions in Egypt were more than under the Pope and these not seven-fold greater then those as the burning in a fiery furnace or in fire than making and burning of brick by and in such a place or the thraldome of the body greater then of the soul or the length of the captivity under Pharaoh which lasted not in all two hundred and fifteen years more tedious then under Antichrist who began to reign above a thousand years agoe Whereupon neither of these two Causes being to be admitted want of love from the Lord toward his people and no need of Premonitions and likewise necessarily admitting and confessing it to be truth Fully illuminated and infallibly inspired Prophets have not been found and are not now to be expected much after our Saviours leaving the earth it behoveth us to enquire after the reason of this thing Of which by Gods grace I find there are Two Causes 1. Why we may not look for such Prophets in these times which are fully illuminated and infallible is the End and the consideration thereof for which such Prophets were sent by Almighty God for the information of his people which being accomplished and come and past that which points to that end is not necessary any longer Such Prophets were instituted to be forerunning Types and Figures of Christ thereby to signifie that there was a Prophet to come after them like unto themselves but greater who should fully and infallibly know the Lords mind and counsels For thus saith Moses of our Saviour who was to be exhibited in the flesh and making himself the Type of Christ Deut. 18. 15. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him ye shall hearken In respect of whom some though not all of the Prophets had power at some not at all times to work certain Miracles and alluding to this it is said The Prophets were unto John 2. Prophets were more fully enlightned before our Saviours coming than in these times there can be found any for another cause even for their sakes to whom their Prophecies and Messages were sent that is because of the people The Prophets were sent principally to call men to repentance thus speaketh the Lord Jerem. 7. 25. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the Prophets daily rising up early and sending them V. 26. Yet they hearkened not unto me nor inclined their ear but hardened their neck they did worse then their fathers The different condition of the people therefore is a second cause why the old Prophets were more enlightned and infallible then the Prophets or Preachers which now are for so are Preachers called by the Apostle Paul or necessarily are required to be In those old times the understanding of the people of Israel concerning God and heavenly things was very small witnesse the Apostles themselves who were conversant with Christ when Peter reproved our Saviour speaking of his suffering death telling his Master that this should not befall him that he should not dye Yea the Lord threatens his people blindeness of mind and stupidity of understanding greater then formerly they had by the mouth of Isaiah calling it fatness of heart for fat is insensible For which cause if the Prophets should not have shewn before their eyes great and wonderfull matters they would not have beleeved and if such Prophets had not also had extraordinary knowledge they would have wanted a guide if they had not also been indued with infallibility the people would certainly have fallen into errours And notwithstanding