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
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
our own not Army but ARMIES because in Two places by SEA and LAND which ought to be and were at first straight and INTIRE but started aside and revolted from their former integrity and over-ruled those which gave them their power and put the sword into their hands Which was most conspicuous when by the Army and the bare name thereof no particular accusers once named the principal in the Parliament of such who stood for their King and Countrey were seditiously impeached of high crimes The WRIST-JOYNTS and ANCLE-JOYNTS become KNOPPY and are commonly called DOUBLE-JOYNTS Here the Armes are joyn'd with the Hands in such a firmness that the joynts thereof are of a double strength that is to say of a much greater The HAND is the more noble and principal member is proper to man alone receiveth the WEAPON and WIELDETH it and secondly giveth DIRECTION to come and go and what should be done as the Psalmist expreâ—â—â—th it Psa 123. 2. Behold as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress shewing how by the hand and beck thereof direction is given from masters and such as have as great power unto their servants and those which are under their authority Moreover by this knoppiness of the joynt strength is encreased in that part Which if we take together an Arme and Hand most strongly compacted it designeth most aptly That both the Armes that is Armies by Sea and Land should in an extraordinary manner combine and unite with their chief Commanders and Generals which do receive and mesnage the sword unto whom as into the Hand it was committed Those Generals Major Generals c were the Hands to direct to bid come and go and shew what should be done All the Forces under them receive direction from them and obey their commands It farther signifieth by this unnatural doubling and knoppiness of the joynt above what is by nature necessary and should be that certain of the Generals and chief Commanders would in such a manner unite with the Souldiers as it appears when they so strongly combined with the Armies that neither the Laws of God nor man and oaths of fidelity made by them for the King and Parliament could separate them or divide them in their unlawful combination against them whom they had sworn to obey Beside the Greatnesse of Power the PINED BODY of the patient and the BELLY OVER-GROWN do infer that these our Heads should get unto themselves another kinde of greatness becoming Great in Wealth and Riches while the Body of the Commonwealth pined away and waxed exceeding poor the word poor in our mother tongue signifying properly want of necessaries and metaphorically want of flesh yet so ordinary is this Metaphor that it is even to women and children so common and so well known as if it had been said lean and well may these two be signified by that one word because one is ordinarily an effect of the other But the Common-wealth the Body which is no other in persons then the Mystical Body of Christ our Head ought to have a proportionable nourishment with the Head even as it is in the Mystical Body the Church in spiritual things for of it S. Paul speaketh Eph. 4. 16. that it is fitly joyned from the Head to the Members and maketh encrease of the body to edification So ought the Body of the Commonwealth receive meet and proportionable nourishment with and from the Head The BELLY ought to prepare nourishment for not steal it from the BODY But how contrary hereunto have our Heads robb'd our Body and that which ought to have prepared nourishment for it not consumed it all the Belly growing full and swelling and left England in a starving condition For whatever was pretended by them their Belly was their God The ANCLE-JOYNTS likewise in this Disease grow KNOPPY and are DOUBLE as the former the Mystery will better be discovered when we shall come to examine the nature of the Thigh-bones and Leg-bones and what is the meaning of their being crooked Whereas the RIBS of such diseased children about the ends and toward the breast are found very THICK and therefore named DOUBLE and the extuberancies named KNOTS and by this means as the fore-named Wrist-joynts and Ancle-joynts are made necessarily much stronger thereby then such as are without such a thickness Consider this which follows RIB doth typifie in the REKETS no other thing then what the same word doth signifie in the Holy Text without any forced interpretation application or any other way or manner of straining thereof Consider therefore the words of the Prophet Dan. 7. 5. And behold another Beast a Second was like a Bear and raised up it self on one side and it had Three LIBS in the mouth of it between the teeth thereof and they said thus much unto it Arise devour much flesh Three coasts of the world saith Learned Broughton from the place which before it held West North and South as it is declared Cha. 8. 4. and it is to be expounded of the Persian Monarchy and of the conquests of the Persian Kings In which place it is plain enough that RIB is the mysticall name of a COAST as our English name COASTS is nothing in name and thing properly but RIBS from the Latine For in the utmost parts of Kingdomes and confines of Territories are placed the chiefest forces and strength to defend the inward parts of such Dominions as the RIBS are made of strong bone to defend the Heart and vitall inward parts By the DOUBLING of the RIBS in this Disease is not only foreshewn the doubling of the Forces on the Land-coasts which hath been fullfilled evidently before our eyes in our Castles and Citadels which those Usurpers thought to secure themselves by but specially is signified the great strengthening of the land by an extrordinary great Navy of Ships in which they placed their greatest confidence And it is held for so great an advantage which we of this Nation enjoy above all others the strength and multitude of our Ships that it is almost grown into a Proverb to say The wals of England are wals of wood So significatively the Knops of the RIBS are called KNOTS which is a kinde of fast and sometime indissoluble binding of a thing noting unto us that by thus guarding the Seas with such a multitude of strong Ships they judged they were so fast and so secure that all the world could not undoe them And so much have they boasted The reason farther why Ships are signified by Ribs is because Ribs do much resemble Ships in the crookednesse of their figure Virgil giving an Epithet to Ships calleth them Georgic lib. 1. curvae carina and in Aeneid lib. 6. curvae puppes that is crooked Ships in respect both of their keeles and sides And as the English word RIB is given to Ships so the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is
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
last words of Ailredus Ammirantibus qui aderant tantam c. declaring that those which saw this cure performed by the King were thereupon amazed seeing so strange an effect do argue that this kinde of cure was not performed by any other King before nor by himself until this time And to this Prince Tagautius a French Writer ascribes the first cure of this disease in such manner in England Institution Chirurg lib. 1. In the next place let us consider the Nature of the Kings-evil which is a Malady most like to the Disease in Isaiah spoken of before consisting in Bruises and putrified and corrupt Sores and to this we may joyn the other part of the Description in Wounds also For what are those apostemous Swellings in this Disease but of the nature of Bruises which contain corrupt blood or 〈◊〉 in them And nothing more common in the Disease then Corrupt and Mattury Ulcers And wounds are properly taken for solution of continuity as Physicians call it without sanics or corruption and from an outward cause so the word here expounded wounds signifies such a solution of continuity and is a part of the disease of that state not of sin but of suffering from cruel men and unjust as in this disease of the Kings-evil where the swellings if the bones be rotten or the corruption cannot otherwise easily break out are oftentimes wounded by the Chirurgians knife Thirdly We are to consider more accurately the Person to whom the Lord first gave this great Gift of Healing the Kings-evil First in respect of his DIGNITY and DESCENT Secondly in regard of his ORDER and PLACE of SUCCESSION Thirdly in the addition of his new SIR NAME Fourthly In respect of his ADVENTURES For all which in few words this may suffice First he was by his DIGNITY King of England and by his DESCENT King Edward III before the Conquest was the natural and legitimate son of Egelred which Egelred was the son of King Edgar and yonger brother unto King Edward II who for that he was innocently murdered by the counsel of his Stepmother as is supposed Queen Alfrith after that he had reigned King a very short time was sirnamed the Martyr according to Ailredus in the said History pag 409. speaking thus Aâ—â—rat interim boati regis martyris Edwardi hujas nostre pricipis patrui praeclara solemnitas qui ab impiis sine culpâ percâ—â—ptus creditur innocentiae martyriâ— coronatus that is to say It was upon the great Feast day of S. Edward King and Martyr Uncle to our Soveraign that now is who for that he was causlesly murdered by wicked 〈◊〉 is beleeved to have received the crown of martyrdome for his innocence Thus much for this K. Edwards DIGNITY and DESCENT who first of our English Kings healed the KINGS-EVIL Secondly for what concerns this King Edward in his ORDER and PLACE of SUCCESSION he being the brothers son as was abovesaid to Edward the Martyr was notwithstanding the Fifth King in ORDER and COURSE of reigning from the former Edward taking both terms inclusively and accounting those Kings which reigned together for one and by the name of one of which Holy Scripture affords us more then one example Thus Edward the Martyr the First Egelred the Second Edmund Ironside the Third Hardicanutus the Fourth Edward the Confessor the Fifth Thirdly for his new SIRNAME the CONFESSOR that he was ordinarily called Edward the Confessor and for his HOLINESSE witnesseth Henry Knighton Canon of Leicester in his first book ch 8. De Eventibus Anglia Iste supradictus rex sanctus Confessor dictus est Edwardus III saith he that is This holy King Edward III was named the Confessor Whereunto adde the words of the Chronicle attributed unto John Brompton Abbot of Jereval pag. 956. of the Edition 1652. Iste rex Edwardus ab infantiâ deum diligens bonas consuetudines suas primarias pro honore terreno non commutavit fed cunctis diebus magis ac magis omni sanctitate casitute humilitate munditiâ Deum sanctam Ecclesiam dilexit panperesque ob amorem Dei tanquam fratres suos charos habuit dilectos nos largis elecmosynis aperto corde voluntate bona saepe respexit plures in Angliâ statuit leges bonas quae pro majari parte adhac in regno tenentur Which in English is This King Edward the Confessor from his childehood fearing God did not change his wonted goodnesse for earthly honour but daily encreased in all kinde of sanctity chastity humility and purity loving God and holy Church and such was his love toward God that he loved the poor tenderly accounting them his brethren and bestowing large and continuall almes upon them in singlenesse of heart and true affection and enacted more good laws in England then were before which for the most part are of force in the kingdome at this day Fourthly In what pertains to King Edward the CONFESSORS ADVENTURES he was by reason of an Usurper forced to shift for himself and to live as a banished man in Normandy for so writes Ailredus De Sancto Edwardo Confessore ac Virgine pag. 366. in the forenamed Volume of Historians Edwardus frater Edmundi filius Edelredi qui in Normanniâ exulabat that is Edward the brother of Edmund Ironside who lived in Normandy in Banishment From which place of his exile he was sent for by the testimony of the History called John Bromptons Abbot of Jerevall not written but set out by him Edwardus à Normanniâ vocatus King Edward saith the Historian was sent for out of Normandy But how welcome the King was and to whom Let us hear the words of Ailredus in the place aforesaid Veniens igitur in Angliam Edwardus ab universo clero populo cum maximâ exultatione suscipitur But when King Edward came into England saith he he was welcomed by all the Clergy and People of the land with all expressions of joy and some of the reasons of that great and universal gladness are in the same place exprest by the same Ailredus in this manner Homo mansuetus magis pace quà m armis regnum protegens habebat animum irae victorem avaritia contemptorem superbiae expertem which is He was a milde Prince who defended his Kingdom more by peace then by war of such a frame of minde that he could bridle his anger hated covetousness and was void of all prids Now I shall by Gods grace shew unto you in what manner it hath pleased Almighty God out of these Two Diseases the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL to foreshew unto us our Publike SINS and MISERIES and the AUTHORS of them and DELIVERANCE from them in One and the SINS we have been publikely guilty of and our MISERIES which we have within these twenty years undergone with the PERSON who shall by GODS mercy deliver and set us free from these long and miserable afflictions in the Other KING CHARLES II our DELIVERER Of which
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