World whatsoever God would be pleased to make me and that I may be so ever found the most humble lowly penitent just wise mercifull meek patient faithfull servant of our Lord and God and King my Master O Lord I love thy House Worship and Service and place were thy Honour dwels be it in thy Temple or in man that delights to do thy will which is to fear God honour the King I am unworthy O Lord yea O Lord I am unworthy and altogether unfit but thy wayes O God are past finding out who dares assume the name of a Prophet not I O Lord let me rather from my Soul chuse to die than live a false one which is to be a Son of Belial and accursed for ever But doth it not manifestly appear a delation having then also said my Sons Fathers Father was a Prophet to this I am yet a debtor to say what I can My Father Mr. Richard Gostelow lived and died where I was born in Prescot-house a place antiently known in my memory it had groves and good walks about it some religious house I conceive it to have been an Altar and Chappel I have known in it the Parrish is Croppredy in Oxford shire scituate some three miles from Bambury My Elder brother bearing his name now lives in it but truly I never knew my Father to have any the least repute to be a Prophet a very general repute he had to be an honest just and charitable man so had also his three brothers which I well knew but seeing the glory of God and my own reputation is to be spoken too and my self necessitated to defend both in all possible I can Give me leave to present you in what things he was like a Prophet and this the Countrey well knew of him He was a lover of Gods house Worship and Ministers further he married a second Wife with whom he had a very considerable estate when himself in debt her estate he imployed and put out in his own name yet most justly gave her the procedes of it and when he dyed left her near four times as much as he left to all his children which were then nine yet she had no childe by her former husband nor him hardly any kindred had she known to my Father this he did in good conscience I will next shew you how he was mercifull and patient remitting very high injuries and bearing his Cross It falls out often that the richest Wives are not the best I have heard him traduced reproached contumeliously used and more of such dirt thrown at him from a person that of all others should not have done it in wisdom or duty Yet he hath born it not provoking again Nay at that very time he hath taken me apart and commanded me to pray for that very party always to be obedient to her in good observance of her telling me it was the Cross God had sent him and his duty it was to make the best use of it though others curse yet let us bless and pray next he was eminently known to be charitable and full of compassion to the poor he often gave flesh bread and corn his man I know he sent amongst them to distribute mony several times me he hath sent also in one hand a note to whom to give in the other hand a purse of money to one a shilling to others more to some two as he judged their necessity distributing at good times as Christmas others bountifully But what is all this to a Prophet I will come a little nearer often it fell out that the continual dropping within dores drove him to seek his quiet without dores and when gotten into his private walks he would pray and weep long also as well as frequently would he do thus I but what is this to prove him a Prophet I will come a little nearer to you as he came nearer his end A mild slow way of dying he had in which gentle sickness he wept much but withal declared himself it was not that he was affraid to dye his tears were occasioned by the over-joy he had that he was going to so wholy a God to so mercifull a Jesus to such blessed company and to so glorious a place all this told me and you proves him not a Prophet which I have pronounced him I am coming a little nearer to you my self Prentise at London when he was thus drawing towards his end he was pleased to send me a little money with it a letter having a great deal of good counsel in it well minding me of my condition as a servant remembering me of the duty I owed to God next to my master and charged me not to be wanting in the performance to either but with all faithfullness to apply my self willingly to discharge it this indeed speaks him a Wise and good Father and a childe of God but not a Prophet In this my last observe to you I come nearest may come home at last that his letter written with his own hand directed to my self I have bearing date 1620 in the end of it he doth pronounce me blessed and happy first hear on earth in Heaven abundantly so it reads something like the great blessings that befell Joseph when ruler in Egypt under his King and Master who is there mentioned by him for my imitation whilst a servant for my consolation after in that letter of my Fathers there is too much Honour for a Son of my demerit both to God and him whose commands I have not conformed too at all as I ought to pass I say it may come and that will prove him to all a Prophet but if it do not O Lord thou ever rallest me to say so let not man I beseech thee lay this to my charge to speak me herein also further proud 't is for truth sake and the Worlds satisfaction if I can that I write this in his praise not for vain and foolish ostentation you see five leaves of the book was printed all material things of high concernment there spoken and quite finished my self not minded but forasmuch as in what I wrote my self presently after Gods pronounced Prophesie wherein I say I was over-ruled There are also things referring to my self and posterity I am unworthy of I shall therefore reserve that as judging it fittest to shew privately to my King when time best serves his most excellent Majesty being upon his Throne and now seeing God hath so over-ruled brought about this published honour to my deceased Father which I never in the least thus intended as here happily necessitated give me leave to reminde you that in the book you shall read when I was awake and at the end of Broad-street seeing the Heavens open and my Saviour upon the Throne I did there see my Father Richard Gostelow amongst the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles waiting upon that Throne and this is no new invented thing made by me now
will is not clear for the glory of God and Honour of his King but our Sovereign CHARLES STUART whose power unquestionable right with Parliament Oliver Cromwell takes into his own hand suffers it not to come into yours onely he remembers very well when you formerly forced it from the King into a Parliament onely where God and our Laws had never placed it How you abused it Though your pretentions Oaths and Votes at the first were high deep and many to the contrary all that you might not be distrusted his person and his honour also you would preserve yet see misimployed this Militia you did and turned it was to the destruction of his person honour the last you first wounded him in that you might the better kill him in his body done it was to the perpetual shame of them that did it profess you what you will for Religion Presbytery Anabaptism Independency or any thing that is unwarrantable distinctions multiplied with your Novelties and successes Truely my charitie leads me to believe there were some Gentlemen refused to settle the Militia in the hands of Oliver Cromwell that it might the sooner return into those hands which their consciences are now troubled that they ever forst it from which unhappie Act I am of opinion first set us together by the ears most hastened and so enabled the Contrivers of that unnatural War which the Lord in mercie hath now put an end to If such another Vote engage us not afresh from returning to which Red sea of Bloud good Lord deliver us as Mr. Thomas Goodwin preached advised and prayed But this Militia is now safe where it should be in the hands and power of the best Subject Oliver Cromwell for the warrantable interest of the best of Kings his Master Charls Stuart See how the ways of God are past finding out O Lord never any man lost by referring all to thy good time and best way I do not in the least doubt thee Oliver Cromwell I know God hath or will fit thee for the work who onely hath thus directed and over-ruled that his name may have the glorie and thy person the greater honor forsaking all on earth for the command of heaven The interest in the Militia is a Crown-Jewel which God will have thee O Cromwell not suffer to be divided from the Crown but give it to the supply and making of a better than that which bad men have by violence taken and shared amongst the Self-deniers as they call themselves But thou Oliver Cromwell wilt prove thy self one they onely promised to do what thou canst not but do make him a Glorious King for by thy means God will have it so Distrust him not you Members yet dissenting who have a clear mind to do the work of the Lord. Obey God and your King with him Gods Word and the known Laws of the Land will best direct in both Comply with Oliver Cromwell he is for the service of God and his duty to his Kings just interest with a Parliament you understand not how highly God will make him subservient to both My Book is coming to you to let you know how much we are mistaken in him and how transcendently much we are for ever obliged to our mercifull God whose work this is alone to the amazement of the World both for time and manner his goodness making it marvelous in our eyes I could not sleep the night of that active day the instrument for subscription was presented God keeping me waking to his glory and my own content for as his Gun and Call hath set me to work at other times so here I rose and wrote this Letter to Oliver Cromwell the very next morning because but short I here give it you that you may see my actions are all above-bord and that this work on Earth comes from above in Heaven to pass it must come God will have it so Sr. Yesterdays actings last nights wakings and this day God directing hath set these words upon this paper for your Lordships observe Prudence it is not to trust the Militia in those hands who after they had forced it from whence God Almighty had placed it whatsoever they pretended used it to the distroying of him Sir you are not of these bad men beloved neither is there clear thoughts in all of them to do good some are not fit to be trusted Pray God amend them all Sr. Part with nothing out of your own power that is or may be mis-inployed hurt the Church of God or Regal rule You are of Heaven directed doubt it not in the least to be highly sub-servant to both have courage Sir fear not the least I know you are hated and not understood by the most who would destroy you Sr. I had a Book ready to publish 20 dayes or more before the Parliament opened the highest imaginable for your advantage and effecting what God will have done by the turning of good men to comply with you in all things and not to fear any ill because God is on your side Sr. All my friends have abandoned me and money I could not get to Print it most men conceiving this Parliament would ruin you so hang me if I sided with you Thus deserted and opposed by all I could not get it out but I see God works for me when man opposeth so doth he for you Go on Sir you are blest of Heaven Your most faithfullest W. Gostelow Septemb. 13. 1654. This Letter I sent to that hand I have sent divers others which I know are delivered to his Lordship so sure as God is in Heaven my Commission is from thence and that the effect will shew you all from thence deputed I am And now you Honourable Members of this Parliament who may if you will readily apply your selves to be good just mercifull and wise live the Honour of our Nation the beloved of God of our King and of all good men your selves may have the Honour to be such a Parliament so wise so just so well constituted so for ever renowned as those will be if you should be wanting to your devoirs which is the applying of your selves to the extirpation of all villany and the giving to every men his just interest to which ends we have chosen you and should all pray that God would so of his mercy inable you by such a Parliamēt our already glorified King adviseth in his last words our now so abundantly happy Soveraign his Son ever to be ruled by for Parliaments so principled would readily apply themselves to give the King his just rights as truely as they would to every subject theirs which doing King people and Kingdom could not be other than mutually happy and blest living in rules of Justice and loving kindness the strongest hold-fasts And now this thy Call O Lord and workings when my self at my wits end is like that afforded me of bring thy Papers and come away A deliverance it is
of his adversaries to whom he renders vengeance at the same time Remember I have warned you and believe me also I could not have any quiet untill I had done so Thus in all ages God hath sent his Prophets to forewarn before he consume a people or in mercy deliver them I have done my duty do you yours repent and live The number was but few I told you though all that were then in being who when they saw this Crown in heaven worshipped God and said This is of Heaven we will follow it Which when done with my self hear we did pleasant sounds in Heaven and saw the earth shine with plenty amongst men good will all praising God and participating those blessings I once more tell you they were but a small number make haste be you of it Before judgement is gone out repentance is seasonable but you may cry to late From this Citie was the Kingdom fyrced let O Lord if it be thy good pleasure the inhabitants tears and thy mercy spare it from an heap of ruin a City that hath been and yet is the harlot mother of Bastard conceptions and prodigious births confusion she hath brought forth that hath filled the world and land to her dishonour with God and men Spare us O Lord we beseech thee and have mercy upon us even upon us also thy most unworthy servants Here I have ended but because God hath as I formerly observed to you of his wise delay suspended the publishing of this book for his own time which certainly is the best and fittest as also that my Dependency on him may be the more as his mercies the greater when deliverance afforded us I must yet a little go on and one insert more be pleased to allow me it being for the General good Let me therefore present your eye and entertain your ear as of Gods mercy he hath done mine for your benefit upon the day and night of the 5. of November last being our Lords day on which we did commemorate Gods deliverance afforded us from the Gun-powder Treason I dare not but do it mark it it is considerable of the Lord himself being the Lord of Hosts who hath delivered us doth deliver us and will deliver us all good grounds to trust him and a set Text of Scripture it is for that day to be Treated on A good Act of Parliament we have for the thankfull and perpetual commemoration of that so great a mercy that God was pleased then and so to deliver Our so good so wise so well-accomplished King and his posterity to sit upon his Throne and to sway the Scepter of these Kingdoms for ever as we see God hath now so appointed whose ways admit of no variation or shadow of turning Deliver he did we see the house of Peers and Persons of Honour in duty waiting upon their King Deliver he did the wise and learned Authors of the Protestant Church and Religion with them also the Judges both together the best interpreters of his word and his Laws Deliver he did also those Worthies of the house of Commons called thither by their King and sent thither by the wise obedient and then quiet people of the land who were and because so shared in that deliverance and long enjoyed they and we the Blessings that succeeded of peace order riches beauty in Religious worship of God Almighty in his Churches to the wonder as well as to the envie of the world Here was a Parliament of Gods and good mens choise and blessing For Majesty and Honour well met together And this when so he delivers from that horrid unparrall'd Treason until those times the like not heard of And what to do I beseech you but to let us see how precious in his sight we are when met together as those to fear God honour our King love brotherly love all applying our selves to live and do according to his will revealed in his word and our known Laws the onely rule we should go by and conform unto applying our selves to these not to our own willdered thoughts for confusion covetuousness rebellion irreligion murder of those people whose persons peace and propriety we come to preserve and maintain not for our self-ends to kill that we may divide the spoil Something like him I have heard of in the Church of Rome who upon the words spoken in a vision to the Apostle S. Peter Arise kill and eat all things are now Common to please the then Pope of Rome at difference with the Venetians gave this gloss upon that Text that is saith he your Holiness may make War with the Venetians kill them and devour their estates up and do it arise take kill and feed upon them Thus his unholiness suitable Cleargy force mis-interpretations of holy Writ to their own and others destruction Peter's successors they pretend to be and in the worst of things they certainly follow him nay exceed him draw their sword they do cut not off the ear onely with Peter but the heads of Kings and Potentates which wicked action our Lord reproves healing the person wounded when but an ear to let us see his Kingdom was not to be carried on by the sword and shew us he doth he had no need of a fighting Clergy he made no Apostle to offer violence no Bishop in Buff with back-sword to help on with Presbytery no Priest or Deacon to kill and supplant that he might get his more pious and therefore more peaceable brothers living because it is better than his own which when he hath by violence gotten he inricheth himself but starves or poysons those he pretended to feed better and do more good for both in body and soul No these are not the men fit to build God a Church he needs no such hackers or hewers in Field or Pulpit such furious fighters and rash zealous Clergy Go on to imitate Peter further the very next apprehension of danger they deny their Lord and Saviour for swearing him also if once in custody or times of persecution come upon them then they are Sidonians or Samaritanes no more Jews and they have a Temple not yet dedicated to any God which you their profitable master so they get by you shall call them and it what you please for they are resolved to side with the seeming strongest to get by so doing Cura Romana non capit ovem sine lana Oh! and have not we such Peters if but one too many but the more the pitie well I have shewed you what those furious boote-feux have done set us and the Christian World on fire I would to God I could shew you them imitating that blessed saint Peter repenting which would be not onely ours the Churches and their own rejoycing at the conversion of such sinners there is joy in Heaven and though by words actions misunderstood they have engaged us with Curse ye Meros so carried on the cause falsly perswading they are the Lords
providence as in the book you have it he guideth me to a Scripture there observed to you for the so falling upon my face gives me satisfaction for my so doing for the other of words I promise satisfaction but first observe That a second time in the dictate of Gods Prophesie which I stand to and will never alter or abate one word upon my life there in the end of that Prophesie these words are pronounce this house a blessed house and this Chamber shall for ever be called the Chamber of the great Prophet for that second time Prophet spoken by me as for all the words there I can give no reason but over-ruled providence it was no pride no imagination no it was Gods pleasure and his will and promise by me to be declared to all people and it was no more what I fancied or would have come to pass than I wished well to Olliver Cromwel who is in that Prophesie and happy also a man I hated to the utmost till God then as before reproved me do you tell me off fancy you talke foolishly I believe the Prophesie and I pray for O Cromwell the Prophesie is Gods the duty is mine and all yours God hath or will change O Cromwel to his own glory and your amazement as well as mine he hath assured it me and I do you take it for Prophesie I do The third time Prophet is after dictated as soon as light appeared I rose before I dressed my self I write that upon the 12 of January in the Church of Youghall a man sent of God for that very imploy A Prophet his name Walter Gostelow will that day in that Church after Sermon tell you the things God will bring to pass for his glory mercy and name sake making them marvellous in our eyes For this third time Prophet I can give you no reason but over-ruled Providence just as in that writing I could write Oliver Cromwell by no other dignity or cognisance than the General of all the English Forces as you may there read so here you have to observe the word Prophet spoken before the Prophesie spoken in the Prophesie and wrote after the Prophesie in all over-ruled I knew not of it untill done Yet further observe that in the dictate of Prophesie the Irish are not to be transplanted fulfilled that is for your satisfaction the time for their transplanting by Act was May last I am ashamed I will not call it an Act of Parliament it was so contrary to Gods good pleasure or brotherly compassion to sweep all that they might have all therefore transplanted they are not May is past transplanted they shall not be upon this I will put it burn me if they be God hath altered that unmercifull decree scattering those that made it given these poor Subjects us better Law-makers more mercifull men in the room of them who having God before their eies for their so doing have learnt Be ye also mercifull as your Heavenly Father is mercifull Such as these shall hereafter sit at Helm and sway the Scepter of these three Kingdoms just and mercifull men sent of the omnipotent and mercifull God In the Prophesie written the sign there given me which I was also over-ruled to write as well as the name Prophet is made good to me fulfilled that is also honourable witnesses I have enough to prove both for times persons and place There is some ground for further proof which I cannot wholy pass over nor decline the giving it to your consideration just as it was given to my self being put upon all possible proof one night forthwith after Mr. Barrel the Merchant and John Merrick came up into my Chamber and began thus with me Mr. Gostelow here is happened below a thing that very much amazeth us some others I asked what is it we are amazed we wonder at it say they speak what is it The little Childe say they that came from the Irish Nurses to which the widdow Merrick is Granmother and Mr. Landey Merchant her Son in Law Father That Child you know is very weak can hardly speak any thing what it learned at Nurse is Irish we were speaking below to the Childe and asking it some things in English amongst others what you were the Childe replied twice what we understood not at last plainly in English a Prophet this they admiring came up to me then in bed and tell me you have the men the matter and their residence if this be so God hath sent me one witness more out of the mouth of this Babe Out of all which give me leave to observe to you for I do it with all the humility that is imaginable in the World but do it I must I see Gods glory is at stake and so also your and my well being for turning from sin to amendment of life that we may repent do the first works so for ever live blessed and happy God hath here sent me a Scripture this last Sunday out of the Pulpit and the mouth too of one of his Ministers so full is it to give you and me satisfaction for this word Prophet my over-ruled speaking and writing of it that it is to me as satisfactory and as full of Consolation as the other Scripture his Providence guided me to for the proof of my over-ruled deportment in falling down upon my face and because so very full I will give it you in the very words as I had done that and let me tell you the Lord Protector did observe part of this Scripture to me when I imparted these things to him who then well advised me to fear God and walk in his wayes in all humility and for these things which were so very strange if to his glory good pleasure and his Prophesie he would bring them to pass not being contrary to Scriptures though spoken out of my mouth as it came happily then from him so now also from a worthy Gentleman Preaching God never yet left me in my greatest straights You have the words in the second Epistle of S. Peter the first Chapter and the last verse For the Prophesies came not in old times by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and I am sure they wrote so also but that this be not laid to my charge as the greatest pride of all yet spoken or asserted by me I beseech you pray for me to this purpose for I am bold to tell you my heart is fixed O Lord my heart is fixed uprightly and sincerely to keep thy Law to love and serve thee above all things in the World but for any sanctity merit or righteousness in me O Lord which is not thy onely grace of good will I abominate and disown it for ever pray for me I beseech you that in all the inundations of evil I may be preserved by the loving kindness of the Lord and that in all the mutations of this