Tribe and Principal Family in Israel the House of Levi. A most Noble House indeed of which the Lord himself had so high and honourable an esteem that he made it as it were his own Impropriation and Inheritance entailing upon it all his own Menial Attendancies O most unvalueable Priviledges and Prerogatives of a Family not onely to be made the sole Houshold servants of the Living God but to be set apart to eat at his own Table feed on his proper Sacrifices and to have as it were the Monopoly of Altars and all holy things O thrice happy honours of a House not onely to be as it were of the Lord of Hosts own Life-guard and have the sole charge of the sacred Arke of the Covenant committed to them but also to be adopted into the very Cabinet-counsells of Heaven by the judgement of Vrim and Thummim and to be alone permitted to have a free and frequent ingresse into the Sanctum Sanctorum it self This was in short the sacred Family selected by the Almighty Jehovah himself to be as it were his Princes Peers and onely Familiars here below the onely Grandees and Favourits of his most Magnificent Court upon Earth which was to be establisht in his most holy glorious and costly Temple at Jerusalem as is to be seen more at large in the whole course of sacred Scripture to which holy leaves I humbly refer every ingenuous Reader for a further satisfaction in all these Particulars The Parallel Indeed when we shall have duely considered the great care and holy caution the sacred Scripture it self ha's taken throughout in the recommendation of the Nobility of divers persons we may very well conclude with the Heathen Orator what may be too as good Divinity as Philosophy Deorum Immortalium munus primum videri maximum in lucem statim foelicem venire Nobility of birth is the first and greatest gift of God I say the first and greatest temporal dispensation of Heaven is to be born Noble and so soon to be within the lists of felicity as of nature why else should we find such an exact account of the Nobility of this our great Prototype Moses of the three valiant Children held in the Captivity of Babylon and that of the most valiant and renowned Eleazar and divers other persons since the universal Deluge which particulars are now too long to be insisted on Nay that Nobility of blood was in the like esteem both with God and man too before the Flood in the very first Age and Infancy of the World will be quickly made appear by the delineation of the Genealogy of Noe which the holy Spirit is pleased to deliver to us as if it intended as it were to act the part of a Herald in giving to us the large Series of all his Generations it seeming not onely to make way through all the Patriarchs from whom he was descended but to give a punctual rehearsal to us of all their Titles and Signiories of all their singular Acts and Atchievements and then concludes in the next Chapter Hae sunt generationes Noe vir justus erat atque perfectus This is the Genealogy of Noe he was a just man and a perfect If then Nobility of birth be a blessing so considerable in the eyes of the Lord and inferr'd by his holy Spirit to be of no little avail to us in the way of vertue and an apparent step to Piety and Sanctity it self It will not be I hope thought incongruous to bring our glorious second Moses to encounter the first upon this his first Ascent and as in all the rest we shall find them sweetly kissing and embracing each the other And yet I cannot say his late Highnesse was extracted from so Priestly a Family but altogether as Princely being lineally descended from the loynes of our most Antient Brittish Princes and ty'd in near alliances to the blood of our later Kings as by that thrice Noble Family of the Barringtons and divers others which to make a Petigree of would take up more paper than we intend for our Volume and make me appear more a Herald than an Historian Nay indeed should I but go about to prove his Highnesse most illustrious House Noble I should commit a sacriledge in the Temple of Honour and onely violate his most glorious Family with a more solemn infamy His Highnesse is unquestionably known to have descended from such a stem of Princely Antecessors that whole Ages which wast Rocks and wear out Elements have never altered to lessen but rather advance the honour of his great House He was derived from such a Family that we may better say of it than what was of the other ex qua nescit aliquid Mediocre nasci from whence nothing ordinary can proceed as is likewise made notoriously evident in those other mosteminent persons of Honour now living who are blest with a share of his incomparable blood who have spread their glory abroad so well as at home and built themselves such Trophies in the hearts of their very enemies that eternity it self must celebrate so no time can ever be able to demolish or reduce into oblivion And that I may not be thought to flatter so great a truth I will be bold to hasten and abruptly conclude this first point of our Mosaical Parallel with saying onely that this sublime Person his late most Serene Highnesse our second as the first great Moses came into the World like a Princely Pearl and made it appear by the quality of his Orient that if Nature pleased to equal his birth to the best of Noble-men upon Earth he would equal his vertues to his extraction as we shall see more plainly when we mount a little higher upon our Mosaical Ascents and Parallels The second Ascent MOses was from his Cradle blest with a very beautiful body for which he was most remarkable in his infancy so the sacred text tells us that he was a fair and goodly child Now that bodily beauty is an indubitable blessing and a Ray of the Divinity it self none sure but a monstrous Thersites or a Mopsus will dispute and none but an errant Apostate from Christianity a meer perfidious and profane Manichee dare deny Does not the Lord himself proclaim as he is the God of Nature that beauty and graceful comlinesse of body is entirely his gift Nay ha's he not often imployed this his own glorious dispensation to be an instrument of his mighty wonders a lightning flash of his power and as a resplendent Torch of his greatest Victories which his All-Wise Providence would never have done did he not only approve the nature of but intend to give the greatest honour to that his own dispensation Thus was the Lord pleased to make the beauty of our little Moses the cause of his miraculous preservation by affecting the heart of Pharaoh's daughter And therefore we find it to
Host against the enemy should keep themselves clear from all wickednesse nor so much as be stained with any uncleannesse c. The Parallel Nor lesse doubt can there be sure of the personal Valour of our second Moses who though he slew no man that ever I could hear of in any private quarrel yet was known to be alwayes ready to draw his Sword upon a good occasion His Highnesse was never of the temper of those spirits that upon the misconstruction of a word or a cold countenance must presently desire to see a man with his sword in his hand and swear that they will evict reparation from him sealed with his blood No it cannot be but an argument of a base spirit and of ignoble extraction to seek out occasions of quarrelling and Duelling for by that sure they must have some design to blot out some ignominy of their births or other unworthinesse Heretofore truly none but slaves lackies butchers gladiators or such kind of fellows did use that trade of Duells but now forsooth the opinion of some fooles will make it fit for Gentlemen But our first and second Moses ever had such pitiful Hectors in extream contempt who go about by that means to purchase glory out of vice gain hell by their execrable carriage and but acquire on earth the qualities of a Clown They have taught us that we are not to make our selves like Fierabras nor the Knight of the burning-sword in matter of valour and I dare aver that if there were a hundred such like Rodomonts brayed and stamped to powder in a Morter they would not be able to make up one half ounce of true fortitude Nay I have seen some of those most importunate fellows to fight Duells when they come to bear arms in a good cause where they ought to shew true valour and an undaunted resolution they have been the first that have most desperately run away they have passed over hills without being sensible of the ascents through woods without seeing of a tree before them and measured many miles without casting one look behind them nay sometime whole flocks of them together that will run away like sheep with the very appresion of a fear that the noise of their own feet gives them Our first and second Moses were as little given to make discourses of their own Valour Those who brave it most in words are most commonly found most failing in performance When Homer makes his bravest Captains to march he gives them alwayes silence for a guide contrariwise he makes cowards to babble and chatter like Cranes The first passe along like great Rivers letting their streams glide softly with a silent majesty but the second keep a murmuring and bubling like little Brooks Indeed the world is too full of these Rodomonts now called Hectors who are transported with od arrogant and sudden furies like Rabsheketh in Scripture and yet will tremble at the Lancet of a Surgeon and cry out for a little pain more than a woman in Labour in short the true sign of not being valiant is to strive to seem to be so Our second Moses was known to be none of all this Swash-buckler brood sprung from the race of Cadmus derived from the teeth of Serpents and yet never more ready to eat than to fight upon a good occasion nay a Duel out too if there were a cause for it that is either in the Head of an Army by publick consent against some Goliah to defend the honour of his Nation and so to end some notable War and stay a greater effusion of blood or else if justly called to it in his own or any dear friends vindication not upon some silly Chymera of spirit upon the interpretation of some ambiguous words or which is worse for the love of some unchast woman who will not be otherwise propitiated but with the sacrifice of humane blood No this is no part of our Mosaical courage The men of this make were always those that his Highnesse fought against and proved upon them in the end that to be a true compleat Christian Souldier was not to become a braving Cyclop without any feeling of God or sense of Religion but such a one as his Master Moses would have him to be that goes into the field that is clear from all wickednesse and uncleannesse and so accordingly did our second Moses alwayes make his sacred choise of men His inspired wisdom knew full well that none are fitter to go to War than those who had made their peace with God nor can there be any more valourous than he that has a true fear of the Lord before him for first such a mans soul is a Fort impregnable which cannot be scaled with ladders for it reacheth up to Heaven nor be broken with batteries for it is walled with brasse nor undermined by Pioneers for he is founded upon a rock nor betrayed by treason for faith it self has the keeping of it nor be burnt with granado's for that can quench the fiery darts of the Devil nor yet be forced by famine for a good conscience is a continual feast It was not for nothing then that these two great souls of honour our first and second Moses would not onely be so provided themselves but have all that followed them be so likewise and to carry about them the whole armour of St. Paul for undoubtedly there is nothing so strong nothing so invincible and triumphant as a valour which marcheth bravely under the Rules of true Christian Religion Whatsoever Mr. Machiavel would perswade us that Devotion and Piety are the greatest weakners of courage and warlike dispositions and that honesty and vertue do but expose a Prince to dangers the truth of it is of a Prince as he has proposed him he has made little better than a wilde beast and yet would perswade us t is a man and none I presume will believe it but such as carry their eyes in their heels The brave Belizarius sure was of another opinion who was one of the most excellent Captains in the World being to put some lewd souldiers to death for some military crimes declared his mind so freely to his Army in these Terms that Procopius recites Know ye saith he that I am come to fight with the arms of Religion and Justice without which we can expect neither Victory nor Happinesse I desire my Souldiers should have their hands clean to kill an enemy Never will I suffer any man in my Army that hath fingers crooked or bloody were he in arms as terrible as lightning force is of no worth if it have not equity and conscience for companions This now methinks was spoken like a Souldier indeed like the very spirit of our Moses And this is most certain that no man can loose his courage but he that never had it and no man can have it if that he beg it not of the true Lord of Hosts Where is light to be sought for
am sure to incur the censure of flattery for it amongst fools And I le begin with his chief Minister or Secretary of State the intelligence of his Counsels and as it were the Angel-Guardian of his Government who was so present with his great Master our second Moses in all his actions counsells interests and designs as certain flowers are said to wait on the Sun and penetrated to the very Center of his great Soul so could not but contract many of his most Mosaical perfections He is certainly known to be what his name renders him by Anagramm a True Holy one that is a Statesman after Moses his manner viz. fearing God and dealing truly c. a person of most incomparable piety and parts Prudent as a Serpent and yet pure as a Seraphim vertues so rare in a Statesman that we may justly call him the true holy Phoenix Polititian of the Age. I have not time nor paper to insist so particularly upon every one of his Highnesse most honourable Privy Council but this I can affirm that never was a more compleat body of Council or more exquisite composition of so many excellent Tempers together in the World insomuch that we see notoriously in every dayes dispatches how they are that perfectly what the old Historian Velleius sayes of Sejanus flatteringly That he was Actu otiosis simillimus in earnest a most excellent character howsoever of a Statesman that he seemed in the middest of his greatst employments as if he were idle My Lords likewise of his Highnesse Council are so exactly knowing in affairs that it was never heard that any of those six common obstacles did ever obstruct their dispatches which are disorder confusion passion sollicitude irresolution and precipitation so they have done all things warily fully and peaceably without shewing the least anxiety They have by their great piety and prudence kept this State so well united within the bands of concord and charity that it cannot but appear to forreigners themselves as it were a little Temple of Peace though in the very heat and hurry of War embracing all affairs governing them with that sweet temper and equality of spirit that they resemble those active spirits which move the whole Heavens not using in themselves the least agitation Amber-Greece is nothing so sweet in it self as when it is compounded with other things so these Godly Wise Couragious and every way Excellent Counsellours improve themselves by the communication of their counsells together and do even as Flint-stones which by their proximity do make their sparkles to flie by a holy emulation which they use in the pursuite of God not onely enlighten others but enkindle in each others hearts a more sensible and pious apprehension of God and all good things by a mutual reverberation But I must hasten for when I have said all that can Be said it will fall short of their most Mosaical merits So I shall conclude with them in saying onely that they are all persons composed according to Jethro's character and that when our second Moses adopted them into his secret counsells we could none of us deny nor can yet but that it seemed his late Highnesse had drawn so many Angels from Heaven to fix them at the stern of his Estate for they are all of them as unlike their Predecessors as all the World can wish them Then if we but consider a little the excellent choice his Highnesse has made of Commissioners and Keepers of his Great Seal we cannot but acknowledge that they are persons without any exception fitted for so great a work that carry a constant Court of Chancery engraven in their breasts and bear jus aequum bonum written in their very foreheads For the Lords Commissioners of his Highnesse Treasury they cannot be questioned to be of as exact a choice and equal disposition for the great Trust still men of our Mosaical temper fearing God and dealing-truly and so we may safely affirm that our second Moses selected Persons for that employment as well as other to whom he might as safely have reposed his conscience as he did his purse Men all as honourable in their breedings as Noble by their births of as profound Learning and ability in the Laws as of sublime honesty and fidelity to their Country and of a most unspotted integrity both towards God and his Highnesse their late Mosaical Master I should be infinite to insist upon all the particular men of Honour employed by his Highnesse So I shall speak onely something to our Parallel of Mosaical Judges to which our present Ascent naturally leads us and leave the rest to be made out by ingenuous Readers themselves And first for that incomparable pair of my Lords the Chief Justices with the several Sets of ingenious and godly Judges Attorny and Solicitor-General all his Highnesse's Council at Law with other Officers and Appendices to each Court They are all such select and eminent Persons and indeed the plurality of Lawyers from the Purple to the Sable Robe of this present Age so accompplisht with piety and parts that the Divine Themis her self will not be ashamed to call her self a prostitute in former Ages and acknowledge this production of hers to be onely genuin and their generation onely own to be Legitimate and all this we must attribute to his late Highnesse his most Mosaical influence Their Lordships I mean those excellent persons in supreme Judicature are known to live the Laws as well as to see them put in execution Evecti in excelsum inde magis vitia despiciunt as the wise Cassiodorus well expresseth it They know that God and his Highnesse have set them on high for no other cause but to behold vices beneath them which whosoever does exalt will find himself quickly trampled underfoot by them and made to drink the greatest part of the poison which he mingles for others and he that breakes down the hedge as the Scripture threatens the Snake shall sting him first Their Lordships I say have given sufficient evidence to the World that they know all this and practice the contrary course They know themselves to be lookt upon as Stars in the firmament and Philosophy tells us that the more light a body has the more it ought to have of participation and favourable influences for objects that are in a lower degree than it Nihil vile nihil cupidum judices decet claras suas maculas reddunt si illi ad quos multi respiciunt aliquâ reprehensione sordescant sayes the same excellent Cassiodorus Nothing vile or covetous becomes Judges the spots of persons in power are quickly spyed for they being aloft every eye dwells upon them We have seen in forreign parts and heretofore here in England Judges enough neglectful of their duty and Courts of Justice resembling rather old Cyclopean Cavernes than Temples of peace for which we have seen the very fields themselves weeping nay filled with large pools and standing waters
matches that could see hatred and approbation march in couples together and I shall willingly grant so much more to our Machiavillian Politicks that some mixture of fear with love does make the most excellent composition in Government for though the strongest Citadel or Castle that a King can have be his subjects affection and their hearts his best Treasury or Exchecquer yet it cannot be denyed that love without fear quickly turns to scorn and fear without love as soon converts to hatred both equally dangerous to any Prince his estate Now though Machiavel and his crew did never know how to be so good Apothecaries of State yet our prudent Patriarch and his Parallel our late Protector we see understood full well how to make that admirable mixture for though they were great Justicers alwayes yet never forgot to be most loving Fathers of their people and in that sacred composition rests not onely the mystery but the luster of a true Statesman as the Great Gregory assures us who sayes that in every good Government there must be such a mixture made of oil and wine that the wounds of men may be healed in such sort that their minds may not be ulcerated with too much severity nor yet grow too remisse by an excesse or indulgence and lenity the rod must be used to touch and the staff to support and then they will both be comfortable to us as the Psalmist tells us The scale of Justice must be so equally carried that neither love should too much soften nor over-great rigour transport people into a despair This right Princely temper I say was perfectly understood by our gracious Patriarch Moses the first and greatest Statesman in the World and no lesse by our glorious second Moses his Parallel Behold them both burning inwardly with the fire of charity towards their people and outwardly wholly enkindled with the flames of the zeal of Justice as loving Fathers they have offered their souls to God even to the wish To be blotted out of the Book of Life to save their people and as glorious Judges they took the Sword in hand and bathed it in the blood of wicked men They have shewed themselves in all things such accomplisht Captains as became couragious Magistrates and Embassadours from God and admirable Mediators to him pleading before him the cause of their people with prayers and before the people the cause of God with their swords and though there is none which can deny but our second Moses his zeal to Justice was very great a Divine vertue in him yet we must acknowledge that his benignity mansuetude and clemency were vertues more naturall and agreeable to him which he alwayes improved too both by the pattern of his Master Moses and God himself who as the Scripture tells us Etiam iratus misericordiae recordatur In his very wroth remembers mercy and shews his anger to us more often by Thunder Lightning fiery Comets blazing Stars Storms and Tempests and the like than he makes us to feel it nor yet sends them so often as we deserve which the Pagan Poet could observe when he told us Si quoties peccent homines c. If Jupiter should spend his angry Thunderbolts so often as men deserve them he would very suddenly disarme himself but Christianly indeed we may say thus That if his Divine Majesty should disarme it self of mercy we should quickly be reduced to misery and therefore it was that he commanded our Moses to follow his example and carry the people in his bosome like sucking children and loudly proclaims in his Word that Misericordia veritas custodiunt Regem roboratur clementiâ Thronus ejus Mercy and Truth are the greatest guard for Kings and Clemency is the greatest support of their Thrones All this I say our second Moses has sufficiently shewed himself to know and follow and yet his Clemency has never exposed him to those extremes before spoken of to render his goodnesse contemptible no he happily arrived at the blessed mixture and sweet composition that we have remarkt in our first Moses and alwayes ruled us according to the holy Rule given by an ancient Father Eâ qui praeest mensurâ se moderetur quatenus arridens timeri iratus amari debeat He that is set over men to govern them ought to carry himself with that moderation so as to be feared when he is pleased and to be amiable in his very displeasure This was the very Mosaical temper of our late precious Lord Protector who had so much of that Divine Art of compounding his sweetnesse with severity that we may safely say for truth though a very prodigious one that his Justice and his Love though both they are said to be blind did yet lend one another eyes he so sweetned his Sword with his Love and so sharpened his Love with his Sword that his very severity might seem to proceed from his love and his punishments themselves put on the face of obligations Castigavit non quod odio habuit sed quod amavit As he reformed alwayes by his favours so were his chastisements still turned into true fatherly corrections The eighteenth Ascent MOses was not only an accomplisht Prince in all kinds of Pity and Piety towards the persons of his People but he did extend it likewise towards their very Purses restraining frequently their abundancies of love in all their contributions and very liberalities not onely towards himself but to God In short he kept not the course of common Policy which renders Princes little better than Publicans he exacted nothing but love from his subjects nor imposed any thing upon them but their own happinesse The Parallel We have seen at large in our last Ascent as well by the practise of our two Mosaical Masters as divers other elucent arguments that singular Axiom made good which tells us That dinturni magister officii metus esse nequit Fear alone can never contain men in a lasting duty for otherwise the Devils policy would have more influence upon the hearts of men than that of God himself It is the part of every petit Minister of Justice to use cruelty and severity but the practise of pity and clemency though it becomes all men does most properly belong to Kings and Supreme Magistrates Regia crede mihi res est succurrere Lapsis Non alia major quaeritur arte Favor Pity and Clemency are Princes priviledges and parts of their prerogative Justice it self can be but their duty at most but the onely art of Government consists in the excellent mixture before spoken of in our last Ascent And therefore Alexander being askt who was the greatest Prince upon earth answered Qui amicos donis retinet inimicos beneficiis amicos facit He that holds his friends fast by curtesies and converts enemies into friends by benefits So dealt Augustus with Cinna and made of a Traytor a true Friend And this has alwayes been the wisest Kings
resembling those Rivers which run under the earth choosing to steale from the eyes of the world to seek for the sight of his God onely So his Devotions did ever study solitude and retirements and were alwayes best when shut up within themselves Nay farther yet after the example of a greater than Moses that is our Blessed Saviour himself he used to spend many whole nights in prayer pernoctans in oratione as the Scripture expresseth it and like those best of Christians in the Primitive times that were called the Crickets of the night because at any time if some interruption of sleep happened they ever made it out with ejaculatory prayers and elevations of the heart Those that love God truly will have recourse to him at all hours and upon all occasions not confining their devotions to time or place Jonas and the three Children found sufficient Chappels in the Whales belly and the fiery Furnace because the love of God the wisest Architect had erected them and the Lord was as near them in the intrails of a Fish or the midst of Flames as he would have been in his own most holy Temple In fine our second Moses has not onely reacht after the former as we have already seen but he has sum'd up all example to perfect himself in the practise of this Divine duty He ever distributed his fastings watchings prayer repast counsel study with so prudent an oeconomy for the service of his God and held his life so admirably interlaced between action and contemplation that he made on earth a perfect figure of Angels ascending and descending receiving already a tast of those benefits which he was to hope for in the other insomuch that he seemed to have his soul in Heaven whilst he was on earth to understand mysteries and enjoy an antipast of Paradise it self O thrice and four times happy were we if we could have known our own happinesse to have had such a Person set over us by God and his own Divine vertues that had so clear and free accesse to the Throne of Grace and so near an union to God himself as a finite was capable of with an infinite and might be stiled as the former Moses was The familiar friend of God and was not onely alwayes ready to stand in the gap between us and the Divine vengeance as the first Moses did but was wont to storm Heaven for us and pull down blessings by force upon us though we were a most ungrateful and undeserving people nor so onely but that was alwayes ready to instruct us by his precept as well as practise if we could dare to follow him in all other pieces of Piety and Divine duty as we have in part seen already and shall more at large in the next succeeding Ascents and Parallels The one and twentieth Ascent MOses was a most exemplary Person in all the practical parts of true Piety He had alwayes so reverend and faithful a feeling of the Majesty of God as not to serve him with exteriour shews and semblances onely of Religion but sincerely cordially and constantly Sentiendo de domino in bonitate as the Book of Wisdom describes it alwayes thinking on the Lord with a true good heart This was most eminently visible in the whole current of his thorough Religious life but principally remarkable in the denial of himself and all his own desires when any thing that concerned the glory of his God lay at the stake or was called into the least question submitting alwayes all worldly ends and humane reluctancies to the interests of Heaven and pure Religion Was not this I say first notorious in him when he would hazard the disoblidgement of his wife a thing that men ordinarily fear more than a disobedience to God nay would incur her displeasure so far as to be thought and called by her a cruel hard-hearted person and a bloody husband rather than omit the performance of one Tittle of his Almighty Masters commands Nay State Policy it self which now adayes is held to be almost inconsistent with true Piety could not hinder his heroick practise of piety And this did most manifestly appear in his refusal of all the favours that Pharaohs Court or his daughters countenance could afford him for the service of his God postponing every thing of his own affection and interests to the zeal for his Religion and the quiet of a good conscience This is I say a most remarkable piece of Princely piety indeed to hold all the Maxims of State and proper interests whatsoever under the rules of Religion and Conscience and to be disposed rather to hazard all than to lose God by one sole sin This noble Princely piece of piety to its perfection both of profession and practise our great Patriarch shewed in the whole course of his life loudly proclaiming and as strictly observing to love the Lord God with the whole heart and him onely to serve which no man can do that mixeth any thing of humane with divine obligations that is but to serve God by pieces The Parallel We have alreay gone far in the discourse of our great Patriarchs and his happy Parallel's most Princely and exemplary piety clearly to be collected from the visible zeal they ever bore to Gods glory and devotions to his Service but all this may be said to be as indeed it is in most of this Age but a meer outside onely the very heart and marrow of Religion consisting in the interiour which we can make no other judgement of than by the apparent practise of piety true godly and religious lives of men and a dutiful submission of all humane interest to God and if all this were ever eminent in any Persons it has been in these two great Princes our first and second Moses Now it is very observable that all this Princely practise of true piety is but an effect or consequent at least of that zeal to Gods glory before spoken of and of that precious spirit of prayer for true Devotion as the great Aquinas has described it is nothing but a prompt will to the service of God his words are these Voluntas quaedum prompta tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum a very prompt and affectionate vivacity in things which concern Gods businesse Nay we may find as much said by Porphyry himself a Pagan and one of the most Atheistical ones that ever lived Deus saith he omnium pater nullius indiget sed nobis est bene cum eum adoramus ipsam vitam precent ad eum facientes per inquisitionem imitationem de ipso that is God the Creator and Father of this great Universe hath no need at all of our service but it is our good to honour serve and adore him making our life a perpetual prayer to him by a diligent inquiry after his perfections and a holy imitation of his vertues All this holy Augustin the Oracle
and all the Elements under his feet than he could possibly be here with beholding them over his head In short who would think it much I am sure his Highnesse did not to give up the life of a Pismire for the greatest Prince's upon earth is no better in exchange for immortality he had alwayes we know like a good Christian death in his desire and life in patience This truly I should presume sufficient to satisfie and comfort any reasonable Christians for the losse as we call it of his late Highness But setting Christianity aside methinks it should be satisfactory enough for common men to consider that as the Poet tells us Lex est non paena perire and what the Philosopher assures us that mors naturae lex est mors tributum officiumque est mortalium death is a law of nature no punishment it is the very tribute and duty of mortals And what Plutarch not more elegantly than truly concludes Homines sicut poma aut matura cadunt aut acerba ruunt Men like Apples must either fall ripe or be pulled down green and sower Now I would fain know what have we to complain of Did not his Highnesse live to a very fair and good old age to a true Mosaick maturity For as was said before if by Chronological Computation our second Moses his forty years were parallel to the fourscore of the former when he came into publick employment then his threescore and upwards when he came to dye stands still parallel with the others hundred and twenty and as for their strength of body and mind none can affirm him to be lesse his parallel to the very last For his Highness eye was not dim nor any of his natural force abated Thus his gracious God and benigne nature plentifully provided for that great and most incomparable person that his most invincible spirit should never quaile under any sensible decay of flesh What more of favour I would fain know could his most Serene Highnesse receive from the bountiful hands of Heaven Yet some spirits there are so disposed to quarrel with the Almighty that they will not yet be satisfied in the divine dispensation but think and say I pray God not impiously that the heavenly and eternal Father should have permitted some more time of life to a person so deserving it but let them remember that mors aequopede pulsat and that intervallis distinguimar exitu aequamur greatnesse nor goodness neither can give any priviledge from death mors omnium par est per quae venit diversa sunt id in quod desinit unum est death though by several waies brings all to the same end These considerations sure though drawn from meer Heathens would be enough to satisfie any common understandings of men but these quarrelsome persons that we speak of sure are of opinion that all happinesse is determined to this poor life and are I fear very neer akin to those whom Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose souls are so great lovers of their bodies that they would tye themselves to their flesh as closoe as they could and after death would as he prettily expresseth it still walk round about their bodies to see if they could find a passage into them again How much is this pittiful humor of Christians below the divine Philosophy of Pagans themselves Amongst whom we find that there were a certain people who by positive laws forbad any man of fifty years of age to make use of the Physitian saying that it discovered too much love of life and yet some Christians we find at the age of fourscore who will not endure to hear a word of death but of this sad sottish temper we know his Mosaical Highnesse was not he never valued the putting off his life more than the shifting of his shirt and when he received his citation from Heaven he as readily obeyed as his Master Moses did to ascend his fatal Mount I pray you then be quiet you cruel friends and do not disturb his honored dust now sweetly resting in his Tabernacle of Repose for if you consider rightly you are bound as the Orator tells you Non tam vitam illi ereptam quam mortem donatam censere not so much to think him bereft of life as to have been endowed with death in a ripe old age and after the enjoyment of the fruits of all his labours Hath not this most incomparable person resembled truely the great Ark in the deluge which after it had borne the whole World in the bowels of it amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of nature at length reposed it self in the Mountains of Armenia So this most admirable Prince after he had carried in his heart and entrals a spirit great as the universe it self amonst so many tears dolours and cruel acerbities of contradictions and had delivered himself of that painful burthen that is had brought forth our most happy and establisht peace he stopt upon Mount Nebo and from thence went to take his rest in the Mountains of Sion Thus the Lord like an indulgent Father of a Family sends his servants to bed so soon as they have done their work it being all the justice and reason in the World that they who rise betimes to serve him and work hard all the day for him should go in as good time to sleep with him Let us I beseech you therefore passe over this death in the manner of holy Scripture which speaks but one word onely of the death of so many great personages Let us never so much as talk of death in a subject so wholly replenisht with immortality O what a death is that to be esteemed to see vice and sin trodden down under his feet and Heaven all in Crowns over his head to see men in admiration all the Angels in joy and the arms of God ready to receive him and fully laden with recompenses for his great services Nay that the Lord did purposely and expressely intend to make his Highness his death appear to be a most signal reward and perfect victory to him and that he should carry off the spoiles of life it self with more triumph than ever mortal did is made manifest in that it pleased his divine Majesty to take him to himself upon that most memorable day the third of September the greatest day of all his humane glories that he was pleased to put an end to his life in this World that very day that he had got such an immortality in fame to set a period to his labours that very day that he had performed so many Herculian ones for the glory of his God and his Countries good and to crown his daies with so glorious a close nay to give him a heavenly Crown that very day that he had gotten so many earthly ones and loaden his Victorious Temples with so many flourishing Laurels of eternal renown Then for the glorious burial of our second