and comfort A Royal Harbour for such a poor weather-beaten boat after so perilous a passage Now the little Infant is drawn forth by the pity of the Tyrants Daughter and he who was exposed as a victim to Pharaohs cruelty must be thus by the Tyrants own Daughter his own flesh and blood preserved to be a God of Pharaohs and to live to bury them or their posterity in the bottom of the Red Sea who would have drown'd him in his infancy in the River Nilus The Parallel I take it for a verity unquestionable that great spirits set apart and pre-ordained by Divine Providence for the performance of future wonders have most particular tutelar Angels assigned to them for their protection from their very infancy and those very persons from their Cradles are frequently pointed out to us by the finger of God himself in their most miraculous preservations So we see in Histories how the little King Mithridates that was to prove one of the greatest and most puissant Monarchs of the whole Earth being involved in lightning flashes whilst he innocently slept in his infant-cradle the flames consuming his very swadling-cloaths and linnens yet he remained untoucht in his body In like manner we finde another Prodigy of Divine providence so loudly proclaimed in the Greek Anthology how a father and an innocent son were equally surprized with a sad shipwrack which took away the life of the father and gave the son leave to arrive in a safe Harbour having no other vessel or plank to carry him ashore but the very corps of his deceased father who so afforded him a second life by his death and this very child thus wonderfully delivered grew up to be one of the bravest men in Greece I cannot passe by one other effect of Divine providence no lesse stupendious than the former that fell out not long since in the Country of Apulia where happened an Earthquake the last day of July 1627. and so prodigious a one that as I have heard and seen written in the City of St. Severin alone more than ten thousand souls were taken out of the World and yet in the horror of such infinite ruines and sepulchre of so many mortals a great Bell fell so fitly over a little child that it not onely did him no hurt but miraculously inclosing him made it self a Bulwark and defence for him against the danger of all the other ruines and this Child is now grown up as I am informed to be one of the most considerable persons in all Italy Thus little Romulus like our Infant Moses being exposed to the same mercilesse element was most strangely preserved to be the Founder of the greatest City Monarchy State and Empire of the universal World I should be infinite if I should run through the whole Series of sacred Providence in the particular miraculous preservations that have been shewed upon such principal persons from their very infancies Yet truly if there were no other instances of Divine providence left us but onely these two of our first and second Moses we needed not alledge more arguments to prove the singular care the Lord takes over the persons of good Princes We have seen on the one side a little Infant floating on the waters of Nilus in a cradle built of Bulrushes and lying just like a worm hidden in straw and whose afflicted friends measured his Tombe with their eyes in every billow of that faithlesse element yet was preserved at length from danger by the very blood of Pharaoh to turn his Diadem into dust and to bury him and his whole army in the dreadful gulph of the Red Sea They that have seen his late Highnesse our sacred second Moses in the like former imminent perills and the great actions he has since most gloriously arrived at can best make a Parallel of the Providence No Nurse or tender Mother whatsoever could be half so carefull to drive a fly from the face of her little Infant whilst it slept as the Providence of our gracious Lord has ever shewed its self affectionate in the conservation of his Highnesse his most elevated soul and though I cannot say he was exposed upon yet as I have heard he has been in equal dangers by the water as his first Matter Moses was and a great deal more by fire tumbling from Precipices falls from Coaches Horses and Houses too and what not insomuch that it is said the imminency of those his Infant dangers has struck the very hearts and chil'd the blood in the veins of all beholders Thus then we see a very parallel providence over these two great persons their very Cradles kissing and as it were conspiring to rock each other and truly not without a great deal of reason that they should run parallel in their childhood-deliverances as we have seen who were in their riper years to serve equally as inspired instruments of Divine wonders and all the World methinkes if it had not been wilfully blind must needs have discerned in his Highnesse his Infancy that he was then pointed out by the Almighty Providence to be the same person which he has since so gloriously approved himself to be Those who had the honour to know his Highnesse in those dayes can tell us how he was born a Thaumaturgus and like another Hercules Alexicacus fill'd his cradle with no lesse wonder than he has done the field since and afterwards the Throne Those his early wonders yet were but as the flashing streakes of a Cloud to be so instantly turned into lightning as we shall see more at large in his diligent and faithful imitation of his great Master and Prototype Moses in all his higher Ascents The fourth Ascent MOses was very liberally bred and had all the advantages of a Noble and Princely education being brought up as the Text tells us in all the learning of the Egyptians Thus the All-wise God having selected him to be Conductor and Captain General of a hundred and six thousand men at arms to have as it were a Regency over the very Elements and a power to replenish the whole World with Prodigies provided likewise a breeding equal to so high a Calling to frame and fit him for so supereminent a condition and to accomplish him with all heroick vertues He suffered him not to be trained up as other Hebrew children were in fear and bondage which often overwhelm the bravest dispositions but brought him to the Court of Pharaoh caused him to be nourished in all the exercises of Nobility and to swallow all the learning of the Egyptians who then had the reputation of the wisest and the knowingest men of the whole World How simple in the mean time absurd and and contrary to expresse Scripture is that opinion of some which say that Moses had no Egyptian learning at all nor more letters than what he received from Abraham and Enoch or what he heard from the mouth of God by Oracles daily delivered to him To confute
obligations cannot but cut to the heart of any Captain-General yet this very sad disaster befel our glorious Patriarch in the Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abyram who rose up before Moses with two hundred and fifty more Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation and men of Renown and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said unto them Ye take too much upon you seeing that all of the Congregation are holy every one of them and the Lord is also amongst them wherefore then do you lift up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord This when our dear Moses heard he fell on his face to shew his great humility and replied onely You take too much upon you you sons of Levi speaking onely then to Korah and his company but when Dathan and Abiram were sent for they tell him plainly that they will not come up to him and expostulate the matter thus by message with him Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a Land that floweth with milke and honey to kill us in the Wildernesse but thou must altogether make thy self a Prince over us Then Moses to shew his magnanimity the Text sayes was very wroth and said unto the Lord Respect not thou their offerings c. Here it is to be observed that Korah was of the same Tribe with Moses too Nay yet the Lord would bring a nearer trial to his dear servant Moses permit his own right hand and onely helper appointed to him by God and one Brother in blood to revolt against him and joyn himself with a silly woman to raise a sedition against him in his own Family but that businesse was quickly quasht by Moses his most Clement proceedings with them by whose powerful intercessions to the Lord Aaron escaped onely with a bare rebuke and Miriam was chastised with a Leprosie for seven dayes These must of necessity be very heart-breaking blows to our poor Patriarch but he that had an assured safe retreat in his own heart and the sweet repose of a clear and a quiet conscience is no more moved with those unkindnesses of kindred and unfaithfulnesses of friends than the firmament it self and serene Empyrean heaven used to be with all the clatter and combustion fury and confusion of the inferiour Orbs. The Parallel Of all the cruel unkindnesses in the World there are none that pierce so to the quick or are so deeply sensible to a Noble nature as those which it receives from persons whom it has obliged Indeed we find that those ungrateful returns of injuries for favours received do bring astonishment even to the gates of Heaven it self which caused the Almighty Father to sigh out those lamentable complaints by the mouth of the Prophet Hieremy How comes it to passe that my beloved hath committed so many outrages so many misdemeanours in my house as much as to say Have I then O my beloved lodged thee in my Temple have I nourished and bred thee up from thy Cradle with my Fatherly hand and cherisht thee in my bosome now to betray my honour and thus to defile the glory of my Altars So the Royal Prophet tells us that he could have born any thing from an enemy or a stranger but from one that he trusted or from an intimate familiar and bosom-friend to receive an injury or unworthy return was beyond his power to bear with patience and the truth is it were enough to stagger the greatest Saint Yet this was our first Moses his miserable condition as we have seen and shall find it fully parallel'd in our second Now it is manifest that it is our Heavenly Fathers constant course to put his children to the full proof and exercise of their vertues to instruct them to the highest pitch to be as near imitators as they may be of his own Divine vertues who does nothing but good to ungrateful man and receives nothing but ill from him as we shewed at large in our last Ascent And such trials as those are questionlesse very necessary for his servants for it is undoubted that his most practised servants a very Moses himself would putrifie in long prosperities as in a dead Sea which produceth nothing so that the All-wise God out of great kindnesse to his most dear servants does sometimes strike such blows as these that they as Jonathan may have their eyes still open and suck in honey from the very end of the Rod that scourgeth them and in the severe chastisement of a father finde the consolation of true children O what a goodly Theater is a good conscience and what a beautiful Arcenal it is to have the Armes of vertue still in a readinesse as our first and second Moses have had against all essayes whom no unkindnesse of unthankful friends or conspiracies of ungracious enemies could ever startle from their sweet and serene repose Now that we may make good our Parallel we must reflect a little upon the barbarous ingratitude that his late Highnesse has met withall from Persons of other obligations and Princes too of our Assembly And truly who would not have thought after so many wonderful Deliverances by the hand of our second Moses as we have seen and the beating down of all open oppositions to the destruction of the common enemy but that our miseries should have had an end and our glorious Captain-General some rest But yet I must say with a sigh and to the eternal exprobration of some persons late in power that we found no other but aliud ex alio malum one mischief to follow upon the very heels of another How many malignant parties of our own have gone about to disturb that happy peace purchased with the price of so much blood and no stone left unstirred to throw us into a second and a third and may be into more confusions and greater than the former and that by some of our Elders too as I have said and Princes of the Assembly Nay our religious brethren of Scotland too must be set on foot again by them to make their Covenant a stalking-horse for Rebellion and to renew a war in all probability more cruentous and dangerous than the former But our most Renowned second Moses being born upon the wings of that Providence which never failed him made a most happy and quick dispatch of that work putting an end to all those Kirk enchantments both here and there for the present and I hope for ever And yet after all this that by the gracious providence of God and his Highnesses great care and prudence all means of making head and imbodying themselves again was taken from them I should be infinite to tell how often those of that leven have shewed their venemous teeth against his Highnesse his happy and most godly designs to disturb him again and our peace Nay some of those that have had the greatest share in his Highnesse his Successes
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
of Israels Deliverance to be throughout Typical of ours and all the circumstances of effecting it by the first Moses as plainly to apply themselves to our glorious second Can any say that his late Highnesse has done lesse wonders for us and our Deliverance or found the Lord lesse assistant to him in his miraculous undertakings than the former If any such there be we shall very easily convince them True it is we cannot say literally that his Highnesse was enforced to bring so many miraculous plagues upon our Egyptians but we all as well the people of God as their Task-masters lay under the perfect moral of all those plagues before he like another Hercules Alexicacus did rise up in our Israel and undertake our so great and wonderful Delivery and so we will now look upon him marching in a perfect line Parallel with all those very actions and singular circumstances I say still in the moral and will dare to equal him here too with the former mighty Moses even in those his most stupendious passages And first we may see how our second Moses had no sooner cast his sacred Rod upon the ground here in England that is did vote in open Parliament to undertake so just and honourable a War as that for the redemption of this people out of their Captivity then more than Egyptian but the Magicians of England likewise that is the pretended Prelats and their party would endeavour to do the like and in effect did so for they turned their crooked Croziers into frery Serpents too raising of men and arms to resist our Mosaical Reformation but the sacred Rod of our second Moses as that of the former has manifestly devoured all their bloody and serpentine endeavours Nay when rivers of blood were made to run upon English ground in our just defence they would needs likewise by their Negromantick malice make those Rivers to overflow with blood too for the support of their Tyrannical and usurped power which that they might the better do too they would raise their swarms and infinities of Frogs to follow them I mean those croaking and skipping Church-men that were the truest Trumpets of the War whose Religion onely was interest and God their gain so made it their businesse to cover their pernicious prelatical designs with the cloak of the Gospel not careing so they might by preaching infuse their malice into others to become Cast-awayes themselves as the Apostle forwarns us of them and our blessed Saviour too terming them Wolves in Sheeps cloathing But yet when our glorious second Moses was pleased to stretch forth his Divine Rod again and smite the dust of the earth into Lice sit verbo venia that is when he raised from the dust of the earth those poor humble self-denying creatures that were as much nothing in their own as in the worlds eye I mean those incomparable Persons as they have since proved themselves whom he then new modell'd into an Army Then those all the pretended Great ones were at a gaze their malice nor magick could do no more But yet further let us observe and remember how poor We suffered under the moral of all those other plagues of Egypt too until our sacred second Moses undertook that mighty Work has Terris Templis avertere pestes Were we not opprest in like manner with those innumerable armies of Flies those insolent animals strange swarms of buzzing Courtiers that were still begging of their easie Master some private Boon or other to the prejudice of the Publick putting their fingers in every dish and picking something out of every mans pocket or property and has not our second Moses delivered us likewise from all those Then for the miraculous plague of Boiles and Blaines had we not enough of those too by the malice of our Monopolists Projectors and other Encroachers upon the poor subjects liberties and properties which have been truly called in all Ages Vlcera Rei Publicae the Ulcers and Imposthumes of the Common-wealth And has not his Highnesse our second Moses his sacred Rod that is his Sword most happily and timely lanced those sores and given us a sure and perfect Cure Then as for those horrid storms of Hail Thunder and Fire mingled with water of which the Earth never saw the like as the Text tells us What did they emblematize to us but those dire ebullitions of Tyranny over our Religions liberties and properties which went not onely about to destroy our present fruits but to take away all our Natural and Eternal Rights in them And has not our glorious second Moses given us a blessed delivery from all that mischief too Then for those millions of Locusts that invaded the Land of Egypt what legions of lewd Lawyers had we that swarmed amongst us like to Caterpillers indeed from the unjust Judge to the sordid Advocate and from him to the meanest Clarke a sort of men that could accommodate their Laws like a nose of wax to all intents and purposes whatsoever making the sacred Seat of Justice it self a stalking-horse to Tyranny Law to countenance oppression and Truth it self to lye And has not our second Moses pretty well delivered us from all those petty-fogging plagues too Then was there ever any more prodigious darknesse over the face of a whole Land so grosse an ignorance of Religion all Divinity forsooth and saving knowledge being bound up and roosting it self in a pitiful lazy luxurious Bishops Rotchet as in its onely Sanctuary I am sure the whole light of the Gospel was concealed under the ridiculous covering of their Canonical coats as they call them and we kept in more than Egyptian Darknesse till by the flaming Sword of our second Moses we were restored to that wonderful light which we lately have and do still enjoy under his late Highnesse his and his Princely sons Government Then for the last plague of all which was the smiting of the first-born what can be more parallel to it than the savage cruelty formerly exercised by the Court of Wards over the heirs of all the Principal Houses of England who were there doubly smitten both in their persons and estates Their lands pillaged by every poleing Guardian and themselves sold like slaves or horses in a Market and condemned to what is commonly worse than death to a wife of another mans election From all these Plagues and Diabolical inchantments has not our second Moses most happily freed us too and to crown all his glories as the former Moses did Has he not seen a Pharaoh and his Armies drencht in a Red Sea of their own blood Now how impossible it is to conceive that all this could be brought about without the miraculous assistance of the Almighty they can best judge who have been the witnesses of his great Actions and know how remarkable his proceedings have been from the very first undertaking of these Nations Deliverance For first he began but with one poor single Troop which how instantly grew into
before that his Highnesse alwayes fought against and proved in the end that to be a true compleat Christian Captain or Souldier was not to become a meer Cyplop without any feeling of God or sense of Religion and that the Lord who has pulled down the mighty from their Seats and does exalt the humble and meek will alwayes blesse the endeavours of such as those Poverty therefore may be said to resemble the Isle of Ithaca which as Archesilas tells us though rough and bushy failed not to breed the bravest men of Greece and has not our great Vlisses proved the same in England and herein his Highnesse has not onely shewed an especial piece of his incomparable Conduct but proved himself to be likewise full of the Divine wisdom which hides alwayes its most precious Treasures under the bark and mantle of persons base and abject in appearance as we read in Scripture Quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise For simple Fishermen almost as dumb and mute as the very fishes themselves are set apart and chosen to catch in their Nets Philosophers Kings Cities Provinces and Empires and thus in the old Law the Master Statesman and Captain of the World our Patriarch Moses being but a poor stammering Shepherd in shew is chosen out to carry the Word to a most puissant Monarch to shake and to overturn with a poor wand the Pillars of his Empire to divide Seas to calme Billowes to open the bowels of Rocks to command all the Elements and fill the World with wonders So did he make a like Election of his Officers and Souldiers and do the workes of Gyants with the reputed Pygmies of the world I hope I have not hitherto undeservedly brought him for my late Lord Protectors pattern d Indeed this is the ordinary custom of Almighty God to keep his richest Pearls in shells and most precious perfumes in poor boxes Men of this World we know do quite contrary as we saw manifestly proved by the other party where moved the old Magadepies of the Church and Butter-flies of the Court with some other great things called Lords who because they had it may be a gallant valiant man forsooth for the Grandfather thought that they might very securely be Cowards so spending still upon the stock of their great Antecessors though to be doubted whether they were lawfully begot or not ruined their own selves These pretty gawdy things lived in the world just like Snailes keeping their glorious houses over their heads and in their grave Majestick courses almost as slow as theirs too made very fine long silver traces but were nothing else indeed within but meer froth They had alwayes their backs like Cushions covered with Velvet Sattin and what not but their inwards we see were nothing but hay or straw They made a glorious ostent of leaves to the World and a fair verdure like an over-grown wood but are within replenisht with nothing but Serpents These persons sure having nothing at all praise-worthy in them would dignifie their persons with apparel shewing us plainly that they had like Peacocks little heads lesse brains beautiful feathers and a long taile which yet it seems by their strutting about the streets are non clypt short enough with some of them though in good time I doubt not but they will be So I passe from these pitiful nothings whom his Highnesse inspired prudence and skilful conduct would never admit to serve under his Ensignes to some other more worthy piece of his Mosaical Conduct and the next shall be the exact Discipline our second Moses alwayes observed which is indeed the very soul of an Army and without which they would march as the Historian tells us Multi homines pauci viri Many bodies but a few men or indeed more like Salvages than Christians From the neglect of this it is that we have seen in time of War so many Caniballs in arms that cast nothing but fire and blood from their throats Menaces alwayes marching before them into Quarters and ruine and desolation bringing up the Reare Barbarous villains that think because they have a sword by their side they are therefore to be Masters of the lives and estates of other men It is most certain great courage is necessary to make a true Martial Discipline be observed but yet it is to be done as we see in this very Army of our late Lord Protector that he has left behind him to be in truth a mirrour of Armies and never yet was equalled no not by that which Alexander Severus commanded as Lampridius relates all whose souldiers marched to the Persian War like Senators and the Country Peasants loved them as their Brothers and honoured their Emperour as a god Nor yet by that which Marcus Scaurus writes of whose Regiments encamped round about a great Tree laden with fruit and yet the souldiers were kept in such order as not to dare though they were to depart the next morning to take one apple from the Master of the place In this very manner did our glorious second Moses alwayes conduct his men giving them that Admirable Lesson which the most pious Emperour Aurelian gave to some of his Officers My friends said he if you will be Captains nay if you will live contain your souldiers in their duties I will not that a Peasant so much as complain that he has been wronged in the value of a chicken nor that any has taken a grape from his Vine without his permission I will have an account of every grain of salt or drop of oil unjustly exacted I desire my souldiers should grow rich with the spoiles of enemies and not by the teares of my Subjects I would have them carry their riches on their swords not into their Hutts or Cabbins I would have them chast in the houses of their Hosts and not any the least quarrel or disorder heard of amongst them c. If Heathens could teach us such Lessons of civil deportment in armes what a shame is it then for some Christians to march as we see them do more like Scythians and Arabians and that men who are made we know for the support of men and who are not strong but for the defence of the feeble should be more pernicious one to another than Wolves and Beares nay than fire hail serpents inundations and famins By this means it is that warfare otherwise a most honourable profession is made a detestable trade and the Commanders of those unruly Armies are likely the first that suffer by them themselves and all the countenancers of such debaucht doings must find the cup of Divine anger mingled with gall and the poison of Dragons poured forth upon their guilty heads All this his late most Serene Highnesse alwayes abhorred and prevented for which reason it was sure that all the hearts of the poor people of this Nation which so much sighed under the
former miscarriages of our Civil War being indeed reduced to almost a perishing condition by the ill conduct of former Captains freely bloomed and newly opened themselves as Roses at the benigne gentle and yet severe brave aspect of this incomparable person our second Moses when he came into general Command for which reason it was sure that God so blest him in all his Battels Assault and warlike Enterprises that he was successeful in them all for Plunderers we know never fight well and besides t is certain that the just God tyes a secret vertue to those Standards which march for his glory and are not besmeared with the blood of innocents But I must hasten to accomplish our Captain-General and as Tully tells us In summo Imperatore quatuor hae virtutes inesse debent scientia rei militaris virtus Authoritas felicitas There are requisite to a General these four qualities To have knowledge of the souldiers trade To be valiant To have his Army in good awe And to be alwayes followed with good successe of the three first requisites we have sufficiently discourst already so the last onely remains to be produced for the accomplishment of our second Moses in his glorious Captain-General-ship or else if we look upon the four most remarkable properties in Julius Caesar who was the Phoenix of all warlike Princes in those Ages we shall find them all improved to the highest pitch in this our late Great Protector Labor in negotio fortitudo in periculo industria in agendo celeritas in conficiendo Labour about businesse invincible valour in point of danger a thorough industry in all actions and a quick dispatch in all expeditions there remains none but the last of these four Caesarean properties unapplyed to our happy Parallel So I shall endeavour to celebrate those his glorious dispatches and successes in our next most sublime Ascent and Parallel that may concern his Highnesse in any of his warlike Relations The fourteenth Ascent MOses was by the extraordinary indulgence and favour of Heaven attended with a glorious felicity in all his undertakings All his Actions were Crowned with successe and his Battels with Victory All which is sufficently cleared by the sacred Text in his miraculous Deliverance of the Israelites and overthrow of the Egyptians the discomfiting of the Amalekits and defeating of King Arad and his Canaanits with Sihon King of the Amorits and Og the King of Bashan and Conquering in one pitcht Battel five Kings of Midian So true likewise is that piece of Apocrypha which tells us And Moses the beloved of God and men brought he forth whose remembrance is blessed he made him like to the glorious Saints and magnified him by the fear of his enemies by his words he caused the wonders to cease and he made him glorious in the sight of Kings c. The Parallel Though it be very true what Dionysius Halicarnasseus tells us that Virtus est felicitatis mensura non fortuna Vertue is the ell by which we are to measure felicity not fortune and what Paterculus affirms of Mithridates that he was Vir virtute eximius aliquando fortunâ semper animo maximus So every vertuous and valiant spirit though not alwayes great by the favour of fortune yet must be so in his own courage for to judge things onely by event is to turn the wrong end of the book upwards Yet it is as true what the judicious Orator assures us that Exercituum Imperatores nisi prospero Martiali quodam astro nati frrustra fortes strenuique sunt frustra virtute bellicá instructi Generals of Armies if not born under some happy and martial Constellation do exercise their vertue and skill in Military matters to little or no purpose Et de unius fato ducis militum victoria persaepe pendet The Valour and Victory of Souldiers is sometimes lost by an unlucky Captain It has been therefore the practice of most Princes to adopt into their cheifest Commands onely such as have been successefull Captains and have received no foile at all from fortune Now the greatest favourit of fortune or properly speaking the dearest Darling of Divine Providence that ever the Christian World produced was this most excellent person his late most Serene Highnesse His successes were so constant that we may say he had struck a naile in Fortunes wheele that she should never be able to turn it again He has not onely that Lady for his Guide as some have boasted to have her or his companion as others but the Lord made for him a foot-stoole of Fortune and gave him Victory for his Hand-maid and as the same Orator sayes of Constantine the Great Nusquam pedem suum extulit quin ubique eum gloria quasi umbra comitata sit He never set his foot forth of doors but glory attended him as his shadow and what was said of the Great Alexander likewise might more truly be verified in him Quod plures prope victoriam reportârit quà m pugnas inierit plures urbes ceperit quà m obsederit plures hostes fuderit quà m noverit He gained more Victories than he fought Battels he reduced more Cities than he beleagured and routed more enemies than he ever met withal But now here before I proceed any further I must be bold to make a stand and sadly intermix the water of my eyes with my sorrowful inke and with a mourning pen deplore the madnesse of those men who engaged us in our late unnatural Wars Ah poor England Paradise of the Earth Eye of the World Pearle of all Beauties How many times by the means of those infernal spirits hast thou seen thy fruitful bosome heretofore Crowned with ears of Corn and Guilded with Harvests all bristled over with Batalias How many times hast thou seen thy land covered with Swords and thy Seas with Ships How may times hast thou felt the arms of thy children encountering within thy proper entrails How many times hast thou seen flames of brothers hostility flying through thy fat and fragrant fields when hast thou not sweat in all the parts of thy beautiful body when have not rivers of blood been drawn from thy veins and such blood as would have cimented the best Bullwarkes for thy defence against all forreign enemies whatsoever and if well employed had made the great Enemy of Christendom the Turk ere this to tremble at thy Standards and have re-planted again the plains of Palestine But all has been sacrificed to Furies But I forbear least that I lose my self in my provoked Passion and indeed I would willingly passe over this discourse with silence as over coales covered with ashes were it not that as it was fit to expose massacred bodies to view thereby to cure the madnesse of the Milesian Maides so we are bound to discover the bloody effects of this unnatural war to raise a horrour in all good souls against the unhappy causes of it And yet
truely we have no little reason to rejoyce in those very sufferings congratulate with our selves the blood-shed it self of those barbarous Wars if we could at no cheaper rate have aquired the enjoyment of those most inestimable blessings and benefits which we have since received and above all the rest the soveraign influence of that most precious person our late Lord Protector and second Moses Thrice blessed England in such a purchase though with so much cost and paines O happy voice of Thunder which made this Hinde bring forth so glorious a birth after so many terrible throws and such direful agitations of many years And for the happy close of all this we may again remarke another piece of Heavens especial Providence and quiet all the distempers of our souls with an humble acknowledgement of that mercy and submission to the Divine Justice which in short amounts to this When the Lord is pleased to purge a Kingdom or Nation defiled with sin he chooseth alwayes a people more righteous and religious than they were it being forever most just and reasonable that they should enjoy their goods who will have no share in their vices So our Moses and his Israelites pillaged and overthrew the wicked Egyptians So Arbaces vanquisht the debauched Sardanapalus So Alexander conquered the effeminate Persians And so the Goths gained the Empire of Rome as holy Salvian more at large illustrates So to return to our late great Generals successes and dispatches which as it is notorious have been so stupendous that the present spectators of them did take them as aforesaid more for visions than realities The celerity of his Expeditions was so great a vertue so much commended in Julius Caesar that he alwayes as far out-went his veni vidi vici as ever he did the Cunctator Fabius Jebu a man of an active spirit was employed against the house of Ahab to bring it to a quick confusion for God Almighty when he means to shave clear alwayes chooseth a Razor with a sharp edge and never sends a slug upon a message that requires hast So our great Oliver we see when he came into General command dispatcht more work in one year than all the Armies of England had done in three or four before This it was to have one of the Lords own election to command over us and so much according to his own heart that we see he has constantly tyed as aforesaid a secret vertue to his Standards making winds and tempests to fight under his Ensignes opening for him lands inaccessible calming stormy Seas makeing him with petit handfuls of men to discomfit huge Royal Armies to take in Towns impregnable cleave Rocks and hew through Mountains nay to do the works of Gyants as aforesaid with the reputed Pigmies of the World and find facility in all that humane reason conceived impossible So that we may count more Victories of his than Encounters his Palmes being perpetually verdant as well in the frozen ice of Winter as in the scorching heats of Summer Nor was England alone the Scene of his great Actions but the very mists and foggs of Scotland as well as the woods and boggs of Ireland will all come in to attest his glories for the barrennesse of the one nor the barbarisme of the other could set a period to his proceedings or give a foile to his fortune Now to summe up all his Souldier-like Excellencies for I must hasten out of this large Field least I be lost in 't if we may by the most eminent qualities of inferiour creatures be capable to conceive his matchlesse perfections The most exquisite character of a compleat Captain or Man at Armes is by several Authors delivered to us thus That is one who has the assault of the wild Bull the defence of the wilde Boare the flight of the Wolfe the courage of a Lion and the craft of a Fox This strange composition his Highnesse had to its highest perfection as he has been sufficiently seen in all postures but above all what a spectacle it was sometimes to behold him in his Lion-like posture and almost covered over with blood and dust amongst the ranks of his afrighted men and performing both the office of a great Captain and most Couragious Souldier and so by that means restoring a Day in danger to be lost Then sometimes again to see him leading his well Disciplin'd Army into enemies Quarters and by his meer Conduct conquering vast Armies and reducing their strongst Garrisons without one drop of blood and such dry Victories were alwayes his dearest delight as indeed they are alwayes most honourable Ingens victoriae decus citra domesticum sanguinem bellanti saith Tacitus The greatest glory of a Victory is that which a Captain gaines by the least expense of home-bred blood And this was his Highnesse his constant study to do nay his endeavour likewise was to save as much as he could of his very enemies blood He never sought to purchase fame by such a cruel vanity as Pompey the Great did who building a Temple to Minerva caused to be engraven over the Gate of it how he had taken routed and slain two millions one hundred fourscore and three thousand men pillaged and sunk eight hundred forty six Ships made desolate one thousand five hundred thirty eight Cities and Towns If this be the way to glory his late Highnesse sure has steered a clean contrary course for he has written and engraven by his Actions on the Gate of the Temple of Eternity the Men Ships Cities and Towns that he has preserved Haec divina potentia est gregatim publicè servare saith the most excellent Seneca It is a piece of Divine power to save publickly and by Troops By the other way it may be his Highnesse might have rendred himself more remarkable and terrible like a dreadful Comet by the ruine of the World but our glorious Protector knew nothing could be so honourable as to save So we never saw his Highnesse put up his sword but his anger too ever holding with Nicetus that Naturae injuriam facit humanitatis legem violat qui ultra victoriam iracundiae indulget He offers an injury to nature and violates a law of common humanity that can continue his anger after a Victory Nay I 'le be bold to add that it is a most unpolitick proceeding likewise for which his Highnesse onely may be sufficient witnesse who after his most bloody Battels alwayes Conquered as much with sweetnesse as he had done before with the Sword which has been under God the most happy cause that after so fierce and quick a War we have not scarce a foot-steep to be seen of it not a Town fired and very hardly now a man mist our cattel as plentiful as ever our fields no lesse fertil and fragrant nor yet our hillocks are lesse filled with ears of corn all which we must needs attribute to his Highnesse his pious preservation in whose power
blessed and most worthy Piece of our Mosaical wisdom which our Great Prototype and his Typified Parallel have so closely pursued that is in the first place to seek the interests of God and then all other things will be added as we have seen proved upon both them a constant successe attending all their undertakings On the other side we finde whatsoever Machiavel may object to the contrary that God Almighty is pleased sometimes to stupifie the most practised Statists in the world that are the greatest professors too of Policy and Knowledge and make them so drink of the cup of errour that we coming afterwards to discourse upon their judgements find they have committed some grosser faults in the governments of Kingdoms and Common-wealths than the simplest and most illiterate Peasants would have done in the direction of their own houses all which we have seen most particularly made good upon the late King and his Counsellours and to be foretold likewise by the Spirit of God himself dictating to the person of the Prophet Isaiah who speaking of the wicked Counsellours of Pharaoh sayes The Princes of Tanais are become fooles the Princes of Memphis are withered away they have deceived Egypt with all the strength and beauty of her people God hath sent amongst them the spirit of giddinesse and made them reel up and down in all their actions like drunken men No lesse doth holy Job tell us in these terms God suffereth the wise Counsellours to fall into the hazards of senselesse men God makes the Judges stupid takes away the sword and belt from Kings to engird their reines with a cord God maketh the Priests to appear infamous supplanteth the principal of the people changeth the lips of truth speakers takes away the doctrine of old men and poureth out contempt upon Princes c. There is no man that has either been Actor or Spectator in our troubles but will take I presume those Scriptures to be directly pointed at our times and to be an exact prophesie of part of our late Wars so will neither require any more comment application or parallel It is a most certain truth and that his late Highnesse knew full well and as frequently declared that no wisdom or policy meerly humane can be perfect such as forsake God in the curiosities of their Counsells shall be forsaken by him and shall finde each where a long web of perplexities and a rowling wheel of immortal troubles When a man goes on in the right way he is probable to finde an end but if he wander acrosse the fields he makes steps without number runs into errours without measure and falls into miseries without remedy Let all the Politicians of the World take example by our second Moses and take into their serious consideration as his Highnesse did that the greatnesse of a Statesman consists not in treasuring up the Common-wealth of Plato and Xenophon in his imagination nor in amassing together a huge heape of politick Precepts nor in being acquainted with all the Cabales and Mysteries of the World nor in the profession of great subtilties and stratagems for we have seen by the experience of all Ages that in affairs there is a certain stroak of the Divine Providence which dazleth all the worldly wise disarmes the strong and blindeth all the most Politick with their own lights for swimming up and down as they do in the vast Ocean of businesse and the infinities of reasons of their proper inventions they resemble bodies over-charged with abundance of blood who through that great and extravagant excesse finde death in the very treasure of life Then seeking to withdraw themselves from the road of common understandings they figure to themselves strange subtilties and chymera's which are but as the Towers of the Lamiae that Tertullian speakes of which no wise man did ever really believe or will which is the true cause that their spirits floating still in such a great tyde of thoughts seldom meet with a happy dispatch of affairs Not unlike the Sun that sometimes draws up such a great quantity of vapours that he cannot dissipate so these undertaking Politicians do but lay up together a vast lump of businesse in their braines which their judgements can never dissolve into any successeful expedition He that will take the pains to read the lives of Otho Vitellius Galba Piso Balbinus Florianus Basilius Silvianus Tacitus Quintilius Maximus and Michael Colophates or behold the falls of Parmenio under Alexander Sejanus under Tiberius Cleander under Commodus Ablavius under Constantine Eutropius under Arcadius Vignius under Frederick Brocas under Philip Cabreca under Peter and others of the like kind must find or be wholly insensible that to raise a State and build Fortune as well as to conserve it we are to proceed as his late Highnesse did securely therein with a principal eye upon the Maxims of Faith Religion and Honesty unlesse that we will expect in the course of an uncertain life a most certain ruin It will manifestly I say appear out of all Histories as well sacred as prophane how contrary to Machiavillian doctrine all they who disunited from the Eternal Wisdom thought to play the Politicks and prosper in Governments Honours and worldly Affairs have proved but as so many Icarus's that counterfeit birds with waxen wings with which they may soare aloft indeed for some little time but the least ray proceeding from the Throne of the Lamb will sure dissolve them to nothing and make their heights which they so foolishly flye at serve them for no other use but to render their falls the more remarkable I shall now onely adde for the further confusion of all Machiavillians and satisfaction of good men one excellent observation out of Paulus Orosius who in his Book of History dedicated to the great Augustin remarkes that the very tracks of our proud and politick Pharaohs Chariots after his most detestable death and the destruction of his whole Army remained a long time on the sands of the Red Sea to be a preaching example to all Posterity to inform them how dangerous a thing it is to go about as he did by any State-tricks and devilish subtilties to fight against God Let then our Master Machiavillians march on still if they think fit amongst so many shelves and precipices not so much as once opening their eyes to behold the Abysse they have under their feet So many heads crusht in pieces under the Dvine vengeance which lie like broken masts and shivers of a shipwrack advanced upon the promontories of Rocks to give notice of their deplorable events whose steps they still pursue Let them look on still I say with arms acrosse and dally with those dangers like wanton Victims that leape and skip between the ax and the knife whilst we the happy people of England and all good Christians shall fully satisfie our selves in following the examples of our two Mosaical Masters who used no other line of Policy but such
Royal high-way as most particularly of our late great Prince and Protector of whose most obliging wayes of Government we have been all made so sensible that we may cry out as holy Bernard did upon the like occasion O suaves nexus queis animi obsequiis quasi compedibus illigantur tanquam beneficiorum cumulis insepeliuntur O sweetest tyes of obligations with which souls are fast bound as with fetters and as it were buried in heapes of benefits His late most Serene Highnesse like that his most exemplary Master the former Moses full well considered all this and collected that if this were the true way to glory for all great Ones to go in to oblige subjects by beneficence as we have hitherto seen it is how ignominious and ugly a thing it must needs be in those that go about to pillage spoile and prey upon their people with unjust Taxes and impositions as some ill tutored Tyrants have done who have been it may be contented to spare nay to complement the persons of their people whilst they have most theevishly pickt and opprest their purses serving them as Prospero Colunna did his Goose who was still plucking the old feathers that the new ones as he said might grow the better and so continue to milke their people till they draw blood from their very hearts for they have pretty tricks as they say when the Cow slacks to presse her nipples too And however this was said to be the practise of a very great Politician late in France I must be bold according to our Mosaical Rule to passe my censure on and condemn it as utterly unchristian and a very unprofitable policy Notwithstanding as I have heard he was used to boast That La France est un beau Pre qu' on tondoit trois fois la'nnee France was a very fair Meadow and fit to be mow'd at least thrice a year He alwayes laught at that pious Principle which called the peoples hearts the Kings best Exchecquer but reflected oftener on that Maxim Populus aut humiliter servit aut superbè dominatur The common people either must serve slavishly or will rule insolently and that they were like fire and water Good Servants but the worst Masters therefore he would take a course to keep them under by perpetual impositions and a pitiful poverty and so upon the matter made them worse than Asses to become meer Dromedaries who not onely submit to bear their heavy burdens but humbly kneel down to receive them yet by his good leave he might have reflected something upon what that grave learned and eminent Statesman Boetius told his Gothick King Theodorick that the common people did participate much of the nature of the herb called Basil which rendreth a good pleasant and wholesome savour as Naturalists informe us if gently handled but turns to be poisonous and creates Scorpions themselves when rudely chafed Alexander I am sure was commended by Quintus Curtius and all Wise men that have written of him for making his subjects the keepers of his Treasure Then Sextus Aurelius Victor tells us that Fiscus est Reipub. lien quo crescente artus reliqui tabescunt The Fisk or Exchecquer is the spleen of the Common-wealth the over-encrease or swelling of which makes all the other members to consume and Claudian gives the Emperour Honorius this great Elogy Nec tua privatis crescunt aeraria damnis That his coffers did never encrease by any private mans losses Basilius often advised his officers that the money which they were to raise for him should not be at any time dipped either in the teares or blood of his subjects and Cicero in his Offices wisely premonisheth all Statesmen in those occasions Vt omnes intelligant si salvi esse velint necessitati esse parendum That the peoples private purses were but so to be opened as to keep them shut and safe from those enemies that might otherwise-seize upon and consume all I might be infinite to summe up all that has been said by the gravest and most judicious men of the whole World upon this point and to oppose them against that French Politician but I am obliged not to digresse too far from our Parallel whose Mosaical example onely were enough to confute so heretical a piece of policy He sufficiently knew all that stuff to be but a clear chip of the old block of Machiavel and certainly in his own pious opinion did very much blame and would as willingly have redrest if he could those grievances of our neighbour-nation as he did our own and certainly those counsels are as unlikely to prove successeful to France as they have done to other Princes and Provinces where they have been practised I am sure that Kingdom has smarted for them pretty well already and they are in a fair way to be causes of greater confusions His Mosaical Highnesse in the mean time was contented to follow his old Master Moses rather than Mr. Machiavel and frequently has been heard to honour the judgement of that most excellent Person and pious Politician Boetius before spoken of who was used very often to inculcate to his King Theodorick better Principles and once in a most elegant Oration after this manner That Kings were but Gods Shepherds and so permitted to sheare their Flocks not to stay them That a body over-charged could not but sinke to the ground and that there was no Tribute comparable to the precious commodities derived from the love of subjects That a King was made to reign over men not as a man but as the Law to bear his subjects in his bosome and not to trample them under his feet to teach by his example and not constrain by force to be a father of Citizens and not a master of Slaves That Kings were given by Heaven for the use and benefit of the people and that they ought not to have so much regard to the extent of their power as not to consider the stint and measure of their own obligations and to handle the matter so on all occasions that the greatnesse of their Majesty should appear in its goodnesse onely and then concludes his sanctified counsels with a most pious and politick Maxim That a good Prince ought to fear nothing so much as to be too much feared And all this I am sure was the Mosaical policy of his late Highnesse who never imposed Taxes upon or drew blood from his people but when driven by the greatest necessities in the world after the pattern of his Great Prototype our transcending Patriarch and that truly I should humbly conceive to be enough without respect to the precepts or practises of any other though the godliest gravest and wisest persons in all Ages as we have seen to convince any phanatical Florentine or French Politician whatsoever under whose depraved Policies we find all Cities and Countries that are subjected to them still pitifully complaining the rigourous concussions that
tamen conjuratio praematura mors oppressit quod elatior populo blandiri senatoribus assurgere gravaretur aut nesciret verbis quoque uteretur asperis c. Though he was hugely commendable for his Clemency Liberality and Courage yet he fell under a sad Fate for want of a little complacency with the people and soothing the Senate with some complement and had alwayes too much asperity in his tongue Could any of these imputations ever light upon our Mosaical Protector No he was ever as distant from them as the Sphere of fire can be from the Center of the Earth so that we may securely conclude that his late Highnesse has as much out-done Julius Caesar in this as in all his other glories never was that great Title of Serenity so truly given to any Prince as to him for it was born with him Thus we have seen these two great Persons of Honour our first and second Moses entering this grand Theater of the World from the first Scene of their humble retirements to the last issue and Catastrophe of all their happinesses attired with nothing but humility that still accompanying and crowning all their Actions as it was the basis so it was the vertical point of all their greatnesse nay the very Orb and Element that all their other Vertues moved in and by which they arrived at all their glories so disproving the Philosophy of Seneca who sayes that Servitus est magnitudinus non posse fieri minorem That it is the slavery of greatnesse not to be made lesse which though may be true in bodies they have proved to be contrary in souls and what Pliny assures us to be more true that Natura nusquam magis quà m in minimis tota est nature is most entirely it self and whole in the least things This sweet littlenesse of theirs is that which has rendred them so great in the sight of God and man for by so lessening and annihalating themselves they have enlarged their glories and raised themselves so many degrees towards Heaven as erected eternal Trophes to their honour upon earth and those as great as ever were written or can be in the Records of Fame Thus we have I hope happily finisht the whole Stair-case of all our Mosaick difficult Ascents we shall now beg a little breathing-space upon the top of this holy Mount before we dare to adventure any higher and yet we have but halfe a dozen short and easie Ascents more left us to climb for they are Ascents of Favour and Prerogative before we can introduce this glorious Couple our first and second Moses within their blessed Tabernacle of Repose and so we do intend to conclude though it can never be sufficiently accomplished this high piece of Mosaick Work Six Transcendental ASCENTS To the top of the MOSAICK MOUNT OR BLESSED TABERNACLE OF REPOSE The first Transcendental ASCENT MOses being premonisht by God of his approaching end made his most humble suite unto the Lord for to nominate his Successor that the people might not suffer by the vacancy of so great a Charge and the form of his Petition is very remarkable which runs thus Let the Lord God of the Spirits of all Flesh set a man over the Congregation which may go out before them and which may lead them out and which may bring them in that the Congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no Shepherd and the Lord said unto Moses Take thee Joshua the son of Nun a man in whom is the Spirit and lay thine hand upon him c. Then we find this testimony of Joshua afterwards That he was full of the Spirit of Wisdom for Moses had laid his hands upon him and the children of Israel hearkned unto him and did as the Lord commanded Moses The Parallel We have hitherto throughout all our past Ascents seen this incomparable pair marching most amicably coupled hand in hand together as well in all their painful actions as sufferings And a glorious spectacle none sure can deny it to be I am sure holy Cyprian tells us that it is To see such invincible courages counterbufft with stormes and tempests on whom it would seem that heaven it self would burst and fall in pieces to behold two such men I say amidst the threats of the air and the ruins of the world alwayes standing upright like to great brazen Colossuses and scorning them all as mists and small flakes of snow What can we do lesse in such a case than exclaim with Seneca Heu quanta sublimitas inter ruinas humani generis stare erectum O what a sublimity it is to be erect in heart and countenance amongst the ruines of mankind and give thanks to God with Typotius Quod digni visi sint Deo in quibus experiretur quantum humana natura possit pati That he hath deemed them worthy to serve as a trial of humane Nature to see to how high a pitch it could arrive And truly if we do but rightly consider the rise as well as the progresse of these two great Personages we shall find them exactly to correspond with that ingenious devise of Lewis the twelfth of France which was a celestial Cup advanced in rayes of Gold amongst a crowd of eclipses with this Motto Inter ecclypses exorior I rise between eclipses We have seen I say this devise fully verified in our first and second Moses and yet their Clemency and Piety was alwayes so great as to pardon and pray for their very eclipsers and persecutors themselves like all the ancient Martyrs who when laden with torments opened so many mouths as they had wounds to beg a pardon for the very causers and inflictors of them and more like to Jesus Christ himself now sitting in the midst of those Martyrs and quickning by the effusion of his blood even those who had their hands deep in the shedding of it We have seen this matchlesse couple onely Parallel to themselves in all their most elate stirring and astonishing great actions too wherein they have ever shewed their courage like Eagles confronting all stormes like Lions which oppose all violences like Diamonds never to be broken like Rocks scorning all waves and Anvills resisting all the stroakes of hammers and in a word like to nothing so much as to the River Tygris which as blessed Ambrose observes Quodam cursu rapido resistentia quaeque transverberat neque aliquibus cursus ejus impedimentorum haeret obstaculis amongst all the streams of the earth hath a current so swift and violent that with an unresistible rapidity and impetuosity it combateth and surmounteth all the obstacles that can be opposed against it So the Courage of these two great and most incomparable Captains did use to flie through all perils break through and work it self a passage against a whole world of contrarieties We have seen these two super-excellent Persons in all their eminencies of State likewise Supreme