Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A89304
|
A prisoners letter to the Kings most Excellent Maiesty, and the high court of Parlament.
|
Morgan, Edward, d. 1642.
|
1642
(1642)
|
Wing M2731; Thomason E144_17; ESTC R11353
|
3,283
|
8
|
A PRISONERS LETTER To the Kings most excellent Maiesty and the High Court of Parlament LONDON Printed Anno Domini 1641. To the Kings most excellent Majestie AND To the High Court of Parlament and in them to the whole Kingdome of England Dread Sovereigne I Make a tender to your Royall Majesty and in you to the high Court of Parlament and to your whole Kingdome of an illustrious example of the divine providence no lesse wonderfull for admiration then the discovery of Gods judgments made by the Prophet Daniel to King Nebuchodonozor and Baltassar his sonne nor lesse behoofull for the good and welfare of your selfe our gracious Queene your Royall of-spring our whole Kingdom if you wil vouchsafe to apprehend and make use of it then the discovery of the treacheries of Bagathan and Thares and of the pernicious devices of wicked Aman made by Mardocheus to King Ahassuerus was for him and his people My course hath been directed to your Royall Majesty by Gods sacred and speciall appointment ever since your first comming to your Crown and before though I never addressed any writing unto you in speciall about this matter till now because I was first to deale with Roman Catholiks and afterwards with some of your Justices Judges and other Officers and finally to expect in patience some events of the divine providence succeeding thereupon that ascending to your Royall Tribunall by degrees I might have more ample and speciall matter every way to present and not appear empty handed before you Now Gods judgements are growne to a great ripenesse or to speake with allusion to our Blessed Saviours expression in a like case the Fig tree hath budded whereby men may know Summer is nigh Wherefore if your Royall Majesty and the high Court of Parlament will be pleased to make a due enquirie and examination of my course whereby the matter of fact may be authentically made knowne and then cast a serious eye upon the publike events of the divine providence which succeeding in due conformity and consequence these many yeeres and parallell to the approved testimonies of Gods speciall judgments in ancient times are as it were the great broad Seale of Heaven giving weight and authority to my words and endeavours besides that your Majesty may with ease see that there is a supernaturall order of things taught by supernaturall faith which one not many yeeres since in a publique printed booke dedicated to your highnesse hath endeavoured to evacuate you may moreover with like facility perceive how the sacred decrees of Gods heavenly providence are drawne up not only concerning the rest of the Christian world but also especially concerning you and your Kingdome and by conforming your self to his holy will decline the common mischiefs approaching which otherwise by no humane meanes can possibly be avoided Let not my meanesse who am but an unworthy instrument and the least of your Majesties subjects move your Highnesse or the grave Assembly of Parlament to despise the offer which I make but first enquire and examine diligently as both Gods law and mans reason doe eqâ—ire and then judge There are some dangers which can neither be known nor avoided unlesse they bee first gratiously discovered by some special favour and operâ—tion of the first cause which is God himselfe from whom nothing can be hid and in such cases though his divine Majesty doth many times imploy men of great wisdom and sanctitie as he did the prophet Elizeus to discover to the king of Israell the ambushments set to entrap him by the King of Syria yet he dorh sometimes also not onely use the most contemptible of men as instruments to make the greatest Potentats acquainted with his ways and so enable them to avoid prepared mischiefs but moreover taketh a brute beast for the like purpose as in the case of Balaam and his Asse Your Majesties great Predecessor William the Conquerour thought it wisdome in a certain occasion to hearken to the advertisement even of a naturall foole as wee reade in our Chronicles and long before his time Alexander the Great gave eare to a woman who was thought distracted as Curtius the Historian doth testifie by which happie credulity God who is all able to make fooles and mad men speake his wisdome having discovered his divine knowledge and judgment by means of those silly ones those two great Princes avoyded imminent danger of death and conserved their lives and fortunes for their great succeeding victories On the other side the neglect of timely advertisements hath brought many great Princes and amongst the rest that great Monarch Iuâ—ius Caesar to the losse of their Crowns and lives He that will not hearken to God in his gratious signes and forewarnings must feele his heavie hand when it will be to late to avoide it For mee I do not professe my selfe among the number of wise men and if your Majesty or the great assembly of State now on foot please you may take mee for a foole or a mad man provided you acknowledg that God almighty can by his holy over ruling spirit make a madnesse prodigious and so use the follie or madnesse of his creature as an instrument to expresse an act of his divine wisdome providence and power but what ever I be foolish or wise or however your royall Majesty or the high Court of Parlament shall be pleased to thinke of me God is wise even in the foole and mad man and his holy will is to be searched out in all which if it had beene duely done more then thirteene yeeres agoe adhering close to the testimony of Divine and humane law implyed in the reality of my whole course with a due inspection of the counter-signes extant even then in the seeds of those heavie events which have appeared since most plainly to the view of all in their own proper perfect existence when before some of your Majesties tribunals I did publikely in GODS name and in vertue of his publique lawes speciall right and command with due relation likewise to the Lawes of our Realme and two of your royall Majesties Proclamations invite your royall Highnesse and your whole Kingdom to a due enquirie of Gods prepared judgments and of the devices then in hatching to entrap you and your People not onely your Judges other persons of higher ranke and note who lie now exposed to the rod of Justice might have beene freed from undergoing the danger now threatning them but your Majesty also might with ease and security have prevented those troubles and mischiefs which turmoile at this present all your Realmes and threaten a desolation So much it behoves Princes and States to attend and examine well if God almighty doe but make even Balaams Asse bray forth some imminent judgments in his holy name For mischiefs arising from the power of man may by the power of man with Gods ordinarie concourse bee extinguished or averted but such as are threatned by God Almighties speciall hand and power can by no meanes possible be avoided but by admission and performance of such conditions as his divine Majestie is pleased to propose I have strove to keep silence now these many yeers being loth to medle any more in a cause which hath cost me so much trouble and affliction though I know not why I should be so handled by any for suffering God Almightie to expresse in mee whether men will have it to have beene by the intermediation of wit or madnesse a testimony of his divine providence towards his Church and people but I daâ—e be silent no longer being furnished now with such illustrious evidence of fore-passed events proper to my cause to confirme my words and the thing it selfe concerning so deeply your Royall Majesty Our gracious Queen your Royall Of-spring and our whole Kingdome lest God Almighty should inflict upon mee the judgement threatned against the Watchman in the thirty third Chapter of the Prophet Ezâ—chiel yet I will forbeare to trouble your Royall Majestie with the specification of particulars till I see whether I be thought fit to be admitted to a free and indifferent hearing or no. One thing I must crave pardon of your Royall Majestie and the great Assembly of Parliament that I addresse my selfe thus to you in print before I have acquainted you with my case in a more private way The reason I have done so is that seeing every man now prints what hee lists and my cause hath beene many yeers since publike and I suffered so much in mayntenance of it under the view of many I may either by the testimony of some at leastwise of those many be introduced to a free and publike audience or else upon compassion be voted as a foole or madman to be set free from prison and further trouble seeing I never appeared in so many yeeres extremities either furious seditious or turbulent and so be committed to the care of my friends that I may end my old age in peace and quietnesse commending you and your Kingdome to Gods mercifull providence care and protection I humbly beseech God Almighty to blesse and protect your Royall Majestie our gracious Queene your Royall Of-spring and our whole Kingdome and grant that you may know his holy will and faithfully perform the same to the glory of the divine Majestie and the common comfort and good of all In the common Wards of the Fleet the ninth of October 1641. Your Royall Majesties loyall and lowly Subject Edward Morgan