were there among them Prophets of another sex some also Prophetesses Miriam Deborah Huldah and Types of our Savior Christ I will not dispute here the reason thereof in them but great cause there is that this Disease should be common to both sexes First because it is laid upon us by the Lord as a Punishment and so indifferently to lye upon both sexes in regard of their parents sin Secondly to premonish us how the Afflictions and Calamities should lye hard upon women as well as men But yet as the Prophets and Prophetesses both aimed at a Christ to come who was a male who sometime by ceremony was designed to be such as in the Paschal lamb enjoyned to be a male of the flock so did and do both males and females in this childes Disease point out unto us a Son of a King a King to be our Deliverer Now it remains that I give the like account concerning the Struma as it is healed by the touch of the hand of the French King Which healing in such manner Guido Tagautius and Laurentius specially French Authors do averr and Sennertus a famous and very judicious Physician of Germany acknowledgeth in his Cure of the Struma but unjustly ascribeth the work by a Divine Dispensation to the French King only Of which briefly As those calamities and corrupt sores which shall be removed and healed by King Charles II in the kingdom of England in such manner must certainly the putrid sores and bruises and wounds be healed in the Kingdom of France For the Disease is one in both Kingdomes the Form of healing the same by the Touch and the Healers of like Dignity being Kings as to shew unto us these things shall be accomplished by the hands of a King But as in these fore-named things there is a Parity in the healing of the Kings-evil by the King of England and French King so is there a Difference in the qualifications of the first Healers For the First Healer of the Kings of France was not the Son of a Martyr as was our Soveraign but the French Stories tell us how Clovis the First of that name and Fifth King of France who reigned about the year of our Lord 500. had first of the Kings of that Kingdom this gift of healing the Struma which since we call the Kings-evil bestowed upon him And what was this King The Story tels us That he was first a Heathen and an Idolater and being afterward converted to the Christian faith then this great gift of healing the Struma was from the Mercy and Power of God bestowed upon him which hath continued thorow the several families of their Kings unto them all even to this day This King Clovis therefore who first cured this Evil in France is to be the Type according to the Example in England of him that is to be the Antitype in France to do all those fore-named things which are prefigured thereby after which time also no King of France shall be able to heal in such a manner the foresaid Malady Whereupon I conclude When the French King or King of France from being such a one as King Clovis was becomes and is turned ro such a Christian indeed as he was after stiled then at that time by such a King of France shall the wounds bruises and putrid soars of that distressed Kingdom be healed I need not here be large but by what hath already been said will the Judicious Reader understand that I mean the corruptions of Religion and Justice and by such a King who is of the Reformed Religion which dependeth for salvation only upon Christ the Head Nevertheless to determine what Person individually shall be that King who shall there perform that great and incredible work by what is contained in the Type is not so easie a thing because the Antitype if what I assert be granted doth not declare what that man shall be nor at what time it shall be done For if the Antitype must necessarily answer to the Type may some say as the Type is of a single Person who first was an Ethnick and afterward became a Christian so ought the Person which shall perform these great matters be a single Person who from a false religion shall be converted to the true To which objections I make this Answer That although it be not clearly contained in the Type when and by what Person or Persons King or Kings of France these works shall be brought to pass yet other circumstances there are pertaining thereunto which help to signifie both Time and Person For Almighty God when he is pleased to work deliverances for his people is wont sooner or later to express the Time when such mercies shall be wrought and who shall be the Deliverer That nothing may be wanting to the comfort of the Lords people and that his children may follow and cleave unto those that are so appointed to be their deliverers That the children of Abraham should be no longer servants in Egypt but that in the Fourth Generation they should come out from thence it was foretold Abraham Gen. 15. and that Aaron and Moses should bring them out of Egypt God called them by name Exo. 6. 26. The abiding of the Jews in Chaldea was determined to be for 70 years and their Deliverer Cyrus by name exprest Therefore it is not without precedent when God hath appointed Salvation and a Saviour to name the Time and Person as well as the thing But where it is laid down for a Rule That the Antitype must be a single Person as well as the Type this I deny Because the Type of a single Person may prefigure One or More according to the nature of the things Adam a single Person was the Type of all man-kinde The Image of one mans Person seen by Nebuchadnezzar was a Type of the several Princes of the four ensuing Monarchies So the meaning of the Healing of the Struma by King Clevis when of a Heathen he turned a Christian is to this effect When a King of France from the false shall be of the true Reformed Religion then shall by such a King these evils of that Kingdom be taken away Which may be affirmed both when the same Person is converted and when another King of the true Religion comes in the room of a former of the false Having therefore this liberty to place the Antitype of King Clovis either on Two Kings or else on One as need requires I here place it upon Two and of all Kings upon King Levis the 14 and King CHARLES II our reigning Soveraign the later of which by being inthron'd King of France God our Mighty and Merciful Lord will enable and encline to do those great things For as the Things fore-named shall most certainly be brought to passe by a King of France the Lord hath left the rest touching the Time when and the Performer who to be collected from probable Arguments Which probable Arguments are all for and none
by which not only our late Soveraign but divers of his Innocent Subjects have had their blood spilt to the defiling and making guilty too many of this our land Our great Oppressions and Oppressors are parallel to those there named in the Prophet And as they were promised deliverance but that afar off and not yet accomplished so are we and ours near at hand through the Mercy of God toward those that fear him by the administration of our Good King V. 16. Wash you make you clean saith the Prophet put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil V. 17. Learn to do well seek judgement relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless pleade for the widow Have not our Sins been such as that the Cause of the Oppressed the Poor the Fatherless and the Widow hath not so much as come before those which sate in Parliament a Court of the utmost redress Or if peradventute by unwearied labour and violent importunity they have prevailed so far as to be heard have they judged the cause of the Poor and Fatherlesse and not perverted their Judgement and have they pleaded for the widow and not wrested her cause to please and favour the rich man Who is ignorant that they have not so done And thus complaineth the good Prophet V. 23. Thy Princes are rebellious and companions of theeves every one loveth gifts and followeth after rewards they judge not the fatherless neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them Our great Governors also were Companions of Theeves because they suffered us without all remorse to be robbed or spoiled no great matter of whom and yet farther because they took bribes by doing whereof they become Thieves fellows in that they require gifts as a Thief doth a Travellers purse or else we and our cause shall fall under them Of which sort of gifts though given secretly and in the bosome some have come to light notwithstanding and of the rest we may definitively pronounce They were Receivers and Expecters of Bribes because then them no greater Respecters of Persons in Judgement to be found as we learn from Solomon Pro. 28. 21. To have respect of persons is not good because for a piece of bread that man will transgress May we not likewise say properly with the Prophet ver 21. How is the faithful City become an harlot it was full of judgement righteousness lodged in it but now murderers The hypocritical service of God which the Jews performed consisting in outward and formal worship how like was it to our wonted frequent Praying Fasting and Thanks-giving and the most strict enjoyning of rest on the Sabbath For the Lord took no pleasure neither in those because not proceeding from syncerity nor in the outward hypocritical worship of the Jews saying v. 13. Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination unto me the New Moons and Sabbaths the calling of Assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn Meeting And for the reason for which God did despise all this was not the cause of the Jews and ours here in England all one expressed v. 15. Your hands are bloods that is defiled and polluted with innocent blood To which people for their great sins their heavy punishment the Prophet expresseth v. 7. Your Countrey is desolate your Cities are burnt with fire your Land strangers devour in your presence and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers Part of this hath been fulfilled upon the Nation of the English in Fire Sword and Famine in the Kingdom of Ireland by the bloody Irish and the other part in England when we were devoured by friends and foes in a consuming war of our own nation and our neighbours as if we were eaten up by strangers All which sins of these sinfull Jews of which the Lord complains as well of the great as of the small and the negligence of those which should have applied the remedies and the general despair none hoping for amendment the Prophet doth Allegorically describe in the nature of a spreading disease from head to foot and seizing upon the vital parts For thus speaks the Prophet v. 6. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying fores they have not been closed Heb. crushed neither bound up nor mollified with ointment and before ver 5. The whole or every head is sick and the whole or every heart faint Yet to put them in comfort in such a hopeless condition of sin and sorrow when he had before told them in the same verse Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more he foretelleth them of better times and a change from all their wickedness and afflictions by sending them good Magistrates and taking away wicked men in the following verses Ver. 24. Therefore saith the Lord the Lord of hosts the mighty One of Israel Ah I will ease me of mine adversaries and avenge me of mine enemies Ver. 25. And I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy drosse and take away thy tinn Ver. 26. And I will restore thy Judges as at the first and thy Counsellors as at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the City of righteousnesse the faithfull City In which part of the Prophecy as the Jews estate runs parallel to England as I have shewn and as under the Type of a disease in the same Chapter the Prophet describes allegorically their sins and sufferings so hath the Lord God miraculously by two Diseases of the body of man described unto us mystically the people of England and such as resemble the Diseases set down in the Text our sins and our calamities And as by Isaiah are described the instruments of their wo under the notion of a disease no lesse are the Authors of our miseries comprehended in the mystery of the fore-named diseases and over and above what Person shall be our deliverer Observe that it is there said ver 5. Every Head is sick and every Heart faint and v. 6. From the sole of the Foot even unto the Head there is no soundnesse in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying or corrupt sores Like unto this Disease are those Two Maladies one whereof is called the Rekets the other the Kings evil They are thus alike the Rekets is a disease of the head yea of every head for it is not that disease if it be without that Symptome any time the Kings-evil is a noysome infirmity full of bruises or hollow apostemated swellings and sores which run with filthy mattur But that I may perswade my Reader that these Two Diseases may signifie somewhat more then what all diseases do Gods just displeasure against and punishment of sin I shall shew examples of diseases in Holy Scripture which do plainly confirm what I here affirm of these One of these diseases is mentioned Exo. 9. ver 8. And the Lord said unto
Moses and unto Aaron Take to you handfuls of the ashes of the furnace and let Moses sprinkle it toward the Heaven in the sight of Pharaoh V. 9. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast throughout all the land of Egypt V. 10. And they took ashes of the furnace and stood before Pharaoh and Moses sprinkled it up toward Heaven and it became a boyl breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast V. 11. And the Magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boyles for the boyl was upon the Magicians and upon all the Egyptians This plague of a noisome and grievous sore named before in Exodus a boyle breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast by reason of which neither the Magicians nor Egyptians could stand before Moses is in a Vision shewn unto John in this manner Rev. 16. 2. And the first Angel went and poured out his vial upon the earth and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the Beast and them which worshiped his Image The disease in the Story written by Moses and the Vision thereof in the principal matters shewed unto John did in brief portend and foreshew That in a place a part of Spiritual Egypt which is Rome a certain man should take the ashes of the furnace Henry VIII which was himself and advancing dust and ashes toward Heaven in the Popes place by the Oath of Supreme Head of the Church which should so fall upon the men of knowledge and others void of wisedom Clergy and Laity that it should beget boiles and blains that is be lothsome and troublesome For while the Clergy who had sworn to the Pope were compel'd to swear the same to K. Henry they as men troubled with sore boiles knew not which way to turn themselves to finde rest if they sware to K. Henry they wounded their consciences if they denied it they suffered death And as bodies full of boiles and botches are lothsome to be lookt upon so this oath when it was taken could not but make them odious to those that knew it was done out of fear not from their hearts So could not the Magicians stand before Moses nor those Clergy men but all that well could hid themselves or fled For the Vial fell upon those which had the Mark of the Beast and them which worshiped his Image By the Mark is to be understood the Signe of the Cross because a Saltier Crosse in this form X is the Mark of the Beast which is the Pope noting numerically among the Greeks six hundred being the round Number of his Name which in full is DCLXVI And those that worshiped the Image of that Peast are those which adore the Hoste or Sacrament of the Altar Because the Bread and Wine hallowed by superstitious Consecration from the Priests mouth is made to have life and to become of those Elements a living Christ Soul and body It is called the Image of the Beast because found out by the Pope and established by him under the name of the Sacrament of the Altar who is that Beast in the Apocalyps as is elsewhere abundantly proved and this is the sense of these words Rev. 13 15. And he had power to give life unto the Image of the Beast That the Bishop of Rome should give life unto dead creatures of Bread and Wine making them a living Christ by his authority So much briefly for the First Disease which was Portentous The Second follows and this is the Leprosie which as it was in some respect a punishment of sin particularly the Leprosie of Miriam Numb 12. and of Gehazi 2 King 5. 27. and that of K. Azariah 2 King 15. 5. and it was called the Plague of Leprosie and simply the Plague sundry times Lev. 13. and 14. for the Malady was Painful and Loathsome and the cause of solitary habitation to the Leper so for the kinde and Nature of it this disease was such an extraordinary Messenger of God as which did contain in it a figure of the Pollution and Odiousnesse of Sin the diffusive nature thereof with the Punishment and the Deliverer from the guilt and punishment also a Person which should free us from both the Son of God Christ Jesus Leprosie was then in the highest when the Disease was as white as Snow such a Leper was Gehazi in the place above-named and thus was Moses's hand leprous as snow Exod. 4. 6. It seized likewise upon sundry parts of the body and sometime the whole as the head forehead beard and sometime garments of skin and of wollen and linnen and divers times houses In which cases and in such parts of the body the Leproste was either a bright spot with white hair growing in it deeper then the skin and spreading or a white rising in the skin turning the hair white or in some case yellowish thin hair and where appeared quick raw flesh in the rising in mens bodies or a white reddish sore in a bald head or forehead In garments if there did appear a greenish or reddish spot and spreading The Leprosie in a house were hollow strakes greenish or reddish appearing deeper then the wall and spreading See of all thls Lev. 13. and 14. The uncleanness of sin defiling the soul was signified when the Leper having a covering upon his upper lip his clothes rent and his head bare was to cry twise Unclean Unclean to note defilement of his soul by sin and his body by Leprosie Lev. 13. 45 46. The Leprosie in the garments and in the house judged by the colour deepness and spreading did insinuate the spreading contagion and from without and outward senses the inward motion thereof into the heart and affections and by example as our garments are carried and worn outwardly and in our houses as spreading in a family among our servants children and betwixt husband and wife The Separation and living apart of the Leper noteth That the society of the wicked is to be avoided and the above-named Levitical Law is applied unto the company of sinners 2 Cor. 6. 17. Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you The pain and torment of the Leprosie consisteth in itching and burning the later whereof is to be gathered from Moses Lev. 13. 24. of both which some kinde of lepers found at this day do tell us and Writers do declare That which among the Israelites was white as snow and burning figureth the pains of Hell on the right hand as it were and the Duration and Perpetuity of Hell Torments as on the left hand For the snowy whiteness is the whiteness of salt and one is very like the other and it hath this whiteness to signifie salt not snow unto us Burning is signified by salt in two respects 1. Because saltness
Disease do pourtray unto us their cunning fraud combinations injustice cruelty with the rest of their eminent Sins In the Disease it self let us first consider the Pathognomik and most constant Signe and Symptome thereof which is the HEAD OVER-GREAT For the understanding whereof if we call to minde that in Holy Scripture a HEAD is a GOVERNOR or person chief in rule as where the Princes of the Tribes are stiled the Heads of the children of Israel Numb 13. 4. and when the Husband is named Head of the wife Eph. 5. 23. for Head in both Testaments is near seventy times set for the chief and for Rulers and that it is proper not only to the Hebrew but to the Greek and Latine nations and to our own language to call Magistrates and Rulers our Heads we will not I hope deny but that it is fitly enough exprest by the OVER-GREATNESS of the HEAD describing the OVER-GREATNESS of such men by assuming unto themselves and growing to so great POWER to have been the most certain and unremoveable cause of our late afflictions For much power is called great power where the Angels are stiled Greater in Power 2 Pet. 2. 11. By the Greatness of the head therefore is very aptly set out unto us the taking and gaining too-much power to have been the first and great cause of the misery which we have undergone from those which were set over us In the next place the SOBER GRAVITY of the FACE of such children comes to be examined and we may joyn thereunto the more then ordinary WIT and UNDERSTANDING found in such children far beyond what is found in others of that age This argues in what sense and signification head is to be taken that is in no other than as a HEAD of WISEDOME Counseil and GRAVITY this last being a discreet behaviour of a man such as may serve for the begetting of awe and reverence in inferiors that their governors be not despised and this is exprest in and mesnaged very much by the SADNESS of the COUNTENANCE Eccles 7. 5. Anger is better then laughter for by a sad look the heart is made better And whereas it is observed that the NOSES of such which are troubled with this Malady are UNPURGED remaining dry without distillation of Rheum which in other children abounds this is to let us understand that these our swelling heads which thus ruled over us although they seemed to cleanse themselves by removing Malignants which they named PURGING of the HOUSE again and again from sitting among them yet did not these Heads PURGE THEMSELVES from nor yet cast out from among them Malignity and Malignants but did notwithstanding retein in themselves their sins and vices such as least become a Court of Justice Oppression and Delay among many other less scandalous sins PURGING in the Scripture is casting away the FILTH of SIN 2 Tim. 2. 21. If any man saith Paul therefore purge himself from these he shall be a vessel unto honor From the Nose I come unto the TEETH which in such children become all ROTTEN and FALL out or else beyond the custome in other yong children they for a great space TOOTHE NOT. The Signification whereof that we may understand we are to consider that the TEETH are those Bones which God hath given unto us for grinding and CHEWING MEAT by which the body is nourished We likewise knowing that PREACHING of Gods word is termed FEEDING of Gods flock because thereby is administred unto the hearers FOOD for their SOULS for it keeps the soul by that profitable knowledge knowledge being hungred after by the soul as meat by the body from eternal death to everlasting life in feeding upon Christ by faith Well therefore may those PASTORS which prepare by breaking it after grinding in their mindes and hearts the Bread which came down from Heaven contained in the Holy Word be accounted and be typified by TEETH in which sense the same are to be understood Cant. 4. 2. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn which come up from the washing which all of them bear twins and Chap. 6. 5. Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing whereof every one beareth twins and there is not one barren among them The TEETH of the CHILDE of GOD whereof the King is Head are the PREACHERS the ROTTEN TEETH are to be expounded such Ministers which being CORRUPT and UNSOUND in their LIVES DOCTRINE and FAITH unto all which the Holy Ghost in Scripture gives such names have been removed from the Church But NOT-TOOTHING and LATE-TOOTHING doth imply that SOUND PREACHERS which should painfully skilfully and uprightly prepare nourishment for the Body of Christ which is his Church should here in England be MUCH and LONG WANTING withdrawing and hiding themselves leaving the mouth empty as it were those places where they should be fixed as it hath proved most true also in the event because of unlawful oaths and engagements against their Sovereign to be laid upon them which with a good conscience they could not submit unto and for the like un just causes The ARM BONES of such children as labour of the REKETS turn CROOKED the Mystery whereof we shall finde by Scripture phrase ARMES in Gods Word noteth sundry times military Forces and ARMIES and this not without just reason in a fleshly arm men put their confidence and the strength thereof for by the strength of their arm they yield their sword for offence and defence The Armes of the wicked shall be broken saith David Psa 37. 17. and in armed men the strength multitude and valor of them Princes place their confidence In this sence Armes are to be taken where God speaking by his Propher and foretelling the destruction of the king of Egypts forces by the King of Babylons army nameth the forces and armies of them boâ—â— Armes Ezek. 30. 22. I will break his Pharaohs Arme and ver 24. And I will strengthen the arm of the King of Babylon Now let us search in the same place for the meaning of this word CROOKED Here we may finde that whensoever men once INTIRE and as it were STRAIGHT which figure in the limbs is the just and proper shape shall become by what means soever BOWED from their former STRAIGHTNESS and turn to be worse they are for this declining accounted and reputed CROOKED For which cause the Israelites are intitled a crooked generation Deut. 32. 5. and for the same cause the people of the Jews are by S. Paul who formerly had walked in the ways of the Lord uprightly which the Gentiles had not done meant where he saith Phil. 2. 15. In the midst of a naughty and crooked generation Hereby the Almighty and Just Lord by inflicting such CROOKED ARMES upon our children doth not only punish us mediately in the persons of them but would have us to be premonisht that by the Signe of CROOKED ARMES he was for our sins sending against us
six Prophets sent unto them and in the time of miserable afflictions Now although I cannot but acknowledge that I have not heard almost of any Prophet of future events in these times who hath not been a deceiver or deceived or who hath used any lawful way to expound Divine Visions saving Interpreters of Holy Scripture whose rules if men would follow them and adjoyn fasting and prayer after the Prophet Daniels example in the like cases they would some of them using the right means undoubtedly attain the desired end For it maketh no difference but there is still the same way of interpreting Visions sent from God and enrolled in Scripture or sent from him and presented before our eyes yet so as what I laid down before as a rule be remembred what the old Prophets understood in an instant or soon after and fully we have it not given to us to finde out but by labour and by degrees and using fasting and prayer as common to both not to perfection Whereunto let this be added because Christian people are according to promise more enlightened in their understandings then those of old times those Prophecies and Visions which are now to be interpreted are by those that hear them expounded to be examined in the ballance of right reason agreeable to the Holy Word when most of the old Visions were to be credited because a Prophet pronounced them who could not lye For this was appointed to be the touchstone of a Prophet the certainty of his predictions in the event Deut. 18. 22. When a Prophet speaketh saith the Lord in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not be afraid of him Now let us see since the Lord hath used in evil and wicked times to send among his people Admonitions and Forewarnings also of their sorrows like as of their deliverances their captivity in Egypt and going out their going into Babylon and their return and when there is no cause imaginable why he should not do the like unto us in England if God hath not by immediate and wonderful Messages from himself warned us of our sins and forewarned us of our afflictions and what will be the end of them For the calamities which the children of God have suffered in these Three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland are so great as like and equal to them never any Nation upon whom the Name of God hath been called hath undergone by whomsoever considering that monstrous and universal Massacre in Ireland as the chief part and the general Injustice and Hypocrisie in England and sufferings from our own brethren who profest so frequently love pity and compassion toward us a treachery which we never suspected the next If therefore the Lord is wont to foreshew great troubles is it improbable that he hath forewarned his dear children of the greatest which ever befell the Church of God And if all injustice be a sin and oppression a crying sin is it unlikely that the greatest Injustice and Murther that ever was committed all circumstances considered since the crucifixion of our Saviour Jesus Christ the Murther of our Innocent Soveraign Lord King CHARLES the first and the revenge thereof should be also foreshewn us Nor is what I speak concerning Gods foreshewing of matters concerning the Church so strange a Doctrine and incredible but that divers Reverend and Learned men have observed the Portents and applied the Events unto the Signes when they have plainly seen them fulfilled among the rest and above others the Magdeburg Century Writers have done it carefully collecting the Signes and Portents which befell in every age and while others say That Signes are interpreted when they are fulfilled implying thereby that they were of that nature that they were capable of being expounded before their fulfilling Whensoever such miraculous Signes are expounded though after their events God procureth unto himself the praise of his Providence Fore-knowledge Power and Truth c. but if we neglect to consider such Signes we deprive our selves of our own mercy by neglecting those comforts which the Lord of tender mercies sends expresly to support his fainting children under the rod of their enemies For but consider if the Signes which are sent by him to premonish if as it is in Job man regardeth not we do not unthankfully frustrate the end I say and scope for which they were sent As for the end and issue of these evils in this and in the two other counited Kingdoms as he hath dealt with other nations it is not improbable but he hath in his great and endless Mercy so dealt with us signifying together with their calamities how he would farther and at last shew himself toward them The Lord unto the servitude which the Israelites were to endure in a land which was not theirs 400 years doth annex this comfortable news and the issue of their captivity and in a Vision that in the fourth generation they should come out thence and with great substance Gen. 15. and by Moses did promise them the possession of the land of Canaan On the contrary he hath unto the pomp pleasures and delicacies of the City of Rome foretold and foreshewn the burning and devastation thereof and that it shall never be built again by the Type of a Milstone cast into the Sea by an Angel and saying Rev. 18. 25. Thus with violence shall that great City Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all Wherefore it is full as likely that Almighty God with our Sins and Sorrows hath foreshewn whether he will utterly forsake England and cast us off or with our true repentance which he will give us take away our long continued miseries Listen now O Reader I bring you glad glad tidings from a far Countrey as cold water to thy thirsty soul but according to the sense of the holy Proverb that i such news as have been expected these twenty years but hitherto in vain and therefore almost despaired after so many changes and frustrated expectations said to be from a far Countrey when they are long in coming as if from far and so in great danger of miscarrying because I tell you what is much feared And this is sent thee O England from thy merciful God by the hands of him from whom considering the crimes of too many undeserved in respect of so many frustrations of hopes and promises made by all others much feared even by our Gracious Lord King CHARLES through the Power and Mercy of God Almighty restoring him unto his just and undoubted Right and Inheritance of his Three Kingdomes and for the sakes of that small number who have mourned and do mourn for all the abominations of this Kingdome so long continued and who have continually sought the Lord to give us our True and Lawful Soveraign whom blessed be the Lord we now
last words of Ailredus Ammirantibus qui aderant tantam c. declaring that those which saw this cure performed by the King were thereupon amazed seeing so strange an effect do argue that this kinde of cure was not performed by any other King before nor by himself until this time And to this Prince Tagautius a French Writer ascribes the first cure of this disease in such manner in England Institution Chirurg lib. 1. In the next place let us consider the Nature of the Kings-evil which is a Malady most like to the Disease in Isaiah spoken of before consisting in Bruises and putrified and corrupt Sores and to this we may joyn the other part of the Description in Wounds also For what are those apostemous Swellings in this Disease but of the nature of Bruises which contain corrupt blood or 〈◊〉 in them And nothing more common in the Disease then Corrupt and Mattury Ulcers And wounds are properly taken for solution of continuity as Physicians call it without sanics or corruption and from an outward cause so the word here expounded wounds signifies such a solution of continuity and is a part of the disease of that state not of sin but of suffering from cruel men and unjust as in this disease of the Kings-evil where the swellings if the bones be rotten or the corruption cannot otherwise easily break out are oftentimes wounded by the Chirurgians knife Thirdly We are to consider more accurately the Person to whom the Lord first gave this great Gift of Healing the Kings-evil First in respect of his DIGNITY and DESCENT Secondly in regard of his ORDER and PLACE of SUCCESSION Thirdly in the addition of his new SIR NAME Fourthly In respect of his ADVENTURES For all which in few words this may suffice First he was by his DIGNITY King of England and by his DESCENT King Edward III before the Conquest was the natural and legitimate son of Egelred which Egelred was the son of King Edgar and yonger brother unto King Edward II who for that he was innocently murdered by the counsel of his Stepmother as is supposed Queen Alfrith after that he had reigned King a very short time was sirnamed the Martyr according to Ailredus in the said History pag 409. speaking thus Aâ—â—rat interim boati regis martyris Edwardi hujas nostre pricipis patrui praeclara solemnitas qui ab impiis sine culpâ percâ—â—ptus creditur innocentiae martyriâ— coronatus that is to say It was upon the great Feast day of S. Edward King and Martyr Uncle to our Soveraign that now is who for that he was causlesly murdered by wicked 〈◊〉 is beleeved to have received the crown of martyrdome for his innocence Thus much for this K. Edwards DIGNITY and DESCENT who first of our English Kings healed the KINGS-EVIL Secondly for what concerns this King Edward in his ORDER and PLACE of SUCCESSION he being the brothers son as was abovesaid to Edward the Martyr was notwithstanding the Fifth King in ORDER and COURSE of reigning from the former Edward taking both terms inclusively and accounting those Kings which reigned together for one and by the name of one of which Holy Scripture affords us more then one example Thus Edward the Martyr the First Egelred the Second Edmund Ironside the Third Hardicanutus the Fourth Edward the Confessor the Fifth Thirdly for his new SIRNAME the CONFESSOR that he was ordinarily called Edward the Confessor and for his HOLINESSE witnesseth Henry Knighton Canon of Leicester in his first book ch 8. De Eventibus Anglia Iste supradictus rex sanctus Confessor dictus est Edwardus III saith he that is This holy King Edward III was named the Confessor Whereunto adde the words of the Chronicle attributed unto John Brompton Abbot of Jereval pag. 956. of the Edition 1652. Iste rex Edwardus ab infantiâ deum diligens bonas consuetudines suas primarias pro honore terreno non commutavit fed cunctis diebus magis ac magis omni sanctitate casitute humilitate munditiâ Deum sanctam Ecclesiam dilexit panperesque ob amorem Dei tanquam fratres suos charos habuit dilectos nos largis elecmosynis aperto corde voluntate bona saepe respexit plures in Angliâ statuit leges bonas quae pro majari parte adhac in regno tenentur Which in English is This King Edward the Confessor from his childehood fearing God did not change his wonted goodnesse for earthly honour but daily encreased in all kinde of sanctity chastity humility and purity loving God and holy Church and such was his love toward God that he loved the poor tenderly accounting them his brethren and bestowing large and continuall almes upon them in singlenesse of heart and true affection and enacted more good laws in England then were before which for the most part are of force in the kingdome at this day Fourthly In what pertains to King Edward the CONFESSORS ADVENTURES he was by reason of an Usurper forced to shift for himself and to live as a banished man in Normandy for so writes Ailredus De Sancto Edwardo Confessore ac Virgine pag. 366. in the forenamed Volume of Historians Edwardus frater Edmundi filius Edelredi qui in Normanniâ exulabat that is Edward the brother of Edmund Ironside who lived in Normandy in Banishment From which place of his exile he was sent for by the testimony of the History called John Bromptons Abbot of Jerevall not written but set out by him Edwardus à Normanniâ vocatus King Edward saith the Historian was sent for out of Normandy But how welcome the King was and to whom Let us hear the words of Ailredus in the place aforesaid Veniens igitur in Angliam Edwardus ab universo clero populo cum maximâ exultatione suscipitur But when King Edward came into England saith he he was welcomed by all the Clergy and People of the land with all expressions of joy and some of the reasons of that great and universal gladness are in the same place exprest by the same Ailredus in this manner Homo mansuetus magis pace quà m armis regnum protegens habebat animum irae victorem avaritia contemptorem superbiae expertem which is He was a milde Prince who defended his Kingdom more by peace then by war of such a frame of minde that he could bridle his anger hated covetousness and was void of all prids Now I shall by Gods grace shew unto you in what manner it hath pleased Almighty God out of these Two Diseases the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL to foreshew unto us our Publike SINS and MISERIES and the AUTHORS of them and DELIVERANCE from them in One and the SINS we have been publikely guilty of and our MISERIES which we have within these twenty years undergone with the PERSON who shall by GODS mercy deliver and set us free from these long and miserable afflictions in the Other KING CHARLES II our DELIVERER Of which
Two Diseases I will and may affirm justly That if it be probable that the Lord hath been wont to foretell Great Troubles to Nations and Kingdomes and the issue of them and if it be certainly true that in all respects no Nation under Heaven upon whom the Name of God or Christ hath been called hath felt such miseries and so great in so short a space as the English have done in the last twenty years unless they have been predicted by the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL there was never of these great things any Divine Forewarning mentioned in any History Much less was any Prediction like to these but such as did quickly vanish after their appearance in a moment as it were or if any have been of longer continuance their matter and argument hath not been so copious But these Two Diseases the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL have been stable and constant the eldest of which in the Prodigious Healing thereof hath continued six hundred years The former of which as the Leprosie in time of the Law was to typifie the Great Cleanser Christ Jesus our spiritual King who was anointed with oyl of Grace above his fellows and as the Balm of Gilead and Pool of Bethesda were made to foreshew that Merciful Physician who with his blood should heal our sins and miseries and wash us from impurity was determined to shew Gods Providence Power Justiee and Mercy to poor England by the Hand and Government of his anointed Servant K. CHARLES II. Whose Person I say is with the other evils designed in the second Disease the KINGS-EVIL He is that Physician to cure those wounds and putrified sores which our State-Physicians as they have been often called have made and caused The things which are foreshewn are in General our Sins and our Calamities 2. The Authors those that have caused our miseries and 3. he which shall be our Deliverer The method of this discovery is plain for the Persons which have been and shall be the Authors of these contrary effects are plainly described as if it were by their names these in the one this in the other Disease The Sins and Calamities which some have been guilty of and which almost all have suffered are shewn unto us as under the Allegory and Type of Diseases in so plain a manner as that the Diseases are nothing else but in every part and circumstance living pictures of what we have done and suffered and but Metaphorical names of the very things And either they are the very pictures and likeness of the things which I would have them signifie and in this respect we give their natural signification or else they are Metaphorical expressions of such things and bear some good proportion unto the things which I shew they typisie Which Metaphors are not wrested and strained but easie and taken from Holy Scripture and used here in that signification in which they are there used Nor is there any Trope or Figure which is less hard to be understood nor more usual in our mother tongue or the Latine Greek or Hebrew tongues then Metaphors insomuch that for using of names to certain things we do not only commonly but by necessity borrow the names of other things that is use Metaphors Such are these expressions in ordinary and familiar use To be in high or low place that is to be honorable or without honor and it is taken from places high and low in a Physical notion so to be poor when there is little flesh upon any creature is borrowed from that word which properly signifies want of things necessary but is made to signifie being lean c. The SIGNIFICATION of the REKETS in each particular FIrst of all let us examine the Name of REKETS and therein shall we finde the names of those men which have caused our miseries The word Regentes is a Latine word signifying those that are Rulers and Governors whether in the highest or in a lower degree indifferently from rego to rule from which Latine word Regentes is derived a French word and English given to such a Person which exerciseth Regal authority though not a King as the Queen wife to the French King is by courtesie called Queen Regent to distinguish her from the Queen mother as if she had regal authority and like to the King The Vice-royâ— of Scotland are called Regents of Scotland This is the thing Governors taking upon them Regall authority not being Kings and under Kings are meant by this word REKETS with no greater alteration of letters but the very same which hath been found in our English tongue elsewhere For of Regents leaving out the letter n is made Regets as of Tenent which signifieth an opinion maintained by a man is made Tenet signifying the very same thing the letter n being omitted there also both which words we know are used promiscuously at this day And both Regent and Tenent Participles of the present tense and this from Teneo Then in Regets the letter g is turned into k and of Regets is made REKETS which change is also found in our English tongue Ghaucer in the Shipmans Prologue no. 13. saith His barge was called the Maudelain For that vessel which the Poet there and Barclay in his Poeme called The Ship of fools in sundry places calleth a barge we at this day do name as is well known a barke with the like mutation of g into k For the calling of it as we do REKETS pronouncing of it as if it were written with i in the first syllable there is little difference in the sound whether it be written with e or i for the letter i there sounds not full but like the sound of e insomuch that sometimes e is pronounced like as we would have i pronounced in RIKETS written with an i Thus is the letter e ordinarily pronounced in end metre Peter c. and in Devonshire well puteus is uttered as if the vowel and the word were the same with will voluntas Thus in the Name of this Disease are in the first place discovered those men who were the AUTHORS of our late CALAMITIES for according to the Name of the Disease they were not Kings but such as took upon them REGAL AUTHORITY For the Disease is not exprest by a word of the singular number REKET but plurally REKETS since not one single person but many were the causes of our miseries And in this Name the Cause is put for the effect for that those men were the cause of our evils the evils are called by the Names of such who were the Causes of them The Effects of Original Sin are called the Old man in relation to Adam who was the fountain thereof Regeneration and Holiness called the New man directing unto Christ Jesus the worker of it in Holy Scripture by a Metonymy of the Cause put for the Effect Thus our unjust and usurping High Governors being by the Name of the Disease marked out unto us the Nature and Symptomes of the
Ancestors who were called Lords and Kings thereof but charge and trouble beside a bare Title But to her was the Kingdom conquer'd and quieted that as the Author of the History called Pacata Hibernia in the Epistle to the Reader speaks Q. Elizabeth might have it justly written upon her Tomb Pacata Hibernia or Ireland Tamed But our Royal Soveraign is doing more and hath begun it already and suffered longer and worse than ever Queen Elizabeth did Yet not thou O Charles but God which is in thee Secondly If we consider his Majesties Constancy and Patience in the mids of his great Tentations Shall K. Charles II who was by wicked men banished from his own Kingdome forced to remain in the Dominions of a Popish Prince such a King who by no Necessities nor Sollicitations could be drawn to forsake God to advance himself shall he I say be miraculously preserved in his escape from his cruel hunters and more miraculously in France and Flanders from Idolatry and only be kept to make us happy God forbid Had not Joseph whose bow abode in strength whom the archers sorely grieved shot at and hated Genes 49. 23 24. a double portion to him and his posterity Ezek. 47. 13. having one portion for that cause above his brethren given him by his father taken out of the hand of the Amorite with the sword and with his bowe Gen. 48. 22. But our Soveraigns bowe abode as much and more in strength when for the sollicitations of the Egyptian Romish harlot he started not aside Beside in the very letters of their names there is a parity between the Type and Antitype and this sometime happeneth not by chance but providence as when Mary Aarons Sister a virgin and Jesus Moses successor prefigured in deed and names the virgin Mary and Jesus our Savior betwixt Clovis and C and Clovis as to note those great evils shall be taken away when C and Lovis meet as now they do Concerning the Healing of the Kings-Evil in France and what is prefigured thereby thus far If any of my Readers shall object which doubtless most will do that what I do presage touching our Royal Soveraign and the Kingdom of France is no more then probable to him I will be bold to say and let him well consider that even among the Sages of the Law great Probabilities have the esteem of Certainties and according thereunto Sentence is pronounced by them And we know that in the difference of the two Harlots about a surviving childe who should be the true mother thereof when King Salomon gave sentence on her side who shewed pity toward the Infant as to be mother thereof judgement thus given from probable conjecture is said to be the Wisedom of God in him 1 King 3. 28. Or are our children known to be the fathers but by probability Yea although we are enjoyned to give diligence to make our calling and election sure how few of the elect ever attained to that height in this life that all his mis-doubtings were taken away and that he was fully assured of a future happinesse I must acknowledge that there are degrees of likeliness some things which are probable are not yet firm enough to conclude others of so high a degree of probability that according to the example commended by the Spirit of God in Solomon they are as strong as the clearest certainties And of that sort of probable things which are the strongest or very near them I here maintain these sore-named to be Thus much pertaining to the cure of the Struma performed by the French King and what is signified thereby And here at last it will not be unseasonable to explain what before was partly touch'd by me whence it is that neither our Soveraign nor yet the French King do heal of the Struma all that are touch'd by their hands 2. That they do not likewise help such as are troubled with the Gout Feavers Palsie c. but this Evil onely 3. Kings of this Kingdom and of the French nation although they have erred in the faith and have been of a false Church have healed this Disease as well as those which have been sound in the faith and members of that true Church of which Christ is Head in which small number our Royal Soveraign is one and a principal 4. That in some few although healed at present the foresaid disease through some occasion breaks out again In answer to the first Objection first acknowledging if the healing of this Evil were perfectly miraculous like unto those cures wrought by our Saviour it should be perfect in any of which our King should lay his Royal hands Joh. 7. 23. Are ye angry at me saith our Saviour because I made a man altogether whole upon the SÃ bbath day Then was there no unsoundness left behinde therefore we may conclude this power given unto our Kings was not for the same cause for which our Saviour and his Apostles healed the sick To the second Objection I confess that whereas our Saviour healed all that were sick and likewise the Apostles yea the Pool of Bethesda all with what infirmity soever they were troubled it was to signifie that which the Scripture elsewhere saith He healeth all thy Diseases that is all both outward and inward Diseases of which sort are sins specially Wherefore for some other distinct cause doth our Soveraign cure the Struma only Nevertheless it cannot be denied that this vertue given to our Kings is miraculous although not to perfection To the next Objection I say That even miracles themselves were wrought by the hands of the evil as well as the good sometimes For is it not written that at the last day some reprobates should say unto our Saviour Have we not in thy Name cast out devils And this was given unto them not as it was unto the Apostles who represented Christs person and were as in Christs stead so the gift of healing this Evil because it was given as a signe of what was to come so much as they were Types in being Kings of such a Kingdom was given to the evil as well as to the good Kings Thus to the last thing which is objected I say I cannot deny but to have known how some after a long continued soundness and being cured of their mattury ulcers have began to fall back into the same Disease and Symptomes but being touch'd again have recovered All which notwith standing doth not disprove the miraculous cure but pointeth at somewhat else therein Now to satisfie the first and second objection to the full Our Royal Soveraign doth not take away the Struma by that power which is given him from above because it is a great evil for there are greater which he cannot cure nor yet because it is a little one as if his vertue could extend it self to small Diseases for we know there are less which he cannot take away but for that this Disease which we call the Kings-evil is such a malady which is parallel to the things which are signified his Majesty shall help and other Diseases are not like them For what likeness is there in the Gout Feavers and Palsie to the bruises and putrid sores full of corruption of which Isaiah speaketh the corruption of Doctrine and manners leath some to the eyes and unsavory to the nostrils of God and man Erasmus though tormented with the Stone rejoyceth that he did not suffer under some disease which might make his presence leathed But the Kings-evil we know hath bruises and putrid sores full of corruption This Malady therefore the Providence of God did make choice of to demonstrate what sins and afflictions our Royal Soveraign through Gods mercy will cure not for it self nor for the sick Patients sakes but for the cause of that which being most like unto it was to be taken away Nor is it done to perfection in all some being remediless which are touch'd that we may know that corruption in justice unsoundness in faith and doctrine shall not and cannot be so universally taken away by our Good King but that some do what he can tares and wicked men will continue among the wheat and good men And touching the last Objection where it is said that some which have been healed of this Evil have relapsed it doth indeed plainly inferr that this healing of the Evil by our Kings must be in that respect different from the like miracles of old The smiting of the rock twise by Moses was his sin as if the doing of it once had not been sufficient and the virtue of causing the water to flow out of the rock had been in his hand If once touching by the Royal hand be not ever and altogether sufficient for the cure and the second be helpfull it may well signifie that in this our good Josiahs reformation men shall not be so fully reformed as that none shall endeavour to fall back again but yet by his Royal hand they shall be reduced A PRAYER In the mean time let us beseech Almighty God to plant in our Soveraigns Heart the awful Fear of his Holy Name and that his unerring Word may be the Measure and Rule by which alone Religion and Justice may be reformed as by Josiah his Royal Type was done Hasten him O Lord herein that thou mayest hasten to reward him with another Crown upon the earth and a Crown of Glory hereafter which is void of cares and fadeth not Make me O Lord and all his Subjects unfeignedly to love and honour him for thy sake and grant we may never forget what by woful experience we have found true the counsel of thy wise servant King Solomon My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them which are given to change For their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both Amen Lastly of all which hath been spoken to God alone be given the Praise and Glory for from him and by him and to him are all things He revealeth the deep and secret things he knoweth what is in darkness and the light dwelleth with him For thine is the Power and the Glory and thou hast now made known unto us the Kings matter FINIS