Lord was wont to send them Prophets in evil and sinful times Prophets so inspired with his Spirit that they knew infallibly and did shew unto that people most certainly what things both good and bad and how they should befal them that their oppressors and the wicked might not live secure nor the oppressed and righteous be discouraged But in a short time after our Saviours Ascension such Prophets which were thus miraculously instructed ceased to be among men By which difference of the times those from these it might at first seem either that God loves not the Christians so tenderly as formerly he did the children of Israel or at least that the Christians now adays have no need of such forewarnings as the children of Israel were wont to have Divine and miraculous premonitions were so usuall to them that they accounted it and complained of it as an affliction when they wanted them This appeareth true from the words of Asaph a man left in Judea when the rest were carried into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar complaining of the want of a Prophet and Signes which they were formerly accustomed unto to declare and foretell how long their captivity after the present destruction of the City and Temple was yet to last For thus he speaketh Psa 74. 9. We see not our Signes there is no more any Prophet neither is there among us any that knoweth how long Albeit Jeremiah the Prophet had formerly prophesied unto them of 70 years captivity and Daniel and Ezekiel were both now in Chaldea and did prophesie Whereby it appeareth as I said that Asaph was left in the land and that he speaketh of the remainder of the Jews which were left in the same place with him and lastly that this Psalm was written after the carrying away of Jeremiah into Egypt Concerning the difference of those old times before our Saviours coming from these although we should grant it true and we must grant it to be so in some kind touching Prophets yet is the Assumption false to conclude from thence That God loves not the Christians so tenderly as formerly he did the children of Israel for how little soever the Lord loveth any of his children he accounteth and nameth them his Jewels and is as tender of them as of the apple of his eye who spared not his onely and beloved Son but gave him to dye for the least of them all But this is an inestimably greater favour then to premonish and forewarn them of that which is to come a thing which he hath done even to his greatest enemy the devil though for a different end from that for which he forewarns his children letting him know his secret counsel touching Saul and his Sons For did not the Lord reveal unto Satan that Saul and his three sons should be slain even as it came to pass and the Spirit told Saul the day following 1 Sam. 27. 19. And while we consider that the Lord is unchangeable in his love For he is not a man that he should repent this cannot be the cause want of Gods love that Christians are without divining Prophets In the second place as little reason is there to say That we which are Christians have no need of forewarnings of our suffering nor of our deliverance As if the oppressions in Egypt were more than under the Pope and these not seven-fold greater then those as the burning in a fiery furnace or in fire than making and burning of brick by and in such a place or the thraldome of the body greater then of the soul or the length of the captivity under Pharaoh which lasted not in all two hundred and fifteen years more tedious then under Antichrist who began to reign above a thousand years agoe Whereupon neither of these two Causes being to be admitted want of love from the Lord toward his people and no need of Premonitions and likewise necessarily admitting and confessing it to be truth Fully illuminated and infallibly inspired Prophets have not been found and are not now to be expected much after our Saviours leaving the earth it behoveth us to enquire after the reason of this thing Of which by Gods grace I find there are Two Causes 1. Why we may not look for such Prophets in these times which are fully illuminated and infallible is the End and the consideration thereof for which such Prophets were sent by Almighty God for the information of his people which being accomplished and come and past that which points to that end is not necessary any longer Such Prophets were instituted to be forerunning Types and Figures of Christ thereby to signifie that there was a Prophet to come after them like unto themselves but greater who should fully and infallibly know the Lords mind and counsels For thus saith Moses of our Saviour who was to be exhibited in the flesh and making himself the Type of Christ Deut. 18. 15. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him ye shall hearken In respect of whom some though not all of the Prophets had power at some not at all times to work certain Miracles and alluding to this it is said The Prophets were unto John 2. Prophets were more fully enlightned before our Saviours coming than in these times there can be found any for another cause even for their sakes to whom their Prophecies and Messages were sent that is because of the people The Prophets were sent principally to call men to repentance thus speaketh the Lord Jerem. 7. 25. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the Prophets daily rising up early and sending them V. 26. Yet they hearkened not unto me nor inclined their ear but hardened their neck they did worse then their fathers The different condition of the people therefore is a second cause why the old Prophets were more enlightned and infallible then the Prophets or Preachers which now are for so are Preachers called by the Apostle Paul or necessarily are required to be In those old times the understanding of the people of Israel concerning God and heavenly things was very small witnesse the Apostles themselves who were conversant with Christ when Peter reproved our Saviour speaking of his suffering death telling his Master that this should not befall him that he should not dye Yea the Lord threatens his people blindeness of mind and stupidity of understanding greater then formerly they had by the mouth of Isaiah calling it fatness of heart for fat is insensible For which cause if the Prophets should not have shewn before their eyes great and wonderfull matters they would not have beleeved and if such Prophets had not also had extraordinary knowledge they would have wanted a guide if they had not also been indued with infallibility the people would certainly have fallen into errours And notwithstanding
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
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
be denied that many children have recovered from the Rekets to a soundness in every part yet is the conclusion false To assert thereupon That this Disease hath been so cured by Physical Medicines And the seeming contradiction is thus reconciled to the truth by example of the Leprosie No Leper was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian saith our Saviour in the place abovesaid yet we read under the Law a Prescription of the Rites and Ceremonies to be used in Cleansing of Lepers under this Title Lev. 14 2. This shall be the Law of the Leper in the day of his cleansing Moreover it is acknowledged by the words of Almighty God that in the Legal times Lepers were cleansed ver 3. And the Priest shall go forth out of the Camp saith the Lord to Moses and the Priest shall look and behold if the plague of Leprosie be healed in the Leper Hence by comparing the words in Moses with the speech of our Saviour Christ the one acknowledging Lepers to have been healed and the Form thereupon of their cleansing prescribed the other denying any then to have been cleansed but Naaman the Syrian we are taught to finde aneasie way out of this appearing Labyrinth and which doth exactly fit the cure of the REKETS by looking up to God by whose hand we must know many untoucht by man were healed although by mans Art and Power until our Saviour came no Leper was cured It is most apparent to our eyes that very many children labouring under the REKETS have recovered in their Limbs Ribs Heads and Body but such as enjoy this mercy are not made partakers thereof by Physical helps For we deceive our selves while we think whatsoever is applied to such children in such a time in which it pleaseth the Lord to be in healing them to be the very causes of their recovery As it cometh to pass that such medicines which are applied unto persons sick of Agues or Toothe-ache although most of them are known to be of no force against those griefs at all if in the use of such Applications the Agues and Tooth-ache leave such Patients which ever almost sooner or later go away of themselves are famed for most approved Helps against the said Diseases Whence ariseth such a multitude of False Remedies against those and other Griefs And if it be peradventure of little credit most confidently to protest mine own experience which here I do of the Remedies against the Rekets were it a Naturall Disease and such as those which write of it report it to be applied by me before the Lord gave me this knowledge to have been without the least success let the anxious Reader consider and weigh that some have been healed without the least Application of Natural means others have died of that disease others have retained the Symptomes still against all use of means Of the First kinde of whom Almighty God is pleased blessed be his Name to make my little Son a welcome Example Wherefore by the way I advise every man in the fear of the Lord and for the foregoing Reasons to abstain from Humane help in the REKETS as the Jews did most religiously in their Leprosie and to implore Divine assistance by Prayer and Fasting For as in the Leprosie when our Saviour was come and performed his work he came about of our Redemption first leprous persons were healed afterward all Leprosie vanished so when He our Gracious K. CHARLES II who now is come hath performed the work he is come to do of Reformation the Disease of the REKETS will be heard of no more in the Land But this may not be expected from our Royal Soveraign now at his first coming into his Kingdom until that shall be accomplished which undoubtedly by Gods grace will be for till the things typified are come the Types will remain Thus the Leprosie and the cure thereof did so designe our Saviour the Physician of Soul and Body and so point at him as it were with the finger that unto the Baptist who sent to know of him whether he were the Messias he gave no other answer but bid them tell John that the Lepers were cleansed c. yet notwithstanding was not the Leprosie taken away till after his Passion when the Type was fulfilled His Royal Majesty shall take away the Disease of the Rekets in two kindes First the Typified Rekets and each Symptome thereof removing from us that which he hath put his Royal Hand to already the Pining of our even famished Body the Common-wealth so that betwixt the Head and Body there shall be a due and meet Proportion By whose Gracious Favour neither the Doubling of the Joynts of Armies with their Generals and Commanders nor of the Parliament with their Substitutes not the Ribs doubled in multiplying Ships to guard our Seas or Garrisons to fortisie our Land-Coasts These will not be needful The Lord will restore unto us as he promised the Jews by his Prophet our Judges as at the first and our Counsellors both Houses of Parliament as in the beginning The Two Legs Houses of Parliament shall be no more crooked and unjust but upright The Breast-plate Armour and Ships in great number shall be put off and layd by and liberty shall not fly away The Childe of England shall be healed of all her Maladies Her teeth shall no more hide themselves yea the sound teeth of Orthodox and unblameable Preachers shall fill their empty places The subordinate Heads of the People shall purge their own corruption In such manner as when our Saviour did cleanse the Lepers he did signifie thereby the taking away of sin Secondly God Almighty hath ordained our Lord King CHARLES II to take away the Typical Rekets even the Bodily Disease it self And as our Saviour cured Both the Typified leprosie of sin and Punishment by his Suffering and the Typicall in Persons first and took the Leprosie away at last and He and none but He could do it so King CHARLES II first taking away the signified Disease by his Gracious Goodness and Wisedom shall take the Bodily Rekets quite away when this work is done which the LORD hasten And his Majesty hath given us a great Essay thereof already in his Gracious Assent to the Disbanding the Army in his Edicts against Drunkenness and Rioting c. To conclude concerning the REKETS As the Leprosie was such a Disease which infected no other Nation but the children of Israel excepting Naaman the Syrian intimating thereby that Christ should by his Death cleanse the Leprosie of the sins of the Gentiles and seems by Tacitus the Historians words to be imputed to them and no other Nation beside although he falsly concludes that for such a Disease they were drove out of Egypt So is the REKETS the proper Disease unto the Nations of England Scotland and Ireland and to the Kings Dominions and to no other people beside unless living in his Majesties Kingdoms And as the Leprosie did portend the Physician thereof
called the seventh from Adam Jude 14. in which place son is to be understood For Henry VII is the First Margarite his daughter Q to James IV. King of Scotland the Second James V the third Mary Q. of Scotland his daughter the Fourth James VI King of Great Britain the fifth King Charles I the sixth K. Charles II the seventh And this is a good Argument to prove that King Charles II the seventh of a sea earth is not to be understood so to cure the Kings-evil as in a literal sence which some of these and more of his Predecessors have done but in some speciall and mystical way as I have declared And this computation agrees in another account if we reckon by the daughter of Queen Margarite and her issue for Queen Margarite daughter to King Henry VII first married to King James IV had issue James V after married to Archibald Douglas Earl of Angus by him had issue Margarite As King Henry VII the first Margarite Queen to King James IV the second Margarite her daughter by Archibald Earl of Angus and Wife to Matthew Stuart Earl of Lenoix the third Henry Lord Darley her son husband to Mary Queen of Scotland the fourth King James his son King of Great Britain the fifth King Charles I the sixth King Charles II the seventh For which cause I do humbly beseech the Kings Majesty that a Law may be enacted by the King and his Parliament for the deserved punishment of such diabolical impostures as this is which is frequently committed in this land by seventh sons taking upon them the Royal Prerogative of our Kings with the touch of their hands to cure the Kings-evil For the practice here of tends much to the dishonour of God and of our good King and to the delusion of his Majesties Subjects But one thing more touching the Rekets must not be forgotten that is to say the time when that Disease first seized upon Children in this Kingdome and had that name of Rekets given unto it It was the third year after our Royall Soveraigns Nativity or the next unto it when the weekly Bill of Mortality mentioned one to have been buried of the Rekets in the Moneth of May and no mention thereof in any of the said Bils before that time As I have found by search in the Parish Clerks Register kept in their Hall For as the time when Darius took the Babylonian Kingdom is exprest Dan. 5. 31. to be when he was about threescore and two years old that the Jews might observe as judiciously H. Broughton hath noted upon that place that at the time they were carried into captivity which was about the time of Darius his birth the Jews might then know the Lord had a Deliverer born for them So the Nation of England may learn Gods special care that he did not send them the Disease of the Rekets till He was born who should free them from the Miserie 's signifyed thereby and from the Disease it self Hitherto of the Kings-Evil as it pertaineth to the King and Kingdom of England Whereas I said The sins and calamities of this Nation with the Causers of them were pointed at by the Name and Disease of the Rekets and not the Name of our Deliverer but in the other the Kings-Evil yet notwithstanding it doth appear who shall be our Deliverer albeit not in the Name of the Disease or the Symptomes of the Rekets yet in the quality of the Persons which are troubled therewith The Patients so afflicted are Children and no other partly but not principally that we might be left without all pretence of any other inferior cause but be constrained to look up to the Hand which hath smitten us and yet we will not but in despight of reason seek about after this and that cause most vainly Again partly it is to let us understand that the afflictions foreshewn thereby should fall upon the childe of God Thirdly and principally the Rekets is laid on children that by the quality of the person afflicted by it it being the childs disease we may understand him that shall free us from it and what is signified thereby As it is called the Kings-evil not because it is caused by or laid upon but cured by the King So is it called and to be called the Childes disease because a childe shall heal it Surely you will ask me What childe We finde in Holy Scripture that our Saviour hath called himself barely by the name of the Son If the Son shall make you free saith our Savior you shall be free indeed And since we finde that God doth communicate his own Name to Princes calling them Gods and hence it seems to have been first used among Princes to name themselves in the plural number though single by the word we and us imitating as it were the Lord Almighty who is One and Three he doth seem to express by this word the childes Disease the Disease of the childe above all other children the childe a son of the King After which manner the son and daughter of the King of Spain is called infante and infanta that is the son and daughter childe as being well enough exprest alone to understand what son and daughter is meant thereby So when we say the childes Diseases 〈◊〉 may be well understood that Disease which the Childe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all children that is the Kings son shall heal In which expression of childe is also shewn first that our King shall be when this is done a childe albeit not according to the vulgar use of the word in our English tongue yet according to the signification of that word which in the Hebrew signifieth sometimes a childe in years else where a yong man although not very properly by the Translators rendred also a childe where in Daniel it signifieth a yong man calling the three companions of Daniel three children that he shall then be yong in years How great a matter of comfort is hereby administred unto us that are the people of the land that the Lord is so pleased that the King shall not differ the making us a happy nation to his old age but go about it and perfect the Lords work while he is yong Secondly here is an Argument of Almighty Gods great Power and Mercy that he should frame his Majesties heart to clemency as not to suffer him although his Royal Father was murthered to break out in cruel and unjust revenge It is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes And lest any man should thus object This Disease of the Rekets is common to women children as well as to men as that it should not seem thereby to point at a cure to be performed by the King in regard of the sex as to be performed by the son more than the daughter of a King let him take a view of those great Types of our Savior the Prophets whereof although the most part were men yet
against our Gracious Soveraign and by designing his Majesty the Time and Person are both made known For it is not probable that from the present French King such fruit shall proceed by his conversion to the Reformed Religion or so easing the burthens of his Subjects having seized already lately on Aurange and Marseilles two great receptacles for those of the Religion and their ancient Liberties and who still threatneth Geneva Now here I must take leave to assume liberty to draw an Argument from that which is not yet fullfilled but begun only accounting it as already done For thus doth S. Paul from the certain conversion of the Jews which was then to be but neither in his time nor to this day fulfilled Rom. 11. perswade the Christians not to despise that people but account them as brethren And the Holy Ghost assuring us of the burning of the City of Rome a thing not yet accomplished adviseth the people of God to leave that City lest they should perish with it Revel 18. 4. Thus I having already declared and by the fore-going reasons proved that K. Charles II will perform by Gods Grace undoubtedly in England all the promised matters do by probable conjecture infer that it shall in France be performed by him also For to do such great matters is not every day seen None of all the Kings of France since King Clovis nor French Kings have cured the putrid sores of that Kingdom None of the 27. Kings and Queens of England from the Confessor have done that till now Nor is it probable that any of the French Kings there educated would be of the Reformed Religion And as much unlikely it is that any of those Kings should take away all the Corruption in Justice and Manners But since it must be done how probable may it seem that it can be done by none else but by him who hath done the like in England and may do the same in France unto which Kingdom he hath a most just Title So much for my first Argument Secondly It is not likely that God will honour him who hath not the right as him who hath the just Title to that Crown with so glorious a work in that place For the Crown of France by just Title is devolved upon our Gracious Soveraign from Edward III King of England in right of his mother Queen Isabella She was daughter unto Philip the Fair King of France which Philip had three sons successively Kings of France viz. Lodowik Hutin Philip the Tall and Charles the Fair all which dying without issue Isabella their only sister remaining alive was married unto Edward II King of England by whom she had issue Edward III to whom our Royal Soveraign is the next heir by descent from him Against whose right the French do only pretend the Salique Law by which no daughter of France is admitted to the Crown but when and by what sufficient authority there enacted their Lawyers give us no satisfaction And the Reasons why the Person is not so expresly designed for France as here before for England are of moment 1. Because by setting us to enquire after that Prince who shall work so great a happiness to that Kingdom we are thereby driven to finde out the causes for which most probably God may give as He hath formerly given Kingdoms to Princes and extraordinary possessions to others Princes such an opportunity and blessing we may thereby light upon the very Person For God hath made all things for his own Glory and all men but specially Princes induing them for that purpose with great power and those which suffer great things for his sake and stand for him and love his people he seldome sends them away without some ample recompence in this life Yet it was needful that the King whom the Lord had appointed for the happiness of England should be more clearly discovered as it hath pleased God to do touching our Royall Soveraign For who could conjecture that a Prince who had been so exceedingly enraged by the wickedness of some should be so merciful as to spare his cruel enemies and to be so loving and merciful to his people so tender toward those whose consciences cannot admit that for fear of man which their sincere love to God made them to deny if God had not more expresly shewn King CHARLES II to be that Good Prince For which cause the King which shall be the Deliverer of France is more obscurely figured because he is already discovered in the Type of Englands Helper 2. Because the assurance of what shall be by our Soveraign done in France to Gods people there which cannot be until he rule there as King shall appear unto his Royal Majesty when God shall move his Heart to begin in England first so that the Lord would have him to hasten that great weighty and heroick work Now let us look back to the causes which the Lord seemeth to have respect unto in making King CHARLES so happy and see if we can finde like Examples Observe his unjust and cruel sufferings Shall a Prince who after the murther of his Royal Father under the pretence of Justice by the most unjust Judges which ever sate in Judgement and by feigned Holiness was banished with the whole Royal Family as malefactors and the King himself made a Traytor and his precious life hunted after shall his Innocence with the rest of that Royal house against none of whom the least crime or cause was objected only make his people happy May a King who hath suffered such wrongs and done such excellent things for God and his people expect no blessing but a bare restitution God owes no man any thing but what we receive is of gift yet the Lord Almighty hath not wont but in such cases to shew his acceptance and make recompence Nebuchadrezzar for fighting against the City of Tyre which rejoyced at the captivity of the Jews when they were carried unto Rabylon received the Kingdom of Egypt as a reward of his labor Ezek. 29. ver 18. Son of man Nebuchad-rezzar King of Babylon caused his Army to serve a great service against Tyrus every head was made bald and every shoulder was peeled yet had he no wages nor his army for Tyrus for the service which he served against it Ver. 19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God Behold I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchad-rezzar King of Babylon and he shall take her multitude and take her spoil and take her prey and it shall be the wages for his army Ver. 20. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor wherewith he served against it because they wrought for me saith the Lord God And did not the Lord bestow upon Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory for her imprisonment for maintaining of Gods true Religion for resisting the Spaniard befriending the French against the League and protecting the Neatherlands the Kingdom of Ireland For what of that Kingdom had all her