is the effect and fruit of burning as we see in ashes of wood 2. for that salt whether it be taken inwardly or applied outwardly causeth a sense of burning We use to say As salt as fire understanding so salt as if we were burnt with it as with fire Touching the continuance of the Pains of Hell Salt signifieth that also for the property of salt is to keep from corruption and decaying In which sense the phrase of Holy Scripture is a Covenant of salt signifying a Covenant which is never to be broken but to endure for ever The Lake of Sodom the moniment of Gods vengeance upon those sinsul Cities Sodom and Gomorrha and the Cities about them is used by the Holy Ghost as a Type of Hell the place and condition of the damned and called the Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone Rev. 19. 20. because in that lake called the Dead Sea and Asphaltitis is found much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine Bitumen which by the Poet Ovid is shewn to be a matter apt to take fire and unquenchable though by him distinguisht from Brimstone and is a pitchy substance known to Apothecaries although in some place it is by the Interpreters of the Bible called Slime Gen. 14. 10. it is called by another Hebrew word and by a Greek word so interpreting it Brimstone Deut. 29. 23. and in the above-named place in the Revelation Ovids words make it of the nature of Brimstone notwithstanding Metamorph. Book 14. Lurida supponunt faecundo Sulphura fonti Incenduntque cavas fumante Bitumine venas Blew-burning Brimstone's cast into the Spring And smoaking Earth-pitch fires the veins within This place as it is a Figure of Hell in respect of the matter of unquenchable fire contained in it being a remainder of that Brimstone which being kindled fell from Heaven and destroyed those Cities and so likewise was it a Type of Hell in relation to the saltnesse of that Lake called also the Salt-sea being so exceeding salt that no living creature is found therein as it were painting unto us the Duration of their Torments and their bodies preserved from Corruption All the qualities of this Lake for which it is by God Almighty constituted a Modle of Hell are not necessarily to be reckoned up but some of them are sufficient to have been exprest to instruct and direct us while the other are not mentioned that we may take pains to search after them For thus we finde in an expression of that Lake Brimstone sometimes left out of the description and only Fire mentioned Rev. 20. 14. And death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire But of the Saltnesse of that place and as to a Punishment it is confirmed Deut. 29. 23. And that the whole land thereof is Brimstone and Salt and Burning that it is not sowen nor beareth nor any grasse groweth therein like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrha Admah and Zeboim which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath I might take a view of some other things pertaining to this disease of the Leprosie wherein some other matters are pointed at but what I have already spoken will be enough to denote what it typifies in the Nature of Sin and the Punishment But the great thing which was intended by this strange disease and for which cause it was sent and when that was come ceased to be any more and the chief Scope unto which the Leprosie by the Wisedom of the Lord aimed was his Son Christ Jesus which was then to come the Leprosie the Shadow Christ the Substance And as when the Body comes the Shadow thereof gives place in like manner when our Lord and Saviour had suffered the pains of death for the sins of the world and made us clean being our High-priest from our uncleannesse so many as he ordained to eternal life whom he pronounced clean as a good and skilful Priest saying Joh. 13. 10. You are clean but not all then afterward began the Leprosie quickly after his death to depart For the chief thing which was signified by the Leprosie was now come and the Mystery sulfilled our Priest was come and made us clean For now no such Leprosie found in Palestina nor any where among the nation of the Jews And the Ceremonies and Rites used in cleansing the Leper do point out our Saviour and what he did and suffered for us In the Cleansing of a House healed of the Leprosie use was made of two living Birds Cedar-wood Scarlet and Hyssop one of which birds was to be killed over running water in an earthen vessel and dipping the living bird the Cedar-wood Scarlet and Hyssope in the blood of the slain bird and in the running water and sprinkling the House seven times it is said Lev. 14. 52. that with all the fore-named things the Priest shall cleanse the House and ver 53. But he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields and make an atonement for the House and it shall be clean Who to whom God hath given but an ordinary understanding willl not acknowledge here that the shedding of the blood of one bird and the other let fly into running water and in an earthen vessel into running water as to go into the Sea whither all running water is carried and all rivers run to be conveyed all the world over for from thence come all fountains did signifie so much touching the shedding of our Saviours blood for all the world Or who can then doubt that the receiving of it in an earthen vessel did betoken our Saviours taking our flesh upon him whose bodies as his being originally from the earth are called earthen vessels Nor can we gainsay the flying away of the other bird one of the same kinde did declare our Saviours resurrection and ascension into Heaven as birds are called fowls of Heaven It will certainly be granted that the Cedar signified two things his Cross as it is a tree on which he suffered death and the excellency of his person above all other men as the Cedar in loftinesse excelleth all trees And eminent men are metaphorically by the Prophet called Cedars Ezek. 17. 3. 22 31. and by the Holy Penman 2 King 14. 9. The Scarlet being lambs wool so died figured his innocent patient and bloody death But the Hyssope a low shrub growing upon the wall as Scripture calleth it and in a relation of Solomons History of Trees is opposed unto the Cedar the lowest to the highest and in the Ceremonials appointed in cleansing the leprous House being joyned to the Cedar pointeth at our Saviour Jesus Christ in his humility who humbled himself to take our trail nature upon him yea the form of a servant descending from heaven and disrobing himself of his transcendent glory With this dipt in blood of the Paschal Lamb were the lintels and two side-posts of the Israelites doors to be sprinkled for ever Exod. 12. 22 23 24. And a sponge filled with
OR â—HE Calamities of ENGLAND With the AUTHORS of them 〈◊〉 â—â—eat HAPPINESS and Happy GOVERNMENT OF K. CHARLES II ENSUING Miraculously FORESHEWN by the Finger of GOD in two wonderful Diseases the REKETS AND KINGS-EVIL Wherein is also shewen and proved I. That the â—EKETS after a while shall seize on no more Children but 〈◊〉 VANISH through the MERCY of GOD and by MEANS of K. CHARLES II. II. That K. CHARLES II is the LAST of KINGS which shall so HEAL the KINGS-EVIL Discovered by the Hand of the Lord upon his unworthy Servant and his Majesties Subject JOHN BIRD And by 〈…〉 publike for the Glory of GOD Honor of the KING and comfort of the PEOPLE of God Joh. 16 13. and he will show you things to come 〈◊〉 Printed for Fra. Sowle and are to be sold by Robert Harrison the next Shop to Greâ— Church in Leaden-Hâ—â—â— Street 1661. To our Dread Soveraign Lord CHARLES II By the Grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland King SIR I Here humbly offer into your Royal Hands a Message sent from Heaven for your Majesties acceptance Written it is in the mystical Characters of Two Diseases and partly upon your Royall Hands which now heal one of these Diseases and shall do the other The signification whereof in summe is to shew How miserable your Kingdomes have been through want of your Royal Father first and since of your Majesty How happy these your Dominions shall most certainly be made by your Religious Just and Merciful Government and lastly what shall be done by Almighty God for you here upon the earth in recompence of your Royall Fathers our Late Soveraigns precious blood your Majesties Wrongs and Afflictions your Constancy in the true Religion against so many Temptations your Maintaining of the Honor of God in your religious care of Gods Worship and your Compassion and Love toward your Majesties poor oppressed Subjects Nor let it seem more strange unto your Majesty that Diseases should portend such great matters than a Star that Star which with the next rising Sun after your joyful Nativity shining with the glorious Sun as gloriously in his ascension and even at mid-day should designe your Majesties Person and future Glory which undoubtedly it did For there is a similitude and proportion betwixt sins and calamities on the one side and bodily Diseases on the other for both disquiet and disease us as likewise therefore betwixt the healer of the one and the taker away of the other Far be it from me Gracious Soveraign to require from your Majesty credit to what I shall affirm nor is it just I should upon my bare assertion Let your Majesties Reason and Royall Wisedome judge whether that I deliver be probable or not For such Reason as is grosse and depraved or meerly Naturall cannot pierce into those deep matters but such which is fine and yet helpt and directed by rule of Holy Scripture For Ignorance Prejudice and Rashness cannot and Interest will not discern these Mysteries Let not the meanness of the discoverer discredit the truth of these things to your Majesty which may call to minde that the glad tidings of our Saviours Nativity was by the Angels first made known to Shepherds If I shall speak Royal Soveraign in some places very freely or peradventure too boldly give me leave or pardon me Merciful Prince who being a great King cannot but be very sensible what a crime it should be for a credited Messenger to temper the Message of the King of Kings It now remains that these things which are to come be beleeved that Almighty God be entreated and have the Glory of all on your Majesties part that you prepare your self for the embracing so great Hopes on your Subjects that we all repent and with humble thankfulness for so great mercies toward us our Love and Reverence toward so blessed a Prince our Soveraign be encreased And that all this may be done is and shall be the continual prayer and earnest endeavour of Your Majesties ever Loyal and Loving Subject JOHN BIRD The EPISTLE to the READER IT is now twenty years ago since when this formerly united Kingdom divided into parties that I also clave in my opinion to one for who could do otherwise even to that side which so much pretended to the love of Religion and Justice that these and not self-love was their end What I did was altogether from the first to the last peaceably which notwithstanding the distinction spoiled my aged Father for the same cause and myself of our goods and quiet habitation We bare it patiently But this Virgin Assembly quickly forgat the guide of her youth although she still wiped her mouth and said She had committed no evil to the neglect and perverting of all Justice And here I left them What comfort had I then in this my condition If I lost what I had for Christs sake as God and my Conscience are witness I did I am promised Recompence in this world a hundred-fold and do acknowledge that I have found it though not in riches For first I am hereby more assured because I abhor all Injustice that I am in that small number which the Scripture so often cals Just men Secondly I am comforted that such times have been of old and such as God detests and will punish Jer. 5. 1. Lastly in abundant recompence to the utmost of what the Lord hath-promised such Secret Mysteries from the first to the last have been from God revealed unto me as may appear in a Treatise written by me called ROMAVATUM wherein the History of the Religion Policy and Destruction of the City of Rome is discovered to have been portended in the Theology and Fables of the ancient Heathen Greek and Latine c. not quite finished Next through the mercy of God in my Annotations upon Ezekiel chap. 1. c. now ready for the Press beside this here presented Reader farewell and let God have the praise of all which is true herein as from whom it came all the errors and imperfections I challenge as mine own excepting some few mistakes of the Printers From my Chamber in Sion College in London Jan. 24. 1660. JOHN BIRD LEst I should incur your blame for not presently falling upon the main work in shewing you instantly how the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL foreshew and declare the promised things and that I may not justly deserve worse in telling you so great a Paradox having not first made known unto you how such a matter may be done I judge it here fit to let you know that I have prepared this other as a better way which may by Gods assistance bring you to a fuller and clearer view of whatsoever is pretended in the Title if you enter upon it and go along orderly as it here lies before you IN old time when Israel was in Egypt and afterward when Israel and Judah dwelt in their own land and when the Jews were carried into Babylon the Almighty
all this scarcely did they then beleeve the Prophets For how soon had they forgotten the miracles which Moses did before them when being told more then once that God had promised to bring them into the land of Canaan to give it them for a possession after that he had performed his promise in bringing them out of the land of Egypt had led them by a pillar of fire and a cloud yet being pursued by the Egyptians they murmured against the Lord beleeved not his servant Moses concluding they should be then slain by the Egyptians Exo. 14. 12. Isaiah who was so far acquainted with the Lords mind that he expresly told King Hezekiah as a signe which was required by the king by the going back of the shade of the Sun on the Diall of Ahaz ten degrees the recovery of the king and the lengthening of his life fifteen years 2 King 20. yet complaineth the Prophet that what he prophesied was neither understood nor beleeved Isa 53. 1. Who hath beleeved our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed Likewise when Jeremiah prophesied to the Jews and what he foretold of their captivity came fully to pass then false Prophets which prophesied of their sudden return were more credited by the People For that remnant of the People which was left behind by Nebuchadnezzar in Jerusalem after thrise carrying them away into Chaldea the first in the third year of Jehojakim Dan. 1. 2. the next in Jehojakims the third in Jehojachins reign and with him plainly did not beleeve Jeremiah nor Ezekiel prophesying unto them the destruction and burning of their City and Temple boasting notwithstanding that they should not be nor the City any more taken calling Jerusalem the Caldron and themselves the flesh Ezek. 11. 3. concluding thereby that the City was made for them and they for the City so as that they should not be parted So for the Necessity of the work that the children of God might have a firm foundation on which their faith should be built the Holy Pen-men of Scripture were fully inspired by God so as no word in Holy Scripture written by the Prophets and Apostles is there found which God did not miraculously inspire into the mindes of those Holy men Concerning his Apostles and Evangelists Christ promised that they should be guided into all truth Joh. 16. 13. and Peter saith 2 Pet. 1. 20. That no Prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation whose meaning is not as the Papists pretend That no private or single person may expound the Scripture nor as it is by us commonly expounded That every Pen-man of the Books of God was inspired by Gods Spirit and wrote not his own private conceits but this No Prophecy of the Scripture so called because it contains the Almighty's counsel is of any private interpretation not only as it is free from the mixture of humane inventions which are contrary to the mind of God but there is not one word therein nor syllable which was not dictated unto them by the holy Ghost And this is fully to my purpose For we know that the Scripture is the Word of God and he that expoundeth and applieth it as he ought preacheth nothing but the Word of God but the first is of no private but the other is of private interpretation But for the times which followed the Lord promised they should be such as that in them old men should dream dreams and young men should see Visions and that their Sons and their Daughters should prophesie Act. 21. 17. and that their servants and handmaids should have Gods Spirit poured upon them Joel 12. 29. signifying that in those times which began sooner after our Lords Ascension and now are very ordinary and mean persons should have such an extraordinary measure of Divine knowledge exceeding the foregoing ages as that they may be accounted all Prophets and Prophetesses But Daniel declareth in what manner and by what means this great knowledge shall be attained thereby expounding what the Prophet Joel and out of him S. Luke speaketh Dan. 12. 4. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be encreased Where by running to and fro is to be understood Labour and Search that is Study So for that these times are within the ages of great light which as it was promised so we have by experience found it fullfilled that common people which are bred up under able Teachers and Prophets and which give themselves to search into the written Mysteries of Salvation are not so fat-hearted and stupid as not to understand and not to beleeve the Word of God preached unto them but are able by Gods Spirit to search the Scriptures and to discern whether those things which are delivered unto them from their Prophets be true or not And therefore for this cause there is no need of a fully illuminated Prophet to be among us either lest we should want sure guides or be deluded with errors having both the Old and New Testament for our direction which sure word of Prophecy the ancients were partly or wholly without As for the foreknowledge of things which are to come there is neverthelesse still and will be a profitable use and necessity thereof and a part thereof contained in the Visions which are written in Holy Scripture and the searching of them commended unto us by the Spirit of God saying Whatsoever was written in former time was written for our learning another part in those Signes which God hath sent and will send into the world as miracles to be considered by us For the words of our Saviour fully declare that there should be Signes of things which were to follow in the heavens on the earth and in the waters Luk. 21. 25. And there shall be Signes saith he in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the earth distress of Nations with perplexity the Sea and waters roaring v. 26. Mens hearts failing them for fear and looking after those things which are coming on the earth But to what purpose had the Prophecies and Visions of Daniel and Ezekiel and the most mystical Vision of the Canticles and those of the Revelation of S. John with others been as they are left unto us unexpounded if God had denied wholly unto us a Prophetical Spirit to presage what was to be afterward and what was contained in the Holy Visions For there is little difference whether the Lord sends the Vision to us at first or by them unto us what he intends to do Therefore it is to be gathered from the fore-named Scriptures by diligently weighing and comparing them one with another that the distinction of the Old Prophets which lived and prophesied before our Saviours Incarnation I understand Prophets or Seers most properly so called for the other were their ordinary Preachers as may be collected from sundry Scriptures especially from Neh. 6. 7. from those which have since and now live under the Gospel doth
consist in two things 1. In a more full evident and more infallible Discovery of Gods secrets unto those old Prophets for the Causes which have been alledged 2. In causing the Prophets to whom such Visions came to understand them either instantly and at first sight of them or if not with the sight of them immediatly yet at least after Fasting and Prayer all concurring nevertheless to declare that the Revelation of them came immediatly from God and was not helpt then forward with Study and Labour For the first Difference although S. Paul acknowledgeth that he with the rest of his brethren knew in part and prophesied in part yet is that so to be understood as with relation to the more perfect knowledge and revealing Gods mysteries in the life to come and partly that we should know that neither S. Paul himself nor the Prophets before him did partake of all Gods minde and counsel The Apostle knew not certainly whether a beleeving husband having an unbeleeving wife yet content to dwell with him ought or ought not to put her away 1 Cor. 7. 12. But for what he did know and the necessary things which were to be known he and the rest of the Prophets may be said according to Christs promise to his Disciples to have all things shewn unto them Touching the second Difference it is evident that Ezekiels Vision which he saw Ezek. 1. 1. was immediatly understood by him For the heavens saith the Prophet were opened and I saw Visions of God and v. 3. And the hand of the Lord was there upon him which is in that very place the illuminating Spirit of God was upon me Unto Daniel the words of the Angel are Dan. 9. 23. At the beginning of thy supplication the commandment came forth and I am come to shew thee for thou art greatly beloved therefore understand the matter and consider the Vision This you see was granted upon supplication but in these later times as it is first the Lords gift to set us to consider those Visions which he sends it is next the Lords blessing upon our labor and study or running to and fro in making us understand them Nor are such Visions sent immediately or conveyed mediately unto us in these days understood at the first instant as then they were nor much of such Visions to be understood although in their own nature capable of being understood until a certain time come I shall not need to use any other testimony hereof then that of Daniel Dan. 12. 9. And he said Go thy way Daniel for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end But whether now adays God hath sent Visions and Signes of things to come and what he intends to bring upon the earth or to acknowledge our Blessed Saviours words true that there shall be Signes c. or rather that they are not now to be expected but nearer the end of the world let us hear the words of that wise heathen man Cicero whether it be found true by experience that God hath sent forewarnings unto the world of what matters of great moment he intends to do For to do so in behalf of his great love to his children and their necessities is most reasonable Thus writeth Cicero in his first book De Divinatione Vetus opinio est jam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus eaque populi Romani omnium gentium firmata consensu versari quandam inter homines Divinationem quam Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellant id est praesensionem scientiam rerum futurarum It is saith he an old opinion derived from those long-past forgotten times of the antient Heroes that there is such a kind of Divination to be found among men as is the foreknowledge and foresight of things ensuing which the Greeks name Prophecy This the Philosopher proving not from the bare opinion of one or two nor of all nations which in such a case were little worth but the opinion being grounded upon the particular and concurring observations and experiments of all is to be esteemed an argument of great moment For the same Author in the same book a little after addeth Gentem quidem nullam video neque tam humanam atque doctam neque tam immanem atque barbaram quae non significari futura à quibusdam intelligi praedicique posse censeat Which is I can finde no Nation neither civil and learned nor savage and barbarous which is not of this opinion That future things are not only foreshewn but that some there be which can understand them and foretell what shall come This observation and opinion grounded thereon of all nations I shall confirm by the Judgement of an Authour a Papist in Profession yet in his opinion a very Atheist who instructing Princes in all kinde of wicked Arts which may serve to advance their greatnesse even to the mocking of Almighty God by making a semblance of Religion to delude the people is forced to confess though unwillingly and against himself that Troubles and Wars are ordinarily and miraculously foreshewn to such whom it concerneth to know them Machiavil is that man who in his first book and 36. Chapter of his Discourses upon Livy writes in the Italian tongue what sounds thus in English Great Troubles which are to befall Cities and Provinces are usually foretold and this is done either by certain Signes and Tokens or else by the Presages of men Then afterward he proceedeth in this manner As I shall willingly confess the Cause I am ignorant of so that notwithstanding the thing is true it cannot be denied by examples which may be produced both in former and later times but I must acknowledge that all great Troubles which have befallen any City or Countrey have been commonly foreshewn and premonstrated either by Presagers or some Revelation or by Prodigies and Signes in heaven Who lastly in the same place is driven to acknowledge that these Premonitions and Forewarnings do proceed from a knowing and Loving Nature in naming and describing of which Machiavil goes no farther then the Heathen which taught him calling them Spirits and Intelligences Unless haply saith he in the said Chapter the air be full of Spirits and Intelligences which foreseeing things which are to ensue and grieving at mens adversities do by such forerunning Signes make them known to men that they may make timely preparation and defense against them Next among those which profess Christianity whether they be of the Church of Rome or of the Reformed Religion it is a received opinion on both sides That God doth give miraculous Forewarnings in these days I shall not need name more then those three great lights of the Reformed Protestant Profession Orthodox Judicious and Learned Calvin Perkins and Ussher which every one acknowledge what I have said touching miraculous Admonitions the first in his Comment upon Mebuchadnezzars dream the second where he adviseth to examine when a man pretendeth
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