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
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
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