seriously Religious and the House of Christ will be filled with Guests 42. Hereupon the Scandalous and Flagitious Lives of Common Protestants will be much cured For the Number of the Flagitious will grow small and Crimes will be under common Disgrace Besides that they will be punished by the Magistrate So that gross Sin will be a Marvail 43. The Books of plain Doctrine and holy Living with the Pacificatory Treatises of Reconcilers will then be most in Esteem and Use which now are so Dis-relished by turbulent discontented siding Persons And abundance of Controversal-Writings about Church-Government Liturgies Ceremonies and many other Matters will be forgotten and cast aside as useless Things For the Swords shall be made into Plow-Shares and Pruning-Hooks 44. The happy Example of that happy Prince and Country that shall begin and first accomplish this Work will be Famous through all the Protestant-Churches and will enflame such Desires of Imitation in them all and be such a ready Direction in the way that it will greatly expedite their answerable Reformation And the Famous Felicity of that Prince in the Reformation and Concord of his Subjects will kindle in the Hearts of other Protestant-Princes and States an Earnest Desire of the same Felicity And so as upon the Invention of Printing and of Guns the World was presently possessed of Guns and of Printed-Books that never before attained any such thing So here they that see the Happyness of one Kingdom brought about and see how it was done will have Matter enough before their Eyes both to excite their Desires and guide their Endeavours in the Means to bring all this to pass 45. The Protestant Kingdoms and States being thus Reformed and United in themselves will be enflamed with an earnest desire of the good of all other Churches and of all the World And therefore as Divines have held something called General Councils for the Union of all those Churches so these Princes will by their Agents hold Assemblies for maintaining Correspondency to the carrying on of the common good of the World by the Advantage of their United Counsels and Strength And then no Enemy can stand long before them For they that Love and serve them Zealously at home will venture their Lives for them Zealously abroad if there be Cause 46. The excellent and successful use of the Magistrates Government of the Churches in their Dominions will quite shame all the usurping claims of the Pope and General Councels and their mungrel Ecclesiastick Courts and all the train of Artifices and Offices by which their Government of the World is managed And the World and especially Princes will plainly see how much they were abused by their Usurpations and that there is no need of Pope or Cardinal nor any of those Officers or Acts at all But that these are the meer Contrivances of Carnal Policy to keep up an Earthly Kingdom under the name of the Catholick Church And also the Purity and Unity of the Reformed Churches where the vulgar have more Religion and Union than their Monasteries will dazzle the Eyes of the Popish Princes States and People And when they see better and especially the happiness of the Princes they will forsake the Usurper that had Captivated them by fraud and will assume their freedom and felicity And so the Roman Church-Kingdom will fall 47. The deluded Mahometans seeing the Unity and Glory of Christendom as they were before kept from Christ by the Wicked Lives and the Divisions of Christians thinking that we are far worse than they so now they will be brought to admire and honour the Christian Name and fear the Power of the Christian Princes And one part of them will turn Christians and the rest even the Turkish Power the Christians force by the Power of God will easily break And so the Eastern Churches will be delivered and reformed and the Mahometans come into the Faith of Christ 48. The poor scattered Jews also when they see the Glory and Concord of Christians will be convinced that Christ is indeed the true Messias And being Converted perhaps shall by the Christian Powers be some of them Re-established in their own Land But not to their antient peculiarity or policy and Law 49. And then the Christian Zeal will work to the Conversion of the poor Idolatrous Heathen World And part of them will yield to Reason and Faith and the rest by just victories be subdued And so the Kingdoms of the World will become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ And the Gospel shall be Preached in all the World 50. And when the Kingdom of Grace is perfected and hath had its time the Kingdom of Glory shall appear upon the Glorious appearing of Christ our King and the Dead shall Arise and they that have overcome shall Reign with Christ and sit with him upon the Throne even as he overcame and is set down with the Father on his Throne Amen Even so come Lord Jesus John 17. 20 21 22 23 24. Neither Pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the World may believe that thou hast sent me And the Glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be One even as we are One I in them and Thou in Me that they may be made perfect in One and that the World may know that thou hast sent Me and hast Loved them as thou hast Loved Me Father I will that they also whom thou hast given Me be with Me where I am that they may behold My Glory which thou hast given Me. Object But if this World should ever become so happy it would be more amiable and so be a greater snare to our Affections and make us willing to stay from Heaven Answer No Amiableness or Pleasantness stealeth the Heart from God or keepeth it from Heaven but that which hideth the Glory and Goodness of God and Heaven from our Minds or corrupteth and diverteth the will and affections by some inconsistency or contrarity But the spiritual excellency of the Reformed Concordant Church on Earth will so much more clearly Represent Heaven to our conceptions and give our Hearts so pleasant a foretast of it that above all things it will Excite our desires of that fuller Glory and call us most Powerfully to a Heavenly Mind and Life As the first-fruits and earnest do make us desire the Harvest and the full Possession And as now those that Live in the most Heavenly Society and under the most Excellent helps and means have usually more Heavenly Minds and Lives than they that in more tempting and distracting Company never enjoy such Heavenly beams Consectary ALL the Romish-Dreams of Church-Union arise from Ignorance of the true State and Interest of the Church and the true and necessary Terms of Union And all the Plots also of the Moderating Papists that Talk of a Political Church-Catholick having a Visible Constitutive or Governing-Head whether Monarchial the Pope or Aristocratical or Democratical the Patriarchs or a General-Council And that Talk of Universal Laws of this Church made by such a Universal-Head besides the Universal Laws of Christ And falsly feign the Councils called General in a Particular Empire called or ruled by one Emperour only in his own Dominions to have been Universal as to all the Catholick Churches on Earth And that feign these Councils to have been Infallible which so often erred and crost each other And that set the World upon the undeterminable Controversie Which were true General Councils and How many we must Receive and Conform to Whether only Four or Six or Eight and till what Age. And that would perswade the Christian World that what-ever diversity of Canons Customs or Church-Laws or Ceremonies are allowed among them it must all be done or held by this same Authority of the Pope or Council or Both to which though Forreign Kings and Bishops must all be subject and from which they must receive their Christianity and by which all their Reformations must be tryed And that none must be taken as Catholicks nor any Churches tolerated that hold not such a Factious Union under such an Usurping Head Personal or Collective But as Tertullian speaketh rather than endure such Wiser and Better Societies Solitudinem facerent vocarent Pacem And as a Worldy Clergy whose Church and Kingdom is only of and in this World would banish from it all save a Lifeless-Image which hath any Kin to Heaven and suffer none to Live in this World among them but themselves I say all this is 1. From Ignorance of the True Nature of the Christian Religion Church-State and Terms of Unity and Concord which I have lately opened in a Book Entituled The true and only Terms of the Concord of all the Churches 2. And from Contention about Ambiguous Words and Self-Conceitedness in their Controversies ignorantly thence raised which I have sought to End in a Book called Catholick Theology 3. And from vicious Passions and Partiality which I have sought to Heal in a Book called The Cure of Church-Divisions All written long since the Writing of this Foregoing Prognostication FINIS
described 115. Carnal and discontented States-men and Politicians will set in on both sides to blow the Coals and draw on feuds for their own Ends and head the discontented People to their Ruine 116. But in those Countrys where the difference never cometh to such disorders there will be a War bred and kept up in the Peoples Hearts and Neighbours will be against Neighbours as Guelphes and Gibellines 117. When Kingdomes are thus weakened by intestine discontents it will increase the Hopes and Plots of forreign Enemies and make them think that one Party that Suffer will be backward to their own defence as thinking they can be no worse which is the Hopes of the Turks in Hungary 118. It will be a great injury and grief and danger to Christian Kings and States to have their Kingdomes and Common-wealths thus weakened and the Cordial Love and Assistance of their Subjects made so loose and so uncertain 119. And it will be a continual vexation to Wise and Peaceable Princes to Govern such divided discontented People But to rule a United Loving Concordant Peaceable People will be their Delight and Joy 120. A WORLDLY Covetous Proud Domineering Malignant Lazy Clergy will in most Christian Nations be the great Plague of the World and troublers of Princes and Dividers of Churches who for the Interest of their Grandure and their Wills will not give the Sober and Peaceable and Godly Ministers or People Leave to serve God quietly and live in Peace And the Impatient Self-conceited Sectarian Spirit which like Gun-Powder takes Fire upon such Injuries is the secondary divider of the Churches and hinderer of Christian Love and Peace and by their mutual Enmity and abuses they will drive each other so far into the Extremity of Aversation and Opposition that they will but make each other Mad and then like Mad-men run and quarrel while sober Men stand by and pitty them but can help neither the one party nor the other nor preserve their own or the publike Peace 121. The grand Endeavour of the Worldly Clergy will be in most Kingdoms of the World to Engage Princes on their side and to borrow their Sword to do their work with against Gain-sayers For they have no Confidence in the Power of the Keys but will despise them secretly in their Hearts as leaden uneffectual Weapons while they make it the glory of their order that the Power of the Keys is theirs 122. If Princes suppress disorders by the Sword the said Clergy will ascribe the honor of it to themselves and say It was their order that kept up so much Order in the Churches And when they have put Princes to that trouble will assume to themselves the praise 123. The Devil will set in and do his utmost to make both Rulers and People believe that all this Confusion is long of the Christian Religion and the strict Principles of the Sacred Scriptures and so to make Men cast off all Religion and take Christianity to be contrary to their Natural and Civil Interests 124. And the Papists will every where perswade High and Low that all this cometh by meddling so much with the Scriptures and busying the Common People with Religion and leaving every Man to be a Discerning Judge of Truth and Duty instead of trusting implicitely in the Judgment of their Church And so they would tempt Princes tamely to surrender half their Government that is in all Matters of Religion to the Pope and perswade the People to Resign their Reason or Humanity to him that He who is so far off may Rule it all over the World by his Missioners and Agents who must live upon the Prey And then he knoweth that he shall have both Swords and be the Universal King 125. To this end they will strive to make some Rulers as bad as they would have them to do their Work and to make the rest thought worse of than they are that they may have a fair Pretense for their Treasons and Usurpations which was the Case of all the Writers that plead for Pope Gregory the Seventh against the German Emperours who took that Advantage to settle the Cardinals Power of Elections and in a Council at Rome to declare the Pope to be above the Emperour and to Have Power to Depose him And as bad was done in the General-Council at Later under Innocent the Third Can. 2 3. 126. Concerning Princes I shall give you no Prognosticks but Christ's That it will be as hard for a Rich Man to enter into Heaven as for a Camel to go through a Needles Eve And therefore that you may know what Men the Rich will be in most Countries of the World 127. And the Rich will be the Rulers of the World and it s meet it should be so Not that Men should Rule because they are Rich but that they that Rule should be Rich and not exposed to Contempt by a Vulgar Garb and State 128. But some Wise and Good Princes and Magistrates God will raise up to keep the Interest of Truth and Justice from sinking in Barbarousness and Diabolical Wickednâ—ss 129. And where Princes and Magistrates are bad they will seldom do so much Hurt as Good or prove very Cruel where the Worldly or Corrupt Clergy do not animate and instigate them Their Reason their Interest and their Experience will lead them by Man-like Usage to seek the Peoples Love and Quietness and their Kingdomes Unity and Strength But Bloody Persecutions such as that of the Waldenses Piedmont lately France Ireland Queen Maries c. are ordinarily the Effects of Clergy-Interest and Zeal 130. The Grand Designe of the Devil through the World will be to Corrupt the Two great Ordinances of Cod Magistracy and Ministry and turn them both against Christ who giveth them their Power The Instances of his Success are most Notorious in the TURKISH EMPIRE and the PAPAL KINGDOME called by them The Catholick-Church Which Campanella de Regno Dei doth labour to prove by all the Prophesies cited by the Millenarians or Fifth-Monarchy-Men to be the True Universal Kingdom of Christ in which by his Vicar the Pope he shall Reign over all the Kings and Kingdomes of the Earth A Prognostication OF THE CHANGES That will be in CHRISTENDOM IN THE Golden Age AND Time of True Reformation and Unity 1. BEcause it is made part of our Prayers Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven and We look for a New Heaven and a New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness I hope their Opinion is not True who think that the Earth shall still grow liker and liker to Hell till the general Conflagration turn it into Hell and make it the proper Seat of the Damned Yet lest this should prove True I will place my Chiefest Hopes in Heaven remembring who said Sell all and follow me and thou shalt have Treasure in Heaven and not on Earth But supposing that ever the World will come to Full Reformation and Concord which I am uncertain
of but do not despair of I proceed to my Prognosticks of the way 2. God will stir up some happy King or Governour in some Country of Christendome endowed with Wisdom and consideration who shall discern the true nature of Godlyness and Christianity and the Necessity and Excellency of serious Religion and shall see what is the Corruption and Hinderance of it in the VVorld and shall place his Honour and Felicity in pleasing God and doing Good and attaining everlasting Happyness and shall subject all worldly Respects unto these high and glorious Ends. And shall know that Wisdom and Godlyness and Justice leave the most precious Name on Earth and prepare for the most Glorious Reward in Heaven In comparison of which all fleshly Pomp and Pleasure is Dross and Dung and worthy of nothing but Contempt 3. This Prince shall have a discerning Mind to know Wise Men from Foolish Good from Bad and among the Ministers of Christ to discern the Judicious Spiritual Heavenly Sober Charitable and Peaceable sort from Self-seeking Worldly Men that make but a Trade of the Ministry and strive not so much for Heaven and the Peoples Salvation as they do for worldly Honours Power and Wealth And he shall discern how such do trouble the Churches and the World and cause Divisions and stir up Violence for their own VVorldly Interests and Ends. 4. He will take the Councel neither of Worldlings nor true Fanaticks and dividing Persons but of the Learned Godly Self-denying Sober Peaceable Divines with his Grave and Reverend Senators Judges and Counsellors that know what is Reason and Justice and what belongeth to the Publick Good as well as to the true Interest of the Church and of Mens Souls 5. He will know those Men whom he is concerned to use and to judge of as far as may be by Personal Acquaintance and Observation and not by the partial Reports of Adversaries behind their Backs And so he will neither be deceived in his Instruments nor disappointed by them 6. He will call together the wise peace-making Persons and with the strictest Charge commit to them the Endeavours of Reconciling and Uniting the several Parties by drawing their Differences into the narrowest Compass and stating them rightlier than passionate Men do and by perswading them to Love and Peace and to all such Abatements and Forbearances as are necessary And his own prudent Over-sight and Authority like Constantine's at Nice will facilitate the Success 7. He and his People will enquire what Terms of Concord are meet not only for some One Corner or Country but for All the Christian World that when he hath found it out he and his Kingdom may be a Pattern to all Christendome and the Spring and Leven of an Universal Concord of all true Christians 8. Therefore he will enquire of Vincent Lerinensis Catholick Terms of Quod 1. Ab omnibus 2. Ubique 3. Semper receptum est 1. What all Christians are agreed in as Christians in the Essentials of their Religion 2. What all Christians did agree on in the Apostles Time which was the Time of greatest Light Love and Purity 3. VVhat all Christians in all Kingdoms of the VVorld since then to this day in the midst of all their other Differences have been and still are agreed in as their Religion For he will see that there is no hope of Agreeing the Disagreeing VVorld at least in many an Age by changing Mens Judgments from what they are and bringing them all in Controverted Things to the Mind of some Party nor to agree them on any Terms in which they do not really Agree But that their Concord must be founded in that which they are indeed all Agreed in Leaving the Superfluities or Additions of each Party out of the Agreement 9. The Peace-makers will then find that Christian Religion is conteined in Three Forms 1. In the Sacramental-Covenant with God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost as the briefest Formula 2. In the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue as the Summaries of the Credenda Appetenda and Agenda Matters of Faith Will or Desire and Practice as the larger Form 3. In that Canon of Scripture which all the Churches receive as the largest Form or Continent And that he who is understandingly a Sacramental-Covanter with God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost was ever taken for a Visible Christian And therefore Baptism was called our Christening and the Baptized taken for Christians before they knew the Controversies of this Church or that And that the competent explicite Understanding of the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue was ever taken for a competent Understanding of the Sacramental-Covenant and more And that he that implicitely receiveth the commonly-received Canonical Scripture as God's Word though he understand no more than as followeth and that explicitely understandeth the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue and receiveth them and consenteth to the Sacramental-Covenant alwayes was accounted and is still to be accounted a Christian On these Terms therefore the Peace-makers will resolve to endeavour the Union of the Churches 10. Therefore they will pare off and cast away as the greatest Enemy to Unity all those unnecessary Controversies or Things doubtful which Christians yea or Divines were never agreed in and which never were the happy and successful Means or Terms of any Extensive Concord and which have long been tryed to be the great Occasions of all the Scruples and Contentions and Divisions and woful Consequents in the Churches And they will once more say IT SEEMETH GOOD TO THE HOLY-GHOST and to Us TO LAY UPON YOU NO GREATER BURDEN THAN THESE NECESSARY THINGS Act. 15. 28. All Christians shall in general receive the Canonical Scripture as God's Word and more particularly the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue as the Summary of Necessaries and shall profess with competent Understanding of it their Consent to the Sacramental-Covenant and vow and devote themselves therein to God And this shall be all the Title which they shall be forced to shew for their Visible Church-Communion And though a higher Measure of the Understanding of the same Principles and Rules shall be required in Teachers than in the Flock and accordingly the Ordainers shall try their Understandings together with their Utterance and Ministerial Readiness of Parts Yet shall the Teachers themselves be ordinarily forced to no other Subscriptions Professions or Oaths besides their civil Allegiance than to Assent and Consent to all afore-said and to promise Ministerial Fidelity in their Places All Councils called General or Provincial Canons Decretals Articles Formula's Rubricks c. shall be reserved to their proper Use but be no more used for ensnaring and dividing Subscriptions Professions or Oaths or made the Engines to tear the Churches 11. When all those Superfluities and Foot balls of Contention are cast out of the way the Power of the Keys or Pastoral Government shall come to be better known and exercised and the Primitive Discipline set up which took place before Cyril of Alexandria
Preach the Gospel of Salvation they are not bound to keep up any of their Reputation or Interest as long as they have themselves no hand in the Extreams and Passions of the People And some that have Wives and Children and nothing but the Peoples Charity to find them Food and Rayment being turned out of all publike Maintenance by their Afflicters and Prosecuted still with continued violence will think that it is not their duty to beg their Bread from door to door nor to turn their Families to be kept on the Almes of the Parish by losing the Affection of those People whose Charity only they can expect Relief from And therefore they will think that Necessity and Preservation of their Families Lives and Health will better excuse their silence when they Defend not those that would Destroy them against the overmuch Opposition of the People than the Command of their Afflicters will excuse their silence if they neglect to Preach the Christian Faith And some will think that finding themselves hated and hunted by one party if they lose the Affection of the other also they shall have none to do their Office with nor to do any good to and that they shall but leave the People whom they displease to follow those passionate Leaders that will tempt them to more dangerous Extremities against the Peace of Christian Societies But the most judicious and resolved Ministers that Live not on the Favour or Maintenanee of the People or are quite above all Worldly Interest will behave themselves wisely moderately and yet resolvedly and will do nothing that shall distaste sober and wise Men nor yet despise the Souls of the most Impotent or Indiscreet but by solid Principles endeavour to build them upon solid Grounds and to use them with the Tenderness as Nurses should do their crying Children But yet they will not cherish their Sin under the Pretence of profiting their Souls nor by Silence be guilty of their Blood nor so much as connive at those dangerous Extreams that seem to serve some present Exigence and Jobb but threaten future Ruine to the Churches and Dishonour to the Christian Cause And therefore they resolve not to neglect the Duties of Charity to the Bitterest of their Persecutors And the rather because that it will prove in the end a Charity to the Church and to the Souls of the Passionate whose Charity they labour to keep alive And Silence at Sin is contrary to their Trust and Office And they will not be Guilty of that Carnal Wisdom which would do Evil that Good may come by it or that dare not seek to cure the Principles of Uncharitableness Divisions or Extremities in the People for fear of losing Advantages of doing them Good or that dare not disown unlawful Schisms and Separations for fear of encouraging those Malignants that call lawful Practices by that Name They will do God's Work though with Prudence and not destructive Rashness yet with Fidelity and Self-Denyal And they will lay at Christ's Feet not only their Interest in the Favour of Superiors and their Peace and Safety and Liberty and Estates and Lives which are exposed to Malignant Cruelty among the Cainites of the World but also all the Good Thoughts and Words and Favour of the Religious sort of People yea and Pastors too And they will look more to the Interest of the Whole Church than of a Narrow Party and of Posterity than of the Present Time As knowing that at long-running its only Truth that will stand upper-most when Malignant Violence and Sectarian Passions are both run out of Breath And therefore in Simplicity and Godly Sincerity they will have their Conversations in the World and not in Fleshly Wisdom or Selfish-blinding-Passions or Factions Let all Men use them how they will or judge or call them what they will they will not therefore be false to God and to their Consciences And seeing it is their Office to Govern and Teach the People they will not be Governed by the Favour of the most Censorious Ignorant or Proud but will Guide them as Faithful Teachers till they are deserted by them and disabled But the Sober Antient Wise and Experienced will alwayes cleave to them and forsake the Giddy and Sectarian way 96. In the Heat of these Extremities the most Peaceable and sober Part both of the Conformists and Non-conformists will be in best Esteem with the grave and sober People but in the gratest Streight with both the Extreams 97. The Godly and Peaceable Conformists will get the Love of the Sober by their Holy Doctrine and Lives But they will be despised by the Sectaries because they Conform and they will be suspected by the Proud and Persecuting Clergy as leaning to the Dissenters and strengthening them by their Favour because these Ministers will in all their Parishes more love and honour the Godly Non-conformists than the Irreligious Ignorant Wordly Dead-hearted Multitude or the Malignant Enemies of Godlyness 98. Hereupon these Conformists being taken for the chief Upholders of the Non-conformists will be under continual Jealousies and Rebukes And perhaps new Points of Conformity shall be devised to be imposed on them which it is known their Consciences are against that so they may be forced also to be Non-conformists Because Secret Enemies are more dangerous than Open Foes 99. These Conformists being thus troubled will seel also the stirring of Passion in themselves and by the Injury will be tempted to think more hardly of their Afflicters than before And so will Part of them turn down-right Non-conformists and the other Part will live in Displeasure till they see an Opportunity to shew it And these are the likest to cross and weaken the Worldly Persecuting Clergy of any Men. 100. And as for the Moderate Nonconformists that understand what they do and why and seek the Reconciling of all Dissenters they will also be Loved and Honoured by the Sober Grave and Experienced Christians But both Extreams will be against them The Sectaries will say as before That they are Luke-warm and Carnal Selfish Complying Men The proud imposing-Clergy will say That it is they that have drawn the People into these Extreams and then complain of them that they cannot Rule them And they will tell them That till they Conform themselves their Moderation doth but. strengthen the Non-conformists and keep up the Reputation of Sobriety among them And the nearer they come to Conformity the more dangerous they are as being more able to supplant it And thus the Moderate and Reconcilers will be as the Wedge that is prest by both Sides in the Cleft of Church-Divisions And no Side liketh them because they are not given up to the Factious Passions or Interest of Either 101. Only those will in all these Extremities and Divisions keep their Integrity who are 1. Wise 2. Humble and Self-denying 3. Charitable and principled with a Spirit of Love 4. And do take the Favour of God and Heaven alone for their
Hope and Portion whatever becometh of them in the World But the WORLDLY Persecuting and the SECTARIAN Party will be both constituted by these Contrary Principles 1. Ignorance and Error 2. Pride of their own Understandings every one thinking that all are Intollerable that are not of their Mind and Way 3. Uncharitableness Malice or want of Love to others as to themselves 4. And over-valuing their Worldly Accommodations Honours and Estates 102. Hereupon the Instruments of a Foolish Shepherd will still be used to the greater Scattering of the Flocks And because none are so able to Dispute against them as the Moderate therefore they will be taken for their most dangerous Adversaries And when they are greatly inclined to the Healing of these Wounds the Violent and Lordly will not suffer them but will pour Oyl upon the Flames which Moderate Men would quench And as if they were Blindfolding and Scourging Christ again they will follow the People with afflicting Wounds and then charge the Moderate Ministers with their Discontents and charge them to reduce them to Peace and Conformity And if they cannot get them to Love and Honour those that are still Scourging them with Scorpions the Scourgers will lay the Blame on these Ministers and say It is all long of them that the People love not those that Wound them And they that cry out most for Peace will not endure it nor give the Peace-makers leave to do any thing that will accomplish it nor will keep the Spurr out of the Peoples Sides whilst they look that others spur'd more Sharply should hold the Reins which yet at the same time they take out of their Hands and forbid them to hold by forbidding them to Preach the Gospel So that it will be the Sum of their Expectations Perform not the Office of Pastors nor Preach the Gospel of Peace and Piety to the People any more But yet without Preaching to them see that you Teach them all to Love and Honour us while we Silence you and Afflict them or else we will account you Intollerable Seditious Schismaticks and use you as such 103. In some Kingdomes or Countries it will be thought that the People will be brought to no Obedience to the Lordly Pastors till their most able or moderate Ministers are kept from them by Banishment Imprisonment or Confinement Which will accordingly be done 104. When the Ministers are Banished or Removed that restrained the Peoples Passions the People will make Preachers of themselves even such as are suited to their Minds 105. Where Papists or Hereticks are shut out by Laws they will secretly contribute the utmost of their Endeavours to make the Sufferings of Dissenting Protestants as grievous as possibly they can that in despite of them their own Necessities may compel them to cry out for Liberty till they procured a common Tolleration for all and opened the Door for Papists and Hereticks as well as for Themselves 104. Surely Oppression will make Wise Men Mad Eccles 7. 7. 107. Mad Men will speak Madly and do Madly 108. They that speak and do madly will be thought meetest for Bedlam and for Chains 109. When the Ministers are Banished or Removed and the People left to their Passions and their ownmade-Guides and Teachers passionate Women and Boyes and unsetled Novices will run into unwarrantable Words and Deeds and will think those Means lawful which seem to promise them Deliverance though they be such as God forbiddeth 110. The Seditions and Miscarriages of some Few will be imputed to the Innocent 111. For the sake of such Miscarriages in some Kingdomes the Sword will be drawn against them and the Blood of many will be shed 112. Hereupon the mis-guided passionate Youth being by the Proud Clergy deprived of the Presence of that Ministry that should moderate them are like enough to think Rebellion and Resisting of Authority a Lawful Means for their own Preservation And will plead the Law of Nature and Necessity for their Justification 113. If any of the Sober Wise Experienced Pastors be left among them that would restrain them from unlawful ways and perswade them to patient Suffering they will be taken for complying betrayers of Religion and of the Peoples Lives that would have them tamely Surrender their Throats to Butchery As in a Parenthesis I will give them some instances for this Prognostick 1. The great Lord Du Plâ—ssis one of the most excellent Noble-Men that ever the Earth Bore that is known to us by any History being against the holding of an Assembly of the French Churches against the Kings Prohibition was rejected by the Assembly as complying with the Courtiers because they said the King had before promised or granted them that Assembly But the refusing of his Counsel cost the Blood of many Thousand Protestants and the loss of all their Garrisons and Powers and that lowness of the Protestant Interest there that we see at this Day 2. The great Divine Peter De Moulin was also against the Rochellers Proceedings against the Kings Prohibitions and so were some chief Protestant Nobles But he was rejected by his own party who paid for it by the Blood of Thousands and their ruin 3. I lately Read of a King of France that hearing that the Protestants made Verses and Pasquels against the Mass and Processions of the Papists made a severe Law to prohibit it When they durst not break that Law their indiscreet Zeal carried them to make certain ridiculous Pictures of the Masse-Priests and the Processions which moderate Ministers would have diswaded them from but were accounted Temporizers and Luke-warm By which the King being exasperated shut up the Protestant Churches took away their Liberties and it cost many Thousand Men their Lives And the Question was Whether God had Commanded such Jears and Scorns and Pictures to be made at so dear a rate as the rooting out of the Churches and Religion and the Peoples Lives 4. Great Camero one of the most judicious Divines in the World was in Montabon when it stood out in Arms against the King accounted formerly impregnable He was against their Resistance perswaded them to submit The People of his own Religion reviled him as a Traytor one of the Souldiers threatned to run him Through In a Scottish Passion he unbuttoned his Doublet and cryed Feri miser Strike varlet or do thy worst And in the heat striving to get his own Goods out of the City fell into a Feavor and Dyed The City was taken and the rest of the holds through the Kingdom after it to the great fall of all the Protestants and the loss of many Thousand Lives 114. Where the Devil can bring differences to extremities of Violence the issues are not hard to be conjecturally fore-seen but are such as my Prognosticks shall no further meddle with than to foretell you that both sides are preparing for the Increase of their fury and extremities and at last for Repentance or ruinous Calamities if they do as I have