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
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
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
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
note Rome now tending to destruction had no Remedy left for their miseries but all of them by faith in one and the same Jesus to apply that universal Medicine Balm Which Medicine the miserable Jews deny and the Romanâ—sts under value his blood scarce equalling it to their own merits and the Virgin Maries love Notwithstanding of such things as do point at matters of moment not only past or present but to come whether singly or jointly there is a difference Some there be which do only in an ordinary manner and secondarily without any wonder set forth such things of which sort are the Paschal lamb betokening Christ who was to be revealed in his innocency the Priesthood of Aaron and the shedding the blood of Sacrifices prefiguring Christs Priesthood and offering up himself a bloody Sacrifice Hyssope betokens his humility and multitude of things of that sort A second sort of things there is and Persons which figure the things forenamed in an extraordinary principal manner and are accompanied with wonder these like extraordinary Embassadors are by the Mercy of the Lord sent to point out great and most weighty matters unto us The Rainbow was a Seal that God would never destroy the world again by waters The water gushing out of the Rock in the wilderness of which the Israelites drank did by miracle and by extraordinary example and by principall intention prefigure Christs blood of which his children drank by faith 1 Cor. 10 4. And did all the Patriarchs drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them and that Rock was Christ Such was the Manna which rained in the wildernesse for the food of the Israelites the same spiritual meat ver 3 by the Apostle interpreted Christ And of this second sort of Signes was Balm extraordinarily principally and wonderfully betokening Jesus Christ It was a liquor if we may believe Pliny in the place aforesaid issuing out of the sides of the wounded tree and though not at first turning to a red colour so resembling blood and for the precious medicinable nature of it most like out Saviours blood and by the miraculous ceasing at first as it may be thought by that great scarcity of the oyl from such a multitude of Trees mentioned in Pliny of the Balm it self and soon after of the tree even to this day that it was of those Types of Christ which when he came ceased to be and that wonderfully And to this very time the Prophet alludes when he saith Is there no balm in Gilead Is there no Physician there even to the later times of the Jews after our Saviour As if he should have said Although there be no Balm yet there is notwithstanding a Physician there yea because there is no Balm in Gilead look for a Physician in that place for the Soul-sick Nation by faith in him Which Lord in mercy make haste to give that miserable people And of this portending Medicine Balm hitherto The Second Medicine Prodigious shewing in part what was present and what to come mentioned in Holy Scripture is the Pool of Bethesda which cured those which were put therein with what disease or infirmity soever they were troubled Of which water and the Medicinal quality thereof hear what S. John writeth ch 5. ver 2. Now there is at Hierusalem by the Sheep-market a Pool which is called in the Hebrew Tongue Bethesda having five porches Vers 3. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk of blind halt withered waiting for the moving of the water Vers 4. For an Angel went down at a certain season into the Pool and troubled the water whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had That the water of this Pool did not by any natural vertue cure all sorts of diseases I need use no Argument to prove For although there have been found and now are certain waters which do cure or help some Diseases but no waters were ever heard of that could cure other diseases much less all of what kind soever The Text it self shews by what power this vertue was given to the wate expressing That an Angel went down at a certain season and troubled the water and so at that time and no other it became helpful This needs no words more to shew how wonderfull it was so far from observation of the like and course of all natural Medicines Wherefore I conclude that this miraculous Pool was a true and appointed Type of Christ and his blood because of the universal extension of the curing by the waters of his blood I say which was shed for all our sins and soul diseases and sicknesses which by faith it cures and takes away For when the water was troubled at that time only it was indued with sanative virtue which was when the water in its substance resembled blood at which time of its stirring and troubling the water being made thick by the mixture of the earth from the sides and bottome of the Pool and when the mixt substance by standing still of the water setled again the water becoming and losing the likeness of blood which haply at that time of stirring it might attain in colour also the medicinable quality vanished therewith If the water which issued out of the rock in the wildernesse was a Type of Christs blood for as much reason and more agreeable to outward sense must the water of this Pool be a Figure of the same Yea I doubt not but that the water which came out of that rock which signified Christ should have been a troubled water and thick like unto this but that a clearer liquor was permitted unto them by indulgence lest it might offend their stomachs here a more grosse and blood-like water fit enough to bathe in was more perfectly to paint out our Saviours blood And these two waters the one to drink the other to bathe allude to the words of our Saviour saying My blood is drink indeed Joh. 6. 55. and of Saint John Revel 1. 5. speaking of our Saviour that he Washed us from our sins in his own blood Lastly it appeareth that this Pool of Bethesda was in all the forenamed respects a Type of our Saviours blood and a shadow of him for after his death this wonderful quality of curing all diseases left it for ever So far concerning Diseases and Medicines which were prodigious shewing things some past others present but chiefly things which were to come principally extraordinarily and wonderfully and among other things which they did signifie as with relation to him they aimed at the Person and Office of Christ Jesus our Saviour But whereas all matters of moment have been ordinarily foreshewn which concern Gods glory and his dearly beloved Spouse the Church since KINGS and Potentates of the earth are such Persons as upon whom the good and welfare of the people of God depends when they are good Princes but being
not so they are not only Persecutors of the Church themselves but all their subjects follow their Princes example a great part therefore of such matters which the Lord is pleased to premonish his people of whether good or evil is joyned with the Persons and Princes which shall be principal authors of such things This is manifest in Nebuchadnezzars first and second Vision and in many of Daniels wherein are foreshewn the different estates of the Four Monarchies in respect of their Princes and by Ezekiel chap. 1. in the Vision of the Four living Creatures with four Faces applied distinctly unto the Church how those Princes of the Four Monarchies should exercise their authority toward the Jews their Subjects and Captives Insomuch that not only Josias was fore-named who should be a Pious and Excellent Prince unto the Jews near three hundred years before his birth but Cyrus also a heathen Prince who should be Gods Shepherd to help and cherish his people many years before he was born pointing and shewing them as with the finger a King who contrary to the nature of other Princes should send them home freely out of their captivity assisting them in whatsoever they could desire So it is not without example that a Prince should be designed by name if otherwise by some way equivalent to a name it will be the same thing to some great work some ages before he was Now having laid a strong foundation as I suppose for what follows concerning the Matter which I have before affirmed to have been comprehended in the two forenamed Diseases the REKETS and KINGS-EVIL I come at length to make good my assertion by making it by Gods grace appear to a judicious and competent Reader to be altogether true And first of all it will be needful that I describe unto you the Disease at large with the necessary circumstances thereunto belonging The Description of the REKETS THe REKETS is a Disease so strange and which is therefore to be wondred at that it was not heard of in our fathers times but began in our memory and not many years ago and in that part of the Kingdom according to the report of the most diligent Searchers and learned Writers thereof the Authors De Rachitide which is most healthful either Dorset or Somersetshire not in London nor in a Marish countrey Neither did this New Disease arise from contagion at first nor doth it now as the Venereous doth For no Countrey was found infected with this malady until England was seizing upon young infants not in the womb not until nine ot ten moneths of age lest any man should suspect it might arise from the infection of their parents Nor doth this Malady accrue by default of the nurse nor by evil attendance for it layeth hold wheresoever it pleaseth Almighty God on rich and poor even where greatest care is had and spareth as often such as are much or altogether neglected To finde out the Cause of which disease the Physicians have most diligently lookt about from one Cause to another so much and so far as to the stars but seldome higher till at the length they acknowledge They lose themselves And now I proceed to the DESCRIPTION of the REKETS at the full from the First and Pathognomik Signe thereof through each degree unto the utmost extent of the same not as it is in every single Patient affected with the REKETS but taken collected and put together from all and every childes Symptomes which is troubled therewith The REKETS is a disease laying hold on yong children about nine or ten moneths old in which the Childes HEAD is always OVER-GREAT for when other Symptomes are wanting which notwithstanding is seldome or never that One is never absent while the REKETS are present I proceed to the other Signes all of which are rarely missing together or if haply onely in the beginning of the sicknesse With the Head the FACE of the childe hath an appearance of SOBER GRAVITY much differing therein from the looks of other children The NOSE which is the ordinary Purging place of the Head and Brain is dry without distillation of Rheum in those children and is UNPURG'D Those children which lye under this Infirmity are of much more WIT and UNDERSTANDING then others of so small age The TEETH of them if they were first sound turn all ROTTEN and fall away or else they TOOTH very LATE The ARM-BONES become CROOKED The WRIST-JOYNTS and ANCLE-JOYNTS grow KNOPPY called DOUBLE-JOYNTS The FLESH of the whole BODY is PINED The BELLY appears OVERGROWN The RIBS toward the Breast are found VERY THICK and the EXTUBERANCIES named KNOTS The SHIN-BONES of these children RISE very HIGH and appear SHARP HIGH in the MIDDLE and DECLINING ABOVE and BENEATH Their THIGH-BONES and LEG-BONES are CROOKED The BREAST like in shape for sharpness to the BREAST of a FOWLE and KEELE of a SHIP The use of their FEET although when they were yonger they could walk is TAKEN AWAY Lastly not onely their stature by the bending of their Leg and Thigh-bones is shortened but their GROWTH is HINDRED The REMEDIES vulgarly commended against the REKETS I Shall not have any thing to do here with those various Remedies which have been invented against this disease Nor indeed is it easie to set down the greatest part of them many of which and of the best of that sort are compiled in that Learned Treatise De Rachitide But I shall reckon up such Remedies as as are Empirical and go current among the people universally nothing depending upon Reason and Experience together as others do although these also have had their influence upon and gotten credit I know not for what cause among the learned also Of this sort are Three in Number 1. REMEDY is SWINGING such children from side to side TOSSING them UP and DOWN and Turning them TOPSEY TURVEY 2. LIFTING the sick children up by the ARMS 3. Letting them BLOOD BEHINDE the EARE So much at present for the DESCRIPTION of the REKETS and REMEDIES I come now to the other Disease called the KINGS-EVIL the REKETS answering to EVERY SICK HEAD the KINGS-EVIL to the WOUNDS BRUISES and PUTRIFYING SORES described in the fore-named place by Isaiah Which later Disease is not wonderful in it self I confesse for what nation is there which is not and hath not been troubled with that disease which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Struma and Scrofulae but how many nations are there whose Kings have such a Divine vertue given unto them that with the Touch of their Hands they can heal this Evil beside the KINGS and QUEENS of ENGLAND and the FRENCH KING This power God hath bestowed neither upon any Prince nor private person beside Which cure is performed at this time by our ROYALL SOVERAIGNS HANDS he truly acknowledging in the rite of healing GOD to be the AUTHOR thereof in these words I TOUCH and GOD HEALS For as the former Disease the REKETS is a
should be the Lords Christ our King so doth the REKETS point at the Lords Anointed to be the Healer thereof our King But my Reader peradventure will say This being all granted to be true and that all this must be performed by a King yet it still remaineth doubtfull by what King all these things shall be wrought The resolving of which doubt by necessity brings me to examine the other strange Disease the KINGS-EVIL These two Diseases do portend and foreshew one and the same thing the greatness of our calamities Both and that we shall be delivered from them through the mighty Hand of the most merciful God For is it not a very wonderfull thing and above the thoughts of man among all other Infirmities of the REKETS perfectly cured in like manner to see and consider the crooked bones of Arms and Legs to become straight of their own accord Albeit the Wise-man saith Eccles 1. 15. That which is crooked cannot be made straight Touching the cure of the Struma no man of judgement can deny the Hand of God therein Which Two Maladies as in part they do agree so do they also thus differ the REKETS beside the Disease sheweth who should be the Authors of our evils under the name of the Disease the KINGS-EVIL who should cure us with the Title of his Dignity Again the REKETS explaineth Fully what the KINGS-EVIL delivereth more Briefly and this is to be done by one Person our Dread Soveraign who by the Grace of God given unto him as he healeth the Bruises and Putrified Sores of those whom he toucheth will take away the Falsness of Doctrine and Blasphemy in Religion Injustice Oppression in the State and wicked living from all Which may well be signified by corruption and putrid Ulcers by a Metaphorical name because these things proceed from a Diseased Soul are loathsome and odious to God and man and stink in their nostrils To prove therefore King CHARLES II and no other to be that King which shall perform those great things in England it will be necessary to shew this unto you by Example of the Leprosie and thereof who was or were the First Cleansers and who the last that so in like manner Who he was who first cured the KINGS-EVIL being known we may know the last and he that was presaged thereby The First Cleanser of the Leper was the Priest as appears in Lev. 14. But the Person foreshewn thereby was our Saviour Christ a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech From which Example of the Leprosie two Rules are to be laid down 1. That the Type and Antitype be both alike 2. That there be as much and more in the Antitype than in the Type in the most perfect Antitype As in the Precedent of the Leprosie The Type and Antitype were Both to be Priests and not so only I speak of the Persons but lest it might be thought that any of the Priests the Sons of Aaron succeeding the First Cleanser before Christ might be the Person prefigured therefore a more excellent Priest was to be still expected not such an one as offered up Buls and Goats like the Typical Priests but himself once for all According to which two Rules our Dear Lord King CHARLES II is the Antitype unto the First Curer of the KINGS-EVIL But because Christ had many Types of himself which being put together did so describe him that no man might mistake him when he was come for he was not fully prefigured by Priests but partly by Prophets by their foretelling their raising the dead as Elias and Elisha did c. by Solomons wisedom Jonas's being in the Fishes belly c. But our Lord the King having no such Types of him beside the First healer of the KINGS-EVIL as our Saviour had therefore his whole Type is pourtrayed in Edward the Confessor Secondly it will follow that more must be in the Cure of our Soveraign the Antitype then was in King Edward the Type from the second Rule lest some other of the Kings of England might be thought Edwards Antitype but in the outward and bodily cure they are alike and equal therefore that more in the Antitype must be of those fore-named things signified thereby I now will shew you according to the First Rule a Full Equality betwixt King Edward and King Charles so that no other King but King Charles II can be the parallel to his Royal Predecessor King Edward the Confessor King Edward was banished his Countrey so was our Liege Lord King Charles King Edward was sent for to come and govern thus was our Dread Soveraign humbly entreated by Both his Houses of Parliament to Assume the Government of his Kingdomes and was sent for And how welcome our King was unto the Clergy who expected restitution into their places and to all Ministers which before expected to be deprived of all maintenance as they were threatned and how far above the welcome of King Edward the Confessor to his who felt and feared no such evil the different reasons will plainly determine And with what gladness of heart his Subjects received King Charles after their intolerable oppressions and never otherwise likely to be removed no man can doubt nor can tongue express but their Presents their Triumphs their Attendance their incessant Shouts and Acclamations as in a continued Street from Dover to London of yong and old to see their King do plainly testifie But above all King Edward the Confessor was the Son of Edward the Martyr even so our Gracious K. Charles the Confessor was Son to King Charles the Martyr And lest it trouble my Reader to imagine how Edward the Confessor may be called the son of Edward the Martyr since in property of speech and by general consent he is not the Son but Nephew and brothers son to Edward the Martyr All this notwithstanding Edward the Confessor by the Phrase of Holy Scripture which we for the most part follow and ought to follow in this Divine interpretation is the Son of Edward the Martyr For we reade 1 Chro 3 16. And the sons of Joakim Jeconiah his son Zedekiah his son when indeed and in nature Zedekiah was not the son but the uncle of Jeconiah but cause Zedekiah was Jeconiahs Successor he is called his son as by the same rule Edward the Confessor being Successor to Edward the Martyr is called Edward the Martyrs Son And yet a farther reason thereof common to both is That in orderly and legal Succession the son of either ought to have succeeded his Father that is of Jeconiah and Edward the Martyr Here likewise is brought in the second Rule in some part Edward was stiled the Martyr only as it is declared because he was murdered innocently Edward was sir-named the Confessor because he was a Pious and Charitable man and enacted good Laws But for far better cause is our Royal Soveraign King Charles I named the Martyr which name his Majesty took unto himself is