in the processe of our succeeding Ascents and Parallels The seventh Ascent MOses being in his own judgement and in all outward appearance unfit for so great a Charge was very unwillingly perswaded by God to undertake it insomuch as it came to a very high expostulation between them Was there ever such a dispute with the Almighty Or was there ever seen such a difficulty in man to be perswaded to so high a point of preferment Behold what arguments he raiseth against the Lord and his own self And his first refusal seems to proceed from a vice of over-modesty for the sacred Text tells us That Moses said unto God Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt which the Lord was pleased graciously to answer and satisfie with an assurance that he world be with him c. Then he proceeds to something of a double diffidence first objecting Behold when I come unto the children of Israel and shall say unto them the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you and they shall say unto me What is his name What shall I say unto them To which the Lord was pleased to reply by condescending to give him his Name I am that I am and commanded him to say to the children of Israel that I am had sent him unto them and so furnisht him with a large Commission and instructions But yet our Moses will be doubtful still of the force and effect of his Almighty Commission for he answered and said But behold they will not believe me nor hearken unto my voice for they will say The Lord hath not appeared unto thee Now this redoubled doubt and diffidence of poor Moses the most gracious Lord pleased to reform with two stupendious miracles and so to frighten him into a better obedience First with his own Rod turned into a Serpent and returned into a Rod again and then with his own hand made Leprous and whole again all in a moment so drawing as it were its contagion and cure from his own bosome Nay further to fortifie his faith and credit his Commission with the children of Israel the Lord assures him that he shall have the power to turn the water of the River into blood upon the dry Land Now after all this was it possible that there should be any more evasion found out by our too modest Moses Yes surely and to something savouring of a very high infidelity For Moses replied unto the Lord O my Lord I am not eloquent neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant but I am slow of speech and of an impedited tongue But yet behold the benignity of our gracious God who is pleased still to confute him without any takeing of offence onely asking him the question Who made mans mouth or who maketh the dumb or the deaf or the seeing or the blind Have not I the Lord then assuring him that he will be with his mouth and teach him what he shall say What could be expected after this but a ready assent yet instead of that behold he flies out to a flat denial to all this over-modesty diffidence and almost infidelity he will yet adde obstinacy and a dismal disobedience as ever was heard of and plainly bid the Lord send whom he would Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses yet so mercifully as to be pleased to reconcile himself to him instantly again and by further assurances of his Almighty favours with the promised assistencie of his brother Aaron so to convince his doubting servant and to convert him to a more resolute faith and active obedience Thus then the businesse now stands agreed on our poor modest diffident and fearful Moses is now become a faithful and a stout one and the Lord who full well knew before his capacities to discharge is now pleased to pardon his long unwillingnesse to perform his so great and weighty Commands The Parallel Now truly our second Moses cannot appear lesse Parallel to the first in this his unwillingnesse to accept of all publick Charges than he has done in all his accomplishments of parts or any of the past Ascents And yet this unwillingness of his never proceeded from any diffidence of or disobedience to any Divine Commands which was indeed the fault of our former Moses but partly from his own humility over-modesty and high contempt of all earthly things His sanctified spirit lookt upon all those flattering flourishes of this worlds greatnesse no otherwise than as the true gardens of Adonis which in the beginning make a fair shew of some siâ—ly flowers but in conclusion afford nothing but thorns He alwayes reckoned that the Careers of the greatest honours here below were but of ice and most commonly bounded with headlong ruins He found in his younger judgement as we have seen though certainly it was an inspired piece of prudence that all the pitiful felicities of this life were onely floating Islands which recoil backwards when a man thinks for to touch them with his fingers or as the Feasts of Heliogabalus where were fair invitations many reverences and many services but in the end nothing but a Table appears set out with a Banquet made of wax which melts before the fire and from whence a man must return more hungry than he came Or yet more like the inchanted egg of Oromazes wherein the impudent Magician boasted to have inclosed all the happinesse of the Universe but when it was opened there was found nothing but wind These were the solitary considerations that moved his late most Serene Highnesse to his so long and close concealment of himself And indeed the heavenly Providence over this great Person if we look well throughout him can never be otherwise read then as letters written with the juice of Limon by the help of fire or flame of a burning Bush as before which must not onely flame neither but must consume even to his own door may be ready to involve all in a general conflagration before he would at all think himself to be concerned or busily bestirre himself to quench it or before he would undertake the unhappy necessities of State then requiring a war any part of his incomparable Mosaical conduct So that we may at last affirm and conclude of him as Claudian does of his brave Emperour Theodosius that Solus meruit regnare rogatus there is none worthy of a Crown but he that must be importun'd to it Now some we know there have been that have had an most enraged desire to Empire and yet would feign themselves to have all the aversions in the world against it and so have caused themselves to be carryed to their Thrones like unwilling beasts to the slaughter The truth of it is the heart of man as the Scripture tells us is inscrutable above all things and more especially so in point of ambition and
be expresly said of Judith likewise Dominus hanc in illam pulchritudinem ampliavit ut incomparabili decore omnium oculis appareret The Lord so amplified her beauty that she should appear incomparable lovely and allure the eyes of all that should behold her So God purposing to stay the violent streams of Holofernes his arms though he could with his omnipotent hand have buried that vast Army in the bowels of the earth as he did Corah and his Complices or have call'd out from the center it self millions of arm'd men in Cadmean equipage equal to the Poets fancy to have destroyed them or might have by an expedition of Angels dispatcht the businesse again as he once did upon the host of Senacherib under the command of insolent Rabsheketh their proud Captain General Yet he was pleased without stretching of his hand forth to any other miracle to raise the beauty onely of a gracious widow to triumph over all those dreadful Legions and to wage war with the most puissant Monarch of the world Nay it is expresly said that God himself added a certain air mine or garb of attractive parts in Judith to surprize the Cittadel the heart of that barbarous Commander that he being made more drunk with love then with wine might be more easily taken in the snare of her eyes and sacrifice his unhallowed head to her fair hands Nay the Lord fought with the self-same weapon again and raised onely the same arms against the proud and imperious Haman to confound him with that lovely Engin onely For when he was upon the point to command the throats of infinite numbers to be cut of Gods own people as sheep mark't out for the slaughter The omnipotent then onely oppos'd a poor frail female beauty against him which tumbled him from the top of Fortunes wheel and made him to swing under an elevated gibbet God so turning in an instant by the power of an excellent beauty onely the heart of a savage Prince from a Lion to a Lamb and making Assuerus clean contrary to his great Favorites design to preserve the lives and confirm the safety and liberty of his people Nor is this high verity remarkable onely in feminine but also masculine beauty which besides the instance of our Moses God himself seems to confirm in his election of Saul to the government of his own people of whom the greatest commendation we find written is that he was a very proper man and when he stood amongst the people he was higher then any other from the shoulders upwards and that there was none like him for beauty of person amongst all the people I could be infinite in particulars to dilucidate this divine dispensation and tell you how the All-wise God thought fit to confer that extraordinary favour on all his principal servants as David Solomon with all the rest of the Princes and Prophets of his people not any one of which do we finde mark't out with any deformity a thing in it self so unpleasing to God that he has by positive Law banisht all such persons not only from serving at his holy Altars but from a capacity to bear any civil charge But I must hasten to our beloved Parallel so shall conclude this Ascent with some remarks upon the person of our blessed Saviour himself whom all antiquity ha's delivered to us to have had a most excellent humane beauty and that doctrine of theirs is not only grounded upon those many mystical and indeed incomparable beauties attributed to him in the Canticles but more positively and clearly collected out of that most remarkable passage of the Psalmist Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum Thou art fairer then the children of men from whence I say all the ancient Doctors of the Church do unanimously conclude and assure us that our blessed Lord and Saviour expresly selected for himself a most excellent beauty of body and an extraordinary supream grace of speech Nay Nicephorus goes about to describe to us certain lineaments of his body his exact stature colour and perfect proportion of parts which he pretends to draw out of all antiquity and delivers them in all to be most gracious lovely and specious from whence we may draw this most excellent use to teach us that since the Lord was pleased voluntarily to dispoil himself of all Honours Riches and worldly greatnesse to give us an example of his high humility yet would notwithstanding consecrate this thing called Beauty in his own most illustrious person and that of his blessed Mother what value we ought to set upon so heavenly a gift and how careful we should be never to prophane it So I passe to the Parallel The Parallel We have seen in our Ascent the beauty of our Moses and divers other persons besides that of our Saviours celebrated in holy Scripture and truly I must be bold to adde not without a great deal of reason for the more admirable sure the piece of workmanship is when it duely examines and contemplates it self ought more to incite a man and raise him to a higher love and greater praise of the workman which is if the word may be pardoned God himself and he that has the fairest preparation in his bodily Fabrick or Structure reason justly requires of him that he should order his manners proportionably and according to the perfection of his soul endeavour to make her appear more fair being lodged in so compleat and well-proportion'd a body And they that shall abuse this fair and inestimable gift of Heaven to any impious fond carnal prophanation by devoting that and themselves to any sensual sordid bruitish life do plainly drag the gift of heaven and Divinity it self in the dust Nay they are guilty of a more barbarous ingratitude than they that steal Silver and Gold from the Tabernacle to make Altars to Baal or Ashteroth or that light their Lamps at the Altar-fire of the Omnipotent to make pillage afterwards of his Temple or that take bread from the Master of the house with one hand and stabb him with the other Well then it may be granted that a beautiful and well proportioned body is an indubitable gift of God and that the Lord confers it ordinarily upon his dearest Saints and Servants And I hope it will no more be doubted whether the same All-wise Providence has dealt lesse graciously in favour of his deceased Highnesse our second Moses than he has done with the former and other his dear favourits upon Earth Indeed but barely to question it were not onely to argue a simple or malitious blindnesse in the Asker but would convince him guilty of a perilous prophanation in the neglect of so much divinity instamped upon his sacred Person nay would make him appear impiously to traduce the Almighty Providence it self to have been lesse careful of our glorious departed Protectors most incomparable soul than it should have been in not preparing for it an equal body to lodge
by the great Gregory Gigantes gemunt sub aquis the Gyants or great Men of the Earth do groan under the waters that is being drawn into a little disgrace by a furious torrent of envy they sigh and mourne as overwhelm'd in an ocean of calamities One frown of their Prince is more formidable to them than the look of a Basilisk and more terrible than the crack of Canon or thunder it self Besides what more base abject servil sort of men is there in the World they will bend and bow like a fishers angle they must stoop turn and wheel about to all purposes that they may arrive at their pretensions They buy all their honour at the price of pitifull submissions their Scarlet at the rate of sordid ambition and glory with the coin of slavery as is most excellently illustrated by eloquent Cyprian thus Qui amictu clariore conspicuus fulgere sibi videtur in Purpura c. Quibus hic sordibus emit ut fulgeat quot arrogantium fastus prius pertulit quas superbas fores matutinus salutator obsedit quot tumentium contumeliosa vestigia ante praecessit un ipsum etiam salutantium comes postmodum turba praecederet This silly Courtier saith he gazeth upon himself in Scarlet but how many base submissions has the luster of those cloths cost him how many scorns contempts and repulses has he swallowed from some more arrogant than himself how many proud gates has he besieged every day to perform his complements and how many times hath he made himself a stirrup-holder or foot-boy for the service of some disdainful Prince to gain this train that now attends upon himself Indeed such a condition is more to be pitied than envyed so it was well answered of an old Courtier when askt How he could continue so long in Court Injurias accipiendo saith he gratias agendo by receiving injuries thankfully Thus some men will fatten with affronts and disgraces as slavish dogs with bastenado's My Lords High Mosaick prudence in the mean time more feared than envyed that course of life and chose rather to lie hidden for many years in his little privacy of a safe and sweet retreat and a learned solitude like a true Princely Pearle under the waves then to be worn about the necks of Monarchs One of the greatest wits as well as Princes and the most vertuous man of a Pagan that ever was under heaven the Emperour Marcus Aurelius Antoninus in his Book that he writ of his own Life so much commends this kind of retirement which a wise man makes within himself that he assures us that in all the Palaces Gardens Orchards and Delicacies of all the Kings of the World there is nothing so delightful as it In which kind of life it is that a vertuous and knowing soul involves it self in its little shell and withdrawing it self out of the saltwaters of the World lives purely with the dew of heaven There it is where the soul which is scattered in an overwhelming multitude of affairs foldes it self within it self there it is where it begins truly to suck in its own sap there it is where it accommodates and prepares its hive like a busie Bee and endeavours to gather its honey to communicate to all the World There it is and onely there where it enters into a new world an intelligible world a peaceable world a world smiling with sweet serenity of air and radiant lights as becomes such a blessed solititude a true Temple of repose This was the Noble rich retirement that our glorious second Moses chose to place his soul in winding himâ—elf up in his private recesses as within his own bottom after the example of his great Prototype nor could he ever fear to faint or droop through any tedâ—ous mind-tiring idlenesse the consequent of most solitarinesses having such a stock of soul to improve as he had his Highnesse knew as well as that Scipio nunquam minus solus esse quà m cum solus and ut in solis sit sibi turba locis never to be less alone then when he was alone and to supply himself with company of himself as we shall see by the great profit he reaped by his learned solitude which will more clearly appear in the processe of our following Parallels The sixth Ascent MOses was most miraculously called by God from his retirement to undertake the deliverance care and conduct of his people the Lord appearing to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush This Ascent truly of our great Patriarch and Prototype Moses is so Prodigious and purely Divine that I cannot passe it without rendering a relation of the particular circumstances As our retired Moses was in the midst of his beloved solitude in the innocent society of his father-in-laws sheep and as he was leading his flock to the back side of the Desert and came to the mountain of God even to Horeb. The Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and he looked and behold the bush burnt with fire and was not consumed And Moses said I will now turn aside and see this great fight why the bush is not burnt And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see God called unto him out of the midst of the Bush and said Moses Moses and he said Here am I and he said Draw not nigh hither put off the shooes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground Moreover he said c. The Parallel Out of this miraculous Call and Commission given to our first Moses we may clearly collect as a most remarkable Corollary that the Lord Amighty has not onely a most particular providence over the estates and governments of Princes but also a most extraordinary respect unto their persons vouchsafeing them frequently the favour and familiarity of his own discourses and that either by his own personal calling upon them as hear to our first Moses young Samuel and divers others as stupendious Stories or by the mission of Angels as to Abraham Loth and divers other Princes and Prophets of his people or else by dreams and visions as to Abimelech King of Gerar to forwarn him of Abrahams wife and the like So not onely the present text of our Ascent but the whole current of Scripture is consenting to our Corollary Nay this Divine favour was not onely wont to be conferred upon the Princes of Gods own people onely but to meer stranger Kings and sometimes Infidels As first to a former Pharaoh God sent a dream which Joseph afterwards interpreted by which the King prevented his own ruine and the destruction of his people by a dismal dearth So was the like favour vouchsafed to Alexander the Great as Quintus Curtius tells us whilst that victorious Prince maintained the siege of the City of Tyre by which means he was made soon Master of
all his promised assistance to him by which means he wrought stupendious miracles in Egypt and by those so quickly brought to a confusion all the Learning Policy Sorcery and Malice of the Egyptians And indeed to go about to prove that there is fidelity in the Lord of Heaven and Earth towards his servants here below would be altogether as impertinent as to demonstrate water to be in the Sea or light in the Sun especially when he that is the eternal Truth has said it that he is righteous in all his wayes and faithful in all his words and works Our Moses is now to meet with men and devils but the Lord will enable him as he promised to withstand and subdue all their malitious and magical oppositions First Pharaoh upon our Moses his coming to Court and receiving his first summons instead of being obedient to the Lords commands and giving the people their desired liberty to go and serve him calls his Cabinet-Council about him and by their politick advices encreaseth presently the Israelites Taskes on purpose to inflame them to a mutiny and make them murder those that came about to deliver them But the Lord who stills the roaring of the waves and the madnesse of the people is pleased quickly to pacifie them and make them comfortably to submit to their barbarous burdens and peaceably and patiently to expect the day of their desired Redemption When this subtile piece of king-craft would not serve proud Pharaohs turn and all his politick Junto were at a stand the Devil must be presently employed and all the Magicians of the Land sent for that they forsooth may beard this great Embassadour of God and vye with their diabolical enchantments divine Miracles So Moses could no sooner cast his Rod down upon the ground to become a Serpent but those devilish Sorceres would do as much though all theirs were to be devoured by the Divine Rod. Nay Rivers turned into blood and producing of innumerable Frogs could not out-do their cheating inchantments But when the sacred Rod was to be stretcht forth again and the dust of the earth smitten into lice then Ars tua Typhe jacet the Magicians are all at a gaze there their Sorcery is quite confounded and they are constrained to confesse that the Devil their good Lord and Master hath a power limited for silly lice of which man is naturally a creator are enough to confound these great Negromancers and make them acknowledge and adore the finger of God Now after all this when malice and Magick could do no more yet the Tyrant will be stiff still till his Court and Kingdom too be infested and invaded with huge Armies of flies whose grievous swarms boldly stormed the Royal Chamber of Pharaoh then he begun to be inclined to let the children of Israel go but he had no sooner got from under the Rod but he relapseth into his old disobedience obstinacy and hardnesse of heart neither would he let the people go Then followed the miraculous Murrain upon beasts with the plague of boiles and blaines upon the more beastly and brute men with the most stupendious storm of fire and water mingled together that ever the earth felt before or since before Pharaoh would be brought to incline to our Moses and his peoples request But he had no sooner got once more a respit from those plagues but he stood at a defiance with God Almighty again and his Embassadour too Then must millions of Locusts be sent for to make his hard heart relent which he did again soon for a little time but returned presently to his insolence and Tyranny Then prodigious palpable darknesse must be sent a darknesse thick enough to be felt yet proud Pharaoh himself had no feeling longer than he remained under the importunity of the plague still relapsing into his old obduration of heart till the Lord was pleased at midnight to smite all the first-born of the Land of Egypt from the first-born of Pharaoh that sate on the Throne to the first-born of the captive lying in the dungeon and all the first-born of cattel Then was the Tyrant throughly startled he rose up in the night he and all his servants and all the Egyptians and there was a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where there was not one dead This was a blow indeed that reacht to the very heart of Pharaoh and all his people who now with tears in their eyes are turned from being Tyrants to be suppliants and do humbly beseech their Petitioners to be masters of their own desires nor onely so but offer to accommodate them for their journey with all necessaries lend them all their Jewels of Silver and Jewels of Gold and Rayment and to give all such things as they required O wonderful conversion but yet Tantae molis erat c. So great difficulties had our great Patriarch Moses to encounter before he could arrive to be a Captain-General And now he has begun his most miraculous March with a Pillar of a Cloud before him for his Quita sol by day and a Pillar of fire for his Torch by night Yet Pharaoh will have another fling at him and thinks now by force of arms to destroy those abroad whom he could not securely keep at home in quiet bondage by all his arts and policies But behold the Prodigy of all Prodigies The Red Sea is cut into a Royal high-way for the Israelites and made a dreadful grave for the Egyptians Those mighty waters stand all on heaps and congeale themselves into walls as it were of brasse for the defence and safe passage of the people of God but dissolve themselves into liquid floods for the overthrow of Pharaoh and all his Chariots who were no sooner entred than overwhelmed and so they sunk down as lead in those mighty waters as our great Moses himself expresseth it in his Song of thanksgiving to God for that stupendious Deliverance I should be infinite if I went about to relate the Myriads of wonders that our Moses shewed afterwards in the Desart in the conduct of this chosen Army which quickly becoming faithlesse and mutinous yet by the prayers and for the sake of our most admirable Moses was the Almighty pleased never to forsake them but to feed them constantly with miracles showring Quailes upon them for flesh and the Bread of Heaven for them to eat and gave them continual Prodigies to drink from the very first bitter waters at Marah which he turned to be sweet to the strange tapping of the Rock in Horeb. So happy are the people who have the Lord for their God and so dear and dutiful a servant of his for their Leader as this our first Moses was and our second cannot but appear to be The Parallel I believe truly that there is no intelligent Person living that looks upon this long Story of our present Ascent but would take the particulars of the children
obligations cannot but cut to the heart of any Captain-General yet this very sad disaster befel our glorious Patriarch in the Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abyram who rose up before Moses with two hundred and fifty more Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation and men of Renown and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said unto them Ye take too much upon you seeing that all of the Congregation are holy every one of them and the Lord is also amongst them wherefore then do you lift up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord This when our dear Moses heard he fell on his face to shew his great humility and replied onely You take too much upon you you sons of Levi speaking onely then to Korah and his company but when Dathan and Abiram were sent for they tell him plainly that they will not come up to him and expostulate the matter thus by message with him Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a Land that floweth with milke and honey to kill us in the Wildernesse but thou must altogether make thy self a Prince over us Then Moses to shew his magnanimity the Text sayes was very wroth and said unto the Lord Respect not thou their offerings c. Here it is to be observed that Korah was of the same Tribe with Moses too Nay yet the Lord would bring a nearer trial to his dear servant Moses permit his own right hand and onely helper appointed to him by God and one Brother in blood to revolt against him and joyn himself with a silly woman to raise a sedition against him in his own Family but that businesse was quickly quasht by Moses his most Clement proceedings with them by whose powerful intercessions to the Lord Aaron escaped onely with a bare rebuke and Miriam was chastised with a Leprosie for seven dayes These must of necessity be very heart-breaking blows to our poor Patriarch but he that had an assured safe retreat in his own heart and the sweet repose of a clear and a quiet conscience is no more moved with those unkindnesses of kindred and unfaithfulnesses of friends than the firmament it self and serene Empyrean heaven used to be with all the clatter and combustion fury and confusion of the inferiour Orbs. The Parallel Of all the cruel unkindnesses in the World there are none that pierce so to the quick or are so deeply sensible to a Noble nature as those which it receives from persons whom it has obliged Indeed we find that those ungrateful returns of injuries for favours received do bring astonishment even to the gates of Heaven it self which caused the Almighty Father to sigh out those lamentable complaints by the mouth of the Prophet Hieremy How comes it to passe that my beloved hath committed so many outrages so many misdemeanours in my house as much as to say Have I then O my beloved lodged thee in my Temple have I nourished and bred thee up from thy Cradle with my Fatherly hand and cherisht thee in my bosome now to betray my honour and thus to defile the glory of my Altars So the Royal Prophet tells us that he could have born any thing from an enemy or a stranger but from one that he trusted or from an intimate familiar and bosom-friend to receive an injury or unworthy return was beyond his power to bear with patience and the truth is it were enough to stagger the greatest Saint Yet this was our first Moses his miserable condition as we have seen and shall find it fully parallel'd in our second Now it is manifest that it is our Heavenly Fathers constant course to put his children to the full proof and exercise of their vertues to instruct them to the highest pitch to be as near imitators as they may be of his own Divine vertues who does nothing but good to ungrateful man and receives nothing but ill from him as we shewed at large in our last Ascent And such trials as those are questionlesse very necessary for his servants for it is undoubted that his most practised servants a very Moses himself would putrifie in long prosperities as in a dead Sea which produceth nothing so that the All-wise God out of great kindnesse to his most dear servants does sometimes strike such blows as these that they as Jonathan may have their eyes still open and suck in honey from the very end of the Rod that scourgeth them and in the severe chastisement of a father finde the consolation of true children O what a goodly Theater is a good conscience and what a beautiful Arcenal it is to have the Armes of vertue still in a readinesse as our first and second Moses have had against all essayes whom no unkindnesse of unthankful friends or conspiracies of ungracious enemies could ever startle from their sweet and serene repose Now that we may make good our Parallel we must reflect a little upon the barbarous ingratitude that his late Highnesse has met withall from Persons of other obligations and Princes too of our Assembly And truly who would not have thought after so many wonderful Deliverances by the hand of our second Moses as we have seen and the beating down of all open oppositions to the destruction of the common enemy but that our miseries should have had an end and our glorious Captain-General some rest But yet I must say with a sigh and to the eternal exprobration of some persons late in power that we found no other but aliud ex alio malum one mischief to follow upon the very heels of another How many malignant parties of our own have gone about to disturb that happy peace purchased with the price of so much blood and no stone left unstirred to throw us into a second and a third and may be into more confusions and greater than the former and that by some of our Elders too as I have said and Princes of the Assembly Nay our religious brethren of Scotland too must be set on foot again by them to make their Covenant a stalking-horse for Rebellion and to renew a war in all probability more cruentous and dangerous than the former But our most Renowned second Moses being born upon the wings of that Providence which never failed him made a most happy and quick dispatch of that work putting an end to all those Kirk enchantments both here and there for the present and I hope for ever And yet after all this that by the gracious providence of God and his Highnesses great care and prudence all means of making head and imbodying themselves again was taken from them I should be infinite to tell how often those of that leven have shewed their venemous teeth against his Highnesse his happy and most godly designs to disturb him again and our peace Nay some of those that have had the greatest share in his Highnesse his Successes
idlenesse was a meer moth of Noble mindes and iron it self sure if it had the reason to discourse understanding to chuse its one commodity would cry out to us that it better loved to be kept in constant use and exercise than to lie rusting and consuming in the corner of a horse Wherefore we see that God does not ordinarily entertain great souls in the pleasures of an idle life but in the rigid exercises of vertue for we know that there are many most excellent fishes that will die in standing waters and are delighted in the most bubbling sluces and turbulent seas and rivers and the best birds will alwayes be abroad in the most troubled air Our glorious Eagle therefore was alwayes seeking out for action and never to be found lazing or beating of his wings in the lower Regiment of the air but soaring alwayes aloft amongst the furies of Lightnings Tempests and Whirle-winds playing with Thunder-claps and ever having his eye where the day was to break His painful vigilancies were so great in Court as well as Camp City and Field that we may say of him as was once of the Great Constantine Tam assiduus in actione sua constitit ut vel labore refici ac reparari videretur He was so conversant in action that it seemed to be nothing but his continual recreation Gaudent siquidem saith the same Author divina perpetuo motu jugi agitatione se vegetat aeternitas His constitution was so strenuous that it must needs have been akin to those celestial bodies that refresh themselves with their own motion and perpetual agitation So true it is what Seneca tells us Contempta res est home nisi supra humana se erexit A man is a very pitiful vile and contemptible thing unlesse he be ambitious to raise himself above all the ordinary courses of the World but that saying is to be verified in no sort of men so much as the Noble Souldier whose honour depending upon the most superlative degree of vertue must seek out and pursue wayes beyond all equality and such a person is sure of attaining his end for Polyaenus has assured him that Voluntas ad laborem propensa cuncta vincere superare consuevit A propense will or a soul prone to labour has been ever wont to conquer and overcome all difficulties And Appian gives the like encouragement when he proclaims Nihil tam arduum quod industria animi fortitudine superari non possit Nothing so high or hard but is to be compassed and overcome by industry and a willing valiant mind What these and all the Philosophers Poets Orators or Historians have said or could prescribe his late most Serene Highnesse has alwayes fully understood and most perfectly practised as no one of the Army that has served under him but must bear him witnesse how present he would be upon all Guards and Watches as if he were ubiquitary how incessant in all his Actions and Labours as if he were impassible how alwayes taking order for and moving about his body as if he were immortal Indeed this laborious vertue which is no small one in an officer his Highnesse was more Master of than any that I ever heard or read of If any Work were to be raised his hand must be in it first if any duty to be done his president must be still the foremost so by rare skill mingling the Captain and the common Souldier together he did both intend the diligence of others from whom he might though not so effectually have exacted it and ease the burden of their labour by making himself a companion and partaker of their pains and travel But of this and his other great pieces of Conduct we shall say more in our next Ascent where we shall represent him a most compleat Captain-General The thirteenth Ascent WE have found our Moses a most valiant and vertuous Souldier and a most vigilant skilful and careful Officer but that he might be all and yet not fit to command in Cheif and a shepherd is not very likely to make a great General fitter he must be sure in the opinion of most to lead his flocks than to conduct an Army of men Yes we shall find him a most glorious and accomplisht Captain-General otherwise he would never have been selected sure by the Divine Wisdom to conduct and command so great and troublesome a body as that of the most mutinous perverse and rebellious people in the World and to carry them in his bosom as a Nurse beareth her sucking child or if there could be yet any danger of doubt in any of this I would refer that doubting person to the whole current of holy Scripture where he shall find by the exact discipline observed in his Army the ordering of his several Marchings and Encampings the Election of his ablest Officers as well as Souldiers and the fighting of his Battels his extraordinary and incomparable skill in Military Conduct The Parallel Good Souldiers get honour to their Captains and Officers and all together being gallant men must of necessity make a glorious General It highly concerns him therefore who is to Command in Cheif to let his prime and principal care be placed in the Election of his inferiour officers as our first and second Moses have so exemplarily done for this is the first step of all Military Conduct wherein I am sure he has out-done all the Generals that ever were before him unlesse this to which he is so parallel Is it not plain that his Highnesse found such horrid abuses in all the former Armies that he was faine to new modell this to bring about those his great and mighty workes that he has done And what sort of Officers were they that he chose and instruments that his inspired wisdom pickt out and fitted for his purpose even such as his Souldiers were before spoken of men of clean hands and purer hearts that were to fight the Lords Battels He rejected ever those gay gawdy outsides of the world those petit spirits of the Abyss before spoken of sprung from the race of Cadmus I mean those silly fencing fellows swaggering swashbucklers and Hectors aforesaid who appear like Comets of fire and blood to bring murder pestilence and poison into houses who as I said make the Pillars of Heaven to tremble with their blasphemies have nothing else of souldiers in them but to pill and ravage in their Quarters like Harpies and feed themselves with humane blood who are ever readier to shew their valour for a cold countenance an extravagant word or a Caprichio of spirit than they would either be for God their Country or the whole World A most wretched and abominable sort of men that never think of or look up to Heaven but to blaspheme it indeed more like Centaurs than men and have their hearts all spotted over like the skin of a Panther No these were the pitiful things as we have said
they yet feel to satisfie with their sweat and blood the avarice of some curst particular Officers who are notwithstanding as greedy as fire and more insatiable than the Abyss or Hell it self But I shall forbear at present to prosecute this dispute any further for I conceive by what is already said there is no sober Christian but will conceive that Cyclopaean piece of policy is so far from being Mosaical profitable to or becoming the dignity of a Christian Prince that it must be absolutely contrary and destructive both to Prince and people nay fitter to be stiled Barbarisme than a Civil Government So I hope we may now securely proceed to the conclusion of our precious and happy Parallel And as for this great point of Piety in not pressing upon the peoples purses or squeezing their estates so remarkable in our former Moses there is no man sure so perverse as to deny our second to be his perfect Parallel for though Bella sustent antur pecuniarum abundantiâ as Dionysius Halicarnassaeus tells us The support of all Wars is from a great treasure and plenty of money and what Tacitus observes is most certain that Dissolvitur imperium si fructus quibus Res-Pub sustinetur diminuantur There is no State or Kingdom can continue long without a certain and a large revenue yet his late Mosaical Highnesse has been ever so tender of intrenching upon the particular purses of his people to supply those publick occasions of State that he has been almost guilty of transgressing in the other extreme by permitting the General good to be neglected at least to suffer some prejudice for want of it Much lesse sure can any such thing as unjust coveting or craving of other mens estates for himself be objected to him which most of his malitious adversaries before mentioned have been guilty of in the highest degree Their fingers were like Talons and Claws of Harpies to scratch and scrape what they could for themselves His hand and heart were alwayes open to do good to others as appeared by his manifold charities in the relief of the poor especially such as were made so by the sad distresse of War and I dare say his expense that way has been far greater than all the sharers of the Church and Kingdoms spoiles put together have disburst There was a notable Inscription upon one Gillias as Valerius Maximus tells us Quod Gillias possidebat omnium quasi commune patrimonium erat hic ipsius liberalitatis praecordioe habuit domus ejus quasi quaedam munificentiae officina fuit What Gillias had was the possession of all mankind this man had his heart and entrails composed even of charity it self his house was a shop of bounty and all this sure was never more applicable to any person than to his late Mosaical Highnesse whose hands were kist by millions when he was alive in acknowledgement that they were the gracious distributors of so many blessings and his grave now he is dead will be sprinkled with as many flowers in gratitude for the preservation of so many lives His bounty I say was a most eminent vertue in him ever holding with Cassiodorus that Periculosissima res est in imperante tenuitas That narrownesse of soul and griping hands were the most perillous qualities that could appear in a Prince and with the same excellent Writer concluded likewise that Regnantis facultas fit ditior cum remittit acquirit nobiles thesauros famae neglecta utilitate pecuniae A Kings Treasure is encreased by giving and forgiving and the lesse money he plucks into his Exchecquer the more glory he carries about his Court. Did his most Serene Highnesse ever draw any thing from private men but in order to their own preservation He never desired or studied any thing more than that we should be safe nor never sought ours but us He never accounted himself rich but when his people were so making their hearts as that great Alexander did his best Exchecquer In fine what was once said of Hadrianus Caesar must be acknowledged to be his Highnesse his most especial Character Sic suum semper gessit Principatum ut res sit Populi tota non sua Whatsoever he has done in his Government has been more for our advantage than his own he has not onely forborne to burden us himself but has most mercifully released us from many of the heavy Taxes that were imposed upon us by our terrible Task-masters of the long Parliament and like a true Soul of Honour never sought for any other recompense of his great Actions than the glory of doing well and the private satisfaction of his own conscience Thus are hearts gained here and Crowns of immortality hereafter Thus truly is Heaven it self obliged and Earth made tributary to vertue for by that means he has rendred himself to be truly that which was said of Octavianus Caesar Deliciae humani generis The love and delight of all mankind which cannot but more and more appear to us as we proceed to mount higher upon our Mosaical Ascents and Parallels The ninteenth Ascent MOses was a most exemplary person in all manner of Piety towards God a duty most becoming a great Prince to be highly zealous for the true honour and Divine worship of his Almighty Maker the Lord of Heaven and Earth And this plainly appeared not onely in his frequent spreading of his hands and sometimes falling down upon his face before the Lord and prostration we know is the highest part of Religious worship but also in his most indefatigable pains speedy care and expedition in preparing of the Tabernacle with all its appertinencies and providing offerings for it Then in his punctual and precise care for the ordering of the particular Ceremonies and Circumstances of Divine Service to the very Garments of Aaron the Vrim and the Thummim and the Consecration of Priests Then in the constitution of many most costly and reverent Sacrifices as the continual Burnt-offering the Meat-offering the Peace-offering the Sin-offering c. Then in his erection of the Altar of Incense his appointment of the course for the ransom of Souls for the making of the holy annointing Oil the manner of making with the ingredients for the composition of the holy Perfume Then in taking order for an infinity of other Rights Ceremonies and holy Feasts as the Feast of Passeover the Feast of Weeks the Feast of Trumpets and the Feast of Tabernacles c. Finally giving the people such a Law so solemn and so strict in the Service of the Lord as if they should have nothing almost else to do but to render their duty to the Omnipotent and spend all their time in paying him the honours of a glorious Service as is to be seen at large throughout his Sacred Writings The Parallel If we look upon the Piety of this our Great Patriarch or his happy Parallel our late Lord Protector in the
mending are no great matters but the least flaw in a Diamond is hugely considerable yea their personal faults become National injuries It is held by the Learnedst amongst the Ancients that when the Sun stood still in the time of Joshua the very Moon and all the Stars did make the like pause so all Princes and Governours whose spirit is the first wheel whereunto all the other are fastned it is necessary should give a good and godly motion Our sacred second Moses therefore found himself as his Princely Archetype before him did obliged to be exemplary to his people in all kindes of piety proposing no Highnesse to himself equal to that which he enjoyed in his humiliation before his God he never found himself well at ease but when he was paying those duties of piety praise honour and glory reverend service and worship to his Divine Majesty Insomuch that we may more truly say of him that which the Pagan Orator said of his Emperour Sanctiores effecit ipsos Deos exemplo suae venerationis He made the gods themselves more holy by the example of his pious worship that is he gave a reverence extraordinary to Religion by his manner of serving it The verity of this is evident for we find that he has so happily inflamed all his people about him and such as well studied him to so high a pitch of piety by his most exemplary good words and works that we can esteem them no otherwise than as Thunder-claps to Hindes for the powerful production of Salvation His Highnesse was unquestionably one of the greatest patterns of Princely piety that ever the World produced since that of our first Moses He had so great a fear of the Lord that he apprehended the least shadow of sin as death Then he had a love so tender towards his God that his heart was alwayes as a flaming lamp that burnt perpetually before the Sanctuary of the living Lord. His faith had a bosome as large as that of eternity his hope was as the bow of Heaven ail furnisht with Emralds which can never loose its force more than they their luster and so his piety must of necessity have been an eternal source of blessings His care to gather together so many living-stones for the edification of Gods house that is to say so many good godly and religious men has been more than all theirs that have heapt together so many dead ones in stately piles of Temples Finally his whole heart we know was perpetually towards God his feet were ever walking towards the Church or his other devout retirements his armes were perpetually employed in all manly and pious exercises and works of charity and his whole body was most dutifully disposed to the sacrifices and victims of his soul and both his soul and body with all his faculties were a constant Holocaust to the Lord Insomuch that neither all the cares and confusions of this World nor multiplicity of affairs that he has been ever involved in have been at all able to withdraw any part or parcel of him from the course of true piety but he has alwayes appeared in the midst of all those encombrances as those sweet Fountains which we read of that are found in the salt-sea or those happy fishes that do still preserve their plump white substance fresh and free from the infection of all the brackish waters that they live in his pious spirit could be never so much disturbed as to be extinguisht or taken off from the refreshment of his devotions as we shall see more at large in our next Ascent and happy Parallel The twentieth Ascent MOses was endowed by God with a most singular gift and spirit of prayer by which he was extraordinary powerful with the Lord and prevailed with him almost how he pleased We find in the sacred Text that he had so great a familiarity with the Lord that he was called the friend of God it is no wonder then that he should be endowed with so extraordinary a spirit of prayer the onely means to communicate with the Almighty and violently perswade him to divert his indignation from his people First let us see how by the power of our Moses his prayers and by the frequent spreading of his hands before and crying unto the Lord all the plagues that were inflicted upon hard-hearted Pharaoh himself and his perverse people were graciously removed By the same powerful means does he appease the great anger of the Lord kindled against his own rebellious people for their frequent murmurings and clamorous repinings against himself and his servant Moses imputeing constantly no lesse than murder base ambition and malitious designs unto him yet for all that the Lord confers nothing but miracles upon them at the importunity of our Moses his prayers And first he makes bitter waters sweet for such unsavory sinners as they were then he procures bread to fall down from heaven as from a replenisht Oven to fill their rebellious bellies Then no lesse than a stony-rock yet not so hard as their obdurate hearts must be set on broach and made to afford a River of water to satisfie their contumacious thirsts In short our Moses prevailed so often with his prayers to mollifie the Lords displeasure against them that one would think that reades the Story there had been a vy between mercies and rebellions and a sharp contention between the Lord and them whether they should offend or he forgive oftenest Then see the unnatural sedition of his brother Aaron and his companion Miriam and her leprosie cured by his prayer But there is one thing yet that we may well instance in for all when the peoples inveteratenesse in sin had added idolatry to all their other disobediences and made themselves worse than beasts in rendering the honours due to God alone to a pitiful creature of their own makeing a gay Golden Calf forsooth and the Lord was so highly offended with them that he would have utterly destroyed them all for it then our Moses betook himself again to this his tryed weapon of prayer and openly assaults the Lord so with his close arguments expostulations and importunities as if he had been fencing with him beseeching him after this most earnest and humble manner Lord why doth thy wroth wax hot against thy people which thou hast brought forth of the Land of Egypt with a great power and with a mighty hand wherefore should the Egyptians say for mischief did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth Turn thee from thy fierce wroth and repent thee of this evil against thy people Remember Abraham Isaac and Israel thy servants to whom thou swarest by thine own self and saidst unto them I will multiply your seed as the Stars of Heaven and all this Land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed and they shall inherit it forever Then the Text
resting upon them they continued to prophesie in the Camp and he was solicited to forbid them Then Moses said to him that would have had it forbidden Envyest thou for my sake would God that all the Lords people were Prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them So it plainly appears that our great Patriarch and Prophet Moses was absolutely in his own judgement inclined to favour a liberty of Prophesying and that his judgement too was seconded by Divine approbation for what he then spoke was from the very mouth and dictate of the Spirit of God himself The Parallel Thus we see what Philosophers assure us is very true that Omne bonum est sui diffusivum All good is diffusive of it self nothing indeed is so proper to its nature as to be communicable much more then must the Spirit of all goodnesse be so that is this Spirit of God himself the Holy Spirit of prophesie What else made our great and gracious Patriarch so willing to part with some of his spirit as the Text tells us he did to the seventy that he set round about the Tabernacle nor onely so but to endeavour and desire as we have seen in the Ascent That all Gods people were Prophets too and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them O words worthy to be written in Letters of Gold with a Pen of Diamond And was not this the very sense and true Prophetick Spirit of our second Moses too Has he not alwayes endeavoured to impart that spirit of his to and improve it in the hearts of all his people that were capable of it Has he not alwayes incouraged the free use and exercise of it throughout these Nations whilst some cruel greedy envious and exterminating spirits were not onely striving in private but enacting in publick to make a monopoly of this holy Spirit and engrosse it to themselves Nor onely so but went about to extirpate and root out all those that desired the free use and exercise of it O Antichristain Tyrany But this sufficiently argued that theirs was not the true spirit of prophesie neither of nor from the Lord at all for that no spirit whatsoever can have a true union with God that has not a commixture of charity is evident by the drift of the whole Chapter of that Epistle to the Corinthians cited in the last Parallel From whence then must this spirit of bitternesse amongst men proceed is it from the more brutal part of man An ancient Father in an elegant gradation of his tells us no for Homo homini Lupus A man is a Wolf to a man that will not reach it for Saevis inter se convenit No beast so savage that will prey upon his own kinde Is it from any devilishnesse that may possesse humane nature no Homo homini daemon will not reach it for those wicked spirits do agree well enough within themselves for our Saviour himself testifies of their union when he sayes That if their house were divided it could not stand From whence then can this spirit of bitternesse amongst men proceed even from men themselves Homo homini homo That alone can reach this malice for nothing is so mercilesse an enemy to man as man himself No creature in the earth besides Canibal-men will prey upon their own speices nor can any but barbarous Christians think that the God of all mercy delights in humane sacrifices like those devilish deities of old and still in America that will be propitiated by no other means From whence then must this spirit of bitternesse amongst Christians proceed is it from any principle of faith or primitive practise surely no for the first children of the Christian Church bore neither rod nor stick in their hands wherewithal to plant faith in the hearts of men How comes it to passe then that we see some sort of people have publisht a Religion all bristled over with swords and pikes all sooted with the smoke of musket and canon all sprinkled over and besmear'd with the blood of Christians Must now the ancient Armes of our Christian forefathers which were prayers and tears be laid aside and none but killing weapons taken up no Schooles to decide controversies between Christians but bloody Campanias nor way to save the souls of men but by destroying their bodies Did God refuse to have his Temple built by David though a man after his own heart because onely his hands were bloody and can he now be contented to have the very morter that is to bind up the stones and ciment the walls of his Church be tempered with blood and her breaches made up with skulls and carkases Will he now suffer the stones of his house to be all polisht with such stroakes as are smitings of Brethren who would not endure in that of Solomons building so much as the noise of hammer ax or iron or brasse toole From whence then can proceed this spirit of bitternesse amongst brethren that the red Dragon should begin again to play Rex and that Whore prepare to dye her Scarlet anew and the pale Horse of imprisonment and exile threaten a range about the streets till his late most Serene Highnesse was pleased to oppose himself and all his power against those cruel and as I said before Antichristian designs From whence I say could arise this root of bitternesse between Brethren from nothing but a meer Machiavillian trick too a pretence forsooth of conformity or uniformity in the Church which has been and is undoubtedly the greatest cheat that ever the Devil invented to make men run a mading in Religion and to embroile Christendom in direful wars perpetual confusions and most bloody ruins The witchcraft of that Jezebel it was that so long troubled this our Israel and that our great Jehu as well as second Moses so furiously marcht against and thanks be to God has pretty well dissolved her inchantments Her painted face he has now likewise discovered in its pure naturals to all the World and pulled off the vizard of all pretenses whatsoever for let the ends of these conformity-mongers be never so plausible to ciment the State forsooth against all division we find it has been throughout all Europe the onely mother and nurse of all disturbances whatsoever in matters of Religion and the greatest occasion of civil bloodshed that ever was in the World for there can be no War so passionate as the War of conscience All these horrid inconveniences and mischiefs his Highnesse's great Mosaick prudence most timely lookt into and prevented amongst us How often have we seen the furious Furnace heating by several parties so could expect no lesse than a fiery-trial But he would neither suffer King nor his Court though he was the pretended head of that pitiful Body nor yet Bishops Arch-Deacons Deans Chancellors and Officials with their long-tailed c. Nor yet any Superintendent with his Classes and pretended Directories to impose any
and all the Elements under his feet than he could possibly be here with beholding them over his head In short who would think it much I am sure his Highnesse did not to give up the life of a Pismire for the greatest Prince's upon earth is no better in exchange for immortality he had alwayes we know like a good Christian death in his desire and life in patience This truly I should presume sufficient to satisfie and comfort any reasonable Christians for the losse as we call it of his late Highness But setting Christianity aside methinks it should be satisfactory enough for common men to consider that as the Poet tells us Lex est non paena perire and what the Philosopher assures us that mors naturae lex est mors tributum officiumque est mortalium death is a law of nature no punishment it is the very tribute and duty of mortals And what Plutarch not more elegantly than truly concludes Homines sicut poma aut matura cadunt aut acerba ruunt Men like Apples must either fall ripe or be pulled down green and sower Now I would fain know what have we to complain of Did not his Highnesse live to a very fair and good old age to a true Mosaick maturity For as was said before if by Chronological Computation our second Moses his forty years were parallel to the fourscore of the former when he came into publick employment then his threescore and upwards when he came to dye stands still parallel with the others hundred and twenty and as for their strength of body and mind none can affirm him to be lesse his parallel to the very last For his Highness eye was not dim nor any of his natural force abated Thus his gracious God and benigne nature plentifully provided for that great and most incomparable person that his most invincible spirit should never quaile under any sensible decay of flesh What more of favour I would fain know could his most Serene Highnesse receive from the bountiful hands of Heaven Yet some spirits there are so disposed to quarrel with the Almighty that they will not yet be satisfied in the divine dispensation but think and say I pray God not impiously that the heavenly and eternal Father should have permitted some more time of life to a person so deserving it but let them remember that mors aequopede pulsat and that intervallis distinguimar exitu aequamur greatnesse nor goodness neither can give any priviledge from death mors omnium par est per quae venit diversa sunt id in quod desinit unum est death though by several waies brings all to the same end These considerations sure though drawn from meer Heathens would be enough to satisfie any common understandings of men but these quarrelsome persons that we speak of sure are of opinion that all happinesse is determined to this poor life and are I fear very neer akin to those whom Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose souls are so great lovers of their bodies that they would tye themselves to their flesh as closoe as they could and after death would as he prettily expresseth it still walk round about their bodies to see if they could find a passage into them again How much is this pittiful humor of Christians below the divine Philosophy of Pagans themselves Amongst whom we find that there were a certain people who by positive laws forbad any man of fifty years of age to make use of the Physitian saying that it discovered too much love of life and yet some Christians we find at the age of fourscore who will not endure to hear a word of death but of this sad sottish temper we know his Mosaical Highnesse was not he never valued the putting off his life more than the shifting of his shirt and when he received his citation from Heaven he as readily obeyed as his Master Moses did to ascend his fatal Mount I pray you then be quiet you cruel friends and do not disturb his honored dust now sweetly resting in his Tabernacle of Repose for if you consider rightly you are bound as the Orator tells you Non tam vitam illi ereptam quam mortem donatam censere not so much to think him bereft of life as to have been endowed with death in a ripe old age and after the enjoyment of the fruits of all his labours Hath not this most incomparable person resembled truely the great Ark in the deluge which after it had borne the whole World in the bowels of it amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of nature at length reposed it self in the Mountains of Armenia So this most admirable Prince after he had carried in his heart and entrals a spirit great as the universe it self amonst so many tears dolours and cruel acerbities of contradictions and had delivered himself of that painful burthen that is had brought forth our most happy and establisht peace he stopt upon Mount Nebo and from thence went to take his rest in the Mountains of Sion Thus the Lord like an indulgent Father of a Family sends his servants to bed so soon as they have done their work it being all the justice and reason in the World that they who rise betimes to serve him and work hard all the day for him should go in as good time to sleep with him Let us I beseech you therefore passe over this death in the manner of holy Scripture which speaks but one word onely of the death of so many great personages Let us never so much as talk of death in a subject so wholly replenisht with immortality O what a death is that to be esteemed to see vice and sin trodden down under his feet and Heaven all in Crowns over his head to see men in admiration all the Angels in joy and the arms of God ready to receive him and fully laden with recompenses for his great services Nay that the Lord did purposely and expressely intend to make his Highness his death appear to be a most signal reward and perfect victory to him and that he should carry off the spoiles of life it self with more triumph than ever mortal did is made manifest in that it pleased his divine Majesty to take him to himself upon that most memorable day the third of September the greatest day of all his humane glories that he was pleased to put an end to his life in this World that very day that he had got such an immortality in fame to set a period to his labours that very day that he had performed so many Herculian ones for the glory of his God and his Countries good and to crown his daies with so glorious a close nay to give him a heavenly Crown that very day that he had gotten so many earthly ones and loaden his Victorious Temples with so many flourishing Laurels of eternal renown Then for the glorious burial of our second