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
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
Historie Policie RE-VIEWED In The Heroick Transactions of his Most Serene Highnesse OLIVER Late LORD PROTECTOR From his CRADLE to his TOMB Declaring his steps to Princely Perfection as they are drawn in lively Parallels to the Ascents of the Great Patriarch Moses in thirty Degrees to the Height of Honour By H. D. Esq Claud. de Theodos Solus meruit regnare rogatus LONDON Printed for Nathaniel Brook at the Angel in Cornhill 1659. To the Most Serene HIGHNESSE OF RICHARD By the Grace of God LORD PROTECTOR Of England Scotland and Ireland c. Chara Dei soboles magnum Jovis Incrementum PArdon Great Sir the compellation for though it be a piece of an Aenead some will think of flattery yet it is very manifestly your most Serene Highnesse his Birth-Right and plain prophetick truth as is made more clearly to appear in one of those Parallels that treat of your happy Promotion and Succession to the Throne where you now sit As for the imputation of flattery it is known that I have ever so much abhorred from all that and those subtile Artists of Fortune who make a Trade of it that whilst I have been conversant in the Courts of some great Princes and particularly known to many of their persons I have been alwayes most severely taxt of too much of the other extreme much lesse should I dare to offer any thing of that now to your most Serene Highnesse who are known to hold so much of the vertue of your most Renowned Father in you as to be better pleased to meet with an enemy in open field than a flattering friend in your Privy Chamber Insomuch that I am afraid to tell your Highnesse some notorious truths how all we your people look upon you as our second Joshua in the place of our second Moses as full of the spirit of Wisdom Courage and Piety as he was and that we cannot at all doubt but your successes will be likewise most proportionable to his how Walls and Cities shall fall before you Gyants wax pale Rivers retire back the Sun it self stand still and as many Kings will undergoe your yoke I am afraid to tell you Sir how we that are your people are all of us employ'd in planting more Bayes and Laurel in our Gardens to en-garland your Victorious browes before you come to a Battle In fine I am afraid to tell you how all our hearts like Roses withered upon the death of your glorious Father now begin again to bloom afresh and newly to open our selves at the benigne gentle glorious Princely Aspect of your most Serene Highnesse No I know to tell your goodnesse any thing of this would be but to offend it and to commit a sacriledge upon your most precious time So I le forbear and onely prosecute my petitions for more pardons still and Princes upon their first inaugurations seldome deny any whose crimes carry not some extraordinary atrocity with them much lesse can I doubt of indulgence from your most Serene Highnesse who are a Person so composed of Grace and Clemency it self Your pardon therefore gracious Sir again that I presume to address these poor unpolisht papers to so great a Patronage as yours Indeed mighty Sir if that the transcendency of the Subject treated on in these Discourses had not given me great encouragement I should never have dared to offer this Piece to your view much lesse to your protection but it being conscious to it self that it contains nothing but meer Commentaries upon your glorious Fathers Words and Actions it humbly conceives that your Highnesse has so great a propriety in it and that it has so near a Relation to your Highnesse that it boldly begins to challenge your most Serene Candour and particular Protection and would argue me of an extreme insolence to go about to seek for its Birth under any other favour For may it please your Highnesse to take it as a little History of your most Renowned Father who should it come to for Licence Approbation Countenance and Priviledge but your Sacred self who are the Compendium of his incomparable Life and the living Epitome of all his Perfections and are growing up very speedily to be as great a Volume May it please your Highnesse to take it as a piece of Architecture or Mosaick Work as it is erected upon the Memory of your deceased Father whom should it have recourse to for its Pillar and support but onely your Highnesse who are the moving Model of all his Great Actions And may your Highnesse please to take it as a Table or Picture of your Princely Father Who is more concerned in it than your Gracious self that are as much the lively Image of his Vertues as of the Majesty of his Person Thus then for the scope and businesse of the Book I dare affirm it to be without exception great and good and so I dare present it boldly to your most Serene Highnesse and avouch it equal to any Kings Cabinet whatsoever in the World though truly for the rusticity of its dresse which is meerly my fault it may not be for ought I know admitted by the over-curious The plain truth is and I am not ashamed to acknowledge it to your Highnesse that I have been so intent upon the maine matter that it may be I have neglected something of the form or to give it the due dresse and ornament of Language and to word it truly as it should have been would have required no lesse than the pen of a Seraphim but my comfort is that your Highnesse like your great Father in that as well as all his other Excellencies has been ever a most declared enemy to that kind of pitiful ostentation of words as well as cloathes and knows how to make a value of a pure Oriental Pearle though covered with a course shell and how to accept of a precious sweet Perfume though shut up within an abject Box. So I hope it shall not offend your Highnesse and that will suffice me not to have imitated those that preserve Oranges and Limons who neglecting the rich juice and inside of the fruit do candy and preserve the meer Rine and outside onely But yet I have another pardon to beg of your most Serene Highnesse which must be granted after all this or I am eternally ruined and that is for dareing to undertake or touch with my rude hands this most curious piece of Mosaick Work which should serve for a Monument upon your immortal Fathers Memory well knowing that no tongue which has not expressions equal to his Expeditions or a pen that cannot parallel his Sword is capable to deliver any just Character of him What Language Pen or Pensil can possibly delineate that most invincible Spirit of his that encountered Men and Devils and associating the Kingdom of his Vertues to the force of his Armes broke through all obstacles to Crown his inspired purposes how he in the hurry of War and glory of
in who with his body and his soul was pre-ordained to serve as an instrument of Divine wonders equally with his Grand Archetype Moses that Prince of Patriarchs Now that we may the better accomplish our happy Parallel in this beautiful Ascent it would not be amisse to exmine what kind of beauty the old Rabbins and more ancient paintings do deliver of that great Moses and what is agreed upon all sides to be a beauty most proportionable to a Prince As to the former we find by many ancient Pens as well as Pensils Moses drawn forth to us with a goodly large and illustrious countenance a cheerful fair and exporrected forehead such a one as Justinian wisht his greatest Judges and Generals to have a severe but graceful Aspect a gallant no gigantick stature a robustious yet well proportioned body and in the carriage as well as shape of every limb a gracious and most becoming Majesty Now I appeal again to all but blind men or malitious whether this be not his late Highnesse Picture too As for the next Quaere what is the most amiable beauty in a Prince I shall extract it out of a most excellent Modern Author Forma Principis non tam venustas est muliebris quà m dignitas quae in obtutu gestibusque consistit quemadmodum Tyrius ait occulto potenti introitu hominum animis illabitur Majestas nuncupatur consistit autem in decorae magnitudine in proportione membrorum in line amentis aptis in colore succo c. Deformat hanc spectei dignitatem quicquid nimis exquisitum est de Pixide aut speculo comptum infrae virum A Princely form saith he carries nothing of effeminate beauty in it but a prerogative planted in the forehead which consists in looks and gestures and as Maxim Tyrius tells us with a close and powerful entry surprizeth mens souls and is called Majesty And this again consists in a comely largenesse in proportion of members in apt lineaments in colour moisture c. This dignity of Princely beauty is deformed by any over-curiosity of tricking or taking any thing out of the box or borrowing too much from Barber or Looking-glasse all that is below a man Let any again but his Highnesse's most malitious enemies say whether this was not the late Protectors very Picture and Character too With this true Masculine beauty it was that the great Marius though proscribed strook him to the heart that was employed to have stab'd him and made him flee from him that with so much trouble and difficulty had hunted and sought out for him With this glorious perstringent aspect it was that Octavianus Caesar assaulted the Asassinate and with the vigour almost celestial of his Majestick eyes thunder-strook the villaine that was otherwise resolved to have tumbled him down from some Alpine Precipice This is the true virile Princely beauty which our second Moses had in its perfection equal to the former Moses or either of those great Romans by which he has frequently confounded Traitours dasht all asassinates dissolv'd conspiracies and rendered himself the wonder of the Age. Adeo tanquam cum virtute ipsa certamen haberet haec naturae sive dignitas sive majestas etiam ab iis honoris obsequiique tributa exprimit qui adversus virtutem ipsam conspirasse videntur sayes the same Moderne Author So as if this same Majesty of Princely beauty would claime priority of virtue it self exacting the tribute of honour and obedience from the very haters themselves of and conspirators against virtue I shall close up all this with what a brave Orator in a Panegyrick said to Constantine the Great our Country-man and one of the goodliest brave Princes that ever lived upon Earth Te cùm milites vident admirantur diligunt sequuntur oculis animo tenent Deo se obsequi putant cujus tà m pulchra forma est quà m certa divinitas that Nature was sent on purpose by God as a gallant Harbinger to compose a body for him suitable to his great spirit as a stately house for a beautiful Lady to live in and that onely this exteriour form of his made him to be beloved and esteemed of all the World as a certain divinity or God descended from Heaven This I am sure though malice it may be will not ought every one of this Nation with as much justice and reason say of his late most Serene Highnesse our second Moses and Lord Protector who as the former was from his Cradle known to be a most goodly Child and during those his first sweet and tender years kept still a very gallant Stature tall and streight as a Palm-tree and radiant as a Star and as the excellent Cassiodorus well expresseth it he was in all things so accomplisht ut ne de aspectu Principis possit errari Every man might read a Prince in his Countenance Thus beauty of body we see is not a little desireable in a Prince but if the house answer not to the Frontispiece what may we else say but that Nature hath built up a goodly glorious Mansion to lodge therein a great though handsome Beast It shall be therefore our endeavour in our succeeding higher Ascents to make the internal Moses in him appear equal to the external that so foul-faced malice it self may not have power to deny the Parallel to be most Compleat The third Ascent MOses was a high Favourite of Heaven from his very Infancy being then miraculously delivered from the danger of the waters upon which he was exposed as Scripture teacheth us in an Arke of Bulrushes O the inscrutable paths of the Almighty O the Heights O the Depths of Divine Providence Here we must pause a little and consider the great Salvations of the Lord before we can proceed to accomplish our Parallel Lo here we find a little Infant our great Moses exposed to the mercy of Nilus in a strange bottome a boat made of Bulrushes or floating Cradle of Reeds The poor tender Mother is wholly become heartlesse and abandoneth her Childe to death to save him from the Savage cruelty of men set on work to destroy innocents by the direful rigour of a sterne Tyrant The Aunt not altogether so hopelesse but a little bolder dares to follow the forlorne Infant at some distance so as to keep it within the compasse of her eye endeavouring to see if she could what would become of the Child but her weaknesse alas could do nothing to warrant him from the imminent danger Almighty God in the mean space is pleased to become the Pilot of this little Barke he beares it upon the waves and conducts it without Sails without Rudder without Oares or any other help of stream or tyde besides that of his own eternal and immense goodness and so makes it arrive beyond all humane expectation in a most happy Haven and there to discharge its lading in the arms of a Princesse with safety
and comfort A Royal Harbour for such a poor weather-beaten boat after so perilous a passage Now the little Infant is drawn forth by the pity of the Tyrants Daughter and he who was exposed as a victim to Pharaohs cruelty must be thus by the Tyrants own Daughter his own flesh and blood preserved to be a God of Pharaohs and to live to bury them or their posterity in the bottom of the Red Sea who would have drown'd him in his infancy in the River Nilus The Parallel I take it for a verity unquestionable that great spirits set apart and pre-ordained by Divine Providence for the performance of future wonders have most particular tutelar Angels assigned to them for their protection from their very infancy and those very persons from their Cradles are frequently pointed out to us by the finger of God himself in their most miraculous preservations So we see in Histories how the little King Mithridates that was to prove one of the greatest and most puissant Monarchs of the whole Earth being involved in lightning flashes whilst he innocently slept in his infant-cradle the flames consuming his very swadling-cloaths and linnens yet he remained untoucht in his body In like manner we finde another Prodigy of Divine providence so loudly proclaimed in the Greek Anthology how a father and an innocent son were equally surprized with a sad shipwrack which took away the life of the father and gave the son leave to arrive in a safe Harbour having no other vessel or plank to carry him ashore but the very corps of his deceased father who so afforded him a second life by his death and this very child thus wonderfully delivered grew up to be one of the bravest men in Greece I cannot passe by one other effect of Divine providence no lesse stupendious than the former that fell out not long since in the Country of Apulia where happened an Earthquake the last day of July 1627. and so prodigious a one that as I have heard and seen written in the City of St. Severin alone more than ten thousand souls were taken out of the World and yet in the horror of such infinite ruines and sepulchre of so many mortals a great Bell fell so fitly over a little child that it not onely did him no hurt but miraculously inclosing him made it self a Bulwark and defence for him against the danger of all the other ruines and this Child is now grown up as I am informed to be one of the most considerable persons in all Italy Thus little Romulus like our Infant Moses being exposed to the same mercilesse element was most strangely preserved to be the Founder of the greatest City Monarchy State and Empire of the universal World I should be infinite if I should run through the whole Series of sacred Providence in the particular miraculous preservations that have been shewed upon such principal persons from their very infancies Yet truly if there were no other instances of Divine providence left us but onely these two of our first and second Moses we needed not alledge more arguments to prove the singular care the Lord takes over the persons of good Princes We have seen on the one side a little Infant floating on the waters of Nilus in a cradle built of Bulrushes and lying just like a worm hidden in straw and whose afflicted friends measured his Tombe with their eyes in every billow of that faithlesse element yet was preserved at length from danger by the very blood of Pharaoh to turn his Diadem into dust and to bury him and his whole army in the dreadful gulph of the Red Sea They that have seen his late Highnesse our sacred second Moses in the like former imminent perills and the great actions he has since most gloriously arrived at can best make a Parallel of the Providence No Nurse or tender Mother whatsoever could be half so carefull to drive a fly from the face of her little Infant whilst it slept as the Providence of our gracious Lord has ever shewed its self affectionate in the conservation of his Highnesse his most elevated soul and though I cannot say he was exposed upon yet as I have heard he has been in equal dangers by the water as his first Matter Moses was and a great deal more by fire tumbling from Precipices falls from Coaches Horses and Houses too and what not insomuch that it is said the imminency of those his Infant dangers has struck the very hearts and chil'd the blood in the veins of all beholders Thus then we see a very parallel providence over these two great persons their very Cradles kissing and as it were conspiring to rock each other and truly not without a great deal of reason that they should run parallel in their childhood-deliverances as we have seen who were in their riper years to serve equally as inspired instruments of Divine wonders and all the World methinkes if it had not been wilfully blind must needs have discerned in his Highnesse his Infancy that he was then pointed out by the Almighty Providence to be the same person which he has since so gloriously approved himself to be Those who had the honour to know his Highnesse in those dayes can tell us how he was born a Thaumaturgus and like another Hercules Alexicacus fill'd his cradle with no lesse wonder than he has done the field since and afterwards the Throne Those his early wonders yet were but as the flashing streakes of a Cloud to be so instantly turned into lightning as we shall see more at large in his diligent and faithful imitation of his great Master and Prototype Moses in all his higher Ascents The fourth Ascent MOses was very liberally bred and had all the advantages of a Noble and Princely education being brought up as the Text tells us in all the learning of the Egyptians Thus the All-wise God having selected him to be Conductor and Captain General of a hundred and six thousand men at arms to have as it were a Regency over the very Elements and a power to replenish the whole World with Prodigies provided likewise a breeding equal to so high a Calling to frame and fit him for so supereminent a condition and to accomplish him with all heroick vertues He suffered him not to be trained up as other Hebrew children were in fear and bondage which often overwhelm the bravest dispositions but brought him to the Court of Pharaoh caused him to be nourished in all the exercises of Nobility and to swallow all the learning of the Egyptians who then had the reputation of the wisest and the knowingest men of the whole World How simple in the mean time absurd and and contrary to expresse Scripture is that opinion of some which say that Moses had no Egyptian learning at all nor more letters than what he received from Abraham and Enoch or what he heard from the mouth of God by Oracles daily delivered to him To confute
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
the place which but some few hours before he despaired of and resolved to rise from before it We find likewise in Roman Story that Calphurnia wife to the adopted father of Julius Caesar gave him timely notice of a dream of hers concerning him which he despising and going fearlesse to the Senate-house found her dream to sort to a woful effect But his wise Successour Augustus who was to be Revenger of his blood upon the Conspirators made better use of anothers dream that was Antonius his Physitian advising him though he was sick yet he should not fail to be present in the Battle which was the next day to be given by Brutus and Cassius and by no means to stay in his Tent which he would have done had not Antonius used his most pressing perswasions to the contrary which was the saying of his life for the enemy won the Tents and would have undoubtedly destroyed him had they found him there So by this means he won the day and the world together and became the sole peaceable Monarch of the Roman Empire that under his Reign our Prince of Peace and Glorious Redeemer should be born as he was Now God forbid that we should think the Almighty Providence lesse solicitous over the persons of Christian Princes and their pious proceedings no he has abundantly shewed that no Mother or Nurse had so much tender affection and care over their sucklings as his goodnesse has shewed it self careful in their pre-cautions and admonitions of dangers and most frequent conservations which all Christian Histories are full of But indeed we need go no further than to the Histories of the holy War written by Paulus Aemilius and Gulielmus Tyrius how often he has vouchsafed missions of Angels and also holy Dreams and Visions to direct those pious Princes Nay the Lord kept the very birds of the air in pay under Godfry of Bouillon for who can be but astonisht to hear it told how when he besieged Jerusalem the Sultan having taught pigeons to carry messages dispatched one of them with a Letter which she bore under her wings to give some advice to the besieged but Providence would have it that a Hawk seizing on her just over the Christian Army took her and made her bring her information to the Christians touching the enemies design But as for Dreams the three last Harry 's of France are undoubtedly the greatest examples who all were divinely admonisht of their approaching danger of death by their Queens and other Princes of their blood but they with over-confidence would run on heedlesse and headlong to their own destruction Nay the middlemost of the three besides the admonitions he receiv'd from the Dreams of others saw himself in a Dream how all his Royal ornaments viz. his Linnen Vesture Sandalls Dalmatian Robe Mantle of Azure Sattin the great and lesser Crowns Scepter and hand of Justice Sword and Guilt-Spurs all bloody and fouled with peoples feet and that he himself was very angry with the Sexton of St. Denis about it and though he wanted not good counsel according to the danger of his Dream to stand securely upon his guard and make use of the fair pre-monition of heaven yet would forsooth out of his gallantry expose his person to the malice of those who kept a fatal blow in store for him I cannot stand here to dispute with the learned Volaterranus whether all men in general going to Bed not cloy'd with bad affections nor any superfluities of meat or drink but being throughout vertuously and healthfully disposed their souls in sleeping may not foresee things to come for I must hasten to accomplish our Parallel and it is indeed as much as concerns our present purpose to say that we are very certainly sure of so much as by some instances has been shewed already and might be by many more that the Dreams of Kings and Princes Prophets Generals of Armies Magistrates and all Publick Persons that hold any Eminent Degree either in Church or State are commonly prophetical and monitory of things to come or to be done This I say by grace especial and Divine not Natural as may more plainly appear in this our precious Parallel And indeed to say that our most gracious Lord had not an equal care of his late sacred Highnesse our second Moses as he had of the former of an Alexander a Julius or Augustus Caesar who was to be as glorious in his Victories and a greater Instrument of Divine wonders than any except this his happy Parallel would be an infidelity greater as theirs that oppugne Divine Providence it self I dare not yet boldly affirm that our second Moses in his retirement met with any flaming Bush and the Lord speaking to him out of it or that he has had any such personal discourses with the Almighty if his late Highnesse has had any of those they were onely then known as I believe to the Lord and to his own sacred self But this I have most certainly been informed that his Highnesse had many Revelations and Divine Dreams to the same purpose admonishing him what he should do and foretelling him what he should arrive at which that I may not prejudice by my rude relation I hold better to passe by with silence till some that his most Serene Highnesse was pleased to make knowing of them shall do the World the favour as to make the discovery But so much is notorious to all these Nations that as our second Moses was retired like the former and near the backside of the Desert too but still near the Mountain of God the Lord found him out there and called him for who can hide what the Lord will bring to light Sed quis te Cyllarus aut Arion posset cripere quem sequebatur imperium as was most excellently said by Eumenius What Horse or Dolphin is so swift that can steal from mortal eyes a person whom the Providence of God pursueth with Empire in hand A burning and a speaking Bush must call the first Moses from his retirement to deliver and conduct his brethren out of bondage and no lesse I am sure than three Kingdoms all in a flame with the united cries of so many millions and in them too the voice of God for so is vox populi could move our incomparable late Protector to ingulph himself in the Ocean of Publick imployment We have seen that extraordinary Persons must have extraordinary Calls and our second Moses his first Call from his dear divine solitude was a publick Parliamentary Call and there too when he was most violently perswaded to appear how long was it before he could induce his most setled and serene Soul to be capable of the sollicitudes of State but for divers years sate in Parliament and Committees upon all the Common-wealths occasions as the Birds of Baruch upon white thorns and as the Gyants of holy Job before spoken of which mourn'd under the waters and this we shall see more plainly appear
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
a Regiment and that into an Army and that Army to give Laws as it were to all the World no man can believe that has not seen it or else been taught faith enough to understand the Cloud that Elias saw no bigger than a hand which in a moment overspread the whole heavens or that Fountain of Mardochaeus which in the beginning crept on with little noise through the Meadows and in an instant turned into a great River that River into Light this Light into a Sun and such a Sun which afforded both luster and water to all the World The plain truth is that the accession of his Highnesses Forces as his successes have been so miraculous that they appear more like visions than realities and as antiquity can find nothing in the like kind unlesse this president of our first Moses for to equal them so Posterity will be as much puzled to believe them as we shall see more at large in our future Ascents which treate of the invincible Valour matchlesse Prudence and incomparable Greatnesse of Military Conduct in these two our Mosaical Masters The ninth Ascent MOses was most miserably disturbed and injuriously persecuted with the frequent misprizions malitious repinings and ungrateful murmurings of the common people And indeed it is not a little wonderful to observe how our Patriarch has no sooner escaped from the face of Pharaoh and malice of his Magicians but he is brought to a terrible trial of his patience with his own people who find themselves no sooner out of bondage by his means but they must presently set their tongues at liberty to raile against their glorious Captain and Deliverer Now first they begin their game upon the sight of Pharaohs pursuite of them flying upon him thus Because there were no graves in Egypt hast thou taken us away to die in the Wildernesse c. Nor were they sooner delivered from that danger being led dry-foot through the middle of the Ocean which had swallowed up the fury of Pharaoh and all his Host but coming on the other side of the Sea they must murmur again against poor Moses because the waters there were something bitter and so he was constrained to deal a double Miracle the one to sweeten the waters the other them so the people were for the present pacified Now their thirst was no sooner quenched but they must be murmuring again for want of bread and upbraid their Redeemer for their very Deliverance telling him in plain terms to his face that he might have done well to have let them alone when they sate by the flesh-pots of Egypt and did eat bread to their full taxing him of a design to starve them in the Wildernesse Then was bread most wonderfully rained down from Heaven to stop their mutinous mouths and yet that most miraculous and celestial food could not content them for at the very next turn they must make as fierce an out-cry for a little water Nay the Text tells us that they were so insolent as to chide with Moses for it and the place was called Massah and Meribah because of the chiding of the children of Israel Yet the Lord being pleased to appease so perverse a people made Moses whom the murmured at to bestow another miracle upon them and to broach a Rock to afford them drink And yet after so many stupendious supplies of their wants and more miraculous forbearances to punish their repining spirits the Devil of disobedience and sedition will not so be satisfied but this rebellious people must be still grumbling again against Moses till the fire of Heaven had almost consumed them all and yet at the importunity of good Moses that all was no sooner quenched but they must nauseat and loath the very bread of Heaven and cry out forsooth for flesh Nothing we know can satisfie irregular appetites yet that lust of theirs must be satiated too by such a shower of Quailes as never the earth saw though there that meat was made a mortal poison to the mutineers Nay yet after all these fair warnings so many miraculous supplies and so much long-suffering of the Lords and his servant Moses with them they must pick a quarrel with him still nay go about to make a general revolt and to depose him from his Charge and all forsooth because they saw before them the huge bugbear Gyants of the sons of Anack for they said unto one another We are brought hither to fall by the Sword Come let us chuse another Captain and let us return into Egypt This was a dismal mutiny indeed and for that the Lord would have extirpated them all but for the importunate prayer of our injured Moses Though it was so contrary to his own interest too for the Lord offered him to make of himself a people mightier and a greater Nation than they were but the gracious Lord was so taken off from his vengeance and our Clement Moses was content to continue the Charge and still charitably to conduct so rebellious and disobedient a people though their many after mutinies and base murmurings drew more and more plagues upon them as that of the terrible fiery Serpents and divers others too tedious now to relate being called to hasten to our precious Parallel The Parallel No other treatment than this can all good Princes and Governours expect from the rude Populace qui ipsam dominationem spernunt majestatem blasphemant who are alwayes addicted to despise Dominion and blaspheme Majesty it self as the Apostle tells us They are never better pleased then when they can as Austin well expresseth it in Principes petulantem ingenii sui libidinem procacitur exercere spend the lust of their petulant tongues upon their Princes The same humour was not amisse remarkt by the acute Historian in his time Loquax sane ingeniosus in contumeliam Praefectorum populus inter quos qui vitaverit culpam non effugit infamiam The people saith he are naturally talkative and love to shew their little wits in casting of contumelies against their Governours none of whom can carry themselves so well as to be clear from blame though they are free from fault and the Philosopher gives some reason for it Male de illis loquuntur Nequam homines quia bene loqui nesciunt faciunt non quod merentur illi sed quod solent ipsi wicked people saith he speak ill of their Princes because they know not how to speak well and so what they do is according to their own custom not the others deserving Indeed we full well know that this great Beast the people is a monster of many heads and those heads have as many horns to gore and gall their Governours Since then this mischievous humour has prevailed in all Ages and amongst all Nations and is become now perfectly customary to the mad multitude from whom neither the Crowns of Kings nor Miters of the greatest Prelates can
I mean some of those Elders and Princes of the Assembly most ungrateful undutiful persons that durst with the Atlantes of old shute their malitious arrows against the Sun and cast stones at him that gave them bread nay some of them too when they could not bow Heaven to their purposes would endeavour to stir up Hell against him confound elements and mingle stars with the dust of the earth to come to the end of their most exorbitant pretensions But the Lord who alwayes took him to his most especial care set him so far above theirs and the Divels malice that hurt him they could not though themselves they might like the Basilisk with the repercussion of their own poison The fagot smoaks onely when it begins to burn but when the flame has once got the upper hand there will be then no smoak at all Natural Philosophy informes us that the Rain-bow in the Heavens is not easily to be form'd at Noon in the heats of Summer because the Sun being then vigorus in his altitude dissipates and wastes those Clouds So our second Moses being mounted as he was to the highest pitch of Heroick vertue dispelled all opposition Malice it self could neither find Bow nor Arrow to reach him but burst it self with its own venemous intention so did all calumny crack it self before the truth of his vertue which darted resplendent flashes into all eyes We know it 's said of old that felicitatis umbra invidia There are no shadows without light nor is there any envy without some gift of God No man thinks it strange that Cantharides should fix themselves upon Roses it is certain that vermin will not be satisfied but with the fairest and the sweetest flowers But that which seems most strange to me and truly it is not a little admirable that men heretofore so honoured for wisdom and good affections to the Publick should run so stark mad with malice as to go about so extravagant a businesse as to swim against the stream with the silly frog hoping to stop the flood and constant current of the Rhodanus or Danubius or with the foolish fly soare up to Heaven to fix her feet upon and stay the course of the primum mobile but by this time I believe they are all more amazed than bridled geese and look as ghastly as dead men four dayes after their Funerals taken from their graves and indeed our second Moses never made more reckoning of such as those than of so many angry hens that have indeed the eyes of dogs but the hearts of hares It would be an endlesse piece of work to enumerate the infinite plots conspiracies treasons and asassinats contrived and practiced upon his sacred Person but he securely slept in the arms of the ever-waking providence and could not but be confident in spite of all the malice of men and Devils but he that had so raised him to would still preserve him in his most illustrious state and condition I shall onely take leave to expostulate a little with those persons and so conclude this Parallel Are you not ashamed yet of your ingratitude you children of the Scottish Belial Had you had one drop of true English blood in your bodies you would have been readier to spend that for him than to take his from him What you would be all Kings we remember indeed too lately that you were so and you would have a perpetual seat in Parliament too as you once thought you had got and truly it is great pity but it were so again especially being so good Patriots as you have been I wonder truly that then you did not vote your selves to be immortal too Let any temperate and knowing man in England now be Judge whether when you sate so with all your power and splendor about you so loudly proclaiming your selves such Magnifical members you did not stink in the nostrils of all the people Who generally lookt upon you then but as busie Apes upon a house top and as a smoke in the socket of a greasy candlestick for such as the Learned Bernard tells us are all dignified persons without merit and so accordingly his Highnesse sacred wisdom spied you out and amongst the rest of his most incomparable Heroick Actions which he has engraven with a Pen of Adamant to consecrate to all Posterity he then sent you out in your own snuff the stench whereof is not yet nor will be I believe in the next Age extinguisht Thus we see the Moon may seem for a time to darken the Sun when it is eclipsed but yet she daily renders the tribute of her light So all the malice in the World that has made a shew to darken his Highnesse for some time cannot at all obscure but must encrease his praises by its slanders as it did advance his repose by its oppositions and augment his Crowns by his humiliation Nay my Lord being of nothing so ambitious as to be like his Great Master Moses has traced the steps of that his great Archetype to the very height of all charity towards these his most violent and undeserved adversaries and all their Complices Have we not seen him like that his first Master frequently prostrating himself at the foot of the Tabernacle praying and almost binding up the hands of God to stay the course of his vengeance against those that persecuted him even to the Tabernacle nay would take into himself likewise a piece of Reverend Aaron for his Pattern standing in the Majesty of his Priestly habit with the Incensory and Sacrifice in hand to appease the anger of God against his persecutors when Heaven was all on fire over their heads and the Earth became a devouring gulph under their feet to swallow them up Our most Renowned Lord Protector could never be lesse than a Moses to them though they did continue never so much to be a Corah Dathan and Abiram unto him So we shall proceed from those wretched injuries he received from ungrateful men to those Noble Princely and high exaltations that he alwayes found within his Mosaick self The eleventh Ascent MOses was a Person of a very high courage himself and every way accomplisht with parts requisite to a good Souldier and he was no lesse curious in the choice of those whom he was to receive to serve under him as souldiers For his own personal Courage it sufficiently appeared in his minority when he slew an Egyptian that was abusing of an Hebrew one of his brethren which was improved highly in his maturity and was most visible in his embracing so many difficulties as his frequent confrontings of Pharaoh and all the fury of the Egyptians and over-passing all the perverse oppositions of his own people He was no lesse choise in the election and approbation of such as were to be made souldiers as is to be seen in the rule that he gave for those which were to go to war ordering that those which were to go out with the
but from the Sun or water but in Rivers and heat but in Fire and where think you to find true Strength but in the God of the strong I mean not that strength of body that Milo had to carry a heavy beast but the strength of soul and courage to carry a man through all extremities which hath its root in reason its encrease in piety and its Crown in true glory and this courage our second Moses had to the full and that I hope there is no man but will grant is so far from being lessened that it is onely heightened by Religion and godliness His sacred Highnesse therefore chose for his Companions in arms none of those roaring ranting fellows that think there is no way to be esteemed valiant but to dare to be impious to make the pillars of heaven to tremble with their blasphemies and have nothing of souldiers in them but to pill and ravage in their Quarters like Harpyes and to feed themselves with humane blood and in a word have but this one shame left to them that is not to be shamelesse What a ridiculous thing is it in the mean time for people to live like Cyclopes that they may be accounted valiant and act the part of Turks to gain the reputation of good Christian souldiers But here his Highnesse his pious wisdom most eminently after the example of his Great Master Moses has ever shewed it self and made us to know such persons well enough his inspired judgement could never be subject to so much fallacy as to take chaff for Gold hemlock for Parsly or an Ape for a Man and he has plainly taught and proved to us that all their pretended courage is nothing else but despair and rage boiling in their passionate breasts and counterfeiting vertue So I hope we shall have no more such false spectacles clapt over our eyes by that spirit of lyes forged in the shop of Hell to make us take that glass for Diamond and those Kestrells for Faulcons indeed fitter for Stallions than War-horses all their courage is nothing but a boiling fury in their hearts like to that of some Lunaticks or possest with an evil spirit which makes very children and women to be sometimes stronger than many men But such as these were none of our second Moses his election for he being to go on God Almighties errand would have no associats but such as the Lord should approve of and were free from all manner of uncleannesse as that Great Master of War and his incomparable President both prescribed and practised The twelfth Ascent MOses was well entered into years but retained a strong sense still and understanding before he was called out upon Publick Employment he was a most vigilant faithful and skilful Officer in the field For his age we find it was not over-great considering how men lived about that time but his vigour was very extraordinary for the Text tells us that he was a hundred and twenty years old when he died yet his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated Now by all the computations of Chronologers he was above fourscore years old when he was called out upon this great Action of Delivering the Lords own people out of bondage and by consequence he must have been then of a much more vigorous constitution than afterwards For his vigilancy there is none sure will doubt that pleaseth to peruse the sacred Text where he is to be found alwayes watching and praying for his people and either pleading something for them to God or for God to them for his care and fidelity the Lords own acknowledgement likewise may serve turn who has expressely testified of him that he was faithful in all his house The Parallel By equal calculation of our Modern Naturalists as well as Chronologers we do finde that God indulg'd double the life to men before the Flood to that he has done since the very next Age after and yet to them too vouchsafed twice so much time of living as he has done to us So that if those great Secretaries of Nature and Antiquity do not deceive us our second Moses his forty years and upwards may appear parallel to the former's fourscore at or about which times they both were prest forth into Publick employment By which we may observe How the Lord is pleased to honour a well-seasoned age for as the late Learned Philosopher tells us Prudentiae mater adjutrix est experientia quam aetate provectiores multorum observato curriculo temporum negotiorum exemplorum comprobatam magis habere possunt quippe quam dies dat qui ut posterior prioris fit discipulus seris venit usus ab annis The Mother and Nurse of Prudence is experience which the more ancient by the observation of a larger course of times practices of businesses and presidents must of necessity have in a greater proportion This skill dayes are commonly the Donors of for we find the following day is still the Scholler of the former and as the Poet tells us True experience is not got without processe of time Thus we find the best incense alwayes comes from old Trees and Torches made of Aromatick wood cast out their best and most odoriferous exhalations when they are almost wasted O that I had never said that word my tongue falters to speak my pen is palsie-strook to write and my heart trembles to think that our second Moses his dayes were so soon to have an end for we had no temporal good thing more to pray for in order to the State or our selves but that the blessednesse we enjoyed under his late Highnesse might be eternal and that we might perpetually live and flourish under the comfortable and pleasant shadow of his Palms but we have too lately seen that he as a Moses is gone as he came and left us nothing but our own peace and his precious memory behind him But I must passe by this passion lest it make me guilty of too great a digression it being a discourse more proper for the close of our Parallels And indeed however we finde our second Moses Parallel to the first for number of years That I cannot so certainly determine as I can for the vigour of his soul and acutenesse of his sense no one of which to the very last Scene of his life was any whit dulled or diminished more than the eye of his Great Master Moses was an extraordinary blessing doubtlesse vouchsafed by the Divine goodnesse to his dear servants to get youth by years and beauty it self by time as we have seen perfectly proved in the person of his late most Serene Highnesse our second Moses as has been recorded of that our first Great Patriarch his Prototype Then for his great diligence fidelity care and skill in discharging all Trusts committed to his Charge no man can at all dispute that has either seen or heard of the indefatigable labours of his Life His Highnesse knew that
before that his Highnesse alwayes fought against and proved in the end that to be a true compleat Christian Captain or Souldier was not to become a meer Cyplop without any feeling of God or sense of Religion and that the Lord who has pulled down the mighty from their Seats and does exalt the humble and meek will alwayes blesse the endeavours of such as those Poverty therefore may be said to resemble the Isle of Ithaca which as Archesilas tells us though rough and bushy failed not to breed the bravest men of Greece and has not our great Vlisses proved the same in England and herein his Highnesse has not onely shewed an especial piece of his incomparable Conduct but proved himself to be likewise full of the Divine wisdom which hides alwayes its most precious Treasures under the bark and mantle of persons base and abject in appearance as we read in Scripture Quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise For simple Fishermen almost as dumb and mute as the very fishes themselves are set apart and chosen to catch in their Nets Philosophers Kings Cities Provinces and Empires and thus in the old Law the Master Statesman and Captain of the World our Patriarch Moses being but a poor stammering Shepherd in shew is chosen out to carry the Word to a most puissant Monarch to shake and to overturn with a poor wand the Pillars of his Empire to divide Seas to calme Billowes to open the bowels of Rocks to command all the Elements and fill the World with wonders So did he make a like Election of his Officers and Souldiers and do the workes of Gyants with the reputed Pygmies of the world I hope I have not hitherto undeservedly brought him for my late Lord Protectors pattern d Indeed this is the ordinary custom of Almighty God to keep his richest Pearls in shells and most precious perfumes in poor boxes Men of this World we know do quite contrary as we saw manifestly proved by the other party where moved the old Magadepies of the Church and Butter-flies of the Court with some other great things called Lords who because they had it may be a gallant valiant man forsooth for the Grandfather thought that they might very securely be Cowards so spending still upon the stock of their great Antecessors though to be doubted whether they were lawfully begot or not ruined their own selves These pretty gawdy things lived in the world just like Snailes keeping their glorious houses over their heads and in their grave Majestick courses almost as slow as theirs too made very fine long silver traces but were nothing else indeed within but meer froth They had alwayes their backs like Cushions covered with Velvet Sattin and what not but their inwards we see were nothing but hay or straw They made a glorious ostent of leaves to the World and a fair verdure like an over-grown wood but are within replenisht with nothing but Serpents These persons sure having nothing at all praise-worthy in them would dignifie their persons with apparel shewing us plainly that they had like Peacocks little heads lesse brains beautiful feathers and a long taile which yet it seems by their strutting about the streets are non clypt short enough with some of them though in good time I doubt not but they will be So I passe from these pitiful nothings whom his Highnesse inspired prudence and skilful conduct would never admit to serve under his Ensignes to some other more worthy piece of his Mosaical Conduct and the next shall be the exact Discipline our second Moses alwayes observed which is indeed the very soul of an Army and without which they would march as the Historian tells us Multi homines pauci viri Many bodies but a few men or indeed more like Salvages than Christians From the neglect of this it is that we have seen in time of War so many Caniballs in arms that cast nothing but fire and blood from their throats Menaces alwayes marching before them into Quarters and ruine and desolation bringing up the Reare Barbarous villains that think because they have a sword by their side they are therefore to be Masters of the lives and estates of other men It is most certain great courage is necessary to make a true Martial Discipline be observed but yet it is to be done as we see in this very Army of our late Lord Protector that he has left behind him to be in truth a mirrour of Armies and never yet was equalled no not by that which Alexander Severus commanded as Lampridius relates all whose souldiers marched to the Persian War like Senators and the Country Peasants loved them as their Brothers and honoured their Emperour as a god Nor yet by that which Marcus Scaurus writes of whose Regiments encamped round about a great Tree laden with fruit and yet the souldiers were kept in such order as not to dare though they were to depart the next morning to take one apple from the Master of the place In this very manner did our glorious second Moses alwayes conduct his men giving them that Admirable Lesson which the most pious Emperour Aurelian gave to some of his Officers My friends said he if you will be Captains nay if you will live contain your souldiers in their duties I will not that a Peasant so much as complain that he has been wronged in the value of a chicken nor that any has taken a grape from his Vine without his permission I will have an account of every grain of salt or drop of oil unjustly exacted I desire my souldiers should grow rich with the spoiles of enemies and not by the teares of my Subjects I would have them carry their riches on their swords not into their Hutts or Cabbins I would have them chast in the houses of their Hosts and not any the least quarrel or disorder heard of amongst them c. If Heathens could teach us such Lessons of civil deportment in armes what a shame is it then for some Christians to march as we see them do more like Scythians and Arabians and that men who are made we know for the support of men and who are not strong but for the defence of the feeble should be more pernicious one to another than Wolves and Beares nay than fire hail serpents inundations and famins By this means it is that warfare otherwise a most honourable profession is made a detestable trade and the Commanders of those unruly Armies are likely the first that suffer by them themselves and all the countenancers of such debaucht doings must find the cup of Divine anger mingled with gall and the poison of Dragons poured forth upon their guilty heads All this his late most Serene Highnesse alwayes abhorred and prevented for which reason it was sure that all the hearts of the poor people of this Nation which so much sighed under the
former miscarriages of our Civil War being indeed reduced to almost a perishing condition by the ill conduct of former Captains freely bloomed and newly opened themselves as Roses at the benigne gentle and yet severe brave aspect of this incomparable person our second Moses when he came into general Command for which reason it was sure that God so blest him in all his Battels Assault and warlike Enterprises that he was successeful in them all for Plunderers we know never fight well and besides t is certain that the just God tyes a secret vertue to those Standards which march for his glory and are not besmeared with the blood of innocents But I must hasten to accomplish our Captain-General and as Tully tells us In summo Imperatore quatuor hae virtutes inesse debent scientia rei militaris virtus Authoritas felicitas There are requisite to a General these four qualities To have knowledge of the souldiers trade To be valiant To have his Army in good awe And to be alwayes followed with good successe of the three first requisites we have sufficiently discourst already so the last onely remains to be produced for the accomplishment of our second Moses in his glorious Captain-General-ship or else if we look upon the four most remarkable properties in Julius Caesar who was the Phoenix of all warlike Princes in those Ages we shall find them all improved to the highest pitch in this our late Great Protector Labor in negotio fortitudo in periculo industria in agendo celeritas in conficiendo Labour about businesse invincible valour in point of danger a thorough industry in all actions and a quick dispatch in all expeditions there remains none but the last of these four Caesarean properties unapplyed to our happy Parallel So I shall endeavour to celebrate those his glorious dispatches and successes in our next most sublime Ascent and Parallel that may concern his Highnesse in any of his warlike Relations The fourteenth Ascent MOses was by the extraordinary indulgence and favour of Heaven attended with a glorious felicity in all his undertakings All his Actions were Crowned with successe and his Battels with Victory All which is sufficently cleared by the sacred Text in his miraculous Deliverance of the Israelites and overthrow of the Egyptians the discomfiting of the Amalekits and defeating of King Arad and his Canaanits with Sihon King of the Amorits and Og the King of Bashan and Conquering in one pitcht Battel five Kings of Midian So true likewise is that piece of Apocrypha which tells us And Moses the beloved of God and men brought he forth whose remembrance is blessed he made him like to the glorious Saints and magnified him by the fear of his enemies by his words he caused the wonders to cease and he made him glorious in the sight of Kings c. The Parallel Though it be very true what Dionysius Halicarnasseus tells us that Virtus est felicitatis mensura non fortuna Vertue is the ell by which we are to measure felicity not fortune and what Paterculus affirms of Mithridates that he was Vir virtute eximius aliquando fortunâ semper animo maximus So every vertuous and valiant spirit though not alwayes great by the favour of fortune yet must be so in his own courage for to judge things onely by event is to turn the wrong end of the book upwards Yet it is as true what the judicious Orator assures us that Exercituum Imperatores nisi prospero Martiali quodam astro nati frrustra fortes strenuique sunt frustra virtute bellicá instructi Generals of Armies if not born under some happy and martial Constellation do exercise their vertue and skill in Military matters to little or no purpose Et de unius fato ducis militum victoria persaepe pendet The Valour and Victory of Souldiers is sometimes lost by an unlucky Captain It has been therefore the practice of most Princes to adopt into their cheifest Commands onely such as have been successefull Captains and have received no foile at all from fortune Now the greatest favourit of fortune or properly speaking the dearest Darling of Divine Providence that ever the Christian World produced was this most excellent person his late most Serene Highnesse His successes were so constant that we may say he had struck a naile in Fortunes wheele that she should never be able to turn it again He has not onely that Lady for his Guide as some have boasted to have her or his companion as others but the Lord made for him a foot-stoole of Fortune and gave him Victory for his Hand-maid and as the same Orator sayes of Constantine the Great Nusquam pedem suum extulit quin ubique eum gloria quasi umbra comitata sit He never set his foot forth of doors but glory attended him as his shadow and what was said of the Great Alexander likewise might more truly be verified in him Quod plures prope victoriam reportârit quà m pugnas inierit plures urbes ceperit quà m obsederit plures hostes fuderit quà m noverit He gained more Victories than he fought Battels he reduced more Cities than he beleagured and routed more enemies than he ever met withal But now here before I proceed any further I must be bold to make a stand and sadly intermix the water of my eyes with my sorrowful inke and with a mourning pen deplore the madnesse of those men who engaged us in our late unnatural Wars Ah poor England Paradise of the Earth Eye of the World Pearle of all Beauties How many times by the means of those infernal spirits hast thou seen thy fruitful bosome heretofore Crowned with ears of Corn and Guilded with Harvests all bristled over with Batalias How many times hast thou seen thy land covered with Swords and thy Seas with Ships How may times hast thou felt the arms of thy children encountering within thy proper entrails How many times hast thou seen flames of brothers hostility flying through thy fat and fragrant fields when hast thou not sweat in all the parts of thy beautiful body when have not rivers of blood been drawn from thy veins and such blood as would have cimented the best Bullwarkes for thy defence against all forreign enemies whatsoever and if well employed had made the great Enemy of Christendom the Turk ere this to tremble at thy Standards and have re-planted again the plains of Palestine But all has been sacrificed to Furies But I forbear least that I lose my self in my provoked Passion and indeed I would willingly passe over this discourse with silence as over coales covered with ashes were it not that as it was fit to expose massacred bodies to view thereby to cure the madnesse of the Milesian Maides so we are bound to discover the bloody effects of this unnatural war to raise a horrour in all good souls against the unhappy causes of it And yet
am sure to incur the censure of flattery for it amongst fools And I le begin with his chief Minister or Secretary of State the intelligence of his Counsels and as it were the Angel-Guardian of his Government who was so present with his great Master our second Moses in all his actions counsells interests and designs as certain flowers are said to wait on the Sun and penetrated to the very Center of his great Soul so could not but contract many of his most Mosaical perfections He is certainly known to be what his name renders him by Anagramm a True Holy one that is a Statesman after Moses his manner viz. fearing God and dealing truly c. a person of most incomparable piety and parts Prudent as a Serpent and yet pure as a Seraphim vertues so rare in a Statesman that we may justly call him the true holy Phoenix Polititian of the Age. I have not time nor paper to insist so particularly upon every one of his Highnesse most honourable Privy Council but this I can affirm that never was a more compleat body of Council or more exquisite composition of so many excellent Tempers together in the World insomuch that we see notoriously in every dayes dispatches how they are that perfectly what the old Historian Velleius sayes of Sejanus flatteringly That he was Actu otiosis simillimus in earnest a most excellent character howsoever of a Statesman that he seemed in the middest of his greatst employments as if he were idle My Lords likewise of his Highnesse Council are so exactly knowing in affairs that it was never heard that any of those six common obstacles did ever obstruct their dispatches which are disorder confusion passion sollicitude irresolution and precipitation so they have done all things warily fully and peaceably without shewing the least anxiety They have by their great piety and prudence kept this State so well united within the bands of concord and charity that it cannot but appear to forreigners themselves as it were a little Temple of Peace though in the very heat and hurry of War embracing all affairs governing them with that sweet temper and equality of spirit that they resemble those active spirits which move the whole Heavens not using in themselves the least agitation Amber-Greece is nothing so sweet in it self as when it is compounded with other things so these Godly Wise Couragious and every way Excellent Counsellours improve themselves by the communication of their counsells together and do even as Flint-stones which by their proximity do make their sparkles to flie by a holy emulation which they use in the pursuite of God not onely enlighten others but enkindle in each others hearts a more sensible and pious apprehension of God and all good things by a mutual reverberation But I must hasten for when I have said all that can Be said it will fall short of their most Mosaical merits So I shall conclude with them in saying onely that they are all persons composed according to Jethro's character and that when our second Moses adopted them into his secret counsells we could none of us deny nor can yet but that it seemed his late Highnesse had drawn so many Angels from Heaven to fix them at the stern of his Estate for they are all of them as unlike their Predecessors as all the World can wish them Then if we but consider a little the excellent choice his Highnesse has made of Commissioners and Keepers of his Great Seal we cannot but acknowledge that they are persons without any exception fitted for so great a work that carry a constant Court of Chancery engraven in their breasts and bear jus aequum bonum written in their very foreheads For the Lords Commissioners of his Highnesse Treasury they cannot be questioned to be of as exact a choice and equal disposition for the great Trust still men of our Mosaical temper fearing God and dealing-truly and so we may safely affirm that our second Moses selected Persons for that employment as well as other to whom he might as safely have reposed his conscience as he did his purse Men all as honourable in their breedings as Noble by their births of as profound Learning and ability in the Laws as of sublime honesty and fidelity to their Country and of a most unspotted integrity both towards God and his Highnesse their late Mosaical Master I should be infinite to insist upon all the particular men of Honour employed by his Highnesse So I shall speak onely something to our Parallel of Mosaical Judges to which our present Ascent naturally leads us and leave the rest to be made out by ingenuous Readers themselves And first for that incomparable pair of my Lords the Chief Justices with the several Sets of ingenious and godly Judges Attorny and Solicitor-General all his Highnesse's Council at Law with other Officers and Appendices to each Court They are all such select and eminent Persons and indeed the plurality of Lawyers from the Purple to the Sable Robe of this present Age so accompplisht with piety and parts that the Divine Themis her self will not be ashamed to call her self a prostitute in former Ages and acknowledge this production of hers to be onely genuin and their generation onely own to be Legitimate and all this we must attribute to his late Highnesse his most Mosaical influence Their Lordships I mean those excellent persons in supreme Judicature are known to live the Laws as well as to see them put in execution Evecti in excelsum inde magis vitia despiciunt as the wise Cassiodorus well expresseth it They know that God and his Highnesse have set them on high for no other cause but to behold vices beneath them which whosoever does exalt will find himself quickly trampled underfoot by them and made to drink the greatest part of the poison which he mingles for others and he that breakes down the hedge as the Scripture threatens the Snake shall sting him first Their Lordships I say have given sufficient evidence to the World that they know all this and practice the contrary course They know themselves to be lookt upon as Stars in the firmament and Philosophy tells us that the more light a body has the more it ought to have of participation and favourable influences for objects that are in a lower degree than it Nihil vile nihil cupidum judices decet claras suas maculas reddunt si illi ad quos multi respiciunt aliquâ reprehensione sordescant sayes the same excellent Cassiodorus Nothing vile or covetous becomes Judges the spots of persons in power are quickly spyed for they being aloft every eye dwells upon them We have seen in forreign parts and heretofore here in England Judges enough neglectful of their duty and Courts of Justice resembling rather old Cyclopean Cavernes than Temples of peace for which we have seen the very fields themselves weeping nay filled with large pools and standing waters
gathered together from the teares of Orphans and Widows and an infinity of other persons under oppression and this by the wickednesse of some who take delight to stretch out suites of Law with their tongues as Shooe-makers do their leather with their teeth which made holy Cyprian cry out Inter leges ipsas delinquitur inter jura peccatur Innocency is seldom so ill treated any where as in those places where profession is most made to defend it The Serpents of the Desart have lesse gall and spleen than such Serpents that make the house of Justice to eccho with their clamours loud as the waves which are heard to roare upon the shore of the Aegean Sea and flourish in the World as Cato tells us like Princely Theives Fures privatorum furtorunt in compendibus Publici in auro vitam agunt saith he Gibbits nay Wheels and Racks are prepared for some miserable Criminals because they were yet but little Theives who had they grown to be greater it may be their Crimes had rather been Crowned than chastised Plutarch very aptly compares those Courts and Cities where these raging injustices are committed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those nefast and fatal Portals ill boading Doors whereof Histories make mention that were never opened but to passe away bodies of condemned persons all villany carrion and stinking ordure How much are we indebted in the mean time to his late Highnesse his pious care and Princely provision for us to advance onely to his Tribunals such glorious Judges who are themselves speaking Laws and do more right to the Publick by their words and examples that all the written Labells in the World could propagate Men so much of Moses his make Couragious fearing God dealing truly and hating covetousnesse not wresting the Law nor respecting persons neither taking reward that we may boldly affirm that they have already put on incorruption bearing alwayes in their minds That great Dignities are oblgations of conscience binding more than the chains of Medea to give a perfect luster of Divinity Happy are the people who have the Lord for their God and such Judges and Governours set over them and this happinesse we owe to his late Highnesse his most Mosaical care over us placing over us such persons in power that he might as well answer for to God as for himself by which means we must needs be sensible how he has left us a government so sweetly still establisht that we can compare it more properly to nothing than to the Halcyons nest which calmes the browe of Heaven I shall conclude this Parallel therefore with an exclamation of a most ingenuous Scotchman against a sort of Kings meaning it may be some of his own Country 0 strange and silly providence of Princes saith he to keep then but a few Hawks to have their stables full of Capreoling Horses as in an army of Sybarits or not speedily to repair the losse of a Hound if a wild Boar happen to kill one of them These things I say not more for the use and pleasure of Princes than for meer ostentation and shew of Majesty they hold a sin to be omitted nay they can waste their Gold and spend their whole Treasure upon pitiful and base fellows But O it is too too chargeable to have a choice of brave mindes about them here their Parsimony is remembred here their Exchecquer fails and so very judiciously proceeds to shew what choice of brave men should be about the Person of a Prince and indeed very congruous to our Mosaical character which our great second Moses has so strictly observed in those brave spirits which he has pickt out and preferred to have power over us that we may safely say he has by that as by any other of his glorious Actions outgone the condition of mortal men by that he sees himself alive still and in health much better than by perfumes and an Eagle escaping from his Funeral Pile does he see himself likewise to be deified By this he shall triumph over time with the applause of all men These Persons likewise shall be his Pageants to all eternity these his rich spoiles of Nations of whose flowers as it were he has so made himself a glorious Garland The seventeenth Ascent MOses was not onely curious in the choice of his Officers but continued still his own constant care over his people and above all things rendred himself most remarkable by the clemency and mildnesse of his Government tempering alwayes his severity with sweetnesse and carrying his people like an indulgent father as sucking children in his arms and bosome not trampling them like slaves under his feet and interposing frequently between the wrath of God and them to save them from destruction Nay to the heighth of that he offered himself to be blotted out of the Book of Life to save them The Parallel We have already seen in our former Ascents the first Moses his promptnesse to pardon all private injuries and offences how great soever against himself nor shall we find his great goodnesse lesse unwilling to proceed to punishment of publick transgressions themselves insomuch that we find him frequently desiring himself to suffer for his subjects faults alwayes carrying them in his bosome like children and never imposing any hard tax or burden on them c. A most pious clement Prince he was indeed and no lesse vigorously followed in this than in his other Sovereign vertues by our glorious second Moses Did ever any Prince in the World go more obliging wayes in his Government than his late most Serene Highnesse has done Has he not ever shewed a greater affection to sway the Scepter over us than to brandish the Sword and to govern us more by Laws than Arms Nay when the Laws themselves as in many things they are most cruel were likely to bring a legal injury and a ruin upon any man how has he alwayes endeavoured to sweeten the rigour of them and that not onely to do good to the innocent but by pardoning the culpable themselves for very little indeed is that Clemency to be esteemed which does onely abstain to strike those who give no offence No my Lord did ever consider that mercy was made onely for the miserable and knew that in punishing or revenging injuries he could onely do like the men of the earth but by gracious clemency and practise of pardoning he was to share in glory with the great Monarch of Heaven who daily makes his Sun to shine on criminal heads as well as the most innocent Nay his eminent mercy was used to extend it self not onely to common Malefactors but to his most malitious enemies themselves as we have fully seen and indeed a most pretious goodly sight it is and as the holy Father calls it the most glorious spectacle in the World and able to attract Angels to the Gates of Heaven to behold It is not Theaters nor Amphi-Theaters Pyramids or
the like great worldly wonders but such a man as knows how to do well and bear ill and to vindicate himself from ill by doing well This very Angelical spectacle must my Lord be acknowledged to have been by all that knew him So throughly has his Highnesse practised that true and Princely though very ticklish rule of the good Father Augustin Disce diligere inimicum si vis cavere inimicum The means to preserve from enemies is to love them which agrees with the Poets policy too who cries Vt ameris ama It is onely love that makes to be beloved and that our second Moses has ever taken for the surest guard of his Princely greatnesse Nor was that the course of his Civil and peaceable proceedings onely but of his very Martial How often have we seen him even in the very hurry of a Victory and heat of execution sounding a retreat to himself and sheathing his sword in clemency which drawn threatned nothing but destruction and a whole deluge of blood His well complexioned soul could never understand the temper of that Tyrant of whom the Historian complains Cum victor extiterit lictor protinus evasit After his Victory made himself as it were a Hangman but alwayes supported the opinion aforesaid quoted out of Nicetus that naturae injuriam facit humanitatis legem violat qui ultra victoriam iracundiae indulget He is a violater of all humanity and injurious to very Nature it self that can be angry beyond his Victory but upon this we have enlarged already so I shall passe over it now with saying onely that as the gracious Lord of Heaven was pleased to establish his Highnesse his Throne in mercy so he alwayes guarded it secure to himself by his Clemency for by that he commanded hearts which he knew to be of much more force than to be a Master of men Omnia vicit qui animum expugnavit To conquer affections is the greatest piece of victory and that can never be obtained but by the armes of love and sweetnesse and by those armes likewise we see offenders are oftener reformed than by all the violence and severity of rigour Monendo certius quà m minando cedendo quà m caedendo scelera interdùm coercentur and this accorded so well with that old piece of Aristotelian Policy Praestat mille nocentes absolvere quà m innocentem opprimere vel unum Better let a thousand guilty persons passe unpunisht than to injure one onely innocent that his Highnesse has alwayes taken it for the surest ground-work of his happy government and for this he had not onely the example of his Master Moses but the very precept and practice of God himself for did not he command our first Moses to carry the people in his bosome and is it not his common practise to govern the World by his mercy of which if any should be of so reprobate a judgement as to doubt let him consult the Prophet who tells us that God measures the waters with his fist and poiseth the heavens in the palme of his hand which signifies according to the best Interpreters that the Lord goes with a close shut and contracted hand to punishments intimated by waters but proceeds with the whole extent of his goodnesse to reward that is represented by the heavens The Rainbow which the Lord has taken for the symbol of his reconciliation with man and environeth the Throne of the Almighty as we find in the Apocalypse it is Arcus carens sagittâ as holy Ambrose observes Qui terrere magis vult quà m ferire A bow without arrows that is bent more to terrifie than to strike Nay the Lord makes it so great a matter to pardon an offender that he will rather permit his whole Essence to be toucht than his Clemency to be so much as questioned his very Title of Godhead to be invaded rather than his glory of pardon And yet our bold-faced Florentine will go about to teach his Prince to establish himself by cruelty as if no government should be or could possibly be made secure that was not built on the bloodshed of subjects and this he goes about to prove by the examples of Caesar Borgia and the stern Emperour Severus c. And then he proceeds to affirm it for a fundamentall Maxim of State That it is better for a Prince to be feared than loved for men saith this wise Secretary do love as it pleaseth them but do fear as it pleaseth the Prince and therefore infers that a wise Prince will found himself sooner and rely surer on that way which depends on himself than upon that which depends upon another A very subtile inference indeed if it were possible for a Prince to keep his people so perpetually under still as to make them alwayes stoope to kisse the yoke for fear but experience plainly proves the contrary that no Tyrant in the World be he never so terrible could or can so keep his people under the lash but they will sometimes get loose and unyoking themselves make the effects of their forced fear felt by the Authors of it And this is apparent by the issues that most Tyrants have found of their cruelties as Nero Caligula Otho Vitellius and Domitian as also Julianus Heliogabalus Gallienus Maxentius Philippus Pocas Carinus Zeno and divers others who did all finish their lives and Empires together most tragically by the sword And truly reason it self seems clearly to me to prove it must be so Does not Philosophy assure us that no violence can endure long but this kind of cruel government by fear onely is set upon the highest pitch of violence therefore impossible to be of any considerable continuance And truly this politick Thesis of Nicholas Machiavells seems so absurd to himself that presently after he has asserted it he begins to recant and temper it thus I grant saith he that Prince to do best who can joyn to be feared and loved together but that being a thing very difficult if not impossible to be compassed as he sayes he counsels to procure fear rather than love Just so he tells us in another place that piety is a thing impossible to be in a wise Prince Thus does our Politick Secretary serve us like a lewd ignorant Physitian who is pleased to make the sick party to dispair of health because he cannot tell how to cure him This mischeivous Maxim of his he drew doubtlesse from the mouths of two of the greatest monsters of Tyranny that ever were in the World and they were Caligula who as Suetonius tells us did frequently usurp that impious Proverb Oderint dum metuant and Tiberius who would seem to mitigate the malice of it by saying Oderint dum probent the one saying Let them hate so they fear the other Let them hate so they allow But I am so much of Machiavels mind that the seeming Moderator in this point is in the greatest extreme for certainly his eyes were never
largest extent of it we should find it as boundlesse as the Sea and our selves swallowed up in the contemplation of it So we have restrained our selves to the discourse of that part of their piety onely which has relation to God-ward and a true zeal to his holy Worship And first we find our Patriarch so severe and punctual in all his performances that he would have the least omission of a puntillo of them to be a mortal at least a capital sin the offender being to be cut off from the World or from communion with the people and so sumptuous he was in his appointed worship that all the World might see that he thought nothing too costly for a bare ceremony of Divine Service and that the people should take notice that the All they had was from the Lord to whom they were to pay back so large a proportion in Sacrifice A most Royal Stately and Magnificent manner of Worship it was which every man must acknowledge that reads the several solemnities instituted by him in those blessed Books and worthy of the spirit of so great a Prince Prophet and Patriarch as our great Moses was Now has our glorious second Moses shewed lesse Religious zeal or true Princely piety towards God or lesse extraordinary care and pious curiosity in providing for the honour splendour worship and service of his Holy Name No his Mosaic Highnesse full well knew that if all the mountains of the World were amassed into one and all the woods of the Earth made into one Libanus and were set on fire and all the beasts of a thousand fields and forrests were turned into victims for his Sacrifices they would be all as nothing in value in respect of his heavenly Majesty and if all the voices of men were tuned into one and that one voice so musically made could speak like Thunder and be heard loudly to proclaim from Pole to Pole the glory of the Almighty it could not be sufficient so resound his holy praises To this purpose it was that his Highnesse was pleased frequently to approve that worthy and ingenious fancy of Philo that great and Learned Jew who has a Story though in it may be nothing at all of verity yet I am sure the morality of it is very excellent This great man in a Book of his called Noe's Plant relates as a certain tradition of the Sages of his Nation from the very beginning of the World That God the Creator after that he had formed this goodly Globe of the Vniverse and composed it as a glorious Scutcheon of his own immense Greatnesse a compendium or contracted table of his chiefest Titles and a perfect Mirrour of his Divine Wisdom and Power demanded of those blessed Spirits about him which were the Angels it may be then in glory what they thought of that great piece of Work upon which one amongst the heavenly throng after he had very highly commended the curious Architecture of the Vniverse acknowledging it to be a most compleat Fabrick in all things but one and that one thing he said was wanting to the perfection of so goodly a Frame which he required as a noble Seal to set upon so incomparable a Piece What is that said the Eternal Father I would desire replyed the holy Spirit That there might be a strong powerful and penetrating harmonious voice which borne upon the wings of the winds Coaches of the clouds and Charioted thorough the air might replenish all the parts of the World with an applause of so accomplisht a Piece of Work and incessantly to eccho forth both night and day the glories of God with praises and thanksgivings for his Divine Majesties most inestimable benefits This Story truly may passe very well for a pretty invention at least and not unworthy of an Angelical spirit that was zealous for the honour and glory of the Lord his Master and Creator Yet by the leave of this good spirit I must be bold to say that his exception if we take it as so was in something very frivolous or his Complement if we take it as so was over-officious For first the Almighty had sufficiently provided against that pretended defect in composing the World in the frame chat we behold as a fair large Clock and then proportionably giving to man the place which this celestial and critical spirit seemed to require Now that this great Clock of the Universe should be alwayes in tune to his service and Divine disposition he has laid his particular commands and orders upon each wheel and pin to do their parts The first wheel of this grand Clock is that primum mobile which we find in Philosophy the continual motion and the secret influencies of antipathies and sympathies which lie as it were hidden in the bowels of Nature The hand of this universal Horologe is that goodly embowed piece of checkerwork and frettizing of the heavenly Orbes which we behold with our eyes The twelve Signs in the Zodiack serve as it were for distinctions of the twelve hours of the day The Sun it self exerciseth the office of the steel and gnomon to point out time to us and in its absence the Moon the other Lights and Stars contribute thereto their lustrous brightnesse The Sea gives in the azure of its waves for ornament as also the Earth produceth its varieties of herbs flowers and fruits for enamel of the outside and its whole body for a perfect counter-poise its stony Quarries Mettals and Minerals for to exercise the wisest and learnedst Naturalists in the search and knowledge of this great Creator The lesser and inferiour animals are the small chimes and Man himself is the great Clock which is to strike the several hours and so perpetually to render thanks honour glory praise service and worship to this Almighty Maker And the most vocal Clock to celebrate the praises of his Creator that these later Ages have produced was this Man of men our most pious late Lord Protector All this I say his Highnesse knew full well as our great Patriarch his Prototype did and the necessity too that there was on the peoples parts to give the most gracious Lord of Heaven and Earth all adoration due to him wherefore we find how he enjoyned such solemne observancies upon them which though but barely typical and ceremonial yet were hugely necessary to strike a reverend dread of the Divine Majesty into so rebellious a people Our Princely Patriarch therefore and his Parallel our late Lord Protector knowing themselves as all other Rulers and persons in power are to be set upon Pinacles to change their words into Laws and lives into Examples were the first and foremost always in the practise of this and all other piety The lives of Princes they knew are more read than their laws and generally more practised yea their examples passe altogether as current as their coin and what they do they seem to command to be done cracks in glasses though past
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
immediately following tells us That the Lord repented him of the evil which he thought to do unto his people And when the Lord was angerly resolved at another time utterly to extirpate the people for their incessant rebellions Moses made such another though something longer yet no lesse effectual prayer to the Lord for them and the Lord as if he had been able to deny his Moses nothing or as if with reverence be it spoken good Moses his word had been a Law unto him he presently replied I have pardoned them according to thy word nay how often has the Lord desired Moses to let him alone as if he had been struggling with him and tyr'd with the importunity of his prayer It would make another Book of Numbers to recount the particular Deliverances which that disobedient people had from the Divine wrath how often from being consumed by fire and eaten up by fiery Serpents and the like by our Moses his most powerful and importunate prayers as also their many miraculous Victories over their enemies all of which were obtained more by his prayers than their forces as particularly in the defeat of the Amalekites who were visibly more conquered by the holding up of his hands than by their dextrous managery of armes our Moses his blessings upon and prayers for them being of more force against the enemy and gave them more deadly blows than all their Cuttleaxes and warlike Engins The Parallel By so much as has been shewed in our Ascent of our Moses his happy power in prayer I doubt not but it does plainly appear how great a preservation it was to that perverse people to have a Prince and Captain over them that had so familiar an addresse unto God and I hope it will never more be called in question by any knowing Christian whether that Divine gift of prayer be a qualification equal to the dignity or requisite to the profession of a Prince though I know some of our Modern Politicks have impiously gone about to dispute that too whom for shame I shall forbear to name though I 'le be bold to give the World the ungodly words of one of the Principal of them Non suadeo Principi stupenda in fanis latitatione neglectis iis quorum cura eum maxime solicitum tenere debet omne otium conterere aut sanctuli nomen gestusve affectare bonus animus gratissimus Deo cultus est optimè orat qui officio gnaviter functus patriae incolumitatem procur averit unde tot hominum salus dependet c. Now not to trouble you with a literal translation for I hold the words not worth it he tells us That he would not have a Prince addicted to too much Devotion nor to affect to be a little Saint he sayes his prayers best quoth he that does his businesse happiliest c. It is in my opinion a very pitiful vain and a false presumption that this Gentleman makes and never indeed can be brought into question by any discreet or sober Christian whether a Prince should be so addicted to Devotion as to intend no other businesse at all that were a madnesse in any private person much more then must it be in any man that is concerned in the publick for besides the inconsistency of such a Devotion with every mans particular vocation which God has commanded likewise to be followed it is altogether in its own self unacceptable to God Otherwise we should enter into Religion as if we were to be lifted upon a rack to be tortured and I say besides it is an injury to the Lord himself to think there can be no true piety or devotion in the World if our bodies be not torne in pieces and our spirits quite beaten down And therefore Gilbertus a great Doctor writing upon that sentence of Paul to the Crinthians Glorificate portate Deum in Corpore vestro Glorifie and bear God in your bodies makes this most elegant and remarkable observation You must bear Jesus Christ not drag him Portari vult Christus non trahi So he proceeds Non est foenum Christus sed flos campi fasciculus mirrhae inter ubera sponsae c. Now he plainly drags him who makes himself surcharged with him and who indiscreetly afflicts himself in the service that he rendereth to the Divine Majesty not considering that Jesus Christ is the flower of the field or the poesie of mirrh between the breasts of the Spouse and not a load of hay to be drawn under which we must needs groan like a wheel ill-greased This was so foolish a superstition and so old a one that the Philosopher himself a Pagan could not but find fault with when he said Superstitio amandos timet quos colit violat It is a very fond superstition indeed saith this wise Pagan and raised by simple people onely which through a grosse errour fears what it should love by vertue and very scarcely can have any knowledge of or approach to God but by violating his Clemency a thing most hateful to him through a false presumption of his severity They must be very silly souls indeed and have very little or no feeling of the Divinity that can apprehend God whom we know to be infinitely merciful to be as terrible as a Minos or a Radamanthus mentioned in poetical Fables who were alwayes represented in those fictions to be most spiteful deities to come and pry into all humane actions to number all mens steps and taking pleasure to prepare punishments for them were wont to raise themselves Trophies upon poor mens ruines It would be a very pretty piece of Christianity one would think now to be preached That devotion and all labours in Religion should be undertaken by us without any relaxation perpetual disturbances undergone by Christians without any repose and miseries without any remedy or comfort at all Sure this must be thought the extreme of all extremes and yet our Modern Politicks will suppose so sottish a devotion as this that they may the better lay their foundation of a wretched incuriousnesse in Religion and prophane neglect of that Divine duty But I must not make it my businesse now to enter the lists formally with that sort of people who we know are accustomed upon all occasions to throw dirt in the very face of the Deity it self for I have another way to go at present and so will hasten to our Parallel For my part I am fully satisfied and so I hope will be every discreet and understanding Christian that the frequent exercise of prayer is as necessary to a Prince Governour or Statesman for the well management of all affairs as it is for an animal to breath The spirit of the best man we know is no otherwise than as a Sun-Dial which is of no use at all but when the Sun reflects upon it Nor can any Prince or Statesman in like manner expect that his understanding should receive any true light or
direction for the government of people if not enlightned with the true rayes of God and that light is not to be had but by the means of prayer The practise therefore of this holy duty has been ever stiled and esteemed by the holy Fathers of the Church The Key of Heaven and the confusion of Hell the Standard of our Christian warfare the conservation of our peace the bridle of our impatience the guardian of our temperance the seal of chastity the advocate of offenders the consolation of the afflicted the passe-port of the dying c. for the Just do live and dye in prayer as the Phoenix in her perfumes A Christian doubtlesse without prayer is no more than a Bee without a sting which can neither make honey nor wax From the defect of this duty have proceeded all the desolations of the earth from hence are dayly derived so many falls so many miseries for that men will not apply themselves to tast the things of God in prayer as our glorious Patriarch and his Parallel have alwayes done No man living can deny sure but that it was the perpetual preservation of the children of Israel that their Moses had that happy faculty to its perfection for it is manifest that they had otherwise been swallowed up by the Divine vengeance and in stead of being brought to the Land of Canaan they had been fearfully cut off from the land of the Living I hope it is already made as evident in our past Parallels that we have received as great Deliverances and preservations by the means of our second Moses which could never have been but by his free frequent and powerful accesses to God in prayer as I shall shew more at large presently In the mean time I will be bold from these two great patterns of piety to draw a closing Corollary and lay down the whole state of the question if it may be worthy to be called one in one single naked Proposition Every good Prince being a publick Person and charged with so important affairs that depend wholly upon Providence and expect the motion of the Divine will ought after these two grand exemplars of Piety and Policy to consider That he is to hold a great deal of commerce with Heaven where his businesse so much lies and therefore should resolve to set apart according to the proportion of his time and other occasions some principal hours of leisure shall I say or business at least of retirement to negotiate with God particularly about his government in imitation I say of these two greatest Statesmen our first and second Moses who had so familiar a recourse to the Almighty that as the one was so the other for ought I know may be entitled The friend of God O matchlesse Title His most incomparable Piety knew sufficiently what Gregory Nazianzen tells us That if we are to have the Lord in our minds so often as we do breath How much more suitable it is to a Statesman to be conversant in that holy duty having most need to suck in the life-giving spirit as from the Fountain of the Word by the means of prayer It is not therefore unfitly stiled The spirit of prayer for it is the breath of the inward-man Os meum aperui saith the Scripture attraxi spiritum I opened my mouth and drew in the spirit We are all ready to be choaked with flesh and fat and to be devoured with flames of concupiscence unlesse we upon all occasions open our mouths to take in that gentle air of God By this blessed means it was that our incomparable Paire our first and second Moses have arrived at this great perfection to whom the Lord has vouchsafed so much of his familiarity as to treat with them as friends and to declare himself as it were unable to deny them any thing As for the first we have seen enough already in sacred Story and for our glorious second Moses our own manifold observations and frequent experimental knowledges may be sufficient to inform us For that his late most Serene Highnesse had the purity and excellency of this precious spirit is not onely manifest to those that have had the happinesse to be present at his daily spreading of his hands and pouring forth of his spirit before the Lord and to joyn with him in his Devotions but to the whole Nation except the most stupid and malitious part of it that either will not or cannot be sensible of the great benefits that we have for so long a time received by his powerful addresses unto God How many times has the Divine vengeance been diverted from falling upon our sinful heads by his importunate intercessions How many pestilences famines and other plagues which our impenitency hardnesse of heart and ugly ingratitude had as well deserved as either the cursed Egyptians or murmuring Israelites have been kept off from us by his means Has he lesse often than the former Moses conquered his enemies more by his own prayers than his souldiers armes Has he not by that means obtained as we have seen a secret vertue to be fastened to his Standards making windes and tempests to fight under his Ensign that we may almost cry out with the Poet O nimium dilecte Deo c. How often has he opened as aforesaid Lands inaccessible calmed stormy Seas taken Towns impregnable and with petit handfuls of men discomfited huge Armies How often have we seen him give me leave to repeate those wonders cleaving of Rocks hewing through Mountains and to do the works of Gyants with the reputed Pygmes of the World and find facility in all that humane reason conceived impossible And how I say again could all this be but that the Lord could no more deny any thing to the prayer of this his dear servant and favourite our second than he could to the former Moses His fair soul was no whit lesse elevated upon the pitch of highest contemplations from his very infancy than the former great Moses was His high soul was not unlike that Ibis the stately bird of Egypt that always builds her nest in Palmes So it was perpetually conversant in high contemplations and had no more impressions of earth than the supream Sphere of celestial Bodies Or else more truly yet resembling the Palme-tree it self where that brave Bird builds which as it is the tallest and streightest of all trees so beares its best and most solid strength on its top So had our most gracious Protector and second Moses all his vigour alwayes in God and for God His life was a perpetual Sabbath Sabathum delicatum a delicious Sabbath as the Prophet calls it nourishing and reposing his soul with the constant draught of this holy spirit of prayer He made it not onely his lock and key of the day but his bolt of the night nor onely so but his very meales and recreations and all that his Highnesse did more in a becoming silence than any exteriour ostent
resembling those Rivers which run under the earth choosing to steale from the eyes of the world to seek for the sight of his God onely So his Devotions did ever study solitude and retirements and were alwayes best when shut up within themselves Nay farther yet after the example of a greater than Moses that is our Blessed Saviour himself he used to spend many whole nights in prayer pernoctans in oratione as the Scripture expresseth it and like those best of Christians in the Primitive times that were called the Crickets of the night because at any time if some interruption of sleep happened they ever made it out with ejaculatory prayers and elevations of the heart Those that love God truly will have recourse to him at all hours and upon all occasions not confining their devotions to time or place Jonas and the three Children found sufficient Chappels in the Whales belly and the fiery Furnace because the love of God the wisest Architect had erected them and the Lord was as near them in the intrails of a Fish or the midst of Flames as he would have been in his own most holy Temple In fine our second Moses has not onely reacht after the former as we have already seen but he has sum'd up all example to perfect himself in the practise of this Divine duty He ever distributed his fastings watchings prayer repast counsel study with so prudent an oeconomy for the service of his God and held his life so admirably interlaced between action and contemplation that he made on earth a perfect figure of Angels ascending and descending receiving already a tast of those benefits which he was to hope for in the other insomuch that he seemed to have his soul in Heaven whilst he was on earth to understand mysteries and enjoy an antipast of Paradise it self O thrice and four times happy were we if we could have known our own happinesse to have had such a Person set over us by God and his own Divine vertues that had so clear and free accesse to the Throne of Grace and so near an union to God himself as a finite was capable of with an infinite and might be stiled as the former Moses was The familiar friend of God and was not onely alwayes ready to stand in the gap between us and the Divine vengeance as the first Moses did but was wont to storm Heaven for us and pull down blessings by force upon us though we were a most ungrateful and undeserving people nor so onely but that was alwayes ready to instruct us by his precept as well as practise if we could dare to follow him in all other pieces of Piety and Divine duty as we have in part seen already and shall more at large in the next succeeding Ascents and Parallels The one and twentieth Ascent MOses was a most exemplary Person in all the practical parts of true Piety He had alwayes so reverend and faithful a feeling of the Majesty of God as not to serve him with exteriour shews and semblances onely of Religion but sincerely cordially and constantly Sentiendo de domino in bonitate as the Book of Wisdom describes it alwayes thinking on the Lord with a true good heart This was most eminently visible in the whole current of his thorough Religious life but principally remarkable in the denial of himself and all his own desires when any thing that concerned the glory of his God lay at the stake or was called into the least question submitting alwayes all worldly ends and humane reluctancies to the interests of Heaven and pure Religion Was not this I say first notorious in him when he would hazard the disoblidgement of his wife a thing that men ordinarily fear more than a disobedience to God nay would incur her displeasure so far as to be thought and called by her a cruel hard-hearted person and a bloody husband rather than omit the performance of one Tittle of his Almighty Masters commands Nay State Policy it self which now adayes is held to be almost inconsistent with true Piety could not hinder his heroick practise of piety And this did most manifestly appear in his refusal of all the favours that Pharaohs Court or his daughters countenance could afford him for the service of his God postponing every thing of his own affection and interests to the zeal for his Religion and the quiet of a good conscience This is I say a most remarkable piece of Princely piety indeed to hold all the Maxims of State and proper interests whatsoever under the rules of Religion and Conscience and to be disposed rather to hazard all than to lose God by one sole sin This noble Princely piece of piety to its perfection both of profession and practise our great Patriarch shewed in the whole course of his life loudly proclaiming and as strictly observing to love the Lord God with the whole heart and him onely to serve which no man can do that mixeth any thing of humane with divine obligations that is but to serve God by pieces The Parallel We have alreay gone far in the discourse of our great Patriarchs and his happy Parallel's most Princely and exemplary piety clearly to be collected from the visible zeal they ever bore to Gods glory and devotions to his Service but all this may be said to be as indeed it is in most of this Age but a meer outside onely the very heart and marrow of Religion consisting in the interiour which we can make no other judgement of than by the apparent practise of piety true godly and religious lives of men and a dutiful submission of all humane interest to God and if all this were ever eminent in any Persons it has been in these two great Princes our first and second Moses Now it is very observable that all this Princely practise of true piety is but an effect or consequent at least of that zeal to Gods glory before spoken of and of that precious spirit of prayer for true Devotion as the great Aquinas has described it is nothing but a prompt will to the service of God his words are these Voluntas quaedum prompta tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum a very prompt and affectionate vivacity in things which concern Gods businesse Nay we may find as much said by Porphyry himself a Pagan and one of the most Atheistical ones that ever lived Deus saith he omnium pater nullius indiget sed nobis est bene cum eum adoramus ipsam vitam precent ad eum facientes per inquisitionem imitationem de ipso that is God the Creator and Father of this great Universe hath no need at all of our service but it is our good to honour serve and adore him making our life a perpetual prayer to him by a diligent inquiry after his perfections and a holy imitation of his vertues All this holy Augustin the Oracle
pious late Protector and second Moses could never induce himself to court any thing that had not Heaven and the Stars to give him for a Reward So I hope we may at length happily conclude that under the heart of this our second as well as we have seen under that of our first Moses there remained alwayes prepared a Temple of true Piety and our Parallel in this particular likewise to be accomplisht The two and twentieth Ascent MOses was not onely accomplisht in all points of Piety that were expedient for so great a Prince and Patriarch but he was advanced by God to the highest dignity and perfection of a Prophet and he was endowed with so extraordinary a spirit of Prophesie that never any man before or since him had the like He was that really which the old Poets in their fabulous superstitions fancied of their god Janus with his double face to look both before and behind him The Great Moses was an inspired Prophet à parte Post as well as à parte Ante how could he otherwise have writ the History of the Creation of the World the Deluge and of all those things that happened before his time of which there could be no Record either in writing or secure Tradition at that time so his whole Book of Genesis must of necessity be extracted out of the Chronicles of Heaven onely That he prophesied of futurities of the highest concernment his other four Books give sufficient evidence and to all this the Lord Almighty himself hath set to the seal of his own approbation first that he was faithful in all his house and that with him he would speak mouth to mouth even apparently and not in dark speeches and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold c. Then the Lord is pleased expressely to declare concerning him That there arose not a Prophet since in Israel like unto Moses whom the Lord knew face to face Over and above all this when prophesying of the Mystery of Mysteries a futurity then of the highest concernment to mankind the incarnation of the Word the Spirit of God is pleased to resemble Moses to the Messiah that was to come saying 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 which words are verbatim quoted for the proof of that Word incarnate both by the Proto-Apostle Peter and the Proto-Martyr Stephen and sure in reason some great similitude of God he must needs contract who had so free frequent and full conversation with the Deity face to face The Parallel That Moses was a great yea the greatest Prophet of the old Law I believe is made abundantly manifest by our Divine Ascent and that our most pious gracious and glorious late Lord Protector and second Moses was a great Prophet too according to his proportion I hope will be made out by the processe of our precious Parallel But now because the name of Prophet here seems to sound something equivocal and is really capable of very various acceptions it may be worth our pains to dilate a little upon and to fix it before we proceed to make up our happy Parallel Indeed there has been an infinite number of persons which have past under the reputation of Prophets that in very truth were no better than Wizards all or Wiseakers in our Country Language that is in plain English mad-men fools or knaves but all such phanatical Prophets as those we shall at present passe by as impertinent to our purpose and not at all worthy of any share in this discourse and enter into a cursory debate onely concerning those who have more justifiable pretensions according to the most genuin signification of the word to that highest and most sacred humane dignity and three sorts of men there are that do and may lay just challenge and claim to that most excellent Title according to all the judgement of Antiquity as well as the present Age. And the first are those inspired witty Prophets or Prophets of phansie which go under the common name of Poets The second sort are those inspired prudent Prophets or Prophets of Affairs received now under the stile of Statesmen And the third sort are those inspired Divine Prophets or Prophets of Religion who though they have the onely true legal and proper right to that Divine honour yet the others are not quite to be cast out or rashly disinherited of that title The first we may call Aery or Poetical Prophets the second more Earthy and Political the third all Fiery and Celestial For this first sort of Prophets our Moses was amongst them too as is sufficiently to be seen in the many Hymnes that he composed for the glory of his God and the comfort of his people as also the many Poetical expressions phrases and prosopopiea's that he useth rendring God as it were coming towards us in his glory and Majesty This first sort of Pretenders then have indeed a pretty fair claim right and title to be taken into this supereminent Degree and that may first here appear from the very name that all good people in all Ages ever gave to the skilful in that heavenly mystery which was alwayes Vates or Propheta as much as Diviner Forseer or Prophet Then none will deny but that they had the onely right in times of Gentilisme being the onely Pagan Prophets and Conservators of Religion in those dayes Nay both Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius themselves confesse that the ancient Poets did receive the mysteries of their Religion from the Jews and preserved them still as sacred though folding of them up in some Fables As first it is plain that the History of Deucaleon was taken out of that of Noe and so kept up the remembrance still of that dismal Deluge The stupendious Story of the retrogradation and going back of the Sun in the time of Ezekiah was continued in that famous fiction of Phaeton They that would behold the building of that proud Tower of Babel which was undertaken by Nimrod and his Associates to climb up as it were by ladders into Heaven and scale its battlements to see what was done there shall find it though under certain alegories amply described in Homer under the fabulous phansie of the Gyants Oetus and Ephialtes sons to Iphimedia where he describes their height and wonderfull vast strength and bignesse and how they went about to lay the mountain Ossa upon that of Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa all which Story Ovid recites likewise with divers others in his Metamorphosis hiding under seeming Fables many of the most Divine and considerable truths but most particularly he recites the manner of the Beginning and Creation of the World just as our Moses did and must of necessity have received it from him Nay Homer Hesiod and Linus must undoubtedly have borrowed from his Books all that they
said of sanctifying the seventh day The Golden Age and Reign of Saturn was gathered as certainly from the most happy estate wherein Adam was before he sinned Nay Orpheus yet ancienter than any of them confesseth that he learnt divers thing as we have shewed before from the Doctrine of Moses mentioning as we have shewed in our Ascent his very Tables c. Well might they then have the reputation of Prophets amongst the Heathens who lookt with as much reverence upon the Theogony of Hesiod as we Christians do upon the Genealogy of Jesus Christ they valued Homers Illiads as highly as we possibly can the Books of the Gospel and had as great a respect to the Apothegm's of Pythagoras as we can have to the Commandments of God Let them passe on then with their reputation of Prophets still especially since St. Paul himself is pleased to afford it to them saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of themselves even a Prophet of their own said The Cretians are alwayes lyars evil beasts flow bellies then asserts their witnesse to be true and that is rare indeed for Poets one would think Well a most Noble and inspired faculty yea Prophesie it self let Poetry be for truly I think a man may be born to one as well as the other But what is this to our late Great Protector who never dealt in any such trivial Arts say some of our Misomusi No my Lord never esteemed that honourable and illustrious Art full of Divine fury after that manner though it may be his greater occupations could not permit him the practise of it he ever had a most reverent esteem of so Divine a profession when regulated after the true Divine way and was a most magnificent Mecaenas to its professors For the Profession he believed with Aristotle that it was the Treasury of the Graecian Divinity and with Bembus that it was the first bringer in of all Civility and with Scaliger that no Philosophers precepts can so soon make an honest and a valiant good man as the reading of Virgil c. Then for the Professours Was there ever a more bountiful Benefactor than he has been to all the vertuous persons of it To instance in one for all What obliging favours has he cast upon our English Virgil here I mean Mr. Edm. Waller and meerly for that and his other vertues having in some other relations little capacity enough to deserve them My Lord has sufficiently shewed his own most excellent judgement in Poetry by his approbation and election of him to be the object of his great goodnesse who is clearly one of the ablest and most flourishing wits that ever handled a pen and he does it with that natural dexterity and promptnesse as if he had begun to write so soon as to live and whosoever confiders the worth of his Writings cannot but wonder how so many graces and beauties which others labour for and never attain to encrease in him as in a soil natural for wit and eloquence If he goes about to translate any thing the dead Authors themselves are ready to rise out of their graves and request him to exchange his Englished Copies for their Originals In all his own things his conceptions are unimitable his language so sweet and polite that no Ice can be smoother his sentences are alwayes full of weight his arguments of force and his words glide along like a river and bear perpetually in them some flashes of lightning at the end of each period He perfectly knows how to vary his eloquence upon all occasions to be facetious in pleasing arguments grave in severe polite in laborious and when the subject requires fervor and invective his mouth can speak tempests In short he is the wonder of Wits the pattern of Poets the mirrour of Orators in our Age. All this I say of him not so much out of design to applaud him as to adore the judgement of our great Augustus who alwayes chose him out and crowned him for the Virgil of this Nation but his favours likewise were extended most liberally to all those that did deserve them either here or in either of his Universities He was a perfect Philomusus and why not by that qualified for a Poetical Prophet the father having at least or ought to have an equal portion with the children of the Prophets And so I passe to the second sort of Prophets that is of our Prudent and Political ones commonly called Statesmen who indeed must foresee futurities too or they can never order their affairs aright for if they look not into all casualties of inconvenience how shall they be ever able to prevent them And Seneca very wisely forewarns all Statesmen of the necessity of this foresight of all futurities when he tells them that they are bound Quicquid fieri potest quasi futurum cogitare To conceive that all things may that can come to passe And therefore Josephus that Learned Jew tells us most judiciously also that Bonum est dum adhuc stat navis in portu praecavere tempestatem futuram non eo tempore quo in medias irrueris procellas trepidare It is necessary for him that goes to Sea to foresee a storm coming if he can and not to rush into the fury of the Seas and tremble at the tempest afterwards that will a vail little but for to be rendered ridiculous for his own rashnesse This holds altogether as true in him that holdes the Helme of a Kingdom or Common-wealth as in any Pilot of a Ship whatsoever By this it may be collected how hugely necessary it is for a Prince or Supreme Magistrate to hold a constant communication with God without whose Divine assistance it is impossible to manage State matters well as we have partly shewed already by his Divine inspirations onely it must be that they can prophesie upon affairs as they should Therefore that great Statesman Xenophon who drew so well the portraiture of a perfect Empire tells us that Tam erit arduum prescribere quae facienda sunt quam futura omnia praescire quod solius Dei est majus conditione mortali It is as difficult to prescribe what is to be done in State-businesses as to foreknow all futurities which is proper to God alone and above the reach of all Mortals and yet this that is so hard a task is imposed upon Princes So that great Statist proceeds Ecce aliquid Dei sic Princeps sustinebit in ventura scilicet excurrere qui ut sibi constet sufficiatque primum consiliis conatibus suis à Deo fulcrum prudentiae sapientiae jugiter flagitabit nam illa quae capite humano tantum stat infirma est incauta quaedam temeritas ad nullam autem Provinciam erit inhabilis ad nullam virtutem indocilis qui pietatem didicerit numinisque cultum Behold here saith he how a Prince must of necessity have more than ordinary
of God in him to have an insight into the events of things and to discourse upon futurities which true spirit of prophesie that he may have that he may be constant to himself and stable in his counsels he is perpetually to seek that capacity and support from God for the greatest wit of man of it self will be nothing but temerity but he that is a true servant of Gods and delights in his worship shall be so inspired as to be able to encounter all extremities of State and difficulties of affaires whatsoever It were now to be wisht that our Christian Kings and Princes would study and practise some of these religious Pagans admirable Divinity though they will not strive to mount up our Mosaical Ascents as his late most Serence Highnesse has done by which he has arrived as we have seen to the perfection of this Political spirit of prophesie The wise Philosopher assures us that Sapiens non semper it uno gradu sed una via A prudent person keeps not alwayes one pace though still one and the same way by which way he must unquestionably mean this Divine and prophetick way this way of dependance upon God in all his counsels for no way else can be one all humane wayes being various and uncertain as has been sufficiently shewed in our precedent discourses together with my Lords our second Moses his as the firsts great relations to the Lord in all their affairs so I may hold my hand now from any further enlargement upon their prophetical Policies but conclude that his late Highnesse was a most compleat Prophet in this sense also So now we come to the third and last acception of Prophets and that is the true one indeed the Divine Prophets I mean immediately illuminated by God as our first Moses was and had free and frequent conversation with the Deity even to the enjoyment of him face to face Of this sort of Prophets we find a distinction likewise in Scripture and they are termed by the Spirit of God either Videntes or Evangelizantes Seers or Preachers The Seers were those which used to converse with God by Visions or Divine Dreams and to have some miraculous Revelations of things and many future Events This truly is the proper high pitch of prophesie the sublimest condition sure that mortality can arrive at and that our first Moses had in the greatest proportion of any meer man that ever lived as we have seen in our Ascent nor truly dare I venture our second Moses here to the perfection of Parallel with him for as I have said before we are yet unknowing to those particular private dispensations of Heaven to him though this we may securely conclude as the Scripture speaks that the Secret of the Lord was with him and that he had the testimony of Jesus which to have is to have the Spirit of prophesie for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophesie as is expressely delivered to us in the Revelation Then for the second sort of Divine Prophets which are the Evangelizers or inspired Preachers they are such as the Apostle describes at large in the twelfth thirteenth and fourteenth Chapters of his first Epistle to the Corinthians and exhorts us all to covet to be above all things and to speak unto men to edification to exhortation and comfort Now if ever this sublime Piece of Divine prophesie was made out to any mortal man of his condition it was most eminently glorious in him his very life was a perpetual Prophesie his sanctified example was a constant living Sermon and the words which the Spirit gave him when he was pleased to open his inspired lips were as we have hinted before as thunderclaps to Hindes for the production of salvation His way of prophesying was not like theirs now adayes that make a trade of it and employ their Pulpits more for coin than conscience and to pluck the fruits of the earth from their Parishioners than to improve the fruits of the Spirit in them No his inspired Highnesse ever hated that canker of worldly spirits so predominate in the most pretended Prophets of this Age who indeed more zealously preach themselves and their own vile interests than the pure and saving word of God Others forsooth there are of them that will preach nothing but placentia sow pillows under sinful elbows and stroak and tickle their Auditors in the meane time with strange stories or vain curiosities and yet this they will call prophesying but be it what it will they care not so it be for their own profiting and they have brought a great part of the people too to be satisfied with that kind of stuff nay even strangely to delight in it The generality now comes onely to hear Preachers as of old they used to do to the Athenian Orators or a curious Lute-player or a Comedy but if he that preacheth has no other intention but to please and they that hear have no other purpose but to sooth their own curiosity he may weary his lungs in the mean space and they hug the itch in their ears but the time will come when he shall have the worm in his heart to gnaw him and they the tingling of the eares for their punishment The seller and the buyer both shall be payed home with the coin of reprobation for whosoever speaketh not and who heareth not to do and become better abuseth the gift of prophesie it self and a word signed with the blood of Jesus Christ the account of which they will find inestimable and the losse of the least jot of it most damnably dangerous His inspired Highnesse I say out of his true Prophetick wisdom ever hated the courses of all those giddy ungodly Evangelizers and said with holy Paul Though I have the gift of Prophesie and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so as I could remove mountains and have no charity I am nothing Now this charity tends to that the Apostle tells us as aforesaid to edification exhortation and comfort of others which his true Prophetick Spirit alwayes observed and by that inflamed all his people about him so that his Palace alwayes appeared as a glorious Temple and his conversation a very Heaven upon Earth So I hope this Parallel likewise will not be denyed to be accomplished Yet we shall see it more clear in the following The three and twentieth Ascent MOses was not onely endowed by God with a most rich and plentiful spirit of Prophesie himself but he endeavoured to procure it for and alwayes permitted the exercise of it in others nay encouraged and cherished it in his people to the discontent of divers about him for the sacred Text tells us that when newes was brought to the blessed Patriarch and holy Prophet that there remained two of the men in the Camp the name of the one was Eldad and the name of the other Medad and that the spirit
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
avarice and waste it as fast by riot thirty or forty years agoe more or lesse was not able to contend for excellency with a pitiful Cater-pillar His Mosaical Highnesse I say considered all this and a great deal more to render himself a true imitator of his Master First though his Nobility of birth was very great as we have seen he never intoxicated his brains with it as some do now adayes that make it their businesse to dig out and disentomb their Grandfathers as it were from the ashes of old Troy and spend so much time as Ausonius sayes very well In searching out of uncertain Parents that they many times give occasion to suspect that they have none certain No my Lord though he knew very well how to value the happinesse of a good extraction yet for any man to be proudly pufft up with it he accounted no lesse than madnesse for revolving the whole masse of mankind we shall find as Plato told us long agoe That there is no King which comes not from Clownes nor Clown who is not descended from the blood of Kings Then for beauty of body though his Highnesse had as fair a proportion as any man as we have likewise shewed yet he could as little pride himself in that knowing it to be but a covering for ordures the blanching of a dunghill with snow or at the best but a fadding flower of the field which hath as it were for Horizon the very instant of its birth Et dum nascantur consenuisse rosas no more could any of his great natural or acquired parts raise him above his proper pitch knowing the best learning amongst men to be but a qualified ignorance the memory it self to be but the belly of the soul and most frequently fill'd with nothing but winde the best and most acute wit of man he lookt upon as a poor thin thing like the spiders web and fitter to catch flies than any thing else and as for the judgement he knew how dangerous a thing it was to confide in that little lesse than a leprosie in the heart of man No more could his Mosaick Soul be elevated with all the honours he enjoy'd and greatnesse of this world for he took all them for burdens and at the best lookt upon them but as golden Maskes and weather-cocks of inconstancy and for all manner of praises flattery complacency and ticklings of some vain men he ever hated and contemned as fit onely to inebriate shallow brains for riches he evermore scorned as the offall of the earth the nest of rust and tinder of concupiscence for Palaces and stately Houses he valued but as the bones of the earth pil'd one upon another with ciment and morter for precious Stones he esteemed as they were the excrements of an inraged Sea borrowing their worth onely from illusion Much lesse could his great wisdom be capable of that vanity wherewith men usually pride themselves in cloaths meer nourishment for moths to cover bodies which must be food for wormes he lookt upon all bravery of apparel but as plaisters of the scars of sin to wit nakednesse borrowed feathers from all kinds of birds unpunisht thefts witnesses of our poverty that makes us to beg the assistance of so many creatures to cover our shame Moreover he knew that Vestitus ut tegit corpus ita detegit animum Our attire does not more cover the nakednesse of our bodies than discover that of our mindes his Highnesse therefore purposely did as all wise men will avoid any vanity or ostentation in that Nor yet could his Mosaick Highnesse be taken with that empty piece of pride which most great ones now adayes are possest withal to behold behind him great and gay Trains of servants who but burden their Masters with their many sins and make them become answerable for their accumulated follies See here a miracle of men in the contempt of riches and honours for the first he never cared to hold lockt up in his coffers nor ever thought were as they should be but when they were distributed for they resembled as I have heard he used to say nothing more naturally than a dunghill which stinks when it lies heaped together but fattens fields when spread abroad and for the other he took it for as great a meer mockery to affect greatnesse amongst men as if a Rat should pride himself to be a Lord forsooth amongst Mice He was so far from feeding himself with or priding himself in glory that he would often say too as I have heard all that was but the swelling of the eare Are not these Apothegms worthy of so great a Prince In fine his Highnesse alwayes concluded with the Prophet Habakkuk Quomodo potentem vinum decipit sic erit vir superbus That as drunkenness was taken with wine so were the braines of men intoxicated with pride and proper opinion There is no man will deny sure but that all those actions and expressions aforesaid were very high humiliations before God and indubitable marks of a pure Mosaick spirit but where were his humilities to men and his meeknesses of spirit in points of government If this be demanded by any doubting person let him tell me how often he has found any surly supercilious looks fall from him or any fastidious disdainful words or gestures which so usually accompany common greatnesse No his Highnesse besides the great amaenity and affability of his Noble-nature had better studied the accomplisht Cyrus in Xenophon who tells us that Fastuosum ac morosum ingenium quod fastidium sui aliorumque secum trahit felix principatus non admittit Insolency and morosity are not at all consistent with the condition of a happy Prince and what Ausonius so highly commends in his Gratianus Quod faciles interpellantibus praeberet aditus nec de occupatione causaretur quinimo ubi postulata aut querimonias explicassent percunctaretur numquid praeterea vellent That he was a Prince of easie accesse and a very patient eare not expostulating why men came to trouble him but when they had said all would ask still Whether they had any more to say In short his Highnesse was truly that which the most gracious Emperour Titus would have every Prince to be careful to be that is Sweet Serene and Pleasant to all and Non oportere à sermone Principis quemquam tristem discedere That it was not fit for any Prince to send any man from his presence away sad or discontented His Highnesse very well understood that Verba aliquando munera faciunt and if he were forced at any time to deny a favour he did it alwayes so Vt benignis negata res verbis sit gratior quam concessa morosis That he would oblige more by his very denials than some Kings that I have known would do by their very grants It was observed by a great Critick upon Julius Caesar that Quamvis eum Clementia liberalitas fortitudo commendarent odium
tamen conjuratio praematura mors oppressit quod elatior populo blandiri senatoribus assurgere gravaretur aut nesciret verbis quoque uteretur asperis c. Though he was hugely commendable for his Clemency Liberality and Courage yet he fell under a sad Fate for want of a little complacency with the people and soothing the Senate with some complement and had alwayes too much asperity in his tongue Could any of these imputations ever light upon our Mosaical Protector No he was ever as distant from them as the Sphere of fire can be from the Center of the Earth so that we may securely conclude that his late Highnesse has as much out-done Julius Caesar in this as in all his other glories never was that great Title of Serenity so truly given to any Prince as to him for it was born with him Thus we have seen these two great Persons of Honour our first and second Moses entering this grand Theater of the World from the first Scene of their humble retirements to the last issue and Catastrophe of all their happinesses attired with nothing but humility that still accompanying and crowning all their Actions as it was the basis so it was the vertical point of all their greatnesse nay the very Orb and Element that all their other Vertues moved in and by which they arrived at all their glories so disproving the Philosophy of Seneca who sayes that Servitus est magnitudinus non posse fieri minorem That it is the slavery of greatnesse not to be made lesse which though may be true in bodies they have proved to be contrary in souls and what Pliny assures us to be more true that Natura nusquam magis quà m in minimis tota est nature is most entirely it self and whole in the least things This sweet littlenesse of theirs is that which has rendred them so great in the sight of God and man for by so lessening and annihalating themselves they have enlarged their glories and raised themselves so many degrees towards Heaven as erected eternal Trophes to their honour upon earth and those as great as ever were written or can be in the Records of Fame Thus we have I hope happily finisht the whole Stair-case of all our Mosaick difficult Ascents we shall now beg a little breathing-space upon the top of this holy Mount before we dare to adventure any higher and yet we have but halfe a dozen short and easie Ascents more left us to climb for they are Ascents of Favour and Prerogative before we can introduce this glorious Couple our first and second Moses within their blessed Tabernacle of Repose and so we do intend to conclude though it can never be sufficiently accomplished this high piece of Mosaick Work Six Transcendental ASCENTS To the top of the MOSAICK MOUNT OR BLESSED TABERNACLE OF REPOSE The first Transcendental ASCENT MOses being premonisht by God of his approaching end made his most humble suite unto the Lord for to nominate his Successor that the people might not suffer by the vacancy of so great a Charge and the form of his Petition is very remarkable which runs thus Let the Lord God of the Spirits of all Flesh set a man over the Congregation which may go out before them and which may lead them out and which may bring them in that the Congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no Shepherd and the Lord said unto Moses Take thee Joshua the son of Nun a man in whom is the Spirit and lay thine hand upon him c. Then we find this testimony of Joshua afterwards That he was full of the Spirit of Wisdom for Moses had laid his hands upon him and the children of Israel hearkned unto him and did as the Lord commanded Moses The Parallel We have hitherto throughout all our past Ascents seen this incomparable pair marching most amicably coupled hand in hand together as well in all their painful actions as sufferings And a glorious spectacle none sure can deny it to be I am sure holy Cyprian tells us that it is To see such invincible courages counterbufft with stormes and tempests on whom it would seem that heaven it self would burst and fall in pieces to behold two such men I say amidst the threats of the air and the ruins of the world alwayes standing upright like to great brazen Colossuses and scorning them all as mists and small flakes of snow What can we do lesse in such a case than exclaim with Seneca Heu quanta sublimitas inter ruinas humani generis stare erectum O what a sublimity it is to be erect in heart and countenance amongst the ruines of mankind and give thanks to God with Typotius Quod digni visi sint Deo in quibus experiretur quantum humana natura possit pati That he hath deemed them worthy to serve as a trial of humane Nature to see to how high a pitch it could arrive And truly if we do but rightly consider the rise as well as the progresse of these two great Personages we shall find them exactly to correspond with that ingenious devise of Lewis the twelfth of France which was a celestial Cup advanced in rayes of Gold amongst a crowd of eclipses with this Motto Inter ecclypses exorior I rise between eclipses We have seen I say this devise fully verified in our first and second Moses and yet their Clemency and Piety was alwayes so great as to pardon and pray for their very eclipsers and persecutors themselves like all the ancient Martyrs who when laden with torments opened so many mouths as they had wounds to beg a pardon for the very causers and inflictors of them and more like to Jesus Christ himself now sitting in the midst of those Martyrs and quickning by the effusion of his blood even those who had their hands deep in the shedding of it We have seen this matchlesse couple onely Parallel to themselves in all their most elate stirring and astonishing great actions too wherein they have ever shewed their courage like Eagles confronting all stormes like Lions which oppose all violences like Diamonds never to be broken like Rocks scorning all waves and Anvills resisting all the stroakes of hammers and in a word like to nothing so much as to the River Tygris which as blessed Ambrose observes Quodam cursu rapido resistentia quaeque transverberat neque aliquibus cursus ejus impedimentorum haeret obstaculis amongst all the streams of the earth hath a current so swift and violent that with an unresistible rapidity and impetuosity it combateth and surmounteth all the obstacles that can be opposed against it So the Courage of these two great and most incomparable Captains did use to flie through all perils break through and work it self a passage against a whole world of contrarieties We have seen these two super-excellent Persons in all their eminencies of State likewise Supreme
Magistracies and Principalities we have seen them likewise in all the perfections of their piety towards and worship of the Omnipotent and the renunciation of their proper interests for the service of the Deity nay we have seen them brought up by the Divine hand to the highest pitch of Prophesie it self and yet their great souls could not make a stop there but must mount a little higher and that indeed is the highest step of all Princely perfection as we shewed in our last Ascent to wit humility and meeknesse of spirit It is most certain that great felicities are so ticklish that it is much more easie to live on the dunghill of Job with patience than in the management of great Kingdoms with moderation He therefore is to be accounted truly great as holy Bernard tells us upon whom felicitas si arrisit non irrisit happinesse has smiled upon and not cozened nay the Pagan Poet could preach as much as that too when he cries out Ardua quippe res est opibus non tradere mares It is a most difficult thing for a man not to betray his manners to a great fortune It is doubtlesse the heavyest burden to bear a great fortune well we see how apt the spirits of this Age are to have their eyes dazled with a little sparkle of felicity their skins are presently puffed up and their souls drencht in some most dismal pride and a sad deluge of tyrannies and dissolutions We have seen our Mosaical spirits of another temper each of them like another Abdolomin who did passe from a Garden into a Royal Palace and did handle the Scepter with the same humility of heart without either prejudice to the people or his own authority as one would do a spade This is a vertue indeed which is but very rarely seen here in earth but is admired in heaven it self and it is a vertue doubtlesse which comes immediately from the treasures of God Almighty and of this we have seen our incomparable paire of Princes giving us such an example as if they were ordained by God to declare how high Christian perfection may ascend by planting of a glorious humiliy upon the Diamonds Pearles Emralds Rubies and Saphyrs of Regal Crowns and leading in Courts the lives of Hermits so commanding greatnesse and humility which seldom will admit of any aliance at all mutually to kisse and sweetely embrace one another Have we not seen I say all this sufficiently made out already and that it is not possible to find more personal perfectious heapt up in mortal men Have we not seen I say this heavenly paire of most incomparable Persons onely Parallel to one another like another Castor and Pollux those happy Constellations of Mariners from the very first Port of their Cradels to the secure Harbour of a good old age sailing through a boundless Sea of Bliss amidst the stormes of State and War making all fair weather about them and encouraging us to steer our course after them if we can Nay yet have we not seen them what is more strange like two Phenixes together yet incorporated or twined at least like the Gemini in the Zodiack flie through a whole heaven of happiness upon earth Then whither are we going now What are there any Ascents yet higher for our Mosaick spirits to mount Surely not as to their personall perfections aforesaid we have said all we can and seen as much as we can know unless we could take Post upon a Pegasus and piercing the Empyrean hire a Convoy of Angels to carry us into the beatifical Heaven to see the Crowns and Glories that they enjoy Whither is it then that this Transcendental Ascent will lead us why surely to the sublime consideration of those Divine and Supereminent indulgencies priviledges and prerogatives that they enjoyed by the extraordinary favour of Heaven towards their later ends which are no lesse remarkable certainly than all their former painful Ascents before could be good Princes like the Sun shining alwayes forth most gloriously at their going down Now the first great favour and principal prerogative that we find our first great Moses had indulged to him by Almighty God was this of our present Ascent to have the nomination of his Successor in so great a Charge For though the Lord was pleased to elect yet he commanded his servant Moses to nominate Joshua to the people for their Captain and his Successor Now has not the great goodnesse of Heaven been graciously pleased to indulge the very same priviledge and prerogative to his late most Serene Highnesse of glorious memory our second Moses First for the nomination of this happy Prince that is at present placed over us it is evident was from his Highnesse himself though the election of him as indubitably was from God as that of the great Joshua before him was and this liberty or supreme power of nomination was given to his late most Serene Highnesse by Almighty God not onely by a private revelation as the other was but publickly declared and enacted too by the Representatives of the people assembled in Parliament who are presum'd to carry Vocem Dei the voice of God along with them likewise So that on our parts there remained nothing to be done but to shew our dutiful reception and active obedience and to hearken as the Text of our Ascent expresseth it to all that he shall say Sic sui semper erit Arbitrii jubere sufficiet nobis sola obsequii gloria So he shall have the honour still to command and we will satisfie our selves with the glory of obeying But now whether this way of a Divine election to a Monarchy be better and of a more ancient right than to come to it by an Hereditary succession as to a private Patrimony as his Highnesse himself expresseth it though for my part I think there is no question yet I find it to be a dispute De trop longue haleine as the Frenchman speaks of too long breath and difficult debate for our present Parallel So I shall refer it till another occasion and desire the Reader in the mean time to accept of his late most Serene Highness his own excellent words in the Speech before cited for a full decision of the Controversie For if you had upon the old Government offered to me this one this one thing I speak as thus advised and before God as having been to this day of this opinion and this hath been my constant Judgement well known to many that hear me speak if this one thing had been inserted that one thing that this Government should have been and placed in my Family Hereditary I would have rejected it and I could have done no other according to my present Conscience and Light I will tell you my reason though I cannot tell what God will do with Me not You nor the Nation for throwing away precious opportunities committed to U S. This hath been my Principle and I
liked it when this Government came first to be proposed to me That it put Us off that Hereditary way well looking that as God had declared what GOVERNMENT he had delivered over to the Jews and placed it upon such persons as had been instrumental for the Conduct and Deliverance of his People And considering that promise in Isaiah That God would give Rulers as at the first and Judges as at the beginning I did not know but that God might begin and though at present with a most unworthy Person yet as to the future it might be after this manner and I thought this might usher it in I am speaking as to my Judgement against making it Hereditary to have men chosen for their Love to God and to Truth and Justice and not to have it Hereditary for as it is in Ecclesiastes Who knoweth whether he may beget a Fool or Wise honest or not what ever they be must come in upon that account because the Government is made a Patrimony Thus we see how his most Serene Highness has put it clearly out of question that an ordinary fair Election of a Prince is much better like to prove than any casual hereditary succession much more then must an extraordinary and Divine Election as ours has been be more acceptable to God and man and prove to be more prosperous to the People But most especially when the whole World is satisfied in the Divine endowments of the Person Elected as we have been all in the behalf of this most gracious Prince our present Lord Protector whom his Mosaical Highnesse has been pleased to nominate and bequeath to us for his Successor and of whom we can conclude no otherwise than what the Spirit of God has done concerning Joshua That he is full of the Spirit of Wisdom for our second Moses has laid his happy hands upon him so the whole Nation shall hearken unto him and he shall do as the Lord commanded our second Moses as we shall see more amply made out in the following Ascents and Parallels The second Transcendental Ascent MOses was permitted and commanded by God to nominate one for his Successor that had a very near relation to him his own houshold Servant his Minister or Menial Attendant in his Family for so was Joshua as we find in several places of holy Scripture as first in the Book of Numbers And Joshua the son of Nun the servant of Moses one of his young men answered and said c. Then It came to passe that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun Moses Minister saying c. The Parallel We do not finde in any part of Holy Writ that the great Patriarch Moses had any son capable of this great Charge to succeed him in the Government of Gods people There is indeed mention of the Circumcision of one but never any thing more spoken of him So it is to be presumed that either he had none living or at least as we said before not capable of so great a Charge God Almighty in the mean time brings this high favour and prerogative as near to him as possibly might be next to the nomination of a son which as it seems by humane collection then could not be In the mean time it may be worth our while to sit and consider the Transcendency of Divine Favour and Priviledge that our great Protector and second Moses had in this particular above his Prototype the first whilst he has been as we have seen permitted and directed by God to nominate his own son nay his Eldest son to succeed him in the Soveraign Charge the other being commanded to choose but his Menial Servant and Minister and that was a Divine favour too Herein I say our second Moses has out stript his pattern and our Parallel here must over-ballance the Ascent it self For so much as a son and an Eldest son ought to be above a Servant in the respect and reputation of any Father of a Family so much more of favour and indulgency extraordinary found our glorious Protector and second Moses from the hands of God than that great Patriarch himself his first dear Favourite the former Moses did O stupendious transcendencies of Divine love O happy Priviledges of a Prince and Prerogatives unexpressible O Soveraigne Favours of Heaven undeniable What man living is there now upon the face of the Earth that can dispute whether it be not a most sublime instance of the Almighties affections to any Fathers it being granted which I hope will not be denied that he is the Soveraign Mover and Architect of our lives and fortunes when he is pleased to propagate their greatnesse and glories to their children it being doubtlesse the greatest temporal dispensation that men of honour can be capable of upon Earth to have a flourishing Posterity given them by God which may make them eternally to live in the memory of men by those most lively images of their vertues It has been we know observed by the vertuous in all Ages that those Princes and great Persons that have lived any way sordidly or viciously fatting themselves with the blood and sweat of the poor or have establisht any Tyrannies in the World have neither been fruitful nor fortunate in their Posterites and as Nature has ever shewed it self to be scanty in the propagation of beasts of prey as Wolves and other creatures designed onely for spoil and no other use which would otherwise soon bring the earth into desolation So Almighty God by a secret oeconomy of his Divine Providence permitteth not the Princes or Potentates who have made themselves disturbers of the Publick peace and infringers of Laws both Divine and Humane whereof they ought to be Protectors should make the brutishnesse of their savage souls to survive them in their Posterities Now not to go far from home for an example nor yet much distant from the present Age I shall produce for an instance of this great truth a late Prince of our own that was Henry the Eighth who whilst he lived made all Laws his slaves and his passions his Masters as unquestionable a Tyrant as ever breathed who left three children that all successively sate in the Throne after him yet none of them had the power to propagate any issue to perpetuate him nor yet so much as to erect a Tomb for him and he can to this day boast of no other Monument to record his memory to the World but the same which he left behind him who did make his ambitious brag of the burning of Diana's Temple and which is most to our present purpose though hinted before again to be noted after his death as if the Lord would explicate his own indignation and with his dreadful hand had written upon the walls of his Palace Mane Thekel Pharez as his Divine Judgement against him and all his posterity all his then hopeful and very glorious stem and branches were soon withered away or cut
can imagine his inspired wisdom to be capable of such a defect that are not themselves like those old Monsters called the Lamiae which were alwayes blind within their own doors and could onely make use of their eyes when they were from home Then lastly how could he be unknowing to those perfections which all the Nation has been so satisfied in for these many years that he has been with reverence lookt upon and admired as an Angel descending from Heaven and vouchsafing to let himself be inchased within a humane body a Prince of so incomparable sweet and excellent disposition that he may be worthy indeed to be called the dear delight of God as well as man And that this was the judgement of all the World concerning him I shall instance in one person for all who was not long since a member of that most beautiful body before mentioned I mean that most famous and flourishing University of Oxford who drew an anagrammatical Prophesie out of Virgil foretelling the glorious Fate of this happy Prince now near two years since and presently upon his acceptance of that most unvalueable honour to be their Chancellor which because has proved so exactly true a Prophesie I have thought fit to publish my friends paper to the perusall of all the World and insert it here presuming that neither he nor any wise man else will be offended at it Celsissimo ac Gratiosissimo Domino Domino Richardo Cromvel Seremissimi Domini Protectoris Filio Primogenito Celeberrimae Academiae Oxoniensis Cancellario Honoratissimo Anagramma Genethliacum EPITHALAMIUM O Richarde Cromvel magnus es Majori nubis Chara Dei soboles Magnum Jovis Incrementum SIccine Virgilius credendus Numine plenus Quis furor inflatus sacrum rapit usque Prophetam Vt Nobis tua clara vetus Natalia Vates Praedicat simul sponsam Quae denique Major Cum siet atque etiam verè tu Magnus habendus Quid tua Progenies fuerit nisi Maxima Princeps O Fortunatos Natâ istâ Prole Britannos Noster Oliverus Magnus Sic ut usque virere Possit aeternos aetate requireret annos Hoc sceptrum semper quatiat Cromvellia Proles Vivat Imperium teneat Primo vel ab Ortu Solis ad Hesperium Cubile sic Anglia vivat Sic vovet optat Prohpetizat Amplitudinis vestrae Servus Observantissimus To the most Illustrious Lady of the Thrice Noble Lord My Lord RICHARD CROMWEL An Explication of the Virgilian ANAGRAMM Madam THough Virgil ben't much your acquaintance yet You must confesse you owe him no small debt Thus to foretel your Princely Husbands Birth His Fortunes and his Honours upon Earth Your Name and Marriage too all which does lie Wrapt up we see in 's Antique Prophesie He calls your Lord Great Increment of Jove What then must th' issue be of your chast love He 's great we know and you a Major see How can your Children less than Maxims be On those fair Pillars our Protector stands You give him Rulers over Seas and Lands Your swelling Womb's the Cushion where he leanes And findes himself eternal by your means So may your Olive branches flourish still About Great Oliver and his Thrones up fill So prayes and Prophesies Madam Your Ladiships most obedient Servant Now for his most Serene Highnesse his happy Birth there is none sure will deny it to be great as his that pretended his extraction from mighty Jupiter and we may more truly say of him than could be fancied of those old Heroes that Deus est in utroque Parente God was apparently in each Parent Then for his blessed Marriage the next thing pointed at in the Prophesie that can be comparable to nothing more than to the sacrifice of Juno where the gall of the offering was never presented There was so faithful and pure a love observed to be on both sides that the Noble spirit of the one lived wholly in the other and as the Flowers of the Sun perpetually followed the motions of each others heart so they still continue to court each the others vertuous dispositions All this I say is the Anagrammatical Prediction of Virgil himself and as to those sublime Honours and Fortunes which his Highnesse has since arrived at all that proves to be my friends proper Prophesie Now whether Virgil or my Friend were the greater Prophet let the World judge whilst I shall satisfie my self with that great felicity which our second Moses took in the contemplation of his most gracious Sons and Successors perfections upon whom methinks I see him in his old Princely and Fatherly Majesty now looking down from the top of the holy Mount encouraging his most excellent son to climb up after him and keep the track of his Ascents Nay methinks I hear God Almighty himself speaking to his now most Serene Highnesse as he did before to Joshua There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the dayes of thy life as I was with my second Moses so I will be with thee I will not fail thee nor forsake thee Be strong and of a good courage for unto this people shalt thou divide for an Inheritance the Land which I sware unto their Fathers to give them onely be thou strong and very couragious that thou mayst observe to do according to the Law which Moses my Servant commanded thee turn not from it either to the right hand nor to the left that thou mayst prosper whithersoever thou goest This Book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayst observe to do according to all that is written therein for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good successe Have not I commanded thee Be strong and of a good courage be not afraid neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest Thus was the Lord pleased to discourse with Joshua And now methinks I hear all the people of this Land crying out to our most Serene Prince and Protector just as the children of Israel did there likewise in the same Chapter to their General Joshua All that thou commandest us we will do and whithersoever thou sendest us we will go according as we hearkned unto Moses in all things so will we hearken unto thee onely the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses Whosoever he be that does rebell against thy commandment and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him he shall be put to death onely be strong and of a good courage With these Divine speeches made by God himself and his instruments the people upon the inauguration of Joshua methinks I hear our present Lord Protector and Princely second Joshua treated at this very day What Divine documents his sacred Highness has received from the Almighty are onely yet betwixt the Lord and
Moses though we cannot hold up our Parallel to the heighth of that honour which the first had to be conveyed to his grave by God himself and put into the earth by those Almighty hands which had made him out of it yet we may say that he was interred with as much state and carried to his mother earth with as much solemnity and magnificence as ever person in the World was nay his very Effigies was honoured with so great a reverence as if some divinity had attended the Royal procession And yet this is not all the glorious Sepulture that his Highnesse had for what the Orator said of his Prince we may mutato nomine most aptly conclude of him Totum nec capiet Olivarium brevis ista tumuli clausura Britannum nomen pectus unumquodque nobile vivum stabit defuncto monumentum vivet ipse suo letho superstes multam aetatem feret etiam mortuus gloriaeque plenus deducetur ad Posteros c. The whole great Oliver cannot be contained within so scanty an enclosure as is the vault that holds his body the British Name it self and every noble breast of the Nation shall stand a living Monument to his memory Thus shall his Highnesse outlive his death and grow great in glory whilst he is consuming in his grave and be conveighed into the arms of posterity with everlasting acclamations Good Princes as well as Poets find their honours to swell from their last ashes and like Phoenixes spring afresh from their funeral Piles as we shall more at large make out in our next which is our last Mosaical Ascent and closing Parallel The sixth and last Transcendental Ascent MOses built himself a Monument in the hearts of all his people and left a blessed Memorial behind him and all this was attested by the Spirit of God himself after his death expressely assuring us that there arose not a Prophet since in Israel like unto Moses whom the Lord knew face to face in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the Land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and to all his Land and in all that mighty hand and in all that great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel The Parallel Thus the Lord is pleased to make the memory of his Saints precious in the language of the Spirit as sweet ointment poured forth for we see here how he will make his dead servant Moses to ascend still in this World by the fragrancy of his memory and indeed it is the last Ascent that humane perfection is capable of to mount up after a blessed death to a happy and honourable remembrance amongst men a most particular grace and prerogative which the Divine goodnesse indulgeth to none but to his most dear servants For some there are as Ecclesiasticus not Apocryphally observes which have no memorial at all who are perished as though they had never been and are become as though they had never been born and their children after them but the righteousnesse of merciful men hath not been forgotten c Then again their bodies are buried in peace but their name liveth for evermore nay further the people will tell of their wisdom and the Congregation will shew forth their praise Has not our most Serene second Moses received this precious Transcendental favour likewise from the hands of his gracious God has he not so filled the mindes and mouthes of all the good people of the Nation that they have nothing almost left to think and speak on but the memory of their late great Protector Insomuch that we can compare this glorious Ascent of his Highnesse his happy death to nothing so properly as to the expiration of the Phenix upon the Mountain of the Sun in the sweet odours of his heroick vertues O what a memory has his Highnesse left us of his unspotted piety and undefiled policy amidst all the depravations and corruptions of the Word O what a memory has he left us of his arriving to the highest honours and dignities by flying them and to have ennobled all his Charges by the integrity of his manners O what a memory of a life lead truly according to Christianity that has alwayes daunted the most audacious Libertins and like a Divine Mirrour killed Basiliskes with the repercussion of their own poison O what a memory has he left us of having governed a Church and State so as if it had been a clear copy of Heaven and an eternal pattern of holy Policy holding himself alwayes to those heavenly Poles of piety and justice that support the great policy of the Universe esteeming them as Democritus did the two divinities of Weales publick or great wheeles upon which all the affaires of the World were to move so establishing himself still upon those holy Columnes as the one has given him immortality with God so the other has perpetuated his memorial amongst men O what a memory has he left behind him of having borne upon his shoulders so happily all the interests and glories of this Nation and the very moveables of the House of God! O what a memory has he left of having so many times trampled the heads of Dragons under his feet and rendered himself the wonder of the World For who indeed is it but must remember how this brave valorous and Princely person who was to joyne the kingdom of his vertues to the force of his armes was alwayes of so vigorous and sublime a spirit that he measured still all his most difficult undertakings by the greatnesse of his own courage and like a Caesar indeed but more like a true Moses resolved to break through all obstacles to Crown his inspired purposes O what a memory of a blessed death in a good old age and full fruition of all his labours to have died as in a field of Palmes and all planted with his own hand manured with his constant industry and water'd with his own painful sweats O what a memory after death to be acknowledged by all to have built himself before his death a most stately Tombe stufft with the precious Stones of his own most goodly and incomparable vertues all which rightly now to represent would require a recapitulation of all our Parallels and take up a bulk bigger than this small Volume is intended to bear And it is enough I conceive to our present purpose to say that this Nation shall for ever preserve the memory of him as of a Prince that has proved it possible though miraculous to hold a conjunction of piety with the Supreme power and Soveraign authority sweetly tempered with goodnesse things before thought utterly incompatible in Kings and truly I know not what just quarrel any man can have against his memory but that he hath shewed a path to mortall men and trod it by his own example to prove it possible to arrive at so much perfection and that may be a fault
indeed and worthy of exception in so debaucht an age as this But let such unsavory breaths as these blow how and where they please whilest all the sweet ones of the Nation shall preserve a fragrant memory of their departed Protector and second Moses ever acknowledgeing their lives and fortunes nay the liberties of their very souls to have been the pious purchase of his Princely pains Some impious great ones we know have brought a period upon the greatest Empires ruined whole Kingdoms their people and themselves have we not seen I say to instance in one for all the great Roman Empire it self which had so many times caused its victorious Chariots loaden with Palms and Lawrels to passe over the heads of the most puissant Monarchs of the World that so often have been shaken and so many times establisht by concussion at last by the interposition of one wicked unlucky Prince or two to be most irrecoverably entombed How much are we engaged then to the precious memory of our late Lord Protector who in the staggering conditions that our tottering state at last and Kingdom before was in has not onely establisht but augmented the glories of our Nation eternizing himself more amongst us and rendring himself more honorable to all the World by those his great actions than all the Monarchs of Egypt could do in all their rich Marbles Pyramids and Obelisks What memory now I would fain know has that great Egyptian King Cleopes left behind him who prostituted his own daughter to raise himself a Pyramid for buryal and it was so enormously great as we read that the earth seemed too weak to bear it and Heaven not high enough to free it self from its importunities yet that doating with age has now forgot its founder and he retains the stink of a rotten reputation and is proclaimed by all the World but a sottish Prince for his pains Pompey on the other side we see after he had measured three parts of the World more by his triumphs than travails comes to be killed at length by the hand of a half man and the earth which seemed too scanty and narrow for his conquests was seen to fail him for a Tomb and what memory have all his great actions acquired to him but of a proud bloody imperious Common-wealths-man that could endure no corrival in greatnesse We have seen again in story a great Manlius precipitated from the Capitol which once he had so bravely defended that the Theater of all his glories might be turned into the scaffold of his dismal punishment like that insolent Pharaoh whom we have so often spoken of which thought by the help of his false gods to command the waves of the Sea and to walk upon stars yet perisht in those his very attempts and was buried in execration and horrors What which memory have any of these or other wicked Princes left behind them better than Erostratus before spoken of No nothing can erect a true monument of eternal memory but pure Mosaick piety Our glorious second Moses full well saw that Royal Crowns themselvs did loose their lustre on heads without brains and brows without Majesty and did much less regard a King without piety than a blind Cyclop in an hollow cave Princes he knew there have been and are still in the World born like Diadumenus with a Diadem of honour in their foreheads but most of them we see appear like Josias with a leprosie there too O what a memory then must his late Highnesse have left behind him who is well known to have been of the Lords own election so much according to his own heart that his servant Moses and he may stand in line Parallel for just by such means as he we have seen how he came into the Government became the God of Monarchs ruined the state of his enemies opened stormy Seas manured Wildernesses and cleft Rocks with as small a thing as a twig just as he he has been laborious amongst Shepherds sanctified and exemplary in Cities temperate in principalities a Companion of Angels in his retirements and as it were a Cabinet friend of God Nay has our gracious second Moses shewed lesse piety in the service of the Omnipotent lesse sweetnesse in government lesse greatnesse of spirit in all noble enterprises lesse patience in difficulties lesse prudence in the direction of his affairs or lesse dispatch in his expeditions And to conclude in short has he been lesse blest in all his battails having ever had as it were good hap and victories under his pay and can we do lesse than fall down and worship divinity in all this and give him the immortalitie of our memories at least in lieu of those eternal obligations that his most Serene Highnesse has laid upon us Nay have we not seen him all along like his old Master Moses too holding Heaven continually for object and all greatnesse of this World in contempt How like him too he has alwaies shewed himself full of the spirit of all Prudence Piety and Prophesie it self and over and above all that crowned with a most soveraign high humility How he like him too but most especially toward his later end had blotted one almost all that was man within him by a conversation wholly celestial reducing his flesh into so much subjection exalting his spirit to such an empire over it that he might deserve the name of God too as his old Master Moses did in resemblance of whom he was so transformed by the superabudance of his most excellent and celestial qualities And has he not deserved an immortality upon earth for all this as well as Crowns in Heaven Yes sure for the most malicious enemy that his Highnesse has in the World cannot deny him to have dyed under the shadow of so many Palms of his own most noble and heroical vertues that they must spring still to all eternity and grow green with very age his Lawrels can never wither nor his Bays be blasted the resplendent raies of his honour can never loose their luster nor the odours of his holy conversation ever fail of sending forth their precious perfumes Thus has his most Serene Highnesse our second Moses like the former perfectly changed his Sepulcher into a Cradle and even drawn life out of his Tomb. O what an immortallty is this to survive eternally in the mouths of men But how much more happy an eternity is it to have a perpetual life in Heaven enjoying the very knowledge love life and felicity of God himself Come hither then all you Princes and mighty Persons of the earth and make hast to take out your copy and pattern here betaking your selves betimes to the glorious Temple of Honour by that difficult one of holy virtues which will prove themselves to you in the end as they have done to our first and second Moses here like Elias his heavenly Chariot all flaming with glory to render you not onely most illustrious and eternal here
upon earth but to transport your brave Princely most purified souls above the height of the Empirean Heaven Come hither I pray you likewise all you malecontented spirits of this Nation that have so long maliciously repind and impiously opposed your selves against his late most Serene Highnesse his Mosaical Person and Government and still do continue to malign his most precious memory together with the power of his most gracious Son and Successor set over us now by God himself and his own divine vertues repair hither I say with all the ingenuity of judgement and Christian candor that you can and I doubt not but by such an impartial perusal of our happy Parallels you will find all your aversions and distasts alleviated and that the loathings and nauseousness which you had before did spring from the disease of your own palats onely or Malos gustos as the Spaniard calls them and from no other cause at all If that remedy will not serve your turns to divert the violent stream of your old animosities I would earnestly desire you again if you are not yet stark mad with judaising to reflect with horrour upon Corah Dathan and Abiram and all his complices with the rest of that mutinous Nation the murmuring Israelites by a serious soliloquy with your own souls you may correct that cursed spirit of contumacy which has so long possest you Quorum facta immitamini eorum exitus per horrescendo by a due consideration of the direful effects of their devilish doings whose steps you stil pursue And if all this prove but counsel cast away let me humbly beseech you once more through the blessed bowels of our gracious Lord and Saviour to make your earnest and often addresses to him and holding some such divine discourses with him as I shall here set down in a form that I have sometimes used myself upon like occasion and I cannot doubt but by his all-healing grace you shal all be reduced to a better temper and most ample complacency with the present government O most gracious Lord God which guidest the lives estates and conditions of all men living in this World and makest a perfect musick in the universe which thou composest of many accords or let us take this great All and government of thine as a Table of many colours or a body of many members why should I be it one or be it 'tother make my self a false harmony in so sweet a Consort an extravagant colour in so compleat a Table or a prodigious member of so beautiful a body It shall suffice me O Lord to be a part in this Musick this Table or of this Body set me high set me low let me be white let me be black make me head make me foot My God it is in thee to give me my part and in me onely to play it well why should I kick against the spur like a paltry Jade Why being but a miserable earthen pot should I argue against my Potter for the fashion that he has pleased to put me in If the men whom I envy or bear malice to merit their good fortunes and happy advancements I wrong thy divine justice O Lord to maligne or oppose them And if they deserve them not they more merit my compassion than envy since all their greatness will serve them but for a burthen in this life and a far deeper condemnation in the other If the stars by contribution of their raies do strengthen the activity of hell fire as we are informed they do how much more then will those great lights of honour and sparkling advantages of greatness increase the torments of a reprobate Prince or great person Besides O Lord why should I be guilty of so strange a malignity against my self as forgeting the preservation of my own person to which I am by nature obliged go about to ruine any other man a thing that nature it self abhors from if by loving my very enemy all will make for me as thou O Lord thy self hast told me Why should I through want of love deprive my self of so great advantage to my self or so great a power over him and this way of revenging by love being of all things most easie Why should I go obout to create a hell within my self where thou O my God hast a gracious purpose to erect a Paradise So Good Lord of thy mercie send us all a happie peace and true Christian complacencie one with another and to thine own name give the glory for so it properlie belongs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Heads of the Ascents wherein his late HIGHNESSE our renowned PROTECTOUR deceased stands Parallel with the great Patriarch MOSES THe first Ascent made Parallel In their Nobility of Birth and great extraction p. 1. The second In their remarkable Beauty of body and gacefulnesse of of Person p. 6. The third In the great particular providences of Heaven over them in their miracluous preservations from their very infancies p. 16. The fourth In all the eminent advantages of their most Liberal and Noble education p. 21. The fifth In their long Privacy and happy retirements of themselves p. 29. The sixth In their miraculous and divine calls to publick employment p. 36. The seventh In their great modesty and unwillingnesse to accept of their great charges p. 43. The eighth In their many most stupendious deliverances of their people p. 53. The ninth In the many mispirisions and ungrateful murmurings of the common people p. 64. The tenth In the malicious oppositions frequent seditions and dangerous rebellions of some of the Elders themselves and Princes of the Assembly p. 73. The eleventh In their great courage and all high personal accomplishments requisite to good Souldiers p. 83. The twelfth In their proportion of years and ability of mind and body when they came first into office and publick command p. 91. The thirteenth In their great skill in military conduct and all accomplishments requisite to Captains General p 97. The fourteenth In their constant felicity and most victorious successes p. 106. The fifteenth In all the parts and abilities requisite to the accomplishment of great States-men p. 115. The sixteenth In their great care and prudent caution in the election of honest and able Officers and Ministers under them p. 125. The seventeenth In their extraordinary clemency and sweet temper of their government p. 138. The eighteenth In their great pitty and piety towards the very purses as well as persons of their people p. 149. The nineteenth In their great piety towards God and exemplary zeal for his glory and worship p. 159 The twentieth In their most extraordinary gift and spirit of prayer p. 168 The one and twentieth In their most exemplary practical parts of true piety and renunciation of proper interests for the service and glory of their God p. 182. The two and twentieth In the divine dignity and gift of the spirit of Prophesie p. 201. The three and twentieth In