called the seventh from Adam Jude 14. in which place son is to be understood For Henry VII is the First Margarite his daughter Q to James IV. King of Scotland the Second James V the third Mary Q. of Scotland his daughter the Fourth James VI King of Great Britain the fifth King Charles I the sixth K. Charles II the seventh And this is a good Argument to prove that King Charles II the seventh of a sea earth is not to be understood so to cure the Kings-evil as in a literal sence which some of these and more of his Predecessors have done but in some speciall and mystical way as I have declared And this computation agrees in another account if we reckon by the daughter of Queen Margarite and her issue for Queen Margarite daughter to King Henry VII first married to King James IV had issue James V after married to Archibald Douglas Earl of Angus by him had issue Margarite As King Henry VII the first Margarite Queen to King James IV the second Margarite her daughter by Archibald Earl of Angus and Wife to Matthew Stuart Earl of Lenoix the third Henry Lord Darley her son husband to Mary Queen of Scotland the fourth King James his son King of Great Britain the fifth King Charles I the sixth King Charles II the seventh For which cause I do humbly beseech the Kings Majesty that a Law may be enacted by the King and his Parliament for the deserved punishment of such diabolical impostures as this is which is frequently committed in this land by seventh sons taking upon them the Royal Prerogative of our Kings with the touch of their hands to cure the Kings-evil For the practice here of tends much to the dishonour of God and of our good King and to the delusion of his Majesties Subjects But one thing more touching the Rekets must not be forgotten that is to say the time when that Disease first seized upon Children in this Kingdome and had that name of Rekets given unto it It was the third year after our Royall Soveraigns Nativity or the next unto it when the weekly Bill of Mortality mentioned one to have been buried of the Rekets in the Moneth of May and no mention thereof in any of the said Bils before that time As I have found by search in the Parish Clerks Register kept in their Hall For as the time when Darius took the Babylonian Kingdom is exprest Dan. 5. 31. to be when he was about threescore and two years old that the Jews might observe as judiciously H. Broughton hath noted upon that place that at the time they were carried into captivity which was about the time of Darius his birth the Jews might then know the Lord had a Deliverer born for them So the Nation of England may learn Gods special care that he did not send them the Disease of the Rekets till He was born who should free them from the Miserie 's signifyed thereby and from the Disease it self Hitherto of the Kings-Evil as it pertaineth to the King and Kingdom of England Whereas I said The sins and calamities of this Nation with the Causers of them were pointed at by the Name and Disease of the Rekets and not the Name of our Deliverer but in the other the Kings-Evil yet notwithstanding it doth appear who shall be our Deliverer albeit not in the Name of the Disease or the Symptomes of the Rekets yet in the quality of the Persons which are troubled therewith The Patients so afflicted are Children and no other partly but not principally that we might be left without all pretence of any other inferior cause but be constrained to look up to the Hand which hath smitten us and yet we will not but in despight of reason seek about after this and that cause most vainly Again partly it is to let us understand that the afflictions foreshewn thereby should fall upon the childe of God Thirdly and principally the Rekets is laid on children that by the quality of the person afflicted by it it being the childs disease we may understand him that shall free us from it and what is signified thereby As it is called the Kings-evil not because it is caused by or laid upon but cured by the King So is it called and to be called the Childes disease because a childe shall heal it Surely you will ask me What childe We finde in Holy Scripture that our Saviour hath called himself barely by the name of the Son If the Son shall make you free saith our Savior you shall be free indeed And since we finde that God doth communicate his own Name to Princes calling them Gods and hence it seems to have been first used among Princes to name themselves in the plural number though single by the word we and us imitating as it were the Lord Almighty who is One and Three he doth seem to express by this word the childes Disease the Disease of the childe above all other children the childe a son of the King After which manner the son and daughter of the King of Spain is called infante and infanta that is the son and daughter childe as being well enough exprest alone to understand what son and daughter is meant thereby So when we say the childes Diseases 〈◊〉 may be well understood that Disease which the Childe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all children that is the Kings son shall heal In which expression of childe is also shewn first that our King shall be when this is done a childe albeit not according to the vulgar use of the word in our English tongue yet according to the signification of that word which in the Hebrew signifieth sometimes a childe in years else where a yong man although not very properly by the Translators rendred also a childe where in Daniel it signifieth a yong man calling the three companions of Daniel three children that he shall then be yong in years How great a matter of comfort is hereby administred unto us that are the people of the land that the Lord is so pleased that the King shall not differ the making us a happy nation to his old age but go about it and perfect the Lords work while he is yong Secondly here is an Argument of Almighty Gods great Power and Mercy that he should frame his Majesties heart to clemency as not to suffer him although his Royal Father was murthered to break out in cruel and unjust revenge It is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes And lest any man should thus object This Disease of the Rekets is common to women children as well as to men as that it should not seem thereby to point at a cure to be performed by the King in regard of the sex as to be performed by the son more than the daughter of a King let him take a view of those great Types of our Savior the Prophets whereof although the most part were men yet
all this scarcely did they then beleeve the Prophets For how soon had they forgotten the miracles which Moses did before them when being told more then once that God had promised to bring them into the land of Canaan to give it them for a possession after that he had performed his promise in bringing them out of the land of Egypt had led them by a pillar of fire and a cloud yet being pursued by the Egyptians they murmured against the Lord beleeved not his servant Moses concluding they should be then slain by the Egyptians Exo. 14. 12. Isaiah who was so far acquainted with the Lords mind that he expresly told King Hezekiah as a signe which was required by the king by the going back of the shade of the Sun on the Diall of Ahaz ten degrees the recovery of the king and the lengthening of his life fifteen years 2 King 20. yet complaineth the Prophet that what he prophesied was neither understood nor beleeved Isa 53. 1. Who hath beleeved our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed Likewise when Jeremiah prophesied to the Jews and what he foretold of their captivity came fully to pass then false Prophets which prophesied of their sudden return were more credited by the People For that remnant of the People which was left behind by Nebuchadnezzar in Jerusalem after thrise carrying them away into Chaldea the first in the third year of Jehojakim Dan. 1. 2. the next in Jehojakims the third in Jehojachins reign and with him plainly did not beleeve Jeremiah nor Ezekiel prophesying unto them the destruction and burning of their City and Temple boasting notwithstanding that they should not be nor the City any more taken calling Jerusalem the Caldron and themselves the flesh Ezek. 11. 3. concluding thereby that the City was made for them and they for the City so as that they should not be parted So for the Necessity of the work that the children of God might have a firm foundation on which their faith should be built the Holy Pen-men of Scripture were fully inspired by God so as no word in Holy Scripture written by the Prophets and Apostles is there found which God did not miraculously inspire into the mindes of those Holy men Concerning his Apostles and Evangelists Christ promised that they should be guided into all truth Joh. 16. 13. and Peter saith 2 Pet. 1. 20. That no Prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation whose meaning is not as the Papists pretend That no private or single person may expound the Scripture nor as it is by us commonly expounded That every Pen-man of the Books of God was inspired by Gods Spirit and wrote not his own private conceits but this No Prophecy of the Scripture so called because it contains the Almighty's counsel is of any private interpretation not only as it is free from the mixture of humane inventions which are contrary to the mind of God but there is not one word therein nor syllable which was not dictated unto them by the holy Ghost And this is fully to my purpose For we know that the Scripture is the Word of God and he that expoundeth and applieth it as he ought preacheth nothing but the Word of God but the first is of no private but the other is of private interpretation But for the times which followed the Lord promised they should be such as that in them old men should dream dreams and young men should see Visions and that their Sons and their Daughters should prophesie Act. 21. 17. and that their servants and handmaids should have Gods Spirit poured upon them Joel 12. 29. signifying that in those times which began sooner after our Lords Ascension and now are very ordinary and mean persons should have such an extraordinary measure of Divine knowledge exceeding the foregoing ages as that they may be accounted all Prophets and Prophetesses But Daniel declareth in what manner and by what means this great knowledge shall be attained thereby expounding what the Prophet Joel and out of him S. Luke speaketh Dan. 12. 4. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be encreased Where by running to and fro is to be understood Labour and Search that is Study So for that these times are within the ages of great light which as it was promised so we have by experience found it fullfilled that common people which are bred up under able Teachers and Prophets and which give themselves to search into the written Mysteries of Salvation are not so fat-hearted and stupid as not to understand and not to beleeve the Word of God preached unto them but are able by Gods Spirit to search the Scriptures and to discern whether those things which are delivered unto them from their Prophets be true or not And therefore for this cause there is no need of a fully illuminated Prophet to be among us either lest we should want sure guides or be deluded with errors having both the Old and New Testament for our direction which sure word of Prophecy the ancients were partly or wholly without As for the foreknowledge of things which are to come there is neverthelesse still and will be a profitable use and necessity thereof and a part thereof contained in the Visions which are written in Holy Scripture and the searching of them commended unto us by the Spirit of God saying Whatsoever was written in former time was written for our learning another part in those Signes which God hath sent and will send into the world as miracles to be considered by us For the words of our Saviour fully declare that there should be Signes of things which were to follow in the heavens on the earth and in the waters Luk. 21. 25. And there shall be Signes saith he in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the earth distress of Nations with perplexity the Sea and waters roaring v. 26. Mens hearts failing them for fear and looking after those things which are coming on the earth But to what purpose had the Prophecies and Visions of Daniel and Ezekiel and the most mystical Vision of the Canticles and those of the Revelation of S. John with others been as they are left unto us unexpounded if God had denied wholly unto us a Prophetical Spirit to presage what was to be afterward and what was contained in the Holy Visions For there is little difference whether the Lord sends the Vision to us at first or by them unto us what he intends to do Therefore it is to be gathered from the fore-named Scriptures by diligently weighing and comparing them one with another that the distinction of the Old Prophets which lived and prophesied before our Saviours Incarnation I understand Prophets or Seers most properly so called for the other were their ordinary Preachers as may be collected from sundry Scriptures especially from Neh. 6. 7. from those which have since and now live under the Gospel doth
Lord was wont to send them Prophets in evil and sinful times Prophets so inspired with his Spirit that they knew infallibly and did shew unto that people most certainly what things both good and bad and how they should befal them that their oppressors and the wicked might not live secure nor the oppressed and righteous be discouraged But in a short time after our Saviours Ascension such Prophets which were thus miraculously instructed ceased to be among men By which difference of the times those from these it might at first seem either that God loves not the Christians so tenderly as formerly he did the children of Israel or at least that the Christians now adays have no need of such forewarnings as the children of Israel were wont to have Divine and miraculous premonitions were so usuall to them that they accounted it and complained of it as an affliction when they wanted them This appeareth true from the words of Asaph a man left in Judea when the rest were carried into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar complaining of the want of a Prophet and Signes which they were formerly accustomed unto to declare and foretell how long their captivity after the present destruction of the City and Temple was yet to last For thus he speaketh Psa 74. 9. We see not our Signes there is no more any Prophet neither is there among us any that knoweth how long Albeit Jeremiah the Prophet had formerly prophesied unto them of 70 years captivity and Daniel and Ezekiel were both now in Chaldea and did prophesie Whereby it appeareth as I said that Asaph was left in the land and that he speaketh of the remainder of the Jews which were left in the same place with him and lastly that this Psalm was written after the carrying away of Jeremiah into Egypt Concerning the difference of those old times before our Saviours coming from these although we should grant it true and we must grant it to be so in some kind touching Prophets yet is the Assumption false to conclude from thence That God loves not the Christians so tenderly as formerly he did the children of Israel for how little soever the Lord loveth any of his children he accounteth and nameth them his Jewels and is as tender of them as of the apple of his eye who spared not his onely and beloved Son but gave him to dye for the least of them all But this is an inestimably greater favour then to premonish and forewarn them of that which is to come a thing which he hath done even to his greatest enemy the devil though for a different end from that for which he forewarns his children letting him know his secret counsel touching Saul and his Sons For did not the Lord reveal unto Satan that Saul and his three sons should be slain even as it came to pass and the Spirit told Saul the day following 1 Sam. 27. 19. And while we consider that the Lord is unchangeable in his love For he is not a man that he should repent this cannot be the cause want of Gods love that Christians are without divining Prophets In the second place as little reason is there to say That we which are Christians have no need of forewarnings of our suffering nor of our deliverance As if the oppressions in Egypt were more than under the Pope and these not seven-fold greater then those as the burning in a fiery furnace or in fire than making and burning of brick by and in such a place or the thraldome of the body greater then of the soul or the length of the captivity under Pharaoh which lasted not in all two hundred and fifteen years more tedious then under Antichrist who began to reign above a thousand years agoe Whereupon neither of these two Causes being to be admitted want of love from the Lord toward his people and no need of Premonitions and likewise necessarily admitting and confessing it to be truth Fully illuminated and infallibly inspired Prophets have not been found and are not now to be expected much after our Saviours leaving the earth it behoveth us to enquire after the reason of this thing Of which by Gods grace I find there are Two Causes 1. Why we may not look for such Prophets in these times which are fully illuminated and infallible is the End and the consideration thereof for which such Prophets were sent by Almighty God for the information of his people which being accomplished and come and past that which points to that end is not necessary any longer Such Prophets were instituted to be forerunning Types and Figures of Christ thereby to signifie that there was a Prophet to come after them like unto themselves but greater who should fully and infallibly know the Lords mind and counsels For thus saith Moses of our Saviour who was to be exhibited in the flesh and making himself the Type of Christ Deut. 18. 15. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him ye shall hearken In respect of whom some though not all of the Prophets had power at some not at all times to work certain Miracles and alluding to this it is said The Prophets were unto John 2. Prophets were more fully enlightned before our Saviours coming than in these times there can be found any for another cause even for their sakes to whom their Prophecies and Messages were sent that is because of the people The Prophets were sent principally to call men to repentance thus speaketh the Lord Jerem. 7. 25. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the Prophets daily rising up early and sending them V. 26. Yet they hearkened not unto me nor inclined their ear but hardened their neck they did worse then their fathers The different condition of the people therefore is a second cause why the old Prophets were more enlightned and infallible then the Prophets or Preachers which now are for so are Preachers called by the Apostle Paul or necessarily are required to be In those old times the understanding of the people of Israel concerning God and heavenly things was very small witnesse the Apostles themselves who were conversant with Christ when Peter reproved our Saviour speaking of his suffering death telling his Master that this should not befall him that he should not dye Yea the Lord threatens his people blindeness of mind and stupidity of understanding greater then formerly they had by the mouth of Isaiah calling it fatness of heart for fat is insensible For which cause if the Prophets should not have shewn before their eyes great and wonderfull matters they would not have beleeved and if such Prophets had not also had extraordinary knowledge they would have wanted a guide if they had not also been indued with infallibility the people would certainly have fallen into errours And notwithstanding
is the effect and fruit of burning as we see in ashes of wood 2. for that salt whether it be taken inwardly or applied outwardly causeth a sense of burning We use to say As salt as fire understanding so salt as if we were burnt with it as with fire Touching the continuance of the Pains of Hell Salt signifieth that also for the property of salt is to keep from corruption and decaying In which sense the phrase of Holy Scripture is a Covenant of salt signifying a Covenant which is never to be broken but to endure for ever The Lake of Sodom the moniment of Gods vengeance upon those sinsul Cities Sodom and Gomorrha and the Cities about them is used by the Holy Ghost as a Type of Hell the place and condition of the damned and called the Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone Rev. 19. 20. because in that lake called the Dead Sea and Asphaltitis is found much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine Bitumen which by the Poet Ovid is shewn to be a matter apt to take fire and unquenchable though by him distinguisht from Brimstone and is a pitchy substance known to Apothecaries although in some place it is by the Interpreters of the Bible called Slime Gen. 14. 10. it is called by another Hebrew word and by a Greek word so interpreting it Brimstone Deut. 29. 23. and in the above-named place in the Revelation Ovids words make it of the nature of Brimstone notwithstanding Metamorph. Book 14. Lurida supponunt faecundo Sulphura fonti Incenduntque cavas fumante Bitumine venas Blew-burning Brimstone's cast into the Spring And smoaking Earth-pitch fires the veins within This place as it is a Figure of Hell in respect of the matter of unquenchable fire contained in it being a remainder of that Brimstone which being kindled fell from Heaven and destroyed those Cities and so likewise was it a Type of Hell in relation to the saltnesse of that Lake called also the Salt-sea being so exceeding salt that no living creature is found therein as it were painting unto us the Duration of their Torments and their bodies preserved from Corruption All the qualities of this Lake for which it is by God Almighty constituted a Modle of Hell are not necessarily to be reckoned up but some of them are sufficient to have been exprest to instruct and direct us while the other are not mentioned that we may take pains to search after them For thus we finde in an expression of that Lake Brimstone sometimes left out of the description and only Fire mentioned Rev. 20. 14. And death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire But of the Saltnesse of that place and as to a Punishment it is confirmed Deut. 29. 23. And that the whole land thereof is Brimstone and Salt and Burning that it is not sowen nor beareth nor any grasse groweth therein like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrha Admah and Zeboim which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath I might take a view of some other things pertaining to this disease of the Leprosie wherein some other matters are pointed at but what I have already spoken will be enough to denote what it typifies in the Nature of Sin and the Punishment But the great thing which was intended by this strange disease and for which cause it was sent and when that was come ceased to be any more and the chief Scope unto which the Leprosie by the Wisedom of the Lord aimed was his Son Christ Jesus which was then to come the Leprosie the Shadow Christ the Substance And as when the Body comes the Shadow thereof gives place in like manner when our Lord and Saviour had suffered the pains of death for the sins of the world and made us clean being our High-priest from our uncleannesse so many as he ordained to eternal life whom he pronounced clean as a good and skilful Priest saying Joh. 13. 10. You are clean but not all then afterward began the Leprosie quickly after his death to depart For the chief thing which was signified by the Leprosie was now come and the Mystery sulfilled our Priest was come and made us clean For now no such Leprosie found in Palestina nor any where among the nation of the Jews And the Ceremonies and Rites used in cleansing the Leper do point out our Saviour and what he did and suffered for us In the Cleansing of a House healed of the Leprosie use was made of two living Birds Cedar-wood Scarlet and Hyssop one of which birds was to be killed over running water in an earthen vessel and dipping the living bird the Cedar-wood Scarlet and Hyssope in the blood of the slain bird and in the running water and sprinkling the House seven times it is said Lev. 14. 52. that with all the fore-named things the Priest shall cleanse the House and ver 53. But he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields and make an atonement for the House and it shall be clean Who to whom God hath given but an ordinary understanding willl not acknowledge here that the shedding of the blood of one bird and the other let fly into running water and in an earthen vessel into running water as to go into the Sea whither all running water is carried and all rivers run to be conveyed all the world over for from thence come all fountains did signifie so much touching the shedding of our Saviours blood for all the world Or who can then doubt that the receiving of it in an earthen vessel did betoken our Saviours taking our flesh upon him whose bodies as his being originally from the earth are called earthen vessels Nor can we gainsay the flying away of the other bird one of the same kinde did declare our Saviours resurrection and ascension into Heaven as birds are called fowls of Heaven It will certainly be granted that the Cedar signified two things his Cross as it is a tree on which he suffered death and the excellency of his person above all other men as the Cedar in loftinesse excelleth all trees And eminent men are metaphorically by the Prophet called Cedars Ezek. 17. 3. 22 31. and by the Holy Penman 2 King 14. 9. The Scarlet being lambs wool so died figured his innocent patient and bloody death But the Hyssope a low shrub growing upon the wall as Scripture calleth it and in a relation of Solomons History of Trees is opposed unto the Cedar the lowest to the highest and in the Ceremonials appointed in cleansing the leprous House being joyned to the Cedar pointeth at our Saviour Jesus Christ in his humility who humbled himself to take our trail nature upon him yea the form of a servant descending from heaven and disrobing himself of his transcendent glory With this dipt in blood of the Paschal Lamb were the lintels and two side-posts of the Israelites doors to be sprinkled for ever Exod. 12. 22 23 24. And a sponge filled with
so intitled in the Writings of Learned men and is so to be accounted for giving Testimony with his blood to that which in the secret thoughts of his heart he judged to be the Truth King Charles II our Gracious Soveraign for better cause then his Predecessor King Edward the Confessor hath deserved that name for his Majesty hath made a Holy and Royal Confession with his mouth Wherefore I most humbly Almighty God in whose hand are the hearts of Kings so to dispose his Majesties heart and I humbly beseech his Majesty to be entreated that he will not suffer such men who have opened their mouths in vows to the Most High God to be enforced either to revoke that which cannot be recalled or being pious skilful and faithful laborers for that cause to be excluded from working in the Lords Harvest And I do with confidence believe that my prayer is heard in heaven and will be upon the earth Whereunto if there be need of more marks which may shew that King Charles II was designed to be the Antitype of Edward the Confessor though the distance of time betwixt them be the space of 600 years or more for Edward the Confessor died about the year 1066. having reigned much about the time of twenty three years See Henry Knighton and John Brompton in Edward the Confessor adde and observe that K. Charles II our Royal Soveraign succeeded his martyred Father CHARLES I after so many Governors and Governments and no more as Edward the Confessor succeeded after Kings the Martyred Edward Moreover two of those one in the Types the other in the Antitypes are strangely of one Name and in the same Order of Governing that is the III. Let us compare them Edward the Martyr I Egelred II Edmund Ironside III Hardicantus IV Edward the Confessor V. The ANTITYPE Charles the Martyr I Common-wealth II Oliver Protector by-named Ironside III Richard Protector IV Charles our Gracious Soveraign Confessor V. Now according to Example in the Balm according to Scripture and reason as that precious oyle ceast to be when Christ had suffered and as the substance being come the shadow goes away and there is no reason to expect a signe when the thing signified thereby is now come I conclude that our Royal Soveraign will be the last of the Kings of this Nation to whom God will give the gift of healing the KINGS-EVIL Now Reader take here notice of the Pride Malice and Subtlety of the Devil and his Emulation of Almighty God who hath so wound himself into the mindes of Impostors and thorow them into the perswasions of the ignorant and rude multitude that the seventh son in order from the first without any daughter born betwixt is able to cure that Disease which we call the KINGS-EVIL And this Imposture is frequently undertaken and performed by stroaking with the hand and the Minister thereof is called a Stroaker This I say is attributed by some to a seventh son by others to a seventh son of a seventh son Which albeit a lye from the father of lies the devil immediatly proceeding doth nevertheless declare the devils knowledge and fore-knowledge of our Royal Soveraign King CHARLES II his virtue And as the Lord will win glory unto himself from all Creatures and all Things for to this purpose they were by him created so will he likewise from Satan and his practices even to illustrate and confirm though against the mindes of the Serpent his Glory and Truth This is the matter the Prerogative which the Lord hath given to the Kings of England and among but far above them to our Dread Soveraign Charles II the devil having a foresight of in his counsell which he giveth to Impostors doth secretly thereby acknowledge and yet defaceth but not wholly by adding somewhat of his own For it is true that a seventh son of a seventh is indued with Power from above not only to cure the bodily malady called the KINGS-EVIL as others have had but to take away the Evil of the Kingdom and is his Royal Prerogative which none of his Predecessors have had This Profession of curing this Malady is held out ordinarily in this form viz. The seventh son without a daughter born betwixt them cures the KINGS-EVIL In which expression the devil as he hath wont to do abuseth the truth three waies 1. By speaking ambiguously as he did use in the Oracle of Apollo leaving it uncertain whether Son be in those words to be taken according to the common acception of the word or otherwise 2. By leaving out some part of the matter which notwithstanding sometimes I have heard used and which serves to discovery of the truth and that is these words of a seventh 3. By adding words thereto wholly false such are without a daughter born betwixt and putting Son after seventh so making it to be of a seventh son Thus did Satan speak doutfully when he told our first parents They should be as God or Gods knowing good and evil The word there signifying God and also damned Spirits and knowing good and evil to be interpreted both knowledge of speculation and knowledge of feeling joy and sorrow the later of which Adam and Eve felt as did those lost Angels As for leaving out part of the truth the Devil was guilty thereof when speaking unto our Saviour to fast himself down from a pinnacle of the Temple he used this expression Mat. 4. 6. If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down For it is written He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone in which words taken out of Psa 91. 11 12 these words are left out by the devil to keep thee in all thy waies Lastly by adding words the devil corrupteth the truth which he did when he spake unto Saul unto the truth which he spake in part by aujoyning lies 1 Sam. 28. And the Lord hath done by him saith the devil concerning David truly as he spake by me which was false for the Lord spake not so by the Devil but by the true Samuel What I affirmed before That a seventh son of a seventh shall cure the KINGS-EVIL and to be understood in such manner as abovesaid of the Person of King Charles II doth thus appear Account all the Descents from father to son that is in a right line from King Henry VII to our Dread Soveraign now reigning taking and including both terms we shall finde them to be seven so that our Soveraign last in order is the seventh son of a seventh understand Henry For it is common in Scripture not to call the grandchildren sons only as Josiah is said Matth. 1. 11. to have begotten Jeconiah but those which after many generations have come out of the loins of a man by the name of sons to such a one as the children of Israel of Esau But more nearly to our purpose Enoch is
Ancestors who were called Lords and Kings thereof but charge and trouble beside a bare Title But to her was the Kingdom conquer'd and quieted that as the Author of the History called Pacata Hibernia in the Epistle to the Reader speaks Q. Elizabeth might have it justly written upon her Tomb Pacata Hibernia or Ireland Tamed But our Royal Soveraign is doing more and hath begun it already and suffered longer and worse than ever Queen Elizabeth did Yet not thou O Charles but God which is in thee Secondly If we consider his Majesties Constancy and Patience in the mids of his great Tentations Shall K. Charles II who was by wicked men banished from his own Kingdome forced to remain in the Dominions of a Popish Prince such a King who by no Necessities nor Sollicitations could be drawn to forsake God to advance himself shall he I say be miraculously preserved in his escape from his cruel hunters and more miraculously in France and Flanders from Idolatry and only be kept to make us happy God forbid Had not Joseph whose bow abode in strength whom the archers sorely grieved shot at and hated Genes 49. 23 24. a double portion to him and his posterity Ezek. 47. 13. having one portion for that cause above his brethren given him by his father taken out of the hand of the Amorite with the sword and with his bowe Gen. 48. 22. But our Soveraigns bowe abode as much and more in strength when for the sollicitations of the Egyptian Romish harlot he started not aside Beside in the very letters of their names there is a parity between the Type and Antitype and this sometime happeneth not by chance but providence as when Mary Aarons Sister a virgin and Jesus Moses successor prefigured in deed and names the virgin Mary and Jesus our Savior betwixt Clovis and C and Clovis as to note those great evils shall be taken away when C and Lovis meet as now they do Concerning the Healing of the Kings-Evil in France and what is prefigured thereby thus far If any of my Readers shall object which doubtless most will do that what I do presage touching our Royal Soveraign and the Kingdom of France is no more then probable to him I will be bold to say and let him well consider that even among the Sages of the Law great Probabilities have the esteem of Certainties and according thereunto Sentence is pronounced by them And we know that in the difference of the two Harlots about a surviving childe who should be the true mother thereof when King Salomon gave sentence on her side who shewed pity toward the Infant as to be mother thereof judgement thus given from probable conjecture is said to be the Wisedom of God in him 1 King 3. 28. Or are our children known to be the fathers but by probability Yea although we are enjoyned to give diligence to make our calling and election sure how few of the elect ever attained to that height in this life that all his mis-doubtings were taken away and that he was fully assured of a future happinesse I must acknowledge that there are degrees of likeliness some things which are probable are not yet firm enough to conclude others of so high a degree of probability that according to the example commended by the Spirit of God in Solomon they are as strong as the clearest certainties And of that sort of probable things which are the strongest or very near them I here maintain these sore-named to be Thus much pertaining to the cure of the Struma performed by the French King and what is signified thereby And here at last it will not be unseasonable to explain what before was partly touch'd by me whence it is that neither our Soveraign nor yet the French King do heal of the Struma all that are touch'd by their hands 2. That they do not likewise help such as are troubled with the Gout Feavers Palsie c. but this Evil onely 3. Kings of this Kingdom and of the French nation although they have erred in the faith and have been of a false Church have healed this Disease as well as those which have been sound in the faith and members of that true Church of which Christ is Head in which small number our Royal Soveraign is one and a principal 4. That in some few although healed at present the foresaid disease through some occasion breaks out again In answer to the first Objection first acknowledging if the healing of this Evil were perfectly miraculous like unto those cures wrought by our Saviour it should be perfect in any of which our King should lay his Royal hands Joh. 7. 23. Are ye angry at me saith our Saviour because I made a man altogether whole upon the SÃ bbath day Then was there no unsoundness left behinde therefore we may conclude this power given unto our Kings was not for the same cause for which our Saviour and his Apostles healed the sick To the second Objection I confess that whereas our Saviour healed all that were sick and likewise the Apostles yea the Pool of Bethesda all with what infirmity soever they were troubled it was to signifie that which the Scripture elsewhere saith He healeth all thy Diseases that is all both outward and inward Diseases of which sort are sins specially Wherefore for some other distinct cause doth our Soveraign cure the Struma only Nevertheless it cannot be denied that this vertue given to our Kings is miraculous although not to perfection To the next Objection I say That even miracles themselves were wrought by the hands of the evil as well as the good sometimes For is it not written that at the last day some reprobates should say unto our Saviour Have we not in thy Name cast out devils And this was given unto them not as it was unto the Apostles who represented Christs person and were as in Christs stead so the gift of healing this Evil because it was given as a signe of what was to come so much as they were Types in being Kings of such a Kingdom was given to the evil as well as to the good Kings Thus to the last thing which is objected I say I cannot deny but to have known how some after a long continued soundness and being cured of their mattury ulcers have began to fall back into the same Disease and Symptomes but being touch'd again have recovered All which notwith standing doth not disprove the miraculous cure but pointeth at somewhat else therein Now to satisfie the first and second objection to the full Our Royal Soveraign doth not take away the Struma by that power which is given him from above because it is a great evil for there are greater which he cannot cure nor yet because it is a little one as if his vertue could extend it self to small Diseases for we know there are less which he cannot take away but for that this Disease which we call the Kings-evil is such a malady which is parallel to the things which are signified his Majesty shall help and other Diseases are not like them For what likeness is there in the Gout Feavers and Palsie to the bruises and putrid sores full of corruption of which Isaiah speaketh the corruption of Doctrine and manners leath some to the eyes and unsavory to the nostrils of God and man Erasmus though tormented with the Stone rejoyceth that he did not suffer under some disease which might make his presence leathed But the Kings-evil we know hath bruises and putrid sores full of corruption This Malady therefore the Providence of God did make choice of to demonstrate what sins and afflictions our Royal Soveraign through Gods mercy will cure not for it self nor for the sick Patients sakes but for the cause of that which being most like unto it was to be taken away Nor is it done to perfection in all some being remediless which are touch'd that we may know that corruption in justice unsoundness in faith and doctrine shall not and cannot be so universally taken away by our Good King but that some do what he can tares and wicked men will continue among the wheat and good men And touching the last Objection where it is said that some which have been healed of this Evil have relapsed it doth indeed plainly inferr that this healing of the Evil by our Kings must be in that respect different from the like miracles of old The smiting of the rock twise by Moses was his sin as if the doing of it once had not been sufficient and the virtue of causing the water to flow out of the rock had been in his hand If once touching by the Royal hand be not ever and altogether sufficient for the cure and the second be helpfull it may well signifie that in this our good Josiahs reformation men shall not be so fully reformed as that none shall endeavour to fall back again but yet by his Royal hand they shall be reduced A PRAYER In the mean time let us beseech Almighty God to plant in our Soveraigns Heart the awful Fear of his Holy Name and that his unerring Word may be the Measure and Rule by which alone Religion and Justice may be reformed as by Josiah his Royal Type was done Hasten him O Lord herein that thou mayest hasten to reward him with another Crown upon the earth and a Crown of Glory hereafter which is void of cares and fadeth not Make me O Lord and all his Subjects unfeignedly to love and honour him for thy sake and grant we may never forget what by woful experience we have found true the counsel of thy wise servant King Solomon My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them which are given to change For their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both Amen Lastly of all which hath been spoken to God alone be given the Praise and Glory for from him and by him and to him are all things He revealeth the deep and secret things he knoweth what is in darkness and the light dwelleth with him For thine is the Power and the Glory and thou hast now made known unto us the Kings matter FINIS