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
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
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
as they derived from Heaven alwayes managing their great Charges and Government of others by their own duties and obedience to Almighty God and that is the highest point of State-Wisdom which our second Moses had in its perfection As we shall see more in the 21. Ascent The sixteenth Ascent MOses was most faithful and careful in providing able and honest Officers for the Civil Government as well Ministers of State as Justice For his father-in law Jethro coming to see him and finding him to sit alone to Judge the people which stood about him from the morning until evening was much troubled at it and gave him a true fatherly counsel indeed which was to divide the burden of the Government between some sufficient persons amongst the people that were accomplisht for so great a work So Moses chose out Men of Courage fearing God men dealing truly hating covetousnesse and appointed them to be Rulers over Thousands and over Hundreds and over Fifties and over Tens Then upon those whom he appointed Judges he presseth the point of incorruption thus Wrest not the Law nor respect any person neither take reward for reward blindeth the eyes of the wise and perverteth the words of the just That which is just and right shalt thou follow that thou mayst live and possesse the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee So our Moses cannot but be acknowledged as careful a Father of his people as he was a faithful Deliverer and glorious Conductor or Captain-General The Parallel This was a Noble Ascent indeed and not onely becoming a man of State but so highly necessary that our Master Moses himself stood in need of an Admonitor to it and probably had not mounted it but by the sage advice of his good father-in-law Jethro as we have seen in the Ascent which as in all the rest our second Moses his late Highnesse has so exactly pattern'd that he is to be drawn into example by all succeeding Princes and his prudence to be adored by all Posterity as well as the present Age There is none I believe will doubt but that it is a Soveraign and Supreme Piece of Politick vertue to make diligent search and inquiry into the abilities and integrities of all such as are to be employed as Ministers of State or Justice and this I say concerns not onely the Chief but all inferiour Magistrates for let the person in government be never so great and absolute a Master in all State matters himself if he be disserved by those whom he does employ his vertues will be but betrayed by the crimes of others and expose the people to multiplied injuries This point therefore of Politick prudence in a Prince is much beyond any other personal perfections that may be called accomplishments in a Statesman as the Learned Aquinas tells us and gives the reason Quia bonum commune praeeminet omni bono singulari This politick vertue exceeds all others as much as the publick good surpasseth any particular for he that it contented to draw himself within the guard of his own vertues onely and neglect the looking into the manners of others that are to be his instruments of State will of necessity be ensnared in his own goodnesse and will signifie no more to the publick benefit than those foolish Musicians that made all their harmony within themselves and were content to see all the World besides out of Tune This horrid negligence has made many good Kings odious to their Subjects and though excellent persons in themselves yet tamely suffering themselves to be lead by their Favourites have fallen not onely into the reputation but ruin of Tyrants and stink still in the nostrils of the people Some great Secretaries of Nature as Theophrastus de Plantis and that excellent Naturalist Joannes Roellus assure us That there is a very goodly and profitable Plant called Affodil or Scepter-Royal which breeds very bad little worms about it that gnaw out the very heart and perish the whole substance of it hiding themselves under the leaves and shadow of it till such time that getting wing they become a kind of Butter-flie all speckled over with gay flowers and brave it over men in the air whom they durst hardly not long before behold upon the earth Just so do carelesse Kings and Princes like this pitiful though Rbyal Plant cover under their fair verdure creatures which gnaw like worms in the beginning upon the substance of their Master and afterwards frame themselves wings all enamell'd with glory at the charge of the Publick to take their flights over the heads of so many Mortals whom they look upon as scornfully as if they had forgot the earth that bore them but sometime they meet with a fall proportionable to their flight and their Royal Masters and Makers are alwayes involved in inevitable ruin Our first and second Moses we see full-well understood that danger and have taken course accordingly to prevent it by employing none in Publick Charges but men of piety as well as parts known integrity as well as ability knowing nothing to be so perillous to Princely greatnesse as wicked Ministers and that good Officers must make great Statesmen as well as Captain-Generals Has not I say our second Moses made out his Parallel in this to its perfection Was there ever such a choice since that of the first Moses as he has made of men of Courage fearing God dealing truly and hating covetousnesse whom he has adopted into all the Offices about his Person Estate Army or Justice Look back upon his Highnesse sitting in his Family and then how can you but phansie the beautiful Rose surrounded with the fair attendance of its elegant leaves all in a Livery Consider him in his Council what can you say lesse of him than that he was a Princely Palme encompast with most stately Cedars and but reflect upon him in his warlike equipage and with his Martial men about him he will then shine forth like the Sun when glorified with his most illustrious rayes And last of all if we but look upon him in his power representative and Courts of Judicature there is not a Poet sure but would say that his Highnesse had Courted Reconciled and Reduced Astraea to the earth again Philostratus tells us in Vita Herodis Attici how that Athenian Herod appointed four and twenty Pages for his son every one of whom bore the Title of a Greek letter which was written on their breasts that so he might soon learn his Alphabet by onely calling of his servants But our Princely Protector and second Moses would have all his Officers and Instruments about him to appear to his people like those ancient Statues of Polycletes Phydias and Sisippus of which there was not a Lineament but was said to speak But I am too general in the application of this Parallel and may be pardoned I hope if I shall reduce it nearer home by particulars though I
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
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
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
his own most serene soul but what the people say every where we are all ear-witnesses sufficient the people I say who have ever lookt upon him as the dearest delight of their eyes and as the Orator said of his Emperour Constantine Magis magisque visus expetitur novum dictu vel praesens disideratur The more he is seen the more he is lookt after and which is more strange though he be still present with them yet he is alwayes most greedily desired and longed for by them Insomuch that I dare boldly say had the election of a Prince been put to the Popular choice and all the prime spirits of the Nation had been cull'd out to pretend for the Protectorat his most serene Highnesse that now is would have been the person that they must have pitched upon by Universal vote and carried to the Throne where he is seated now with General joy and acclamations A Prince he is without flattery be it spoken for he is known to be so of most incomparable great piety most worthy parts A Prince I say wise as Apollo beautiful as an Amazon and valiant as Achilles and having over and above all that the sacred spirit of wisdom courage and devotion of a Joshua and coming to the Helme of this Government as we have seen by Divine institution as he did into that Who can at all doubt but at the sight of such supreme excellent and most celestial qualities Walls and Cities impregnable shall fall before him too Gyants shall wax pale and be discomfited Rivers shall retire back the Sun it self shall stand still and as many Kings shall undergoe the yoke And to this all England shall say Amen The fourth Transcendental Ascent MOses was by the great favour of the Almighty permitted to see the promised Land First the Lord commands him Thus Get thee inup to the top of Pisgah and lift up thine eyes Westward and Northward and Southward and Eastward and behold it with thine eyes Then when the time of his departure came we find that Moses did accordingly go up from the plain of Moab unto the Mountain of Nebo to the top of Pisgah that is over against Jericho and the Lord shewed him all the Land of Gilead unto Dan and all Napthali and the Land of Ephraim and Manasseth and all the Land of Judah unto the utmost Sea and the South and the plain of the Valley of Jericho the City of Palm-trees unto Zoar and the Lord said unto him This is the Land which I sware unto Abraham and unto Isaac and unto Jacob saying I will give it unto thy seed I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes but thou shalt not go over thither The Parallel There is no man will deny sure that this was a very transcendent favour and priviledge indulged by God to this blessed Patriarch And has our second Moses received lesse favourable kindnesse from the hands of the Almighty Nay has he not in this too infinitely outgone the prerogatives of his Pattern and great Prototype Yes certainly as far as fruition can exceed an expectation or a possession surpasseth a bare prospect onely so much more of priviledge and favour did our second Moses find from the goodnsse of his Heavenly Father and receive beyond the former For the sacred Text most plainly affirmes that the great Patriarch Moses was permitted onely to see the Land of Promise and take his bare view of that beloved Country of sweet Canaan or Palestine then flowing with Milk and Honey and towards which he had been above forty years a marching in the Head of his most mutinous and troublesome Army yet not suffered to enter But has not our sacred second Moses made his entry Has he not onely entred but enjoyed for divers years his land of Promise Has he not driven out all his enemies before him and made so happy an end of his great Works as to have been well and securely setled in the quiet possession and government of his acquired Dominions and Territories Nay how much more advantageous was this favour to his late Highnesse in respect of his Successor too than that which his Archetype the former Moses had His late most Serene Highnesse we see has left his Princely Son to succeed him in a cleer estate and free from any incombrances either at home or abroad and indeed those few forraign broyls that we are ingaged in may be rather called his most Serene Highnesse his sports and pretty divertisements than any matters of troublesom businesse and must prove to be more profitable than dangerous Whereas the former good Moses left his succeeding Joshua not a foot of land but what he was to fight for and could make him indeed heir apparent to nothing but his sword and leave him as it were a meer Souldier of Fortune to cut his way out to his expectations Though this was very true that the Divine Patriarch knew full well that the Lords promises and blessed providence would be to him a most secure inheritance yet none can deny that this favour of Heaven must in any indifferent esteem fall short of that which was vouchsafed to our second Moses as much as an estate that is litigious and imbrangled with law suits is to be undervalued to a cleer one that is in quiet and undisturbed possession or the miserable condition of war is worse than the most happy halcyon state of Peace Are not these Transcendencies indeed so strange and copious priviledges prerogatives that the great goodness of Heaven never indulged more to any man than it has done to our second Moses in which he has so far outgone his very Original Master that grand dear Favorite of Heaven himself our first Moses that we may securely say that Moses himself has fallen as short of his late Highnesse our unparallel'd Protector in some of these divine indulgencies as he our glorious second could fail in perfection of Parallel to the blessed first in any of the former difficult Ascents But I cannot now insist upon them for I do find that our discourses have swell'd already to too big a volumn so it is time to withdraw into the Tabernacle of Repose and there set up if we can our rests with theirs The fifth Transcendental Ascent MOses is now mounting of his last living Ascent for the Holy Text tells us that he went up from the Plains of Moab into the Mountain of Nebo to the top of Pisgah over against Jericho c. And after he had satisfied himself with the fair prospect of the Promised Land he willingly steps into his so much longed for Tabernacle of Repose So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a Vally in the land of Moab over against Beth-peor but no man knows of his Sepulcher unto this day And Moses was a hundred and twenty