idlenesse was a meer moth of Noble mindes and iron it self sure if it had the reason to discourse understanding to chuse its one commodity would cry out to us that it better loved to be kept in constant use and exercise than to lie rusting and consuming in the corner of a horse Wherefore we see that God does not ordinarily entertain great souls in the pleasures of an idle life but in the rigid exercises of vertue for we know that there are many most excellent fishes that will die in standing waters and are delighted in the most bubbling sluces and turbulent seas and rivers and the best birds will alwayes be abroad in the most troubled air Our glorious Eagle therefore was alwayes seeking out for action and never to be found lazing or beating of his wings in the lower Regiment of the air but soaring alwayes aloft amongst the furies of Lightnings Tempests and Whirle-winds playing with Thunder-claps and ever having his eye where the day was to break His painful vigilancies were so great in Court as well as Camp City and Field that we may say of him as was once of the Great Constantine Tam assiduus in actione sua constitit ut vel labore refici ac reparari videretur He was so conversant in action that it seemed to be nothing but his continual recreation Gaudent siquidem saith the same Author divina perpetuo motu jugi agitatione se vegetat aeternitas His constitution was so strenuous that it must needs have been akin to those celestial bodies that refresh themselves with their own motion and perpetual agitation So true it is what Seneca tells us Contempta res est home nisi supra humana se erexit A man is a very pitiful vile and contemptible thing unlesse he be ambitious to raise himself above all the ordinary courses of the World but that saying is to be verified in no sort of men so much as the Noble Souldier whose honour depending upon the most superlative degree of vertue must seek out and pursue wayes beyond all equality and such a person is sure of attaining his end for Polyaenus has assured him that Voluntas ad laborem propensa cuncta vincere superare consuevit A propense will or a soul prone to labour has been ever wont to conquer and overcome all difficulties And Appian gives the like encouragement when he proclaims Nihil tam arduum quod industria animi fortitudine superari non possit Nothing so high or hard but is to be compassed and overcome by industry and a willing valiant mind What these and all the Philosophers Poets Orators or Historians have said or could prescribe his late most Serene Highnesse has alwayes fully understood and most perfectly practised as no one of the Army that has served under him but must bear him witnesse how present he would be upon all Guards and Watches as if he were ubiquitary how incessant in all his Actions and Labours as if he were impassible how alwayes taking order for and moving about his body as if he were immortal Indeed this laborious vertue which is no small one in an officer his Highnesse was more Master of than any that I ever heard or read of If any Work were to be raised his hand must be in it first if any duty to be done his president must be still the foremost so by rare skill mingling the Captain and the common Souldier together he did both intend the diligence of others from whom he might though not so effectually have exacted it and ease the burden of their labour by making himself a companion and partaker of their pains and travel But of this and his other great pieces of Conduct we shall say more in our next Ascent where we shall represent him a most compleat Captain-General The thirteenth Ascent WE have found our Moses a most valiant and vertuous Souldier and a most vigilant skilful and careful Officer but that he might be all and yet not fit to command in Cheif and a shepherd is not very likely to make a great General fitter he must be sure in the opinion of most to lead his flocks than to conduct an Army of men Yes we shall find him a most glorious and accomplisht Captain-General otherwise he would never have been selected sure by the Divine Wisdom to conduct and command so great and troublesome a body as that of the most mutinous perverse and rebellious people in the World and to carry them in his bosom as a Nurse beareth her sucking child or if there could be yet any danger of doubt in any of this I would refer that doubting person to the whole current of holy Scripture where he shall find by the exact discipline observed in his Army the ordering of his several Marchings and Encampings the Election of his ablest Officers as well as Souldiers and the fighting of his Battels his extraordinary and incomparable skill in Military Conduct The Parallel Good Souldiers get honour to their Captains and Officers and all together being gallant men must of necessity make a glorious General It highly concerns him therefore who is to Command in Cheif to let his prime and principal care be placed in the Election of his inferiour officers as our first and second Moses have so exemplarily done for this is the first step of all Military Conduct wherein I am sure he has out-done all the Generals that ever were before him unlesse this to which he is so parallel Is it not plain that his Highnesse found such horrid abuses in all the former Armies that he was faine to new modell this to bring about those his great and mighty workes that he has done And what sort of Officers were they that he chose and instruments that his inspired wisdom pickt out and fitted for his purpose even such as his Souldiers were before spoken of men of clean hands and purer hearts that were to fight the Lords Battels He rejected ever those gay gawdy outsides of the world those petit spirits of the Abyss before spoken of sprung from the race of Cadmus I mean those silly fencing fellows swaggering swashbucklers and Hectors aforesaid who appear like Comets of fire and blood to bring murder pestilence and poison into houses who as I said make the Pillars of Heaven to tremble with their blasphemies have nothing else of souldiers in them but to pill and ravage in their Quarters like Harpies and feed themselves with humane blood who are ever readier to shew their valour for a cold countenance an extravagant word or a Caprichio of spirit than they would either be for God their Country or the whole World A most wretched and abominable sort of men that never think of or look up to Heaven but to blaspheme it indeed more like Centaurs than men and have their hearts all spotted over like the skin of a Panther No these were the pitiful things as we have said
I have often considered those three difficult questions which the Angel proposed to Esdras to weigh the fire to measure the wind and to number the veins of the Abyss and really I find the intricacy of an exorbitant ambition to be all that Ambition is a devouring fire who can poise it It is a most robustious violent wind who can hold or fathom it It is a bottomlesse Abyss who can count the issues and the sources of it The middle of the Earth hath been found the depth of the Sea hath been sounded the height of the Alpes and Riphaean Hills themselves has be taken and measured the remotest limits of the hollow caverns of Caucasus have been dived into the head-spring of Nilus it self hath not escaped the discovery onely in the hearts of men we cannot find the bounds of desire of commanding This I say is too true in the community of men but his Mosaical Highnesse has ever given such visible and apparent proofes of his divine self-denying spirit and such irrefragable arguments of his reall reluctancies against all offers whatsoever of wordly greatnesse that malice it self cannot object the least spot of ambition to have possest his inspired bosom For first we have seen how long he was pleased to conceal himself like his dear Master Moses in the backside of the Desart near to the Mountain of God where he could have no conversation but with him and his own soul and we all know how unwilling he was to forsake that his beloved humble retreat which sure he had never done if he had not studied most thoroughly the best of Poets so often repeated Sic vos non vobis and been more divinely taught that all which is most excellent in creatures is not for the creatures which possesse it as light is not in the Sun for the Sun it self nor waters are in the Ocean for the Ocean it self The great God of the Universe who gave Brightnesse to the one and Rivers to the other would that both should tend to the publick commodity of men and has thereby ordained them to passe on to the glory of the Soveraign Being His inspired Highnesse full well knew that Kingdoms were not made so much for Kings as Kings for their Kingdoms for they are made so and set over them to this end onely to do them not themselves good and to protect them and preserve them as the goods of God himself His Highnesse likewise considered that so soon as a man is born with and bred up to fair and worthy parts he is to employ himself and them for the publick good and he who would retain to himself what Divine Providence gave in common commits a sacriledge in the great Temple of the God of Nature and he that perpetually reflects on himself in all things and draws as it were all to himself as if he were so made onely for himself opposeth his Creator and Judge and makes himself corrival with the Soveraign Majesty of Heaven Now after that our second Moses had upon these Divine considerations been drawn to put himself forth upon publick Services we all know how unwilling he has been to receive the dues of his own honours and how desirous he was rather to wrap himself up nay to bury himself if he could have done it in his first colours than to proceed to higher Commands which being still enforced upon him by his own Mosaical merits we have seen likewise with what humility and great candor of spirit he has ever managed them And when the pressing necessities of State required that one single person should sit at the Helme and that he was pointed out both by God and man for that purpose how unwilling was he to accept the Charge insomuch that when the Protector at of these Nations was so violently pressed upon him by the then wearied Parliament who knows not with what sighs and groans not to be uttered and sad regrets lesse to be understood he was at length pleased to undergo the Charge Nay yet further Is it not most evident how to his very last day he has with an incomparable constancy and magnanimity of spirit refused and resisted all those urgent importunities of Parliament and People Council and Army pressing the Crown and the Title of King upon him And in all this has he not most perfectly proved himself the follower of his pattern and great Master Moses who was not onely unwilling to receive the honour of Captain General over his Brethren but refused and contemned the whole Court and Kingdom of Pharaoh Thus our blessed Saviour the Pattern of all patterns to convince the World that he was the Example of all perfection would appear onely great in refusing of a whole world which the Devil did as it were unfold to him before his feet So doubtlesse it was his Divine will likewise that the vertue of the greatest men should appear clearly in the refusal of the greatest honours when as by his Spirit the blessed Baptist refused the greatest of all Titles which was to own the high honour and name of the Messiah Indeed it is a most particular grace and favour afforded by God to make a man to open his eyes upon himself to know himself as he ought to measure himself and to set limits upon his own desires Now this especial grace we see the Lord has largely bestowed upon these his two extraordinary Servants our first and second Moses And indeed my Lord alwayes lookt upon those spirits with pity who outragiously mad after greatnesse pursue it with all manner of toil and sinister practices and never counted them to be otherwise than as bubbles that rise on the water in the time of a Tempest which both encrease and crack in a moment That wretched sordid ambition it was which made the great Roman Emperours of old to sit so slippery upon their Thrones and to live indeed but the age of flowers still driving one another out as nailes do or as the waves that are still beating one another to be broken against Rocks No our glorious second Moses like the first was ever elevated to so high a pitch of Holy and Divine contemplations that he lookt upon all the greedy Great ones of the World but as so many pitiful Ants furiously contending for a poor simple grain of earth and truly the vast distance of his high spirit from all sublunary things made the whole Globe of the World appear to him no otherwise than as a little point and that almost imperceptible good reason therefore had his Mosaical prudence to be unwilling to trouble himself at all about it but enough has been said as to that so we 'l hasten from the unwillingnesse of these our two Grand Masters to accept to celebrate their promptnesse fidelity and activity in the glorious execution of their several Charges which will abundantly appear in our after Ascents and Parallels The eighth Ascent MOses found the Lord faithful in the performance of
Host against the enemy should keep themselves clear from all wickednesse nor so much as be stained with any uncleannesse c. The Parallel Nor lesse doubt can there be sure of the personal Valour of our second Moses who though he slew no man that ever I could hear of in any private quarrel yet was known to be alwayes ready to draw his Sword upon a good occasion His Highnesse was never of the temper of those spirits that upon the misconstruction of a word or a cold countenance must presently desire to see a man with his sword in his hand and swear that they will evict reparation from him sealed with his blood No it cannot be but an argument of a base spirit and of ignoble extraction to seek out occasions of quarrelling and Duelling for by that sure they must have some design to blot out some ignominy of their births or other unworthinesse Heretofore truly none but slaves lackies butchers gladiators or such kind of fellows did use that trade of Duells but now forsooth the opinion of some fooles will make it fit for Gentlemen But our first and second Moses ever had such pitiful Hectors in extream contempt who go about by that means to purchase glory out of vice gain hell by their execrable carriage and but acquire on earth the qualities of a Clown They have taught us that we are not to make our selves like Fierabras nor the Knight of the burning-sword in matter of valour and I dare aver that if there were a hundred such like Rodomonts brayed and stamped to powder in a Morter they would not be able to make up one half ounce of true fortitude Nay I have seen some of those most importunate fellows to fight Duells when they come to bear arms in a good cause where they ought to shew true valour and an undaunted resolution they have been the first that have most desperately run away they have passed over hills without being sensible of the ascents through woods without seeing of a tree before them and measured many miles without casting one look behind them nay sometime whole flocks of them together that will run away like sheep with the very appresion of a fear that the noise of their own feet gives them Our first and second Moses were as little given to make discourses of their own Valour Those who brave it most in words are most commonly found most failing in performance When Homer makes his bravest Captains to march he gives them alwayes silence for a guide contrariwise he makes cowards to babble and chatter like Cranes The first passe along like great Rivers letting their streams glide softly with a silent majesty but the second keep a murmuring and bubling like little Brooks Indeed the world is too full of these Rodomonts now called Hectors who are transported with od arrogant and sudden furies like Rabsheketh in Scripture and yet will tremble at the Lancet of a Surgeon and cry out for a little pain more than a woman in Labour in short the true sign of not being valiant is to strive to seem to be so Our second Moses was known to be none of all this Swash-buckler brood sprung from the race of Cadmus derived from the teeth of Serpents and yet never more ready to eat than to fight upon a good occasion nay a Duel out too if there were a cause for it that is either in the Head of an Army by publick consent against some Goliah to defend the honour of his Nation and so to end some notable War and stay a greater effusion of blood or else if justly called to it in his own or any dear friends vindication not upon some silly Chymera of spirit upon the interpretation of some ambiguous words or which is worse for the love of some unchast woman who will not be otherwise propitiated but with the sacrifice of humane blood No this is no part of our Mosaical courage The men of this make were always those that his Highnesse fought against and proved upon them in the end that to be a true compleat Christian Souldier was not to become a braving Cyclop without any feeling of God or sense of Religion but such a one as his Master Moses would have him to be that goes into the field that is clear from all wickednesse and uncleannesse and so accordingly did our second Moses alwayes make his sacred choise of men His inspired wisdom knew full well that none are fitter to go to War than those who had made their peace with God nor can there be any more valourous than he that has a true fear of the Lord before him for first such a mans soul is a Fort impregnable which cannot be scaled with ladders for it reacheth up to Heaven nor be broken with batteries for it is walled with brasse nor undermined by Pioneers for he is founded upon a rock nor betrayed by treason for faith it self has the keeping of it nor be burnt with granado's for that can quench the fiery darts of the Devil nor yet be forced by famine for a good conscience is a continual feast It was not for nothing then that these two great souls of honour our first and second Moses would not onely be so provided themselves but have all that followed them be so likewise and to carry about them the whole armour of St. Paul for undoubtedly there is nothing so strong nothing so invincible and triumphant as a valour which marcheth bravely under the Rules of true Christian Religion Whatsoever Mr. Machiavel would perswade us that Devotion and Piety are the greatest weakners of courage and warlike dispositions and that honesty and vertue do but expose a Prince to dangers the truth of it is of a Prince as he has proposed him he has made little better than a wilde beast and yet would perswade us t is a man and none I presume will believe it but such as carry their eyes in their heels The brave Belizarius sure was of another opinion who was one of the most excellent Captains in the World being to put some lewd souldiers to death for some military crimes declared his mind so freely to his Army in these Terms that Procopius recites Know ye saith he that I am come to fight with the arms of Religion and Justice without which we can expect neither Victory nor Happinesse I desire my Souldiers should have their hands clean to kill an enemy Never will I suffer any man in my Army that hath fingers crooked or bloody were he in arms as terrible as lightning force is of no worth if it have not equity and conscience for companions This now methinks was spoken like a Souldier indeed like the very spirit of our Moses And this is most certain that no man can loose his courage but he that never had it and no man can have it if that he beg it not of the true Lord of Hosts Where is light to be sought for
direction for the government of people if not enlightned with the true rayes of God and that light is not to be had but by the means of prayer The practise therefore of this holy duty has been ever stiled and esteemed by the holy Fathers of the Church The Key of Heaven and the confusion of Hell the Standard of our Christian warfare the conservation of our peace the bridle of our impatience the guardian of our temperance the seal of chastity the advocate of offenders the consolation of the afflicted the passe-port of the dying c. for the Just do live and dye in prayer as the Phoenix in her perfumes A Christian doubtlesse without prayer is no more than a Bee without a sting which can neither make honey nor wax From the defect of this duty have proceeded all the desolations of the earth from hence are dayly derived so many falls so many miseries for that men will not apply themselves to tast the things of God in prayer as our glorious Patriarch and his Parallel have alwayes done No man living can deny sure but that it was the perpetual preservation of the children of Israel that their Moses had that happy faculty to its perfection for it is manifest that they had otherwise been swallowed up by the Divine vengeance and in stead of being brought to the Land of Canaan they had been fearfully cut off from the land of the Living I hope it is already made as evident in our past Parallels that we have received as great Deliverances and preservations by the means of our second Moses which could never have been but by his free frequent and powerful accesses to God in prayer as I shall shew more at large presently In the mean time I will be bold from these two great patterns of piety to draw a closing Corollary and lay down the whole state of the question if it may be worthy to be called one in one single naked Proposition Every good Prince being a publick Person and charged with so important affairs that depend wholly upon Providence and expect the motion of the Divine will ought after these two grand exemplars of Piety and Policy to consider That he is to hold a great deal of commerce with Heaven where his businesse so much lies and therefore should resolve to set apart according to the proportion of his time and other occasions some principal hours of leisure shall I say or business at least of retirement to negotiate with God particularly about his government in imitation I say of these two greatest Statesmen our first and second Moses who had so familiar a recourse to the Almighty that as the one was so the other for ought I know may be entitled The friend of God O matchlesse Title His most incomparable Piety knew sufficiently what Gregory Nazianzen tells us That if we are to have the Lord in our minds so often as we do breath How much more suitable it is to a Statesman to be conversant in that holy duty having most need to suck in the life-giving spirit as from the Fountain of the Word by the means of prayer It is not therefore unfitly stiled The spirit of prayer for it is the breath of the inward-man Os meum aperui saith the Scripture attraxi spiritum I opened my mouth and drew in the spirit We are all ready to be choaked with flesh and fat and to be devoured with flames of concupiscence unlesse we upon all occasions open our mouths to take in that gentle air of God By this blessed means it was that our incomparable Paire our first and second Moses have arrived at this great perfection to whom the Lord has vouchsafed so much of his familiarity as to treat with them as friends and to declare himself as it were unable to deny them any thing As for the first we have seen enough already in sacred Story and for our glorious second Moses our own manifold observations and frequent experimental knowledges may be sufficient to inform us For that his late most Serene Highnesse had the purity and excellency of this precious spirit is not onely manifest to those that have had the happinesse to be present at his daily spreading of his hands and pouring forth of his spirit before the Lord and to joyn with him in his Devotions but to the whole Nation except the most stupid and malitious part of it that either will not or cannot be sensible of the great benefits that we have for so long a time received by his powerful addresses unto God How many times has the Divine vengeance been diverted from falling upon our sinful heads by his importunate intercessions How many pestilences famines and other plagues which our impenitency hardnesse of heart and ugly ingratitude had as well deserved as either the cursed Egyptians or murmuring Israelites have been kept off from us by his means Has he lesse often than the former Moses conquered his enemies more by his own prayers than his souldiers armes Has he not by that means obtained as we have seen a secret vertue to be fastened to his Standards making windes and tempests to fight under his Ensign that we may almost cry out with the Poet O nimium dilecte Deo c. How often has he opened as aforesaid Lands inaccessible calmed stormy Seas taken Towns impregnable and with petit handfuls of men discomfited huge Armies How often have we seen him give me leave to repeate those wonders cleaving of Rocks hewing through Mountains and to do the works of Gyants with the reputed Pygmes of the World and find facility in all that humane reason conceived impossible And how I say again could all this be but that the Lord could no more deny any thing to the prayer of this his dear servant and favourite our second than he could to the former Moses His fair soul was no whit lesse elevated upon the pitch of highest contemplations from his very infancy than the former great Moses was His high soul was not unlike that Ibis the stately bird of Egypt that always builds her nest in Palmes So it was perpetually conversant in high contemplations and had no more impressions of earth than the supream Sphere of celestial Bodies Or else more truly yet resembling the Palme-tree it self where that brave Bird builds which as it is the tallest and streightest of all trees so beares its best and most solid strength on its top So had our most gracious Protector and second Moses all his vigour alwayes in God and for God His life was a perpetual Sabbath Sabathum delicatum a delicious Sabbath as the Prophet calls it nourishing and reposing his soul with the constant draught of this holy spirit of prayer He made it not onely his lock and key of the day but his bolt of the night nor onely so but his very meales and recreations and all that his Highnesse did more in a becoming silence than any exteriour ostent
we will exclude the Spirit without whose concurrence all other Teachings are ineffectual He doth speak to the Hearts and Consciences of men and leadeth them to his Law and Testimonies and there he speaks to them and so gives them double teachings according to that of Job God speaketh once yea twice and that of David God hath spoken once yea twice have I heard this Those men that live upon their Mumpsimus and Sumpsimus their Masses and Service-Books their dead and carnal Worship no marvel if they be strangers to God and the works of God and to spiritual dispensations And because they say and believe thus must we do so too we in this Land have been otherwise instructed even by the Word and Workes and Spirit of God To say that men bring forth these things when God doth them judge you if God will bear this I wish that every sober heart though he hath had temptations upon him of deserting this CAVSE of God yet may take heed how he provokes and falles into the hands of the living God by such blasphemies as these according to the tenth of the Hebrews If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remains no more sacrifice for sin It was spoken to the Jews that having professed Christ apostatized from him what then nothing but a fearful falling into the hands of the Living God They that shall attribute to this or that Person the contrivances and production of those mighty things God hath wrought in the midst of us and that they have not been the revolutions of Christ himself upon whose Shoulders the GOVERNMENT is laid they speak against God and they fall under his hand without a Mediator that is if we deny the Spirit of Jesus Christ the glory of all his works in the World by which he Rules Kingdoms and doth administer and is the Rod of his strength we provoke the Mediator And he may say I 'le leave you to God I 'le not intercede for you let him tear you to pieces I 'le leave thee to fall into Gods hands thou deniest me my Soveraignty and Power committed to me I 'le not intercede nor mediate for thee thou fallest into the hands of the Living God Therefore whatsoever you may judge men for and say This man is cunning and politick and subtile take heed again I say how you judge of his Revolutions as the Products of mens inventions Then how much he valued the interests of God and his influence upon all his actions we may see what he sayes in the same Speech and were it not that I can make some Dilemma's upon which to resolve some things of my Conscience Judgement and Actions I should sinck at the very prospect of my Encounters some of them are general some are more special supposing this Cause or this Businesse must be carried on either it is of God or of Man if it be of Man I would I had never touched it with a finger if I had not had a hope fixed in Me that this Cause and this Businesse is of God I would many years ago have run from it If it be of God he will bear it up If it be of Man it will tumble as every thing that hath been of man since the World began hath done And what are all our Histories and other Traditions of actions in former times but God manifesting himself that he hath shaken and tumbled down and trampled upon every thing that he hath not planted and as this is so the All-wise God deal with it If this be of humane Structure and Invention and it be an old Plotting and Contrivance to bring things to this Issue and that they are not the Births of Providence then they will tumble But if the Lord take pleasure in England and if he will do Us good he is able to bear us up Let the difficulties be whatsoever they will we shall in his Strength be able to encounter with them And I blesse God I have been inured to Difficulties and I never found God failing when I trusted in him I can laugh and sing in my heart when I speak of these things to you or elsewhere Here is a piece of Divine Policy indeed and fetcht doubtlesse from the Gates of the City of God Thus was his late Mosaical Highnesse alwayes pleading to acknowledge the truth of that most excellent Maxim delivered by Augustin Cui bonum non est Deus sibi ipsi vult esse bonum suum sicut sibi est Deus He that holds not God for his greatest good would be to himself his own good as God is to himself He that thinks to escape from the bands of dependance that he has on God makes himself his own blessing and his end his God His Highnesse therefore so constantly steer'd himself and all his actions by his obedience to Divine Commands that he chose alwayes to perish with a good conscience rather than to flourish without one and though he was from the very beginning like a pure Oriental Pearle in the salt-sea so continually involved in the cruel acerbities and confusions of our times yet he alwayes kept his Noble luster in then midst of them and by his invincible affection toward and confidence in his God he arose still from them with more and more splendour and made all those his perplexities which threatned him with many an imminent ruin but higher ascents and steps to the Temple of glory Vertue and Piety he always compared to and took for the Geometrical Cube of his life which we know in Mathematicks on what side soever it be cast alwayes finds its Basis Where are you now all you I say who are the pitiful followers of Nicholas Machiavells policy poor tricks of carnal wisdom What will become now of all your mighty Maxims of hypocritical knavery Let this one example onely of our Christian Moses parallel to that of his Great Master the Patriarch which we have seen in his Ascent serve now for all to inform you That there are none but such as are perfectly blind that seek after your Principles and miserable they must be who find them the sottish who will descend to serve them and the utterly reprobate and forlorne who can stoope to tye themselves unto them but the wisdom that is of Heaven our Mosaical wisdom is so transcendently sublime above all your untrue and trivial inventions as the light of Stars surpasseth all the sparklings and petit sprey fiers of the Earth And though such humane interests and designs may possibly and will still hold the Ascendent in the hearts of some sort of people yet we finde how my Lords high holy Mosaical spirit could no more than that of his Grand Archetype condescend to steer his course or counsells that way nor yet more than those Angels now standing in glory follow the example of those Luciferian spirits which fell by such Machiavillian counsells into the pit of Perdition No our most
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
of God in him to have an insight into the events of things and to discourse upon futurities which true spirit of prophesie that he may have that he may be constant to himself and stable in his counsels he is perpetually to seek that capacity and support from God for the greatest wit of man of it self will be nothing but temerity but he that is a true servant of Gods and delights in his worship shall be so inspired as to be able to encounter all extremities of State and difficulties of affaires whatsoever It were now to be wisht that our Christian Kings and Princes would study and practise some of these religious Pagans admirable Divinity though they will not strive to mount up our Mosaical Ascents as his late most Serence Highnesse has done by which he has arrived as we have seen to the perfection of this Political spirit of prophesie The wise Philosopher assures us that Sapiens non semper it uno gradu sed una via A prudent person keeps not alwayes one pace though still one and the same way by which way he must unquestionably mean this Divine and prophetick way this way of dependance upon God in all his counsels for no way else can be one all humane wayes being various and uncertain as has been sufficiently shewed in our precedent discourses together with my Lords our second Moses his as the firsts great relations to the Lord in all their affairs so I may hold my hand now from any further enlargement upon their prophetical Policies but conclude that his late Highnesse was a most compleat Prophet in this sense also So now we come to the third and last acception of Prophets and that is the true one indeed the Divine Prophets I mean immediately illuminated by God as our first Moses was and had free and frequent conversation with the Deity even to the enjoyment of him face to face Of this sort of Prophets we find a distinction likewise in Scripture and they are termed by the Spirit of God either Videntes or Evangelizantes Seers or Preachers The Seers were those which used to converse with God by Visions or Divine Dreams and to have some miraculous Revelations of things and many future Events This truly is the proper high pitch of prophesie the sublimest condition sure that mortality can arrive at and that our first Moses had in the greatest proportion of any meer man that ever lived as we have seen in our Ascent nor truly dare I venture our second Moses here to the perfection of Parallel with him for as I have said before we are yet unknowing to those particular private dispensations of Heaven to him though this we may securely conclude as the Scripture speaks that the Secret of the Lord was with him and that he had the testimony of Jesus which to have is to have the Spirit of prophesie for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophesie as is expressely delivered to us in the Revelation Then for the second sort of Divine Prophets which are the Evangelizers or inspired Preachers they are such as the Apostle describes at large in the twelfth thirteenth and fourteenth Chapters of his first Epistle to the Corinthians and exhorts us all to covet to be above all things and to speak unto men to edification to exhortation and comfort Now if ever this sublime Piece of Divine prophesie was made out to any mortal man of his condition it was most eminently glorious in him his very life was a perpetual Prophesie his sanctified example was a constant living Sermon and the words which the Spirit gave him when he was pleased to open his inspired lips were as we have hinted before as thunderclaps to Hindes for the production of salvation His way of prophesying was not like theirs now adayes that make a trade of it and employ their Pulpits more for coin than conscience and to pluck the fruits of the earth from their Parishioners than to improve the fruits of the Spirit in them No his inspired Highnesse ever hated that canker of worldly spirits so predominate in the most pretended Prophets of this Age who indeed more zealously preach themselves and their own vile interests than the pure and saving word of God Others forsooth there are of them that will preach nothing but placentia sow pillows under sinful elbows and stroak and tickle their Auditors in the meane time with strange stories or vain curiosities and yet this they will call prophesying but be it what it will they care not so it be for their own profiting and they have brought a great part of the people too to be satisfied with that kind of stuff nay even strangely to delight in it The generality now comes onely to hear Preachers as of old they used to do to the Athenian Orators or a curious Lute-player or a Comedy but if he that preacheth has no other intention but to please and they that hear have no other purpose but to sooth their own curiosity he may weary his lungs in the mean space and they hug the itch in their ears but the time will come when he shall have the worm in his heart to gnaw him and they the tingling of the eares for their punishment The seller and the buyer both shall be payed home with the coin of reprobation for whosoever speaketh not and who heareth not to do and become better abuseth the gift of prophesie it self and a word signed with the blood of Jesus Christ the account of which they will find inestimable and the losse of the least jot of it most damnably dangerous His inspired Highnesse I say out of his true Prophetick wisdom ever hated the courses of all those giddy ungodly Evangelizers and said with holy Paul Though I have the gift of Prophesie and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so as I could remove mountains and have no charity I am nothing Now this charity tends to that the Apostle tells us as aforesaid to edification exhortation and comfort of others which his true Prophetick Spirit alwayes observed and by that inflamed all his people about him so that his Palace alwayes appeared as a glorious Temple and his conversation a very Heaven upon Earth So I hope this Parallel likewise will not be denyed to be accomplished Yet we shall see it more clear in the following The three and twentieth Ascent MOses was not onely endowed by God with a most rich and plentiful spirit of Prophesie himself but he endeavoured to procure it for and alwayes permitted the exercise of it in others nay encouraged and cherished it in his people to the discontent of divers about him for the sacred Text tells us that when newes was brought to the blessed Patriarch and holy Prophet that there remained two of the men in the Camp the name of the one was Eldad and the name of the other Medad and that the spirit
resting upon them they continued to prophesie in the Camp and he was solicited to forbid them Then Moses said to him that would have had it forbidden Envyest thou for my sake would God that all the Lords people were Prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them So it plainly appears that our great Patriarch and Prophet Moses was absolutely in his own judgement inclined to favour a liberty of Prophesying and that his judgement too was seconded by Divine approbation for what he then spoke was from the very mouth and dictate of the Spirit of God himself The Parallel Thus we see what Philosophers assure us is very true that Omne bonum est sui diffusivum All good is diffusive of it self nothing indeed is so proper to its nature as to be communicable much more then must the Spirit of all goodnesse be so that is this Spirit of God himself the Holy Spirit of prophesie What else made our great and gracious Patriarch so willing to part with some of his spirit as the Text tells us he did to the seventy that he set round about the Tabernacle nor onely so but to endeavour and desire as we have seen in the Ascent That all Gods people were Prophets too and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them O words worthy to be written in Letters of Gold with a Pen of Diamond And was not this the very sense and true Prophetick Spirit of our second Moses too Has he not alwayes endeavoured to impart that spirit of his to and improve it in the hearts of all his people that were capable of it Has he not alwayes incouraged the free use and exercise of it throughout these Nations whilst some cruel greedy envious and exterminating spirits were not onely striving in private but enacting in publick to make a monopoly of this holy Spirit and engrosse it to themselves Nor onely so but went about to extirpate and root out all those that desired the free use and exercise of it O Antichristain Tyrany But this sufficiently argued that theirs was not the true spirit of prophesie neither of nor from the Lord at all for that no spirit whatsoever can have a true union with God that has not a commixture of charity is evident by the drift of the whole Chapter of that Epistle to the Corinthians cited in the last Parallel From whence then must this spirit of bitternesse amongst men proceed is it from the more brutal part of man An ancient Father in an elegant gradation of his tells us no for Homo homini Lupus A man is a Wolf to a man that will not reach it for Saevis inter se convenit No beast so savage that will prey upon his own kinde Is it from any devilishnesse that may possesse humane nature no Homo homini daemon will not reach it for those wicked spirits do agree well enough within themselves for our Saviour himself testifies of their union when he sayes That if their house were divided it could not stand From whence then can this spirit of bitternesse amongst men proceed even from men themselves Homo homini homo That alone can reach this malice for nothing is so mercilesse an enemy to man as man himself No creature in the earth besides Canibal-men will prey upon their own speices nor can any but barbarous Christians think that the God of all mercy delights in humane sacrifices like those devilish deities of old and still in America that will be propitiated by no other means From whence then must this spirit of bitternesse amongst Christians proceed is it from any principle of faith or primitive practise surely no for the first children of the Christian Church bore neither rod nor stick in their hands wherewithal to plant faith in the hearts of men How comes it to passe then that we see some sort of people have publisht a Religion all bristled over with swords and pikes all sooted with the smoke of musket and canon all sprinkled over and besmear'd with the blood of Christians Must now the ancient Armes of our Christian forefathers which were prayers and tears be laid aside and none but killing weapons taken up no Schooles to decide controversies between Christians but bloody Campanias nor way to save the souls of men but by destroying their bodies Did God refuse to have his Temple built by David though a man after his own heart because onely his hands were bloody and can he now be contented to have the very morter that is to bind up the stones and ciment the walls of his Church be tempered with blood and her breaches made up with skulls and carkases Will he now suffer the stones of his house to be all polisht with such stroakes as are smitings of Brethren who would not endure in that of Solomons building so much as the noise of hammer ax or iron or brasse toole From whence then can proceed this spirit of bitternesse amongst brethren that the red Dragon should begin again to play Rex and that Whore prepare to dye her Scarlet anew and the pale Horse of imprisonment and exile threaten a range about the streets till his late most Serene Highnesse was pleased to oppose himself and all his power against those cruel and as I said before Antichristian designs From whence I say could arise this root of bitternesse between Brethren from nothing but a meer Machiavillian trick too a pretence forsooth of conformity or uniformity in the Church which has been and is undoubtedly the greatest cheat that ever the Devil invented to make men run a mading in Religion and to embroile Christendom in direful wars perpetual confusions and most bloody ruins The witchcraft of that Jezebel it was that so long troubled this our Israel and that our great Jehu as well as second Moses so furiously marcht against and thanks be to God has pretty well dissolved her inchantments Her painted face he has now likewise discovered in its pure naturals to all the World and pulled off the vizard of all pretenses whatsoever for let the ends of these conformity-mongers be never so plausible to ciment the State forsooth against all division we find it has been throughout all Europe the onely mother and nurse of all disturbances whatsoever in matters of Religion and the greatest occasion of civil bloodshed that ever was in the World for there can be no War so passionate as the War of conscience All these horrid inconveniences and mischiefs his Highnesse's great Mosaick prudence most timely lookt into and prevented amongst us How often have we seen the furious Furnace heating by several parties so could expect no lesse than a fiery-trial But he would neither suffer King nor his Court though he was the pretended head of that pitiful Body nor yet Bishops Arch-Deacons Deans Chancellors and Officials with their long-tailed c. Nor yet any Superintendent with his Classes and pretended Directories to impose any
thing upon tender consciences and indeed amongst all the weighty affairs of this Nation which he like another Atlas so happily bore about him the dear indulgent care he alwayes exprest in the favour of such Christians who laboured under any scruples of conscience was as glorious and remarkable as his undaunted courage to pull down his proud and stiff-necked enemies and this is most evident likewise by what it pleased his most Serene Highnesse to hold forth in the same Speech afore-cited in the last Ascent which most heavenly words I thought necessary likewise to insert here When you were entred upon this GOVERNMENT raveling into it you know I took no notice what you were doing if you had gone upon that foot of Account To have made such good and wholesome Provisions for the good of the People of these Nations for the Settling of such matters in things of Religion as would have upheld and given Countenance to a Godly Ministry and yet would have given a just Liberty to Godly men of different Judgements men of the same Faith with them that you call the Orthodox Ministery in England as it is well known the Independents are and many under the Form of Baptism who are found in the Faith onely may perhaps be different in Judgement in some lesser matters yet as true Christians both looking at Salvation onely by faith in the blood of Christ men professing the fear of God having recourse to the Name of God as to a strong Tower I say you might have had Opportunity to have setled Peace and Quietnesse amongst all professing Godlinesse and might have been instrumental if not to have healed the breaches yet to have kept the Godly of all Judgements from running one upon another and by keeping them from being over-run by a Common Enemy rendred them and these Nations both secure happy and well satisfied Are these things done or any thing towards them Is there not yet upon the spirits of men a strange itch nothing will satisfie them unlesse they can put their finger upon their Brethrens Consciences to pinch them there To do this was no part of the Contest we had with the Common Adversary for Religion was not the thing at the first contested for but God brought it to that issue at last and gave it into Us by way of Redundancy and at last it proved to be that which was most dear to us and wherein consisted this more than in obtaining that Liberty from the Tyranny of the Bishops to all Species of Protestants to worship God according to their own Light and Consciences for want of which many of our Brethren forsook their Native Countries to seek their Bread from Strangers and to live in Howling Wildernesses and for which also many that remained here were imprisoned and otherwise abused and made the scorn of the Nation Those that were sound in the Faith how proper was it for them to labour for Liberty for a just Liberty that men should not be trampled upon for their Consciences had not they laboured but lately under the weight of Persecutions and was it fit for them to fit heavy upon others is it ingenuous to ask liberty and not to give it what greater Hypocrisie than for those who were oppressed by the Bishops to become the greatest Oppressors themselves so soon as their yoke was removed I could wish that they who call for Libery now also had not too much of that Spirit if the power were in their hands As for Prophane Persons Blasphemers such as preach Sedition the Contentious Railers Evil Speakers who seek by evil words to corrupt good manners persons of loose conversations punishment from the Civil Magistrate ought to meet with them because if these pretend Conscience yet walking disorderly and not according but contrary to the Gospel and even to natural light they are judged of all and their Sins being open make them subjects of the Magistrates Sword who ought not to bear it in vain O words worthy of the spirit of so great a Prince and Prophet which I could dwell upon to admire but I am called now away from that admiration Yet in the mean time I must desire leave to wonder at another Prodigy With what face these uniformity men be they King Court and Council Prelate Dean and Chapter President Superintendent and Consistory be it Convocation Synod or Assembly could prescribe Rules to other mens faiths unlesse they could make clearly out that very Junto of theirs call it what you will to be the onely true Throne of Christ and that they could demonstrate all the lineaments of their Discipline and Government to be truly and naturally derived from the pure Fountain of Gods word otherwise methinkes such tyrannous impositions should rather affrighten than satisfie mens consciences and make them disclaim such a Religion for a monster than accept it for a well-shap't child of the Church Is it reason for me to run out of my wits to satisfie a company of unreasonable men met together and shall I lay the head of my faith upon the block of any Assembly to be cut and mangled into what form and fashion they shall please God forbid But yet I hold it much more madnesse to persecute any man because he is not of my opinion I may as well sure quarrel with those that resemble me not in outward complexion For since we lost perfection in Adam whatever knowledge we attain to now is either Moral by the improving of those natural endowments God has given us or else Divine which comes by an immediate influence from Heaven upon the soul therefore when we see any weaker in judgement than our selves we should look upon them rather as objects of pitty than punishment rather deplorable than damnable Vain man what made the difference betwixt thee and thy weak brother Was it not free grace for what hast thou as the Apostle demands of thee that thou didst not receive and that God may reveale to him also in his due time Is it not a barbarous thing for people to be stript of their lives and goods for difference in opinions onely though our brethren still in Christ Nay to lie under so rigid a persecution that poor Christians should be made accountable for the very goods that have been violently pulled from them and tributary for the onely shipwrack of their poverty Nor is this course of cruel proceeding in points of Religion more against Piety than common Policy for first it is as impossible to root out any Religion by a persecution as to put out a fire with blowing of it the suffering party alwayes gaining credit to his cause if it be a matter of Conscience and therefore we find the Christian Church has alwayes fructified by the blood of Martyrs and indeed had no other visible seed-plot but the places of their executions Then it is not a more common than true Rule that Malus custos diuturnitatis metus frequens vindicta paucorum odium
that time Had he a Design to extract Treasures from their coffers they were most wretchedly poor and dispoiled of all possession Was he of opinion that he might raise huge Armies of them for his service they were so daily cut down that they were scarce visible at all one onely moneth not long before saw seventeen thousand heads of them lopt off and tumbling upon the ground How could he perswade himself that there was any considerable humane strength in their Religion when they were all either massacred mained or banished Could he look for counsel amongst them they were men of no esteem at all in the World and thought utterly void of all learning and policy Was it any credit that he could expect they might confer upon his Cause they were most despicable creatures and trampled underfoot by every body like dirt in the streets reputed meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle tells us as the dung and off-scouring of the world Behold here a piece of State-prudence fit onely for the pens of Angels whereunto the brains and wit of this pitiful Florentine could never arrive his cunning alas could reach no further than some petit humane tracts indeed meer knacks of Atheistical knavery This is a light whereat all the blear'd eyes of those buzards are dazled This is an Abysse wherein all carnal men are quite lost and swallowed up For we find that our Great Constantines prudence grounded upon Divine providence and his own piety has conducted him to the Soveraignity of the Empire of the whole World by degrees utterly different from those which Mr. Machiavel hath prepared to lead his Prince in On the other side do but look a little on his son-in-law Julian coming to the Empire and holding it by Machiavillian Rules onely how well did he prosper in his policies who meerly out of spite to the Christians not any affection to the Jews indeed to baffle Christianity it self resolved to re-edifie the Temple of Jerusalem and to that purpose issued out a Commission to an Infidel like himself one called Alippius but mark how his Machiavillian plot succeeded Balls of fire were seen to issue out of the very foundations as fast as they laid them which made their design as frivolous as the place was inaccessible after all this observe what became of him he reigned but one year seven moneths and then died struck with a blow from Heaven which the Pagans themselves confesse to be ignorant of from whence it came howsoever this is most certain that he died perfectly phrenetick which caused him to fill his hand with his own blood and cry out Thou hast overcome O Galilaean and so dying has left a memory so odious behind him that it stinkes still and so for ever will to all Posterity I might be infinit if I should run over all the examples that we have before us of such impious Politicians who have made all the interests of God and Religion subservient to their own base ends Great Volumes might be written of their miserable mortalities which make all Theaters at this day to resound and Tragedians to deplore I shall onely now therefore produce our Parallel to convince all those pitiful Politicians of the Machiavillian make and so conclude this discourse Did ever any person so contradict all the Maxims of humane wisdom and struggle with and against all proper interests as our second Moses has done If it had not been for his obligations to God true Religion and a pure conscience what madnesse must it needs have appeared in his Highnesse to have still been opposite to all prevalent parties which in plain humane probabilities would have destroyed him and us As first the late King and his corrupted Court Then the Kirk and all its Consistorians Then the violent levelling Parties within his own body and all the men of mettal forsooth that were for the fifth Monarchy Then the long-lived as his Highnesse himself used to call it long-reigning and indeed ruining Parliament with all its appertinencies and divers others since that it may be had the same or worse designs Good God with what wonder and amazement am I seized when I consider the dangerous difficulties his most Serene Highnesse has encountred for the honour and glory of his God the good of this ungrateful people and the satisfaction of his own conscience upon grounds utterly unpolitick as to humane apprehension and clearly contradictory to his proper interests This high towering Eagle as we have seen winged onely with Piety and Religion from the very first time that he was called forth into action to this very day could never be found as aforesaid beating of his wings in those lower Regions of the air conversing with those pitiful humane policies but borne I say alwayes upon those heavenly wings aforesaid soared alwayes amongst lightnings themselves tempests and whirlewindes and ever had his eye where the day broke that was on God the Fountain of Light and his own conscience the sure Orient of all his pious actions The great Secretaries of Nature do observe further of that brave Bird I mean the Eagle that her feathers are so imperious that they will not mix with the plumage of other Birds if they are by chance cast in amongst them they will strait consume the others as with a dull file and can the Lord of Heaven and Earth who is an incomparable wisdom a store of riches inexhaustible a purity infinite be mingled with such feeble pretensions as those of humane interests which can have nothing but phrensy for beginning misery for inheritance and impurity for ornament Our Mosaical Protector therefore was ever seen to separate himself from his self denying his own desires disowning his own glories and adhering onely to the interests of God and giving the honour of all his actions to him as we may hear his Highnesse yet speaking for himself in a printed Speech of his to a late Parliament It was say some the cunning of the Lord Protector I take it to my self it was the craft of such a man and his plot that hath brought it about And as they say in other Countries There are five or six cunning men in England that have skill they do all these things Oh what Blasphemy is this c. Because men that are without God in the world and walk not with him and know not what it is to pray or believe and to receive returns from God and to be spoken unto by the Spirit of God who speaks without a written Word sometimes yet according to it God hath spoken heretofore in divers manners let him speak as he pleaseth Hath he not given us liberty nay is it not our duty to go to the Law and to the Testimonies and there we shall find that there have been impressions in extraordinary cases as well without the written Word as with it and therefore there is no difference in the thing thus asserted from truths generally received except