ECHOES FROM THE six TRUMPET Reverberated by A Review of Neglected Remembrances Abreviating Precautions and Predictions heretofore published at several Times upon sundry Occasions to forewarn what the future Effects of Divine Justice would be as soon as our Sins were full ripe if not prevented by timely Repentance Most part of the Predictions have been already seen or heard verified both by the Author yet living and by many others who observed at what Times in what manner upon what Persons and in what Places they were literally or Mystically fulfilled Collected out of the said Authors Printed Books who conscientiously observed on what Divine Prophecies the said Predictions were grounded as also GOD's late frequent intermixture of Judgements and Mercies to reclaim this Generation The First Part. Matth. 13. 52. Every Scribe which is instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Housholder who bringeth out of his Treasure things new and old Imprinted in the Year Chronogrammically expressed in this Seasonable Prayer LorD haVe Mercy Upon Vs. A PREFACE to the following REVIEW offering somewhat therewith considerable THis Preface and the following Review were not without good reason personated as written by a Third person yet perhaps may make it questionable Whether they were done by the Author of the Books abreviated or by another hand but that is not material For they express nothing save what may be by him justified in every circumstance and therefore it shall so pass He was Thirteen years old when Queen Elizabeth reigned and even at that time begun to observe both the Works of GOD and the Actions of Men so continuing to do from time to time whereby with GOD's gracious assistance he was preserved from grossly falling into and persevering in those sins whereto he was naturally prone and came into the world at a time which gave him such an Experimental knowledge both of GOD and Men as he could not have had in many preceding Generations for he hath lived to see Eleven Signal Changes in which not a few Signal Transactions Providentially occurred to wit under the Government of Queen Elizabeth King James Charles' the First the King and Parliament together the Parliament alone the Army Oliver Cromwell Richard Cromwell a Council of State the Parliament again and now King Charles the Second during all which times he lived in those Places and in such middling Stations between persons of the highest and lowest degree exercised in Employments which gave him opportunity to heed what was done both by those who were above and below him GOD had also bestowed upon him a Faculty which though it be despised and he therewith but meanly endowed would not permit him to be altogether idle or silent for it compelled him to a conscientious exercise of his Talon in that which he thought required at his hand and to take all occasions from time to time happening to commemorate and offer to consideration those things whereby GOD might be glorified and his Countrymen benefited in some degree which duty though not so well as he would he hath so well as he could prosecuted to this day He begun very early by expressing and publishing those Conceptions which the Affections and Inclinations of Youth had awakened in him endeavouring to season them with as much Morality and Piety as Subjects of that nature are capable of suiting them to capacities of young men who delight to see their own Natural Passions represented as it were in a glass wherein they not only met with some better things than they looked for but with such Notions also therewith mixed as insinuated into their hearts that seasoning which made them much delighted with his Poems and rendered him so generally known that many thousands were desirous to peruse his future Writings and to take better heed of that whereof else perhaps they had taken little or no notice though expressed by a more elegant and learned Author It likewise encouraged him to assume all Occasions to prosecute that which might most redound to GOD's Glory and the edifying of men in Faith and Righteousness though it were to his personal disadvantage in carnal concernments And GOD hath given him comfort therein carrying him on hitherto through all difficulties occurring though by impartially discharging his Conscience in such a mode as had provoked many powerful persons to prosecute him with Indignation for his frequent reproofs have been very offensive notwithstanding they were in general terms only without personal aspersions and with as much charity and tender respect to every man's infirmities and unwilling failings as to his own Length of time hath given him so many several occasions to declare what he thought necessary or expedient that his Published Poems and Writings amount now to about a hundred besides many never Printed In which though he hath expressed much to the same purpose in various forms and words yet the same or like occasions warrant the application of the same or like matter and words as the practice of the holy Prophets and Apostles hath evidenced to be sometimes necessary For that Medicine which operates not at one time doth work effectually at another on the same persons or upon those of another constitution Meats also variously dressed are pleasing to their appetites and well digested by their stomaches who almost loathed them when often eaten cooked the same way And so it is in this case Wherefore he hath endeavoured to put his Matter into such a dress otherwhile in Prose and otherwhile in a Poetical Mode that it may suit with vulgar capacities and not be despised by the most Judicious mixing so far forth as may be decent Delight and Profit according to this old Verse Et prodesse solent & Delectare Poetae His presuming to give counsel to them who neither desire it nor care for his advice hath much offended many and made them heedless of that which might have prevented their sorrow but it hath pleased and benefited some and that makes him slight their Proverb which forbids coming to give Counsel before we are called And he hath nevertheless prosecuted the multiplying of Doctrinal Remembrances Exhortations Precautions and Predictions to prevent that which the neglect of them will produce until they amounted to that numerousness which appears in those Books whereof this is an Abridgement And by considering upon whose Promises and threatenings they are grounded he hath not been afraid to predict conditionally those Mercies and Judgements which are promised and menaced in those Books here abreviated And some will find that which is not yet verified upon Wilful Delinquents to be at last as truly fulfilled as those which they have seen though the world hath made it one of her Principles to believe and profess That Prophesying hath long time ceased because her wise men think as the Apostle Peter said profane men would do in the later times who scoffingly say Where is the Promise of his coming for since the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the Creation 1 Pet. 3. 4. Indeed Prophesying is at an end as touching saving-Faith or any new Fundamental Articles thereto pertaining But the Spirit of Prophecy as foretelling what shall come to pass in relation to those Mercies or Judgements which shall be the reward of well-doing and the punishment of evil-doers in this life is not taken away or ceased as it hath been manifested in and by many who have had in our day's Revelations of such things before they came to pass and have been living Witnesses of their predicting them beforehand as also of their being afterward fulfilled and in particular of that Judgement whereby the glory of London was this year consumed though that will not come into every man's Creed For before the said Fire this Author was informed by a credible person who was afterward a great Sufferer thereby of a Vision representing such a Conflagration in London as there befell soon after He himself also had confused preapprehensions of the like effect when he sent forth his Warning-piece to London published 1662. occasioned by a sudden Fire in the Night at Lothbury near the middle of that City which then consumed the House of an eminent Citizen with all the Inhabitants therein Dr. Gell a Learned and Conscientious Preacher to this City seemed also to have had the like impressions upon his heart both by what he communicated to some Friends in private and by a Printed Sermon of his preacbed before the Lord Mayor upon that Text Mat. 24 wherein the coming of the Son of Man is paralleled with the coming of the Flood in the days of Noah The same Sermon contains a Narrative which he averrs was attested by many Witnesses to wit That about two years before his Preaching of that Sermon The sign of the Son of Man even of Christ on the Cross wounded in his hands and feet and Angels round about him appeared at Frankendale in Germany to the view of Thousands Three hours together at midday Moreover it is credibly avowed That a Book was brought to be published a little before the said Fire fore-declaring what we have seen come to pass and was refused by the Printer because not Licenced and that the same Printer being afterward busy to help quench the Fire and then seeing that same person passing by told him he suspected his hand to be in the kindling thereof Whereto the man answered That had he been accessary to such a a wicked Purpose or Action he should not have offered that to publication whereby it might probably have been prevented adding these words That ere long there would be a more dreadful Execution by the Sword then that was by the Fire which whosoever that man was or upon what ground soever he spoke it may probably come to pass and a Famine follow that if God should deal with us according to our demerits This Review is in the first place entitled An Echo from the Sixth Trumpet because it allusively reverberateth and Echoes as it were to what was predicted should come to pass between the sounding of the Sixth and Seventh Trumpet upon pouring forth the Sixth Viol the sad Effects whereof are partly felt at this day by many who consider not from whence they proceed that they might have been as effectual to make them happy as they will also be to make them more miserable both here and hereafter Now if upon the whole matter it should be questioned as perhaps it may upon what warrantable grounds this Author presumes this Generation is guilty of such and so many Provocations as have rendered it liable to God's Judgements conditionally predicted in his former Writings he thereto answers That beside his personal knowledge thereof acquired by long experience and the witness which he believes the Spirit of GOD beareth in his heart thereunto Common Fame is a good concurrent Evidence especially in this case for though in many things Fame is a Liar yet in such cases as this Vox Vulgi is Vox Dei The Voice of the People is the Voice of GOD to their Consciences bearing witness against themselves as justly meriting all the Judgements predicted by his Prophets against such sins as they have committed and they always carry in themselves though seldom heeded their Accusation and Sentence of Condemnation It is no marvel if GOD's long-suffering is little regarded whilst he is slow to wrath and executes fore threatened Plagues upon some Persons and Places with less terror and severity then upon some other or upon the same persons at other times For now when they came thick fell heavily and more dreadfully upon them than heretofore the greatest number are so far from being reform that they grow more impudent Malefactors as it was predicted it would be in these last times wherein they on whom the Viols of Wrath should be poured forth blasphemed when they should have repent But this excuses not those whom GOD qualifies for such Services though they shall be bemired and rend in pieces by some if they shall not seasonably proclaim and reiterate Precautions and Exhortations as often as just occasions are offered and therefore this Review of Neglected Remembrances is thought pertinent at this time though they were heretofore scoffingly termed Prophecies and will at this day be as little regarded by many and it is hoped also this labour will not be quite lost but have a kindly operation on those who are not hardened into a final impenitence by customary sinning and wilfully despising GOD's Judgements and Mercies and that they may be likewise helpful to prevent the like obduracy in those who are not totally depraved Many who are forgetful or heedless of forewarnings Counsels and Precepts which concern their present duties are so much inclined to listen after those Predictions which presage their happiness or unhappiness hereafter that if the contrary were not apparent it might probably be thought they were less careful to secure their present than their future enjoyments for they rake together all Predictions new and old which have a show of presaging that which they fear or hope for entertaining each other at their Meeting-places with mutual Repetitions of what they last heard to such purposes how frivolous or improbable soever This Vanity the Seducer of Mankind and the Deceitfulness of men's hearts makes use of to divert the prosecution of their Duties to GOD to themselves and to other men and to frustrate those rational and seasonable Predictions and Precautions which might have prevented the greatest Plagues conditionally menaced by the most holy Prophets By delighting more to hear what is to come than what men ought to do they seem to think all good Counsels and Endeavours less pertinent to their cognizance and practice than an unprofitable uncertain foresight of what is but conditionally predicted and shall only come to pass according as the conditions are performed or neglected But toward the cure of this distemper humane Prudence can extend no further than the circumference of its own Sphere Predictions expressed in ambiguous Terms and having neither certain signification or dependence upon aught following or preceding are ignorantly insisted upon as pertinent to those Persons or Places whereto they had probably no relation Such are many groundless Figments cried about the Streets and picked out of Gypsie-like Prognostications to the abusing of ignorant people Such are also the ridiculous Welsh Impostors entitled Taliefen the Fiction termed the Panther-Prophesie and Mother Shipton's Prophecies so called are thought considerable by some who suppose themselves no fools and hereby Predictions and Premonitions grounded upon sound Reason and Divine Truth are unheeded or neglected However there is and shall be a Remnant preserved who can distinguish between serious and trivial Precautions and to them that which is here collected will at some times be of good use though the Author be yet in contempt and in a suffering-condition Let those therefore into whose hands these come be pleased to accept and improve them as they find cause giving praise to God who vouchsafeth timely fore-warnings to all Places Persons and Societies in every Age and Memorials of that which brings on Confusion and destruction to the glorifying of his Righteousness to the shame of presumptuous Transgressor's and to make future times more cautious speaking as well by the simple and mean as by the wise and honourable in terms fitted unto every capacity as also in such various Modes as might rouse them up out of security And now of late seeing both dreadful and calm Voices have been long slighted or neglected he hath spoken to us by all the Elements yea by Pestilence War furious Hurricano's and devouring Fire joined together in a terrible Consort To which is added a concurrent Presage in the hearts of most men portending a general Ruin by their agreeing in that fear how differing soever their Affections and Judgements be in other things and doubtless a final execution of Judgement is not far off in regard their grand Affairs in most places begin to resemble the Constitution of that Senate whereof it was said That all the rest of the Senators were ordered according to the pleasure of one among them he governed by his Wife she by her Child's Nurse and the Nurse by her Nursing According to our vulgar Computation this is the Thousandth six hundred sixty and sixth year after our Saviour's Birth and will questionless be a signal year according to the pre-conjectures of many yet not extend to the total extirpation of his Malignant Kingdom whose Reign is to end in the 666th year after he was completely enthroned upon the Seat of that BEAST which was to continue a Thousand years in a declining estate until the Mystery of Iniquity should be raised out of it to the full height which time though they heeded it not was mystically fore-declared in their own Numerals which in an orderly conjunction according to their simple valuation extends no further than to make MDCLXVI comprehending the whole term limited to the Fourth Monarchy with what should arise out of it from the highest exaltation both of the First and Second Beast The highest pitch of the First the Author believeth as he hath frequently hinted in his Writings published upon several occasions was even then at full when the Lord of Life was crucified under that Power for till than it flourished The number of years comprehending the Heathenish and Papal Antichristian Tyranny being MDCLXVI in the whole was not to be reckoned as beginning immediately after Christ's birth but after his crucifying or ascension allotting the greatest Numeral M to wit a Thousand years to the said First Beast and DCLXVI years to the Second Beast that being the number of the Name or Power of that Mystical Man of Sin whose Reign will probably determine in or about the Three or four and thirtieth year yet to come if Chronologers have truly informed us of the times past and History rightly stated the Progress of the Second Beast to the height of his Power that we may know from what year to begin that number But this is certain though nor the year nor the day can be precisely known he hath not long to reign for all predictions will ere long end in one and as it was said a little before the Flood GOD will not much longer strive with Flesh but for the sakes of his Elect shorten the time of Antichrist which might else have been lengthened out to the end of 6000 years after the Creation but that his fury will hasten his own destruction This 66 th' year shall be a preparative thereunto though the Romanists insult as if the Saints have mistaken the time of their Visitation for the late Execution of Judgement by devouring Fire the like whereof considering it was not accompanied with the Sword was never or very seldom heard of since the consuming of Sodom and Gomarrah as are also other Epidemical Judgements prosecuted upon those of GOD's own House not to destroy but to purge it When their fierce Trial hath consumed the Hay Stubble and Wooden Structures which they have erected when self-love hypocrisy the Relics of Idolatry and such other Babylonish Corruptions as of old or newly crept in are purged out when the abominable Pride Idleness and Excess which have here abounded to the parallelling of Sodom considering what they wanted of what we had are consumed which nothing can burn up except such  Fires as that of late or somewhat thereto equivalent and when the Saints have drunk so much of this bitter Cup as will suffice to cleanse them Then shall the Scarlet Whore and her vaunting Confederates swallow down the dregs finding themselves deceived in the expectation of those Consequents which their Emissaries have predicted in silly Rhymes dispersed since the said Fire to insinuate that the Executions now in Act will be destructive to them only who are departed out of their Babylon and protested against it For though the purifying of God's Family is thereby principally intended the same Judgements will have concurrent effects from year to year toward the completing of that which will be the final Doom of Rome's Babylon when 666 years as aforesaid are determined after their Mystery of Iniquity was at height This Author believes That the Saints last Purgatory is now commencing and that it is made signal by the Fire which in this year hath eclipsed the glory and defaced the Beauty of London which is to our Israel of GOD the same which Jerusalem in Palestine was to his Israel at that time London was the greatest the most famous and the most potent of all the Cities wherein the Protestant Religion was visibly professed in opposition to the Papacy and among other considerable circumstances that Mercy whereby the execution of Divine Justice was managed during this years' Visitation hitherto do manifest that they have a special relation to God's Inheritance The most Magnificent and the Noblest part of this Ancient City was wholly and suddenly consumed her sad Inhabitants looking on were disabled to quench it till it had destroyed with many thousands of other Structures great and small above a Hundred Temples and Oratories besides Colleges Schools and Halls one of her Temples being reputed the greatest in Christendom and wherein the Gospel had been preached and GOD worshipped and though not at all times by all according to the purity of his Sanctuary yet by some with as much sincerity according to the degrees of their understanding as by any other National or Congregational Assemblies until Humane Authorities presumed to set up their Posts by GOD's Posts and Magisterially imposed more than was enjoined or required by him which presumption was aggravated by falling from their first love to Christ and their Brethren which Love is the most signal mark of his Disciples yea an over-peremptory and too stiff an adhering by all parties dissenting in Judgement to their single Opinions as touching things indifferent in their own nature hath partly if not principally occasioned that overflowing and complication of Plagues wherewith we are now afflicted throughout these three Nations and in this our Head-City in which if we may believe Travellers both her own Citizens and Strangers were preserved in more safety by night and by day and as well and civilly governed according to Moral Principles and External Forms of Piety as in any City throughout the world so great and so populous yet the fury of the late Fiery Storm most raged and made the saddest spect acle and the most deformed marks of Desolation even in that part of this City wherein they lived who were then reputed among the most generous the most civil the most charitable and the most pious of her Inhabitants and though the best men had not the least share in that Calamity it was made tolerable by so many Mercies wrapped up therewith as do evidence that God had a considerable number therein and that the generality were no greater sinners than they whose Dwellings escaped that Judgement The Outparts except at the West end were graciously spared as Zoar was heretofore for the sake of Lot to be for the present time a Refuge both to them who were chased away by the Fire and to their Brethren whose habitations were preserved for their joint comfort and of this Mercy the best and worst of men had equal portions in some respects because their time is not yet come wherein GOD will be fully avenged on his and their Enemies Though probably that Fire was both kindled and increased by wicked hands Divine Providence who permitted those to be his Executioners carried it on as well against the Wind when it blew very strongly as with it and by taking away their hearts who were successfully active at other times in preventing such beginnings permitted it to proceed so far And when GOD's Fiery Messenger was in the height of his Career bounded his rage at Paper-buildings after it had broken irresistibly through thick and strong Edifices of Brick and Stone It is considerable also That this Fire was not permitted to extend into those Contiguous Buildings Streets and Allies wherein the greatest Oppressors the most profane the most impudent the most debauched and the most irreligious persons were commonly famed to have their dwellings intermixed with such as were of a civil and pious conversation for few or no places were then touched by the Fire wherein either a public Theatre or a common Gaming-house or a notorious Brothel-house or a Maypole or a Popish Chapel was at that time standing which it may be some think so hallowed the places that the Fire could not prevail against them whereas it rather demonstrates That this Visitation extends primarily to GOD's own People and that the utter extirpation of Antichrist and his profane Associates is deferred until a time yet to come Yet in the mean while though few lay it to heart GOD will inflict upon every particular Member of that wicked Society in his generation so much of their temporal dooms as will amount to the whole at their lives end and therefore seeing their last doom for aught they know may be too morrow or this present hour it will be dangerous to defer penitence because they think the last day of Judgement may be far off This and the preceding Affirmatives will peradventure be distasteful to those Time-pleasing Parasites as also to them who delight in gross flatteries who preach Peace and prognosticate glorious Consequences to the Proceedings of this Generation But the Wrath of such will not prevent the failing of their unwarrantable Expectations GOD's Promises and threatenings unto all Predicted are with a Conditional Express or Tacit and although they seem Pronounced absolutely at some time May be reversible according to Our Faith and acting what we ought to do For we are taught by many Precedents That like Proceedings will have like events Till somewhat interveneth to dispense Judgement and Mercy with a difference Most part of what this Author did predict Hath variously already took effect And if aught is deferred or abated Of that which was by him prognosticated Against this Generation or this Place 'T is merely an effect of GOD ' s freegrace By him vouchsafed for their sakes by whom A seed must be preserved till he shall come Whose coming & whose reign will put an end To all their sufferings who for him attend In faithful patience and he will enable To bear mean while what seems intolerable That nothing contained in the following Review may justly be suspected as thereinto lately shuffled a Catalogue of the Imprinted Books out of which it was gathered as they come to hand being gotten together with much difficulty shall be added in the close with a direction to the pages wherein their abreviation is begun corrected in those places where faults have escaped at the Press there being very many by reason of the Authors not being present and there are some such gross mistakes that he could hardly make out his own meaning It shall mention also the years wherein the said Books were the first or a second time imprinted in which it is to be heeded that the Booksellers usually post-date the first Impressions that the Books may seem new a little the longer This is as much as shall be offered for a Praeludium to the following Review concluded with humbly desiring their Prayers to whom this shall come that this and all the Author's endeavours may be sanctified to the glory of God and to the rendering of his Judgements and Mercies effectual to the salvation of our souls by true Faith hearty Penitence and mutual love in Christ Jesus and they are also desired not to impute to a corrupt self-end his now purposed with drawing from this City For he hath been this Isle's Remembrancer and continued with this City both in her sicknesses and health in War and Peace almost sixty years together with a little absence at some times taking all occasions hitherto offered to remember her from time to time of such things as he thoughts might probably conduce to her welfare insomuch that he now knows not what he can say or do more than he hath already said or done to that purpose he not having so much regard vouchsafed for his good intentions from any of her Chiefs as might have been expected for penning one Speech to illustrate her Lord Mayor's Pageants though he was often for no ill-deserving a close Prisoner within her Jurisdiction so despoiled of all whereby to cloth and feed him that he had then perished if a few Strangers and some of her Middling and Inferior Citizens had not by GOD's Mercy been charitably inclined to compassionate his condition That Straight being still the same and many of those now dead some impoverished and the remainder for the most part so scattered since the late Pestilence and Fire that nor he nor they now know where to find each other without much difficulty he being wearied and almost worn out is constrained to prepare a Retreating place for himself and his Consort which he hath prepared at a lonely Habitation in his Native Country where he neither had or looked for much respect Thither he resolves to retire with as much speed as he can there to wait upon God's future Dispensations during the remainder of his life or until Providence otherwise disposeth of him not doubting but that he shall rest therewith gratefully contented wheresoever it shall be because he hath had assurance by many demonstrations of GOD's good will to the whole humane Nature of a special love to him and well knows his Eternal Mercy to be Infinite over all his works Though Lot a while in Zoar stayed There long to abide he was afraid And many now begin to fear There will be little safety here Because they see hear and believe What makes them both to fear and grieve Yet in his place let each man stay Until God calleth him away By straitning of his path-ways here Or by enlarging them elsewhere And let him careful be that whither He moves he bears not our sins thither For to what place soe'er we go The same sins bring the same Plagues too And there is means of saving-Grace For Penitents in every place A Review of Neglected Remembrances Being a Breviate of the most considerable Remembrances and Predictions dispersed in the Books hereafter specified and published at several times upon such various Occasions as inclined the Author to those Prophetical Expressions THis Collection begins with a Review of the Poem called BRITAN'S REMEMBRANCER written during the great Pestilence raging in the year 1625. The Title-page of that Book is a considerable Prediction both Emblematically and in Words for therein was represented a Black Cloud hover over this Island with Justice and Mercy thereon seated attended with an Host of Plagues and in the opposite page the meaning of that Title expressed in these following words Behold and mark and mind ye British Nationt This dreadful Vision of my Contemplations Before the Throne of Heaven I saw methought This famous Island into question brought With better Ears than these my body wear I heard Impartial Justice to declare GOD's Benefits our Thanklesness and what Small heed his Love or Judgements here begat I heeded how Eternal Mercy strove GOD's just deserved Vengeance to remove But so our sins increased and cried so loud That at the last I saw a dismal Cloud Exceeding black as from the Sea ascending And over all this Isle itself extending With such thick foggy vapours that their steams Seemed for a while to darken Mercy 's beams Within that dreadful Cloud I did behold Most Plagues and Punishments that name I could Expecting with a trembling heart each hour GOD should that Tempest on this Island pour Yet better hopes appeared for lo the Rays Of Mercy pierced the Cloud and made such ways Quite through those Exhalations that mine eye Did this Inscription thereupon espy BRITAN'S REMEMBRANCER and somewhat said These words me thought The storm is yet delayed And if you do not Penitence defer This Cloud is only a Remembrancer But if you still affect Impiety Expect ere long what this may signify This having seen and heard it seemed nor fit Nor safe for me to slight or smother it And therefore thus both to your eyes and ears I offer here what unto mine appears Judge Readers as ye please of this or me Truth will be true how ere it censured be In the last Page of the Epistle to the King before that Poem there is a confident Presage relating both to the said Poem and to the Author thereof hitherto made good the words are these I know what ere the spite of man Against this Poem speak or practice can It shall continue when all they are rotten Or live in Infamy or die forgotten Who shall oppose it I more over know That dead or living I esteemed shall grow For what they blame etc. To maintain confidence in the Author's prosecution of his duty it was thus presaged unto his heart as it is recorded Canto 5. fol. 155. Thou hast from Heaven an Arrant yet to do Which unless GOD prevent will call thee to New Troubles and more mischiefs bring upon thee Then all thy former Messages brought on thee And be assured the Devil will devise What may disparage thee to scandalise And ineffectual every thing to make Which to good purpose thou shalt undertake Thou must prepare thyself to hear the Noise Of causeless threatenings and the foolish Voice Of Ignorant Reprovers and expect The bitter Censures of each giddy Sect Thou must contented be to hear great Lords Talk without reason big imperious words Although with meekness thou shalt make repair When thou art summoned to the Scorners Chair Where they with jeers and flouts will take in hand To censure what they do not understand etc. But fear them not for he that in all places From every danger and from all disgraces Hath hitherto preserved thee will secure Thy person now That hand which did procure Relief from thy close Thraldoms and maintained Contentment when from liberty restrained Will be the same for ever etc. For to this Realm and City thou art sent To warn them that they speedily repent To show them for what failings and offences GOD sendeth Famines Wars and Pestilences And to pronounce what other Plagues will come If their transgressions they depart not from etc. In folio 106 and in the following leaves this Author declared how desolate that Plague had made many places in and near London particularly the King's House the Inns of Court Westminster-Hall and the  which produced this expression amounting to a Presage there did I Behold two Traitors heads which perched on high Did show their teeth as if they had been grinning At our Afflictions which are now beginning For their wide Eye-holes me thought stared as though They looked to see that House should overthrow Itself which they with Powder up had blown Had not GOD them and their device o'erthrown Also in the 107 th' leaf he taking notice of the desolate Houses of the Citizens Peers and Lawyers at that time hath words to this effect wish I shall That they their ways to mind would better call Lest both their Country and their City-Piles Be smoking seen and burning many miles etc. or else lest there Some fear Arresting where no Sergeants are For this portends that if they who profess Our Laws continue on their practices Till they as heretofore the Clergy were Are more in number than the Land can bear Their goodly Palaces will spew them forth As Excrements that are of little worth And be disposed of as now they see Old Priories and Monasteries be In the 120 th' and in many following leaves the said Author having contemplated how numerously the Fields near London were frequented for Recreation with people of all sorts before that Infection how desolate they then were and what sudden effects would probably ensue if GOD should withdraw that Plague before we were truly penitent other future Judgements are there mentioned as implicitly presaged in these words If GOD should whistle for those armed Bands Which now are wasting other Christian Lands To put in action on our Comic Stage The Tragedies of War and brutish rage What Lamentations would here then be made And calling into mind the peace we had Should we in every house at board and bed Have Soldiers and rude Captains billeted That would command and swagger as if they Kept all the Townships where they lodge in pay To wait upon their pleasures Or should see Our own Defenders our Devourers be Should we behold those Fields where now we sport Cut out in Trenches here a Warlike Fort Another there a Sconce not far from that A new-raised Mount etc. After many other presupposals to this effect he thus proceeded fol. 123. As heretofore the unpeopled Fields I walked To this effect my thoughts within me talked Yea when all present Objects gave content My heart did such Ideas represent Of Judgements likely to be cast upon So great a City and a sinful one That much I feared I should live to see Some such Afflictions as here mentioned be According to what his heart had presaged and was then presupposed he lived to behold about Eighteen years after such Insolences committed by the Armies such Forts raised and such Trenches in the Fields round about London Many other fore-expressions to the same purpose were dictated to this Author as more at large appears in several pages of the same Book and after enumerating several Transgressions and Provocations of GOD's Wrath it was thus predictated in the 8 th' Canto fol. 255 If thou oh Britan dreaming all is well Shalt slight this Message which my Muses tell And scorn their counsel etc. hear then what I am bold To tell thee as now fitting to be told For I will tell thy Fortune which when they Who are unborn shall read another day They will believe then that GOD did infuse Into thy Poet a Prophetic Muse Moreover know that he did him prefer To be to this Isle his Remembrancer And that if wilfully thou stop thine ear Or burn these Rolls in which recorded are Thy just Inditements they shall written be With new additions deeply stamped on thee In such Characters that no time shall raze Their fatal Image from thy scared face though thou watch and ward And all thy Forts and Havens strongly guard Though thou shalt multiply thine Island-Forces Double thy Trained Bands and Troops of Horses Though like an Eagle shalt thy wings display And high thy head advancing proudly say I sit aloft enthroned so that none Can pluck me from the place I rest upon Yet sure thou shalt be humbled and brought low Even then when least thou fearest it will be so Till thou repent all Preparations made For thy Defence or others to invade Shall be in vain and still the greater cost Thou dost bestow the Honour thereby lost Shall be the greater and thy wasting strength Bring on thee a Consumption at the length The Treaties which for Peace or Profit be Shall neither Peace nor Profit bring to thee For if Endeavours prosper for a while GOD will permit it only to beguile With foolish hopes alluring them to run Those courses which will bring new mischiefs on Yea thy prevailings will but fuel be To feed the folly which bewitches thee And make against thee those the more enraged Who shall for thy Corrections be engaged What heretofore by GOD hath threatened been Against a wicked Natiou for their sin Shall seize on thee his hand shall be for ill Upon each little and high raised Hill Thy lofty Cedars and thy sturdy Oaks Shall feel the fury of his thunder-strokes Upon thy Fleet 's thy Havens and thy Ports Upon thine Armies and thy strong-walled Forts Upon thy Pleasures and Commodities Upon thy Handicrafts and Merchandise Upon the Fruits and  in thy Fields On what the air the earth or water yields On Prince and people on both weak and strong On Priest and Prophet on both old and young Yea on each Person Place and every thing His just deserved Judgements GOD will bring What thou hast hoped for he frustrate shall And make that which thou fearest on thee to fall This pleasant Land wherein how plenty grows And wherein Milk and Honey overflows Shall for thy people's wickedness be made As barren as the Soil which never had Such blessings in it GOD shall drive away The Flocks of Fowls and Shoals of Fish that play Within thy waters now and for the store Whereof thy Neighbours would have praised him more The Rivers which have made thy Valleys rich To thee shall be like streams of burning pitch Thy dust as Brimstone thy Fields hard and dry Like Iron and the Firmament on high Like Brass affording neither showers nor dew In season wasted blessing to renew A leanness Shall thy fatness quite devour Thy wheat shall yield thee bran instead of flower Thou shalt when Harvest cometh reap the thorn Or weeds and thistles where thou look'st for corn Robbed shall thy Groves be of their pleasant shadows And of their grass thy fertile flowery Meadows Sheep on thy Downs or Shepherds on the Green Shall then be few and not so often seen Thy Garden-Walks and many a pleasant plot Shall be like places men inhabit not Thy Villages which now well peopled are Shall stand as if no dwellers in them were Thy Cities and thy Palaces wherein Most neatness and magnificence hath been Shall heaps of Rubbish be and as in those Demolished Abbeys wherein Daws and Crows Now make their Nests the bramble and the nettle Shall in the Halls and Parlours root and settle Thy Princely houses and the Streets and Courts Now filled with men of all degrees and sorts Shall in them few Inhabitants retain Except a Fisherman or Countrey-swain Who of thy pride and glory when they see Such marks with wonderment surprised shall be As oft they are who deep foundations find Of Towns and Cities perished out of mind The places where much people meetings had Shall Vermine-holes and Dens for beasts be made Or haunts for Sprights which do in lonely rooms Affright the passenger who thither comes Instead of mirth and laughter lamentation Shall there be heard abhorred desolation Instead of Company and where men heard Sweet Melody they shall be made afeared With hideous cries and howl of despair Yea than thy Climate and well tempered air Shall lose their wholsomness for thy offences Breed here infectious Fevers Pestilences And all diseases They who up were trained In ease and with soft pleasures entertained Leaving their idle games and wanton dances Shall practise how to handle Guns and Lances And be compelled from the dear embraces Of friends to end their lives in unknown places Or thy face with their own blood to defile In hope to save thee and themselves from spoil Thy Beauteous women whose pride is now more Then theirs whom Esay mentioned heretofore Shall in the stead of paintings costly scents Or glittering Gems and curious Ornaments Wear foul deformities upon their faces And robbed of all their sweet and tempting graces Feel stinks diseases wants and all such things As loathing to a wanton Lover brings Thy GOD shall for thy multiplied Vices Scourge thee with Scorpions and with Cockatrices Whose tails with such envenomed stings are armed As neither can be plucked out nor charmed Thou shalt not be sufficed when thou art fed Nor suffer only scarcity of bread Corporeal but want likewise of that Whereof each faithful soul desires to eat That curse of ravenous Beasts which GOD hath said Upon a wicked Nation shall be laid He will inflict on thee for although here No Tigers Lions Wolves or Bears now are To Beastly-minded men thou shalt be made A prey which will be if not worse as bad Instead of Lions Tyrants thou shalt breed Who nor of Conscience nor of Law take heed But on the weak man's portion lay their paws And make their pleasure to become their Laws Instead of Tigers men of no compassion A furious and a wilful generation Shall fill thy Borders Thiefs and Outlaws vile Shall haunt thy Ways and hunt the Woods for spoil A subtle false dissembling cheating crew Who will with fraudful coz'nages pursue The simple sort shall here increase their breed And in their craftiness the Fox exceed That Hoggish Herd which always nozling are In filth and dirt from whence they seldom rear Their grunting snouts to fix an eye on Heaven To look on him from whom good things are given Even Swinish livers having a desire To feed on draff to wallow in the mire To drink in puddles rather than sweet springs To tread on and pollute the precioused things Will more destructive be unto thy Fields Then all the wild-Boars that the Desert yields Whilst thou continuest-in thy sins thou art Like Egypt and the hardness of thy heart Will at the last bring down upon thee all Those Plagues which long since did on Egypt fall Blood Frogs and Lice great swarms of stinging Flies Th' infectious Murrain whereof  dies Biles Scabs & Blains cold Hail hot Thunder-storms The Locust and the fruit-devouring Worms Gross Darkness and the Death of them that be Thy darlings All these Plagues will seize on thee According as the Letter doth imply Or as they Mystically signify Thy Rivers shall be turned into blood Thy Fountains which were savoury and good Grow nasty and shall in thy Nostrils stink Thy Children shall but little eat or drink Until a portion of their blood it cost Or every drop in hazard to be lost Most loathsome Frogs that is men of impure Of base condition of birth as obscure As Frogs that are in Fens and Ditches bred Shall with a Clownish rudeness overspread Each pleasant place thy fairest rooms possess And make unwholesome by their sluttishness Thy Kneading-troughs thy Ovens and thy Meat Whereof thy Children most desire to eat Yea this Brood shall presume to croak and sing Within the Privy-Chambers of thy King There exercising their harsh-sounding throats With ill-composed and unpleasing notes To wit Vain boasts reviling's ribaldries Lies curses and ungodly blasphemies The Land shall breed a loathsome Generation Unworthy either of the Reputation Or Name of men for they as Lice shall feed Upon that Body whence they did proceed Here shall moreover divers baneful Flies Ingend'red be in thy prosperities The Flesh-fly shall thy pamp'red flesh corrupt Musketoes honest labourers interrupt The lazy and unprofitable Drones The Wasps the Hornet and such angry ones As do them represent whose buzzing tongues And stings are active to their neighbour's wrongs The Butterflies will vex thee too even they Who do in idle flutterings waste away Their precious time and their Estates consume On gaudy Clothes till beggars they become As Beasts destroyed by the Murrain be So they who are of Beastly life in thee By lewd example shall infect each other And in their foul diseases rot together Men shall grow overhot or over-cold And very few an equal temper hold But like tempestuous Exhalations will Thy Borders with a thousand mischiefs fill The Locust also and the Palmer-worms Shall pray on what escapeth from the Storms Even those destructive Locusts too which from The bottomless infernal pit did come Then shall a darkness follow much more black Than when the Sun and Moonlight thou dost lack For grossest ignorance o'reshadowing all Shall with so thick a Fog upon thee fall That thou a blockish Nation wilt be made Still stumbling on in a deluding shade Distrusting Friends the way to safety showing Most trusting Foes who labour thy undoing And shalt be daily vexed with doubts and fears Like him that Outcries in dark places hears Yet than his hand GOD shall not from the turn Till he hath also smote thine Eldest Son That is until he hath removed quite Those in whom now thou takest most delight And filled every house throughout the Nation With Death's unlooked for and lamentation Such will be thy confusions and thy shame That when the neighbouring Kingdoms hear the same Their ears will tingle for when that hour comes In which GOD shall inflict deserved Dooms It will be then a day of gloominess Sad dreadful and exceeding comfortless For than will thy beloved vanities Thy Gold and Silver Idol-Deities With all those Reeds on which thou hast depended Deceive thy trust and leave thee unbefriended Thy Kings thy Priests and Prophets than shall mourn And peradventure formally return To him who would have saved them but they Who will not hearken to him whilst they may Shall cry unheeded for he will despise Their vows their prayers and their sacrifice A Sea of troubles will thy hopes up swallow As wave on wave Plague upon Plague shall follow And every thing that was a blessing to thee Shall to a Curse be turned which may undo thee Thy King who as a Father should have been And by whom Peace should be preserved in Thy Sea-girt limits shall not much befriend thee Nor then in thy professed Faith defend thee Thou haft at present goodly hopes of him Who lately did put on thy Diadem But know that until thou reform art Thou shalt in his Deservings have no part His Princely Virtues to his own avail May prove but they to profit thee shall fail His Clemency shall seem to thee severe His greatest favours injuries appear And when thy sins are fully ripe in thee Thy King and People both alike shall be Thou shalt have Babes to be thy Kings yea worse Those Tyrants who by cruelty and force Of all their ancient Liberties will quite Bereave their Subjects They shall then delight In their oppressing them yet they who are By them enslaved shall murmur and not dare To stir against them By degrees they shall Deprive them of their Privileges all And force them as in other Lands this day For their own meat and their own drink to pay To such intents Their Nobles will become their Instruments For men reputed of the noblest Races Will be exposed gradatim to disgraces Despoiled of power and in their stead arise A Brood advanced by Impieties By flat'ry and by brib'ry and by that Which men of noble principles do hate Without desert from beggarly possessions And stems obscure they shall by their ambitions Mount Seats of Justice and those Titles wear Which honoured most in those Dominions are And having gained these heights hope to make strong Oppressive Grandeur by increasing wrong For themselves these will unto those unite Who to such Dignities pretend most right With no less ill-deserving and by such Destruction will be hastened forward much For these will Kings abuse with tales and lies With feigned love and servile flatteries Persuading them that they may justly make Their Will their Law and at their pleasure take As warranted by their Prerogatives Their Subject's goods their persons and their lives And instrumental these will then become In practising to raise by some and some Their Monarchies to Tyrannies yea shall Abuse Religion Honesty and all And shall to compass their Designs devise What ever may effect them Truth or Lies Those grave deportments which do best befit The Majesty of States they shall omit Fawn or dissemble threaten rail or storm When they pretend Abuses to reform And in those High Courts wherein sober grave Admonishments or Censures men should have If they offend they shall be taunted there Or scoffed or jeered though innocent they are For in those times which nearer are then some Do yet believe such Rhetoric will come In practice and Law Equity and Reason For their defence be pleaded out of season Folly will then seem Wisdom and go nigh To bring contempt on all Authority The Council-Table shall a snare be made They against whom no just complaints they had At first Convention shall be urged to say Such words perhaps ere they depart away As will expose their Prudence unto blame And make them guilty seem who guiltless came All that which from the People they can tear Exact or borrow shall be as it were A lawful Prize and taken from a Foe Few shall make conscience what they say or do Injurious to another so it may Fulfil their Lusting for the present day But to accomplish it they will endeavour Although they know it will undo for ever Their own Posterity and still persist In what will ruin their self-Interest This will by darkening their Intelligence Bring them to such a Reprobated sense And blind them so that when an Axe shall be Seen hewing at the Root of their own tree By their own handy strokes they shall not grieve For their approaching downfall or believe Their fall approaching to assume that heed Which may prevent it till they fall indeed Thy Princes BRITAN in those days will be Like roaring Lions making prey of thee GOD shall deliver thee into their hands And they shall act their pleasure in these Lands Thy Kings as now thou wallowest in excess Shall take delight in Drink and Wantonness They who reputed are thy Noble ones Shall to the very marrow gnaw thy bones Thy Lawyers wilfully pervert thy Laws They to the ruin of the Common cause Shall misinterpret them in hope of Grace From them who may despoil them of their place That whereunto they are obliged both By their professed Calling and their Oath They shall to put in execution fear And leave them helpless who oppressed are Thy Prelates in the public spoils will share Thy Priests in manners as profane appear As the profanest and their Prophecies And Preachings mixed with Heresies and Lies The truths they speak shall spoken be in vain So little knowledge shall with them remain That they shall cause the means of Saving-grace To be removed unto another place Mark BRITAN what I have yet more to say And do not slightly pass my words away But be assured that when GOD begins To bring those Judgements on thee for thy sins Which do portend a total overthrow Thy Prophets and thy Priests will slily sow The seeds of that dissension and sedition Which time will ripen for thy sad perdition They who in former times were of thy Peace The blessed Instruments will then increase Thy sorrows and as when of old the Jews Their truth-presaging Prophets did abuse GOD suffered Impostors in his Name To preach those falsehoods which at last became To them destructive So if thou go on To make a scorn as thou hast often done Of those who seek thy welfare he will send False Prophets who thy ruin shall intend Say nothing but what thou wouldst have them say To lull thee fast asleep in thine own way If any brain-sick-fellow whom the Devil Inspireth shall to thee intent what 's evil And heeding what thou art inclined unto Persuades to that which may at last undo Both Prince and People thou shalt like and follow H●s Counsels thou that covered hook shalt swallow Which will destroy both and thine ignorance For those disservices will him advance Whereas if he who truly seeks thy Weal Inspired with truth and with a sober Zeal Shall tell thee what concerns thy real good That Messenger shall stiffly be withstood That Seer shall be charged not to see His Message shall displease and slighted be Instead of good respect he shall be sure A Prison or worse usage to endure To death perhaps condemned with disgrace Among disturbers of the Common-Peace But not unless the Priests thereto consent For in those days but few men innocent Shall suffer in that mode by aught wherein Thy Clergy hath not some way active been If ever in thy Fields which GOD forbid The blood of thine own Children shall be shed By Civil Discord they shall blow the flame Which will increase thy sorrow and thy shame And thus it shall be kindled when the times Are nigh at worst and thy loud-crying Crimes Almost full ripe the Devil shall begin To bring strange Crotchets and Opinions in Among thy Teachers which will breed dis-union And interrupt the visible Communion Of thy established Churches In the steed Of zealous Pastors who their Flocks did feed There shall arise within thee by degrees A Clergy that will more desire to fleeze Then feed their Flocks A Clergy it shall be Divided in itself and they shall thee Divide among them into several Factions Which will both rend and fill thee with distractions All of those in appearance will pretend GOD's glory and to have one pious end But under colour of sincere Devotion Their chief aim will be temporal promotion Which will among themselves Dissensions make Wherein all sorts of people shall partake As to the Persons or the Cause they stand Inclined through every quarter of the Land One part of these will for Preferment strive By raising up the King's Prerogative Above itself They shall persuade Him to More than by Law or Conscience he may do And say GOD warrants it His Righteous Laws They shall pervert to justify their Cause With blushless impudence they shall dare Ascrîbe to Monarches things which proper are To none but Christ and mix their flatteries With such like Attributes and Blasphemies As Heathens did to make their Kings believe That whomsoever they oppress and grieve They do no wrong and that one though oppressed Should seek by their own Laws to be redressed Such Counsel shall thy foolish Kings provoke To cast upon thee Rhehoboam's yoke And they not caring or not taking heed How ill that misadvised King did speed Shall multiply the causes of distraction And then shall of those Priests the other Faction Bestir themselves They will in outward shows Those whom I last have mentioned oppose But in their aims agree with lowly zeal An envious pride of heart they shall conceal And as the former to the King will teach Mere Tyranny so shall the other preach Rebellion to the People and then strain The Word of God Sedition to maintain Oh! therefore be thou watchful and when here Those Lambs with Dragon's Voices do appear Repent thy sins or take it for a token That such a Bulwark of thy Peace is broken As if it be not soon repaired all The grandeur of thy Glory down will fall Beware then of those Prophets who will strive Betwixt thy Prince and People to contrive A Breach and what event soever come Thy due Allegiance never start thou from For their Oppressions though we may withstand By pleading Laws or Customs not a hand Must move against him but the hand of GOD Who makes the King a Bulwark or a Rod As pleaseth him Oh take therefore good heed Ye Subjects and ye Kings what may succeed By those Impostors of the last beware Ye Subjects for their Counsels wicked are And though they promise Liberty and Peace Your Thraldom and your troubles they increase eat oh ye Kings the first for they advise What will your Crowns and Honour's prejudice When you suppose their Prophecies befriend you They shall but unto Ramoth Gillead send you Where you shall perish and poor Micha's word Though disesteemed more safety will afford This Author hath been censured as having deviated from his Principle expressed in the last foregoing Caveat when upon their Command he took up Arms with the Long-Parliament But he declared by the Motto in his Cornet Pro lege Rege grege that he purposed nothing contrary thereunto or against the King and he is also sufficiently vindicated from that aspersion by what he long since published to justify both his actings and intentions under that Power which was called and authorized both by King and people to regulate and settle their joint and distinct Interests After that and the rest of the foregoing Precautions and Predictions the said Author having considered this Nation and how it had paralleled the Jews heretofore he proceeded to declare what would follow thereupon if they paralleled them also in their final obstinacy fol. 269. p. 2. What here is mentioned if thou shalt heed Oh BRITAIN in those times that will succeed It may prevent much loss and make thee shun Those mischiefs whereby Kingdoms are undone But to thy other sins if thou shalt add Rebellion as false Prophets will persuade When that time comes wherein thou likewise shalt In thy profession as to GOD-ward halt Then will thy King and People scourge each other For their offences till both fall together By weakening of their Power and making way To their ends who expect that fatal day Then shall disorder every where abound Justice or Piety be rarely found Each man shall to his neighbour be a thorn By whom he shall be either scratched or torn Thy Princes will to little condescend Save for accomplishing their own self-end Either in multiplying of their Treasures Or satiating of their fleshly pleasures Few Causes will without a bribe be tried Few Friends will in each other dare confide The Parents and their Children shall despise Hate or neglect each other She that lies Within her Husband's bosom shall betray him They who the People should protect shall slay them Old Age shall honoured be by few or none The Poor shall by the rich be trod upon Such Insolences almost every where Shall acted be that good and bad shall fear In thee to dwell and wise men to assume The Magistracy when that time is come GOD shall then call and whistle from afar Those hither who the most malicious are Of all thine Adversaries they shall from Their dwellings like a whirlwind on thee come Sharp shall their Arrows be and strong their Bow To thee their faces will as dreadful show As roaring Lions They on thee like thunder Shall furiously break in and tread thee under Their Iron feet They shall devour thy bread And with thy Flocks both clothed be and fed Their Children they shall carry from their own To Countries which their Fathers have not known And thither shall such mischiefs them pursue That they who seek the Pitfall to eschew Shall in a snare be taken them who shall Escape the Sword a Serpent in the wall Shall sting to death and though they have the hap To shun a hundred Plagues they shall not scape But with new dangers be still chased about Until they shall be wholly rooted out The Ploughman shall be then afraid to fow Artificers their labour shall forgo The Merchantman shall cross the Seas no more Except to fly hence to another shore The stoutest heart shall fear the wisest than Shall know themselves to be but foolish men And they who built and planted by oppression Shall leave their gettings to their Foes possession And yet GOD will chastise thee seven times more With seven times greater Plagues than heretofore For thy Allies their Friendship shall withdraw They who of thy Grandeur stood in awe Shall say in scorn Is this the Valiant Nation Which had throughout the World sush Reputation By Victories on Land Alas are these The men who were once Master of the Seas And grew so powerful yea that petty Nation Which seemed scarce worthy of thine indignation Shall slight thee too and all thy former fame Will be forgot or mentioned to thy shame Mark how GOD's Plagues were doubled on the Jews When they his mild corrections did abuse Mark what at last upon their Land was sent And look thou for the selfsame punishment Lest he in anger unto us protest That we shall never come into his rest For we have followed them in all their sin Such and so many have our Warnings been And if GOD still prolong not his compassion To us belong the selfsame Desolation Then woe shall be to them that heretofore By joining house to house expelled the po're And Field have unto Field incorporated Till Villages were nigh depolulated For desolate their dwellings will be made The Lord shall in their bowels sheathe his blade And they who have by their oppressive wiles Erected Palaces and costly piles Shall see the stones and timbers in the wall Arise against them and for vengeance call Then woe shall be to them that early rise To eat and drink to play and wantoning Still adding sin to sin They the distress Shall feel of hunger thirst and nakedness And be the servile slaves of them that are Their Foes as to their lusts they captives were Then woe to them who darkness more have loved Then light and wholesome counsel disapproved For they shall wander in a crooked path Which neither light nor end nor comfort hath Then woe to them who have corrupted been To justify the wicked in their sin Or for a bribe the Righteous to condemn For as the Chaff a Wind shall scatter them Their bodies on the Dunghill shall be cast Their finest flow're be dust their substance waste And all the gaudy Titles they have worn Shall but augment their sorrow shame and scorn Then woe to them who when they were afraid Of mischiefs threatened sought unlawful aid Or setting GOD's protection quite aside On their own strength and wisdom have reli'de For he their foolish hopes will bring to nought Till all they fear shall be upon them brought And all their wit and strength shall not suffice To heave that burden off which on them lies Because fore-warnings they do neither heed Or mind till GOD to execution doth proceed And of his long-forbearance careless are Till in consuming fire he shall appear Yet we still set far off the evil day In dull security we pass away Our precious time and with vain hopes and toys Build up a trust which every puff destroys And therefore still when healing is expected New and unlooked for troubles are effected We wished for Parliaments and them we made Our GOD for all the hopes that many had The mischiefs which we feared to prevent Was by the wisdom of a Parliament Well Parliaments we had and what in being Succeeded hath but greater disagreeing With greater Grievances than heretofore And reason good for we depended more On second causes then on him who sends What to our evil or well-being tends Know then that should our Parliaments agree According to our wish should our Kings be So gracious as to condescend to all Which to the Public Weal propose they shall Even that Agreement till our sins we leave Shall make us but secure and help to wove A Snare by whose fine threads we shall be caught Before we see the mîschiefs thereby wrought Whilst for self-Interests we chiefly seek By Parliaments the King shall do the like Yea till in mutual Aides we can agree And our endeavourings unfeigned be In labouring for a Christian Reformation Each meeting shall beget a new vexation In the 191 folio and in many following leaves the Prevarications of persons in several other Callings having been mentioned the Author added this and much more in relation to the Clergy Nor came the Priests and Prophets much behind The worst of these but pass them in some kind For though a learned Clergy now thou hast And knowledge is here lately much increased Though ' likewise I believe thou hast in thee Some Pastors from a just reproof as free As any Nation hath yet thou hast more Prevaricators now then heretofore A heap of Teachers entertained thou hast Resembling empty vapours or a blast That breathes no comfort What GOD never meant They preach for Truth and run  they are sent The People's wounds they salve with pleasing speech When there 's no peace at all of peace they preach Or like Dumb Dogs consume their time in sleep And some so look that they affright the sheep Like hungry Curs they always gormundize Yet never can their appetite suffice In bribing and in hunting for Promotion More is their zeal and much more their Devotion Then to discharge their Duty They delight In flat'ries and the fawningst Parasite In all the Courts of Europe cannot prate More heath'nishly or more insinuate Then some of these etc. There is no Avarice that theirs exceeds No Malice that a Mischief sooner breeds No Pride so surly as the Clergy-pride Except among the Beggars when they cried They who a few years passed would half have broke Their Kindred to have purchased them a Cloak And in poor threadbare Cassocks came to preach Beneath an Vnder-Curate and to teach The Children of a Farmer for their meat And scarcely worthy seemed so much to get Even some of these have so well acted out Their parts of seeming honestly-devout And have so quaintly humoured and pleased The present times that they at last have seized On what they aimed at and now over-pe're Their Heads by whom they first advanced were And if you mark how proudly now they bear Their lofty heads how insolent they are How barbarously ingrateful unto those By whom they from the Dunghill first arose How they at least neglect if not contemn Their old Friends and betwixt themselves & them What distances they set unto their Kin How harsh and how ill-natured they have been How peevish they are grown and how unquiet How choice in their Attendance and their Diet If it were well observed with what strain Of Pride and Loftiness they entertain Their Brethren of the Clergy when they are By their own Officers called to appear Before their Lordships with what Pope-like phrase They seek to terrify and to amaze Their humble Suppliants how on those they play Who their Superiors were the other day Were these things heeded with some passages Which name I could as worthy heed as these A man would hardly think that these had been Those Priests whom they a while before had seen So beggarly and so exposed to scorn But that they had at least been Prelates born Few could have else thought that these men are they Who lately did so bitterly inveigh Against that Pride Episcopal etc. O Lord awaken those I humbly pray Whom Pride and Vanity hath led away And oh ye House of Levi warning take ye Lest GOD for times to come examples make ye As he that Clergy an example made Whose monstrous Pride the Age foregoing had So great a fall The Priests and Prophet's sin Was signal in the bringing those Plagues in Which overwhelmed the Jewish Commonweal And if what 's threatened GOD shall not repeal Your sins will be the means to hasten hither That Vengeance which will ruin all together etc. Excuse me worthy Prelates etc. By these last words whereby the Author begins to plead an excuse for his sharp Reproofs it appears he at that time thought not Prelacy to have produced such evil Consequents as he now doth for he did not then nor now conceive that Episcopacy gives to the Ministers of the Gospel a precedency of Dignity before their fellow-Commissioners but a pre-eminence of Order only And of that Judgement he believes those Bishops to have been who underwent Martyrdom for Conscience sake and owned the title of a Prelate in no other sense than he intended it who thinks the Office of a Bishop to be a Divine Institution being regulated and the persons qualified according to St. Paul's Character 1 Tim. 3. This Precaution being added the Abreviation of his Remembrances thus goes on Believe it BRITAN howsoever some Who should forewarn thee of what is to come Endeavour to persuade thee that thou hast A hopeful time and that the worst is past I will be bold to tell thee thou hast nigh Outworn GOD's patience by impiety But what am I that me thou shouldst believe And unto my Predictions credit give It may be this adulterous generation Expects foretokens of their Desolation And therefore I will give them signs of that Which they are now almost arrived at Not Signs so dubious as were some of old Whereby the Jews Destruction was foretold But Signs as evident as are the day For what the Prophets heretofore did say Jerusalem's destruction did foreshow They spoke to every State that should ensue And that they nought of her or to her spoke For hers alone but also for thy sake In the 269 th' folio of the Remembrancer and in the Eight pages next following it are Ten Signs recorded grounded upon the holy Prophets as presignifying the desolation of those Kingdoms and Republics which should parallel the Jewesh Prevarications to the perusal whereof the Reader is referred to shorten this Collection and only the last of these Ten Signs is here inserted The last black Sight that I will now repeat Which doth to Kingdom's desolation threat Is when the hand of GOD Almighty brings A People unto bondage to their Kings I say when their own King shall take delight Those whom he should protect to rob and smite When they who feed the Flock the sheep shall kill Devour them and suppose they do not ill When th●is h Britan shall befall to thee An evident Prognostic it will be Of GOD's displeasure and a certain token Thou by a Foreign Power shalt be broken Or by thine own divided strength at home Which will the more destructive Plague become GOD will unless we shall repent perchance In time to come a Shepherd here advance Who shall not plead for what his young men say Is his but take the same perforce away An Idol-shepherd who shall neither care To find or seek out those who straying are Nor feed the Lambs nor cure what hath a wound Or cherish those who firm to him are found But take the Fatlings rob them of their fleeces Devour their flesh and break their bones in pieces I might more Signs than these enumerate To show GOD's patience is nigh out of date But these are Signs enough and so apparent That twenty more will give no better warrant Of what will come yet if these false appear That 's one Sign more of what is drawing near Be watchful therefore whilst it is to day And let no good occasion slip away Now rend your hearts ye Britan's wash and rinse them From all corruptions from all evil cleanse them Go offer up the pleasing Sacrifice Of Righteousness From folly turn your eyes Seek Peace and follow it with strict pursuit Relieve the needy Justice execute Refresh the weary right the fatherless The strangers and the widows wants redress Give praise to GOD for all with lowly faith On him depend mind what the Spirit saith Remember what a price your Ransom cost And now redeem the time that hath been lost It was feigned That a Shepherd said of what had misbefallen to him Saepe nobis malum hoc praedixit ab Ilice Cornix A Raven from a Holly tree Did oft presage this ill to me And perhaps upon the perusal of this Review this Author will be likened to those Ravens which presage nothing but mischief for some have said already That he hath been a troubler of the people and as Ahab said Micah did of him That he predicted no good to this Nation but it is apparently false for he hath conditionally presaged as well Mercies as Judgements intermixing threatenings and Promises fore-declared by his Prophets to prevent what is pronounced against wilful Transgressor's seasoning all his Predictions wîth many Precautions and Exhortations to beget and confirm true Faith and Penitence such as these next following Return return thou oh back-sliding Nation And let thy tears prevent thy desolation As yet thou mayst return for GOD's embrace To thee is open if thou shalt have grace To give it meeting Thy repentance may Prevent the future Mischiefs which this day Are threatened if so be thou shalt in time According to thy power comply with him For thereupon his dreadful Judgements all Predicted here to Mercies change he shall I cannot say it shall excuse thee from All Chastisements so that no blow shall come But of thus much thou may'st assured be That every Judgement then which falls on thee Shall be a Mercy if he shall not stay What 's threatened now the strokes which he doth lay Will fall the lighter and produce a blessing Thy future happiness much more increasing Than all the great prosperity and rest Which hath long time together been possessed Yea BRITAN if thou timely shalt reform Thy manners it will stop the dreadful storm Appearing now and they who triumph would Thy utter desolation to behold Will either change their minds or live to see The Judgements which descending are on thee Removed to them for when from sin men cease GOD makes their Enemies and them at peace Then thou shalt have again in thy possessings All inward Graces and external Blessings Thy Herds in every Pasture safe shall feed Thy Soil shall plentifully increase thy seed Thy Flocks good Shepherds shall not want or meat Clean Provender thy stalled beast shall eat There shall be Rivers in thy Dales and Fountains Upon the top of thy most barren Mountains The Moon shall cast upon thee beams as bright As did the Sun and with a sevenfold Light Thou shalt be blessed He that Reigns in thee Shall neither jealous of his People be Nor they of Him but he by Righteousness Shall with the People's Love the Throne possess And to each other both as kind appear As Loving Parents and good Children are Thy Magistrates with wisdom shall proceed In all things by them acted or decreed As Rivers are to places over dry As Harbours when winds blow tempestuo usly As shadows when we are oppressed with heat As to the hungry stomach wholesome meat So acceptable shall thy Rulers be When GOD shall find true Penitence in thee Thy Priests shall preach truth only in thy Temples And make it fruitful by their good examples Christ with his Righteousness shall them array And they shall guide thy footsteps in his way Thine eyes which are now blinded shall be clear Thine ears at present deafened then shall hear Thy faltering tongue speak timely truth and plain Thy heart true understanding shall retain Peace will return no labouring man shall want A blessing on what he doth sow or plant Thy poorest people shall at full be fed The meek man of no Tyrant stand in dread Thou shalt have Grace and Knowledge to avoid What may bereave the Mercies yet enjoied All promised Blessings GOD upon thee shall Confer and hear thee still when thou dost call These and many other Mercies as well as Judgements were conditionally predicted in the said Remembrancer upon several occasions to the perusal whereof more at large the Reader is referred this being but a Breviate to make this Generation the more heedful thereof To which end here shall be likewise added a part of what the Author expressed in the conclusion of that Book touching his Resolution to discharge his duty and depend on GOD alone for protection and supply in all straits whatsoever which Resolution was expressed in these words fol. 284. So now though not so fully as I ought My Vow is paid and to conclusion brought This Work for which GOD pleased my life to spare When Thousands round about me slaughtered were And live or die I care not for I see But little usefulness henceforth of me Yet since none knows what GOD will call him to I 'll not say absolutely what I 'll do Or not do though I now intent no more To exercise my Muse as heretofore For if this profit not I think in vain I shall hereafter touch this string again If these do not prevail I shall suppose Words are not wanting here so much as Blows And that the filthy will be filthy still Till they the measure of their sins fulfil Or till GOD shall to free us from pollution Proceed to some unusual execution Fol. 285. Pag. 2. My outward hopes have not my tongue unloosed Nor can my mouth by outward fears be closed What I would do is done and I am eased And glad however others will be pleased Let them who shall peruse it praise or laugh Revile or scoff or threat or swear or chafe All 's one to me so I within am still Without me let men make what noise they will For I am sure though they my flesh confound What I desire to save shall be kept sound And likewise know that nor the brutish rages Either of this or of succeeding Ages Shall root this Poem out but that to all Ensuing times the same continue shall And be perused in this Land as long As here they shall retain the English tongue Or whilst there shall be sinners and offences Disorders Discords Wars and Pestilences And if our gross sins we depart not from Before the day of our destruction come This Book shall to the times ensuing show What Crimes they were that wrought our overthrow And testify to others for their learning That Vengeance seized us not without forewarning After the Author 's insisting upon many other particular circumstances in the pages next following to make his Precautions and Predictions the better heeded he thus proceeds The King hath shown me favour At this hour I do not know that living man whose Power Or Person I envy or disaffect Or whom of any malice I suspect To me or mine With me all those are friends Who were at odds and to obtain my ends In my Affairs I never had a day So probable as now if I would stay This Message And this peradventure shall My hopes defer or quite destroy them all Yet is this bluntly told that you may see My hopes were greater than my fears could be And that it may be known my heart disclaims All those poor ends at which some think it aims Such arguments and words therefore as may Anticipate I here beforehand say Not that I think it possible by them To work on those who will this Book contemn For 't is not in the power of Argument Or words to make the wilful provident It lieth not in serious protestations To nullify malicious Combinations No nor in Miraclcs till GOD shall please Who of all hearts doth keep the Locks and Keys I therefore these Precautions do infert To evidence the hardness of his heart Who shall be obstinate and fore-declare Those things that shall be done ere done they were That men may know when they are come to pass Nought did succeed but what expected was And that the better working this may have On those who shall GOD's Messages receive By this Remembrancer for he hath sent it Though I who am unworthy do present it This misadvisedly composed I not Nor was it by a Miracle begot To fit me for this purpose I have thrice Imprisonment endured Close Prison twice Much trouble on my first Essays ensued Through want and scandals not a few I shrewd And being guarded by GOD's Providence Was lately carried through the Pestilence Both saw and felt what Nature doth abhor To harden me and to prepare me for This Message Therefore they who dream they shall With frowning looks or big words me appall Must look more grim than Death more ugly far Than Vizards or the Devil's Pictures are Breath stronger poison than a Plague-filled Grave And stamp and roar and tear and rage and rave More dreadfully and louder than a man Infected with six Pestilences can Else I to play with terrors being born Shall slight them and laugh all their rage to scorn Yet I am naturally and I do Ingenuously confess it subject to Such fears and passions as make better men To startle from their duties now and then By what is done may troubles come upon me But not performing it had quite undone me Since I deterred by what might befall me Had that neglected whereto GOD did call me For of his calling me the means and ways Whereby he did my weakness thereto raise Unquestionable Evidences give And they who do not yet the same believe Will think so too perhaps when they shall see Themselves assaulted with new Plagues to be This I believing and considering What hazard that neglect therewith might bring And what assurances I did possess I had contracted a grand guiltiness By disobeying and more had therein Transgressed against God then by a sin Against the State though such Truths uttered were As they shall most displeasing be to hear What ever others think this is my fear And to my Soul so terrible a thing The wilful disobeying that great King Appears to me that I should never sleep In peace again if silence I should keep Now therefore neither all the Royal Graces Of Kings nor Gifts nor honourable places Shall stop my mouth nor will I smother this Though twenty Kings had sworn to make me kiss The Gallows for it lest my Conscience should Torment me more than all men living could Yea though this did proceed from Ignorance Or Fancy as it will be thought perchance Yet since that Fancy may present to me As hideous frights as things that real be I 'll rather hazard twenty deaths to die Then to be tortured by my Fantasy For I had rather in a Dungeon dwell Five years then in my soul to feel a Hell Five minutes and whilst GOD and I are Friends I shall not care how many this offends Now because this Remembrancer was long ago imprinted and is not easy to be gotten the Contents of every Canto as they were at first published are here inserted that the general scope thereof may be known to them who desire it The Contents of the first Canto OUr Author first with GOD begins Describes his anger for our sins Of all his Judgements muster makes Declares how Mercy undertakes The pleading of this Kingdom's Cause To bring GOD's wrath unto a pause And for the common Reader suits High things with lowly Attributes Then steps into a praiseful strain Of Charles His new-beginning Reign Emplores that well succeed it may And for His Weal makes Mercy pray He Justice also introduces Complaining on our gross abuses Who proveth so our sinful Nation To merit utter Desolation That all God's Plagues had us enclosed If Mercy had not interposed But after pleading of the Case With Justice Mercy doth embrace Who that our sins may punished be To send the Pestilence agree Their other Plagues a while suspending To prove how that will work amending The Contents of the Second Canto Our Muse defends her lowly stile And having flown aside a while Tells how the Plague first entered here What Means to stay it practised were Some vulgar Tenants are disputed Some rectified some refuted She from the Nature and the Cause Of that Disease conclusions draws Declareth how it runs and creeps And what uncertain paths it keeps How long strict Orders useful stood The fruit of Christian Neighbourhood And many other things betwixt These mentioned are intermixed She showeth also means assured By which this Mischief may be cured How to apply that means how those Who use it should themselves compose How violent the Plague did grow Who from it might or might not go How much 't was feared how men fled How ill in flying many sped And lastly as occasion moves She grieves she counsel and reproves The Contents of the Third Canto The House of Mourning which most fear And fly so much is praised here It shows that outward Joys and Care Nor merely good nor evil are But things indifferent which the wise Nor over-praise nor under-prise The strife within our Author's breast About his stay is next expressed Then doth it orderly recite What Reason argued for his flight What Faith alleged to reprove The Motives urging his remove What Arms for him she did prepare To hide the shock of Death and Fear What proof she to his Conscience made That he a lawful calling had In midst of this great Plague to tarry By Warrant extraordinary What thereupon he did conclude What Joy and Confidence ensu'de How much this Favour he doth prize Above Earth's glorious'st Vanities How he his time desires to spend And so this Canto hath an end The Contents of the Fourth Canto Our Muse in the Fourth Canto writes Of Melancholy thoughts and sights What Changes were in every place What Ruins in a little space How Trades and how Provisions failed How Sorrow thrived how Death prevailed And how in triumph he did ride With all his Horrors by his side To London then she doth declare How suiting her Afflictions were To former Sins what good and bad Effects this Plague produced had What Friendly Champions and what Foes For us did fight or us oppose And how the greatest Plague of all On poor Artificers did fall Then from the Fields new grief she takes And useful Meditations makes Relates how slowly Vengeance came How GOD forewarned us of the same What other Plagues to this were joined And here and there are interlined Upbraid Warn Exhortations And pertinent Expostulations The Contents of the Fifth Canto The Author justifies again His Method and his lowly strain Next having formerly made known The common Fears he tells his own Shows with what thoughts he was diseased When first the Plague his Lodging seized Of what GOD's Justice him accused Upon what doubts or hopes he mused On what and how he did resolve And who from Death did him absolve The Plagues increase he then expresseth The Mercies of the LORD confesseth Emplores that he himself may never Forget them but be thankful ever Then mounting Contemplations wings Ascends to high and useful things From thence his Muse is called down To make Great Britan's errors known Wherein he doth confess a failing And his infirmities bewailing Is fitted and resolved anew His purposed Message to pursue And having first anticipated His Arrant is in part related The Contents of the Sixth Canto The Poet weighing well his Warrant Goes on with his enjoined Arrant Impartially he doth relate This Islands good and bad estate What several sins in her have place How gross they are how they increase He also tells and then he shows That nor the Gentiles nor the Jews Were checked or plagued for any Crimes Which are not reigning in these times Next that he boldly doth approve The course in which our Nobles move Derides their folly blames their sin And warns what danger they are in Our Gentry then he reprehends Their foolish humours discommends And having brought them to their sights Upon the guilty Clergy lights On Lawyers that abuse the Laws On Officers and on the Cause Of most Corruptions Last of all On some Enormities doth fall Which are in Court and City found And runs this Canto there on ground The Contents of the Seventh Canto First of himself he somewhat speaks Then of the City's Errors makes A larger Scroll and therewithal Inserts Abuses general He shows by reason of her sin What Misery this Land is in What ill success and what dishonour Is for her follies come upon her In Foreign parts and here at home How senseless also she 's become What several ways against this Land GOD hath of late stretched out his hand And how the blame of what 's amiss From one to th' other shifted is By many Symptoms he declares How sick this Commonweal appears Disputes the late Distemper bred Betwixt the Body and the Head And lays the blame where lie it should Yet therein proves not overbold Then aims he at some imperfections In Burgesses and their Elections And briefly pointeth at the way By which our Cure effect we may The Contents of the Eighth Canto Our Poet having touched again What frailties in himself remain Declares that many Plagues do steal As well on Church as Commonweal Relates what Crotchets do possess Some who Righteousness profess What noisome Plants what Tares and Weeds Are sprung to choke the holy Seeds What feigned Zeal and affectation Hath fooled this formal Generation And how from some great scandal grows Who bear the Keys that bind and lose Next he delivereth Predictions Of Plagues of Sorrows and Afflictions Which on this Island will descend Unless our manners we amend And whensoever Civil Jars Or mischiefs by the rage of Wars Oppress this Realm his Muse doth show Who shall oceasion it and how Which fearful Judgement to prevent He calls upon her to repent By ten apparent Signs hath shown GOD's Patience nigh expired is grown Then for the Public Weal he prays Then for himself and there he stays The Author's Motto Nec Habeo nec Careo nec Curo Imp. 1618. THE said Motto and the Descant thereupon may perhaps appear to some Readers a careless rather than a serious Composure because expressed in an unusual and extravagant strain Nevertheless it hints many good Principles which the Author thought would be best insinuated in that Mode and he was not therein deceived for it then so well pleased that about thirty thousand Copies thereof were imprinted and published within a few months The Book is so common that no more shall be here mentioned but a few lines out of the Descant upon the last Word wherein is a passage relating to an overcurious Inquisitiveness after Things to come and wherein is implicitly wrapped up a Prediction which may be considerable The words are these I do not care to be inquisitive How many months or weeks I have to live For 't is unlikely I shall better grow When I myself to be long-lived do know If I dare act a wickedness and yet Know I may die whilst I am doing it Let them whose brains are cracked with that Disease Depend upon their Ephemerideses Search Constellations and themselves apply To find the Fate of their Nativity I 'll seek within me and if there I find The Stars that should illuminate my mind Rise far and seasonably me direct Through my Life's Progress by a good Aspect And in Conjunction shall discover there True Piety and Honesty sincere Confirmed in me by those Influences Which Grace to regulate our course dispenses I 'll fear no Fortunes whatsoever they be Nor much care what the Stars portend to me For he who to this state of Grace attains Above the power of Constellations reigns And gets a Resolution therewithal Which fits him so for what e'er may befall That he becomes a happier man than he Who can but tell what shall hereafter be I start not at a Friar's prophecy Or those with which we Merlin do belie Nor am I frighted with the sad Narrations Of any near approaching Alterations For things have ever changed and ever shall Until there doth a Change run overall And he that bears an honest heart about him Needs not to fear what Changes are without him The Eastern Kingdoms had a time to flourish The Grecian Empire rising saw them perish That sunk and then the Roman Pride began Now bounded by the Race of Ottoman And if Vicisitudes a Round must run Till all things end where they at first begun What is 't to me who peradventure must e'er that befalls be mouldered into dust What if America's large Tract of ground And all those Isles adjoining lately found Which we more truly may a Desert call Then our well-tilled and civilised Pal● What if now there that Wilderness doth lie To which the Woman and her Son must fly To scape the Dragon's fury and there 'bide Till Europe's thankless Nations for their Pride And other crying sins overwhelmed be With such like Barbarousness as there we see If thus GOD please to do and makes our sin The means of bringing those rude Nations in To be his People as vouchsafed it was The Gentiles calling should be brought to pass When he cast off the Jews for unbelief Why should his pleasure be to me a grief Oh! let his Name on Earth more honoured grow Although my Ruin helps to make it so Campo-Musae or Field-musing Imprinted 1644. THis Poem was written whilst the Author was in Arms for the King and Parliament to reunite them not to divide them as appears by this Impress in his Cornet under the figure of a Sword and Pen Pro Rege Lege Grege It was partly composed to vindicate himself from their Aspersions who imputed unto him the deserting his Principle relating to the Royal Power and partly to evidence That he had neither actually or intentionally infringed it But many other particulars were thereby offered to consideration whereof some are here abreviated The Contents of the said Field-musing A Question presupposed the Muse Makes Answer and her Freedom shows Tells with what heart with what intent This War her Poet under went Avers that Reason and the Laws Will justifis him in his Cause The Public straits he doth express Lamenteth and implores redress Fights Combats with Dosive Reason His Party to acquit from Treason Them he encourageth to do What GOD and Reason calls them to Then mentioning a Voice of Peace That she hath heard and there dooh cease Intruding ere she doth proceed To make some proof how this will speed Having touched upon many Omissions and Commissions which occasioned several Expostulations Caveats and Predictions to which the Reader is referred this follows pag. 20. Our speedy Reconcilement hasten shall The Church's Triumph and Great Babel's fall Her date is near if I aright have hit The meaning of the Number left to be A trial and probation of their Wit Who seek the fall of Antichrist to see He is with his Partakers at this day In public and in private carrying on The cunningest plot which they have yet to play And when that 's acted out their Play is done Till than their Fraud will so some Saints beguile That they to their Design will furtherance bring Yea they shall help promote it for a while Who favour nor the Persons nor the Thing But lest your hearts may faint by long delay Heed for your comfort what my Muse will say That Year in which Rome's long-lived Empery Shall from the day in which it was at height Sum up M D C L X V and I In order as these Letters here incite That Year that Day that Hour will put a date To her Usurped Power reserving neither Top Root or Branch of that accursed State Nor Hand nor Body Limb Horn Claw or Feather For here are all the Numerals of Rome In order as they are in valuation And cannot make a less or greater sum Without disorder want or iteration Nor shall it longer stand or sooner fall If I mistake not him who governs all In number weight and measure worketh he Allotting to each man the bound and season Which may both correspond with his Decree And somewhat also suit with humane Reason In Egypt thus a certain time to stay Was to the Seed of Jacob there assigned Thus likewise to a fore-appointed day The Reign of Baltashazer was confined Thus from the time of daniel's Supplication The time when Christ should come foretold appears To be a preordained Limitation Until the end of Seventy weeks of years And thus Rome's declination may no doubt Be numbering till her Numeral are out Two famous Numbers are in them contained The first declares the length of time wherein The Devil was by Providence restrained From setting up the Mystery of sin The later is the number of the BEAST Which when the LET was taken quite away Whereby he was a thousand years suppressed Doth number out his Kingdom to a day It is the number of the Name or Power Even of a Man of that Mysterious Man By whom that Mystery is at this hour Continued and by whom it first began And he that can begin the Thousandth year Shall find the Ruin of both Beasts is near To search that out it seems not hard to me Who do believe that when of her chief sin Rome to be guilty did appear to be Her declination did then first begin And sure of all her sins the greatest Crime Was crucifying of the Lord of Life And her unjustly persecuting them Who tendered Saving-Grace to their belief Then I presume she first to fall began And that GOD measured weighed and numbered out How many backward rounds her wheel should run Before it should the last time turn about Thus in those numerals which are her own Joined all together was her Fate writ down To bring to pass that work there was a LET To be removed of no mean consequence Which was removed at the time fore-set And her new offspring hath reigned ever since But with exceeding infamy and scorns The Beast which now so powerful seems to some Shall lose his Head and moult away his Horns And to the world a laughingstock become Then many Juggle hitherto concealed And which to blind the heedless Christians eye In seven dark Mysteries have long been sealed Shall to the faithful soul uncovered lie That Kingdom which the Jew did long ago Mould out according to his erring brain And whereof many zealous Christians too Unwarrantable Fancies entertain That Kingdom whereof now in types we hear Shall to the world essentially appear Be patient therefore ye that are oppressed This Generation shall not pass away Till some behold the downfall of that Beast Which yet among us with his Tail doth play Then will the Lamb of GOD begin to take The Kingdom to himself and every King That of his Right shall Usurpation make To Judgement and destruction he shall bring No Kingling then assume the boldness shall Blasphemously for know it is no less To style himself the King Catholical As if Earth's Universal Globe were his For though another hath Usurped thereon That title doth belong to Christ alone And 't is no wonder if the Potentates Kings and the Rulers of this world combine By Policy to strengthen their Estates And with the Beast with GOG and Magog join No marvel if enraged they appear Through jealousies and fear of losing that By which their Pride and Lusts maintained were And which base fear and flat'ry first begat For all those Kingdoms and those Emperies Throughout the world which their beginning took By humane wit fraud force and tyrannies Shall pass away and vanish into smoke An Army whereof here 's yet little hope Shall wrest the Sceptre both from Turk and Pope Religion and mere shows of Piety Have been so long the Masks of base Designs The great Vicegerents of their Deity Have made such Politicians of Divines And these together have so fooled and cheated The Consciences of persons well inclined That of all Freedoms they are nigh defeated Belonging to the Body and the Mind Yea they have so mocked GOD and on his Throne And his Prerogative so far encroached That of his Honour being jealous grown Much longer bear he will not such reproach But to the Saints their Liberties restore And give those Kings their portion with the Whore D' ye startle at it as if I had spoke High Treason or as if what I now say Without a warrant I had undertaken To publish as perhaps you think I may If so know that I had this Information Not from a private Spirit but from his Well known and unsuspected Revelation Who to his Church long since revealed this They who will to the Lamb their Crowns resign And shall the Beast opposing be content To reign according to Christ's Discipline And his Command shall keep their Government The rest cast off shall wail and curse their birth With Tyrants and the Merchants of the Earth Christ and his Law shall then bear all the sway By Governments resembling that perchance For which the Jews GOD's yoke did cast away The Kingship of the Gentiles to advance And as his People foolishly did crave Instead of his mild Sceptre to retain A Heath'nish Monarchy which doth enslave And seek by Arbitrary Powers to reign So shall all Nations be content to leave Their Ethnic Bonds and with his holy Nation Christ's Precepts and his Discipline receive And joint partakers be of their Salvation And when this glorious Kingdom doth begin The fullness of the Gentiles will come in GOD hath so long deferred the possession Of that great Mercy because Worldliness Hypocrisy and Discord keep the blessing From ripening into such a happiness Some in unrightcousness the Truth retained And make the same thereby the less believed Some by an outward Sanctity have gained The means to have their Heresies believed Whilst some pursue the Antichrist without them An Antichrist ariseth up within Which if they look not warily about them New work for Reformation will begin But GOD will finish what he preordains When Penitence for sin the means obtains In the Sixty third page of this Poem the Author for illustration of that Mystery adds this that follows And lastly I have weighed that not alone A plot is laid these Kingdoms to undo But likewise in their spoil to have undone All other true Reformed Churches too I see GOD's glory and the servitude Of all his People in this Cause concerned And whatsoever others do conclude I these conclusions with good warrant learned That those whom in this warfare we resist Are neither worse nor better than those bands And those Confederates of Antichrist Which are this day his Champions in these Lands And that who ever fighteth on their side When this is known have GOD & Christ denied I see as plainly as I see the Sun He draweth near who on the white Horse rides The long expected Battle is begun The Beast to muster up his Kings provides With him h●s bloody Edomites conspire The ●eeds of Hagar and the Sons of Lot Philistia Gebal Moab Ammon Tire And all who with his mark themselves bespot To meet these those white Regiments I see That on the Lord of Hosts and King of Kings Attending in triumphant habits be And whilst I contemplate the aid he brings Methinks I hear his Angel call the Crows To eat the Kings and Captains of his Foes To strengthen the Faith and confirm the Patience of the Saints this Mystery is insisted upon in many other of this Author's Writings as occasions were offered and are thought not impertinently expressed in a various Mode to the same effect because the ignorance or heedlessness of many require both reiteration and plainness to prevent mistakes There are also many other Neglected Remembrances contained in the aforesaid Poem to the perusal whereof more at large the Reader is referred The DARK LANTERN Imprinted 1650. THis is a Parabolical and Enigmatical Poem containing with some plain Precautions and Remembrances many dark Predictions and begins thus He from whose perfect Light all true Lights come Spoke Parables yea spoke nought else to some And Providence by many various ways Of Dispensation to the world conveys The means of carrying on those works which tend To man's perfection at his latter end And to the wonderful accomplishment Of what eternally is his intent Bringeth about oft times the selfsame things Or such like toward their accomplishing That prudent men might apprehend thereby What he designs and therewithal comply etc. And in the Seventh Page he proceeds thus I may perhaps be among others one Who was designed for service to be done In order thereunto as I conceive I am and as when I am gone some will believe Though few so think now for although I dress The Mind and Matter of my Messages In measured words and trimmed with such Fancies As are allowed in Poetic Frencies To pass for sober Garbs yet now and then I blunder out that which mere worldly men Count madness and what oft the best men too Sometimes do think becomes not me to do But I best know my warrant and proceed As I am moved with little fear or heed What others judge and that which makes me dare What seemeth madness helpeth to prepare Such strains as other while produceth heeding Of what had not else been thought worth the reading And these my Ridling now are an Invention Which partly were designed with that intention And partly likewise to amuse those Readers Who to my Principles are counter-pleaders When many think the Times afford me may Enough to speak of I have nought to say When I to aught am called I cast by My own Affairs and to that Call apply As I occasion find venting sometimes My thoughts in Prose and otherwhile in Rhymes One while in sharp and bitter strains reproving Sometimes by Admonitions calm and loving Yea Jigs of recreation sometimes fiddling And now I 'm fallen into a fit of Riddling Riddle my Riddles then you that have heard Truths oft and plainly spoke without regard Except it were in malice to combine Against their peace who cast their Pearls to swine Riddle them if you can for in them lies A Dark Character of our Destinies Those things within these Problems couched are Which I once thought more plainly to declare But from that purpose have now changed my mind That seeing you might see yet still be blind That you might read and yet not understand The works which GOD and Men have now in hand Till those Events befall to you which may Produce those good effects which you delay To which intent that which I would unfold Shall Herogliphically now be told Page the 21 after many preoccupations to confirm himself in prosecuting what he intended he thus again proceeds But I will wheel about and with the Rein Turn Pegasus into his path again Though he in his digressions as we say Of Beggars never is beside his way Once on a time thus did old Tales begin Ere I was born or thought so to have been A foolish People overmuch at ease Their wantonness and vanity to please Among their May-games brought home from the wood Trees which had else till now unheeded stood Of these they made by hew knocks & smoothing That look like something which resembled nothing And out of shapeless knotty Logs did hew Some Statues not uncomely to the view These ere quite finished with some jeers and mocks They set up higher over other Blocks Them so repollishing and painting so That of what stuff they were few men could know Beginning then their own work to admire They raised them higher and a little higher Till Idols they became with whom they grew At first familiar and did them bestrew With flowers and garlands shortly after they Bowed humbly down before them every day Till custom had their Judgement quite befooled For when they them enshrined did behold Sparkling with Jewels and with Gold arrayed They of their own Creations grew afraid And at the last as at the last such do Who after their own Fancies whoring go They much repenting their fond Superstition Bewailed the slavery of their condition With some appearances of an intent To grow more wise as well as penitent Yea to blaspheme their newmade Gods they spared not And would have-pulled them down again but dared not For by their flattering Attributes long given They had advanced them to a Sphere or Heaven Where uncontrolled a Power they exercised According to their Will and them despised Whose hands had made them and whose breath had blown them Too high for their Ambitiousness to own them Their Incantations by degrees had brought Strange Spirits into what their hands had wrought Alluring and enabling them unto Those actings which their Makers might undo Yet still these Blockheads persevered and will To make such Idols and adore them still Till both they and their Puppets are destroyed Unless the GOD of Gods make just fears void For most men being of a slavish mind Are so much unto slavishness inclined That to fulfil their slavish lust they 'll fawn Upon a Dog and lay their souls to pawn Riddle this Riddle if you can and tell What People this may be and where they dwell Which I believing you with ease may do Will add this following Parable thereto There was a time when silly Bees could speak A People of much industry though weak Among themselves these lately made great moans As being much oppressed by their Drones Who having made incursions among those That had an  dispose In their Republic did in various wise Encroachments make on their Proprieties And greedily unto themselves derive The fatness and the sweetness of the Hive Complaints in private no redress obtaining Increase to open and avowed complaining Which finding like successes they begun To buzz as when a swarming time comes on Then to shut up their Cells to shake their wings To leave their wont work and show their stings At first the Drones were frighted much thereat But being not so wise as they were fat Neglected still the course which might prevent The mischiefs then appearing imminent Which when I saw I would no longer stay But said God help them and so came away This Parable if rightly moralised Affords a meaning not to be despised And so doth what next follows As I went On Pilgrimage unto the Parliament I there attending saw some of the Cocks Which kept our Hens and Capons from the Fox With broken wings with backs without a Feather To hide their naked bodies from the weather With plumeless tails with scared necks & breasts With empty bellies with their combs and crests Quite worn away and scraping with their feet On Dunghills for their food and in the street So despicably that it could appear By nothing save their spurs what once they were And popinjays and Parrots clad and fed With what the valour of these purchased These trimmed up in their Feathers strutting by Did cast upon them a disdainful eye Which heeding I suppose I tell you true To be no good Presage Pray what think you News if you look for I but little know Save such as this next Parable doth show A fair Ship now lies floating on the Floods Well fraught with Passengers well filled with goods Labouring to fix an Anchor on the strand Of her wished Harbour which lies near at hand By many storms much tackling she hath spent Her Masts are shattered and her Sails are rend Her Ammunition and her stores are wasted Her bread and beaverage is evil tasted Her Keel springs leaks through her uncawked seams Her Knees are weakened broken are her beams Her Pump is cracked no Cable sound hath she And Anchor's have been slipped till none there be Her Helm hangs loose her Card hath great defects Her Compass likewise often interdicts And every where she craziness doth feel From Prow to Stern from Topmast to the Keal In this condition to and fro she drives And on the Waves with much ado she lives For now of late again the Sea grows high A stiff gale blows and she exposed doth lie To many hazards close without a Bar Betwixt two Forelands which in kenning are If she to Seaward forth again should stand There Pirates threaten her if then to Land She makes the Rocks lie scattered here and there In which as great or greater dangers are And which is worse they who should be her guide Are false and mutinously qualified Some ignorant some treacherous and some Ambitious how possessors to become Of what belongs to others Some of those Who have this Public Ship at their dispose Have in delays their time and stores misspent For private ends and for accomplishment Of worse Designs and in this great distress Partly through fear in part through guiltiness So much amused and so amazed are That they are at a loss what course to steer Both to secure themselves and their Design Without which to no course they will încline etc. But maugre all these hazards she at last In her wished Harbour shall an Anchor cast And take in both good Pilots and Recruits When her Fate seems to promise no such fruits You therefore who conceive your Interest To be concerned by what is here expressed Praise GOD alone when safe this Ship shall be For to secure her there is none but He And let not any to whom this relates 'Slight what the Parable insinuates Which next ensueth For it hath some use That much to their advantage may conduce A homebred Lion of a hair unknown In Africa by being overgrown And dreadful to his Keepers shall thereby Awake the rage of smothered Jealousy And lose his Tail except between his paws He couch his head and hide his teeth and claws Or else grow Rampant what will follow then Ask those you credit they are cunning men Of me you ask in vain for 't is my Fate Seldom to be believed till 't is too late This was interpreted as a Relative to Oliver Cromwell than Lord General of the Army whose Arms was a White Lyon It follows thus They who have took delight In deeds of darkness will put out the light By which the footsteps of their Foes are known And whereby they might see to guide their own Instead thereof they raise and follow shall An Ignis fatuus which will hazard all And Providence to each man shall dispose That which for his chief happiness he chose The Dogs unto their vomit shall retire The Swine who love to wallow in the mire Themselves with their beloved filth shall fill And they who are unclean shall be so still The wilful Adders who do stop their ears And will not heed the Charmer whom he hears Shall feel a voice within them which will shake them Out of their dumps & from their deafness wake them When 't is too late it may be to prevent The dint of their forewarned detriment The Leeches shall by Salt a vomit take Or else continue sucking till they break The Bubbles who in emptiness do find Most pleasure shall be puffed up with wind Till blown up into nothing there appear No signs that in the world such Bladders were The Sons of Earth who with the GOD'S make war Shall heap up Hills on Hills till crushed they are By their own handiworks The Shrubs now grown More lofty than the Cedars they broke down Among their thorns and leaves a fire do hide Which on a sudden will consume their pride The Grubbs and Maggots but ere while so small So poor and weak that they could hardly crawl Have got bulk strength new forms aspiring wings Yea dreadful teeth and horns and claws and stings But by a storm whereof they have no dread They shall consume as fast as they were bred Out of the putrified barbed Steed Shall generated be a numerous breed Of noisome Hornets which abroad will fly Much mischief acting and next Winter die The blasted Orange and the crooked Vine With other Plants on either side of Rhine Shall twist together that beneath their shade A shelter for the Thistle may be made Till they perceive what Plagues are in pursuit Of that ejected Plant Branch Root and Fruit Then will they wiser grow lest they become Exposed justly to the selfsame doom Mean while the Tawny Olive shall assay His Roots into these Valleys to convey From whence it was removed and effect Thereby what very few do now suspect Except the Willow and the Oak foresee What for their mutual weal should acted be Whereby they frustrate may a grand Design Which is on foot both States to undermine And they who thereunto first Movers are Shall of that Blessing reap the greatest share Observe this well If you hereafter fee Which peradventure may permitted be The Red-Cross from its former height decline And for a time the Half-Moon Northward shine With an ill Influence upon the Seas Beyond the Pillars of great Hercules And not be retrograde till it hath more Effects that way than ever heretofore Expect some consequence will then ensue Which many who yet dream not of will rue But losses are sometimes a gainful prize By oversights men grow to be more wise And they who heed not now what doth concern Their welfare will perhaps more wisdom learn When more Experience makes their Judgement stronger By suffering loss and shame a little longer We on this side the Water are not yet Confused enough that order to beget That must reform us and shall here therefore Pursue self-interest yet more and more Till such as are in Power vouchsafe to hear The Counsel of their slighted Engineer The Old Robe with New Cloth will patched be Though Rents thereby still wider made they see Till every Rag is quite worn out and then They with a whole Robe shall be clothed again And they who own it be secured more And much more dignified then heretofore When they who would effect it make their choices As well by Lot Divine as humane voices Whereto self-seekers never will agree Till by some straight it shall enforced be But when this comes to pass there will appear A new Light shining in our Hemisphere That will disperse the Clouds and Fogs which make So many cross each other and mistake The way to safety Then we shall perceive Our Opposites desire to interweave Their Interest with ours and if sincere They shall in what will be produced here Partake and both together then possess Each other and the world in Christian Peace Till he appeareth to ascend the Throne Who must unite all Nations into one Then shall the glaring Comets which have seemed Fixed Stars and so by many are esteemed Even they of greatest magnitude down from Their heights be cast and more despised become Then Glowworms or those rotten Chips that glare In darkness as if real lights they were Then every single Person shall be brought Unto his Test and that which he hath wrought To trial comes moreover they who now By spoils and by oppression powerful grow Will then become the scorn of every one Whom they oppressed despised and trampled on Then they who large Indulgencies contrive For others that themselves they may forgive Who cunningly at fast and loose do play Who take to morrow what they give to day And make their seeming favours means unto Those mischiefs which their malice could not do Who Spider-like wove Cobwebs with pretence To catch the Flies alone which give offence When none but harmless Bees their Engines take For Wasps and Hornets passage through them make They who do sacrifice unto the dead That wherewithal the living should be fed Who justify the wicked in their way And unto death men innocent betray These then and all such like shall to their doom With horror fear and with amazement come Page 33 it thus follows Then from the buried Ox will forth arise A swarm of thrifty Honey-making Flies That shall with sweetness and with plenty store These Islands from the Midland to the shore And spread their Floating Hives on all the Seas 'Twixt both the Tropics to th' Antipodes To make Preparatives for that which brings Into one body all dispersed things Some other things of no mean consequence I do foresee approaching not far hence But so obscurely that I cannot say Without all doubtings whereto tend they may For far beyond my apprehension lies The Chain of those remote Contingencies Which draw on future things because my Glass Through which the notions of them are to pass Is so defective that they do perchance Misrepresent them in some circumstance Yet by the enlightenings which the Sacred Writ On Sanctified Reason doth beget If we well heed consider and compare What things have been with such as present are To GOD and Men relating we of some Things future may aright informed become The Perpetual PARLIAMENT Imprinted 1650. IN this Poem the Author having More Poetico expressed a Contemplative Vision preparative to what he intended he thus proceeds pag. 44. By what hath represented been By well considering what I had seen By spelling out what every Character Holds forth to evidence those things that were Thereby intended I found out therein Where that great Work must first of all begin Which may make up our breaches when thereto Ourselves we settle as we ought to do I saw that on a future settlement And constitution of a Parliament Upon a just Foundation laid with speed A means of Restauration might succeed That introducing therewith which might bring Into right Order every other thing Our outward Weal promoting if we take That course whereof proposal I now make I am likewise persuaded even without So much as any shadow of a doubt That by this Parliaments misconstitution We are uncapable of that fruition Which we expect that for the most part thence Proceeds the cause of all our Indigence And that this Parliament is naytheless The Chief if not sole means of our redress Even this which many at this day do seek To bring by disrespect into dislike And to a nullity as if thereby They had no hopes of our recovery For by this Parliament GOD would effect The future Settlement they do expect If they too long delayed hot the pursuit Of an impartial rational Recruit Although the Body of it being made Of Members which among them long have had And yet hath overmany so corrupted That they have not alone much interrupted Their activeness who discontinue sound But now are also likely to confound The whole at once by seeking how to please Their Lusts or Friends yet we might maugre these Restored be by those who have been just And to their utmost pow●r performed their trust It is from those that we denominate This Parliament in them is lodged our Fate Conditionally yea whatsoever they seem This is as things are that which must redeem Our Honour lost and if then it shall Dissolved be down will their Structures fall Not to be raised without the cost of more Than hath been spent upon it heretofore But as they are what prudent man can think It will be long ere totally they sink For while they shall endeavour to subsist Without preserving of their Interest Who chose them or permit their dissolution With our late hardly gained Constitution Which now without enforcement can by none Effected be but by itself alone They shall henceforth for ever be unable To gain a Government that will be stable Unless a Phoenix yet unhatched arise Out of their Ashes with renewed Supplies Which seeing that may probably be never They some Expedient must with speed endeavour In this and after the 45 th' page in the Imprinted Copies the sense in many pages was so mistaken by the Transcriber or the Printer that the Expedient thereby intended is confusedly expressed the result whereof was to this effect afore expressed and it thus follows pag. 50. Let them take notice that the People's rage At their delays is likely to engage In some disorderly Resolve unless They see that followed with more seriousness Which they expect either in a Parliament New-moulded or by what 's equivalent For 't is conceived their sufferings may thereby And thereby only meet a Remedy Which Cure if misadvised I have not been Must with the Parliament itself begin There is a Course whereby without disgrace Or danger they may bring a work to pass That will fecure from hazards cost and pain Which without thanks or profit you sustain Afflicting others too by those confusions Which are increased by irresolutions Until a better therefore shall appear Be pleased this Expediment to hear And if thereby you find a likelihood Of aught conducing to your future good Take heed that no Self-Interest divert That approbation whereunto your heart Inclineth you for GOD will find it out And cross the Counter-work you go about In England and in Wales there is a Shire For every Week that 's numbered in the year According to the Months by Twelve divide The Counties with the Persons qualifi'de For Knights and Burgesses proportioning As near as may be to an equalling The number of the whole so or so many Unto each Month without omitting any As certain then the Month and Day wherein Each Twelfth part an Election shall begin The middle of the Week appearing best As being farthest from the day of Rest On the first Wednesday of each Month let those By whom their Deputies are to be chose Respectively convene in every Shire Upon that Month and Wednesday every year Which is to them assigned then having chosen At Month's end let each twelfth part of the dozen Send up their chosen men to represent Their Shires and Burroughs in the Parliament And on that very day in which they come Let all their Predecessors give them room Thus one Month some & Month by Month for ever Let each Twelfth part still orderly persever To take a turn till every Shire hath had A Month in every year then having made Their choice let them still enter and withdraw Successively by a Perpetual Law No man a place of Trust supplying there By one Election longer than One year Thus as the Thames doth still continue one And is the selfsame River though there run A new supply of waters every day Along her Channel you continue may The Parliament by Annual Supply To be the selfsame everlastingly With very little change or molestation To them who choose or represent the Nation Thus may the Parliament be both together Successive and Perpetual yet neither Enjoying such a Perpetuity As can occasion future Tyranny Or present Grievances save such alone As wholly can prevented be by none Nor shall we be endamaged by Succession Or by Parliaments long Intermission But form a Constitution which will add All Power which may be for advantage had Either to gain what best men would effect Or to prevent the Mischiefs they suspect What I intent may plainly be conceived And to that end some things may be contrived Much better if your Wisdom shall refine The rudeness of my proffered Design And by Authority strict Rules provide Whereby th' Elected may be qualifi'de And their Electors too for 't were unjust In things of this Concernment those to trust Who have disturbed your Peace until a time For their Probation is allotted them And till they likewise by their good desert Make manifest a reconciled heart Their Merits being well weighed by such Judges As may suspend usurped Privileges And since even they who are the best affected To common Welfare often have elected Such as deceive their Trust since there 's no eye But GOD's that sees the heart's Hypocrisy And since we find it left upon Record Even in the Volume of the Sacred Word That LOT's were needful in the choice of those To whom they did a Supreme Power impose Since likewise when the purest Congregation In all the world had with deliberation Elected two a Lot was also cast Before an approbation thereon past To send forth him who was to be employed In execution of the place then void That GOD might also have his choice therein It was no doubt vouchsafed to have been Exemplar that we might with warranty In this approved Precedent comply For GOD by his Election joined with our Will probably upon the Elected pour His Grace This will moreover give content To prudent men and frequently prevent The choice of those whom for sinister ends A numerous corrupted Party sends Why may not then Why should not Two be chose For every place that 's void and one of those By Lot that GOD therein may have a voice And join with men in perfecting their choice Since they who do th●s Nation represent Are GOD's Vicegerents in the Government As well as our trusties who would not more In such a Choice confide than heretofore In their Elections or than they will do In Those hereafter not Elected so Why was it not why should it not be thus If this the Kingdom be of GOD WITH US But that Self-seekers know were this admitted They by reputed fools should be outwitted And not so easily obtain a power Hereafter to oppress and to devour To no good end have LOTS been from among All such Elections shuffled out so long Usurpers and Intruders do well know Lots would their Kingdoms quickly overthrow Make them afraid that Christ will reign indeed As they with discontent oft hear and read And that without control in time to come They should not rant and revel in his Room As now they do and will till we begin A better course than that which we are in If timely some provision might be made To our Elections Lots henceforth to add Much Reformation would thereby redound And great advantages therein be found So might there also if that whensoe'er Th' Elect to perform their duty were Some short speech might be made or cautions read Whereby it should be offered to their heed How much it will concern them to take care What choice they make and what the dangers are Which may ensue when some Sinister ends The dread of greatness or respects to Friends Makes them misplace their trust and cast away Themselves and all for ever in one day This to prevent 't were fitting to make known What Trust that is which is on them bestown What Benefits may generally arise By choosing men courageous honest wise And fearing GOD what perils will ensue Which by forepast examples we may show If Cowards fools ungodly men and vicious Or to the present Government pernicious They should elect They may likewise declare How qualified such persons should appear And warn them that they never do unhallow Their Choice with any such as these that follow Men over-talkative affecting much To hear themselves speak for not many such Can keep or give good Counsel and they 'll prate Much precious time away in vain debate Your Common-Gamesters for they are not just Unto themselves and them we should not trust With other men's Estates who have been known To lose or hazard desperately their own Men to their pleasures overmuch addicted For Public Work will be by them neglected Choose not men evidently avaricious Or of Promotion greedily ambitious For if their ends thereby obtain these may They will be bribed their Country to betray Or quite neglect their Trust to court their Whore And shame their fellows if they do no more Of Irreligious Persons make no choice For these will very seldom give their voice But in the Negative to any motion That may be for advancement of Devotion Choose none who are defamed in any kind For such as they will an occasion find To hinder all enactings that restrain Ill manners or to sober life pertain Elect not Children for it is unfit That in your Supreme Councils they should sit To vote in Grand Affairs whom Law restrains From managing what to themselves pertains Choose none who are observed to withhold Their long due debts when they discharge them could Nor Outlawed persons for unfit are they To make us Laws who would not Law Choose none who shall solicit or propose That they for your Lawmakers may be chose Nor such as their Electors by th' abuse Of Feast Wine and Banquet seduce For they who shall uncalled themselves advance To that great Work have much more arrogance Then real worth and it is ten to one They for themselves have somewhat to be done etc. There are many other particulars pertinent to the Trust mentioned in this Poem as also other precautions and predictions of the good and evil consequences likely to ensue in that Poem hinted with a purpose only to bring those things to consideration which wiser men may improve according to the Author's intention by a better method than is here proposed therefore to the perusal thereof the Reader is referred The AUTHOR's EMBLEMS Imprinted 1634. THis Book written by the said Author in his younger years is a Poem in Folio containing two hundred Figures engraven in Copper and illustrated with Morals and a Lottery annexed the better to insinuate into young Readers those Divine Morals and Civil Documents which are thereby tendered to consideration Out of those a few only are collected the rest may be perused in the Original In the First Book of Emblems pag. 2 is a Laureate head fixed upon a Basis of Stone Still fixed and with triumphant Laurel crowned Is truest Wisdom which expressed thus Among some old Impressa's we have found And much this Emblem hath instructed us From hence we learn that Prudence doth not flow From those unconstant men whom every blast Or slight occasion turneth to and fro But from a settled head that standeth fast Who ever shoulders him he gives not place What storm soe'er his Times or Fortune's breath He neither hides his brow nor turns his face But keeps a look undaunted even in death The Laureate Head upon a Pillar set This intimates and his Bay-wreath doth show That Constant Wisdom shall a Conquest get When Giddy Policy prevails not so If therefore thou art willing to be taught Propose good Ends with honest means thereto And therein constant be till thou hast brought That to perfection which thou hast to do Let neither flattering Pleasures Fear Disgrace Nor Scoffing Censures threatenings or the Slights Of fawning Sycophants obstruct that Race To which a blameless Prudence thee invites Though others plot conspire and undermine Keep then a plain right path let not their Course Make thee without just cause to alter thine Though for the present it may seem the worse He that thus acts puts Policy to Shool And makes the Machavilian prove a fool In the same Book pag. 5. A Spade a Serpent and a Wreath of Laurel Suppose you Sirs those mimic Apes you meet In strange fantastic habits or the Rabble That with gay Clothes embroider out the street Are truly Worshipful or Honourable Or can you think that to be born the Son Of some rich Alderman or ancient Peer Or that the Fame your Predecessors won May claim such Wreaths as due deservings wear Is honour due to them who ●●end their days In courting one another or consuming Their Fortunes and themselves ●n Drabs and Plays In sleeping drinking and Tobacco fuming Not so for though such Fools like children place Gay Titles on each other Wise men know What slaves they be how despicably base And where such Attributes would better show An idle body clothes a vicious mind And what at best is purchased by the same Is nothing else but stinking smoke and wind Or frothy bubbles of an empty fame True Glory none did ever purchase yet Until he to be Virtuous did attain And all their Virtues are but counterfeit Who labour not for what they would obtain And this Impressa doth infer no less For by the Spade is Labour here impli'de The Snake a virtuous Prudence doth express And Glory by the Wreath is typifi'de For where a virtuous Industry is found It with a Wreath of Glory shall be crowned In the same Book pag. 8. The Emblem is a Skeleton with this following descant Why silly man so much admirest thou Thy present Fortune over-valuing so Thy person or the beauty of thy brow And in fantastic habits clothed go Why dost thou live in riotous excess And boast as if the flesh immortal were Why dost thou covet so why so oppress And o'er thy fellow-Creatures domineer Behold this Emblem such a one was he Whom this doth represent as now thou art And such a fleshless Rawbone thou shalt be Though yet thou seem'st to act a comelier part Observe it well and mark what ugliness Stairs through the sightless eye-holes from within Note those lean Crags and with what gastliness That horrid countenance doth seem to grin Well heed it and when thou hast seen the same Pluck down that Pride which puffs thee now so high Boast not of shape or features but for shame Repent of all thy former Vanity And having learned that all men must become Such bare Anatomies that such a Fate No mortal Power or Wit can guard thee from Live so that Death may better thy Estate Consider who created thee and why Rouse up thy Spirit ere thy flesh decays Pursue things honest with true Piety And seek thy welfare in thy Maker's praise So when of life and form death shall deprive thee Life with Eternal Glory GOD will give thee In the same Book pag. 11. The Figure of one rolling a Stone up a steep Hill A Massy Millstone up a tedious Hill With endless labour Sisyphus doth roll And down when raised aloft it tumbleth still To keep employed his afflicted soul On him this toil is feigned to be imposed To be though vain perpetually assayed But some there be by no such straight enclosed Who on themselves as endless tasks have laid Yea knowing not or without care to know How they are worn and wearied out in vain They plunge themselves into a world of Woe To seek uncertain ease in certain pain Such fools are they who dream they shall acquire A mind content by scrabling still for more For wealth increasing doth increase desire And makes less contentation than before Such also they who their endeavour stretch To climb by Titles to true Honour's height For having gotten one Ambitions reach Another comes perpetually in sight And their stupidity is nothing less Who fancy flesh and blood may raised be Unto the top of perfect Holiness For at the best corrupt and vile are we Yet we are bound in Faith with love and hope To roll the stone of good endeavour still As near as may be to perfections top Though back again it tumbles down the hill For then what works had never power to do GOD by his Grace will freely bring us to In the same Book p. 13. A man in a Boat with Sails and Oars No wonder he a prosperous Voyage finds Who hath both Sails and Oars to serve his turn And still assisted with propitious Winds Is to his wished Harbour timely born Nor is it very strange if they who lack Those helps on which the Common Faith depends And from their hoped for Aims repelled back And miss of that to which their labour tends Not in the Ships the Winds the Oars or Sails Nor in the want of outward means alone Consists it that our hope succeeds or fails But most in that which men least think upon Some well endeavour and their pains are blessed With Gales that are so prosperous that they Fly safe and swiftly on among the best Whilst others toil hard and are cast away Some long time on this World's wide Ocean float And seldom Winds or Tides assistance have Nor Sail nor Oar nor Anchor nor sound Boat Enjoying neither skill themselves to save And yet escape Some other too there are Who neither want fit means nor do neglect Good Industry nor are without due care Or active skill yet find small good effect However let still thy Intent be just Then add what means thou canst to compass it ●nd though means fails admit of no distrust But fearlessly to GOD thy ways commit For he where Faith and Honesty he finds Turns loss to gain and storms to prosperous winds In the Fourth Book p. 257. The Figure is an Hourglass and the Sand almost run out This Glass declares how Time doth pass away And if th' annexed Motto truth doth say The Time that 's gone is lost This to be true Experience too doth manifestly show How fast their time departs they least perceive From whom it steals before they take their leave Of what they love and their last hour is run Before they do suppose it is begun Therefore how fast it slide let them be taught Hereby who foolishly put out of thought Their latter end or always do presume Or overlargely hope on time to come The present hours nor thankfully enjoying Nor prudently or honestly employing Else these will peradventure too late find When better understanding brings to mind How foolishly they hitherto have spent Time past that 't is not to their detriment Lost only but which is much worse than so Lost with a thousand other losses too Which to redeem nor Wit nor Wealth nor Power Can purchase them one minute of an hour Consider this all ye that spend the prime The Moon-tides and the Twilights of your Time In Play-games or inquest of needless things As if ye could at pleasure nip Times wings Or turn his Glass or had a Life or twain To live when you had fooled this out in vain Short is the present lost times passed be And Time to come you are not sure to see It would make this Review too long to be called a Breviate if it should be enlarged with any more of these Emblems and it may be hoped these few gleaned out of them will suffice to make that heeded which is precautioned and predicted in those Four Books and that some also who did read them heretofore either negligently or in sport only will peruse them to better purpose An Interjection occasioned by a sudden Ejaculation whilst this Review of Neglected Remembrances was transcribing which shall here stand inserted thought it be no part of what was heretofore expressed or intended to be hereunto added ALAS in this Review to what good end My words my time and labour thus to spend Am I enforced Why am I troublesome To others and myself of things to come Or passed still to make mention since I see Nor Judgements whereof sensible men be From day to day nor Mercies which betwixt Those Judgements intervene or intermixed ●●ch heeded are although they such have been As are not in one Age or Place oft seen Oh Times Oh Manners how far will these Nations Proceed at last in their Prevarications If GOD thereto a bounder shall not set And they seek him no more than they do yet Our Posture at this present is the same With israels when they forth from Egypt came Two Mountains on both sides of them they had O'er which no Pass in safety could be made Before them was a Sea where Ship or Boat To waft them over could not then be got Behind them Pharaoh with a dreadful Host Pursued them to recover what was lost And to reduce them to that servile state Which they were hopeful had been out of date Or to destroy them quite where did appear No likely hope of a Deliverer For means of safety they could none espy Within the prospect of a carnal eye They thus affrighted to the LORD then cried Not as they should who do in him confi'de But with more fear than faith nay worse than so They murmured and upbraided Moses too In an uncivil and ingrateful mode As if without a warranty from GOD He had imprudently pursued a course Which they foresaw and told him would make worse Their bad Condition yea expressed a will Slaves as they had been to continue still Yet he the meekest person who then lived As if he neither at that time perceived How him they injured or how justly they Deserved what seemed probable that day Or how much base unmanly slavishness Their own tongues did apparently express He waved their murmurs whilst they were afraid As if nought had amiss by them been said And like a loving Father speaking to His Children knowing not when they mis-do Said gently thus Fear not stand still and see With patience how ye shall delivered be For these Egyptians who are now before Your eyes this day shall never fright you more And so befell it for next morn they saw Their foes lie dead of whom they stood in awe Drowned by the waves and on that Seashore cast Through which they dryshod and in safety past Yet both that with those Mercies which before GOD had vouchsafed with very many more Soon after seemed to be so forgot As if they them or him regarded not Now at this present time such is our case We are beleaguered as that People was With hazards upon every side cozened With dangers both before us and behind Not only having many Foreign Foes But some likewise at home as bad as those And worse within us also who have brought us To greater straits than all our Foes without us Those Jews we parallel in every thing Who injured Moses by their murmuring And are as thankless unto GOD who hath Here acted both in Mercy and in Wrath As many Wonders as by him were shown In Egypt when King Pharaoh was o'erthrown Though they appear not such unto their sense Who shut the eyes of their Intelligence We as distrustful are as they as giddy In every Trial too we are as ready To make a Golden Calf and to prefer That Idol before our Deliverer As much as they we long to repossess The fleshpots of our Lusts our Slavishness Which we did cry to be delivered from As soon as into any straight we come Yet GOD hath been to us and at this time Continues the same GOD he was to them Though their example which should make us better Hath made our Provocations much the greater He with us dealeth as a Father mild Whose heart is grieved by a froward Child And as he did with stubborn Ephraim When Anger and Compassion moved him To cry out thus What shall I do to thee For at a stand with us he seems to be Both by his frequently himself estranging And by his oft returning and oft changing His Judgements and his Mercies that we may Be changed and reform our crooked way We have this day though in another mode The daily Presence of our gracious GOD To lead us through that Wilderness of Sin In which we have a long time wand'ring been He guides guards and provideth us Supplies In all our wants though in another wise And is with us as wonderfully here As when his People brought from Egypt were The selfsame Cloud and Pillar we have had Though varied and as effectual made To all intents and purposes as they Then had and to refresh us in the way Unto the Land of Rest we have that Rock Whereof they drank unto that purpose broke And though we oft stray shall to what we tend Attain when we are at our Journeys end If we believe and persevere to do So much as GOD enableth us unto For he requireth not from any one A scruple more than may by him be done Nor doth expect from any to receive More than what he at first or last shall give Because of all omissions and misactions He hath in full accepted satisfactions By his Deservings who secure us may From whatsoever Debts we cannot pay If on his Mediation we depend With Faith and Penitence at our lives end That Mark retaining which distinguisheth Christ's chosen Sheep from Goats in Life and Death To wit that love to him and to each other Which knits for ever GOD and Man together This is that everlasting Gospel which We were foretold an Angel was to preach To every Kindred People Tongue and Nation Throughout the earth to bring men to Salvation And for a preparation thereunto He cried aloud as all true Prophets do Fear God to Him and to the Lamb give praise For now the hour is come these are the days Wherein his Judgements must be poured on them Who shall not glorify and worship him By whom Heaven Earth the Fountains & the Seas Created were and every thing in these The fear of God is that which first lets in True Wisdom that brings Penitence for sin By these within the heart of man is wrought Such Faith and Grace that they then taking root Do seasonably bring forth such blessed fruit As by degrees destroys the thorns and weeds Which either choke or starve the holy Seeds From whence the means of those enjoyments springs Whereof to us that Gospel tidings brings This method long ago was practised By John the Baptist when he ushered Christ and his Everlasting Gospel in By preaching of true penitence for sin And thereby did prepare before his face The way intended to soulsaving Grace Such Consequents as promised are to spring From Christ and his apostles publishing This Gospel whether it shall come abroad As preached in the ordinary mode Or by the Holy Ghost which oft conveys The same by extraordinary ways Are without fail to them vouchsafed for ever Who entertain it and shall still endeavour Conformity sincerely that to do Which Grace and Nature them enables to But everlastingly it shall not be Preached in this World For this believe must we That his Commission who Authorized Those men by whom it was first published Is nigh expired and that it shall not last One minute longer when that date is past Which will be in that Moment wherein all Shall die or changed be but sooner shall Be so to them who summoned are away By Death before that Grand Assizes day If it be so let us take timely heed What Doctrine thence doth by result proceed For Christ himself is he who did predict The Judgements which we both feel and expect He is that Angel in a Mystery Who through the midst of the Heavens did fly 't was he whom 'twixt the Heavens of the Law And Gospel many Prophets flying saw To bring the News and Means to every Nation Of Peace on Earth by reconciliation 'Twixt GOD and Man We have already seen Some of those Tokens which foretold have been To signify to us the General Doom That should soon after their appearance come And should they be commemorated here It very evidently would appear That hitherward it speedily advances To them who heed well the known Circumstances In GOD's and humane Actings He hath poured The Viols forth whereby some are devoured And some tormented yet most men grow more Blasphemous and more wicked than before And had we no sign else to predeclare The sounding of the Seventh Trump is near Save that and those Divisions which of late Republics Realms and Persons separate From others and themselves we need not show Another Symptom of what will ensue To hasten such Dooms among other Crimes Which are predominant in these our times One I have seen reiterated here With impudence in public every year Which will not go unpunished though the Nation Hath entertained it with much veneration But I have yet no warrant to declare it And therefore till I have so will forbear it With these there is likewise one special Sign Concurrent mentioned in Records Divine Not least considerable 't is a defection By wanting of that Natural affection Which constitutes the Manhood for that sin Doth to be Epidemieal begin Yea even the natural Act of Generation Which was ordained for our preservation So is corrupted into an excess Of brutish Lustings beyond beastliness And filthiness grown up to such a height That many in their sins take less delight Except they lawlessy be carried on And shall be likewise impudently done To which end even our honest Recreations Are lately scandalised by these Nations And oft abused yea the Tunes and Songs Which to a sober merriment belongs Are so estranged now from what they were In former times and within Sixty year That in my apprehension there doth seem So vast a difference betwixt these and them As 'twixt the croakings of a Raven's throat And Linnets or a Nightingales clear note Which unto me appeareth to portend Our pleasant things are drawing to an end And that our sins and their deserved doom Are now almost to their last period come One Sign more I will add unto those many Forementioned which as signal is as any Some of the true Christ do begin to doubt And where to find another hunt about Not wanting such as will be undertaking To bring them unto one of their own making Thus much as I believe his words implies Who said false Christ's and Prophets should arise In latter times for I have in my days Seen that to be fulfilled many ways The greatest number Christians now professed Send one another unto Antichrist And say that 's he In Turkey at this day He is expected as reports do say And many last year were in expectation To hear thereof ere now a confirmation And I because I credit not that Fame A man of little Faith reputed am Some confidently tell us he is here To wit in this Church whereof now we are And so I hope although it may be thought We have not entertained him as we ought Nor are so charitable unto them Who conscientiously do worship him Some say he 's there in such or such a place Wherein a secret Meeting is or was Some other send men to the Wilderness Affirming he is there perhaps by this Intruding that he by the Humane Creature May found be in his own wild untiled Nature But this believe not for till thither he Comes of himself found there he cannot be Nor any where save where that Love resides Which doth expel that self-love which divides His Flocks and causeth men no care to take Those breaches to repair which Pride doth make Not many take into consideration How to improve aright this Visitation They do both good and evil things mis-name The wicked they acquit the righteous blame Their Interests sometimes confound together To th' one sometimes apply what 's due to th' other And as the Jews their type did justify Themselves in acting that Impiety For which they are corrected we begin To say like them the troubles we are in And loss of all the good things now bereft Befall us only because we had left Such Idolizing as when Spice-Cakes given For an Oblation to the Queen of Heaven By them omitted were Such thoughts have we Of GOD and of those Judgements which now be On us inflicted yea their parallel We are in all wherein they did not well I am not able to enumerate The many ways whereby we separate From one another nor dare say how few Go right if there be but one way that 's true Nor know how to be safe unless there were As well a preaching to the heart as ear For most what now proceeding from the mouth Is only counter-pleading between Truth And error which both sides to fortify With so much confidency do apply The words or meanings of Gods holy writ That had we no way to ascertain it But these or those men's or my yea or no None could know what they should believe or do For as well Supreme Powers as private men Are Patrons of gross errors now and then And by Authority that is suppressed Which was by like Authority professed With every windy Doctrine flured about Some are not half so zealously devout And resolute professors of what 's true As of what is Heretical and New And others oldest and sound Truths condemn Because they are but Novelties to them Some term all those fanatics who descent From them in judgement although innocent Some call them Saints and Martyrs who by some Are judged the cause of all the Plagues now come The Romanists unto our Separation From them ascribe this present Visitation Some others say it is our toleration Of their Idolatries which plagues this Nation Some to entrenching on men's Consciences Impute it Some to our tolerating these Some to expelling of the Hi'rarchy Some to suppressing the Presbytery Some to Rebellious actings against Kings Some other unto quite contrary things And the result of all summed up together Is this Each shifts his guilt off to another But GOD before the Round hath wheeled about Will find the principal Offenders out Either while time runs on or when he shall To universal judgement summon all That which should have two feet to stand upon We cripple by allowing it but one Some zealous are for Temples built with stones Some for those spiritualised in flesh and bones Some are for Conquests by the temporal Sword Some to be Victors by the Two-edged Word Some look for Christ in that jerusalem Which was in Palestine and some for him In that jerusalem which doth descend From Heaven do in Faith and Hope attend And too too often also they who be At union in their judgements disagree So long for By-ends timely to improve Their knowledge faith and works by Christian Love That in all whereby they to merit thought Their Labour 's lost and all for which they wrought Delusions now so many are and such In these last times that they endanger much Even GOD's Elect and do presignify The day of Vengeance is approaching nigh And partly seems to be charactared By what the best men hope and worst men dread However let no soul despair that hath Sad apprehensions of the day of Wrath By this or what in my Review you find Conditionally predicted to remind What was neglected for among us here Christ's everlasting Gospel to our ear Is preached yet and not yet is the day Of Reconcilement passed quite away Come let us therefore ere it shall grow dark To scape the Storm and Fire fly to th' Ark Which hath been slighted there is yet a place For Mercy and an open door for Grace When Penitence brings Reformation in It makes a Blessing what a Plague had been Yea than 't will to her future weal be turned That this great City was to ashes burned She Phoenixlike shall gloriously arise Out of that Rubbish wherein now she lies And I which now am disrespected here Shall have a Monument erected there GOD all advantages to save us takes Forsaketh none till him he first forsakes Made not one man though some so please to say To be a sinner or a castaway But all in love that they might be by him Possessed with delight and he by them For when the sin of one had all destroyed That his Love should not thereby be made void He to redeem them gave his only Son Who ransomed all again excepting none Still by his actings in the dispensation Of judgements and of Mercies to this Nation Even by the late Plague of devouring fire He manifests that he doth not desire Our total Ruin but takes all occasions Allowed by justice for our preservations And though our sins as red as Scarlet show He can and will make us as white as snow If we repent them or if we but would Endeavour it so far forth as we could For he in sinners deaths takes no delight Or any without cause to grieve or smite But in pure love dispenseth his correction To bring our happiness unto perfection This is my Creed which should I not confess To glorify GOD's Love and Righteoussness When by occasions thereto moved I am That others may likewise believe the same I merited to be shut out from those To whom GOD everlasting Mercy shows For could we see or apprehend how near He standeth when far off he doth appear Co-operating for and with us too In that which for ourselves we cannot do We would more love then fear him though his blows Are very sharp since intents by those Is hammering the self-love of the Creature Into the Will and Temper of his Nature To make true Union which till then will be Impossible for nothing can agree With aught so perfectly as to unite When diametrically opposite As those two Natures be because the other Th' one would destroy if till then knit together Repine not therefore at what GOD shall do What ere it be but willingly thereto Submit yourselves and heartily repent Your Provocations Let us all lament Not thereto frighted by a slavish fear Of Judgements which now felt or threatened are By this Review but in pure love to him Whose Mercy saves when Justice might condemn And persevereth to redintegrate By Love even those who persevered in Hate Do thus and then the judgements which in part Now executing are GOD will divert Repent what you have done and he will too Repent of what he threatened hath to do For such Repentance well consists with that Immutability which doth relate Unto the Deity and will accord With Attributes ascribed in his Word Yea though from my Predictions you scape free I shall then counted a true Prophet be And this my Interjection will appear Not so improperly inserted here As I myself supposed when 't was begun It would appear to many being done For till I had composed what here is penned I knew not all whereto it might extend Nor know I yet and therefore I do leave it To such effects as GOD shall please to give it But how my soul how came it so to pass That this Ejaculation with Alas And with sad Muse was begun at first Since thou dost know that when things are at worst GOD then comes in and often doth repair Our Breaches when brought near unto despair The Aid delayed a while he brings at length Even when we have no likely means or strength To help ourselves why then shouldst thou be sad Who frequently experiments hast had That Mercy hath to thee been more then doubled When others thought thee most extremely troubled Thou wert vouchsafed the greatest inward Rest When in thy Body thou seemedst most oppressed And to be kept unharmed in the flame Is more than preservation from the same Then what thou hast persuaded others to Continue as thou hast professed to do In what GOD's glory may advance persever Depend on him be pleased with whatsoever He either shall permit or hath decreed And to discharge thy Conscience still proceed Not fearing that thy labour or thy cost In doing of thy Duty will be lost For fully recompensed thy pains would be Though thou shouldst edify but two or three The World the Devil yea mine own flesh too Offended much with what I say or do Conspire together and Confederates be Both to discourage and disparage me Pretending they have somewhat to produce To prove me blamable without excuse And may destroy me if nought intervene To bar the prosecuting what they mean Yet I defy them both to act and say The worst they either would effect or may For though they find me many grains too light I have a white Stone that will make up weight And such a Friend as hath on me bestown A Righteousness more perfect than mine own He cheers me with assurance that he will To me what he hath been continue still By GOD's free-gift this hope this faith I have And they will send me safe beyond my Grav● VATICINIUM CAUSUALE Imprinted 1655. THis being composed upon a special Occasion whilst Oliver Cromwell was in Power the following Prediction was therein expressed pag. 12. And now great Oliver to thee likewise Let this be known and do thou not despise The Publisher GOD doth expect to have Honour from him to whom he honour gave That such as bear Rule over men be just That they their Vows infringe not nor his Trust That they consider he bestows large Measure Of Power upon them not to act their pleasure Or to fulfil their Lusts but doth enlarge His Bounty that their Place they may discharge With Courage That he Riches doth provide Lest Avarice might draw their hearts aside Or wants to do Injustice them compel That he gives Honour not to make them swell Above their Brethren but them to exempt From what may mis-befall them by contempt And that all these things are on them bestown Much more for others sakes then for their own Know Sir that GOD from persons in your Place Expects all this and to that end gives Grace And Power for ask and what ere some say That he no man compels to go astray Nor leaves nor hardens any not the worst Till love to selfuess makes them leave him first If this thou well considering shalt act Accordingly performing thy Contract With GOD and with his People he shall then Give thee the loves and hearts of all good men Fix thee as firmly as the Rocky shores Which slight the Ocean when it foams and roars Thy Name shall spread and glorify much more Than all thy Predecessors heretofore Yea in Fame's Book thou mayst enroled be The first who made this People truly free Be Firstborn of those Vice-Roys who shall take Their Thrones from Him whose Kingdom down will break All Monarchies of Tyrants with all those Who help patch up the Clay and Iron Toes The Relics of that Image which hath been The Prop of him that 's called the Man of Sin All this may be and if thou strive to go The way that open lies it shall be so Oh! lose not this advantage for a Bubble Which in vain hope begins and ends in trouble And lastly be it known not by event Which may be to thy future detriment But by Precaution that if fail thou shalt Without this People's obstinate default Of what they justly from thee may expect Who art advanced their Freedom to protect Or shalt abuse thy Power them to oppress Or leave them unrelieved in their distress So that they shall be forced to cry and call To GOD for aid he hear and help them shall Search what 's misdone and though their former sin Hath great and full of Provocations been He for the present time will pass it by And on thy failings only cast an eye Avenge their Cause call thee account to give Of all those favours which thou didst receive Of that late Mercy too among the rest Which did occasion what is here expressed And with much indignation cast thee down When to its height thy confidence is grown There were several Addresses made to Oliver Cromwell and his Son Richard by this Author whilst they exercised the Supreme Power amounting to above Two Quires of Paper in which were many Seasonable Precautions and Remembrances to them tendered with a sober boldness as also many Predictions of what would succeed if they neglected what was thereby precautioned which are now observed to have been verified But these being delivered sealed up into their own hands and not imprinted are all omitted in this Review Verses to the King's Majesty Written immediately after His Restauration and imprinted Anno 1662. IN the sixth page the Author thus proceeds with what he had begun I had presumed a personal Address Long since but difficult is an Access For such as I appear who hazard blame And disrespect enough where I now am Because that which to do my Conscience calls Is by some numbered among Criminals In that regard this Paper must make way For gaining an admittance as it may And will perhaps presented be by some Who shall have entrance where I must not come I cannot write strong lines with swelling words Whose Elegancy scarcely room affords For sober sense nor muster up their Names Whom History or whom Tradition fame's For bravest Achievements since time first begun And then say You have all of them outgone And think my foolish Words may add unto Your honour more than your own Deeds can do Or that there 's any wise man who gives Creed To what they in a flattering Poem read It it is not in the Power of any other By Pen or Tongue to clear up or to smother Your true Deserts for in Your Self that lies Which either them be clouds or Dignifies No other thoughts I entertain of You But such as I may think and you allow Yet to extol Your Worth I shall not dare Till I know truly what Your Virtues are For though to Flat'rers all Kings seem to be Of like Desert they seem not so to me I 'll serve You faithfully in what I may And You as King love honour and obey I would conceal not publish Your Defects If I knew any and give due respects To all Your Merits but I will not own One Line that praises them till they are known For till I know I give but what is due I am a Liar though my words be true Since equally both good and evil things Are famed of the best and worst of Kings A stranger likewise You have been long time To most of Your own Subjects in this Clime And I was neyer where I did behold Your face since you were two or three years old What good soever therefore I aver Of You I shall but seem a Flatterer Yea You Yourself would think so should I add Those Virtues which You know You never had And Praise which is ascribed to any one I●n that mode is a little less than none But little credit also hath a Poet To celebrate Your Worth when he shall know it Or counterpoise or silence Contradictions Since most esteem his Writings to be Fictions And You would have more honour than from them By these blunt Lines if they had Your esteem I therefore so shall study to increase Your Honour that I may not make it less And whatsoever I can say or do Although You give a Countermand thereto I 'll say and do it when I shall be sure Your Life or Peace or Honour 't will secure And if this be a fault I do intend To be thus faulty till my life shall end I know well Royal Sir who 't is that says To please great men deserves not meanest praise I see how 't is approved and what they gain Who can that thriving Faculty attain Yet I shall wave that Art and will assay To do You honour in another way By giving You occasions to express Your Justice Mercy and Your Prudentness That You Yourself may make the World to see Your Virtues more than words can say they be To that end much might in my Caese be shown But rather for Your sake then for mine own Is this Address yea rather to prevent What may be Your Harm than my Detriment I 'll therefore wave that too that no self-end May frustrate what I chiefly do intend etc. Page 20 it thus follows lest my good intent To You some future Casualties prevent I will so far forth as my Chain doth stretch And my own shortened Arm and Hand will reach Exhibit such Expedients as from time And other Herbs I 've sucked within our Clime And wanting better Gifts will offer You This little Cluster of those Grapes which grew Upon my Withered Vine for though they are But sour Your Kingdom yields none wholesomer If you shall seasonably press out the Juice And then assume it without prejudice This Time is Critical the ways be rough And many of those Chariot Wheels fly off By which Your Marches expedited seemed And lost Advantages must be redeemed Lest when You think that they are come to hand Your main Expectances are at a stand Or put so far back that You may survive Your hopes and Your own happiness outlive I wish it otherwise and know it may Be as I wish if you the means assay Not giving ear to those who will withstand Your good and that which GOD hath now in hand I have discharged my Conscience and so shall What ever for so doing doth befall And hope that will not wholly be despised Which now shall be in faithfulness advised To those men do not overmuch adhere Who think all Wisdom lies within their Sphere For Honours Riches and Self-Interest Have made wise men as brutish as a Beast Heed other while what Common Fame doth say As well as what Your Courtier's whisper may Lest You be ignorant of many things Whose cognizance is pertinent to Kings Make no man Your Chief Confident but he That is discreet and honest famed to be Lest he deceives Your Trust and in the close Destroys Your old Friends and begets new Foes Let Justice be your Sceptre and Your Crown Be Mercy and if You would keep Your own Give that to others which to them belongs And free the poor and fatherless from wrongs Especially Your main Endeavours bend To make & keep Your Sovereign Lord Your Friend And if You would be settled on Your Throne Take care that His Usurped be by none Enjoy Your Conscience whatsoe'er it be So other men may have their Conscience free And hang me for a Traitor if hereby You than enjoy not more Security Than what Your strength by Land & Sea now gives And all that Humane Policy contrives Let Truth and Error fight it out together Whilst Civil Peace disturbed is by neither Which may be so provided for that none Shall justly be displeased with what is done Nor You thenceforward be for evermore Disturbed as You have been heretofore If You neglect this and I disobey 'T will be with much grief and no other way But only passively and whatsoever I suffer will Your Welfare still endeavour To be of this mind thousands I believe Whom You to favour do not yet receive And whilst they are excluded though in peace They live suspicions daily will increase By which You may have trouble and they blame Who shall be no way guilty of the same Your taking timely opportunities Now offered from what yet before You lies May render You a blessed Instrument In making smooth way to that Government Which Tyrants and ungodly men most fear You and Your Subjects mutually endear More glorious make Your Temporary Throne Then ever English King yet sat upon And Your Name to be terrible to those Who to Christ's Kingdom shall continue Foes Herein I 've spoke according to my Creed Wishing my just hopes may thereon succeed And that upon Your heart it may work more Than what I 've spoke to others heretofore But GOD's time is at hand within his Power Are all men's ways yea both Your heart and our And I will patiently submit unto What either he or you shall please to do Not ask whatsoever I seem to want Ought more than You spontaneously shall grant For what I may expect if You deny So far as need shall be GOD will supply The Liberty I covet to enjoy Is that which no man living can destroy The Wealth I aim at is nor less nor more But to be well contented rich or poor And if I had a will my Wits to strain That I to Earthly Honours might attain I should to no such Vulgar Heights aspire As now are Objects of most men's desire Or to a style of so mean Consequence As is an Earl a Marquis Duke or Prince Or to be called Your Cousin For no less Would satisfy my large Ambitiousness But such a Dignity as did commend His Loyalty whom David called Friend And means enough to make a Parallel Of every Traitor with Achitophel For than you should in very short time see That no man more deserves esteemed to be Your Loyal Subject A THANKFUL RETRIBUTION Imprinted 1649. THis was written to express the Author's gratitude to some few Members of Parliament who without his seeking had propounded an Expedient whereby to satisfy his just Demands but being without effect that which was neglected is here again revived as pertinent to consideration at this time Though Wishes are but words Thanks are no more And my Oppressions make me not so poor But that I have yet Thanks enough to pay For Fifty thousand Wishes in one day And I much thank you Page the Second But truly I expect not yet to see The World neglect her own to think on me Nor do I ought for my Advantage crave Whereby the Public may disprofit have I rather wish That what is truly known By Service and by Grant to be mine own Might be conferred or means at least whereby My Labours might support my Family Till I received my deuce For that would please My longing more than all those Offices Which others covet and wherein few can At once grow rich and be an honest man And wherein as Affairs are managed now He that would fain be honest knows not how I value not myself so high to set My heart on what I am not like to get No nor so low but that if I had wings To reach them I would fly at th' highest things Your House could give me or the world could show me Yet set them at a distance far below me For he who of himself esteem shall make By those things which the World may give or take Or he who by his Trappings or his Place Doth prise himself his Manhood doth debase If I well know my heart I seek no more Of this World's Honour or of her vast store Than what sufficeth to defray the Debts Which Duty and Necessity now sets Upon me or which may yield means to do Those Works which God may seem to call me to And keep up that frail part of me which dies Or lives unactive without due supplies Yet when I did perceive with what disdain Some did your friendly motion entertain And how they jeered thereat it tempted me To wish your Motion might vouchsafed be That I might see how mad the Fools would grow With Envy if they lived to see it so One said the Place was fitter to reward A Member of your House and it appeared Thereby to me that he had quite forgot As others do the Selfdenying Vote Some seem to think that seeing I am poor whate'er they owe me they should give no more Than suits my present Fortune as if I With my Estate had lost my Dignity And he had got it who since t'other day Is grown Sub-Grandee from a beggar-boy By such an Occupation as hath yet Neither improved his Honesty or Wit But let these make the best of their New Lot So mine they wrong not I envy them not And 't is my honour rather than my shame Now to be poor because I poor became Not by mine own default and in a time When to be very rich implies a crime For who with honour to great Wealth can rise When all the Land is full of poor men's cries Or what shame thereby him can seize upon Who wants when Kings and Kingdoms are undone Or poor became because he lent and gave His whole Estate the Neighbourhood to save And what at last will unto such succeed Who when they may relieve not that man's need I covet not the Place proposed for me Although as capable thereof as he Who did possess it for I know too well Wherein that man his Neighbours must excel Who hath an aim so high except there shall Some extraordinary Change befall And me I think it would advance no more Than did that Office I held heretofore For in these Isles I have already had A Place more honourable though not made So much account of then 't is to supply The greatest Office in your Chancery Yea more than to possess the place of him Who in that Court is Officer Supreme And as a mark of Honour bears about A Silver Seal in an Embroidered Clout I have been honoured to draw up Records For him that 's King of Kings and Lord of Lords To be unto this Isle Remembrancer And as it were a Public Register To that Supreme High and most awful Court From whence proceeds no Sentence no Report No Order or Injunction no Decree Edicts or Dooms but such as Righteous be And where the Judge will to no side be swayed By Eloquence or Force or bribed or prayed To be more merciful or more severe Than Justice and true Clemency may bear Yea although at this present heeded not By many and by others quite forgot I have enroled and registered to stand Upon Record what Mercies to this Land Have been vouchsafed what ought to have been done To keep away the Judgements coming on Shown how the King and how the People might Have 'scaped the hands which both of them now smite Foretold the War before it came to pass Who should begin the Quarrel in this place What sad Effects would follow what regard My words would find how they should me reward With many other things which will appear In those Records whilst men speak English here And thousands will in future time confess Those things fulfilled which I did fore-express Who shall it may be likewise live to see That GOD observes who have abused me For hitherto though I despised appear He spares my life upholds my Spirit here Feeds me by his own hand sometimes by men By Ravens and by Angels now and then Twice when my powerful Foes had by their might Deprived me of my Subsistence quite He did supply my wants when I nor knew Nor thought how Oil or Meal I could renew Against proud Prelates and corrupted Peers He did maintain about me many years A Watchful Guard which kept me from their Power When me they did endeavour to devour And from my troubles did release me too By doing what some though would me undo Yea when the greatest Lion loudly roared And roused against me when the bloody Sword Was drawn upon me when a Poisonous Pest Breathes killing Vapours when I was oppressed On every side and when I was forsaken Well nigh of all GOD notice of me took Saved me from spoil from slaughter from infection And honoured me even by his own protection This being so my Scorners whom I hear At your Proposal do both grudge and jeer Have no such cause as their misdeeming may Suppose they had your motion to gainsay 'T was fear perhaps I might have made the Place Henceforth less profitable than it was For if that Register shall conscience make At every Hearing such true Notes to take Of what is Ordered and so careful be To draw up every Sentence and Decree As not to leave that doubtful which the Court Entrusts to his discretion and report Ambiguous Orders would not so enlarge The Clients trouble and his needless charge Either by words too many or too few Or of less weight then to the sense was due New motions to beget and thereupon New Orders till both parties are undone When to prevent this due care shall be took You will not so much for great Places look To gratify your Friends as you will then To execute them seek out fitting men No Place will then be thought too good for those Who for your sakes have made their friends their foes They shall then get at least their own again Who hitherto have spent themselves in vain And out of zeal unto the Common Good Adventured Liberty Estates and Blood Whilst others by their patience cost and sweat Grow to their Country's damage Rich and Great Then they who have been innocently wife Will see in what their Wealth and safety lies And than it may be some fair Lot among My Brethren will befall me short or long When such a Change I find I shall begin To doubt almost what Climate I am in I shall not for a good space after take The boldness to profess I am awake Or that a Reformation in hath crept Whilst I was either in the dark or slept And shall of our distractions hope to see A better end then likely now to be Then those things which we yet hear and behold With fear and sorrow shall with joy be told And then shall I no whit displeased grow Whether I sit higher or more low Or whether they who me should think upon Give me that Office or a worse or none For whatsoever befalls I shall be fed And so shall mine whilst other men have bread From your well-wishings these expressions flow From these perhaps another fruit may grow From that another and from those again Another till your wishes you obtain And our Endeavours though what we intent Succeed not shall be prosperous in the end BONI OMINIS VOTUM Imprinted 1656. THis as a Symptom of a Good Omen was occasioned by the summoning of Extraordinary Grand Juries out of the eminent Baronet's Knights Esquires and Gentlemen to serve in their respective Counties at the Summer Assizes 1656 which because it offers what is fit to be considered and remembered and is also very short shall be here inserted without Abreviation Good speed to this Republic and increase Of Happiness to those who seek her Peace Sad things are threatened and a lowering Sky Seems to portend great storms are drawing nigh But look above them and good courage take The Sun still shines although the Clouds be black And beamings through their darkest parts appear Whereby discernible Good Omens are With symptoms of the Blessing we expect If we ourselves obstruct not their effect And turn them to ill-signs which to prevent That which yet follows gives a needful hint As both abroad and here within this Land Public and private men's affair now stand This Year is likely to be Critical About the time in which the leaves will fall And if Conjectures may be builded on We from what 's acted with what 's left undone Spelled both together somewhat may deduce To teach us what ere long will be in use Whether it were the Policy of some In hope it an obstruction might become To Concord or the Prudence of the Shrieve Or Special Providence which did contrive By those Grand Juries so to represent Their Counties we shall best know by th' event For whether cheerfully they meet and do That Service which their Call invites them to Or by a wilful Non-appearance wave That Duty which the Common Cause doth crave It will be signal and to many one A Test as virtual as the Lydian Stone And likewise give an Intellectual View Of some Result which thereon will ensue At their next Meeting who to represent This Nation shall be by Election sent For those Grand Jurors are now chosen forth Of them whose Gifts Estates Degree or Birth Hath ranked them with the best yea out of those Excepting only open active Foes To this Republic who have been suspected Mere Neuters or else persons disaffected As well as from among them whose true zeal Hath kept them constant to this Commonweal That they who heartily well minded are Themselves henceforward some way might endear Thereto and thereby for the future stand Enrolled among the Patriots of this Land Endowed with all their Liberties and freed From those Distinguishments which either breed Or nourish secret hatred to th' increase Of Quarrels and diminishment of Peace And who can tell what Providence by these Though differing in their Judgements will now please To make Effectual for the preservation Or settlement of Peace throughout this Nation When things are acted by a moderate Expostulation in a joint Debate Where every one may freely speak his thought And when it is consid'red as it ought That no man can of safety be assured Until the Public Safety be secured We know that differing Simples put together So qualify and so correct each other Though some are poisonous that they purge away Malignant Humours which would else destroy The life of man so they who formerly Did in their singular Capacity And private Judgements sometimes act or speak What did at least endanger if not break The Common Peace may when they gathered are Into one fellowship be helpful there To benefit their Country ten times more ' Then they have been or could be heretofore Yea as the fat Lime and the barren Sand When they well mixed are do make a band To bind together rough or hewed stone Which neither of them could have done alone Even so by them who are Dissenters now Our Public Buildings may the firmer grow When they into One Structure shall be fixed Well qualified and rationally mixed This peradventure may some good presage To them who are convened to engage Within a higher Orb or shortly must Become our trusties in a greater Trust For he who hath consid'red it believes That if those Petty Representatives By loving Prudence shall prepare a way Thereto as in good likelihood they may That Nobler Body which to its perfection Are for the most part raised by their Election Might be so modalized and tempered so That Discords into Sympathies would grow And all our Fears and Dangers in the close Quite vanish to the terror of our Foes It may be thus and will be thus if yet men's Wilfulness hath left them any Wit For why should they who now may be at rest Run hazards to advance their Interest Whom nothing else can satisfy but Power All others at their pleasure to devour And spoilers of their own Estates become To make a Fortune for they know not whom Or seek to have that Game afresh begun By which all may be lost and nothing won I hope they shall be wiser and that we In this Expedient shall so wary be That whatsoever others may intend We shall endeavour to promote that End We ought to prosecute and at the last Our Anchor in a peaceful Harbour cast I wish it heartily and since I see Wish are vain where no endeavours be That those whom it concerns provoke I may To seek this blessing and to help make way To that I wish for I composed this Spell Let him who moved me to it speed it well And make it so considered by this Nation Before things grow beyond consideration That Words which to their safety do pertain May not be always spoke to them in vain For they are fools who still pursue a Course Which makes a sickly being to be worse And they are also little less than mad Who would exchange a good one for a bad Or put in hazard a possessed Lot In hope to get what never can be got A Si quis or Queries with other Verses annexed Imprinted in the Year 1648. HEre should have been inserted Collections our of an Address entitled A Speech without door but it is quite lost The following Si quis presented to the Members of Parliament in their single Capacities related to the Author 's particular Interest and was composed in an unusual mode in hope it might have inclined some of them to provoke the rest to take notice of that which had been often presented unto them in an usual and more serious manner Much may be thereby collected to evidence how most Parliament men stood affected as to the Execution of Justice about that time This was laid down at the Parliament door That day in which Victorious Cromwell sent His first Express to your great wonderment Of Hamilton's Defeat which whilst a Scot Then living liveth will not be forgot Even on that day before your feet I spread A sad Petition humbly prefaced By these ensuing lines He that is prostrate on the floor Lies there whence he can fall no lower So does this Orator of your Petitions he hath oft conveyed Into your hands yet finds no aid These therefore at your feet are laid There let them not neglected lie Nor unregarded pass them by But view them with a gracious eye And let our Parents not provoke Their Children till offence be took By which their patience may be broke Consider those who lie below For you shall reap what you do sow And find such Mercy as you sow Refresh their Spirits who are sad As GOD this day hath made you glad By those good tidings you have had Among the rest this Beadsman hear Who feels the wants which they but fear Who dread the effects of this moist year And blame him not that thus he shows His Cause as well in Verse as Prose And in a path untrodden goes For scarce Earth Water Air or Fire Enjoys he or wherewith to hire That Pittance Nature doth require And men in danger to be drowned Lay hold on any trifle found To reconveigh them safe aground Then this annexed Paper view And let him favoured be of you As that which he avers is true Or if for what he here prefers His Suit there stand Competitors Let it be neither his nor theirs But as most equitable it appears To my Petition fixed I for your view Left this upon the Pavement and withdrew In hope some kind hand would have been extended To take it up that it might be commended To free debate But six days now are gone And GOD since then the Mercy lately shown Hath more than doubled on you yet here I Still at your door unheard unheeded lie And have as yet not so much favoured been As to be told who took my Paper in Of private Scrutenies grown therefore weary I have in public now set up this Query Your House receiving notice twelve months since Of my long suffering and my Indigence Occasioned in your Service thought it fit To some Selected Members to commit The finding an Employment to supply Subsistence till my great necessity Might be removed by discharging that Which is to me yet owing by the State I having long without success attended Stand at this present by them recommended Unto a Place named wherein there appears With me nor few nor mean Competitors And some to vacate your intent thereby Have also termed it a Monopoly I humbly make Queries First Whether he that 's well known to have been Foe to the Cause you are engaged in Standing Competitor with him that 's known To hazard for it all that was his own Can be preferred without a wrong to you And an entrenchment on the other's due Next Whether a Competitor defamed For breach of Trust by whomsoever named Ought rather by your Votes to be befriended Then he who to your House is recommended By her own Members and 'gainst whom no man Exhibit justly an Impeachment can Then whether he your Grace deserveth best Who hath for you lost all his Interest In outward things or they whose Wealth is more Since our distractions then it was before And lastly Whether aught may be comprised Among things judged to be Monopolised When all the Profits which from thence arise Are brought into the Public Treasuries And whereof neither one alone or few But all men likewise have their proper due Consider well I humbly pray of these Few Queries and then do as you shall please For though my hopes in these poor Suits may fail I shall in what is my chief aim prevail Yea ere this Land hath Rest a day will be In which there shall be some regard of me And then that which is now perused with Jeers Shall fill their scornful Readers full of fears These Verses next following were upon the same Occasion presented to several Members of the House of Commons repairing thither the 23d of December 1648 being the next day after their Humiliation with an Imprinted Petition thereto annexed THey who at Rich men's thresholds begging lie Though long neglected will prolong their cry Till they an answer get and so will I. I know it is not Eight and thirty year Since first I was an humble Suitor here And yet to me it seems as if it were Days Months and Years I sadly waiting stand Yet no man speaks a Word none lends a Hand To help me though but Justice I demand And therefore such as know me and my Case Observe it to the scandal of that Place Whose guilt I blush for as my own disgrace But now I hope the Pool which heretofore Cured some days none or one and few days more Is moved so that one day will cure a score And that he prosecutes not his Affairs Unseasonably who to a Means repairs New sanctified with Fast and with Prayers Excuse me then that thus I do forelay And as it were arrest you in the way Unto the House of Parliament this day And whatsoever this morning is designed To be debated there some minutes find To hear that Prayer which is herewith joined Yea spare a little time to do him right Who having served you with a heart upright Seeks but his own that you enjoy it might For 't is a loss to you that he or they Who could and did for you lend give and pay Should scarce have bread sufficient for the day And 't is to your dishonour too that such Who to secure you Goods nor Lives did grudge Should want whilst your betrayers are grown rich If you in your Grand Work the worse succeed For doing of this Charitable deed Leave me hereafter quite out of your Creed Or if they long thrive who as heretofore Shall still defer to hear and help the poor Kick me and my Petitions out of door 'T is now within your Walls and I expect It will be there this day with good effect Though some should think it merited neglect For of that Crisis 't will a groundwork be Whereby I shall undoubtingly foresee What will become of other men and me Things present at some points of time foreshow Things future and unless mistake I do That which this day produceth will do so That which was predicted in the last lines hath accordingly succeeded and justly for that expressed in the Petition annexed to the preceding Verses was in effect that which next follows The Effect of the Author's Petition IT showed That after several Accounts upon Oath examined stated and reported by the Commissioners of the Navy an Ordinance was passed the 22 d of March 1647 for payment of 1681 l. 15 s. 8 d out of the Excise in Course without Interest which was to that day wholly unpaid though 60 l. had been spent in soliciting for it and Interest had also been paid by him for 700 l. thereof which was by him borrowed for the Parliaments Use upon credit of the Warrant from the Committee of Safety in May 1643 for immediate payment of 1327 l. wholly unpaid to that day That he had also no recompense for 57 l. respited upon the Public Faith by the Committee of Accounts nor for that money though allowed to others which was deducted of his Pay for Trophies That whereas 1800 l. was upon another Account granted by an Order of both Houses March 15 1647 out of Delinquents Estates to be discovered at Haberdashers-Hall that Order brought on him cost and trouble without benefit and that what he was possessed of by orderly seizures was taken away again by Compositions at Goldsmiths-Hall and by other Committees to his damage and disgrace instead of benefit That it being proved also upon Oath how he was damnified about six years then past by the loss of his Stock his Lease and an Employment which might probably for sixteen years to come have produced 400 l. per an That though recompense was promised by the Parliament his repair was nevertheless neglected till he had spent all superfluous things in his possession and was imprisoned for what he had borrowed as aforesaid for the State's Service till he was compelled for discharge of that Debt to fell 40 l. per an in Reversion and 100 l. per an in Possession for certain time to come which with a little Householdstuff was all the Estate he had then left More might be alleged of this Petitioner's Losses but he hath had patience to suffer more than you have leisure to hear In consideration of the premises he humbly prays That the said 1681 l. 15 s. 8 d. may be paid with Interest as allowed to others That the 700 l. borrowed for the State and for which he hath paid Interest five years may be made payable accordingly with the 57 l. respited and the 300 l. by him already disbursed as also the said 1800 l. made payable by the said Ordinance of both Houses the 22● of March 1647 out of the Excise or out of Compositions at Goldsmiths-Hall with Interest until all shall be paid to relieve his Wants to proceed with his Contracts and to disoblige him from his Creditors To this effect was the annexed Petition but all this was neglected even when the Petitioner was thereby constrained to live upon Charity as appeared by his Poem called Westrow revived until GOD providentially beyond his hope almost in a miraculous way enabled him to purchase a considerable Estate by means of their acting against him who thereby intended their own benefit and his ruin And that Estate was also lost again by their selfseeking and Injustice who thereby lost likewise their Power as that Petitioner often predicted it would come to pass For after preferring the foregoing Petition the said Parliament sold unto him a Manor worth about 300 l. per an in consideration of a part of his Debt and of about 1600 l. more by him paid The Deeds were sealed Possession delivered and he enjoyed it a while nevertheless they sold it again to a Member of their own who pretended to a concealed Mortgage thereof probably forged whereupon by a suit in Law this Petitioner was ejected without any satisfaction having lost besides his Purchase-money about a Thousand Marks in charge of Suit with other inavoidable Expenses and the loss of the whole Purchase without likelihood of one penny toward satisfaction for ever Moreover upon further consideration the Parliament allowed Interest for the aforesaid 1681 l. 15 s. 8 d. charged upon the Excise with 300 l. formerly due for Interest which 300 l. with much difficulty was procured by Oliver Cromwel's Order but all payments out of the Excise Office being retrenched for the Public Service the Petitioner having forborn that great sum almost twenty years never received more of the Interest or Principle-money and the said Parliament being quite dissolved gave over that Debt as quite lost for ever yet he lost not all for he had thereby a true feeling of that whereof he had experience formerly by sight and report only as also both of GOD's Justice and Mercy The Tired PETITIONER THis being a single sheet was imprinted without a date about the same time with what last precedes and offers to remembrance some neglects not inconsiderable But it may be thought by many that this Author hath in these and the Verses next foregoing insisted too much in particulars relating to himself therefore this short excuse was added He was as he believeth providentially engaged by Public Services interwoven with his private Affairs that he might have means and opportunities to gain a personal Experience of the chief Transactions in those times which if he had taken up on trust and by report only he could not have been so assured of as by being made sensible how those persons were qualified by whom the Work then in hand was carried on nor what Occasions were from time to time justly offered to prosecute that which he thought pertinent to his duty in relation to GOD and his Country as he did and might do by knowing and being known to most persons of Quality then active in those Public Affairs with which his private Concernments were linked throughout the progress of that Parliament from the strange and unexpected beginning thereof to the no less strange end of it For by his personal sufferings under that Power above twenty years with little intermission notwithstanding his faithfulness thereunto it did the better appear how great many of their Grievances were who had neither that likely means either to prosecute Remedies or to make them so well known to prevent the like heedlessness and want of compassionating private men's Oppressions hereafter This he hopes will sufficiently Apologise for him to all rational men and therefore here shall be added some part of that which he offered upon the forementioned occasion to those Members of Parliament whom he thought his Friends Sirs if this Paper find you who to me Are not so fully known as you should be It comes to move that my Petitions may Obtain your Answer without more delay Lest by attendance as my Neighbours do With my Estate I lose my Patience too For I have waited and endured so long That no Result can do me greater wrong Than lingering hopes and were I quite undone I possibly another course might run To be repaired again ere I obtain That Benefit which I had hope to gain Or else might find some other likely way To fit me for the part I have to play Some say my Friends are more than I do know And I am hopeful that it may be so For if kind language and much compliment Are signs thereof nor Christendom nor Kent Knows any man who may himself apply Unto your House with better hopes than I But if by real deeds it must be known What Friends I have their number small is grown Or else their Power attaineth not unto Those friendly offices they wish to do And peradventure they obstructed be In their endeavours by defects in me It may be 't is observed I want Relations Gifts-qualifying or those Commendations That should advance my Suits & which might make Those active who men's Causes undertake And I half think it so for ere this day Some one or other else had gotten way For my Petitions or appeared able To make my Suits and me considerable Since others who have neither lost nor spent Nor for the Public hazarded or lent Life Limb or Money find means to be heard With expedition and with good regard But hitherto my hopes do not succeed According to my sufferings and my need Two Months upon one Suit I have bestown Upon a former thrice three Months and one Upon another four times three and nine Yet still some other Cause out-justles mine And even by favours hitherto obtained More Mischiefs than Advantages are gained Because in th' execution they have wanted That influence whereby they first were granted This with uncrazed patience I can bear So long as my desires delayed appear By those Affairs which profitable be Unto the Public though they hinder me Since whilst that thrives I cannot be bereft Of all my hopes nor comfortless be left But if I still perceive my Suit delayed Or crossed for private ends I am afraid My Grievances will make my Plaints outroar The Cries of all the Women at your door Preserve I would according to my might My Private Freedoms with our Public Right And wise men will consider that unless They heed some time a single man's distress At least in his extremes that one by one The Generality may be undone And that a bruise upon the smallest toe May gangreen to the body's overthrow In me although my Sufferings are despised The Common Grievance is epitomised And as this day the Kingdom's Cause doth lie Distressed between two Factions so do I For what some would have granted for my sake Is crossed for their sakes who the motion make Because but few men are by those made strong With whom they side not both in Right and wrong But whatsoever shall to me betid Whether my Suits be granted or denied By your endeavourings it shall not wrest My thoughts for any private Interest To murmur at it so you will befriend My Suit so much to bring it to an end That from your Labyrinths I may retire And be again at leisure to inquire What will become of me and what of Them Who take the Courses which good men condemn For to retreat and gotten ground to yield Is otherwhile the means to win the field And he that would turn Floods another way Must dig his Drain before he builds the Bay He that hath Money to promote his Ends Needs neither strain his Wits nor tyre his Friends He that hath Friends his Matters to contrive May though he have nor Wit nor Money live He that hath Wit and wants the other twain May live but not without some want and pain He that hath two of these and wanteth one Cannot be very rich or quite undone He that hath all of these might be a King Were he ambitious to be such a thing And he that is deprived of all these three May be as happy as I seem to be SE DEFENDENDO Imprinted without Date THis was an Apology written by the Author in Prose to vindicate himself from such Aspersions as had been injuriously and without any probable Cause cast upon him by Malicious Detractors as well to hide the unjust dealing with him as to disparage his Endeavours relating to the Public Service It contains many particulars which being timely well heeded might have prevented such mischiefs and disadvantages as afterward befell and continue to this day The date is not mentioned in the Imprinted Copies But the time may be well enough known by the Contents The matter is such as cannot be abreviated without dismembering and making the whole invalid and therefore the Book is referred to their perusal unto whose hands it may come JUSTITIARIUS JUSTIFICATUS Imprinted without Date THis is also an Apologetical Discourse the imprinting whereof is very well known to some For it was burnt by the hand of the Common Hangman and the Author though he neither published it nor intended the distributing thereof to any but Members of Parliament to whom cognizance of the Cause most properly pertained was both fined and confined for it neither being called to answer for himself nor having knowledge of his Impeachment until sentence was passed against him But this Innocency was so well known to the greatest number of the most conscientious Members of that Parliament whereby he was censured that though the Accusation was brought in early in the morning upon a day set apart for debating a Cause relating to the Scots so many of the said Members then present so abominated what they perceived to be then intruded that the whole day was spent before the Author's Enemies could prevail against him So many of them also had been ear and eye-witnesses of an impudent injustice whereby he was oppressed by their Committee of Examinations in another Cause that it occasioned the Voting down of that Committee within a day or two afterward And the same Parliament upon better Consideration having also made trial of the Author's patience in suffering about the space of a whole year discharged him both from the said Fine and Imprisonment without his Petitioning or Mediation for it For at that time his Friends by God's Providence had a seasonable Opportunity to move on his behalf there being a considerable number then present who were jealous to do Justice and discharge the Trust reposed in them by their Electors This is all that shall be inserted touching the contents of that Book because there are persons therein mentioned by Name whose failings he desireth may be forgotten in hope they are as truly to him reconciled as he is to them VOX PACIFICA Imprinted 1645. THis was a Voice tending to the Pacification of God's wrath and to make some such Proposals as might help to reconcile those by whom the Common Peace was infringed and offered many particulars to consideration which are still as needful and as much neglected now as at that time It consists of four Cantos containing about 200 Pages two Cantos more being intended but not finished be-because the Author thought his labour would be quite lost here are inserted a few particulars in hope it may invite them to whose hands the Book comes to peruse it at large In the Page before the Title and engraven Frontispiece the meaning of it is thus expressed A Trumpet sounds a Parley to this Isle And over it a Hand displays the while A Flag of Peace that this new Sign at door May draw you on to see a little more We hung it forth that these besotted Nations May heed the seasons of their Visitations And grow more careful to conform their ways To what this Voice and their known duty says Though yet the most our words no more have marked Then if a Cat had mewed or Dog had barked etc. The Epistle before the said Book intended to the King Parliament and People thus begins Not to Petition King or Parliament Or court the People suit with his intent Who sends out this nor is he come to crave Your Favours or your Patronage to have It is almost too late and 't was too soon At this time therefore he expects that Boon From one who better knows him and from whom This Voice doth both to sight and hearing come He had he always thus resolved had lost Less labour and escaped with less cost He hath no will to flatter if he had To flatter at this time were to be mad And peradventure also he hath now As little cause as mind to flatter you Yet that the same affection may appear With which by him you always served were And that he may not give a just offence By seeming careless of the Reverence Belonging to your Grandeur he professes That merely for the sake of these Expresses The freedom of bold Language he assumes etc. The News he brings though thus declared it be Will warrantise the Speaker to be free And if it be despised he conceives Some will ere long grow bold without your leaves To make you hear with ruder Compliments A blunter Language and to worse intents For dreadful things are murmured and unless Men more conform to that which they profess You 'll find at last he dareth without fear To speak more Truth than many dare to hear What ever he or his rude Language seems Your persons none more loves or more esteems None seeks your Honour or your Safety more Than he doth now or hath done heretofore None oftener his own blame hath ventured on That others might not wholly be undone He hath no aim herein at aught which tends To his own personal or private ends And thus professeth he that you might grow The more advantaged by believing so And that his purposes no other are Then he professeth plain it will appear To men of Ingenuity and Wit Who weigh what 's past with what henow hath writ For whosoever hath observation took With what impartial freedom he hath spoke The Truth to each side sparing Friend nor Foe Nor caring who displeased or pleased should grow Can never draw a false Conclusion thence Without much folly or much impudence Be wary therefore that this Voice you heed Before to any Censures you proceed Condemning It or Him from whom it came Lest you yourselves incur the greatest blame For if this Voice be welcome to your ear The blessed way of Peace it shall prepare And you shall by the Charm of this Song Perceive the rage of War allayed ere long The wicked Spirit shall be conjured down By whom the Seeds of Discord have been sown The Hags and Furies which have danced here No longer to affright you shall appear But all the sacred Virtues and the Graces Shall beautify your desolated Places But if this Voice you either shall contemn Or him for speaking it what ere he seem Time shall by GOD's permission spread the same In spite of your detractions to your shame To bear a testimonial of your Crimes And your Impenitence to future times Or for a warning to those yet to come Or to exalt GOD's Justice in your doom The least of which will yield a rich Return For all his pains though his good will you scorn Page the 39th after many fore-expressions by way of preparation in order to what was intended by that Poem this follows You look for Peace and he who well could sing That Song deserveth highly to be prized But what can hither such a Blessing bring Whilst most Conditions thereof are despised Or what as yet have they to do with Peace Whom their Corrections move not to repent Whilst wickedness doth rather more increase Then seem abated by their Chastisement Who can expect that fretting Corrosives Shall be removed from a festering sore Until the skilful Surgeon first perceives It may with healing-salves be plastred o'er Unless he rather hath a mind to see The Patient quite destroyed then cured to be How few are yet observed whose former course Is bettered by those Plagues which now lie on them How many rather do appear the worse And to be more corrupt than we have known them In what perpetual broils are they involved Who for the Public Welfare most endeavour How friendless are they who seem best resolved And in good Resolutions do persever Howmany into Parties quickly band A questioned Delinquent to protect How few men for that Innocent will stand Whom Malice doth accuse or but suspect And who now lives and loves the Common Right Who suffers not some insolent despite Though most men see destruction hanging over Their giddy heads their Tragedy begun And round about them nothing can discover But universal Ruin drawing on Ambition Malice Avarice and Pride Selfwill Self-love Hypocrisy and Guile As arrogantly still on Horseback ride As if no Plague had seized on this Isle This man for Place that striveth for Command Pretends the Public Weal but seeks his own And cares not if he profit by the hand If Law and Gospel too be overthrown And he who their Preserver would become Finds furious Foes abroad and worse at home In every Shire in every Town and City This Kingdoms Discords are epitomised In every Corporation and Committee Some Engine of Division is devised Occasions daily spring each man engaging To side with or stand leanning to some Faction And by new quarrels more and more enraging Their Fury to the heightening of Distraction An Emblem of which madness he might draw Who saw within an old thatched Barn on fire Poor beggars quarrelling for lousy straw Or Dunghill rags or clouts raked from the Mire Who will not heed their harms or cease to brawl Until the Flame consumes Rogues rags and all How can calm Peace be timely wooed thither Where men grown beastlike are in their dissensions And where the means of knitting them together Are still occasions made of new contentions How can these Isles have peace that are so vicious And who have Factious Spirits raised in them As wilfully disposed as those Seditious Who brought destruction on Jerusalem How can they look for Peace while they contrive Designs enlarging still their discontent Whilst Policy doth wedges daily drive 'Twixt every Joint to make a cureless Rent And whilst to mend the breaches of this Land There 's nothing brought but pebble stones & sand How can these miserable Isles have Peace Whilst Justice nor Compassion find regard Whilst they who should protect do most oppress When sin escapes blame and Virtue wants reward How can he hope for Peace who would enjoy His Will on any terms and for the shade The Substance of those Mercies quite destroy Which might by patient industry be had Or how can he be worthy of that blessing Who knowing how much it hath lately cost In blood and treasure le 's the repossessing Of that dear Purchase for a toy be lost And doth for evermore himself undo To satisfy his lust a year or two Who knoweth not that more dread most men have Lest of Estate or Person they should lose The loved Freedoms then to be a slave To him whose Tyranny the soul undoes You chiefly for self-ends give lend and pay To that intent strict Covenants you make To that end you sometimes do fast and pray To that intent much care and pains you take Yea many goodly things to that intent You often do and many moe intend But your Peace-offerings all in vain are spent Till you direct them to their proper end And till the Peace which you desire to make Shall be desired for Truth and Conscience sake Who sees not that a Peace you now desire For nought but that you might again enjoy Your Lusts and to those Vanities retire Wherein you did your former days employ Who sees not that like to those Isra'lites Whom from th' Egyptian Bondage GOD redeemed You have the pleasing of your Appetites Much more than your Deliverer esteemed Their Garlic and their fleshpots left behind They thought on more then on their servitude From which they came & more than they did mind The Wonders and the Mercies which God showed And you have acted as in imitation Of that perverse and foolish Generation etc. After the mentioning of many other Actings and Omissions obstructive to Peacemaking he proceeds Pag. 49. Assoon shall he who Westward always goes Meet him that still an Eastward point doth steer As your two Factions in a firm Peace close Till they in their chief Aims approach more near For th' one is bend the other to enslave The other is resolved to be free The last would keep what GOD and Nature gave The first would se●ze what ought not theirs to be And these from reconcilement are so far That all their kindness is but to betray When most they talk of Peace they purpose War When they embrace they mean to stab and slay And when perhaps you think the War is done The greatest Mischiefs will be but begun For as yet nor th' one nor th' other side Nor King nor People Commoners nor Peers Nor Flocks nor Shepherds have the Course yet tried By which you can be saved from your fears A Treaty might complete it but before You venture that you must be fit to treat For then the Work were half way done and more And till that be no step you forward get In heat of Quarrels nothing done or spoke Can reconcile a Friends words move you not The more you talk the more the peace is broke Till you your lost considering Caps have got Till your hot blood is cooled till rage is gone And Reason doth examine things alone Then peradventure etc. See further Page 51. Until both parties do at least agree In all those Common Principles whereby Human Society preserved may be With Nature's Rights and Christian Liberty All Treaties will be mischievous or vain To men adhering to the better course For by such Treating Politicians gain Advantages to make your being worse Yea by that means these find occasions may To gain or give intelligence to make New Plots and Friends to hasten or delay As cause requires and other ways to take For their avail which else they had not got And which true honesty alloweth not This Precaution is added Pag. 139. Take serious heed that zeal to Innovations Or causeless fears or hopes incline your mind To subjugate these Kingdoms and these Nations To Governments of any Foreign kind But rather use your utmost diligence To rectify those things that are amiss In that which is established and from thence Cast and purge out what ever therein is Repugnant to those Charters which by Grace Or Nature were conferred and let your care Be so to settle all that you make place The Throne of Christ among you to prepare Lest when his Kingdom comes you must be fain To pluck your new devices down again Take likewise heed you no just means neglect Whereby the King may be recalled and won GOD's Honour with your Safety to respect And do the duties he hath left undone For by rejecting Him how just soe'er The Cause may seem you shall delay the Peace That is desired and make the Quarrels here With much more difficulty to decrease But if your Prudency shall win him home And he return sincerely to his Charge It shall a blessing to these Isles become Your Honour and your Joy it shall enlarge And as Christ's Viceroy he shall sit upon A Righteous and an everlasting Throne Walk therefore prudently in this straight path And turn not to the left hand or the right That Power which God to you committed hath Improve for him according to your might Him in the reasonable Means attend With Faith and Patience that he may at last Your King new moulded back unto you send Or him out of his ruined Kingdoms cast If his misactings timely he repent GOD will restore him and if you amend Then that which hitherto hath made a Rent Betwixt you shall in sweet agreement end If both conform both shall true Peace enjoy If both be wilful GOD shall both destroy etc. See the 198th Page where it thus follows Let serious care be took and quickly too That her due Rights the Commonwealth enjoy That private men their duties better do Lest they by their divisions all destroy Let not those foolish Toys who do besot Themselves with arrogance presume to prate As if a Parliament had them begot To be now Heirs apparent to the State Permit you not Religious Melancholy Phlegmatic Avarice or Zeal Choleric Nor suffer an Excess of Sanguine folly To make both Church and State grow deadly sick Or rather mad and in their mad distractions To tear themselves into a thousand Fractions Let not your King and Parliament in One Much less apart mistake themselves for that Which is most worthy to be thought upon Or think they are essentially the State Let them not fancy that th' Authority And Privileges upon them bestown Conferred were to set up a Majesty A Power or a Glory of their own But let them know that for another thing Which they but represent and which ere long Them to a strict account will doubtless bring If any way they do it wilful wrong For that indeed is really the face And they but as the shadow in a Glass Moreover let them know this that if either They still dividing grow from bad to worse Or without Penitence unite together And by their sin provoke him to that course GOD out of their Confusions can and will Create a Means and raise a Lawful Power His Promise to his People to fulfil And his and their Opposers to devour Yea bid both King and Parliament make haste In penitence united to appear Lest into those Confusions they are cast Which will affright them both yea make them fear And know there is on Earth a greater thing Than an unrighteous Parliament or King Because the Poem is large and hard to be gotten to supply that defect here are added the Contents of every Canto as they are in the imprinted Book The Contents of the First Canto First here is to your view preferred When where and how this Voice was heard What kind of Muse were the ground What Worlds and Wonders may be found Within ourselves what safe Retreats From those Oppressions Frauds and Baits Which are without how little fear Of Terrors which affright us here How plainly there a man may see The Villainies that acted be For private Ends with feigned shows How general Corruption grows Why to acquaint you with this Voice GOD by so mean a man makes choice Then shows how our great hopes deceive us And prays his aid who can relieve us The Contents of the Second Canto This Cantos Preface being done The Voice to these effects goes on Tells how unworthy we are yet For Peace desired how unfit How vain how harmful Treaties be Till both sides in one Third agree And laying by ignoble Ends Use likely means of being friends Shows that the Peace which most pursue Will be nor permanent nor true Then that some Cures may be appli'de Declares what Parts are putrifi'de Which must be purged without delay Or cauterised or cut away If we will ere it be too late Repair this weak this dying State The Contents of the Third Canto Here whether you be pleased or no This Author maketh bold to show That portion of his private wrongs Whose knowledge and recess belongs To Public Interest that her eye May through his wounds her scars espy The Voice than speaks again and schools In him all other froward fools Who with impatiency do vent Their private wrongs or discontent And look their Trifles should be heard When Kingdoms cannot find regard It shows our Senate blameless is Of many things which are amiss And where the fault and fountain lies From whence our present Plagues arise The Contents of the Fourth Canto Whilst here the Author doth recite His Muse after Naseby Fight The Voice returns and doth begin To tell us what must usher in Exiled Peace Then told are we How kept our Vows and Covenants be How we Reform and Fast and Pray What Thanklesness we do repay What must in general be done What by each individual one What Course both King and People take Ere they their Peace with GOD shall make What he expecteth from these Nations From Cities Towns and Corporations And every House in some degree Before true Peace will settled be Carmen Expostulatorium Imprinted 1647. THis was intended to prevent the engaging these Nations into a Second War when the dividing of the City and Army was then by some endeavoured and likely to be effected The same Precautions are at this day pertinent to consideration and are therefore here abreviated Though I have written heretofore in vain And may do now yet I will write again In hope that what by Reason and by Rhyme Was not effected may be done in Time And that although my pains be lost to some It shall not fruitless unto all become Hark! how the Drums beat & the Trumpets are Sounding alarums to a Second War Before the first is done and whilst yet green The wounds upon your bodies may be seen Behold that which was coming long ago Draws now so near that none shall need foreshow What at the last will thereupon ensue For we without a Glass may plainly view Such things in kenning that unless our GOD To them shall please to set a period Or make some such diversion as no man Conjecture of by any Symptom can An Universal Plague will on us seize Instead of Remedies for our Disease How then can I in time of need withhold That which my Conscience tells me should be told Why should I keep those Premonitions back Which I conceive my Friends at this time lack A poor man's Counsel once as we hear say Did save a City so perhaps this may Excuse me therefore if much grieved at Your rash proceedings I expostulate Concerning that whereby it seems to me The War may now again renewed be Renowned Citizens what do you mean To make your City the unhappy Scoene Whereon there shall in probability Be acted now the bloodiest Tragedy That e'er this Island saw are you grown mad And is there no Physician to be had For this distemperature but must it here Be Cuckow-moon or Dog-days all the year Have you no Drugs that may lost wits restore Can Patience Herbagrace nor H●lebore Nor any other Simple or Confection Work out that noisome humour and infection Which hath besotted you till ye grow fit For Bedlam where are no such mad men yet Page 3 it thus follows Have you not yet discovered who be they That cheat you and for whom this Game you play By your divisions And when others find Their falsehood for you will you still be blind Or wink as careless of the things you heed Till by long winking you grow blind indeed etc. Cannot you yet discover through the mist Those Juggle which the Spawn of Antichrist False Priests and lying Prophets practise now To raise themselves and work your overthrow Nor with what impudence they publish lies Their bitter swagger and their blasphemies To make new breaches or to widen those Which Love and Prudency begun to close And which ere this time closed up had been Had they not cast untemp'red dirt between Page the Fourth Is it a time your Quarrels to renew When all is hazarded that 's dear to you Observe ye not Three Factions like to them Which were the ruin of Jerusalem At strife within your Walls Do you not see What spiteful sparklings in their eyes there be How sharply they against each other whet Their slanderous tongues how grinningly they set Their gnashing teeth Observe ye not how they With Pens dipped in black poison do assay To re-ingage you and with cursed words Provoke the reinsheathing of your Swords That every Son and Father Friend and Brother May sheathe them in the heart of one another etc. Have you concluded never to retire In your Career till all is on a Fire And you and yours lie sprawling in the plashes Of your own blood or in your City's ashes Or till you see this goodly stately Frame The work of many Ages in a Flame Have you so often heard it said from him Whose true Presages no men will contemn But Reprobates what miserable Fate Attends that House that City and that State Which is divided Have his Prophecies So often been fulfilled before your eyes And are they at this day so likely too To be ere long fulfilled upon you And yet will you a New Division run As if you studied how to be undone Or as if you resolved to keep that path Which to avoid your GOD forewarned ●ou hath After many other Expostulations and neglected Precautions tending to their Welfare and which are now as pertinent to us the Author thus proceeds again p. 13. What makes you and our Army now to be So jealous of each other as we see But that Self-love and Pride which you and they Pursue in others and because each day You more and more in manners grow like them Whose guiltiness you rail at and condemn For most of those among you who pretend To Reformation do but seek to mend Some faults in other men that they to make Themselves thereby may an advantage take When zealously they labour to remove A Tyrant it proceeds but from Self-love That they may by possessing of his Room As active in like Tyrannies become As 't were not probable that we should see Suppressed Tyrants every day to be Outvi'de by their Successors and outgone By those who blamed most what they had done 'T is not because you seek the Public Good That you renew this War for letting blood Especially now when the Dog-star reigns So near unto the heart and in those veins Now likely to be oped seems to me Not Physic but mere Butchery to be 'T is not for GOD that you do now promove This Quarrel for you know that GOD is Love And when he doth engage us in a War It always evidently doth appear How it conduceth to the preservation Of Amity and Union in a Nation And that we cannot otherways avoid The Consequence of being quite destroyed With all that 's dear unto us But in this Of such a Common Good no Sign there is etc. All your Contentions rather do arise From fleshly Lusts and carnal vanities Then from the Cause pretended and there 's none Will doubt it if you wilfully go on In bloodshed not endeavouring for Grace By making Fury give Discretion place 'T is not the errors or the imperfections Of your Opinions but of your Affections Which heighten Discord and a will to please Backsliding Demas and Diotrophes Which hath surprised you 'T is a disregard Of Justice in Chastisements and Reward And that respect of Persons which each side Is guilty of if both be not belied For if by Symptoms we the truth may gather The City and the Army too had rather Adventure their safe being by denial Of yielding up their Minions to a trial Then to permit that Justice should proceed Impartially Both are it seems agreed What ever their Well-willers do propose To save their Malefactors though they lose Themselves and all their Tribe as for that Crime The Benjamites did once in former time And which more aggravates even thus they do Though they have seen the King for doing so Sat half beside his Throne yea though they see This Parliament endangered to be Even for the selfsame fault So hard a thing It is even for the best of men to bring Their Will and their Affections to submit To Justice though they cannot fly from it We will add no more but leave the rest to be perused in the Printed Copy to avoid tediousness Letters of Advice touching the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses in PARLIAMENT Imprinted 1644. AMong other things offered by this Author to be heeded as pertinent to the Common Welfare he published a Book so called touching the Choice of Knights and Burgesses to represent the Commons in Parliament and other Public Ministers to which purpose he offered somewhat in his Perpetual Parliament mentioned in this Review Therefore this being overlarge to be wholly inserted no more shall be here added but some part of what is therein contained in relation to the due Qualification both of the Electors and Persons to be Elected which perhaps will give occasion of better heeding what hath been heretofore neglected It was thus expressed pag. 2 in Prose Being woefully experienced in the manifold Mischiefs whereinto this Nation hath been plunged by the Corruption or Insufficiency of Persons heretofore chosen or presumptuously intruding upon that Trust and perceiving no public means provided for preventing the like Mischief hereafter nor any thereto privately contributing his Advice I have hastily sent abroad these Letters not arrogating a sufficiency to give such directions as may not be excepted against but rather in hope it would give occasion to some of better Judgement to perfect what I have imperfectly begun according to my Talon Lest by that Course which we at present run Both Good and Bad together be undone That my Proposals may be the more willingly entertained and prosecuted I will briefly offer to heed first The Mischiefs we incur by inconsiderate Elections and how traitorous thereby we are to our Country and to our selves Secondly I will present you with the necessary Qualifications of those who are to be Elected And lastly By what Expedient I conceive Abuses in that kind may be best prevented if we are not grown so corrupt a Body that we neither will nor can be represented by honest and discreet persons I need not particularise into how many Mischiefs this Nation is now and hath been heretofore plunged by the rottenness and giddiness of some formerly chosen to represent the Commonalty or how perfidiously they have disserted or betrayed their trust to an endangering of our being everlastingly exposed to the slavery of temporal and spiritual Tyrannies no less accursed and intolerable than the Egyptian Bondage For we give them power not only to make us Slaves Beggars and liable to the Hangman at their pleasure but to subject us also unto those Decrees which may gradatim bring us or our Posterity to be Papists Turks Pagans and Vassals to the Devil if the Professors of Popery Turcism or of any other damnable Impieties should obtain a temporal Sovereignty over us If this you believe not to be possible because not yet come to pass believe at least that which you see of their practice and condition who have been unworthily and unwarrantably chosen and how far they have already brought back upon us those Antichristian Slaveries which we thought past fear of reviving But perhaps Mischiefs and Inconveniences of less concernment will stir up some to be more cautious in their Elections then these Let such take notice That by beedlesness in this duty they shall make Fools and Tyrant's Lords over them who will fawn and court them till they are in Power and then scorn and trample them under foot putting such immeasurable differences between themselves and others as if the respect due to the whole Nation were due to their single Persons And they will then so take upon them and so demean themselves as if to favour the Clients to suppress those whom they disaffect to strengthen their own Faction and to maintain their Usurped Personal Privileges though to the utter ruin both of all Public Liberties and true Piety were the chief End of their Power What good can be expected from such a Choice or what better Choice can be made unless you more seriously more prudently and more conscientiously manage your Elections When Wolves are by the Sheep for Guardians chose Who marvels if their Skins and Lives they lose The only means in Humane Prudence to be delivered from such mischiefs is by humbly supplicating Divine Mercy by truly repenting our sins and by taking more heed hereafter that we be not Traitors to ourselves in foolishly giving the disposure of our Estates Lives Liberties and Consciences to them who will sell us for old Shoes and serve us only to serve their own turns though to our destruction Therefore I beseech you to be wary whom you shall now and hereafter Elect and make us not irrecoverably unhappy by listening to the Insinuations of unworthy persons who will importune you by themselves and others to put our Bodies and Souls into their hands complying with all shows of Courtesy and Humility till their purposes are obtained and never afterward regard our Petitions our Cause our Miseries or our Persons but overlook us with such pride as if they had neither received their Power from us or for our Welfare but merely to exalt their own vanity etc. Therefore to remedy present Evils and to establish your just Privileges for preservation of the Common Interest hereafter let your care be to avoid the choice of such as these I. Men overlavish in speaking and in taking extraordinary pleasure in hearing themselves talk for a man full of words is neither good to give or keep Counsel II. Notorious Gamesters for I never knew a prudent or just man a Common Gamester How can they be just whose practice is to cheat other men of their Estates Or prudent managers of public Treasure who expose their own Estates to the uncertain hazard of Chance III. Men much addicted to Hunting or Hawking for most of these so they may preserve and increase their Game and enlarge Privileges for their own pleasure will not much care though it were to the depopulating of the Country and to the multiplying of wild Beasts destructive to the Nation IV. The Household Servants or dependants on such Peers as expect from their Creatures the promotion of their own Designs and Interest how repugnant soever to the General Good V. Courtiers depending merely on the King or Queen's Service for the enlargement and continuance of their Favour depend on that which they call Royal Prerogative and the more that may be improved to an infringement of the Subjects Right the richer and the more powerful these will grow VI Choose not such as are evidently Ambitious or Covetous for how prone these will be to sell their Country and Religion too for Titular Honours and Wealth we have had too frequent experience The People's Trust and Freedoms to betray To be a Lord is now the nearest way VII Elect not persons enslaved to Wantonness and impudently persevering in Carnal Vncleannesses for such will not only give away your and their own Estates to satisfy their Lusts but betray also their Country and their Saviour to please their dalilah's VIII Take heed of choosing men superlatively proud For they will be so puffed up with their Legislatorship that after they have sat a while in the House you will hardly know how to speak unto them or of them without being questioned either for transgressing against good manners or for breach of their Personal Privileges which they prefer before the Privileges of the whole Nation IX Choose not men overmuch affected to Popularity or factiously oppugning Sovereignty for they will not be just or true to the Interest of King or People but so far only as it may advance their own Will. X. Choose none generally reputed vicious in any kind for they will be open or secret Opposers of all Laws or Ordinances restraining Enormities and hinderers of bringing Delinquents to condign punishment XI Make not choice of Irreligious persons or such as are inclined to ancient Superstitions or modern Novelties for these will not willingly assent to the establishment of aught save what may advance their private Fancies For how can he affect true Reformation Who neither hath right Rule or firm foundation XII Make not choice of Children under Age for we ought not to commit the management of the most weighty Affairs of the Commonwealth to them who are not capable by Law of disposing their own Estates especially seeing the major part of Voices which an ignorant Child may help to make up will be sufficient sometimes to confirm a Resolution to the Public Damage XIII Choose not Persons Outlawed or so far indebted that they dare not walk abroad without a Protection for what can be more unjust then to let them sit as Lawmakers who submit not to the Laws in force and to render the Fountain of Justice obstructive unto itself XIV Lastly Avoid the choice of those who make means to have themselves chosen for it discovereth so much arrogance and self-conceit that they are worthy to be rejected and doubtless they more intent that which may advantage themselves then to be serviceable to their Country The Deliverers of GOD's People in distress were such as modestly sought rather to put off then to intrude upon Public Employments yea Saul was fitter to reign when he hid himself among the stuff then when he took care to be honoured before the people The cursed Bramble sought not to be chose The King of Trees till they did him propose There were also some Proposals and Caveats concerning those who are Electors and as touching the making choice by Lot to the perusal whereof you are referred in the Original Tract A Cause Allegorically Stated Imprinted 1657. THis was published among other things during Oliver Cromwel's Reign with an Appeal therein to all Impartial Censurers A Goodly Ship with precious Lading fraught Late in a dark night nigh to Land was brought Through many dangers & much blustering weather GOD's Providence had safely brought her thither And by the Water's motions and the humming Among the Shrouds another storm seemed coming The Place arrived at was a dangerous Bay From which into the Port two Channels lay Divided by a Quicksand with great store Of Shelves and sharp Rocks upon either shore She had a choice Commander Merchants many Stout Seamen Pilots too as good as any With Passengers of all sorts among whom Some could had need been have supplied the room Of well-experienced Seamen and advised Such things as Prudence would not have despised But these among themselves divided were steer Through which of those two Channels they should One Party thinking that the safest way In which the other thought most danger lay And in the dark it could not well be seen In which the greatest hazard would have been Nor were they in less hazard to lie there At Anchor till the daylight did appear A poor old man was at that time aboard To whom GOD had been pleased to afford A Faculty to see things in the dark Which others could not view or did not mark He knowing what great straits the Ship was in And what their loss was likely to have been Called out to those there had chief Command And said There stands a Rock here lies a Sand Another yonder and a Whirl-pool there Be very careful therefore how ye steer Bear up a little while into the Wind Although a show of danger there you find And take heed that a causeless fear or doubt Makes you not over-soon to Tack about Lest in the way you strike upon a steep Sharp Ridg and overset into the Deep First on the Starbordside a compass fetch Half way to yond Point to avoid that Breach And then upon the Larbordside again Wheel off and you the Harbour shall attain Thus spoke the old man for although 't were night He saw as well as when the Sun gives light And they who had a willingness thereto Did that which he advised them to do The greater part not heeding what they heard Nor knowing their own danger grinned and jeered And from the Hatches crept into the Hold Leaving the Ship to what befall it should But they who more desired to have their Will Then to be counselled whether well or ill Disdaining as it were to be advised Though for their weal by one whom they despised Did not alone pursue him with despite But with Oppressions also him requite Now therefore in what this man stands obliged To those let it impartially be judged And whether such as they deserve not all Those Plagues which now are feared may befall Till that Ingratitude they shall repent Which justly merits that sad Consequent This is a Case though heeded but of few To some known as expressed here to be true MERCURIUS RUSTICUS Imprinted without Date THis was composed in or about the first year after the late unhappy War between the King and Parliament in imitation of the Weekly Intelligencers then published being a Rustic Discourse offering between jest and earnest some particulars to consideration relating both to Civil and Military Transactions and hinted Notions then pertinent to those Times and not wholly impertinent to these But no more of it shall be here inserted save the beginning of the Book and that also to no other purpose but to distinguish it from a Book of the same Title published by another man which this Author now having seen is unwilling to have it imputed to him as he hath heard it is how worthy soever it may seem to be owned His Book which he thinks none will be ambitious to father thus begins By your leave Gentlemen when seriousness takes not effect perhaps trifling may Every man hath some Toys in his head and I have too many One will now discover itself which hath itched in it ever since last night Mars had lately tired me with long Marches and Skirmishes Jupiter hath cast such ill Aspects upon me that I cannot be jovial The Moon is in the wain Venus retrograde Apollo would not lend me his Fiddle to prevent my being oppressed with Melancholy by the Influences of Saturn and therefore I complied with Mercury in making a Rustic Progress and now understanding that variety of News is much desired I am bold to present you with such gleanning as I gathered up in the Country And though I am not so witty as my Friend Britanicus nor bring you Narratives that so well deserve the Whetstone as Monsieur Aulicus nor come so furnished with Novelties as Master Civicus nor so supplied with Passages as the Weekly Intelligencer nor am at leisure to sum up all Occurrences as the Accountant nor so large in Promises as the Scout the Informer and the rest of your diligent Mercuries nor so impudent as to aver I present you with nothing but Truth Yet I have brought you that with which you may perhaps be for once well contented to read or hear though they be but such gatherings as I had from the Mill the Alehouse the Smith's Shop or the Barbers for these are our Country Exchanges wherein we talk of a many things with as little good success as they do at Westminster and otherwhile also to as ill and to as good purposes This being sufficient to distinguish his from the other Book bearing the same Title no more shall be here inserted What Peace to the Wicked Imprinted 1646. THis is an Expostulatory Answer to a Derisory Question concerning Peace and here is with little omission inserted because it was so long ago Imprinted that it cannot be easily procured One who hath seldom in these days From Fool or Knave got love or praise And who by many men is known With cheerfulness to have bestown His Wit Pains Person and Estate The Common Right to vindicate A long Imprisonment hath had For calling of a Spade a Spade Which if a Court-Card might have been Next to the King except the Queen While he in that Confinement lay One asked him the other day When he supposed this War should end And what successes would attend Our hopes of Peace Which Question tho From Levity it seemed to flow Or scoffingly to be expressed Received this Answer not in jest Why ask ye when this War will cease And when this Kingdom shall have Peace As if you thought I could foreshow All that hereafter shall ensue Or as if when the Truth were told You value or believe it could Who nor esteem nor use have made Of those Fore-warnings which you had They who will know what shall succeed Must of things past take serious heed And glean Instructions whilst they may From actions of the present day For past and present time declares What for the future GOD prepares And till these quicken their foresights Men sit in darkness till he smites If to this Question you would know An Answer which for Truth may go And not with ●hab-like Desires Wish all your Prophets may be Liars Then ask your Consciences and they Will tell what things expect you may For let my Troubles never cease If ever you have other Peace Then what your Conscience might foresee Though King and Parliament agree But lest the Conscience may be seared Or lest Delusions have appeared Which promise Peace when she is fled And Vengeance hanging over head Ask your own Fears and Human Reason What they conjecture of the season Ask them what sign it is of Peace When Wickedness doth more increase What may be hoped for of that Nation That slights her day of Visitation That mendeth not for words or blows That in Reforming worse grows That suffers them who serve her best To be most wronged and oppressed And on them every Token hath Of Desolation and of Wrath What Peace can we expect whilst they Who spoilt us not only may Find Mercy which we could allow But so imperious also grow As to reproach them to their faces Even in their Privileged places Who once thought better Fruits would come From that which they had parted from What likelihood is there that Peace Will follow when your Friends decrease And they who served you heretofore Shall be as mad as they are poor If yet you cannot well discern When Peace will back again return Get knowledge timely if you may What Game you are about to play How far you have as yet to run That Wild-Goose-Chase of late begun What can be hoped for of those Who are irrationally Foes What you in safety can propound Where little save Deceit is found Or what good Harvest can be mown Where mischief only hath been sown For when these things are truly weighed What will succeed needs not be said Get knowledge if ye can how long Divisions will be raised among The Lords and Commons and when we Shall find both Houses to agree That to the Public detriment Nor House nor Member shall descent Or be united but insist Upon the Common Interest For you have heard what Lot betides A House or Kingdom that divides And know what 's likely to succeed Till our Peacemakers are agreed If waste Jerusalem was made Who therein but Three Factions had This Island how may we deplore Wherein are Three times three and more Some with the Parliament partake Some for the King a Party make Some would a Popular Estate Some Aristocracy create Some are a Faction for the Pope Some to maintain the Prelate's hope Some for the Presbyterians vote Some Independency promote Some strive for this and some for that Some neither know nor care not what So War goes on and get they may Freequarter Plunder and their Pay Some fight their Liberties to save Some that they others may enslave Some for Religion and for Christ Some that they may do what they list Some for the Commonwealths avail Some for Themselves with tooth and nail And they who have the basest end As fairly as the best pretend Not caring whether their desire Obtained be by Sword or Fire By Truth or Lies with Love or Hate By Treachery or fair Debate This is our Posture and whilst we So foolish false and factious be Or whilst it shall continue thus Who knows what will become of us Ask those who now of Peace do dream Who shall procure the same for them Since many are become their Foes Whom they to be their Champions chose Since they our Substance have bestown To make new Fortunes of their own And Public Injuries increase To gain themselves a private Peace Yea since the People doubtings have What to refuse or what to crave Do still irresolute abide Long constant unto neither side Not in themselves resolved are Whether they would have Peace or War Or whether readmit they shall Charles to be King or not at all For doubtless if thus matters go As many now much fear they do A wise man needs not break his brain To search what Peace we shall obtain Since whilst thus blind and mad we be What will ensue a Fool may see Yet lest you may be fooled more Then either now or heretofore Observe the Commons if of them None serve two Masters at a time Nay whether none among them be Who Servants are this day to Three And false to all observe of those Whom we for Public service chose How many fail the People's Trust To private persons how unjust They are how little good effect The King or People can expect Concerning Peace while such as they The Cunning Ambodexters play Ask them who sit to take Accounts To what their two years' pains amounts Or what the Commonwealth it betters When they have found who are her debtors If when their falsehood shall be known And published throughout the Town A Cheating Shark may outface them Who justly have convicted him And be employed as before Or else where he may cheat us more Ask if they have not power to call As well the great Thiefs as the small To give account those whom we hear Cumprivilegio as it were Have plundered at an easy rate Coin Jewels Householdstuff and Plate And if you find they have not leave To question all men who deceive The Public Trust know we are yet For Peace with Righteousness unfit Then mark what Favours many have Who sought this Nation to enslave How some exposed are to scorn Who of this War the brunt have born And having heedfully survayed How Good with Evil is repaid Mind well the Doctrine and the Use And what that may at last produce Inquire moreover how you find To works of Mercy men inclined How honest Causes are preferred How grieved Petitioners are heard How Offices conferred be Whether some have not two or three Who for the Public neither spent Nor gave nor hazarded nor lent When many better men had none Who in your service were undone Observe those Pensions how you share Which for Relief allotted are How little best deservers get How many of them not a whit How often ill how seldom well Rewards and Punishments you deal Which are the Pillars whereon stand The Peace and Honour of the Land Observe if when we spend a day In praises or to fast and pray If more Hypocrisy therein Then true Devotion hath not bin● If Preaching tend not more to strife Then to sound Doctrine or good Life If more we seek not to fulfil Our sensual humours and our will Then to perform a Thank-oblation Or duties of Humiliation Or if the Worship we profess Be not an Outside Holiness No deeper rooted than the tongue Or fruits that fade as soon as sprung For as it proveth when you see These things to trial brought shall be You may without much failing guess What likelihood there is of Peace An ear an eye sometimes too have ye Upon the Army and the Navy An eye severely to behold An ear to hear what hath been told Of some who much entrusted were With Stores Arms and Provisions there Or had Commissions to Array To furnish fortify and pay Ships Forts or Men and those in chief Employed for Ireland's first relief And your first Armies even when all Did lie at stake and seem to call For faithful stout and honest men Observe how they discharged then The Trust reposed how some were made Commanders Pay and Titles had But scarce a Man How others now Defraud the Public and if you As Fame reports among them find Deceit in this accursed kind Excuse not them yea though at last Acts of Oblivion should be passed For open Foes no Grace provide For men untrue to their own side Lest as your Peace they have deferred They mar it likewise afterward For where employed such are found When Peace is made 't will not be sound Inquire if you can tell of whom To make Enquiry what 's become Of all the Public Protestations Engaged for private Reparations What of that Vow which did profess A mutual Aid in all distress What of the selfdenying Vote Which goodly Hopes in us begot What of those Orders whereupon Some trusted till they were undone What of the Public Faith in which We thought ourselves exceeding rich Though all were lost so that remained Inviolated and unstained Inquire I say throughout the Land In what condition these now stand For when of these you have obtained That Certainty which may be gained It will undoubtedly appear What we may either hope or fear Inquire yet further lest you may Expect perhaps a Sunshine day And meet a Storm in what good mind That sort of People you shall find Yclept the Clergy for the stem Of our late Troubles was in them Their Factions Avarice and Pride Did first of all these Isles divide From them at first the Firebrands came That set this Empire in a flame When 't was nigh quenched again they blew Those coals which did the flame renew The Nations they did re-engage The People's vexed minds enrage By feigned Wiles and false pretences Abusing tender Consciences The Course long since by them begun Is to this day continued on And therefore take this Truth for me For you shall find it Truth to be That till you see these much estranged From what they are their posture ehanged Till they shall better their Conditions Confine● themselves to their Commissions Leave off to jangle fool and fiddle With what they should not intermeddle And be as pious and as wise As they are outwardly precise Or as those few among them are For whose sakes GOD abates this War Nor King nor Peers the Commons neither Nor these united altogether Shall able be that Peace to make Which their Contentions will not shake Make one Enquiry more to see And search what most of those men be On whose Endeavours you depend To bring our troubles to an end Mark how their Duties they attend In private how their time they spend What Company they most frequent What matters give them best content What by their neighbours they were thought Till they obtained what they sought And to what purpose they employ The Power and Places they enjoy Then cast an eye upon the Rabble And taking view if you be able Of all together great and small Mark well the Tantamount of all Mark if we be not like an Host That 's routed when the battle 's lost And if we deal not gifts and blows Like mad men both to Friends and Foes Mark how those Hypocrites who here Promoters of the Truth appear Walk in their Masking Suits abroad As if they thought to cozen GOD As they do men mark too that Crew Which is profane in open view How blindly and how daringly Even where GOD's Thunderbolts do fly They still offend and whether we May not to them compared be Who sawing are those Planks asunder Whereon they stand when Hell is under When these Inquiries you have made To see what light may thence be had And when you know as well as I Those hind'rances and Reasons why That Voice of Peace yet goes not on Which this time twelve Months was begun And shall observe with due regard Whath hath been since done and declared It will disclose a great deal more Then I have told you heretofore But not till then Yet lest some may Despair or faint before that day I will deliver ere you go A comfortable word or two There may be Peace at last though yet We nor know how nor merit it For GOD oft shows great Mercies where The greatest of all Sinners are And if Self-seekers be discri'de Before this Isle they more divide If Factions wrongs and discontent Endanger not this Parliament And if the Faithful Members can But cast out from them now and then A Trouble-house and timely suage The vexed People's rising rage By offering out of their Committees What reign in Counties Towns and Cities But two or three such Peace-oblations As that was of th' EXAMINATIONS And by their Prudence act it so That honesty more prized may grow That Priest and People down may lay The works of Stubble and of Hay Their Names and Terms of Separation And meekly seek the preservation Of Truth in Love Then in one year If Peace be not established here My Loans and Losses yet unpaid With my Arrears three years delayed I 'll forfeit wholly to the State And live still as I do of late By swallowing wrongs and empty Air And Patience kept through faith and prayer Thus to the Question made you have That Answer which your Prisoner gave Who other News will tell if he Much longer shall a Prisoner be Your Spaniels beaten at your feet will lie Your English Mastiffs at your face will fly Remember that also An ADDRESS to the Members of PARLIAMENT in their single Capacities Imprinted 1657. THE Author having been compelled to make use of such Extravagant Means as this during the sitting of the Long Parliament and thereby left unrelieved was constrained to prosecute the like ordinary and extraordinary Expedients during those Parliaments which were called by Oliver Cromwell and his Successor among which this was one left at their Threshold thus superscribed To that Member of Parliament who shall take up this Paper SIR if you are not of this Parliament Hereby to greet you 't is not my intent But if a Member of this House you are Your taking up these Papers as it were By Lot engageth you to manage those Petitions which I therewith did enclose As you would have another use his Power For your avail if now my Case were your Whereof take this Account why I thus play My Cards confused in this unusual way I shall hereby at least guests at the length Of my Oppressions or how well my strength May be improved to bear them how Contracts Sales Bargains and your other Public Acts Will be performed That as I by presage Of many things to come foretold this Age Before fulfilled so I might likewise tell The next Age what I saw done ill or well I have oft wooed you to entertain My just Requests but hitherto in vain Though I have many several ways assayed To gain respect to what was humbly prayed Now therefore having at your door attended Six Months at least together unbefriended And seeing to obstruct me every day New Suitors so increase to stop the way That I had little hope with Friends to meet To hand this in I laid it at your feet Who pass in thither hoping that it may For an Admission make the quicker way And not be kept here waiting at your Gate Till hearing and relief shall come too late He who shall take this up and get it read Where it shall with respect be answered An Obligation will by doing so Impose both upon me and many moe For if my Suits obtain deserved heed Some other will have hope as well to speed Who now almost despair Relief to have And future Cost and trouble I shall save Three Parliaments the eldest of which three Might had it pleased our Lord have outlived me Are dead and gone since first I did complain Of Grievances which unredrest remain And now to see a Fourth I have survived Which I fear hath it self almost outlived Unless GOD grant it Power and Will to do What they in duty are obliged unto That they from wrongs the wronged may release Proceed with Honour and conclude in Peace To such Achievements there 's a middle way 'Twixt This and That 'twixt Haste and long delayed Which if mistaken or not timely found May as it hath done lead into a Round Or Labyrinth whereby we may be brought To Pits and Snares which have no passage out And multiply distractions till our Prayers Are turned to Indignation or Despairs Which is their drift and not their least Design Who seek our Liberties to undermine When Public Wants with speed must be supplied A Private Plaint may then be laid aside But not too long deferred lest it become A festering sore not meanly perilsome For since an universal Weal consists Of many Individual Interests A perfect Body cannot be enjoyed Where one by one the Members are destroyed And when the Eye or Ear unheedful grows Of what afflicts the Fingers and the Toes Much less when they neglect what appertains To keep it from an Ulcer in the Brains The Cures therefore of private Wants betwixt Public Transactions should be intermixed At least sometimes in those emergent things Wherein delay of Justice losses brings Beyond Repair or when the State at last Must bear the damage when the Care is past Or else in point of Honour suffer more Than all the Public Treasure will restore I grudge not when GOD's Glory is at stake That they who of his Honour Conscience make Should take the freedom to debate at large What may their duties unto him discharge Or when the Common Safety doth appear In hazard though my Life in danger were But when those brunts are over if men please For their mere pleasure profit or their ease To leave us in a perishing condition Then of their Faithfulness they give suspicion And I more grieved for what I thereby see Befalls my Country then for wrongs to me There 's time enough in all straight whatsoever For all things if it well divided were And for our not opportioning aright The Time we have as wise men know we might GOD cuts off half the days we should have had And our Designments are abortive made As we from week to week from day to day Do put off those who for our sorrows pray So likewise we our hopes and suits put by By him on whose Assistance we rely An hour therefore should other-while be spent To give Reward as well as Punishment As well to make Repayments as to borrow To think on them who help us in our sorrow We are obliged and forth our fruits to bring In season like trees planted by a Spring Not nine or ten years after they are dead Who by our timely fruit should have been fed Lest we be felled by the Wood-man's hand Or like the Figtree whither where we stand One day is as well spared sometimes to save An honest man as nine to doom a Knave Of useful Plants we should have as much care As from the good Corn to weed out a Tare Some private acts of Justice with our zeal To Piety and to the Public Weal And Works of Mercy sprinkled here and there Among them like Embroydries would appear On Flowers of Gold with Silver interwove And helpful be your Grand Work to improve But where few Private Grievances are heard God gives their Public Prayers small regard And few are in that Commonwealth much joyed By whom their whole well-being is destroyed Or which is senseless of their sad estate Who did help save it from a sadder Fate Among such Suffrers I may self am one Who gladly would be better thought upon I have as many years already spent As are to two men's lives equivalent To seek for Justice with such cost such trouble And loss of time as makes my Losses double So that if but one Suit more at this Rate I had depending ten times my Estate And ten men's lives would not afford me time And means enough whereby to finish them For my Petitions either were deferred From month to month from year to year unheard Or answered so that when my Suit seemed done My Case proved worse than when it first begun And to obstruct the Justice I implore They voice me to be rich who make me poor With mock-shews of Relief I have been fed With stones in my distress instead of bread Which had ere this day starved me but that GOD Turned many of them into wholesome food And raised me a subsistence out of that Which was designed to ruin my Estate If I who had a few Friends have thus fared Alas how speed poor men whom none regard And who from none can claim an obligation Either by Friendship Faction or Relation But now new Misadventures me beset Which by delay of Justice do beget Increasing Mischiefs that admit no cure Save what must from a Legislative Power Derived be and this befalleth so Perhaps that I in every Change may know The gen'ral temper by the pulse that beats Both in Superior and inferior Seats That I and other men may timely see How little confidence reposed may be In Lords or Commons Parliaments or Kings Or in the best of all Terrestrial things And that henceforth we might depend upon GOD's Providence and upon him alone If this displease it cannot make me more Exposed to sufferings than I was before They who to neither side nor back nor further Can move themselves need no Restraint by Order Nor greatly be afraid what next will come Their just Resolving to divert them from And that whereto Necessities compel Is done excusably though not done well If much Oppression cracks a wise man's brain Who knows whereto it may a fool constrain Or how it may the meekest men provoke To that whereby the Common Peace is broke They whom delay of Justice doth make poor Do lose but their Estates and may get more If otherwhile they are of Life deprived They feel not what to feel they might have lived But he who doth in life-time thereby lose Estate and Credit shall to Friends and Foes Become a scorn whereat if mad he be And makes ten thousands grow as mad as he Who knows whereto it may at last extend Or what will thereon follow in the end The fault is theirs who without Mercy stretch A weak man's Patience further than 't will reach As if he of his Sufferings sense had none Because they no more feel them than a stone My Principle for which I am abused Injoins me when I scurvily am used Where I expect Relief to show my wrongs And Vengeance leave to whom the same belongs But all men cannot be content to stay GOD's leisure or for Justice in his way And what their Wants Neglects and Indignation May tempt them to is worth consideration There is to all things an appointed date And they are not wise who are wise too late One sin remains unacted to the height Which when complete will ruin all outright And that is this There are yet in the gap Some standing who with life do yet escape If these removed were that Abomination Which next precedes an utter Desolation Will be set up and then shall be inflicted At full all those Plagues heretofore predicted Oh God prevent that Grand that fatal Gild I humbly pray and I believe thou wilt By raising still to stand before thy face An acceptable number in this place For whose sake thou wilt spare it from the dooms Now threatened till our great deliverer comes And keep them constant to true self-denial Faith Love and Patience in their fiery trial For nor thine or their Glory it advances So much as when they have deliverances From Sufferings in their height and when they are Within a burning Furnace as they were Who had it heated for them seven times more Than ere it was at any time before This as were all this Author 's other Addresses were tendered to the late Parliaments without success whether expreffed in a serious or extravagant Mode And thereby perhaps the true constitution of those times will the better appear to the glorifying of GOD's Justice because the personal experience which he had by feeling those oppressions whereof many others complained were to him much more evidenced thereby to be real than they could be by what he seemed to see or to hear only by report HALELUJAH Or Britan's Second Remembrancer Imprinted 1641. THis First Part of a Review of Neglected Precautions Predictions and Remembrances was begun with the Author's first Book called Britan's Remembrancer and this Second Remembrancer shall conclude it For though composed in a Mode much differing from the former it was an Expedient which might have produced good Effects had it not been as much neglected as all other good means are to this day It is our duty to make trial of another way when one fails and the Prophets are herein exemplary to us who often declared the same Truths in various dress and otherwhile in the same words when the same or like Occasions were given That Book containing Two hundred thirty three spiritual Hymns and Songs is too large to be abreviated and therefore to instance the usefulness of the rest here shall be inserted but two or three Hymns out of each Book the first relating to particular Occasions the second to Times the third to Persons that all men of all sorts might be thereby minded of their Duties at all Times and upon all Occasions as appears by this brief Narration A Friend of the Author's much affecting that Expedient as tending to the advance both of Morality and Virtue distributed many of the Books among his Acquaintance at his own cost and recommended one of them to a Person of Quality who loved Song and Music but before he had read two lines thereof he rejected it with much contempt whereupon the other somewhat grieved asked the reason of his dislike and received this Answer Such a Character of it hath said he been given by a Learned and Pious Divine upon whose Judgement I rely that I will not lose time in perusing it Yet at last being importuned he took it up and turning to a Song which was to him instanced as demonstrating the frothiness of all the rest he began to read it aloud in slighting manner and in a ridiculous Tone but after the reading of a few lines changing his voice sat still a good space perusing it in silence then suddenly starting up said thus to his Friend I heartily thank you for this Book and for importuning me to read it I hope also it shall teach me whilst I live not to depend upon the Judgement of other men how religious or judicious soever they shall be reputed in those things wherein I ought to use my own understanding as well as theirs This is the effect of what was told the Author and it is here inserted in hope it may make some other as wise as that Gentleman The Author in his Epistles before the whole and each particular Book of that Volume hath expressed by way of Preoccupation somewhat to prevent prejudice and if it had been contemplatively and actually made use of according to his intention and proposals might perhaps have reduced this Generation to a better temper than Precepts without Practice have effected and made those vain Songs less delighted in which are become so numerous and so affected that pious Meditations are nigh quite out of fashion with many for not in private only but at public Feasts and Meetings also scurrilous and obscene Songs are impudently sung without respect to the presence of Matrons Virgins Magistrates and Divines yea sometimes are in their despite called for sung and acted with such abominable gesticulations as are offensive to all modest hearers and beholders and befitting only the Solemnities of Bacchus Venus and Priapus for the abolishing of which Abuse the Author was a Petitioner that some provision might be made and prepared also this Expedient to promove it but the carnal profaneness of some and the sullen Religiousness of others who causelessly pretended a Superstitious Design to be therein couched hath hitherto vacated both his hope and pious Endeavours notwithstanding all his Precautions An Occasional Hymn when we first awake in the Morning DEar GOD who watch dost keep Round all that honour thee To thy Beloved givest sleep When Rest shall needful be My Soul returns thee praise That thus refreshed I am And that my Tongue a Voice can raise To praise thee for the same 2 As now my soul doth shake Dull sleep out of mine eyes So let thy Spirit me awake That I from sin may rise The Night is passed away Which filled us full of fears And we enjoy another Day Wherein thy Grace appears 3 Oh! let me therefore shun All Errors of the Night Thy Righteousness let me put on And walk as in the Light Protect me from his Power Since I on thee rely Who walks in darkness to devour When our long sleep draws nigh 4 Grant when the Trump shall sound A summons from the Grave My Body then may from the ground A blessed rising have That whatsoever the dreams Of my Corruption be The Vision of thy glorious Beams May bring full joys to me A Hymn when daylight appears LOok forth mine eye look up and view How bright the daylight shines on me And as the Morning doth renew Mark how renewed GOD's Mercies be Behold the splendours of the Day Disperse the shadows of the Night And they who late in darkness lay Have now the Comfort of the light 2 Nor Twilight-Plagues nor Midnight-fears Nor mortal or immortal Foes Had power to take us in their snares But safe we slept and safe arose And to those days which we have had He that is Lord of Day and Night Another Day vouchsafes to add That our lost hours redeem we might 3 It is too much to have made void So many days already past Let this therefore be so employed As if we knew it were our last Most creatures now themselves advance Their Morning-sacrifice to bring The Herds do skip the Flocks do dance The Winds do pipe the Birds do sing 4 Lord why should these that were decreed To serve thee in a lower place In thankful duties us exceed Who have obtained special Grace We are obliged much more than those Our Voice in thankfulness to raise Therefore oh GOD our lips unclose And teach our Tongues to sing thy praise 5 Let heart and hand and voice accord This day to magnify thy Name And let us every day oh Lord Endeavour to perform the same So when that Morning doth appear In which thou shalt all flesh destroy We shall not then awake in fear But rise to meet thy Son with joy A Hymn when we are putting on our APPAREL LORD had not man sought out by sin What was untimely known His nakedness unfelt had been And wiser he had grown But in the stead of what he thought By lawless means to know The knowledge of those things was taught Which bringeth sense of wo. 2 Had he as forward strove to be The Fruit of Life to taste As on the Death-procuring-Tree A lustful eye to cast The happiness for him prepared In soul he had obtained And in his Body also shared The bliss for him ordained 3 But since the flesh did press to see Her wants before the time Both soul and flesh afflicted be For that presumptuous Crime And cumbered so with pain and care For Clothing and for Food That little their Endeavours are To seek their chiefest good 4 Lord with a Rose of Innocence Thy Servant so array That it may take the painful sense Of outward wants away So cloth me with thy Righteousness That though defiled I am I may not by my nakedness Exposed be to shame 5 Let not the Garments which I wear My tender flesh to hide Be either made a lustful Snare Or nourishments of Pride But be remembrances to show The folly of that deed By which man fell and fell so low As those base Rags to need The Second Temporary Hymn A Temporary Hymn for the First Day of the Week commonly called the Lordsday or Sunday GReat Lord of Time great King of Heaven Since weekly thou renew'st my days To thee shall daily thanks be given And weekly Sacrifice of Praise This day the Light Time's eldest born Her glorious Beams did first display And then the Evening and the Morn Did first obtain the Name of Day 2 The Depth with Darkness then impaled That out of which the World was made And which deep Waters thou hast called Upon this Day beginning had And as upon this Day it was In which Creation first begun So on this Day the work of Grace In every circumstance was done 3 For on this Day thy Christ arose And Victor over Death became This Day he conquered all his Foes And put them to perpetual shame Upon this Day it pleased thee Thy holy Spirit down to send That men with Gifts might furnished be Thy Gospel's Preaching to attend 4 This day therefore we set apart For holy Rest and holy Rites And every sanctified heart To celebrate this day delights Except thereto compelled by need Works for the Body we forbear That in those works we may proceed Which for the souls health needful are 5 Therefore that now to thee oh Lord A due Oblation bring I may Thus to thine Honour I record And sing the Blessings of this day So let me sing so mind them still And all my life so thankful be That when my Course I shall fulfil I may acceptance find with thee 6 Discretion grant me so to know What Sabbath-Rites thou dost require And Grace my duty so to do That I may keep thy Law entire Not doing what should not be done Nor aught omitting fit to do Nor over-burth'ning any one With more than thou enjoin'st them to 7 But let me rest my body so That to my Soul I do no wrong Or in Devotion heedless grow What to my Body's rest belong That both in Soul and Body Lord I may still hollow every day According to thy Holy Word And have true Rest in thee for ay The Third Temporary Hymn For MONDAY THis Morning brings to mind oh GOD Thy forming of this Airy Sphere And spreading of that Orb abroed Wherewith we now surrounded are It was the Fabric which thy hand Vouchsafed upon this day to frame And bounding Waters under land From those which are above the same 2 This Airy Firmament both keeps All breathing Creatures here below From suffocation in those Deeps Whereon till then no wind did blow To us this Firmament conveys Those Dews and Showers which oft we need And all those pleasant Summer-days Whence Profits and Delights proceed 3 Yea by this Firmament we gain The Vision of refreshing Light And thereby do as well obtain The use of hearing and of sight For this day's Workmanship oh Lord I praise thee now and humbly pray That I may thankfully record Thy daily Blessings every day A Personal Hymn for a Sovereign PRINCE BY me or by my Father's House Deserved it could not be That I or any one of us Obtained this Degree But GOD who dealeth forth his own As him it liketh best On me those Honours hath bestown Whereof I am poffest 2 Great hazards many undergo Such Titles to acquire Yet neither find content below Or means of rising higher What therefore can I less repay To him whose Gift it is Then otherwhile to sing or say Some such like Hymn as this 3 Let me O Lord my Diadem Unto thy Glory wear And be a Blessing unto them Who my Liege People are Let not thy favours make my heart To swell with wanton Pride Or from those Precepts to depart Which ought to be my Guide 4 But make me still in mind to bear From whom this Throne I had And that they my own Brethren are Who Ruler I was made Yea cause me evermore to heed That I and they are thine Although to serve the Public need Their Goods and Lives are mine 5 Since every Subjects Cause to me Should equally be dear In Judgement let the poor man be As precious as the Peer And lest for them we snares may make At my chief Council-bo'rd Lord let me daily Counsel take From thy Truth-speaking-Word 6 Those Traitors chase out of my Court Who dare pervert the Laws Or cause me by a false report To wrong an honest Cause And let thy Judgements them devour How high soe'er they stand Who shall abuse my Royal Power To hinder thy Command 7 Within my Realms let no man dare My Statutes to gainsay And let me live in as much fear Thy Laws to disobey So I and they whom thou on me For Subjects hast bestown Shall in each other blessed be And keep Sedition down 8 Preserve to me my Royal Deuce And Grace vouchsafe me still My just Prerogative to use According to thy Will That evil men may dread my frown The Righteous comfort find And I obtain a better Crown When this must be resigned Here ends the First Part of this Review to which a Second Part shall be added as GOD enables and permits A POSTSCRIPT THE uncertainty and changeableness of all temporal things make us accordingly mutable in our Purposes And whereas the Author of the several Books here abreviated intended a Retirement to a solitary Habitation in the place of his Nativity upon such Considerations as were expressed in the Preface of this Review his Friends resident in and near London not approving thereof have persuaded him to the contrary by making it probable That future Inconveniences would be thereby rather multiplied then diminished Now therefore by considering therewithal That where GOD's Judgements are most visible his Mercy will be there as much evidenced to all who love and trust unfeignedly in him he resolveth to continue where he is until he can stay there no longer lest he may bury himself alive by removing far from them by whose Charity GOD hath hitherto preserved him There are Faults escaped in the Imprinting or Transcribing of this Review which the Author 's late Sickness disabled him to take notice of The Readers are therefore desired to correct and amend them according to their own discretion The Names of those Printed Books heretofore written by GEORGE WHITHER out of which this First Part of this Review of Neglected Remembrances Precautions and Predictions was collected mentioning the years in which they were the First or Second time Imprinted Britans' Remembrancer Imprinted 1627. pag. 1. The Author's Motto Nec Habeo Nec Careo Nec Curo Imprinted 1618. p. 47. Campo Musae or Field-musing Impr. 1644. p. 49. The Dark Lantern Imprinted 1650. p. 57 The Perpetual Parliament Imprinted 1650. p. 69. The Author's Emblems Imprinted 1634. p. 78. An Interjection being a sudden Ejaculation cast in at the Collecting of this Review p. 85. Vaticinium Causuale Imprinted 1655. p. 100 Verses to the King's Majesty Imprinted 1662. p. 103. A Thankful Retribution Imprinted 1649. p. 109. Boni Ominis Votum Imprinted 1656. p. 115. A Si Quis or Queries Imprinted 1648. p. 119. The Author's Petition Imprinted 1648. p. 125. The Tired Petitioner Imprinted without date p. 128. Se Defendendo Imprinted without date p. 132. Justitiarius Justificatus Impr. without date p. 131. Vox Pacifica Imprinted 1645. p. 132. Carmen Expostulatorium Imprinted 1647. p. 146. Letters of Advice Imprinted 1644. p. 152. A Cause Allegorically stated Impr. 1657. p. 159. Mercurius Rusticus Imprinted without date p. 161. What Peace to the Wicked Imprinted 1646. p. 163. An Address to the Members of Parliament imprinted 1657. p. 175. hallelujah or Britan's Second Remembrancer imprinted 1641. p. 183. FINIS