BEing called to this publick service by The preface or address. the piety and civility of this great City (Right honorable and worthy Auditors) I could not well tell how to avoid it, because it seemed so good a work; nor yet (upon so short warning) how to accept of it, being so great a work, if either I re­gard [Page 2] the importance of the occasion, which looks like a door of hope opened to the healing of these Nations, and composing of their sad distractions, by the counsels of a full and free Parliament, and by the assistance of regular and orderly power.

§. Or if I consider (as I ought in prudence) The difficulty and danger of the work. the difficulty and danger of touching, though in order to heal the old sor [...]s and sistulating ulcers of this Church and State, which are now ( vetustesceu­tia mala, & annosi morbi) inveterate dolors, obstinate evils and pertinacious maladies; not onely impati­ent to be touched freely, and searched throughly, but are prone to plead as the Divels in the Gospel (who had possessed the poor man now a long time) against all health and recovery. Many men like Canters and Lazars are in love with their wounds and ulcers, getting their living more easily by keeping their sores open, raw and running, than if they should quite heal them up.

§. I am further conscious not only to the touchi­ness Touchiness of times. of the times, and the tenderness of many mens minds, who are onely for lenitives and oyles, for soft, smooth and supple applications, even to their most desperate hurts; but also that my own native parrhesia, or freedom of speaking, which is both customary and consciencious; not that I af­fect unseasonable severities of speech, and such rudeness under the pretence of freedom, as ra­ther exasperates the wound, and inflames the humor, than purgeth, allays, or easeth them.

§. But I profess to chuse not to preach at all, rather Ossre [...] speak­ing in preach­ing. than to preach timorously or precariously ( Ut Lug­dunensem [Page 3] Rhetor dicturus ad aram) as if I should ask men leave to be honest, or were afraid to speak the Word of God to them.

§. When I am called to speak in Gods name, I must be Parrhesiastes as well as Ecclessiastes; I am to do it as a workman that needs not to be ashamed, either for his ignorance, or cowardise, or indiscre­tion; whether men will hear, or forbear, the whole counsel of God must be delivered in its season, so as becomes the words of soberness and truth, for the Church or Pulpit must not be a sanctuary for insolency, or a burrow or a retreat for rudeness: No, however men may become our enemies for speaking the truth, yet it is better so than to have God our enemy for smothering it, when it is just and seasonable; and such it is when necessary and sove­raign to heal the hurt of a Church and State.

§. It hath been my fate frequently to offend Offence easily taken from free preaching some men, when I have been most intent to serve them, by Texts and Sermons, which I thought most apt, useful and innocent. When I preached at the Court Anno. 1640. upon that Heb. 12. 14. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see God: When before the long Parli­ament, at its first convening, upon Zach. 8. 19. Therefore love the truth and peace: When at ano­ther great and epidemick Assembly, upon 1 Cor. 3. 19. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God: Of all three, though wholsom and innocent Texts, and (I hope) accordingly handled, yet I heard some unpleasing Ecchoes and reflexi­ons; 2 Tim. 4. 2. the sore and itching ears of some men in all [Page 4] ages are such, that they will not endure ( [...]) healing or sound and wholesome Doctrine, though the pain riseth from the soreness and in­flamation in themselves, and not from the plaister or hand which honestly applies it; yet they are prone as in fell boles, and acute tumors, when touched, though but gently, to fly upon those that are next them, and cry [...]loud O you hurt me, when the hurt is within and from themselves.

§. Sound parts will endure free and rough healing; such as are unsound, do most want it; and therefore if we will be faithful to God, to our own souls, and to our hearers, we must not flatter their sores to their ruine; but rather chuse Prov. 36. 28 to heal them, though at present we be thought to hurt them; nor shall our labor of love be in vain either in the Lord, or before good men; who H [...]re [...]t free­dom is best. at length will find by experience, that the wounds of a friend (which let out the putrified matter of painfull tumors) are better than the kisses of an ene­my, which do ( insides cicatricibus cuticulam obdu­cere) skin over with unfaithful scars, the ill search­ed and ill purged vnlcers of mens hearts and lives, saying peace, peace, all is, all will, all must be well in Church and State, when ( bona fide, or mala & misera experientia) in true, but sad trial and sence of things, there is no peace, inward, or out­ward, 2 Ci. ron. 15. 5. to him that goes out, or him that comes in; no peace religious or politick, civil or ecclessiastial, foraign or domestick, either to the Estates, Liber­ties, Laws, honors or lives of men; nor yet to their opinions, doctrines, devotions and consciences, [Page 5] in any rank or degree; but as the Prophet Isaiah complains, The whole head (if we have any head) i [...] Isa. 1. [...]. [...] sick, and the whole heart is faint; from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, there is no sound­ness in it, but wounds and bruises and pu [...]rifying sores; they have not been closed, nor bound up, nor mollified with ointments.

§. Yet there are that have cryed amain Peace, Pre [...]en l [...]s to pe [...]ce [...]nd h [...]al [...]. peace; men that are either so merry or so mad in our common calamities, as to command us to call our sicknesses health; our wounds salves; our slavery, liberty; our divisions, union; our deformities reformings; our unset [...]ledness, settling; our sands and quag [...]i [...]es, rockie foundations; our wars, peace, our oppressions, ease; our Commonwo, a Common­weal. The Prophet seems thus to complain, That either Physitians of no value ( [...]) many and unskilful Empiricks have un­faithfully tampered with us, and ( dum vulnera publica in lucra privata vertunt) while they make private gain by our publique pains; they have tur­ned ( ipsa remedia in morbos) our very remedies to new diseases, and have kept us long uncured, under pretence of cure; or else we are by the venome of our own inbred and malignant humors, become incurable; as ( immedieabile vulnus, ense recidendum) a gangreen only fit for the saw and sword: and such indeed do our proud and dead flesh (or proud minds and dead hearts rather) portend our case to be, whilst so many tough obstructions, so many high inflammations, such new tumors and cruel biles daily arise of various [Page 6] interests; such a constant fall of ill humours, sharp and undigested, not onely upon the outward and grosser or more Mechanick parts of of the body Politick, but also upon the most vital and noble, the head and heart; where the counsel and cou­rage, the strength and wisdom, the best blood and spirits of the Nation are or ought to be contained and exserted to the publick welfare.

Although, as the woman in the Gospel, we have Mark. 5. 26. spent all, or most, or much of our substance on Physitians, and their attending Chyrurgeons, on Counsellors and Soldiers, yet we do not find our selves any whit the better; still we are scared and threatned by our sins, which are Gods discon­tents; and our utsettlednesses (which are the Na­tions discontent and sufferings) with daily break­ings out and angry tumors, with new purgings and loathsome potions, with lancings and blood­lettings, with cutting off and cauterisings, which will not heal, restore, close and redintigrate the body, but maime and defame, and cripple it for ever.

§. To prevent which successive miseries (or the The scope or design of the Text. like) from the daughter of my people here in Eng­land (as much as in me lies) I have sought to improve the sanctity and solemnity of this occa­sion, this thankful and hopeful opportunity of future mercies, be presenting you with my meditations on this Text; because it is not onely ( querela defalla­cia medieorum, & medelae mendacio) a just com­plaint of the falsity of Physitians, and inefficacy of the past applications, which some Medicasters had [Page 7] with great vapour and confidence applied, as bold Mountebaks are wont to do, when they wound their slaves to shew their skill in healing them.

§. But farther, the text is monitio de vera me­dendi methodo) a dirction for the right method and an honest way of curing an afflicted Nation; It doth not only deplore the publique maladies, but denotes their right remedies, which may easily be known, and followed, if the healers were but honest; For the hurts are not so fatal, necessary and un­avoidable, Hurt of a Na­tion not fatal and incurable. that men should despaire, and sink under them, Saying, There is no hope, it is in vaine to wait on the Lord any longer; God hath condemned and decreed us, as poor diseased, and desperate creatures, to lie always in the Hospital under sores and pains, expecting no cure but that of death, and utter dissolution; If it were [...]er. 6. 14. so, God would not here and elsewhere grei­vously reproach and perstring those cheating under­takers, those false▪ Quacksalvers, these wanton and cruel Leeches; who did not want, skill, and know­ledg, of what would heal Church and State, in Law and Government, in true Religion and Ju­stice, in Mercy and Humility, Which are the best balsoms of both, and clearly revealed to them by the Lord; but they wanted honesty and fidelity; therefore God pleads against them; is there no Ier. 9. 22. balme in Gilead? is there no Physitian? &c. Why then is not the hurt of the daughter of my people re [...]o­vered? The question ( Is there no Balm?) is a ve [...]e­ment affirmation, a Satyrick [...]; There [Page 8] are ways and means ( parabiles & ad manum) suf­ficient, easy, apt, obvious and at hand to cure the wounds, or bruises, or tumors, or hurts of any Nati­on; if men did not either wilfully shut their eyes against them, and refuse to use them, or if God had not for their hypocrisie, fraud & baseness, just­ly blinded their eyes, and hid from them the things belonging to their own and the Nations peace, by leaving them to the mists and clouds of their own partial, covetous and ambitious lusts; Then (indeed) nothing is to be expected, but dayly ( recrudescentia ulcera) relapses and recruitings of our wounds, until God gives us Physitians of better eyes and hearts, that may both wisely discern our maladies, and both speedily and faithfully incounter them with seasonable and fit remedies.

§. To which posture of providence we are The hope and expectation of this day for our healing. prone to hope that we are this day restored by the valour, honour and integrity of those who now have the conduct of power and counsel; I pray God we may have cause ( seri [...] gaudere) to re­joyce long and in good earnest; for every days delay of our oure is a chargeable, uncharitable, and painful delusion to the Nation, threatning such a consumption of Spirits, and such debilitati­on of the Nations strength and estate (besides the debasing of its honor and reputation) as must necessarily (at Kast) betray us with our poste­rity, with our Estates, Laws, Liberties and Lives, yea and with our Reformed Religion (which ought to be dearer to us, as it was to our forefathers, than our live [...] and estates) to that f [...]raign inva­sion, [Page 9] and Romish superstition, which is the ( [...]) the great design of the Jesuitick agitation, whereto are subservient all the fanatick facti­ons of those who are such enemies to the just and legal closing, or composing of our hurts in Church and State.

§. It will be found true by us at last (as well as hitherto some others have felt it to their smart) That a Commonwealth as well as King­dom M rk. [...]. 25. divided against it self cannot long stand; Et sero medicina paratur, Cum mala per longas in­valuere moras; In vain shall we at last cry out, How have we been deluded? how have we despised counsel, and neglected such plain and safe reme­dies, as would have cured us long ago? There want not birds of prey ( Eagles, Ravens and Vul­tures) that wait for the feebleness and fall of this Church and State; that they may pick out its eyes of Religion and Learning, of Law and Justice, the Universities and Inns of Court, that the life and soul of Christian and humane So­cieties, Equity and Charity, Reason and true Re­ligion being departed, the ( cadavarosa Patria & Ecclesia) carkass of our Church and Country may be their spoil and booty, which God of his mercy forbid.

§. In the Text there are six things to be en­quired. Division in six parts.

1. Persona laesa, icta, afflicta, the Patient or af­flicted; whom the Prophet, yea God himself de­plores and owns; she is called the daughter of my people.

[Page 10]2. Plaga or laesio; the grief or malady, her hurt or lesure.

3. Ficta medela, or insana sanatio, the pre­tended cure or verbal healing; they have healed, with saying Peace, peace, slightly and superfici­ally.

4. [...], or mendacium; the fallacy and cheat, when there is no peace.

5. Medicorum turba; the Physitians or Empe­ricks; They, great Statists, grave Polititians, for­mal pretenders to do great feats, and miraculous cures in Church and State, when really they are no other than imperious Hypocrites, magniloquent Montebanks, cruel and covetous, confident and careless Boasters of their skill; but no way Effecters of a real cure.

6. Vera medendi methodus; the true way of curing a diseased Nation a distressed Country, a sick and languishing Church, which is implied and supposed to be

First, As evident in it self.

Secondly, As easie and as feasible by these Pre­tenders, if honest.

Thirdly, As it necessary, apt and seasonable for the poor Patient; hence the great blame and reproach imputed to these Tamperers or Medica­sters; They, to their sin and shame; They with their pride and pollicy; Thy with their cunning and cruelty; They, more for want of honesty than ability, have thus superficially skinned over, and perfunctorily healed the hurt of the dauhhter of my people; saying, &c.

[Page 11]§. Of these I intend by Gods blessings to speak, not as a Ruler or Magistrate, nor as a Statist and Politian, nor as a Soldier and Commander, nor as a Citizen and Trader, but as a Preacher or Minister of God to his Church: And since we are exclu­ded beyond all men in the Nation, from being chosen to meet or advise in any other ways of publick Counsels, Civil or Ecclesiastical; you may not think much if as men and Christians, no less than Divines, we use the freedom of this place to acquaint you with the sence and sympathy of our souls; yea of Gods Spirit, in and by the Pro­phet; when he was not a Spectator only, but a joynt suffer (as we Ministers have been more than any order of men) in the common hurts and mise­ries of Church and State.

1. I begin with the Patient, who is called here The Patient or diseased and hurt daughter of my people. both by God and the Prophet, The daughter of my people, [...], That is gens mea, or populus meus.

First, In relation to God, the people that I 1 As related to God. have bred up with so much care and tenderness; the Nation that hath been to me as a Son or Daughter; the Vine that I have planted, watered and fenced for my self; That Polity of Church and State to which I was Lawgiver, the chief Counsellor and Constitutor, the supream Head and Governor; the Captain, Shepherd and Bishop; their great King and Protector: My peculiar people, whom had preferred beyond all Nations, as a Theocracy or holy Monarchy, or royal Priest­hood; This is the Patient with whose hurts, sores, [Page 12] bruises, wounds and sorrows, these practicants have most impudently padled, and cruelly pleased them­selves, in turning publique miseries of Church and State to their private advantages.

2. In relation to the Prophet; the daughter of 2 As related and indeared to the Prophet my people, which are of the same linage and de­rivation; of the same Father and Family; of the nearest blood, both by parentage and alliance; with whom I have the same Laws and [...]ivil im­munities; also the same Religion and sacred com­munion; Natural, Civil, Ecclesiastical kindred endears me to them; they are as flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone; yea we are, or ought to be of the same spirit and soul, as having the same God and Saviour, the same holy duties or solemni­ties, to engage us in love and dearness as well as nearness to each other, so as the publick and com­mon good should be the supream good of every particular: We cannot be happy or miserable alone; as members in one body, all our enjoy­ments are social, and all our sufferings are sympa­thetick; This is the daughter of my people, for whom I am so concerned and afflicted, that I preach and pray, I write and weep, I wake and dream, lamentations and tears for her a man, as a Citizen, as a true Israelite, or Jew, as a Christian, as a Protestant or reformed Pro­fessor.

This Tittle of the Daughter of my people, is so The impor­tance of the Title. The Daughter of my people. frequent in Scripture, that it seems to importune the Reader to consider the importance of it; Isa. 1. 8. and 22. 4. Jer. 4. 12. and 9. 1. and 6. 14, 19. [Page 13] Lam. 2. 11. Zach. 9. 9. So Daughter of Sion, and of Jerusalem, or the like expressions.

First, To shew, not so much the fruitfulness 1 Fertility. of a Nation, whom God so blesseth, that they in­crease and multiply, as that softer and procreative or mother sex doth, to great numbers, which are as the off-sets or fruit of a pregnant womb; as the people of God are sometimes called his first born, and his sons, in respect of that masculine Rom. [...]. 19. vigor and valor which was among them while God with them; so the daughter of his people, as apt to bring forth.

Secondly, But further to express the tender 2 Tenderness and indul­gence▪ care, and fatherly indulgence that God hath to­ward such a people as are called by his name, who have had the special signets and bracelets, the Jewels and Ornaments of his favor, the glory of his Ordinances and presence among them: God himself is afflicted in her afflictions; such as tor­ment her torment him; he feels her wounds, 3 Sympathy in God and the Prophet. and faints as it were to see her blood prodigally shed as water on the ground, either by open ene­mies, or fallacious Physitians, and cruel Phleboto­mists; who under pretence of healing the hurts they have made, or festred, venomed and in­flamed) do cut, and lance, and sear, and lop, and purge, and let blood, to such evacuation, and super­fluity, as quite exhaust the best and vital spirits of a Nation; bringing it to fainting fits and con­ [...]ulsions, to weakness and consumption. As a Fa­ther would be affected to see his tender daugh­ter thus used and abused (which cannot endure [Page 14] pains like the hardier and rougher sex of Sons) so is God and so is his Prophet; and so is every good man and woman to the Church and Countrey whereto they are so nearly rela­ted.

§. God is so concerned and touched to the Ier 31. [...]0 quick, that his bowels are turned within him; he deplores himself as if he were a miserable God, while his people, his sons and daughters are mise­rable, either by their sins or sufferings; God hath his sympathies with them, his reputings toward them, his returns with tears and kisses for them, as a compassionate and good natured parent hath toward his daughter when he hath been forced to use her hardly; and hath in his anger either wounded, or bruised, and hurt her.

§. The kindnesses that in mankind are humane affections, in God are Divine perfections: None can be so good natured, so [...], as the good God is; if we were not cruel to him and our own souls, he could never be other than most kind to us; for he doth not afflict us willingly; We compel him to be froward by our froward­ness, 2 Sam. 22. 17 and to break upon us by rebelling against him; we bruise our selves by dashing against that rock which would be our refuge and shelter; we wound our selves by running upon that sword which would only be our defence: God never ceaseth to be our father, till we cease to behave our selves as his children.

§. From the blessed God, the best men learn [Page 15] and derive this tender love, care compassion and Of the love due to our Countrey. indulgence towards the Daughter of their people, both in civil and sacred relations; the concern­ments or interests of both are great endearments to gracious souls: hence as other Prophets so spe­cially Jeremiah, becomes a man of sorrows; his eyes run down night and day with rivers of tears, nor can he be comforted while Sion is afflicted; Though he be wel-nigh drowned in his own tears, yet he wisheth, Jer. 9. 1. O that my head were a fountain of tears.

His bowels, his bowels are pained within him (by Ier. 4. 19 that coarctation or compression, which great grief, fear and horror makes upon (by the retirings of spirit and blood) the lactes and smaller bowels, which are near the heart;) he is weary of life, which doth but daily torment him with so many sad spectacles, such dreadful diurnals, such un­welcome news, of breach upon breach; such a dying and self-destroying Church and State; all things growing worse and worse and no remedy: Still the alarm of war, and sound of the Trumpet: The Church and State Physitians are wholly for corrosives and no lenitives; for fraud and force, not for Reason and Law; they pretend necessi­ty, and pursue providences till they are in wil­derness of woe and confusion; far from peace, Lam, 3. 17 health, salvation and establishment; which are the effects and fruits only of Righteousness and Ju­stice, of Reason and Religion. Hence the Pro­phet with vehemency demands, and demanding he deplores, and deploring he reproacheth the [Page 16] folly and defect, the stupidity and cruelty of those in power; Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no Ier. 8. 22. Physitian? Why then is not the health of the daugh­ter of my people recovered.

The best of the Heathens had very quick stroaks The heathens compassion & courage for their Country. upon their heart strings, by the love and care they had of their Countries; they thought it ( dulce & decorum pro patria mori) most worthy of a good man not onely to live, but also to die for his Countries safety and honor.

§. It argues mindes without natural affection not to have compassion for their Country, and more for their Church; They must be Cyclopick monsters of brutish Barbarity, who can like Can­nibals feed on the flesh and drink the blood of their Country and neighbors, of their kindred, of their parents and of their children; yea of their very daughters, who have a priviledge and plea from their sex for greatest tender­ness.

§. The daughter of our people in respect of our Our Country is both our Mother and Daughter. posterity and descendents from us, whom we leave to succeed after us, in our lands, houses, and estates; is also our Mother and Parent, com­munis parens, if we look backward, as we are derived from our Forefathers; Patria est & mater & silia; our Country is our parent or mother, also our childe or daughter, in different aspects, and so requires different respects:

First, Of reverence, as to our majores, pro­genitores) Father or Mother, that begat and bare us.

[Page 17]Secondly, of Indulgence, as to our Daughter or posteri, which derive from us: In both, that love and kindness is expected, and by the Law of Nature (which is Gods Law) so commanded; that they sin highly who are so cruel, as either to sacrifice their Sons and daughters, or their Fa­thers and Mothers, their Church and Country, root and branch to the fires and flames of civil Wars and dissentions, begun and continued by their sinful cruelty, and tyrannous hypocri­sie.

§. Can a Mother forget her childe, or a Father Isa. 9 15 cast off his Son, or sheath his sword in the bowels of his daughter, without the just imputation of madniss and inhumanity? Judge then, what men, yea what Sea-monsters they are, that can be stu­diously, designedly and industriously cruel to that Country wherein they were bred; and to that Church in which they were baptized, to deform the beauty and destroy the blessings of peace, plenty, order, good government; and true Religion left them by their Progenitors, and to leave to posterity nothing but poverty and pain, terrors and Wars, blood and confusion, hypocrisie and cruelty, fanatick fury and military insolency; nothing but either oppression or Anarchy; either the crys of the oppressors threatning, pillaging and exacting as grievous tax-masters, or of the oppressed, mourning and deploring their sad con­dition in vain, while either the cords of un­righteous decrees do binde a Nation captive to [Page 18] the lusts of unreasonable and merciless men, as to the rack and torture, or such daily executi­ons of violence, exasperation and rigor, as fills the land with discontent, blood and tumult; the daughter of his people, daily appearing as the slain wallowing in their own blood; and her voyce Ezek. 3 [...]. 14 is as the groans of a deadly wounded and dying man.

Fourthly and lastly, this denomination or title The dange­rous and deso­late estate of a Nation depri­ved of her true Fathers. of the daughter of my people, imports, as the happy estate of any Nation, that is thus under Gods eye and tender care; also under the pro­tection, or guardianship of wise Governors, of just and lawful Magistrates, who carry themselves as Nursing-fathers and Nursing-mothers to Church Isa. 43. 23. and State; yea as kind Husbands, and indul­gent Spouses to their beloved Brides or Wives: So it shews how sad, desolate and helpless, yea how dangerous and exposed to miseries, both of dishonour and death, and all manner of hurts, incident to any Church and State, the conditi­on of any people is, that is not under Gods care, or is deprived by their sin and madness, of good Governors, of lawful Magistrates, of able Mini­sters, and Pastors; such a Nation or Church is as a poor, weak, helpless daughter, that is an Or­phan or fatherless, without any friend, father or husband to defend and take care of her; she be­comes as a forsaken virgin, subject to all those inso­lencies and indignities, to which her own weak­ness; and the power of others lusts may expose her; nor can she have any safety, health, honor [Page 19] security, or handsom subsistance and defence untill she be restored to the care and protection of those who under God deserve to be, and by law are Patres patriae, the true Fathers of the daughter of their people; All others that usurp on a Nation are, as unjust, so hard Fathers, Fathers in law, because without and against law, having neither the Law of God nor man for their usurped authority, nor the Law of love and tenderness in their stony hearts; but as Physitians (who unsent for, obtrude their visits and practice, more for their fee and gains than for any love to their Pa­tients welfare) are most welcome when the Pati­ent is soonest rid of them, whose project is rather to protract and perpetuate their Patients Afflictions, than to cover them; nor are they afraid of kill­ling them, further than their gain may dye with them, and their pragmatick humor have less mis­chief to do.

§. But I have done with the first particular, the Conclusion of the first part of the Text. import of this stile, and compellation, the daughter of my people; thus God, and thus the Prophet, thus all good men, and all good Christians are wonted to speak, and think, and act, to love, to pitty, and to pray for their country, both- Church and State. What I beseech you must they be, who wound her with the wounds of an Enimy, and smite her with the strokes of a cruel one, as if all their policy, and power, served to no other use, but to execute ani­mosities, and exercise antipathies, against their country, to eat out (as the generation of vipers are vulgarly said do) the bowels of their mother, who [Page 20] pray not for the peace of Jerusalem, but seek to make a prey of her, both in peace and war, in things sacred and civil, condemning her to everlasting enmities, wars, divisions, confusions, taxes and ex­actions, which cannot be removed, till health is re­stored; nor can this be, till the great wounds and wide breaches made and continued, yea enlarged by some, are closed and drawn together; till there be a ( redintegratio continui, et reparatio disjuncti,) restitution of all noble parts that are necessary for the publique integrality and unity; its order and beauty, its honour and safety; Which what they are, and how to be done, I leave it to wise, honest and impartial men, who have counsel to guide their power, and power to executeor put in practice their good and healing counsels, in spight of all the Leeches and Empiricks, that would hinder pub­lique health, that they might from the open Orifi­ces of their bleeding Country, suck more advan­tages for themselves and their parties to the ruine of the whole.

Secondly, Having visited the Patient, and find­ing it to be our near Relation, as a Sister, or Daughter, or Mother, even our Country and Church; It is time for us to consider its hurt or affliction, to see what it ails; what that plaga, or vulnus, or laesio, or morbus is, wherewith it is so pained that it cannot rest night nor day: Our work is not onely to behold her a far off with si­lence and stupor (as Jobs friends) in her grief and anguish, but either apply suitable reme­dies, or at least such prayers and words of com­fort [Page 21] ( [...] to her heart) as may show our pitty and compassion, which is some relief to those that are in bitterness of soul.

The Hebrew word [...] (whence our English shiver may well be derived) is rendred by the LXX. [...], and by the Latin contritio, which properly imports some injury or hurt inflicted ( ab extra) from an outward aget, by violence, so as to wound or bruise, or batter, or break, or tear; any thing that causeth ( solutionem continui) separation or dissipation of parts which should be united, and in whose right union is ease, as in their dissolution or dislocation is pain.

§. But the latitude of the word may well ex­tent to the larger scope and intent of the place and complaint; which is not onely upon the ac­count of outward force and violent impression, made upon Church and State, against all Reason, Justice and Religion; but as in bodies natural, so in these politique (both civil and Ecclestastical) there are many kinds of hurts or maladis incident to them, both from within and from with­out.

§. There are besides ( v [...]lnera) or flesh wounds, Of [...]bred hur [...]s or di­stempers. and ( ulcera). which are inveterate sores; and ( gangrenae) gangreens which are deadly; if not speedily cured or cut off, their are pustuli, ve­nemous tumors, or angry biles, which arise from some putid or corrupt humors in the body, also running issues and sistulas, which are most at ease when they have some vent, and most dan­gerous, when suddenly and indisretly stopped; [Page 22] these are hurts too, and very grievous ones, when times are such, by the discontent of mens minds, by the dissolution of their licentious man­ners, by weakning the authoritie of Laws, and overturning the course of Government in Church and State, ( ut nec morbos, necremedia ferre pos­sint;) that either the pertinacy of customary dis­orders and prevalent mischiefs, or the petulancy of people overgrown with epidemical and tolerated diseases, will not endure fit remedies, yet are un­done if they linger under their distempers un­cured.

§. Sometimes a body grows plethorick, and is Hurts by [...]e­duudancy of humors hurt by its excess of humors, crude and indigest­ed, which are prone to gather together and fall on any weak disaffected part; there to fer­ment and inflame, to high feavors and verry great anguish of the whole; so is it in a Nation when either over-peopled to an indigence and idleness, through want of work; or when grown luxuri­ant by long peace and plenty, which runs to sot­tery in many, and at last to the armed man po­verty; whose free quarter pressing on people pro­vokes them to discontents, and so to design pub­liqe troubles ( quia multis utile bellum) because they have nothing left them but their carkasses, and their swords; dig they cannot, to beg they are ashamed, fighting is their only fortune.

§. Other while a Nation may be too much ex­hausted by war, by exactions and oppressions, by decay and want of trade, so as it becomes con­sumptive, weak and languishing, either the ( humi­dum [Page 23] radicale) native moisture, oyl and balm of competency is wasted for want of encouraged industry and commerce; or the calor nuturalis, the spirits activity, and generosity of a people are (as the Moderne Egiptians,) quite extinct; being either sottishly idle, or so cowed and over-awed, that they are crestfallen, and below any gallant actions and designs; living more like slaves under hard Ma­sters, than like the Sons and Daughters of a Father­ly Prince, or a free and legal Polity; much as poor Hospital wretches, who are condemned to live aways under the hands of Physitians, and Chy­rurgeons, kept down by Janisaries, and daily ter­rified with either taxes, or instruments of pain, or menaces of death. Certainly, as qui medicae, so qui militariter vivit, misere vivit. It is a kil­ing and dying life, to live always under the Chy­rurgeons lance, or the Souldiers sword.

§. The Hurts of a Nation may be distinguished 3 Civil hur [...]s or bod [...]ly di­ste [...] pets by in­justice. into those that either disaffect the body and outward man, by Tyranny, Injustice and oppression, contrary to the known laws, good constitutions and venerable customs of a people (which are the native and self-healing balsom of those great bo­dies) pressing upon the estates, propertys, liber­ties, limbs, lives and hourrs of mankind; When either Superiors, like the disaffected head, distil too sharp and corrosive humors upon inferior parts, or these send up (by a kind of circulation, or exhal­tation) pestilent fumes and vapors of mutiny and rebellion against their Heads and Superiors, jealous of, and envying each others welfare, also [Page 24] withdrawing that natural assistance from each other, which is indeed the support and health of the whole.

§. These hurts are very dangerous, and ought to be speedily composed to such an harmony as is a tolerable state of health, by adjusting every one their rights assigned to them by that Law, which so takes care and provides for the publick order, beauty, and welfare of all, that it per­mits no one private interest, like a wen or leech, or Incubus to oppress, drein and destroy anothers, for as in Nature so in States, the whole cannot be well at ease, if one part be grievously pained or pierced.

§. There are sometimes horrible rapes com­mitted 4 Of violent rapes commit­ted on the Daughter of my people. upon the daughter of my people, while vile and violent men ( sons of Belial) to satisfie their own inordinate lusts of revenge, covetousness, pride or ambition, apply by force or fraud, or both, to obtain that power and place, that favor and preferment in the publick, which they dis­pair to get in fair and honest ways of worthy industry and merit. These are like the incestuou [...] ravishers of their own Sisters, or Daughters, or Mothers; men that have much of Cateline in them; nothing of the true Christian; nor are they to be envied, if they prosper for a time in their wicked devices and endeavours, since this is all the shadow of greatness they shall ever en­joy; while for a moments glory among a com­pany of poor mortals they venture eternal debase­ment among the Devils; where such great sin­ners [Page 25] shall be greatly tormented; nor will their pro­sperity procure their impunity; though they dye in peace, yet they descend to an eternall war, which is ( [...]) never to be ended by peace or truce, nor yet by annihilation or ex­tinction.

§. There are als [...] grievous hurts, which may be­fall 5. Spiritual hurt [...]. 1. As to Religion. a Nation as to its very soul and better spirits, that is, its intellectuall powers and excellencies of Religion and Learning, of rationall and ingenuous improvements, most worthy of men, of Gentle­men, and Christians.

These hurts are when true Religion, which is founded on Gods word, confirmed by the te­stimony of the Church of God in all ages, forti­fied by good Laws; regulated by good Discipline or Government, and supported by honourable en­couragements; when this is either corrupted in its soundness of doctrine, or overgrown (as the head with a scald) by superstition, or broken by facti­on, or bafled by vulgar insolency, or persecuted by misguided zeal, or oppressed by inordinate power, or robbed of its just maintenance, or dis­composed in its due order and government, or despised in its best Preachers and Professors, or run out to the itch and s [...]ratch (the soabies & pruritus disputandi, as Sir Henry Watton calls it) of disputing and jangling, which breeds uncha­ritable and empty formalities; tending and end­ing in prophaness and Atheism, extinguishing truth and love, sound faith, and sincere chari­ty, which are as the oyle and flame of the lamp [Page 26] of Religion in any Church and heart; these are most dangerous distempers, and hardly to be cu­red or recovered, unless such speedy cordials and antidotes be applied by wise Magistrates, sober Ministers, and sincere Christian people, as may recollect, refocillate and restore the power of god­liness, and spirits of true Religion, by dissipating and expelling those noxious and pestilent oppres­sions, with which either Princes, or Peers, or People, or Preachers have pressed upon true Reli­gion, by Covetousnesse, or Ambition, or Sacriledge, or Schism, or Popularity, or love of Novelty, or Sedition, to the great disgrace of true Religion, and the best Ministers of it, both Fathers and Sons.

§. It is observed by Guildas and others, who give account of our English subversions by S [...]xons and Danes (when we were Christian and civili­zed, but they Heathens and barbarous) that no­thing more presaged the deluge of those miseries, which followed such invasions, than the great contempt and oppression to which the Clergie and Religious Orders were brought; partly it may be by their own sloth and luxury; but chiefly by the prophane insolency of all sorts of people; who were content to have all Religious cords broke asunder, that they might enjoy the full sway of their licentious humors.

§. Again when good learning (which is a most 2. Hurts as [...]o good Learning officious, useful and comely handmaid to Religi­on) when humane Arts and Sciences (which are beams or structures of divine wisdom) when studies [Page 27] of good Laws, and due administration of Justice accordingly, (which are the vital spirits of a Na­tion) when these are villified and outraged by the vilest people, by Jack-Straws and Wat-Tilers, whose ignorance makes them enemies to know­ledge, as darknesse is to light (being like Mastiffs, the feircer for those dark kennels in which they are bred and kept up.) When this ill kind of men cry down (like the Ephesine rabble) with Acts. 15. 28. dust and clamor, more then any shew of reason, all Scoholes of Learning and Universities, that they may run after false Prophets and Dreamers, whose simplicity is so impudent to pretend inspirations and new lights, to so eagle-eyed and quick sight­ed a people as the English are, till their delusions and folly are manifested.

§. These are as rough Satyrs, a kind of robust wilde men, who trust more either to their limbs and sinews, or to their wit and cunning, than to their consciences, or our Laws for the getting of their Living; aiming to live more like beasts by rapine, then like civil men and good Chri­stians, by honest labour and ingenuous in­dustry.

§. Nor are they small hurts which the teeth of such Foxes, and tuskes of such Boars have given to any Church or State, where they have for a while prevailed; being much fitter for Ma­hometan conversation than Christian profession; for there (among Turks) only force or fury makes men considerable; for they think that their Prin­ces and their mad-men are highly favoured and [Page 28] most familiar with God and his Angels.

§. These hurts on the mental spirits, or intel­lectuall powers of a Nation, are more dangerous than those that are incident by grosser wounds of outward immortalities, which the Physick or dicticks of good Laws well executed, will easily keep from predominating; but the hurts which fall on Religion and Learning, on the Reason and Conscience of a Nation, are like frenetick distem­pers, long a growing, and long a going, like the wounds on the head, or cracks, as we say, of the brain, hardly ever throughly cured; when Here­sie or Schism, like a spirituall frenzy hath seised on any people; as was evident in the Manachies, Novations, Arians, Donatists, Nestorians, Euty­chians and others, of ancient and modern ages.

§. There are further, plagae per peccatum, and Publick hurts from sins pre­dominant and unpunished. propter peccatum; hurts from sin, and for sin; the first hurts are by our own evill meritings, as the self wounds of a drunkard; the second by Gods just inflictings upon malefactors; for he will not always leave the publick sins of a Nation, without visiting with sore and publike punishments.

§. The first hurts are those from sins, when they grow great and masterly, boysterous and impe­rious, either countenanced in Court, or indulged in City, or prevalent and neglected in Countries; when prophanenesse, and lying and swearing, and Ier. 27. 10. Isa. 59. 3: Hos. 4. 2. drunkennesse, and vncleannesse, and murthers or the like faedities come to pollute a great or a consi­derable part of a Nation, so as men make a [Page 29] mock of sin, and glory in their shame; when Re­bellion, Perjury, Innocent-blood-shed and Sacri­ledge are drawn on) like strait and pinching shooes at first) with the shooing horne of Religion and Refor­mation, of publick necessity, thrift and good Hus­bandry, with antipathies against Idolatry, and abhorrencies of superstitions; when Prince is bad and people worse, and Priest or Prophet worst of all: When from the Rulers or Teachers of a Nation, Ier. 5 31. and 6. 13. wickednesse as a plague of leprosie, is spread over all the Land: When there is a loathing of the heavenly Manna, a contempt of Word and Sacraments, an indifferency to all Religion, as little reverence in a Church at holy duties, as in a Play-house, and fat less than in a Shire-house; these fiery darts of mens own wanton lusts and the devils tempta­tions do wound very deep; they at once pierce and sear, they hurt and stupifie, they make men past feeling at length, and only fit them for vengeance.

§. The second hurts are propter peccatum; those Hurts f [...] sin by Gods in­flicting. which the just and angry God in his sore judge­ments inflicts on a people now incorrigible in or­dinary ways and; most severely on those that Ier. 25. 29. are called by his name, and owned as the daughter of his people; so the Jews by various hurts and healings were objects of Gods wrath and mercy, till they had filled up the measure of sin. See the Eastern, Asiatick, Greek, Egyptick and African Churches; how famous, how fruitfull, how flou­rishing, till wounded with sins, over-grown with gross heresies and schisins, noisom lusts, base opi­nions [Page 30] and bad actions: the sword of Gods ven­geance by the barbarous inundations of Scythians, Sacracens, Turks, and other Colluvies or scum of people at last so divided them, that they are at this day almost utterly destroyed.

§. The arrows of presumptuous sins shot up against heaven, fall on the heads of the shooters to their own hurt (as Lamech speaks) And as Solomon Prov. 6. 32. tells us, wicked men sin against their own souls, and so against the peace, plenty, honor, health and wel­fare of their Nation and posterity: sin (as Pliny says of Quick-silver) is ( venenum omnium) the pest and poison of all things; it urgeth God to be as a cruel one, it provokes till there be no mediation, 2 Chron. 36. 16 intercession or Remedy: when men proudly and im­penitently treasure up sin, they treasure up with­al wrath against the day of wrath, till judge­ment break in like the flood on the old world, or fall like fire from heaven without any to help, or the earth open and swallow men up quick, as Korah and his complices.

§. Here God is in Justice and Honor concerned to arise, to bend his bow, to whet his sword, to be avenged on such a nation, which is grown wanton­ly Ier. 5. 9. and 9. 9. wicked, which dares fight against God, yea and challenge him, whether he regard iniquity or no, Psalm. 6. 11. whether he be not such an one as themselves; the wounds which men inflict on the Spirit, Grace and Glory of God, force him to wound them; when there is no fear of God, no shame, or remorse, or repentance for sin ( ideo conterimur quia non conte­rimur; ideo vulneramur quia non vulneramur, as St. [Page 31] Bernard) because our hearts are not broken, nor our spirits contrite with in us for sin, therefore the Lord of hosts breaks in upon us, with one Isa. 27. 1. breach in the neck of another, with famine, plague, and 9. 21. sickness, and death, with intestine war, divisions and endless distractions, till Ephraim rise against Manasseh, and Manasseh against Ephraim, and Judah against both; to eat as Canibals one anothers flesh, and drink each others blood, and thereby break the arm or strength of the whole Nation; yea the very bones will be broken, as when one choppeth wood; when the sinews are cut in sunder, all bonds of Law and Conscience, of Reason and Reli­gion, of Justice and Charity, of Unanimity and Unity, are (like Sampsons withs) snapped in pei­ces. All these hurts mens own ways procure to Ier. 4. 18. them, so that God appears either as a stranger and 30. 14. and waifering man, or an enemy, yea as a cruel one in his sore judgements, which like waves of the sea pursue one another.

§. Yet there was some mercy in this severity as to There is good in the evil of punishment out-wards. Israel and Judah a long time, while God cut them short only, but did not utterly forsake them, or cast them out of his sight: it may argue some hope, that a Physician yet vouchsafes to mind and visit his Patient, to apply any causticks or scarify­ings, which by pain may bring to sense, and so to healing.

But there are ( coeca & surda vulnera) silent, The worst hurts are un­seen and unfelt. and unseen, and at present unfelt, yet very sore hurts and deep wounds bleeding inwardly, which God may inflict, as upon a particular soul, so up­on [Page 32] the spirit and genius of a whole Nation, as to Hos. 14. 17. the generality of the people, by giving them over, by letting them alone; why should they be Ier. 2. 30. [...]mitten any more, being a rebellious, stif-necked and back-sliding people! profound to revolt, bold Apo­states, Hos. 5. 2. falling from their duty to God and man, Ier. 7. 9, 10. yet glorying as if they were delivered to do all this wickedness, by the test and approbation of pro­vidence, discovered as they fancy in the prosperity of their impiety for a season.

§. Whereas indeed as St. Anstin observes, Seve­rissim [...] p [...]nit Deus, cum poenalis nutritur impunitas; There need no greater punishment of a gangrene, than to let it alone, to leave it to it self; This ( crude­lis misericordia,) severe mercy St. Bernard passio­nately and wisely deprecates, ( po [...]iws u [...]e, seca, percute, domine, ne parcas, ut parcas,) Rather lance (O Lord) and cut and burn, by a merciful cruelty, than so spare me by a cruel clemency, as to spoil and damn me for ever, saith the devout man.

§. There are spirituall maladies, and miseries too, which give a people over to Dementation, and asto­nishment, to blindnesse and madnesse, to seek after and trust in Lying va [...]ities and desperate hypocri­sies, D [...]ut 28. [...]4 a [...] 64. to rest in the flatteries of successes, or the ap­plauses of the vulgar, who think every one th [...] [...]ospe [...]s to be a God or a good Angel; and every one that is unfortunate to be a Devil, or a great offendor, as the Barbarians did St. Paul when the Viper seised on his hand, and he shaked it off Acts 18. 3. unhurt.

§. Hence any Idol of superstition, any meteor [Page 33] of Enthusiasm, any glow-worm of sanatick fancy and Fury serves the turn, and instead of Gods Candles and Lampes of pure Religion in well­ordered Churches, as golden Candlesticks. God takes away these burning and shining Lights, and leaves a people to the Sparks they have kindled, to be satisfied with their own delusions, to believe Isa. 50. 11. Lyes, to rejoyce and glory in their evil and per­verse Ier. 16. 5. wayes; and when God hath taken away his Peace and Truth from them both in Church and State, they will fall under grievous violences, oppressions, and exa [...]tions of men, whose Mer­cies are cruel, and their healings further hurts, which shall make their very souls bow down to the ground, that proud men may passe over them; Isai. 51. 2 [...]. when nothing but Fury and Sedition at home; nothing but Warre and Invasion from abroad is in reason to be expected; yet then some people will easily smile and fawn on their Oppresso [...]s, they (poor Wretches) being prone to believe (as Countrey-fellowes doe the Mountebancks) that all is well and whole which powerfull hands undertake to touch; they will eccho Peace, Peace in Church and State, and cry up a Common-wealth, when in­dead it is a Common [...]e, as to the grand Interests of the Nation, i [...] the best and noblest, yea, in the most of its parts and members, which can never be fully happy, unless they be of one heart and mind, of one Law and Religion as to the main.

§. Which leads me to the Third Particular, 3. part. The pretended Healing The Medela or Sanatio; the seeming and preten­ded, [Page 28] [...] [Page 29] [...] [Page 30] [...] [Page 31] [...] [Page 32] [...] [Page 33] [...] [Page 34] yea professed and boasted Healing of the Nations Hurts; They have healed with saying, Peace, Peace, [...]; repetita, duplicata, firma & certa pax; nothing but Peace enjoyed, and Peace to be expected, sayes Zedekiah and Hananiah 1 King. 22. 11 Ier. 28. 15. the false Prophets, who lied in the name of the Lord.

§. We may observe the cunning of those Empinicks, those false Physitians, who are of no value; they use 1 The craft of these Empirick. this sweet welcome word of Peace to the peo­ple, which is a Catholicon, comprehensive of all enjoy­ments (for every want is a kind of Waree) when they cry peace, and repeat the crambe of peace, peace, and sing this song (or [...]) over and over again; they hope, (as Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen) Acts 19. 35. by crying Great is Diana of the Ephesians, even to a raving and hoarsenesss, to make the people be­lieve that the Image which came down from hea­ven, was certainly a goddesse; with this lullaby of peace, peace, do the Polititians and Oppressors of a Nation seek to quiet the Trefe and Wayward people, when they cry out of their Ails and Oppressions, Jud. 17. 13. as poor Micah did, when the churlish Danites took away his gods and his Priests, yet was he de­manded what he ailed so to cry after them.

§. So the great Artists of State, that they may the better set off their skill, make (as Mounte­banks) l [...]rg Haranges, specious and popular ora­tions, like Herod, most artificial speeches, mixed with preaching and praying, and sprincklings of Scripture, and Gods cause, as gilded or syrupped [Page 35] bitter pils, to give the better gusto; still conclu­ding with the Epiphonema of peace, peace; when be­hold nothing but usurpation and oppression, grie­vous exactions, and heavy loads, bonds, and chains and prisous are every where prepared for those that dare cry, or complain, or call for remedy; Pes­sime medicastry impensus ostentant artem: None make ampler prefaces brags and spreadings of their skill, and salves and rare feats than the most arrant Quaks and Cheats.

§. These, as the Magicians of Egypt, some times so enchant poor people, that they believe all to be miraculous, at least innoxious, which comes from the tongues and hands of those who possess them; as Heathens ascribed all blessings to their Idols; the most crying Injustice must be thought the highest Justice; the greatest con­tempt and Curb, the strongest oppression and de­lusion of a Nation, the wildest and most partial toleration must be voiced for liberties, yea, for precious Christian Liberty, purchased with much blood and treasure; the grossest Anarchles, and most snarled misgovernment, whose wheels are oft taken off, and whose weight drivces heavily over the very heads and bellies, Laws and Liberties of the Nation (as that Romane Virago, Tullia Hosti­lia did her chariot over her Fathers corps) to the depression of the honor and freedome of Princes Peers, and best of the people, this is voyced peace, peace; the most irreligious licentiousnesse in doctrine opinion, speech and manners, must be re­puted freedom of spirit; the most novel and un­just [Page 36] cause that ever was on foot, must needs be cry­ed up for the Good old Cause; when 'tis indeed quite contrary to the goodnesse of Equity, and the anti­quity of truth.

§. Such monstrous soloecisms there are in the The confi­dence and cruelty of false hearers. world between some mens words and actions, be­tween the credulity of cowardly people, and the reallity of their enjoyments: This is the cunning, this the confidence, and this the cruelty of some State Juglers, and their Plebeian Parasites, to boast of all they do or say, is in order to peace, peace; when by Peace they mean (as Salust expresseth it) nothing but the servility or the solitude of a Nati­on, that all interests, sacred, civil and military, may truckle under their high and mighty power, their tripple crowns; & submissis faucibus deferre imperium: All that search and try their wayes, or Isa. 29. 21. wounds rather, are offendors, even for a word, if they dare speak, whisper, think or weep ought but peace, peace; When such valiant, such succes­full, such holy, such praying, such preaching, such Saintly, such Seraphick men, have gotten power, and place, and plenty, and palaces, O now all is peace, peace.

§. And the better to colour over the overthrow of three flourishing Nations (which from the pile of three united Kingdoms are fillipped to the cross of an ill sodered Common-wealth) some men must by all means pretend to set up (as John of Leyden and his Complices did) the Kingdom of Righteousness, the Throne and Scepter of King Jesus; Which is justly esteemed a Kingdom of [Page 37] peace, being seldom or never advanced by an active war, but only by a passive; yet is this a principall decoy to impose upon vulgar people; for who will not seem willing and forward to submit to Christs Kingdom; that he may rule and reign? But we are not such children, nor have so learned Christ, as to expect his Kingdom to be of this world; Ioh. 18. 16. though in it, yet not after its methods of the sword, but by the word of Truth and spirit of Patience; thus came the King of Sion; the other by the sword of blood, is a rare project for Muncer and Knipperdolling, for Hacket and Arthington, when they can be merry in peoples miseries, with ( po­pulus vult decipi, decipiatur) people have a mind to be deluded, and tis fit they should be so, when credulous people will believe in any spirit, an hun­dred to one but some lying spirits and deceivers, 1 Ioh. 4. [...]. Mat. 24. 23. false Christs, and false Apostles will come among them, who shall make them believe light is dark­nesse, and darknesse light? that good is evill and evill Isa. 5. 20. Rev. 3. [...]. good; that their iron Chains are Bracelets of gold; that factious Conventicles are purest Churches; that Synagogues of Satan are the truest Jews, or children of Abraham; that partiall Conventions, and Senates, sifted, and purged, affronted and bafled by tumultuary or armed force are full and free Parliaments.

§. Which name and thing of Parliament The honour of Parlia­ments when full and free. every sober and understanding English man just­ly venerates and highly esteems in their due and only true constitution; so Parliaments are justly honoured, as [...]os & corona gentis, the cream, [Page 38] flower and crown of a Nation, the anchor and center (under God) of Laws, Liberties, Lives and honours of all that is dear to us in this world, yea, of our Religion too: A Free and full Par­liament is the very Pall [...]dium pacis publicae, the best preserver and restorer of our peace, publick health, and all honest interests; the most august and honourable Assemblie in the world ( Quo s [...]l il­lustriorem non aspicit, as Bishop Andrews calls it, in his Tortura Torti, pag. 291.) the best temper­ed constitutions of spirits and humors, of power and counsel in a Nation; the oracle of publick wis­dom, the magazine of publick strength, the source and fountain of publick order and Authority; the treasure of our Riches, the sanctuary of true Re­ligion, the ark in which the Church of England is embarqued; the Conservatory of both sanctity and civility, the best Umpire of our civill diffe­rences, the most equanimous Censor and reformer of manners; the grand Trustees of Church and State, when so full and free as becomes men of conscience and honor; Who would not submit their honor, estate, liberty, life, all things temporal to such a Judicature of his Coun­try-men, such Arbitrators of the publique choise?

§. But to cry peace, peace; to the body, when Isa. 1 5. the whole heart is faint, when the whole head is sick, when the very brains are [...]eaten out, when the vital and best spirits of a Nation, are almost expired and exhausted, of when the military and pretorian insolence shall stand over the Senate [Page 39] or Parliament, as Hercules with his clud over Hydra's many heads; This Partiality is such a tyrannous Imposition on reasonable men, as if they were commanded to believe and declare that a part is equal to, or more than the whole; that glow-worms are brighter than the Stars, and Meteors or Comets more benign than the Sun and Moon; that all the wisdom and piety of a Nation, were contained in a Knapsack, as the holy Ghost was carried in a Cloak bag from Rome to Tre [...]t: Men need but count the pole or tell noses, to tell what a Free and full Parliament means, which comprehends all the Representatives and Trustees chosen by the Nation, besides the Peers, who were the great coun­cil to the Prince.

§. Peace, as health, includes the good constitution of the whole, but chiefly of the most noble principal parts; peace of Church and State, at home and a­broad, will be far from that Nation, whose pub­lick counsels are at variance, and their chief Councellors are either Fighters against themselves, or Oppressors of one another, [...]o serve some partial (which must needs be a) Sinister base and bad inte­rest; for no counsel is good, in or out of Parlia­ment, which is not for the publicks good, in which every legal and just interest is contained; Indeed its a meer cheat, put on the poor patient the daugh­ter of my people, when vain and empty words of peace, peace are used; and yet either the sword or the exactor, or the oppressor devoureth every way, and every day, when God and man, his word and the violated Laws, peoples sad experience, and tired [Page 40] patience, their exhausted Estates, and daily A­larms proclaime, there is no true Peace, no honest and just; no safe and secure Peace, which indeed is not to be expected, while such Witch-crafts are imposed, and such wicked purposes partially and violently promoted, utterly to deceive, undo, and destroy a people; which brings me to the fourth particular.

§. Fourthly, The [...], Lye or Fallacy, 4. The lye or fallacy of hea­ling slightly. which the Spirit of God by way of Irony expres­seth, they have healed, thus they pretend and brag: but ( lightly ( [...] super leve, ut leviculum, tan­quam rem ni [...]ili, [...], LXX. despicientes, vili­pedentes: cum illusione, Syr. cum ignominia, verbis mendaciorum suorum, Chald.) Thus Translators and Interpreters render the word variously, but to the same sence, arguing the little respect of Piety, Ho­nesty, Equity and Charity, or Humanity, which was in these vain-glorious and ungracious Healers, who either wanted Skill or Will, or Power, and In­fluence, or due Authority, or they were slighters▪ and Contemners of the publiques Health, only intent to their private Wealth and advantages.

§. They never searched the bottom of the Na­tions The [...]ud of su [...]h. great crying sins, Disorders and Sufferings, nor applied seasonable, just and meet Remedies to either; yea, they festred and enflamed the Lighter hurts, to grievous Ulcers, small Faults, Offences, mi­stakes, Differences and Jealousies, which did arise in Church and State, they either dressed these scratches [Page 41] with Vinegar and gall only, with sharp and pic­quent corrasives, without any lenitive or moderation; or else by a dilatory negligence, and supercilious carelesness, they let publick distempers and hurts run on, till they were less capable of any cure, or pa­tient of good applications; Yea, and by a super­fluity of wanton cruelty, they either widened the wounds, and made their probes their punniards; or else dressed them with poysoned spunges, while they seem to purg them, as one that is killed by a glyster or potion. And at best by a most impu­dent hypocrisie, they have skinned over the hurts, with some shew of setling what was sha­ken, and of reforming what was amiss; when indeed no men did more deform the beauty, or ruine the welfare and hinder the healing of the publique, than these Healers, by their enormious sins, and outra­gious lusts, by their unjust and violent actions, by their partiality, and impotency of their passions, by their evil eyes, their fowle breath, and their rough hands; which are the instruments of bad hearts, and base minds.

§. Little or no publique healing is expectable Their Cha­racter. from men that are inordinate self-lovers, covetous, 2 Tim. 3. 2, 3. boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, (natural, civil, ecclesiastical) unthankeful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false-ac­cusers, incontinent; fierce despisers of those that are solidly, sincerely and constantly good, Traytors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more then of God, ha­ving a form of godliness, but denying the power of it, as the Apostle gives their character by an holy Satyr.

[Page 42]§. And can any thing, that is good for the Despair of cure by them. health of the daughter of my people, proceed from such Galileans, such evil men, who meditate mis­chief night and day, who decree unrighteous de­crees, and act wickedness with both hands, greedi­ly? Who think themselves most hurt, if the State and Church should be throughly and speedily healed; they fancy themselves undone, if any publick good be honestly done; 'tis pain and death to them to have the bones well set, which by them have been broken; to see the ( [...] rather than the [...]) gaping wounds or gulphs ra­ther closed up, which they have either made or widened, and kept so open, that they threaten in a few years to swallow up all the wealth, and pea [...]e, and honour, and strength, and happinesse of the Nation and Church.

§. Yet these are the men that say peace, peace; Their Mono­poly of heal­ing. that would be thought the only blessed Peace­makers, the soveraign healers of the hurts of the daughter of my people; such Monopolisers of all Medicines and healing Drugs, that they are im­patient any others should take the cure in [...]and, or have any thing to do in Church or State, be­side themselves and their Applauders. They tell the poor Patient which is full of wounds and pu­tre [...]ied sores, that they will do her more good with their tongues and lips, added to their Laun­cets and Swords, than the best Physicians can do by their best unguents and soveraign balsoms; while the poor sick, wounded and languishing Creature cries out for some ease, and pity; yea [Page 43] roars for the very disquietnesse of its soul, and con­tinued Jer. 8. [...]. pains; yet without any shame or blush­ing, these Physicians of no value, these miserable Mountebanks, affecting a supercilious shew of so­veraign Majesty, severely frown on the pitifull looks and tears of the daughter of my people; with terror threatning her to hold her peace, to believe she hath peace, nay to say and swear it is peace, peace; yea and to abjure the use of any other men or better means, which have been for­merly very effectual for her healing and reco­very.

§. Quis Coelum terrae non misceat & mare Impo. [...]o [...] provoke to just impatience. c [...]lo▪ Here Patience it self is a sin, and Im­patience a vertue: Who, not stupid, can for­bear Isa. 1. 2. with the Prophet to cry out, Hear O hea­ven, and give ear O earth? Was ever any Na­tion so tampered with, so pestered by a company of fallacious Physicians; pretenders to heal, su­perficial skinners, dilatory Empiricks, and misera­ble Medicasters who resolve small hurts into grie­vous Ulcers; and green wounds into virulent gan­greens, and little braises into fell and inflamed tu­mors, yet cry peace, peace; and we have healed you; why do you yet complain?

§. As if the Prophet should say, it is high time (indeed) after so many years of wasting and wounding, of war and trouble, of death and blood­shed, of undoing and destroying, of cutting and dividing the Body Politique, turning the daughter of my people (as on the Gridiron) from one side to the other, by vicissitudes of burning Fea­vers, [Page 44] by continual tossings, and fits of high diste [...] ­pers (between the wrath of God and heavy hand upon her, beside the fury of men against her) yet to cry peace, peace to her; when, as the Lord lives, there is no peace; nor many steps between the pa­tient and death; or at best such a sorry peace as is no less chargeable, terrible and oppressive, than an open war; Pax omni bello tristior, a peace patched up with popular pretentions, and impi­ous injuries; as the body of Lazars; whose plaisters rather hide than heal their sores: What true peace can that be which is founded one­ly on sands and quagmires, on violence and ex­action, daubed over with the untempered mo [...] ­tar of policy and hypocrisie, which holds not one winter; built up with cries, begun with vio­lence, carryed on with oppression, and ending in desolation?

§. Peace, or health, and salvation are far from Character of true healers. the ungodly; What peace can there be to the wicked Princes or People, Senators or Souldiers, Psal. 119. 155. Isa. 57. 22. whose feet are swift to shed innocent bloud? whose hands are full of bribes, whose hearts are hollow and double minded, whose power is usurped, whose decrees are unrighteous, whose mouths are full of Isa. 32. 17. fraud and flattery? Peace and Establishment in Church and State with God and Men, are the fruits of Justice and Righteousness, of true Religion and good Laws, of just Magistracy and legal Sove­raignty, of fixed, free and united Councils, of wise and honest Valour, the study, prayer and en­deavour of men fearing God and hating covetous­ness, Exod. 18. 21. [Page 45] men of true publique Spirits, who are not swayed by private interests and passions to any no­vel designs and factious adherencies.

§. Men of wisdome and honor fortified with just Authority, are only apt to make a Nation happy by healing her, in those ways of honest decrees and impartial dealing, which are legal and regular, not fanatick and extravagant, which every night dream, and in the morning propose new receits, Seraphick projects, and untryed medi­caments, which sufficiently shew, that such Chy­rurgeons and Physitians, are either ignorant or pragmatick or impertinent; either not knowing what to do, or not willing to do what they know, but are resolved to do any thing, never so foolish and pernicious, rather than sit still and do nothing, or give way to better heads and hands, who have more authority from God and man, and so may better expect a blessing.

§. What peace can there be or true healing, while the most crying sins that mankind are ca­pable to commit or conceive, the deepest wounds and sorest hurts from the hand of man that a Na­tion can receive are unpunished and unrepented; yea unconsidered, yea incouraged, yea cryed up by some for rare examples of Justice, of Liberty, of Piety, of Sanctity? when neither the holy God ever commanded, or holy men ever practised any such thing?

§. What peace can there be while fleshly lusts, and all manner of evil concupiscence in Rulers and ruled, fight against mens own souls, against [Page 42] [...] [Page 43] [...] [Page 44] [...] [Page 45] [...] [Page 46] Gods Spirit, and against the publique welfare? while worldly lusts of pride, envy, covetousness, am­bition and Sacriledge daily supply matter for ge­neral James 4. 1 discontents, publique wars, and perpetual woes?

§. What peace or healing can there be in Church and State, while men of the same polity are like Pikes in a pond, or fish in the sea, or beasts of prey in a wilderness, pursuing and devouring one another? while neither the bonds of the same Laws, nor the same Oathes, nor the same Cove­nants, nor the same Religion can hold them? while they will not indure the same Magistrates, nor the same Ministers, nor the same form of Church and State? while they have so little equi­ty, so no piety or charity to each other? while every petty person among the Prophets and peo­ple aims to set up a party of faction, and every par­ty designs to subdue others, to set up it self, and to oppress the common liberty and publick wel­fare, which are only contained in those Laws, that are made by the consent of all Estates in the Na­tion.

§. What peace can there be where there are so many tumults and strifes, so many whispers and jealousies; so many fewds and animosities in the brest and bowels of the same Nation? for want of that rare Elixir of lawful and just government which only is able to compose the distracted spi­rits, to give a just allay and temperament to all hu­mors and parts in their due places and proporti­ons, except they be such as are indigestable to any [Page 47] good order, and are better purged out, than kept in the body?

§. Alas these pitiful partial applications, these diurnal doses, these borary medicaments, these slight and superficial plaisters; these verbal and decretal healings which some men have so gloried in, and vapoured of, are as ridiculous as they have been inefficacious; unless these great Masters of their new arts; these Galens and Hypocrates of Church and State were so in favour with some Esculapius, as to partake of his Diety; and so by the words of their mouths, or shadows of their bodies, or touch of their garments, to rebuke the Feavers of the body politick, and immediately to cure, as by miracle, what they have so long tampered about to very ill purpose.

§. But as an illfavored Physitian is an ill omen to his patient, especially if he look ill from his be­ing ill; therebeing no great hope that the Phy­sitian Luke 4. 23. should cure others, who doth not, or cannot cure himself; so the busie Practitioners on the Daughter of their people, should do well, first to commend their skill to the publique, by giving some good experiments on their selves, by curing their own corrupt hearts, or crazy heads; by recovering themselves from those vertigo's, me­grims, and falling sicknesses, with which they have been so oft afflicted; let them wash their own foul hands, and cleanse their double minds, let Isa. 1. 16, 17. them cease to do evil, and learn to do good; James 4. 8. Let them do all things not arbitrary ( ad libitum, & libidi [...]) but as exact Physitians and Apothecaries [Page 48] per pondus & mensuram, by weight and measure; by the rule and standard of the Laws of God and man; which give, or restore, or preserve to every one what is their own, by such purchase, donation, descent and honest industry; wherein their rights are made good by Law; and which they have no way forfeited by any injury to the publique, of which the Laws of the Land and lawfull Magi­strates, are the only lawful Judges.

§. Let them not think by a little Fasting-spittle Isa. 58. 6, 7, 8. to cure the hurts of Church and State, nor yet by their solemne feasts; This is the fast, and this the feast, the Lord hath chosen, comely for true reli­gion, and wholsome for the Nation, To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burthens, to break every yoak of unrighteous decrees and acts; to restore what is unjustly, that is without law, ta­ken away from any man, to do as they would be done unto, to deal justly to all men, to shew Micah 6. 8. mercy, even in deserved Justice; and (after all) to walk humbly with God, This do, (O ye Phy­sitians of my people) and you shall live; This do, and the daughter of my people shall live; being through­ly Zach. 13. 6. healed of the wounds she hath received in the house of her seeming friends; (For it was not an open Enemy of the heathens round about, which hath done her all this hurt: But her own Children,) Isa. 1. 23. Let them cease from being Rebellious Children, companions of Adulterers, Robbers, and Mur­therers, return to that duty, they owe to their God and their civil Parents, to their Country, and their Church, or to that pity and compassion, [Page 49] they owe to their Children and Posterity, whose teeth will certainly be set on edge by the [...]ower grapes their Fathers have eaten, Jer. 31. 29. Then shall health spring forth speedily, righteousness shall go Isa. 58. 8. before, and the glory of the Lord be thy rearward. Then shall they be as Fathers and Sons too, of the Nation; who shall build the old wast places, repair the breaches, and raise up the foundations of many Ezek. 21. 27. generations, which have been overthrown, over­thrown, overthrown, after they had continued firm for many Ages, as to the stability of Church and State, under Gods indulgence and the care of good Magistrates.

§. But since these Tamperers are so justly and Particular in­stances of slight healing. severely reproached by God and the Prophet, for their slight healing, which was indeed none at all; the more cruel, by how much they were more cunning, to keep the daughter of my people in continual pain, and themselves in constant practice and pay; It will not be amiss more particularly to ex­amine in the sence of Gods Spirit and his Prophet, whence this malice or mistake had its rise; how this slight healing did befall the daughter of his people; and how it is to be avoided as much as Death, and Hell, and Devil.

First, it comes by unskilfull Empiricks, such as 1. By unskil­full underta­kers to heal. neither understand the Science of Physick, nor the Art of Chirurgery; neither the cause, nor the symptoms, nor the proper and specifick medicines for such hurts and diseases as Church and State may labour under; which possibly may be as many as the natural bodies of men are subject to; if a [Page 50] man had a true Anatomy of the parts and consti­tution, with all accidentall distempers incident to the body Politick, from within or without: When men of little or no literature, of as little experience in matters of policy and prudence, of mean capacity and education, of small minds and narrow souls, do undertake the cure, who are easily deluded and gulled, byassed and swerved with fair words, spe­cious pretenses, and partial, yea pivate interests; (especially if these novel interests have any smack or tincture, fucus or form of more than ordinary god­liness) 4 Tim. 3. 5. when these easie, shallow and inconsultive men, of giddy heads and rash hands, full of childish credulity, and popular formalty, come to the helm of Church and State, to rule and steer all, they look more to the spreading of their sails, then to that due balast and lading, or to that right cynosure and com­pass of Law and Justice which God and their Coun­trey have prescribed.

§. Gonsalvo, whom Guicciardine calls the great Captain of his time, was wont to say, that a Ge­neral, or chief commander of an Army, had need have thirty years experience, to breed him accomplished to all the abilities, requisite to such a place; on whose prudent conduct the lives of so many men depend; Yea, and whole Nati­ons too; truly no less time is needfull to train up a compleat Counsellor of State, a meet Phy­sician for the daughter of my people; It is not a pragmatique forwardnesse, a bustling activity, or a projecting impudence, or an unblushing igno­rance, or a voluble impertinence of tongue, or a [Page 51] military strength of hand, and Robustnesse of body, which makes men fit to undertake the healing of a Nation; every Fool and evil doer, is capable to be medling, and to do mischief, Prov. 20. 3. onely the work of closing and healing, is ex­pectable from wise and good men, of ingenuous and learned educations, and of exemplary lives; and adorned with competent estates, men who know how to temper their Physick and Plaisters, so as are commensurate to the nature and degree of the disease, to the spirits and strength of the Patient, neither over-doing by precipitancy, nor under-doing by presumption; neither fearfull to use tried and fit medicines, nor rash to tamper with every new receipt propounded.

2. By unfaithfull Empiricks, such as are crafty 2. By unfaithfull. enough to do evil, but to do good they have no Isa. 5. 13. knowledge or honesty; they have heads able e­nough, and hands active enough, but they have corrupt hearts and base ends; they can boast, as Jer. 42. 22. much as any of a publick spirit, and the common­weal, or bonum publicum; but while they look one way, they row another; the tide of private bene­nefit secretly carries them contray to the sail and winde, with which they clamor amain for the publick good; full of pretended necessities, and impatience for an hudling and preposterous Reformation in Church and State; and the work is well done, if their crasie estates, and waining Fortunes, or crackt credits be once well recruited; if they find no gain in true godlinesse, yet they make good gains of the form of it, having the Cre­tian [Page 52] faculty to speak lies in hypocrisie for filthy Tit. 1. 11. lucre sake; every one looks to the profit which is to be made from their quarters; if their Purse Isa. 56. 11. prosper, all is peace and prosperity; though all things publick are worse and worse, as to Religion, Laws, Liberties, as to freedome and honour of publick Councels, as to trade and commerce, as to peace and concord in Church and State; they care not how snarled the skain of things be, so as they can draw some good threads out of it to stitch up their affairs, and mend their rents.

§. Though the daughter of their people have scarce rags to hide her sores of sin and shame, to dry up her tears or dress her wounds by reason of oppression and anguish; yet these grand Ge­niusses of State (whose gracious nods are sana­tive, and their touch or presence must be thought soveraign) must be cloathed in scarlet and finelinnen; in robes of silk and embroidery, and fare deliciously every day; that they may appear ra­ther as Princes in splendor and majesty, than as Mountebanks and Quacks; who care not how little they heal their Patients, nor how much they help their own purses; yea some of them are so false that they conspire the total subversion and de­struction of all the health and wealth of the daugh­ter of their people, which sate as a Queen among the Nations in former ages; that they may either keep or increase the spoyls they have already got, and further hope for, from her final expiration and dissolutions; where from an ancient, united and flourishing Kingdom, to a puny, peeled and [Page 53] divided Commonwealth, the change is not like to be 1 Cor. 15. (as that of our vile bodies at the resurrection) from dishonour to honour, from corruption to incorruption; but from peace, glory, plenty and Renown, to e­verlasting war, dishonour, beggery and cont [...]mely; the fruit and fate attending the silly or subtile tamperings of false more then foolish Physicians, who are neither good for others bodies, nor for their own souls; for while they through ambition, covetuousness and unfaithfulness neglect to heal the one, they damnably hurt the other. Certainly no want of honesty or charity is more damning than that which is due to the publick, but denyed or withdrawn, when it is in the power of our hand to do a Nation or a Church good: Nor are any Trai­tors more dangerous and detestable, than those Lopes was Phi­sitian to Q. E­lizabeth and suborned to poi­son her. Cambden. Lopesses, who are rather carnifices than medici; empoysoners, torinentors, and executioners, more than healers or Physitians; then most betraying their trust, when most trusted, for the publique wel­fare of a Church and nation, on which not only many thousand bodies but souls do depend.

3. When the pretending healers are either tain­ted When trans­ported with passion and o­pinion. with the contagion, and leavened with the sowreness of other mens odd opinions and passions, or transported with their own; sometimes Phy­sicians are such Gentle Sirs, that they symbolize too much with the humors of their Patients, and are so indulgent to their diseases, or compliant with their ulcers, that they dare not tell the people their real dangers, and the tendency of their un­reasonable distempers, if not prevented and mode­rated; [Page 54] sometimes people love to have such Phy­sicians, such Magistrates, such Parliament-men, Jer. 3. 31. and such Preachers too, who shall speak soft and smooth things, sow pillows under their broken bones, Isa. 3. 9. and bind up the unsearched sores with silken bands; This is the way ( non sanare sed palpare morbos & vulnera; & ipsa remedia in morbos vertere) not to heal but to humor an hurt; not to mend it to the better, but to change it to worse; for an im­patient Patient many times needs a plaister of moral Philosophy, and Divinity, more then of Phy­sick or Chirurgery, and stands more in need to have his passion than his sore cured; which (as in bodies full of sharp humors) is worse by their fret­ting than by the first wounding.

§. Hence Patients and Physitians, like Ideots and Simpletons very gravely conspire to lay aside all use of what things are known to be good in or­der to health? out of a great zeal against the abuses some have formerly made of them, and a like jea­lousie for hereafter.

§. Thus they transfer by an ( [...]) impati­ence The [...] or transport. of prejudice, and transport of their own or others passions, the faults and frailties of persons to things, condemning with the Turks all wine, because some men are drunk with its excess; and all good chear, because some are apt to surfeit, blaming the meat, when the fault is in their ill stomach or digestion; hence they study so to dry up Hydro­pick bodies, till they kindle in them calentures, and make them as tindar, apt fewel for a Feaver; they draw away so much blood pretending it is bad, [Page 55] till the Patient (Church and State) loseth, withal, much of its best blood and purest spirits; so falling at last into fits of convulsion, and such emaciatings as betray to desperate consumptions: Thus they are prone totally to abandon a good, an excel­lent, a long tried, yea and the only adequate way of Government, that can be adapted to all just in­terests in Church and State, out of a popular preju­dice, against some misgovernments incident to the Governors, and to the best Governments; which are sooner remedied, then a new one modelled and fitted; as a crackt silver vessell, is sooner sodered and new burnished, then a new one malleated out of the rough m [...]ss or wedge of metal.

§. Thus ( Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt) for want of wise, honest and steady Phy­sicians) remedies over-driven prove worse than the diseases; and a Nation is further off from cure after twenty years passionate practice, than it was at the first cause of complaint.

§. This fals out, when Physicians, grow so sympathysing, or symbolising, with their petients pevish passions and humors, that they flatter their diseases, and fear nothing so much, as to cure them, with that discreet severity and moderati­on which permits not the outcry▪ (when great­er, than the grief) nor the importune clamor of the patient, either to keep him short, or carry him beyond the reality of the disease; Since health of the body, as vertue which is the health of the mind, consists ( [...]) in the mean between extreames. Tis too [Page 56] true, as in Patients, and Physicians, so in people, and Parliaments (perit judicium, quum res transit in effectum) when Physicians so much mind their patients distemper and clamor, that their minds contract a disease that sets them next dore to a kind of raving or madness, or dotage, of which all men are thought in some degree guilty, who either much over-do or underdo, what they undertake to do; as he that broke the pitcher which he was to wash; and burnt or pulled down that house, which he had commission only to sweep or repair; and cut off that head for aking, which was only to be shaved, and forrified with some defensive plaister, against the rheume; To these transports of some men, who were much swayed by the passionate outcries of some people, we owe the loss of our antient Government, and have run the sad ventures, yea shipwracks, of Anarchy so long in both Church and State.

4. When these pretended healers look more 4. When they too much in­tend petty sym­ptomes, and neglect the main distem­pers. at the lesser symptoms of the diseases, or at the putid excrescencies of the sore, than at the ro [...]t and fountaine of the malady; when they re­gard more the sufferings of a Nation, then their own or other mens gross sins, and are more sensible of mans prejudices and displeasures, than Gods.

It is a rule in Physick, (In complicatis morbis acutiori attendendum) In complicated diseases the maine care must be to give check to that, which is most accute, malignant and predatori­ous of the spirits; for if these faile, or be not refocillated, both nature and art, (as Hippocrates [Page 57] says) must needs fail; they are then very im­pertinent Physitians, who seeing a Patient in an high feavour, are more solicitous to take away some cloths or covering, which seems too hot on them, then to mitigate the flames of that fevo­rish furnace which boyles within them.

Sect. Here, by grosse mistakes, some Physitians take ( non causam pro cause;) angry at some Ceremo­nies, and scared with meer shadows, more than with grosse sins, that are most immoral and sub­stantially evil (as I may say:) This runs even Re­formation it selfe many times to a Deformity, while Physitians look so much to some appearances of evil, that they neglect what is most apparent evil. Thus men quarelled (in their little cavils, at The slight healing by ta­king away the Liturgy. the Liturgy) so much about some things they lesse fancyed, or understood, as to the Antiquity, and Innocency of their sence and use, that they never regarded either the excellent matter and forme of the Prayers and Administrations in it, or their own dull, cold, and formal application to them, when indeed they deserved for their Divine Truth to be believed, and for their pub­lique use and charity to be entertained with hum­ble, intentive, fervent and devout affections; the fault was not in the holy formes, but the unholy formality; Nor (lastly) did they bethink them­selves of the great want which plainer people have of such wholesome, compleat, wonted formes of Publique Prayers, and administrations, which they can best learn and understand, and intend; For daily variety in Religion, (such as some [Page 58] men affect) is almost as inedifying to poor countrey people as Latin service; nor is any Sym­bol of Christian union more proper in any Church (and if it could be in all the Churches,) then to have where ever they come, the same Summary sence and solemnity of holy mysteries; and such duties are ill left to all private mens fancys, yea or to all Ministers suddain and extemparary abilities, though they be able men.

Sect. If lying and swearing, and riot, and luxury, Grand neg­lects, and pet­ty severity. if Schisme and perjury, and sacriledge, and Hy­pocrisie, and bloodguiltinesse, if covetousnesse and ambition, and immoderate revenge, if discontent and impatience against God and Superiours, if malice and high uncharitableness, if bribery and corruption, if popularity, formality, idlenesse, and debauchery in Ministers, if peoples immora­lities, and prophanesse, factiousnesse, Atheistical indifferency, and rude insolencies; if these and the like great hurts of the daughter of my people had been cordially reformed, and by reinforced Lawes with due execution of both Civil and Ecclesiastical discipline had been so purged out, or curbed and abated that the flagrancy and predominancy of them had been generally allayed; doubtlesse the publique welfare might have con­sisted with those other things of convenient and comely use, in Church and State, at which some mens zeal did so rise and over-boyle, that it almost quenched all Religion and Civility to sor­did confusions.

[Page 59] Sect. 5. When these pretended healers, do either by immoderate tampering and dilatoriness, mul­tiply 5. By immode­rate and dila­tory tamper­ings. diseases, or by stopping one orifice indiscreet­ly make a score, or force ill Humors to shift their seat, and transfer Diseases (alike the running gout) from one part to another, from the head to the hands, thence to the feet, and at last to the heart; still the inward malady remains unpurged, the daugh­ter Of curing the hurt of Monar­chy by Demo­cracy, and E­piscopacy by Presbytery. of my people as to the main is not healed; so to rectifie the more feared than felt excesses of Mo­narchy and Episcopacy, a greater Tyranny may be easily raised, not only in a downright Anarchy, but there are tyrannous and tedious burthens to be feared even in the best Democracy or Aristo­cracy that can be modelled for Church or State: where, as the teeth of harrows are worse than the point of one sword, so many Reguli or Masters are like to be more inaccessible, more untractable, more intollerable, more chargeable to the people than any one can be; and no less both severe and supercilious, besides less satisfactory and honorable; For it is more ingenuous to be a Subject under some person of ancient honor and eminency, then to have a snip of Soveraignty among others that are but upstarts and equals.

Sect. I believe the Peers and Gentry of England lived much more freely, amply and magnificent­ly, though Subjects under one Soveraign, than the best Heres or Burgomasters do among the Low­country-men o [...] Swisses▪ And so did the Clergy of England under excellent Bishops, beyond what they ever will under the rigor of others who have [Page 60] their horns, though they endure no head; The little finger of rigid Presbytery, hath been heavier than the loins of moderate Episcopacy.

Sect. It is a Monstrous either want of skill, or Of Medicines become Ma­ladies. of conduct, or constancy, for publique Physicians to let things run to such impolitick lapses, (under the pretence of curing the hurts of the Daughter of their People) as while they sought to recover the frequency of Parliaments, (thereby to mode­rate all enormities, and remedy all burthens in­convenient in Church and State,) that (at last) the publique welfare should come to that sad pass or ill fare, that some things called Parliaments, should be thought the greatest publick grievance (and what convention is there so illegal and con­temptible, which some flatterers of times and powers will not christen and consecrate with the ve­nerable name of that almost sacred Senate?) How desparate and sad a State is it when any grievance should be called a Parliament, or any Parliament prove a publick grievance! as that Parliament had the name from ( Parium & Populi & Principis lamentum;) The lamentation or complaint of Prince, Peers, and of People, or their contempt till at length even military insolency dared to ad­venture (as the requital of the long and great pay, which they as Soldiers had received from their dear Country-men) to garble and purge, to shufle and cut, to lay out and take in Parliaments at their pleasure, like a Stock at Gleek, yea and not only to act against them, and without them, but above them, in a game of Government, wholly [Page 61] new to England, called Stratocracy.

Sect. Mean while ( good God!) what became of the wits of some of our wise Physitians, and our confident Surgeons! Could they not have fore­seen and prevented (by discreet counsels and mo­derate methods of seasonable applying State Phy­sick) those swoonings, and heart-faintings; those convulsions, and dyings; those groans and bleed­ings of Church and State, of Kingdoms and Com­mon-wealth, of Laws and Religion, of Magistracy and Ministry, which have all suffered in twenty years of tedious attending their cure, more hurts than they ever did for an hundred years by all the diseases that were pretended so necessary to be cured, that rather than fail, all, even head and members, limb and life it self must be ventured! Where was the vertue of former Oathes, of late Protestations, of all their Covenants and Vows, the Antidotes which they had taken or given a­gainst Anarchy and Apostacy!

Sect. Sage and well-advised Physitians must still The lubricity and subtilty of ill humors. consider, how subtil and Proteus-like distempered humors and spirits are in a body that is foul; they instantly, being moved but not removed, slide as from one part, so from one disease to another; as easily transmuting interests and dangers, as the scales of a ballance go up and down when more weight is cast into one than the other, it presently follows the preponderancy, and grows lower when heavier, which was before higher, because lighter.

Sect. So in publick or epidemick distempers, pre­ventive [Page 62] and prophylactick medicines must be used as well as Cathartick and purgative; else things will by secret and insensible steps, suddenly vary from one extream: and oppression to another, as the cold and hot Fits of a Quartane, especially if the grievances of sharp and unseasonable reme­dies (like some corroding plaisters) follow the grievances of the sore and disease, so either stupi­fying instead of suppling; or exasperating instead of mollifying; or cutting noble parts quite off in­stead of reducing them to due temper and proportion: State Physitians must be as wary of using too much of the salt of popular Proposals, and the niter of levelling principles, as other Physitians are of using Quick-silver uncorrected, or un­mortified; for they are both most acute poysons if not well prepared and aptly applied; by which either unfit, or unseasonable, or immoderate, or rude, or forcible applications, men are quickly carried beyond their own duties, and others de­serts, for want of that Caution, Conscience, Chari­ty and Discretion, which is necessary for all those who meddle in matters of life and death; in pri­vate, much more publick healing and welfare; else the quick as well as the dead flesh may be cut off and consumed; the vital as well us vitiated spirits and humors may be exhausted. The very Arteries and Sinews of Government are prone to be rotted, and the whole fabrick of the Body will fall one limb from another.

Sect. Especially when by the fury or fear of Of violent wayes of Healing. Prince, or People, things are brought to that [Page 63] pass, that all other medicines being laid aside, nothing is made use of but the weapon-salve, that unguentum armarium, the Sword of War, which hath seldome the vertue of Achilles his Sword, which was to heal as well as to Wound; hence follow those horrible healings, which (like Gen. 34. 25. Simeons and Levi's cure of the Sichemites when they were sore,) destroy both Prince and People, Prov, 14. 28. either lopping off the armes and legs of the body Politick, the strength and multitude of the Nobi­lity, Gentry, and Communalty, which is the glory of a King and Kingdome, or else by a dreadful abscission, cropping off the very head of So­veraignty, from the body of the polity; the first reduceth a Nation to its stumps, and makes it a cripple a long time; the other makes both its ap­pearance, and its motions, as monstrous and desor­med, as if a body should move without an head, (as it was in those dayes when there was no King in Israel.) or as the Giant Polyphemus did; Judg. 21. 25. when blind, he gropeth for Ulysses; so are a great people, when in the darknesse and confusion of Anarchy, they seek in vain for that order, Wis­dome, and authority, which are the Body, Soul, and spirit of Government, and are eminently comprehended in the head, with which the whole body best corresponds, when happily compacted together. This principal part once taken away by violence, the body (like fouls, whose heads are wrong off) may flutter for a while, with blind inordinate and dying motions; but no better can be expected, unless (as in Hydra) many heads [Page 64] could presently spring up in stead of one, which is neither easily nor suddenly done in Nations, whose native courage, emulation, spirit and metal raiseth up many rivals for soveraignty, and as many disdainful enemies against all that either obstruct their pretended power, or affect to enjoy it themselves.

6. When these pretending healers are much Slight healers by new inven­tions and un­experienced applications. for a new Paracelsian practice, for unexperi­mented applications or medicaments of their own inventions, which are occasionally extracted and Chimically made (with sin and force) by them­selves, and such as are of their faction; but they do not natively flow as the balme of Gilead doth from the Tree of good Government and polity, that is from those Laws and Constitutions, which have been long approved as most proper for the Nations Welfare, which (without doubt) are best able and most apt, both to preserve and re­store the health of the Daughter of my people; no counsel, practice, or power of Prince or Potentate, or Parliament, that are praeter, or contra legal, can be for long or sound healing, but rather proves more noxious and infestive at last to the publique peace: For the Law (which is power regulated by Wisdome, and Wisdome Law the most healing. asserted by just power, and both confirmed by the Parliamentary consent of all estates concerned) this is the Radical moysture or native balsome, by which the lamp of life is preserved in the body politique; as this decayes, so spirit and vigor, [Page 65] health, and harmony, peace and protection, love and life decays.

§. Yea, where force is necessary to be used, yet it must be limited, and commissionated by law; else it is but a Lion broke loose, or a ranging Bear, or a ravening Wolf, or as a mutinied Army, no better then a tumultuary riot, and violence, like the fighting of a body with it self in fits of the falling sickness, such new pits and cisternes will not hold any water; for they are not onely crackt in the making, and marred upon the wheels, but they presently dash against one another, as earthen pitchers; they are by-paths of extravagant power, and fallacious pretentions, Ier. 6. 16. but not comparable, in point of health and safety, to the good old way, ( & bona, & antiqua, & probata) which long time had liked and attested to be very good.

Such as put on in all haste Sauls Armour of Soveraignty, which they never before essayed to wear, nor have shoulders fit for it, will soon find it not onely inconvenient for them, but com­bersom, dangerous, and in the end pernicious; if they mean indeed to kill those Gyants, those Goliahs of uncircumcised enormities, which defie God and Law, it is better to take those smooth stones, and that sling, to which as Masters of assemblies, or Magistrates, or Parliament men, or Justices, they are wonted, according to the Law, and the duty of their place, than to cumber and engage themselves in such uncoth▪ high and heavy undertakings, which are seldome other [Page 66] than disadvantagious, and destructive, as al­ways dangerous to the counsellors and actors, no less than to the publick peace and welfare; for as Tacitus well observes, ( Consilia callida & inhonesta, prima fronte laeta, tractatu dura, eventu tristia) new and illegal projects, are commonly pernicious, and crying at last, however they smile and flatter at first; nor can any violence or success heal a Nation or a conscience, where the Law smites by accusing, and the conscience by con­demning men for their wicked principles and unjust proceedings.

7. When these pretended Healers, leaving all 7 Healing by charmes and Parliaments. wonted and approved medicines, which Gods word and the laws of the land, right reason and true religion do warrant or allow, fly to their inchantments, as if they would heal by charmes, and cure by Philters or amulets, as by carrying Bibles in their hands, by using much Scripture phrase and expression, by following sermons and fasts and prayers, by affecting an odd kind of canting way of writing and speaking, by zealous pretending of sanctity and Christian liberty, or through reformations of advancing the cause of God, and Kingdome of Jesus Christ, by cry­ing up providences, and successes, by conjuring up strange fears and hopes, jealousies and expecta­tions, like so many Ghosts and Goblins, to scare and amuse the common people: Lastly by flying to raptures, inspirations, enthusiasms, holy con­vulsions, and such like quaking and quacking tricks as pretend no less to the skill of healing all the [Page 67] hurts of the daughter of my people, than Wizards and cunning men do to cure all diseases of man and beast.

§. Thus the Temple of the Lord, the Temple Ier 7. 4. of the Lord is urged, when they intend to de­stroy Church and State; it is superciliously yea very surlily spoken, to persons much better every way then themselves, Stand by, we are holier Isa. 65. 5. than you, we are Abrahams seed, and the true Israel of God. The work of healing Church and State, is the work of Saints; as soone as they can agree what way to take, what plaisters to make, and what power to get into their hands, that they may apply their rare Cataplasmes or Empla­sters.

Thus some tell us there must be no King but Mat. [...]0. 21. King Jesus, and themselves sitting on his right and left hand, in all power, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military, judging the twelve tribes of Israel; for they strongly fancy England to be Judea, or the holy land, and most of the people to be of late turned Jews; Others will have no Bishops, nor The spo [...]les of those Egypti­ans. any thing that belonged to Bishops, but onely their good lands and houses, the spoiles of those Egyptians; others will have no presbyters, nor tythes, nor Temples, but arbitrary, and unmerci­nary Preachers, in occasional Barnes and Stables, or ( sub dio) in open fields, who will do the work of Christ without mans wages. It were well if their Souldiers would do so too, in their holy wars, which are voted by some to be the work of Jesus Christ; some would have they [Page 68] know not what themselves, but they attend fur­ther light, by which they may better discerne the way of healing the Nations, and their own hurts.

§. Mean time they look neither to the Law Is [...]. 5. 2 [...]. nor the Testimony, neither to the rule of piety, equity, nor charity, as if a little chattering of pious, or rather impious nonsence, were suffici­ent to cast out the legions of Divels, or the clay and spittle of their lips were able to cure the ma­ny distempers of these Nations, especially when the blindness, boldness and folly of such Operators and Circulators, is so manifest to all men that have eyes inlightned by reason or religion, by Laws of God or man, that I hope it shall pro­ceed no further. Have we need of mad men, as Achish King of Gath, speaks of David, disfigu­red 1 Sam. 2 [...]. 15. to a frenzy! Are they likely to be healers of others, whose diseases are so got into their crowns, that they are not onely fantastick but fanatick, to the tune of the Maniches and Cir­cumcellians; that is, people of no just and honest, of no settled or constant, no rational or religious principles ( morbus destruit artem) a good Physi­tian is not fit to be his own or others Physitian, if he be distempered; much less these men, than who no men have discovered more craziness of mind, and crookedness of manners, having little fear of God, and less reverence of men; either their ambition, or their indigence, or their idleness, or their Jesuitick juglings, or their desperate de­signs to turn all into rapine, blood and confusion, [Page 69] makes them impatient that any men of better skill, and honester wills than themselves should come nigh the Patient, or apply those All-heals, or Pa­naces and Catholicons, which are no where to be found in their Pedlars packs or Apothecaries shops (where poisons are set off with the specious titles and inscriptions of sanctity, and liberty and light) but in the known Laws of God and man rightly in­terpreted and impartially executed according to Equity, Order▪ and Charity; not in those godly forma­lities, or gracious extravagancies, or illegal irregu­larities, with which some vaporers have made so great flourishes for some years, and so long afflict­ed the daughter of my people; and would for ever have done so (according to the method of those rare cures they sometimes wrought in Germany a­bout the 1530. by the seduction and slaughter of an hundred thousand people in the Anabaptistick and fanatick waies of mutiny and rebellion) if God in his mercy (as we hope) had not prepared to put the Patient into better hands, which may be guided by wiser heads and honester hearts, who will not so cry up Religion and Reformation, as to Rom. 3. 8. run out to horrid violence and crying injustice; nor fancy and teach that any evil of sin and in­justice may be done that a publick good may come thereby: One may as well expect to heal wounds by poysoned plaisters or venemous instruments: Men must not lye for God, nor commit robbery for Isa. 61. 8. burnt offering, nor do things unwarrantable or unjust by mans Law, in order to magnifie Gods cause, much less their own, though just; and may [Page 70] they do it for causes wholly unjust? this is only to dash the two Tables against each other at best, or to break them both in pieces against the rocks of hard hearts, as is usually done when fantastick heads, and foul hands dare without authority from God or man, to set up the golden Calves which they list to Idolize, and which all men must presently fall down and worship; such was that popular and plau­sible invention of the Jews at first, but it cost the wickedly wanton people dear at last, when their Exod. 32. 28. 35 new Diety & rare invention was consecrated by the blood and death of many thousand of the people; Nor was that fire of mutiny and rebellion with Ko­rah and his faction raised against Moses and Aaron, Numb. 16. 7. quenched at a cheaper rate, whatever they pre­tend of holiness. Yea St. Austin observes in his 162 Epistle ( ex poenae differentia peccatum censeri) by the honor of that new punishment which fell on them one may easily see how the sins of mutiny Rebellion and Hypocrisie being twisted together do outweigh any other sins.

Lastly, Then they heal slightly, 1. When Phy­sitians 8. Slight hea­ling [...]r want of constant [...] ap­plication of good prescrip­tions. either give good words, or make good salves, and spread good plaisters, but never ef­fectually apply them to the Patient, or suffer them to be pulled off as their impatience listeth: When bones are broken, as well as the flesh deeply wounded, the ligatures and splinters must be good as well as the plaisters: There must be no dislocation where we expect a perfect cure; Parts must be set and kept in their proper pla­ces; [Page 71] else they either heal not at all, or to a great deformity and continued infirmity.

Or 2. When both Healers and Patient, like 2 Chron. 16. 1 [...] For too much trusting to Physitians. King Uzziah, trust so much to themselves, to the skill of the Physicians and Chrurgeons, that they less look up to God, and lean to their own un­derstanding: They will find the wisdom of the world foolishness, and the arm of flesh an Egyptian Isa. 17. 5, reed; to lean so much on them as to neglect God, is not only a vain but a noxious and cursed thing; for God will bring to naught the counsels of Princes, who begin not their wisdom and end it in the fear of God; as the most pious and learned Primate Bishop Usher, in the begin­ning Of Patients idolizing their Physitian. of the long Parliament would oft with ear­nestness foretel, That God would confute and pu­nish the too great glory and confidence which people generally had in Parliaments, as if the sins of the Nation could not out-vie all the care, skill and power of Parliaments; who may have their infection and diseases too, if they do not exact­ly look to God and their consciences, to Religion and Justice both; to duty more than applause or reward, or success; which can never be good or comfortable, unless it be First the fruit and effect of good counsel, (that is religious and legal;) Se­condly, of humble prayer to God; Thirdly, of a gracious submission to his will, when we have done our duty; men lose themselves when they seek not God first in all their publick counsels. For Eccles. 9. 11. Psa. 3. 8▪ and 29. 11: Psa. 147. 14. the race is not to the swift, nor the battel to the strong, but the Lord gives the blessing of peace, and [Page 72] health, and salvation to his people; He, as the so­veraign Physitian can best, and only heal our pub­lick wounds, by making men to be of one mind in the Lord, by pouring out his spirit of wisdome and moderation, of repentance and compensati­on, of mutuall pitty and compassion, of Ju­stice and judgment, of an holy and happy refor­mation, which heals the hurts of mens hearts, and the wounds of their consciences, and the running issues of their evil lives; these are the happiest and surest methods of a Nations heal­ing. We see in the oft relapses of the Jews, no sooner had they by sins of publique scandal and notorious contagion hurt themselves, but Gods hand smites them by famine or plague, or Ier. 2. 30. sword, or war and oppression; no sooner had they repented and turned solemnly from their sins to him that smote them, but God turned from his wrath and healed the Land.

§. We have had in England many days of hu­miliation, in order to our humbling and heal­ing, but hitherto we have been more and more hurt; because we fasted not for sin, but to sin, as God reproacheth the Jews; for strife, and Isa 58. debate, and oppression, to smite with the [...]ist of vio­lence, &c. We laid on a formal plaister of Refor­mation, but we never throughly searched the wound, nor purged out the putid matter; yea we multiplied the corruption, and added hypocri­sie to former iniquity; the sins of War and vio­lence, of inordinate revenge and cruelty to those of peace and luxury.

[Page 73]I finde, the Parliaments of England never 2. Parliament Prayers, in a Book called The Ancient [...] Prayers of the Church. thrived better, nor kept the publick in better health, than when those two excellent Prayers (lately reprinted) which very gravely and plainly minded them of their duty in that place, were daily used among them; which were much more significant, grave and pertinent, than such Sera­phick or rambling, and loose or odd Expressions, as some men are prone to use either in their affected varieties, or in their tedious Tautologies; which have oft more in them of Invention than Judgment, and stick more upon fancy and faction, than conscience and the common good. Certainly, where men are solemnly and jointly to ask of God the same proper blessings every day, they may very well use the same words, and petitionary Formes, as Christ did thrice in his Agony; For Gods immutability is not weary of any holy constancy, nor delighted with any novelty, but that of a new heart, and new spirit, which I hope and pray he would give both the Physicians and to the Daughter of my people: That neither the later may be miserable, by not being well healed, nor the second blameable for healing onely slightly, and superficially; which is the fault here laid to the charge of some persons, and leads me to the fi [...]t Particular proposed; namely,

5. They: that is, Those publick persons, who of 5. The per­sons charged for slight healing. right ought, or in fact do, or in their action may manage the Affairs of the Church and State; who have Councels, power, and Authority, interest, and influence, fit to advance the publick welfare; by [Page 74] correcting the distempers, and reducing all to a due constitution of health.

They: that is, 1. Those Princes or Kings, Kings and soveraign Princes slight heaven. Judges and Chief Magistrates; who being them­selves vicious, or Idolatrous, or Hypocrites, or vain, (turning Piety into Policy, and Religion into reason of State) not onely infect the people by the contagion of an impious example; but are willing the people should be as bad as them­selves; That, for their enormities being followed by their Subjects, they may seem less by the Imitation; and, as it were, Approbation: Kings that rule their people not by Law and Justice, but Ep [...] ▪ 22. 26, 27. by will, and Passion, more for their own pleasure, Pro. 28. 15, 16. than the Publick Wellfare; that are great Op­pressors, staying as well as [...]lee [...]ing their people; yea, breaking their bones, and eating their flesh: Mic [...] ▪ 3. 2, 3. Ruling men, not as rational creatures, of the same Creator, nor as brethren in the same Saviour, Sons to the same Father of their Country; but as meer Slaves and Vassals, forgetting, that every King hath a King in heaven above him, to whom he is subject, and must give account, not onely of the hurt he hath done, and the wounds he hath made, on the soules and bodies, the estates and consciences of his people, but also of their Health, and good he hath left undone, when it was in his place, and power, like the Sun in the firmament: or as a little God among men, to have been ( [...]) a Catholick good to Church and State, that thousands might have been blessed by them in this world, and [Page 75] to eternity blessed God for them. Not only the hands, but the mouths & eyes of Princes are heal­ing of their peoples evils, if they will but rebuke and reprove, frown upon, and discountenance evil doers. Mens sins and Accounts enlarge ac­cording as their influence and relations ampliate; which carry their obligations with them, to God and man. Great place and power are of all things most to be avoided, if they onely serve to aggrendise a man [...] sins, either of omission, or commission, for to augment his Judgement, and Eternal torment.

[...]. Those subordinate Counsellors, and inserior 2 Counsellors and subordi­nate Magi­strates slight Healers. Magistrates who are under the command of man, and more of God, these heal slightly, when they are not men of Integrity, fearing God, and hating Covetousnesse, but orafty Complyers with Exod. 18. 21. the inordinate lusts and passions, with the illegal commands of either▪ Princes or people, contrary to their oaths: so by flattery, or faction, to make way for their Ambition, and gain, by the unde­served favour of either, or dividing one from the other, by a most unnatural wa [...] and jealousle; such as please man rather then God, and love Gal. 1. 10▪ themselves more then their Country, or▪ the Church; such as prefer their bodies and Est [...]es before their Souls; and put the healing [...] of the Church, and true Religion in the last place, or Rear of affairs: and when they professe to heal the Irreligion of others by severe Acts and Ordi­nances against Adultery, S [...]earing, Proph [...]nes [...], debauch [...]ry, drunkennesse, corruption, injustice, [Page 76] &c. yet themselves are higher by the shoulders, than the most of the people in these and other enormaties: As if Peers, or privy- Counsellors, or Counsellors of State, or Parliament-men, had a Priviledge to sin more, or to repent, and suffer lesse than other men.

Nothing weakens the credit and Authority of any publick Lawes so much as when the Law­givers least observe them, or are the first that break them; like Physitians that prescribe strict diet to their Patients, but themselves indulge all manner of Epicurisme: Here every one is prone to retort; Physician heal thy self: The Luke 4. 23. best things are commonly done by the best hands; Religio Medici, Conscience is here required as well as his Science: They will hardly do their Country good, who care not, either to serve God, or to save their own souls.

Men should make conscience of private actions, much more of publique adventures, which are of grand consequence (as the undertakings in war) and not to be done rashly, slovenly, slightly, and indifferently. Nor may publick Counsellors, or Ministers of State like Achitophel think they do wisely, or safely, because they go with the vogue and stream of times, with the winde, and tide, or humor of some people, in their prevalent Factions, discontents, and clamors, by which vote Christ himself was crucified, Mark 15. 13.

Common people in their Paroxismes, or fits of discontent, like sick and pained patients, are ill Dictators to their Physitians; who must advise [Page 77] better for them than they would for themselves; else they will heal their hurts very slovingly, slowly, and ill-favouredly, to their own sin and reproach as well as others pain and charge; Nor is it enough for Aarons excuse to say, The people are set upon mischief; when they would needs Exod. 32. 22. have him make them visible Egyptian Gods, to go before them, under the figure of a golden calf, to be instead of their true and invisible God: publick Persons, and Honorable Counsellors, (as Joseph of Ari [...]thea) must not go ( quâ [...]tur, Luke 93. 53. sed qua eundum) as peoples fury, or the prevalent Factions drives them: but as the Word of God, and the Lawes of the Land direct them; else they shall beare not onely their one, but the iniquity of their people, who sin and suffer un­warned and naked, hurt and unhealed, upon Ezekiel 33. the account of such cowardly Counsellors, and corrupt Magistrates, or Ministers of State; all whose wisdomes will come to nought; and they 1 Cor. 2. 6. will at length (like Achitophel) be snared in 2 Sam. 17. 23 the halters of their own twisting.

3. Those Priests and Prophets; those Pastors 3 Priests and Prophets, Pa­stors and Mi­nisters slight Healers. and Teachers, those Bishops and Presbyters, who are in Publick Place, and sacred Authority, as to the things of God; the matters of Religion, and mens souls good: These heal slightly, when they do the Work of God negligently; when they skin 1 Sam. 2. 22. over scandalous publique sins, (as Ely to his Sons, with soft reproof; when they sow pillows under Princes, Parliaments, and peoples elbowes, when Ezek. 13. 18. they fear the face and offence of men, more than [Page 78] of God; when they are workmen that need to be ashamed, their Lives and Actions confuting their Instructions; and their doing, making their Doctrine to blush; when they heal publick Enormities or calamities by I know not what novel Inventions, and magick spels of fine words: which are no better than the powder of a post; compared to the approved Catholick prescriptions of 1600 years, which were sove­raign for Clergy and Laity; to preserve order and unity; soundnesse of doctrine, and ins [...]an­dalousness of manners in the Church of Christ, under Christian Kings and Queens (who were bountiful nursing Fathers, and Mothers, to the Church of Christ, and the Clergy): yet not by the Dominion and pomp, luxury and tyranny of Bishops, nor yet by the Factious and refractory humours of Presbyters; much less by the schismatick saucinesse of people, who cast off both Bishops and Presbyters; but by the fatherly gravity, prudence, and Eminence of godly and Reverend Bishops; by the brotherly assistance, and son-like subordination of sober and orderly Presbyters, by the service and obsequiousness of humble and diligent Deac [...]; and by the meek submission of Christian people to the Care, Monition, Councel, and respective Superiority of every order; as sheep to their Chief Shepherds, and their Assistants, o [...] The Har­mony which ought to be in the Church, in or­der to Hea­ling. Attendants.

Divide this chain of Church-Union, Order and Communion, in vain shall we talk of beal­ing [Page 79] the Flock of its scabs and scratches, or hurts; I confess, that I own, and ever shall do, Primitive Episcopacy with Presbitery; so that as St. Paul speaks in another case, Neither of them should be without the other in the Lord; Neither of them oppressed or extirpated, but so regulated and incouraged, as I believe, all moderate and learned men desire; if it be my fault and Errour, that I prefer this Holy and Catholick Composition before any other late simple receipts of Church Government, by which to heal any Church; Truly I ow this my Judgment to all the Councils, to all the Fathers, to all the Church-Historians, to be best witnesses of truth in all times, who have unanimously conspired to lead me into this Opinion; agreeable to the word of God, the Example of Christ, the practice of the Apostles, and the parallel Customes of all Churches▪ which is, besides, mightily confirmed in me by the misdom, Piety, and Prosperity of this Church under good Bishops, since its. Reformation, which none in the world exceeded, for health and happiness, for sound and sincere Christians, till some mens itching and scratching too much (even till the bloud came)▪ and others, either not applying seasonable Salves, or else sharper Remedies than perhaps were necessary (or pre­scribed by the wisdom of our Church and Laws) have festred the [...]urts and sores of Religion, that they now feem almost incurable, till such [...]nds are by Gods goodness applyed, and such [Page 80] Medicines used, as are most proper for a sick▪ and diseased Church: which hands and Medicines I cannot think ought to be Secular, but rather Ecclesiastick.

Such in a free Synod of learned Divines Of Ecclesiasti­cal Council, or Free Synods. should, as a Colledge of spiritual Physicians, advise and prepare; (for there is as much need of calling for free Synods, as Free Parliaments) The want of the former G. Naz. deplores as the occasion of so much Faction and Vexation in the Church in his times. Lay-men, though learned, able and honest, have enough to do in Lay-matters. Churchmen have nothing left them to do, as to Secular Councels, or State Concernments, and therefore ought not to be excluded from their proper sphere, Church affairs; being the best skilled of any men (else they are ill imployed in the things of God) for the searching, supplying, and healing the hurts of the Church, and true Religion, in its Doctrine, Discipline, Order, Unity and Authority; That maxime is true of the Clergy, as well as of other Orders of men, Unicuique credendum est in sua arte, Every man is most to be credited in what he is most skilled. I am sure (as to the point of Physitians) no people that are wise, and would be healed in good earnest, but are carefull to get the best and ablest, unless they undervalue their health and lives, and to save charges will venture to dye.

Fourthly, They; that is, Those Souldiers Souldiers and Commanders slight healers. and Military men, Chief Commanders and [Page 81] Others under them; these heal but sleightly, when either they will be (as the Clowns all-heal) the onely Professors of State Physick, and under­take all cures in Church and State, or else they think and act, as if there is no such way to heal soundly, as to make greater wounds and bruises, by irreconcilable distance, prepo­sterous power, and violent impressions, even on those that both commissionate them, and re­compence them.

They are Iron Heads, Brazen Faces, and Stony Hearts, who crye, that Might gives Right; And all power is of God, (though un­justly gotten, and so used against the Word of God, and the Laws of the Land: such a com­mission the Devil may boast of, as well as any evil doers, but little to the comfort of either: when mens will is their onely warrant in Law, and sad successes their onely security in Con­science; when Souldiers make their backs and bellies the Commonwealth, putting their Interest of pay and power into the ballance against all others, when they are but as the dust of the ballance to the weight of the Nation, for numberand estates. When men of War know not the way of peace, but onely to avoid it, seeking to make themselves necessary by keep­ing the wounds open, and the sores raw of a Nation; pleading necessity and native Liberty, and I know not what Good Old Cause, or Meta­physical godly interests, unknown to our Lawer or fore-fathers; and it had been happy if we [Page 82] never had known them.

Lastly, When Military men are injurious, ra­pacious, and insolent, lovers of themselves more than of God or the Church or their Countrey; when they look more to their Guns, and Pistols than to God or godliness, to their swords than to his Word, and to the Riddles of Pro­vidence more than the Rules of conscience: resolved to sacrifice the daughter of their peo­ple, as Agamemnon did Iphigenia, or Jephta his, on the Altar of the Military interest.

These will be smart and chargeable beatens of the hurts of the daughter of their peo­ple, when they shall be such as prepare Wan [...] against any that speak of Peace, when such as e­steem the speedy healing of their Countrey, to the publick peace, to be their greatest hurt, when they grow so desperate, as they had as live be damned as fairly disbanded, though in order to the publick ease and tranquillity.

When as no good Souldier that either fears God or loves his Countrey, or reverences the Church, or hopes to save his own Soul, but will most seriously strive to avoid the latter, and most willingly submit to the former▪ without the sin of Rebellion or Mutiny, being content with his wages; and more, that his sharp work is at an end, and no more need of cutting and lancing, remembring that it is not mul­titude, or Power, or Armies, or [...] that shall keep injurious and dissolute Souldier [...] from the vengeance of God, when they have deser­ved [Page 83] it by such wicked Counsels and Actions, as cannot be carried on but with the Devils maxime ( Scelera sceleribus tuenda) continued injuries and cruelties to the daughter of their people, to Church and State, to their brethren and Countrey men; yea, to their fathers and posterity.

But our hope is, that God hath by his sore rebukes and defeats of some (who trusted too The pre­sent hope of better things from Soul­diers. much in their swords & spears, in their own Armes & their horses legs) taught others more wisdome, justice and modesty; yea, and stirred up such a spirit of Christian valour, moderation and ho­nour in some gallant Souldiers of more just Principles and nobler Spirits, that they will not rest till they have put the hurts of the daughter of their people (which are now chronick or inveterate, of many years conti­nuance, and very deep, reaching from head to feet) into such a posture of healing, and into such healers hands as may be best able and ho­nest; on which account as these Souldiers (who can do nothing against the truth and Law, a­gainst Church and State but for them) will de­serve 2 Cor. 13. 6 [...] great honour and rewards from the Na­tion, and its Parliaments full and free: So people must blame themselves, if they chase for Healers or Physitians such men as are nei­ther for wisdom and skill, nor for courage or conscience, nor for honesty or vertue, nor for good example or reputation, or yet for well­ gotten estates of any value, or publique interest; nor ever probable to heal others, since them­selves [Page 84] are sick and sore either of fear and guilt, or of Schism and Faction, or of superstition and sacriledge, or of Rebellion and Anarchy, or of the itch of novelty, and mange of popula­rity, or of the plague, of immorality and de­bauchery: From such Healers, both Civil, Sacred, and Military, so unhealed, so unwholesome, so infectious, so destructive to Church and State, to Law and Gospel, to Justice and Religion, good Lord deliver the daughter of my people.

5 Lastly, Not only these unskilful, or unfaith­ful, 5 The patient blamable for its own slight healing. or unwilling persons of publique influence, are blamable for not healing the hurts of a Na­tion, when they have authority and opportunity as well as power: or for healing so slightly, that things are never the better, nay worse and worse. But further, there lyes no small sin and blame upon the Patient, the people or community; First, when they are not conscienciously careful, 1 By not▪ carefully ap­plying to good Physi­tians. what Physitians or Surgeons they make choice of, and put themselves with their lives & estates, liberties and lawes, bodies and souls into their hands, but adventure upon every pragmatique Emperick, and confident Undertaker.

Next, when this is done commendably (as truly I am prone to believe it was in the first Ele­ctions of the long Parliament, if they could have quietly kept tog [...]ther without tumul­tuating factions, and fatal divisions) for people then not to acquiesce (as they ought under God) in their skill and honesty, onely following them with such modest [Page 85] Petitions, as are necessary, and such complaints as are comely: also with their prayers to God for a blessing. But for the populacy, then to cluck into parties and conspiracies, according 2 By popu­lar conspira­cies against them. to the cunning of some Agitators for novelty, and factors for troubles, then to break out into tu­multuary rudenesses and seditious menaces, and at last to become dictators to their Physitians, and like gonty feet to threaten the head and shoul­ders and hands, if they be not cured of their an­guish after their own fancy, not after the Rules of Art and Law of Health: [...] These are so far from being Healers, that they are the greatest hinderers of their own and others publique health in the world; yea, the venome and acrimony of these fretting and turbulent humors, sub [...]idy diffused among the divided vulgar, and by their means re-infused into the publique hurts and real grievances, cannot but strangly increase the malignity of distempers throughout the The danger of popular distempers. whole habit of the body; which [...] pesti­lent and depraved state of the generality of the people, divided and distracted (like Demoni­acks, or possessed) with fears and jealousies, with envies and hatred, with hopes, and other unreasonable passions, is much harde [...] [...]o be c [...] ­red, and more dangerous to the publique than the disaffection or inflammation; the discontent or ambition of any one part of the body, which is easily corrected or counter-ballanced with the Antid [...]te, as it were of all other sound parts, which are far the major number.

[Page 86]When therefore a s [...]ok Nation hath done Peoples due regard and submission to their right Physicians, full and free Parliaments. its duty in the choice of its [...]ealers▪ The way is to ass [...] the Honor and Authority of those orderly Physicians, not to suffer any intruding Empyricks, or extruding Mounte­banks, by fraud or force to drive these away, that way may be made for their cruel activity and unsatiable gain; It will prove an endless and costly cure, which permits it self to every one that hath a minde to be tampering? The best way is, patiently to submit to their own Parliamentary choice, and to Gods dispen­sation by their means: In this way there is hope, if people can be still, they may see the Salvation of God: Patients will make mad work if they may controle and [...]dgel their Physitians.

Although, it is possible that the crying sins Some sins may keep the hurts of a [...] [...] ­cur [...]. committed in a Nation may be such that no [...] means can cure its sores, and ma [...]ms; especially, if the noblest, and most vital parts of the body being cut off, or grievously w [...]ded, there be a clamor of blood un­justly [...]ied, crying to heaven for vengeance; which vengeance if a Nation will hope to escape, and be healed, they must be sure not to ad [...]pt the sin by after [...] or [...]; But rather so publickly to [...] [...] in [...] of R [...]pentance, as it may not be imputed to the whole Nation, and then Posterity▪ As the desp [...]ra [...]e [...] [...], His [...]lood be upon [...] 27. 25. us and our childre [...], in the [...] [...] christs being [Page 87] put to death, by envy and faction; by popular clamors, & State policies, when against all justice of God and man, yea, against the s [...]nce and consci­ence of Pilate, none of the juste [...] judges, he was condemned to dye, to gratifie a popular and military importunity; to which some Scribe [...] and Pharises, Hypocrites, together with some cove­tous and ambitious Priests, had exalted the cre­du [...]o [...]s and cruel common people, who are pron [...] to [...] in the Tragick executions, and [...] of their betters and Superiours; a [...] a kinde of victory over the others greatness, and a levelling of eminent honor to their own meanuess and [...]a [...]eness.

6. But, [...]t is now time for me, in order, to give way Part. 6. The true method of sound [...]ealing. to the pains of my learn'd, and reverend Success [...], and to avoid the tyring of your patience, at the first Stage, when you are to g [...] a second▪ [...] is time (I say) for me to bring up the Ro [...], and to present you in the Sixth particular, with the [...] s [...]andi methodus, the true method of publick cures, of healing the hurts of the Da [...]ghte [...] of my people, in Church or State.

For the precipitan [...], preposterous, or presumpte­ous neglect of which, these Medieasters are here blamed, reproached, and threatned by the Spir [...] of God; with whose Phila [...]thropy (as with [...] good man) that politick and indeed pio [...] (be­cause charitable maxime beares s [...]y; [...] [...] suprem [...] l [...]x, The [...] [...] the [...] [Page 88] in all its integral members, and essential parts, as compacted by the constitution and order of the publick polity, is the supream Law, rule, measure, and end of all just Councels and honest actions, which aym at the health or healing of a Nation.

As [...] is [...], Beauty is the due proportion of parts, with decent colour; So [...] Health cousists ( [...] in the harmony, and orderly constitution of all the humors, and parts of the body; That nothing necessary for the well being of the whole be wanting; That all grand defects be supplyed: That what is weak be strengthened, what is dislocated be restored to its place; That there be no dividing of what should be united: That, what is divided be gently closed, and composed; That there be no such redundancy, or overgrowing of any humor or tumor in any p [...], as to rob and weaken others; or to swell and exceed in themselves; or to deform and inflame the whole.

In brief, the true and safe method of healing effectually the hurt of the daughter of my people, is,

1. Medicos optimos accersendo, By calling to her 1 By putting themselves into the hands of good Physicians, able and honest. help wise and worthy Physicians, (as I have formerly touched); men of skill and experience, of Honesty and Ability, of honor and conscience, who prize a publick Good Work above any [...]; and think it the highest temporal reward, to do their country good, in which they serve their God, and their Saviour, the Church and State. [Page 89] they must be Physitians that are not by much study and practice run out to Atheism (as some corn in lasty ground doth to straw and halm) but such as know what belongs to ( Religio medici) the piety of a Christian, as well as the mystery of a Physitian; my meaning is, people must take special care in their choice of Parliament-men, that they be not Mechanick, or Mercenary, or Military ob­truders of themselves, who have much to get and l [...]tle to lose by troubles, whose fortunes and estates must be vampt and mended by their practice upon the Church and State; But such Gentlemen of quality and repute, for wel-gotten and wel-used estates, that they may deserve to be esteemed Heads and Fathers of their Tribes, and not the Tails or Posteriors, as the Scripture speaks to the reproach of some publick persons; Such in whom the Country may have sufficient caution and se­curity for their love of Justice, Order, and Peace, by what they have to venture and lose in tumults, wars and oppressions: Commonly desperate minds attend desperate fortunes; and the motto of such is Quocunque modo rem, and oportet ha­bere. The ( multis utile bellum) hoped advanta­ges, (as Lucan observes in the Cesaria [...], and Salust in the [...], and Appian in the other Civil Wars) is the spark, fewel and bellows for the most part to civil perturbations; private not publique interests are usually looked at. For how can it be that the full and sound parts of the body Poli­tique should hope to mend their condition by war, any more than men that are well, and not de [...] ­rant [Page 90] or raving in a Feavor and madness should by bruising, and beating, and cutting, and wound­ing themselves and all that are near them, ex­pect to make themselves more strong, or more comely.

§. 2. When the Patient hath done himself so much right as to get good Physitians, able and honest, for the publique care:

Their work is, First, Morbum decernere, & The Physitians right discern­ing the disease and throughly searching the wounds. vulnera, perserutari, to find out the true disease▪ to search the wounds througly, and impartially, yet with as little pain and disorder to the Patient as may be, with a clear and judicious eye, with a gentle but faithful hand, with a tender, but honest heart; neither Physitians passion, nor com­passion, must divert them from doing their duty.

§. It is the first step, and a good advance to health, to know truly what the hurts and disease is; herein to be only conjectural, [...] over-confident, or fearful, or perfunctory, or palliating, or complying, not daring to search and discover the ( pudenda vulne­ra) shameful wounds, and ( lethales morbos) deadly diseases, which are discerned in the Pati­ent, but with smiles, and fair words, with heal­ing questions, with Physical or Anatomical lect­ures about Government, as with lingering leni­tives, and petty cordials, to supple and skin them over, to silence and smother them, with crying peace, peace, till we have done our work, which is to undo you and all men but our selves; or for State Physitians, so to regard by a super­politick [Page 91] policy, the several partial novel and pre­tended interests, that have been or are on foot, as to take in among others, even that of the very disease, as if it were to be considered other ways than to be cured, as if it must be continued, tolerated and indulged, yea and fed as a Wolf or Cancer, in the body or brest, with good nourishment, least it prey upon the whole body.

§. This is for Physitians to be afraid, and Of faintheart­ed, foolish, [...]alse and flat­tering Physiti­ans. overawed by the Malignancy, and predominancy of the disease; at this rate, ( Grex totus in agris, Unius scabie perit & porrigine porci) the whole herd, or flock must be infected; the patient will be like Gehazi, condemned to an eternal plague and Leprosie of civil dissentions and oppessions, of war, and its black consequences. Physitians after this course must turn very fools, and become parasites to putrefactions; if they dare not own, or cannot attaque either the sourse and head of the disease, or the streams and potency of it, what do they meet and sit and consult (or rather constult) toge­ther? they had as good cast their caps, as thus lay their heads together, when they have no mind to do the work, nor courage to go through with the cure.

§. Not but that all great and noble cures (not miraculous) are the children of time and discretion; for a while the sons of Zerviah were too hard for David; and Solomon did not those acts of remarka­ble Justice against Joabs, and Shi [...]eis, and Abiathars factious Priests, insolent Soldiers, and cursed cur­sers, [Page 92] until the Kingdom was strengthned in his hand; but this is certain, as Christ did not raise to life Jarus his daughter till the Minstrils were all Matth. 9. 23. turned out; So nor can the daughter of my people be recovered to firm and sure health, till all pre­tended Civil Interests are by degrees, either satisfi­ed, if just, or crushed, quashed and removed, if not consistent with our Reformed Religion, also with the Laws of the Land, and the fundamentals of our excellent Government, which are the true princi­ples of publique health; and till all Religious or Ecclesiastical pretended Interests are so tried and examined (for many say they are Jews that are not, Rev. 2. 9. and cry up their new Church ways; when they may be but factors for the Synagogue of Satan; vapor­ing of Christ, and the Spirit, when they are Anti­christs, and full of unclean spirits) till I say, all these, on all hands be faithfully reduced and sub­jected to the grand interest of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, which consists in Justice and true Religion: The measure of the first is our Laws enacted in full and free Parliaments: The rule of the second are clear truths of Scripture, which set forth the ( facienda) morals necessary to be [...]one by all to all men; the ( credenda) myste­ries of Faith necessary to be believed, also the spe­cial practiques of Christian Piety and Charity, of Worship and good works, which are to be exer­cised decently and in order by all Christians in publick as well as private: Till these be setled Healing of the Church and Religion. there is no hope of soundness or health in Church or State.

[Page 93]§. Now of these things which properly tend Lev. 13, & 14. to the health of the Church, and the right consti­tution of Religion in piety and polity, for Do­ctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, I humbly conceive (as the Priests of old were by God appointed to be Judge and Physitian of the plague of Leprofie) the Clergie or Evangelical Mi­nistry are fittest men to discern the distempers, and to prepare those plaisters or applications, which by the sanction of the civil Magistrate, may best be laid to the Patient, or the parts affected.

§. And here for any part to plead that it may Of scandalous toleration in matter [...] of Re­ligion. have liberty or toleration for that, which by pub­lique advice, and upon due search is found to be such as is prone to endanger, or disorder, and in­fect the whole body with that itch, and scab, or scalling humor, which that part pleaseth it self to scratch and scatter, this is such a presumptuous mo­tion as ought not to be made by any Patient, nor granted by any Physitians, who have either justice or charity for the ( salus publica) common welfare▪ none inclining to those sad indulgences but they who have neither ability nor authority to cure the hurt and disease; but must to their shame cry out ( Morbus superat artem, & Chyr [...]rg [...] vulnus) the ill humors are too strong for the best Physiti­ans, and the ulcers conquer the Chyrurgeons▪ Truly in such deplorable cases, where not the disease, but the Physitians are desperate, as in the raging plague, the way is to shut up the doors of the Physitians Colledge, and the Chyrurgeons Hall, and write upon them in behalf of Church and State ( Miserere Domine) Lord have merey [...] and [Page 94] for nothing remains in so deplored and desperate cases, where Healers cannot or will not do their work; but the prayers and patience of the poor Patient, the miserable daughter of my people; as in a State where either the disease is ( contemptor ar­tis) a despiser of all remedies; or the Patient is of nothing more impatient than to be well cured; or the Physitians are of nothing more afraid than to make too speedy and sincere a cure.

Thirdly, But if Physitians of the daughter of The practice o [...] sincere and speedy healing my people are so blessed of God, and encouraged by the Patient, that they may freely and do se­riously apply to their work of publique healing; [...]. To purge a. way what is noysom. they have but these main things to do. 1. Noxia & morbifica purgare; discreetly to facilitate, and constantly to follow the purging away of the most peccant and pestilent humors, which either are the main cause, occasion, or increase and conti­nuers of the hurt and disease: Here every pre­sumptuous and prevalent sin, which is most spread among the people, is to be repressed by good Laws, and the due execution of them; when sins grow epidemical, and by the multitude of com­miters either threaten or plead their impunity, Psa. 119 126 they provoke God to punish what man does not; he takes the matter into his own hand, when his Laws Moral and Evangelical are openly and impu­dently broken.

§. Here it were good for Physitians of Church and State, in extraordinary diseases, long distem­pers, and obstinate hurts, admitting no cure, such (as those of the daughter of our people) are to make accurate search (as Joshua, and David, and [Page 95] the Mariners in Jonah did) for what special cur­sed thing, or crying sins sake all this evill, this long storm is come on us, and still so continues for many years, as if there were no peace or calm to be expected; no effectual Physician or cure to be had, till those Vipers teeth, or Serpents stings be pulled out; till then no balm in Gilead will do us good.

§. Doubtless every honest Englishman and good Christian would be glad of health and peace to Church and State; whence then are our so dread­ful wounds, so raging humors, and our so dila­tory healing? We must needs conclude (as he did Matth 13. 28. of the Tares ( inimicus homo fecit) an enemy hath done, begun, or augmented this evil: Some whose bloody designs, and sacrilegious interests (as Achans and Sauls) are contrary to the Word of God among us, and the vows or oathes of God upon us; contrary to the principles of the Prote­stant and Reformed Religion, which once so flourished in England, and contrary to the peace, honor and freedom of this Nation, which some foraign and domestick Policies would bring down as a Dromedary on its knees, that it might at length, take upon his back the burthen of foraign tyranny and usurpation, of Romish Trumpery and superstition.

§. Hence no doubt are our distempers so hor­ribly inflamed, our healing so cruelly protracted, our Physitians so shamefully baffled, our body so wofully maimed; Hence our wounds are made so deep, and our abscissions so desperate, that (ac­cording to Achitophels counsel, to make the breach irreconcilable between Absolom and David) some things have been done to so high a rage [Page 90] and exorbitant indignities, and so intolerable in­juries, without any authority from God or man, that they are not capable of full reparation, nor yet patient (hitherto) to bear such a measure of publick repentance or reparation, as are not on­ly most just but most necessary for the appeasing Gods wrath, and for the perfect healing of the Nation, without which there can be no soundness of constitution, no compleatness of parts, no decen­cy of motion in the Body Politick or Ecclesi­astick. Nor will the wrath of God be turned away, but his hand stretched out still.

§. Here not only Justice must be so done, to take away the guilt and curse from the Nation of crying and notorious sins; but also such penitent deprecations, and compensations as (are possible, and) may best expiate those horrid sins, which are and ever will be (while unrepented, uncorrected, and uncured) the maim and ulcer, the sin and shame, the defect and deformity; yea, the con­sumption and death at last of the daughter of my people: For tragical Judgements sooner or later follow tragical sins; and presumptions bring a a Nation to consumptions; England will never be it self, till it doth it self this right, both in ho­nor and conscience, in Reason of State, and for the repute of the Reformed Religion; from whose face such black and bloody stains must be washed if ever she will appear lovely to the world, and not as the Whore of Babylon, who was drunk as well as besmeared with blood. All the inventi­ons and projects of making supplies and amends by some other Commonwealth way, is no better [Page 97] than getting a wooden leg, or hands of clouts, instead of such as are natural; or as [...] bolster of g [...]ats hair instead of David: The body cannot have ease or orderly motion, or beauty and com­plexion, till every part is restored to its place, of­fice and proportion.

2. When the venom and core of the main di­stempers 2. To apply such who e [...]om medicines as are tried and p [...]oper. is removed, the next work of a wise Physitian and Chyrurgeon, is, Sana Medicamina applicare, to follow the Patient with wholesom me­dicaments, as are (1) probata, approved upon the file of long experience, (2) propria & specifica, as apt, proper, and specifick, as can be had, con­sidering the genius and constitution of the Patient; also the original, continuance and progress of the disease; cures are by contraries; those medi­cines M [...]dels of new Govern­ments [...]heal not. will most certainly help, which most encounter the principal causes of our maine dis­ease; and are proper antidotes, against the malignity of our sores.

§. It is but the capricious and ridiculous conceit of some fine men who want employment, to send this now languishing State of England, and the other two adjacent, antient and united King­domes, to Mars his hill in Athens, or to the Lacedemonian Sparta, or to the Roman Capitol, or to the Venetian Arsenal, or to the State-house of the low Countries, and so to send the Church to Geneva, Edinbrough, or Amsterdam, as if we were Churches or Nations of yesterday, in our bibs and swadling clouts, to be dandled in the laps of such dry nurses, and this in order (for sooth) to learn some unwonted models of civil [Page 98] and Ecclesiastical Government, which like new garments will hardly fit, for they will be either uneasie because too straight, or unhansome be­cause too loose.

§. Doubtless in Governments, that Scripture Proverb of Wine holds true, the elder is the bet­ter, Luke [...]. 29. if it have not lost its spirits, especially when not onely time and use, but great wisdome had proportioned it to the true interests of the Nati­on, and of all estates in it, which follow much the genius of the people, if they be either soft, slavish and pesantly, as in some countrys, Government must fit the genius of peo­ple. or robust, manly, and generous, as in England; the first will easily croutch under any burthen, and truckle under any prevalent power; the second is hardly contained in any bounds but those that are Soveragine, and Imperial, by way of monar­chical, yet legal Majesty, which having something in it neerer the Divine Idea, than any other way of Government, by the perfection of wis­dome guiding power, and power assisting wis­dome, is onely fit to govern those Nations, whose high spirits are impatient to be ridden by their equals, much more▪to have their inferi­ours to become not only their rivals, but superi­ours. When the Cappadocians had leave to be a Province, or popular State, under the Roman Empire, they refused the freedome, and craved the favour of having a King to rule them, as they ever had, time out of mind, professing the temper of the people was such, that they would not be subject to any, but those in whom Majesty was so concentred, by the Laws and customs of the [Page 99] Nation, that they could without shame and dis­dain, pay an homage as subjects to them.

§. Herein experience hath been, and will be Novel essays of Gōvern­ment dange­rous. our teacher; but then it will be and hath been as Hippocrates begins his Aphorisms, [...], a costly, painful difficult and dangerous expe­riment, and if at last it do not fit the Genius temper and desire of these Nations, so as to ease them of their terrors and vast charges of civil War, to free them of the fear of Enemies at home, and abroad, to settle them in such peace and plen­ty, as many yet remember they injoyed before the flood of our civil wars, to open the obstructions of trade, and those veins of industry, by which the body is maintained, by the secret circulation of commerce, as of the blood; if all these Symp­tomes, Concomitants, or effects of health, do not follow the essayes of new formes of Govern­ment, alas what do we all the while, but keep the daughter of our people upon the rack of paine and expence, using a kind of a State Strappado, by which to bring the armes to hang backwards, rather than forwards, so as they can neither lift up themselves to their head, nor yet defend and help the body or themselves, so by a dread­ful convulsion, to bring all things of antient order, honor, and beauty in the nation, to the distractions and deformities, which must needs attend such novel­ties as are not proper for the publique, nor practica­ble without continued force, and endless charge.

3. Their healing medicines must be plenaria, & To apply Ca­tholic [...] a [...]d compleating medicines. Catholica, such as may in time do the work com­pleatly, yet with leisure and discretion (For [Page 100] momentary cures, are onely miraculous,) So as carefully to preserve the good spirits und humors, to strengthen the sound parts yet remaining, to follow the grand crises of the disease, and the indications of health, which way evil humors are easiest discussed; breathed out, or purged, still conserving the two main principles, pillars, and supports of health, life and subsistence in the body politique, the radicale humidum (as I call it) Psal. 144. 14 which is plenty, by trade and industry, that there be no crying out, nor complaining, by those whose mouths cannot eat if their hands be idle. 2. That calidum radicale, the sacred fire, or celestial flame, which Prometheus is said to have kindled in mankind, which shines in reason and religion, in Justice by good Laws well execu­ted by Magistrates, and in devotion by the holy publique worship of God, solemnly dis­charged by able and autoritative Ministers; both which are the grand designes of good learning, which is the souls school for improvement and education, during its minority or absence from its Fathers house, till it comes to vision and frui­tion, which sets it beyond all learning, but that of the Fathers glorious example.

§. No civil laws can be wholesome for the pub­lique which do enterfeer with true Religion; which either rob God, or his Church, or his Vice­gerents, and Ministers, or his poor, of what is their due; nor can any Ecclesiastical laws be healthful, which cross the civil laws, and authority, so, as to bring in licentionsness, injuriousness, rebel­lion, or any thing that is for Doctrine fanatick, [Page 101] or for practice injust and immoral, all which like poysonons touchings, or unwholesome feedings, are destructive to the publique health.

§. The perfect healing of the Church and Reli­gion, Of Ecclesiasti­cal Synods to heal a Church. as Christian and reformed (whose divisions, hurts and deformities are many) will hardly be done without calling those spiritual Physitians to­gether, after the primitive pattern in Ecclesiasti­cal Synods or National Councils, who are best skil­led Acts 15. 6 in the true state of health, in the nature of the diseases, and in the aptest remedies, which in Re­ligion ought to be very humane and charitable, convincing with meekness of wisdom, and healing as much by prayers and tears as by reasonings and perswasions. I confess I cannot see how a Com­mittee of Parliament for Religion is proper for this work, further than to be [...]; the promo­ters of it, when put into fit hands of able Ministers.

§. Herein, the first grand work is to bring us to be again one National Church; from which ho­nor and happiness we fell as Lucifer from heaven, when some mens ambition affected to make the chief Magistrate of a Commonwealth to be simi­lis al [...]issimo, as high as the highest in three King­doms, which unity of this Church, those have sought most subtilly to divide, whose interests and purposes was to destroy it; that by balancing of parties they might better keep up themselves, as dancers on the rope are wont to do. This re­storing of the Church to its pristine unity, is to be done by such an harmony of Doctrine, as may be publickly owned and confessed, by such an uni­form way of worship, as shall be publickly recom­comended [Page 102] and eneouraged; by such an authoritative and orderly Church Government among Bishops, Presbyters and People, as may carry on the Discipline of the Church, for Ordination and Censure, with gravity and honor, with piety and charity, redee­ming both holy things, and the Ministers of them, from that vulgar insolency and Plebeian contempt, under which they are fallen and have long lain, ei­ther by their own indiscretion, levity and divisi­ons; or by the petulaney, force, or fraud of o­thers, whose aim is to have no Presbyters as well as no Bishops, yea and no Churches of the Reformed Religion.

§. That lenitive of equanimity, forbearance, and moderation, in respect of consciencious Dissenters charitable ration. from the publique consent, customs and constitutions in the Church (which Christian charity requires, and publique peace with safety may bear) will best be prepared and applied, when we fully see what is noxious, malicious and intolerable; what is only inconvenient, and imprudent, or infirm, and venial in mens opinions and pretensions; to be sure such a wise method may be used, and such a course taken, to have able Ministers, and honest Magistrates concur in their judgement and joynt endeavors, that the Justice of the one, and the gentleness of the other; the ability and sanctity of both in their places and performances, may be such, as shall render the established Religion so venerable and conspicuous as will in a few years draw all sober men to it, when they shall see no­thing in it, but what is for the main conformable to Gods Word, and necessary either for the being [Page 103] or wel-being of Humane and Christian Societies.

§. As Civil, so Ecclesiastical hurts are best (that is, Civil hurts healed by re­course to the Laws. soonest, easiest & surest healed) revertendo ad leges bonas & antiquas) by returning (as the wounded Hart to Dictamnum) to those Laws and Canons w ^ch are not therefore ( bonae quia antiquae; but therefore antiquae, quia bonae▪ in which the aequum, & unum, & bonum make the vetustum) Their verity, equity and piety gave rise to their antiquity; and their anti­quity gave reverence and solemnity to their equity or goodness; Tis certain, there can be no com­pleat health in the body till every part, every limb, every vein, every vessel doth its Office in due time and place; irregularities must be recti­fied, defects supplied, excesses repressed, ill humors purged, and all reduced by Law to good order.

§. A blessed work, and to be done with as Of I ni ives and moderati­n in healing much Moderation and gentleness as the fidelity of the cure will permit, and the spreading of the dis­ease doth require; wherein many parts may by weakness or by nearness to the ( fons morbi) the first peccant or ill affected part, have contracted sad distempers; which will easily be cured of their anguish if the evil neighborhood be mended: Here generous and gracious remissions are just and Christian, to misled multitudes, and to such whose penitent errors shew they were not of malice, but credulity and mistake, who are more zealous now for health, than ever they were to be de­bauched and disordered, so much to their own and the publique affliction.

§. Acts of pardon, Amnesty, or Oblivion, are Acts of Oblivion. excellent lenitives, (Publico bonotam publicae quam [Page 104] privatae simultates & injuriae sunt condonandae, to pardon as well publique as private losses and inju­ries to the publique peace, to interpret the in­tent and meaning of either side to have been good, who persist not in evil; the zeal of some to maintain their Loyalty to the King, for which they thought they had the clearest commands of Gods Laws and mans; The zeal of others, to pre­serve the lawful priviledges, and fixed authority of Parliaments, against any thing, that by violent overthrowing of those, must needs hazard the overthrow of all; possibly neither of these par­ties might be so bad or blameable, as to the first intentions, but that they may easily be reconciled in the medium which both first professed to in­tend, namely King and Parliament, setled laws and established Religion; if this had been kept to, the quarel had been soon ended in Church and State; the misery was that by jealousies and misunderstandings, the passions and transports of both sides, might so overbear them, as to occasion those sad conflicts and consequences upon both, which neither of them at first intended, but deprecated and detested; mean time while humors were in motion, new and unexpected dis­eases got head, under the name of interest of State, of liberty and common equity, which had no law, little reason or Religion.

§. So, between the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Independent Parties, much of the acidness and sharpness of the humor would be allayed, if this Poltice of charitable censure and interpreta­tion were applyed one all sides that the first [Page 105] did but aim to maintaine the order and eminency of presidential Episcopacy, which was so univer­sal, so antient, so primitive, so apostolical, and so prosperous in the Church of Christ; the second designed onely to bring Episcopacy to such a pater­nal temperament with Presbytery, that the whole Clergie of a Diocess, and the concerns of Religion, might not be exposed to one mans sole jurisdiction, without the such joynt counsel, consent and assistance of Ministers, as is safest for Bishops Presbyters, and People; the third of Independents' or Congregationists, which seemed to stickle for' the iuterests of people in religious transactions, where their souls are so much concerned, what Minister they have, and how both he and others of their congregation behave themselves, either to the edification and comfort, or the scandal and grief of that part or members of the Church, with which they actually congregate and communi­cate. It seems but agreable to the ancient usage of the Churches of Christ, in St. Cyprians, Ter­tullians, and Ireuaeus his time, that no publique transactions, much less impositions, touching Re­ligion, should be made, without fairly aquain­ting the Clergy and Christian people too with the grounds and reasons of them, that Church-govern­ment, might not seem to be a tyranny, or an 1 Pet. 53. arbitrary and absolute domineering over the faith and consciences of Christs flock, but a mutual and sweet conspiring of the Shepherds with the sheep, to make each other happy▪ in truth and love, by orderly authority, and due subordination.

§. I should be glad to see the beams of this can­dor, [Page 106] this kindness, this charity, shine in all faces Charity and candor among Christians. from all sides, that the Shiboleths of different dialects and designes, the carnal and unhappy dis­criminations of I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, might be laid aside, by being all for and of Christ, who is not, and ought not, and 1 Cor. 1. 12 and [...], 3 cannot, ether truly in himself, or comfortably as to any Christians and churches be divided; let all, like straight lines from the several points of the circumference, be drawn true to the centre of Gods glory, the publique peace, and the good of souls; no doubt we shall by meeting in those, come so nigh to each other, that all will rejoyce in the harmony and concurrence, who do not seek the ruine of this Church, and the reformed Religion; and indeed the differences of honest Protestants are but small, compared to the bonds of union in which they do agree, as to doctrinals, morals, and essentials; nor are we hard I hope to be recon­ciled as to prudentials, if we could meet freely, debate soberly, and submit humbly to the pub­lique votes and results of the Major part of Parliaments and Synods, without which submission, all counsels, and all government, depending upon suffrages, must needs be vaine, and dissolved either into Tyranny or Ataxy, as the learned Grotius observes, in his Batavick history, (Restat ut pauciores pluribus cedant; hoc uno stant populorum Lib. 17. p, 115▪ imperia, aliter casura.)

§. To conclude, let every one keep in Gods Follow holi­ness, and peace will follow. way, which is the way of peace and holiness, of duty to God and man let good Christians en­tertain good thoughts, and give good words to [Page 107] each other; good ayre conduceh much to reco­very; uncharitable speeches, and sinful courses (which are but halitus Diaboli, the breath of the Divil, or the exhaltation of our own foul hearts, or the eructations of hell) render the very aire, in which men live unwholesome, and the very Se­nates or Synods, where such men meet, grow infective by foul lungs and putid breaths.

§. Let us privately mourn over the daughter of Mourn for sins our people for the hurts, which our sins have either first inflicted on her, or deserved for her, or festred and inflamed, or at least hindred from healing, by childish peevishness, or popular per­tinacies, or Sinister designs, or politique jealou­sies; lay these aside, the work of healing will go on; for not outward applications so much, as inward sound principles and honest perswasions do heal; as the outward plaisters and unguents or balsoms do not heal wounds by adding any matter to the part, or the whole, but healing flows from an internal native principle, so soon as the noxi­ous humours are purged, and the proud or dead flesh removed, which hinder the closure of parts, and the digesture of good supplies.

§. Lastly let us in patience and prayers possess Pray with pa­tience. our souls, and wait for the saving health of Gods salvation, who can best ordain peace for us, who Isa. 2 [...] ▪ 12 Isa. 19. 20 hath smittenus, and only can heal us, by allaying and composing, the spirits of honest-meaning men, by making them to be of one mind, by suggesting good counsels, which no passions shall stop, or private interests prevent, by shewing us the way of peace, and guiding us in it. It is time for us to ac­cept [Page 108] of the long punishment God hath inflicted on us; take heed (like King Ahaz) of sinning more and Lev. 26. 41 more in our affliction, by adding drunkeness to thirst, 2 Chron. [...]8. 22 confusion to rebellion, and desolation to division.

§. Do not listen to those charmers and cheaters Beware of false healers. who will pretend you are healed, or the daugh­ter of your people is not hurt, or she is much men­ded, or she is not to be cured but only in those ways which their popular, partial, tumultuary, bloody and violent heads have invented, practised, & pursued to the into lerable charge & anguish of the Nation.

§. If it be publique, perfect peace; peace (as some have pretended) if she be indeed healed, whence are those ( moribundae palpitationes) dead­ly pantings and fainting fits into which she falls so oft? What means the running Issues, the putid sores and purulent matter which daily is vented in such pamphlets of scurrility, and papers of discontent as shew the fedity, pain and shame of our times and Nation? what a scorn and derision, what a hissing and ashonish­ment is she become at home and abroad, by the impatience and contempt of those useless, yea hurtful means which some Empiricks have rude­ly applied, and variously tampered with!

§. Ask all parts of the body politick if they Appeal to all esteats whe­ther healed. be yet healed; what an Asthma or difficulty of breathing have we had since the breath of our nostrils hath been oppressed as to that order and government, that soveraign publique honor and highest authority which belongs to the Na­tion, as its crown and glory, no less than those properties, Liberties and Laws, or that industry, [Page 109] peace, and security, which are due to every pri­vate honest man!

§. Ask the Nobility, and Peers if they think themselves yet healed of the wounds which some of their honor's received in Iezreel, when they gave themselves the first great blow by separating their Spirituals from their Temporals, and instead of grave, venerable Bishops (who had for many hundred years sate in Parliament as Patres & Pares to counsel with them) they submitted their honors to such Presbyters as affected to be not only their Confessors but their Dictators!

§, Ask the Gentry and Commons in Parlia­ment, if they are yet fully healed of the hurts which first tumults and afterward mutinies with armed force have made on them.

§. Ask the generality of the Clergie or Mini­sters (that are truly such) if they are healed of the hurts which Schism and Heresie, prophaness and licenciousness, Sacriledge and Ataxy, contempt and confusion, inordination and new Ordinations have made upon all holy Orders and Offices, upon all pub­lick duties of Religion and devotion: Particularly, Ask those poor, but worthy Ministers (who fla­grante bello, & in cautelam) were by way of cau­tion (ne noceant) or by way of castigation (quia nocuerunt) for some light offences sequestred from their Livings, and after silenced from all Offici­ating; whether their punishment which was grea­ter than their sin be yet taken off? whether their first sequestration be not made a total and final de­privation of all livelihood; and their Purgatory become an Hell, out of which is no redemption [Page 110] by a summa justitia, which looks like summa injuria.

§. Ask the whole People, when their Represen­tatives or Deputies meet, as their mouthes, whe­ther they are healed, or have any hope to be healed of those stabs and wounds which Oaths and Covenants, and cross Engagements have made upon their souls; by either ill taking the latter, or ill keeping the former▪ which were thefirst just and lawful ones, which no Pope or People can dispense withal.

Ask all degrees of men whether they are heal­ed as to their Laws, Liberties, Properties, Peace, Plenty, Estates and Trade, except it be very slightly, or whether they expect to be soundly healed till such methods of healing are taken by wise, honest, impartial, authoritative, free and unanimous Phy­sicians, as may bring them to those tried and good applications, both for diet and physick (both repenting what hath been done amiss, and retur­ning to do what is just) by which they enjoyed health so many years, without any considerable aches or pains, which was easily and speedily re­medied, by the justice and discretion of honest Physitians, compleat and conscientious Parlia­ments, with a learned and godly Synod.

§. You know the unanimous cry and vote of The sence of the Nation. far the most and best people of the Nation is for healing, which shews that they do not yet finde themselves healed; the cries and complaints of poor and rich, of great and small witness, We are not yet healed: All testifie this so loudly in Cities and Country, that none contradict it, but those who (as Sylla's lice, or Herods worms) feed on our [Page 111] soars, and hope to make a prey of Church and State, of our Bodies, Estates and Souls by conti­nuing the hurts, putrefactions and miseries of both.

§. Whose cruel policies and impressions I hope the mercy of God by the valour and wisdom of godly men, will speedily (if our sins hinder not) frustrate and defeat, when they see, that next our sins, the instruments of all our miseries have been Fanaticorum spicula, Jesuitarum venen [...] tincta: Fanatick darts and arrows, dipt in the Jesuites poison.

§. My only ambition and design in this freedom Necessary freedome to speak of our hurts▪ of my speaking to you, is, to help to heal and close hurts, and to arm you against them for the time to come. Tis high time for every honest heart to make use of a discreet tongue, pathetically to set forth with the Prophet the hurts of the daughter of his people, to cry mightily to heaven and earth, to God and man, to honest Counsellors and just Commanders, to give us leave to use, or in pity to put us into such hands, and such ways as may effectually and speedily heal us, and not by a su­pine silence and sottish slavery suffer our selves, and our posterity to wallow in our sanies or putid effluxions, or to sit for ever on a dunghil, like Job, scraping our sores with potsheards, and there is none to help us.

§. We do not desire to be happier than our religion and laws would make us, and did so Pristine health was best. before might affronted right, and force cut the sinews of Justice, to put us off with fine words, Good words [...]eal not. (godly phrases) and Saraphick fancys of cures, [Page 112] beyond the proportions of this mortal condition, as if we must all be healed to Angelick perfections, and setledby Mathematical ballancing of a Common­wealth, or a Church, beyond all humane infirmi­ties, or worldly vicissitudes; these are but the phil [...]ers and delusions of those who meditate no­thing less than a speedy and honest healing; to which if my freedome used this day may any way contribute, who am (I thank God) exempted from base fe [...]s or flatteries of any man, I may hope that it will not onely be pardonable but acceptable to you, as from one that hath no designe so upon his heart (next the saving of his soul,) as to see, before I dye, the salvation of God in the right healing of the hurts of the daughter of my people, both in Church and State (whose welfares are unseparable.) For this end I have now preached to you upon your desire, and shall ever pray to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Saviour of his Church, that after the many publique troubles we have for our [...]ins seen and suffered to our sorrows, at length the waters may be so moved, by some good Angel, that the daughter of my people may be effectually healed, (by a soveraign and celestial influence) of what ever disease or hurt she hath, either in Church or State; and this for Jesus Christs sake, to whom with the Father and blessed Spirit, be everlasting glory.