THis Kingdome once glorying in the flourishing title of Ol­bion: which is as much as happinesse and tranquility, (tam Eccles. quam Re [...]p [...]b.) but now being clouded and maskt with various distracti­ons, as are apparantly knowne and made manifest to the whole world, in so much that she is made a laughing stocke, and a scorne to all Nations, may now with the Publican cry, Lord have mercy on me a sinner: or with Eccebolius, chiefe Captain of the Apostates, who in Constantines time to oke upon him the note of a zealous Christian: in the reigne of Iulian he became a Pagan; Iulian being dead then he would become a Christian: but be­ing [Page] sensible of his mutability and inconstancy, prostrated himselfe flat upon the ground at the Porch of the Temple, crying with a loud voyce, Tread on me, tread on me, for I am unsavoury salt.

I feare me we have too too many of these un­favourable and wheeling Rotundities frequent amongst us, but I pray God it happeneth not to them as it did to Iulian Uncle to Iulian the Apo­state, for their contemning and slighting Gods ho­ly ordinances, who comming into a Church at Antioch, profaned the Lords Table by pissing upon it, saying in scorne, that the Divine Provi­dence tooke no care of outward ceremonies. But not long after divine Justice found him out, for being taken with a disease that rotted his bowels, his excrements leaving their wonted passage, ran through his throat and blasphemous mouth in as stinking a manner, as the poysoned trash and beg­garly rudiments are fomented now adayes from the impudent mouthes of unlearned and ignorant Teachers, the event of whose pernicious and il­literate doctrine will lead me to this ensuing sto­ry of Gods wrath and judgements to over curi­ous and nice zelots of our times.

[Page] In Mears-Ashby in Nottingham shire, on [...] Ma­ry Wilmore wife of Iohn Wilmore, rough Mason, being great with childe, and much perplext in minde, to thinke that her childe when it pleased God she should be delivered, should be baptized with the signe of the Crosse: The Minister of the Parish being a very honest and conformable man, not suiting with the vaine babling and erro­neous Sycophants, as there are too too many thereabouts inhabiting, desires her husband to goe to Hardwicke, a Village neare adjoyning to one Master Ba [...]nard a reverend Divine, to know his opinion concerning the Crosse in Baptisme: whose answer was, That it was no wayes neces­sary to salvation, but an ancient, laudable, and decent ceremony of the Church of England▪ Which answer being related to her from [...] husband, it is reported she should say, I had [...] ­ther my childe should bee borne without a head, then to have a head to be signed with the signe of the Crosse.

Haply this woman through her weaknesse, or too much confiding in the conventicling Secta­ries, Qui quicquid in buccam venerit blatterant: might thinke she did well, supposing as shee was taught by them, the Crosse in Baptisme to bee a pernicious, popish and idolatrous ceremony: yet see Vzzah, 2 Sam. 6.6, 7. 1 Chron. 13.9, 10. vid. Iudg. 8.27. though thy intent in doing a seeming [Page] good action be never so good, yet if thou have not warrant for nor so doing, thou and thine acti­on may happly perish together, as the sequell of this story will declare. It pleased God about a month after, shee was accordingly delivered of a Monster, Rudes indegestáque moles, a child with­out a head, to the shame of the parents, in not ha­ving that part whereon it might have been markt with that token whereof it should never after have beene ashamed.

What strange judgements of God have wee seene, saith Pollychronus, in the times of revolters? as we may see in the third yeare of Queene Eliza­beth of ever blessed memory, when as in Moore and Geofferey, two of the divells agents, publisht their prodigious and hereticall tenents, to the al­lurement of many faithfull and constant belee­vers: the yeare after was many monstrous births. A man childe was borne at Chichester in Suffex, the head, armes, and legs whereof were like Ana­tomy, the brest and belly monstrous big from the navell, about the necke a great coller of flesh and skin growing, like to the double ruffes and nec­kerchiefes then in use, and many more like acci­dents, Qua nunc norandi non est locus. Good Lord therefore which hast made and fashioned us, and as there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptisme, one God and Father of all, even so Lord grant that wee may joyntly agree in love, [Page] and that there remaine amongst us a godly con­sent and loving concord, and that nothing bee done in contention and vainglory: and suffer us not to exercise our selves in the workes of the flesh, as hatred, emulations, contentions, heresies, seditions, needlesse and unprofitable questions, which tend to rebellion and discord, breeding ungodlinesse, and make dissention: breake thou the bonds of Sathan, and the malice of those who extinguish the bond of peace.