Historie & policie re-viewed, in the heroick transactions of His Most Serene Highnesse, Oliver, late Lord Protector; from his cradle, to his tomb: declaring his steps to princely perfection; as they are drawn in lively parallels to the ascents of the great patriarch Moses, in thirty degrees, to the height of honour. / By H.D. Esq.

The eighth Ascent.

MOses found the Lord faithful, in the per∣formance of all his promised assistance to him: by which means, he wrought stupendious miracles in Egypt, and by those, so quickly brought to a confusion, all the Learn∣ing, Policy, Sorcery, and Malice, of the Egyptians. And indeed, to go about to prove, that there is fidelity in the Lord of Heaven and Earth, towards his servants here below, would be altogether as impertinent, as to de∣monstrate water to be in the Sea, or light in the Sun: especially when he (that is the eter∣nal Truth) has said it, that he is righteous, in all his wayes, and faithful, in all his words and works.

Our Moses is now to meet with men, and devils; but the Lord will enable him, as he promised, to withstand, and subdue all their malitious and magical oppositions.

First Pharaoh, upon our Moses his coming to Court, and receiving his first summons, (in∣stead of being obedient to the Lords com∣mands, and giving the people their desired liberty to go and serve him) calls his Cabinet-Council about him, and by their politick ad∣vices,

encreaseth presently the Israelites Taskes, on purpose to inflame them to a muti∣ny, and make them murder those that came about to deliver them. But the Lord, who stills the roaring of the waves, and the mad∣nesse of the people, is pleased quickly to pa∣cifie them, and make them comfortably to sub∣mit, to their barbarous burdens, and peace∣ably and patiently to expect the day of their desired Redemption.

When this subtile piece of king-craft, would not serve proud Pharaohs turn, and all his po∣litick Junto, were at a stand, the Devil must be presently employed, and all the Magicians of the Land, sent for, that they, forsooth, may beard this great Embassadour of God, and vye with their diabolical enchantments, divine Miracles: So Moses could no sooner cast his Rod down upon the ground, to become a Ser∣pent; but those devilish Sorceres, would do as much, though all theirs, were to be de∣voured by the Divine Rod. Nay, Rivers turned into blood, and producing of innume∣rable Frogs, could not out-do their cheating inchantments. But when the sacred Rod was to be stretcht forth again, and the dust of the earth smitten into lice, then, Ars tua Typhe ja∣cet, the Magicians are all at a gaze, there their Sorcery is quite confounded, and they are con∣strained to confesse, that the Devil, their good Lord and Master, hath a power limited; for silly lice, of which man is naturally a creator, are enough to confound these great Negro∣mancers,

and make them acknowledge, and adore the finger of God.

Now, after all this, when malice, and Ma∣gick, could do no more, yet the Tyrant will be stiff still, till his Court and Kingdom too be infested, and invaded, with huge Armies of flies, whose grievous swarms, boldly stor∣med the Royal Chamber of Pharaoh; then he begun to be inclined to let the children of Israel go: but he had no sooner got from un∣der the Rod, but he relapseth into his old dis∣obedience, obstinacy, and hardnesse of heart, neither would he let the people go. Then followed the miraculous Murrain upon beasts, with the plague of boiles, and blaines, upon the more beastly, and brute men, with the most stupendious storm of fire, and water, mingled together, that ever the earth felt be∣fore or since, before Pharaoh would be brought to incline, to our Moses, and his peoples re∣quest: But he had no sooner got once more a respit from those plagues, but he stood at a defiance with God Almighty again, and his Embassadour too. Then must millions of Locusts be sent for, to make his hard heart re∣lent, which he did again soon, for a little time, but returned presently to his insolence, and Tyranny. Then prodigious palpable dark∣nesse must be sent, a darknesse thick enough to be felt; yet proud Pharaoh himself, had no feeling, longer than he remained under the importunity of the plague: still relapsing in∣to his old obduration of heart, till the Lord

was pleased, at midnight, to smite all the first-born of the Land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh, that sate on the Throne, to the first-born of the captive lying in the dungeon, and all the first-born of cattel. Then was the Tyrant throughly startled; he rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the E∣gyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house, where there was not one dead.

This was a blow indeed, that reacht to the very heart of Pharaoh, and all his people; who now, with tears in their eyes, are turned from being Tyrants, to be suppliants, and do humbly beseech their Petitioners, to be ma∣sters of their own desires; nor onely so, but offer to accommodate them for their journey, with all necessaries, lend them all their Jewels of Silver, and Jewels of Gold, and Rayment, and to give all such things as they required. O wonderful conversion! but yet Tantae molis erat, &c. So great difficulties had our great Patriarch Moses to encounter, before he could arrive to be a Captain-General. And now he has begun his most miraculous March, with a Pillar of a Cloud before him, for his Quita sol by day, and a Pillar of fire for his Torch by night; Yet Pharaoh will have another fling at him, and thinks now by force of arms, to destroy those abroad, whom he could not securely keep at home, in quiet bondage, by all his arts and policies: But behold the Pro∣digy of all Prodigies; The Red Sea is cut

into a Royal high-way, for the Israelites, and made a dreadful grave for the Egyptians: Those mighty waters stand all on heaps, and congeale themselves into walls, as it were of brasse, for the defence, and safe passage, of the people of God; but dissolve themselves into liquid floods, for the overthrow of Pharaoh, and all his Chariots: who were no sooner en∣tred, than overwhelmed; and so they sunk down as lead, in those mighty waters; as our great Moses himself expresseth it, in his Song of thanksgiving to God, for that stupen∣dious Deliverance.

I should be infinite, if I went about to re∣late, the Myriads of wonders, that our Moses shewed afterwards in the Desart, in the con∣duct of this chosen Army; which quickly be∣coming faithlesse, and mutinous, yet by the prayers, and for the sake, of our most admi∣rable Moses, was the Almighty pleased never to forsake them; but to feed them constantly with miracles, showring Quailes upon them for flesh, and the Bread of Heaven for them to eat; and gave them continual Prodigies to drink, from the very first bitter waters at Marah, which he turned to be sweet, to the strange tapping of the Rock in Horeb. So happy are the people, who have the Lord for their God, and so dear and dutiful a servant of his, for their Leader, as this our first Moses was, and our second cannot but appear to be.

The Parallel.

I believe, truly, that there is no intelligent Person living, that looks upon this long Story, of our present Ascent, but would take the par∣ticulars of the children of Israels Deliver∣ance, to be throughout Typical of ours, and all the circumstances of effecting it by the first Moses, as plainly to apply themselves, to our glorious second. Can any say, that his late Highnesse has done lesse wonders for us, and our Deliverance, or found the Lord lesse assi∣stant to him, in his miraculous undertakings, than the former? If any such there be, we shall very easily convince them.

True it is, we cannot say literally, that his Highnesse was enforced to bring so many mira∣culous plagues upon our Egyptians; but we all, as well the people of God, as their Task-masters, lay under the perfect moral of all those plagues, before he, like another Hercules A∣lexicacus, did rise up in our Israel, and under∣take, our so great and wonderful Delivery: and so we will now look upon him, march∣ing in a perfect line Parallel, with all those very actions and singular circumstances; I say still in the moral, and will dare to equal him here too, with the former mighty Moses, even in those his most stupendious passages.

And first we may see, how our second Moses,

had no sooner cast his sacred Rod upon the ground, here in England, that is, did vote in open Parliament, to undertake so just and ho∣nourable a War, as that for the redemption of this people, out of their Captivity, then more than Egyptian, but the Magicians of England likewise, that is, the pretended Prelats, and their party, would endeavour to do the like, and, in effect, did so; for they turned their crooked Croziers, into frery Serpents too, raising of men, and arms, to resist our Mosai∣cal Reformation; but the sacred Rod, of our second Moses, as that of the former, has mani∣festly devoured all their bloody and serpentine endeavours. Nay, when rivers of blood, were made to run upon English ground, in our just defence, they would needs, likewise, by their Negromantick malice, make those Rivers to overflow with blood too, for the support of their Tyrannical and usurped power: which that they might the better do too, they would raise their swarms, and infinities of Frogs to follow them, I mean, those croaking and skip∣ping Church-men, that were the truest Trum∣pets of the War, whose Religion onely was interest, and God their gain, so made it their businesse, to cover their pernicious prelatical designs, with the cloak of the Gospel, not care∣ing, so they might, by preaching, infuse their malice into others, to become Cast-awayes themselves; as the Apostle forwarns us of them, and our blessed Saviour too, terming them Wolves in Sheeps cloathing. But yet,

when our glorious second Moses, was pleased to stretch forth his Divine Rod again, and smite the dust of the earth into Lice (sit verbo venia) that is, when he raised from the dust of the earth, those poor, humble, self-denying creatures, that were as much nothing in their own, as in the worlds eye, I mean those in∣comparable Persons, as they have since proved themselves, whom he then new modell'd into an Army; Then those, all the pretended Great ones, were at a gaze; their malice nor magick could do no more.

But yet further, let us observe, and remem∣ber how poor We, suffered under the moral, of all those other plagues of Egypt too, until our sacred second Moses, undertook that mighty Work, has Terris & Templis avertere pestes: Were we not opprest in like manner, with those innumerable armies of Flies, those insolent animals, strange swarms of buzzing Courtiers, that were still begging of their easie Master, some private Boon, or other, to the prejudice of the Publick, putting their fingers in every dish, and picking something out of every mans pocket, or property; and has not our second Moses delivered us likewise from all those? Then for the miraculous plague of Boiles and Blaines, had we not enough of those too, by the malice of our Monopolists, Projectors, and other Encroachers, upon the poor subjects liberties, and properties, which have been truly called in all Ages Ʋlcera Rei Publicae: the Ulcers and Imposthumes of the

Common-wealth? And has not his Highnesse, our second Moses, his sacred Rod, that is, his Sword, most happily, and timely, lanced those sores, and given us a sure and perfect Cure? Then, as for those horrid storms of Hail, Thun∣der, and Fire mingled with water, of which the Earth never saw the like, as the Text tells us; What did they emblematize to us, but those dire ebullitions of Tyranny, over our Religions, liberties and properties, which went not onely about to destroy our present fruits, but to take away all our Natural, and Eternal Rights in them? And has not our glorious second Moses, given us a blessed de∣livery from all that mischief too? Then for those millions of Locusts, that invaded the Land of Egypt; what legions of lewd Lawyers had we, that swarmed amongst us like to Ca∣terpillers indeed, from the unjust Judge, to the sordid Advocate, and from him, to the meanest Clarke? a sort of men, that could ac∣commodate their Laws, like a nose of wax, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, making the sacred Seat of Justice, it self, a stalking-horse to Tyranny; Law to countenance op∣pression, and Truth it self to lye? And has not our second Moses, pretty well delivered us from all those petty-fogging plagues too? Then was there ever any more prodigious darknesse, over the face of a whole Land? so grosse an ignorance of Religion? all Divinity, forsooth, and saving knowledge, being bound up, and roosting it self in a pitiful, lazy, luxu∣rious,

Bishops Rotchet, as in its onely San∣ctuary; I am sure the whole light of the Gos∣pel, was concealed under the ridiculous cover∣ing of their Canonical coats, as they call them, and we kept in more than Egyptian Darknesse, till by the flaming Sword, of our second Mo∣ses, we were restored to that wonderful light, which we lately have, and do still enjoy, un∣der his late Highnesse his, and his Princely sons, Government. Then, for the last plague of all, which was the smiting of the first-born, what can be more parallel to it, than the sa∣vage cruelty, formerly exercised by the Court of Wards, over the heirs of all the Principal Houses of England? who were there doubly smitten, both in their persons, and estates; Their lands pillaged by every poleing Guar∣dian, and themselves sold like slaves, or hor∣ses in a Market, and condemned to what is commonly worse than death, to a wife of ano∣ther mans election. From all these Plagues, and Diabolical inchantments, has not our se∣cond Moses most happily freed us too? and, to crown all his glories, as the former Moses did, Has he not seen a Pharaoh and his Armies drencht in a Red Sea of their own blood?

Now, how impossible it is to conceive, that all this could be brought about, without the miraculous assistance of the Almighty, they can best judge, who have been the witnesses of his great Actions, and know how remarkable his proceedings have been, from the very first undertaking of these Nations Deliverance:

For, first he began but with one poor single Troop, which how instantly grew into a Re∣giment, and that into an Army, and that Ar∣my to give Laws, as it were, to all the World, no man can believe, that has not seen it, or else been taught faith enough, to understand the Cloud, that Elias saw no bigger than a hand, which in a moment, overspread the whole heavens; or that Fountain of Mardochaeus, which, in the beginning, crept on with little noise, through the Meadows, and in an instant, turned into a great River, & that River into Light, & this Light into a Sun, and such a Sun which af∣forded both luster, and water, to all the World. The plain truth is, that the accession of his High∣nesses Forces, as his successes, have been so mi∣raculous, that they appear more like visions, than realities; and, as antiquity can find nothing in the like kind, (unlesse this president of our first Moses) for to equal them: so Posterity will be as much puzled to believe them, as we shall see more at large, in our future Ascents, which treate of the invincible Valour, match∣lesse Prudence, and incomparable Great∣nesse of Military Conduct, in these two our Mosaical Masters.

Notes

• Exod. 7.
• Exod. 5.
• Exod. 6.
• Exod. 7.
• Exod. 8.
• Ibid v. 19.
• Exod. 9.
• Exod. 10
• Exod. 12.
• Exod. 14.