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 First ASCENT. (Book 1)

MOses was Nobly Born,* 1.1 extracted from an extraordinary Race, the most sacred Tribe, and Principal Family in Israel,* 1.2 the House of Levi. A most No∣ble House indeed, of which the Lord himself had so high and honourable an esteem,* 1.3 that he made it as it were, his own Impropriation and Inheri∣tance; entailing upon it, all his own Menial Attendancies.* 1.4 O most unvalueable Privi∣ledges, and Prerogatives of a Family!* 1.5* 1.6 not onely to be made the sole Houshold servants of the Living God; but to be set apart,* 1.7 to eat at his own Table, feed on his proper Sacri∣fices, and to have, as it were,* 1.8 the Monopoly of Altars, and all holy things. O thrice hap∣py honours of a House! not onely to be (as

it were) of the Lord of Hosts own Life-guard,* 1.9 and have the sole charge of the sacred Arke of the Covenant committed to them;* 1.10* 1.11 but also to be adopted into the very Cabinet-coun∣sells of Heaven, by the judgement of Ʋrim and Thummim,* 1.12 and to be alone permitted to have a free and frequent ingresse, into the Sanctum Sanctorum it self. This was in short, the sacred Family, selected by the Almighty Jehovah himself, to be, as it were, his Princes, Peers, and onely Familiars, here below, the onely Grandees and Favourits of his most Magnificent Court upon Earth, which was to be establisht in his most holy, glorious, and costly Temple at Jerusalem: as is to be seen more at large in the whole course of sacred Scripture; to which holy leaves, I humbly re∣fer every ingenuous Reader, for a further satisfaction in all these Particulars.

The Parallel.

Indeed, when we shall have duely consider∣ed, the great care, and holy caution, the sacred Scripture it self ha's taken throughout, in the recommendation of the Nobility of divers persons, we may very well conclude with the Heathen Orator, (what may be too as good Divinity as Philosophy) Deorum Immortalium munus,* 1.13 & primum videri & maximum, in lucem statim foelicem venire. Nobility of birth, is the first and greatest gift of God. I say, the

first and greatest temporal dispensation of Heaven, is, to be born Noble, and so soon to be within the lists of felicity, as of nature; why else should we find such an exact account of the Nobility of this our great Prototype Moses, of the three valiant Children, held in the Cap∣tivity of Babylon, and that of the most vali∣ant and renowned Eleazar, and divers other persons since the universal Deluge? which particulars are now too long to be insisted on. Nay, that Nobility of blood was in the like esteem both with God and man too; before the Flood, in the very first Age and Infancy of the World, will be quickly made appear, by the delineation of the Genealogy of Noe,* 1.14 which the holy Spirit is pleased to deliver to us, as if it intended, as it were, to act the part of a Herald, in giving to us the large Series of all his Generations: it seeming not onely to make way through all the Patriarchs, from whom he was descended; but to give a pun∣ctual rehearsal to us of all their Titles, and Signiories, of all their singular Acts and At∣chievements, and then concludes in the next Chapter, Hae sunt generationes Noe,* 1.15 vir justus erat atque perfectus: This is the Genealogy of Noe, he was a just man and a perfect. If then Nobility of birth be a blessing so consi∣derable in the eyes of the Lord, and inferr'd by his holy Spirit, to be of no little avail to us in the way of vertue, and an apparent step to Piety and Sanctity it self; It will not be, I hope, thought incongruous, to bring our glorious

second Moses, to encounter the first, upon this his first Ascent; and, as in all the rest, we shall find them sweetly kissing and embracing each the other. And yet I cannot say, his late Highnesse was extracted from so Priestly a Fa∣mily, but altogether as Princely, being lineally descended from the loynes of our most Anti∣ent Brittish Princes, and ty'd in near alliances to the blood of our later Kings, as by that thrice Noble Family of the Barringtons, and divers others; which to make a Petigree of, would take up more paper, than we intend for our Volume, and make me appear more a He∣rald, than an Historian. Nay, indeed, should I but go about to prove, his Highnesse most il∣lustrious House Noble, I should commit a sacri∣ledge in the Temple of Honour, and onely violate his most glorious Family, with a more solemn infamy.

His Highnesse is unquestionably known to have descended from such a stem of Princely Antecessors, that whole Ages, which wast Rocks, and wear out Elements, have never al∣tered to lessen, but rather advance the honour of his great House. He was derived from such a Family, that we may better say of it, than what was of the other, ex qua nescit aliquid Mediocre nasci, from whence nothing ordinary can pro∣ceed; as is likewise made notoriously evident, in those other mosteminent persons of Honour, now living, who are blest with a share of his incomparable blood: who have spread their glory abroad, so well as at home, and built

themselves such Trophies, in the hearts of their very enemies, that eternity it self must cele∣brate; so no time can ever be able to demo∣lish, or reduce into oblivion.

And that I may not be thought to flatter so great a truth, I will be bold to hasten, and abruptly conclude this first point of our Mo∣saical Parallel; with saying onely, that this sublime Person, his late most Serene High∣nesse, our second, as the first great Moses, came into the World, like a Princely Pearl, and made it appear, by the quality of his Orient, that if Nature pleased to equal his birth, to the best of Noble-men upon Earth, he would equal his vertues to his extraction; as we shall see more plainly, when we mount a little higher, upon our Mosaical Ascents, and Pa∣rallels.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Exod. 2.1.
• * 1.2

  Exod. ••
• * 1.3

  Deut. 18.2 Exod. 28.
• * 1.4

  Levit. 8.
• * 1.5

  Num. 4.
• * 1.6

  Num. 8.
• * 1.7

  Levit. 29.
• * 1.8

  Num. 18. Num. 3. Num. 1.50, 51.
• * 1.9

  Deut. 10.8
• * 1.10

  Num. 3.
• * 1.11

  Num. 18.
• * 1.12

  Exod. 28.30.
• * 1.13

  Plin. in Paneg. Constan∣tin.
• * 1.14

  Genes. 5.
• * 1.15

  Genes. 6.