Mr. Bushell's abridgment of the Lord Chancellor Bacon's philosophical theory in mineral prosecutions ...

To my Fellow-Prisoners for Debt, in Mind or Body.

DEarly beloved Brethren in bonds, I could heartily rejoice if we were so only for Christs sake, for then our patience therein would render us happy in his mercy: Yet since the inhumanity of our Creditors (through the power of the Laws) usurps that revenge which is only God's in justice, let us with all humility submit our selves to his permissive will, for the evil of punishment is his. My honorable Master the late Lord Chancellor Bacon was wont to tell me, That as Gentry bought nothing at Market, so Imprisonment paid no Debts, but those of the Penal laws; and that he did verily believe, the fradulent Contracts of most Creditors begot the disability of their Debtors satisfa∣ction. I shall refer to your own consciences the respective cause of your several restraints: Mine own is like that of the adventurous Merchant, who having sent all his own Stock in several Vessels to far distant Factories through the various dangers of the Deep, is constrained to take up on Trust at home, till the return of his Cargazoons according to their success proclaim him happy, or bankrupt; and if I had ever any other design in borrowing, let my Redeemer exclude me from the general pardon of his precious merits, who came not to call the just, but sinners to repentance, as∣suring us that the blessed Angels rejoice more at the con∣version of one true Penitent, then the integrity of ninety nine righteous; from whence we may conclude, 'tis ninety nine to one odds, that there are very few sincere Con∣verts.

But my beloved Fellow-sufferers, since now the Supreme Power of this Commonwealth doth, as I hear, intend like S. Peters good Angel to open the doors of your Prisons by the wisdom of their mercies, I earnestly exhort you to mark

the first day of your unexpected Jubile with a white stone or red letter, in commemoration of so happy a deliverance, (lest God consume your lives with new afflictions & troubles) alwaies remembring his glory and your own eternity: And then take the grave admonition for your Cure, as the Mirror of my honored Master prescribed to me, which was, To deny all my treacherous Senses their most delighting Ob∣jects: I fed on nothing that pleased my appetite; looking willingly on nothing which I formerly liked; nor accom∣panied any creature that affected my concupiscence; But frequented devious waies and solitary groves, and at last found out a desolate Island in the Irish seas, where three years I sadly lamented the errors of my youth, mingling the waters which I drank with the brine of mine eies, and did sparingly eat the bread of affliction as it had been ashes. These were my first steps towards Gods Mercy-seat, in a most unfained contrition for the Treason I committed against his Eternal Majesty: And surely he was not displeased therewith; for out of this depth of desolation he graciously called me to the publique service of my Country, in the innocent way of a Miner; and how I have proceeded therein, with inten∣tion chiefly to glorifie him, this annexed Treatise will give you an account. But there the inhumanity of my Creditors stopt me; yet I am confident, so soon as the Republique-affairs will permit, the Honorable Parliament will enlarge me in order to my Mineral service, and their own Articles, as they have done you in mercy: And then I say, if any of you (either for a present subsistence, or a penitential way to expiate your former errors, or to reclaim your affections, or in hope to raise your lost fortunes and enable you to pay your honest Debts) will sweat with me in the way of this hopeful, vertuous, and Philosophical labor, you shall eat bread with me so long as you please, whereby at last we may obtain such Mineral blessings from the Lord of Bounty, that we in true charity may be able to eat our bread upon the waters, by relieving many distressed Penitents whose

sins have brought them to want bread, and whose age or sickness hath taken away their ability to work.

And here I think 'tis proper to give you the Epitome of my Lords Design for the regulating his Solomon's House or Academy. He proposes six principal Officers of State to succeeding times as Trustees, six exquisite lucre-hating Phi∣losophers to bring his Theorie into experimental practice, are to be handsomly maintained, upon a sacred oath to be true to the trust of his Philosophical secrets; Con∣victed men and adventurous Voluntiers, are to be chief instruments of the Mineral work, and are to be clothed in good Canvas or Welsh Cottons, their food Bisket, Beef, Pease and Bacon thrice a week, the other daies White-meat, Oil and Roots; their drink of allowance for the most part is to be Water, but they shall not be barr'd Beer or Ale in orderly proportion; they are to lie on Mats, unless they rather choose a clean Plank; Lots and Delves shall be assigned to them, in which if God bless their honest diligence, they shall comfortably participate, whereby at last they may make themselves free, if a true and constant penitence be their heavenly guide; for impenitence barra∣cadoes the gates of heaven faster rgainst us then our sins: For as true contrition makes our hearts grateful sacrifices to God, so earnest prayer on her dove-like wings presents them before his Mercies seat, and unfained penitence softly sheaths up the sword of his Justice. And for your better en∣couragement, if you come cheerfully into this Philosophical work, you shall also enter into the school of Christ; for I shall provide men excellently qualified in Theology, Mora∣lity and Humanity, whose examples as well as doctrines shall direct you in the waies of eternal life, and daily walk hand in hand with you towards Christs paradise, the Saints New Jerusalem.

But methinks I heare some self conceited and censorious Critick thus prevaricate upon the whole design: Truly I must profess it seems to my understanding very like a lunacie

in any whatsoever to propose or undertake so magnificent a Fabrick as the Atlantick Solomons house, without so much as Straw to burn, Bricks for its foundation, no Princes Coffers, Monopoly, Smoke-mony, Lottery, Impost or Mart upon the discovery, but to the incredulous, no not so much as a partner save Providence in this new way of search for never discovered Mines, and recovering desperately deserted Works. To which I answer, first if your Ancestors in former ages had been such Scepticks, fire had been for ever concealed in the Flint, and all Metals in their native beds, Thule with the Western Islands and America had been as yet undiscovered: pray tell me, is not Divine Pro∣vidence the dispensator of Gods Omnipotence? which the Eagle-sighted eye of this Philosophical Lords illuminated intellect most perspicuously discovered, and therefore re∣solved thus to prove it without detriment or hazard to any individuall person: Is it not then a Godlike Imitation? the Lord of the universal World brought all things which never had being, out of nothing; this Lord of universal Philosophy thereby offers mankind that good which never can be usefull to him but by this means, which will cost him nothing, the dead in Law to search the dead and barren Mountains, and recover the dead and buried works; for Mineral treasure here is nothing but the dead, and the dead are nothing to the living. But these dead here (to whose lives the Law and opinion hath set a period) by searching the graves of Minerals, preserve their lives for the present, and in time find their own resurrection by a temporal expiation of their fatall Crimes, though their other hopes prove frustrate: but if the Almighty crowns their labors, observe how glo∣rious it will prove: the Prince or State that shall then Rule, shall receive the first fruits; thousands of poor Subjects shall eat the bread of comfort thereby; Offenders shall be pur∣ged and freed; Trade shall be increased, and Customs aug∣mented, a matchless Academy erected and maintained, new Arts discovered for the universal good, and honor of the Na∣tion;

the honorable Trustees of the whole work shall merit glory, and gain philosophical recreations; the experimen∣ting Philosophers shall have a competent and comfortable subsistence during life, and after their change their re∣spective Statues erected in the City of Wells; and as the Athenians when they dedicated a lively Image to the memo∣ry of the antient Philosopher Pherecydes, gave it a golden tongue, as a proper emblem of his excellent eloquence, so each of theirs shall hold a significant character of their pecu∣liar Inventions in their well-proportion'd hands. Which word hands, minds me of a saying of my Lords concerning the Convicted, which was, That he did stedfastly beleeve that the hands of such whose stony hearts God had penetrated by true penitence, would make a more speedy, easie and successfull progress in any Mineral work they undertook, then three times the number of the most skilful Miners that work for wages only. For that learned Lord was of opinion, that the subterranean Spirits did much hinder the perfect discoveries of the richest Mines, sometimes by their appa∣rition, and often by the mischievous gambols they plaid there, as by raising Damps, extinguishing the Miners lights, firing the sulphurous matter of the Mine, and scorching the greedy and faithless Workmen. For not only Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are of opinion, that there are multitudes of Evil Spirits in the Aery region, as also in the Waters, and the hollow Concaverns of the Earth; but divers of our more modern learned Writers and Theologians are of the same perswasion, as Tho. Aquinas, Gaudentius Merula, Pselius Bo∣dinus, and S. Augustine, who conceive that God hath per∣mitted their temporal habitations therein, partly for mens trial, as that of Job, and partly for the punishment of the wicked, as the Demoniack in the 5. of S. Marks Gospel, out of whom Christ cast a whole legion of Devils, and by whose permission they destroyed a numerous Herd of the Gadarens Swine. These were created in the beginning, as Divines conclude out of the 38. of Job, when the Morning-stars

sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy; as may be conjectured at the Archangel Michaels victory over Lu∣cifer and his rebellious Army of ambitious Spirits: And Christ himself tells us in the 10. of Luke, He beheld Satan as Lightning fall from Heaven. What need I say more? That audacious Spirit who had the impudence to tempt our Saviour, daies continually circle the Earth, still like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour. But Faith is the best armor, and fervent Prayer the sharpest sword to vanquish him, who being but so resisted flies from us, and true Contrition and humble penance conjures him away: And I pray you who ought to be more cordially penitent, then such whom the just Laws and their own consciences having cast into the jaws of death, Gods mercy hath re∣prieved to expiate their crimes in so innocent and hopeful a work as this, to the good of their afflicted souls, their Countries profit, and his own glory? for Penitence, Re∣formation, and vertuous Emulation, are the most prevalent Engines to effect this noble Enterprise; which I had rathet decline and utterly relinquish, then use any corrosive or compulsory means to constrain any of my penitential brethren to proceed in or accelerate their labors, as the Spaniard doth to his miserable Miners in America, and others in other places.

Now concerning the validity and grandure of this My∣sterious Attempt, you are to understand that the Colledge of our most honored Physitians, which is the Philosophical Oracle of our Commonwealth, have candidly certified the late Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, That as the Design was heroick and magnificent, so if it were not prejudiced and obstructed by the obloquy and sinister contrivance of self-interessed persons, it was like to produce much profit and honor to this our native Country.

In a word, howsoever you value my Invitation to parti∣cipate in my Mineral profession, neglect not my cordial Counsel in matters of Devotion and sincere Penitence:

For 'tis conceived by some truly religious and very learned, that the Penitent only shall recruit the Regiments and glo∣rious Host of the intellectual Angels, by supplying the place of them that fell with Lucifer in his great Rebellion. To which God of his mercy for the Son of his love's sake bring us all in his appointed time, by what several ends he shall think most fit, is the prayers of your faithfull Friend; as well as to find out by his holy Spirit those freeborn Mines of Noble Souls in either sex for my Executors, as will make the World their Heir, and are endowed with such vertuous Actions of love and charity, as might eternize the memory of my old Master, and magnifie the Creators glory in his works of Nature; which is and shall be the ambition of

Your most humble Servant, Tho. Bushell.