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night from one end of the year to the other, it will not require forty shillings reparation to the whole engine, nor hinder one day's-work. And I may boldly call it, 'The most stupendious work in the whole world;' not only with little charge to drain all sorts of mines, and furnish cities with water, though never so high seated, as well to keep them sweet, running through several streets, and so performing the work of scavingers, as well as furnishing the inhabitants with sufficient water for their private occasions; but likewise supplying rivers with sufficient to maintain and make them portable from town to town, and for the bettering of lands all the way it runs; with many more advantageous, and yet greater effects of profit, admiration, and consequence. So that deservedly I deem this invention to crown my labours, to reward my expences, and make my thoughts acquiesce in way of further inventions. This making up the whole century, and preventing any further trouble to the reader for the present, meaning to leave to posterity a book, wherein under each of these heads the means to put in execution and visible trial and every of these inventions, with the shape and form of all things belonging to them, shall be printed by brass-plates. In bonum publicum, et ad majorem Dei gloriam.

THE

PROTECTOR'S DECLARATION

AGAINST

THE ROYAL FAMILY OF THE STUARTS,

And the true worship of the church of England. Printed and published by his Highness's special commandment.

London, printed by Henry Hills and John Field, printers to his Highness. From a folio page.

HIS

IS Highness the Lord Protector, upon advice with his council, finding it necessary, for the reasons and upon the grounds expressed in his late declaration, to use all good means to secure the peace of the nation, and prevent future troubles within the same, hath thought fit to publish and declare, and by and with the consent of his council, doth publish, order, and declare, That no person or persons whatso

ever, in England or Wales, whose estates have been sequestered for delinquency, or who were actually in arms for the late King against the then parliament, or for Charles Stuart his son, or have adhered to, abetted, or assisted the forces raised against the said parliament, do, from and after the first day of December, 1655, buy, use, or keep in his or their house, or houses, or elsewhere, any arms offensive, or defensive, upon pain, that every person and persons, so offending, shall forfeit and lose such arms, and be otherwise proceeded against, according to the orders of his highness and the council, for securing the peace of the commonwealth. And his highness, by the advice of his council, doth also publish, declare, and order, That no person or persons aforesaid, do, from and after the first day of January, 1655, keep in their houses and families, as chaplains or schoolmasters, for the education of their children, any sequestered or ejected minister, fellow of any college, or schoolmaster, nor permit any of their children to be taught by such, upon pain of being proceeded against in such sort, as the said orders do direct in such cases. And that no person, who hath been sequestered or ejected out of any benefice, college, or school, for delinquency or scandal, shall, from and after the first day of January, keep any school, either publick or private, nor any person, who after that time shall be ejected for the causes aforesaid.

And that no person, who, for delinquency or scandal, hath been sequestered or ejected, shall, from and after the first day of January aforesaid, preach in any publick place, or any private meeting of any other persons than those of his own family, nor shall administer baptism, or the Lord's Supper, or marry any persons, or use the Book of Common-Prayer, or the forms of prayer therein contained, upon pain, that every person, so offending in any of the premisses, shall be proceeded against, as, by the said orders, is provided and directed. And to the end all persons concerned may take notice hereof, and avoid the danger of any of the said penalties, his highness doth charge and command all sheriffs within their respective counties, cities, and towns, to cause this declaration to be proclaimed and published. Neverthe less, his highness doth declare, that, towards such of the said persons as have, since their ejection or sequestration, given, or shall hereafter give, a real testimony of their godliness and good affection to the present government, so much tenderness shall be used, as may consist with the safety and good of this nation.

Given at Whitehall, this fourth day of October, 1655.

THE MOST LAMENTABLE

AND

DREADFUL THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

In the County of Norfolk, and the City of Norwich,

On July 20, being the Lord's day in the afternoon: the whirlwind and thick darkness, and most prodigious hailstones, which, being above five inches about, did so violently batter down the windows of the city, that three-thousand pounds will hardly repair them. Diverse men and women struck dead. The firing of some towns, and whole fields of corn, by lightning, which also destroyed the birds of the air, and beasts of the field. Together with another most violent storm, which, happening on Saturday last in the same county, for almost thirty miles together, performed the like terrible effects. Attested by ten-thousand witnesses, who were either spectators, or partakers of the loss. Entered according to order, the 31st of July 1656.

London, printed by R. I. for F. Grove on Suow-hill, 1656. Quarto, containing five pages, with a wooden cut in the title-page, representing Jupiter in the clouds, with a thunder-bolt in his right hand.

WE

E have had too many sad examples of the anger of the Almighty, for our great and crying sins. How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither for the iniquity of them that dwell therein? saith the prophet Jeremiah, ch. xii. 4. whilst we do sin, and sin, and persevere in sin; whilst we continue despising the ministers and ordinances of God, whilst we will not weep for our own impieties. Behold, the earth is become as brass, and the clouds as marble; whilst, Julled in the lap of security, we wilfully do stop our cars, and refuse to hear the words of the preacher; heark! How God doth speak in thunder to us, and he speaks to us on his own day, to declare unto us how jealous he is of his honour, which he will not have given to another; he will not be served on his own day by those, whom he hath not called to his work; by those, who, with unwashed hands, and brains, as sick of ignorance, as presumption, will thrust themselves into the temple of God, and venture to expound the highest mysteriest.

Certainly where the ordinances of God have been most despised, there will his judgements be most visible; even the birds and the beasts

Alluding to the state of rebellion in which the kingdom had then been almost sixteen years. In those days, the learned and stated ministry was deprived; and every whimsical or hypocritical mechanick assumed the doctor's chair; and, in defiance to the justice of God, who, for the like usurpation, visibly punished Core, Dathan, and Abiram, dared to administer God's word and sacraments to a deceived people.

will be made sensible of his displeasure, as he hath declared by his prophet. The beasts are consumed with the birds, Jer. xii. we need not travel far to give you an example of this. The following narration is as full of truth as wonder, and may serve to make our hearts to melt, if they were not made of marble.

On the twentieth of July, being the sabbath day, about four of the clock in the afternoon, there was a great and sudden tempest in the city of Norwich, and the country thereabouts; the flashes of lightning were most dreadful and violent, and the loud claps from the clouds did so amaze and affright the people, that they thought the spheres came thundering down in flames about their ears. About an hour afterwards, there appeared to the view of many a black cloud of smoke, like unto the smoke of a furnace, and ever and anon it did cast forth Aames of fire; it was attended with a white cloud, which, sailing along the air, did seem to labour for all the advantages of the wind, to overtake the other; but, the black cloud being first come, and covering the face of the city, there arose a sudden whirlwind, which in the streets of the city did raise such a dust, that it was almost impossible for one man to discern another, but only at a little distance; and, to increase this wonderful darkness, the clouds grew thicker and thicker, especially at the south, and the south-west, when behold the lightning from them did leap forth again, and the thunder chid, and there followed such a rattling storm of stupendions hail, that, being afterwards measured, the hail stones were found to be five inches about, and some more; all the glass-windows that were on the weather side of the city were beaten down.

Some letters from Norwich do affirm, that three-thousand pounds will not repair the windows. This which I now speak may in other countries seem incredible, and so it might in our own also, were it not to be attested by above ten-thousand witnesses. And surely it is well worth the observation of the best philosophers to take notice, that those hail-stones (as they exceeded all others in their bigness, so they were unlike them in their form) for many of them were meer pieces of flat ice, and had not the least similitude of roundness in them. But why should we, in so great a wonder, expect to be satisfied with reason from philosophy? He only knows what they were, who in the book of Job doth propound the query as the subject of our admiration, and is pleased himself to acknowledge them to be of his own armoury, which is the armoury of God.' It is to be admired besides, that, in many of these hail-stones, there was to be seen the figure of an eye, resembling the eye of a man, and that so perfectly, as if it had been there engraved by the hand of some skilful artificer.

If your eyes, possessed with these unusual spectacles, have yet the leisure to look into the country, in hope there to behold some more comfortable objects, you will find in some places whole fields of corn destroyed by the lightning; you will behold the tempest wrestling with the trees, and, having torn them up by the roots, to lay them on their backs with their heels higher than their heads; the burrows could not protect the listening conies, nor the trees the birds, but on the next morning the travellers found them dead in great numbers on the

ground, and in some places a horse, or a cow, lying by them. The lightning whirled through the whole country, and, passing through some houses where the windows were made one against the other, it was seen afterwards to run all along, and to lick the ground; many houses were fired by it, and, had it not pleased God to send an extraordinary shower of rain, some towns, that had taken fire, had been undoubtedly destroyed. It struck some men and women dead for the present, whom it pleased God to recover again to life, to magnify his mercies, and to declare his wonders.

This relation is most true, and seriously we ought to lay it to our hearts, for undoubtedly God there did speak unto us all. You have read in the Gospel, how our Saviour did check the vain presumption of those men, who thought themselves more righteous than those on whom the tower of Siloam fell. Though this thunder and lightning were in the county of Norfolk, yet we ought to fear that the first exha lations did arise from this city, where so much pride, oppression, hypocrisy, and prophaneness do reign; let us therefore endeavour to humble ourselves before the Almighty, lest he strike us with his forked thunder, and there be none to deliver us; lest our houses and our bodies be humbled by firet, by the hand of God; for, although he delights in mercy, and his mercies are spread over all his works, yet to those who presume to overwit God, and do desperately run on in their impieties, our God is a consuming fire,'

And because we are slow to hear, although God himself is our admonisher, it hath pleased him to give us a second alarm in the same county on Saturday last, being the twenty-sixth of this present month, where was again another storm of lightning and thunder, which, passing almost thirty miles, performed the like terrible effects,

THE

GRAND IMPOSTOR EXAMINED:

OR,

The Life, Trial, and Examination of James Nayler, the seduced and seducing Quaker; with the manner of his riding into Bristol.

We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. Joh, xix. 7.

But these are written, that ye might believe, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye might have life through his name. Joh. xx. 31.

London, printed for Henry Brome, at the Hand in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1656. Quarto, containing fifty-six pages.

TO THE READER.

Courteous Reader,

I do here give thee an account of what passed between James Nayler and his judges, as thinking it a part of my duty, towards God and + As it came to pass ten years after, when London was burnt.

London.

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