ENGLAND Know thy Drivers, and their Driver: OR, DEMOCRITUS NATU MINIMUS Laughing at the epidemical Frenzy of his own Nation being so overwhelmed in Iniquity, and Stupidity, and so hoodwinked by the snares, and slights of its artificial, and pernicious Drivers, that it discerneth not in their subtle machinations the indignation of the chief, omniscient, and omnipotent Driver.  
Whereby ENGLAND may be advertised to avoid, and beat back the Smartlash of some of those Drivers upon themselves, to whom it is most proper, and thereby may appease the wrath of the chief Driver.  Proverbs 16. 4, 5, 6. 
The Lord hath made all things for his own sake, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.  
All that are proud in heart, are an abomination to the Lord, though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.  
By mercy, and truth iniquity shall be forgiven.  james 2. 14. 
For there shall be judgement merciless to him that showeth no mercy, and mercy rejoiceth against judgement.  
LONDON, Printed for J. L. 1647.   

ENGLAND Know thy Drivers, and their Driver, etc.  
DEMOCCITUS a Philosopher living in a City called Abdera in the time of Hypocrates a learned Physician frequently accustomed to repair to the concourses and meetings of the Abderites, and profusely to laugh at their madness. Democritus juntor a learned both Divine, and Philosopher in this present age writ an elaborate, and copious Tract called The Anatomy of Melancholy therein demonstrating the Causes, Symptoms, and proper Cures thereof. Now in the third place cometh Democritus naru minimus, neither Philosopher, nor Divine, but a cri●call observer of Times and Persons, and a diligent searcher of holy Scriptures, one, who, as a calm, humble and charitable Christian would gladly be his Country's Physician, and for that cause will endeavour, though he be for his labour esteemed a mad man, as Democritus was by the Abderites, to laugh his Nation out of its Epidemical frenzy. But if our English Abderites take pity on me and send some wise and earned Hypocrates to cure me, I am confident after he hath read this Paper, he will vindicate me, and conclude that they themselves are sick of a Frenzy. If Democritus had lived in our age, he needed not have gone among the vulgar multitude to have made himself merry; he might have gone into the Court, into the Capitol, and beheld the disturbers of the Parliament, and violaters of the Covenant made with, and before GOD; into the Synod, and beheld the Brethren dissenting; among the griping Committees, if there be such; among the holy anarchical confused Libertines wheresoever incorporate, or not incorporate in the Kingdom; in the very streets he might behold Drunkards, and Men, and Women attired like Antics, and Stage-players, and have too much cause of laughter.  
He might see hypocritical Zelots professing to be religious.  
He might behold men lukewarm in religion, whom GOD hath threatened to spew out of his mouth.  
He might see superstitious Idolaters bewitched with Antichristianisme.  
He might see some of the Angels of the Churches forsaking their first love, ready to return to the Onions of Egypt.  
He might see many Ahabs thirsting after Naboths their neighbour's Pastures, and fields, and houses.  
He might see despiteful Furies broaching bitter quarrels amongst Christians, he might see Blasphemers of God, prophaners of his Sabbaths, Fornicators, Adulterers, lascivious riotous Prodigals.  
He might see Envious men, Backbiters, Detractors, breakers of Promises, detainers of Laborers wages, uncharitable cruel Oppressors, perfidious, and treacherous Friends.  
He might see Demetrius, and the Craftsmen for the Temple of Diana's seek their own gain, crying, and beating down works of Piety, Mercy, and Charity.  
He might see our distracted Divisions and Factions arising merely out of Pride, and singularity the daughter of Covetousness which is Idolatry, one emulating to be Paul, another to be Cephas, a third to be Apollo, every one of them affecting fame and popularity, and striving to effect Parity, that each might gather unto himself multitudes of Disciples, and so procure much Contribution to the Saints, thereby to make the coffers and treasury of the Saints himself opulent.  
He might heretofore have seen the hands of corrupt judges, and Magistrates full of Bribes, ready to receive a pair of shoots, a basket of Chickens, a morsel of Bread to pervert justice, and as on the bench, so at the bar, false unfaithful pleaders, siding hired perjured aretopagites, and witnesses.  
But let them stand or fall to their own Master. What are all these to our subject, those artificial drivers, (that have gotten a Smartlash to drive a whole host of men with counterfeit pretences of a wonderful spirit raised for justice and Righteousness, and by them to drive a Parliament and a whole Nation even against God and Christ) those unclean spirits like Frogs coming out of the mouth of the Dragon, of the beast, of the false Prophet, who were and are the spirits of Devils working miracles to go unto the Kings of the earth, and of the whole World to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty mentioned in the Revelations, 16. 13, 14. Who had well nigh driven three Kingdoms to perdition by the extirpation and subversion of Religion, Law, and the liberty of the Subject, and their due right by the ancient established Laws of the Nation, not that imaginary fantastical Utopian pretended Christian liberty framed out of the singularity, and pride of some spiritually highminded men puffed up with the spirit of Peter, who having undertaken to die with Christ, did not only fall into a sleep when Christ required him to watch one hour, but also denied, and forswore his Master Christ three times before the cock crowed once.  
These are the second artificial drivers, who drive to the same end of England's confusion with the first, but by several ways like Sampsons' foxes tied by the tails. But before I tell these second drivers why I laugh at them, I will end with the first. Those unclean Spirits like Frogs working miracles have manifested to the world in these our days the exquisite with incomparable policy contrived plots and Treasons; first in their secret and clandestine practices to butcher, and murder many of our late several Kings, and Princes; secondly, in the twinkling of an eye so soon as a little piece of Paper would be burned, to have destroyed all the Nobility and chief Gentry of our Nation, and to have consumed by fire, or ●umbled, or mouldered into dust, all the memorable records, and antiquities preserved for the honour of our Nation; thirdly, in contempt of our strict capital and fatal Laws against them, in creeping into the highest and most eminent places in the Kingdom, both Ecclesiastical and Civil, thereby annulling our Laws, and introducing an arbitrary power, and rule of government at their ripened opportunities, to have exalted the supremacy of that Dragon, beast, and false Prophet, out of whose mouth they came, and without any noise, or power to oppose them, to have changed our (new, as they term it) true reformed Religion into a false, Idolatrous, and Superstitions. And if any of our Gentry have entered so far into their secrets, and orders, worshipping that beast, having his mark, couch themselves in the number of the Patriarches of their Country, or in the number of the Clergy, pretenders to purity of divine Worship, and having brought in one Mr. Oglethorp among dissenting Brethren under another name, by their close conveyances, subtle insinuations, and arguments, and pragmatical positive opinions, Dogmates, and Votes, do retard, obstruct, and hinder the reconciliation of King, and Parliam. and thereby the settlement of the peace of the Church, and kingdom (which without the King cannot be, for no King no Law; no Law, no Peace; no Peace, no Truth; et é converso, no Truth, no Peace; no Peace, no Law; no Law, no King) and craftily, wickedly, and traitorously oppose and hinder the parformance of the national Covenant made with God touching the King, labouring either to imprison, or dethrone him, are they not worthy to be laughed at, when being learned Politicians, and having sublime Mercurian wits they neither discern our Kings many, and marvelous deliverances from their Treasons, nor that that beast, Dragon, and false Prophet out of whose mouth they came is the very Antichrist their holy Hierarchy, nor that they themselves are those unclean spirits like frogs, the spirits of Devils, nor that their plots, policies, and devilish Treasons are those miracles, nor that they must go to the Kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of the great day of God almighty, no otherwise then as God's Ministers and servants for the execution of his wrath and vengeance; as Nabuchadnezzar King of Babel was, as Jeremiah 15. 9 & 43. 10. Whom afterwards other Kings brought into subjection, as jeremiah 25. 14. Or as Pharaoh was, whose hart God for his own glory hardened, as in the history of him in Exodus, nor that without Repentance they must go into the bottomless pit, the place of the damned. And are not they more worthy to be laughed at, who after frustration of their manifold desperate, mischievous, traitorous, diabolical designs, more than the plagues of Egypt, against the tranquillity and happiness of our Nation and Princes, and after ours, and our Princes miraculous deliverances from them, yet still persist and proceed in their Machiavellian devises, and enterprises, nothing astonished or moved at the mighty power and providence of God in their former failings. Democritus will only merrily put them in mind how some of their late predecessors, who drove as closely, politicly, artificially, and furiously as they now do, or can do, and had almost driven to their journeys end, concluded with hemp and hatchet, and he laughing heartily expecteth their like conclusion.  
Now for our Utopian liberty drivers, who drive cunningly and fiercely, for breach of Covenant, extirpation of Law, order, and government, pretending notwithstanding to be Patriots of their Country, and Zealots in the Church, I will confidently laugh at them, because I well know that God is the God of order, not of confusion, and that it is evident by holy writ, that in the last times he will have national churches of the Gentiles, and their Kings, as may appear in Isa. 60. 3, 5, 10. 11, 16. & Rev. 21. 24, 26. And that he will have the Kingdoms of this World to be his, and his Christ's; as is manifest Rev. 11. 15. And what are Kingdoms? Are they not Dominions, and governments? Who can forbear to laugh at these drivers, whose holy zeal passeth over, slighteth or waveth these Scriptures, and driveth even against God's Providence, Decree, and purpose, and contemneth the threats of his vengeance against breakers of Covenant made before him, pronounced by the mouth of jeremiah 34. 17, 18, 19, 20. See the words in the Bible, that Democritus may laugh in no more sheets then the Mercuries, and other Pamphleteers use to lie in, and to write Libels, and Treason in. Were these threats denounced only against the Princes, Priests, and People of Jud●th and jerusalem, and not against England's and the whole earth's Princes, Priests and People also? Democritus resolveth to laugh profusely at all them, who be obnoxious to this curse, if they wilfully perish thereby, and will tell them, humani mores fingunt sibi fortunam, their destruction is of themselves. But he hopeth that God in mercy will spare the Nation for the sake of that part thereof, whose hearts have not yielded to that presumptuous horrid sin of perjury, and will not execute his predicted vengeance of Vae perjurae genti, Woe to a perjured Nation! and therefore waving all laughter Democritus will close with a short, but serious question to this Nation.  

Anglia pro Votis Violans quadrata rotundis.  
Mole sua aerumnis ruet insensata profundis?   

From sense will England so itself estrange,  
As sound well squared Vows for round to change?  
And by its own weight, policy, and strength,  
In deadly mischiefs plunge itself at length?   
Democritus might behold, and consider our Fasts for distressed Protestants in Ireland and might laugh at them as mockery, when these drivers are the means to hinder and keep back competent supply and relief from them, nay how can any man considering it forbear to laugh, if withal he read Isaiah 58. 5, 6, 7. & 1. 15. 16, 17. & Zech. 7.  
Many other subjects of laughter there be, but cannot be laughed out in one sheet, neither need we laugh at ourselves, Foreign Nations laugh so much at us, painting us upon their Walls with a Bible in lefthand, and right hand in neighbour's pocket.  Vide teipsum, irride teipsum.  
FINIS.