THE EYE CLEARED; OR A PRESERVATIVE FOR THE SIGHT.  
Being a acquaint Composition without Fenell or Eye-bright, to restore the Purblind, and make the Squint-Eye to look forthright. With the grateful acknowledgement of much comfort already received in that kind by divers, through this, and other Remedies applied by the Author.  
Such as were blind, and now can see,  
Let 'em use this Receipt with me,  
'Twill clear the Eye, preserve the Sight,  
And give the understanding Light.   depiction of a vial of collyrium 
A Vial of preservative Water for Clearing the Eyes  
Printed according to Order for G. Bishop, June 25. 1644.   

The Eye Cleared, OR A PRESERVATIVE FOR THE SIGHT.  
WHat's here! another pair of Spectacles? No, it shall not need, the world's well amended; such as of late appeared to be mere Barbarians both in their carriage and expressions are now recovered, come home, and grown penitent! their sights are cleared already, and the mistak's discovered, as will appear by this their voluntary recantation in honest English, their own Country language.  
Why how have we been cozened, how blinded, how enchanted? when we consider how unreasonably our reasons have miscarried, we cannot but doubt that there's more Art than honesty at Oxford; Is this England? Is this our own Country? Were we bred and borne here? Had our Parents and Kindred of whom we descended, their births and burial here? and is't possible we should forget all this, or remember 〈◊〉 without infinite love and affection to this dear mother of us all? But we have been basely deluded, and have had villainous conceits conjured into us; we have not only neglected our duties, but contrary to reason, and in contempt of all Laws Divine and humane, we have either in words or actions, or both, showed ourselves agents in, or furtherers of the most horrid design against our own Country, that ever the devil put his. Instruments upon: from which we have nothing to clear us, but that that condemns us, our ignorance. But we are now become sensible of our faults and follies, and willing to confess them with shame and sorrow.  
When Consideration our new Pilate had discovered the Rocks we were running upon, we presently altered our course, and steered for the I'll of Security, for upon notice taken of the lading, the freight was found to be of no less value than the prosperity of three Kingdoms, besides our own lives, 'twas time to look about us: and now we have scaped the danger, we cannot but think it our duties to express as well our sorrow for our errors, as joy for our deliverance, that we may once again be held worthy the society of Christians.  
We are not the first that have been mistaken, but we must confess ingeniously that we are the first that ever were so foully mistaken, and led (by Will with a Wisp) so fare out of the way. It had been much for one of us to have plotted the death of his own Father, to have set a Town or two on fire, or (by the Pope's advice) have endeavoured to poison a Prince for being a Protestant, the least of these had been enough to have brought a black day, and a blacker night upon him, but we have been favourers of a hellbred conspiracy, wherein Religion, Laws, Liberties, Father, Mother, Prince, people and all were to suffer, a business of so strange a nature that no Heathen Chronicle can fit it with a name. Thus had ignorance brought us so near the brink of confusion that providence seemed to have much ado to recover us. All our cry was wont to be, Shall we not fight for our King! shall we fight against our King? When alas we knew not what we said; but now our eyes are open we cannot but confess that we have abused the King, abused the State, and abused ourselves all this while; we acknowledge that we have deserved the reproachful name of Malignants, and may be ashamed to say, We have had either eyes or understandings, we have made so ill an use of them. We have cried up the Papists, and cry down the Protestants, we have dignified the Court, and vilified the Parliament, we have exalted the King in his Title, and pulled him down in his power, we have extolled the Prerogative and slighted the laws; and in all this we have assisted his Majesty in a quarrel against himself, been his enemies in taking his part, and in standing for him betrayed him. Alas what durst the Papist have undertaken, if we had not countenanced 'em, and what could they have effected if we had not assisted them? when the Plot was throughly digested, and the intelligence dispearced, that the poison newly taken began to work; when the name Round-head became odious to it's own Godfathers and Godmothers, and when we were made to believe that all the best people in England were Annabaptists and Brownists, than the Catholics began to be courageous and cry Vive la Roy. Then they began to fall to work for themselves that had served out their times with the Devil, and we forsooth must be their journeymen that we might afterward become sharers in their flame and ruane: In all their damnable projects (by our compliance with 'em) their work has been promoted, and their crime lessened, such has been their subtility, and our simplicity; so that though they are before us in villainy, we are before them in infamy: They have their old and well beloved Rom●n Ca●●oick Religion to plead for the, but alas we (many of us) have no Religion at all to excuse us; indeed we have stood most for Popery because that has stood most for ignorance, and we have ma●e li●●e doubt of salvation, because we have been always furnished with a pleasant conceit, that 'tis an easy matter to go to heaven blindfold. Thus we have endeavoured to wrong our own souls, insure the State, and dishonour his Majesty; Was it like that we should be friends to the King, when we were enemies to the Kingdom? is't possible that men should be so blind, so stupid, so mad as to conceive that the most horrid murders and massackers that ever were heard of, could be begun, countenanced and continued for the honour of his Majesty, can we without shame confess that we thought it fair play for the basest Rebels i'th' world to kill the best Subjects by Authority (for they have so publisined it, and were never yet repreved for saying so) who would have thought that the broad Seal had been so broad as to reach into Ireland for such a purpose? But we were still kept to our Bias, by Declarrations and Proclamations (O remembor bleeding Ireland) by reading of which our eyes became so dazzled, that 'twas long before we could discern truth from selfhood; And then again we were intoxicated with whimsies of (this they say, and that they say,) They say the King fights for the Protestant Religion; they say he will go over himself, and quell the Rebels in Ireland: They say he would feign come to London, and comply with his Parliament, but his wicked Counsel will not suffer him, and a hundred more says, That seemed to be pretty stuff, and to have a good colour, so that we were mightily taken with 'em for a long time; but at last we heard of other Says, Northern Says, and Western Says. They said, The King is coming up with an Army to London, to break up the Parliament: they say, He was loath to have his good Subjects of Ireland any longer proclaimed Rebels, who have murdered about 200000. Protestants. They say he hath sent for them to come over hither to wash off that blood with as much more here; and many other Says of the same weaving, and the same colour, crimson Says, or scarlet Says, stuffs of so deep a dye, that 'twill hardly be washed out withal the rain will fall betwixt this and Doomsday. Now these Says we liked not so well, but as the former had inveagl'd us to be constant hunters, so these spoiled all the sport, and utterly frighted us out of the Forest of fools. Indeed these bloody Says were the first motives that drew us into a consideration of our fearful condition, and so by degrees to become Reformadoes in Colonel Roundheads Regiment. In which we doubt not but to make it appear by our valours, that we are friends to our King in fight for our Country. And our hearty desires are, and shall ever be, that his Majesty would seriously consider (since he will fight) whether it be not better to fight to make his enemies his friends, than his friends his enemies, and to protect and preserve his people that would preserve His glory, then to set good and bad both together by the ears, till there be none left but a few fatherless children, that when they shall come to pray for him, will be put out with the sad remembrance of their Father's death.  
But since we must fight, let us (if it be possible) mix reason with our rage, at least in our controversy of words, what ever we do in our blows. Is it not madness for a man to say, He fights for his King, that fights against his Country; is not the King a man? and what makes a man a King; if a King cannot be King without a Kingdom, then whether is he more friend to the King, that fights for the Kingdom that makes him so, or he that fights to destroy it? Are your eyes open yet? you that say ye fight for the King, when ye fight to take away the Inheritance with the Title? But when you have granted this Truth (which cannot be deemed, than you fall upon his command, his will and pleasure, which you call his Prerogative; this must be granted him, and so if his will and pleasure be to have his People destroy one another, his Prerogative that should preserve his Power must bring it to nothing, and then you have done him good service. Fie, fie, you are blind still, if Spectacles will not help you, the fault's not in your fight; y'are wilful and obstinate, you have not discretion enough left to inform you, that the house y'are pulling down will beat your own brains out. We that have been in the fire, are glad we have scaped with singing, and if we come there again, we deserve to be burned; but our resolutions are now not so much to shun the flame, as to quench it, not to leave it burning, but to put it out, he that help's not now, does but hinder, and he that shows not himself a friend, must needs be taken for an enemy. We are now in a Purgatory from whence we shall never be redeemed with sleep and silence, (and the only prevalent Prayers of the Papists will hardly be purchased) we must pray to the King of Kings (for here we are despised) to stand for us, if we humble ourselves, and pray as we ought, he'll hear and help us, if we can once get into his favour, we shall not need to fear the Plots of the Papist, the rage of the Rebel, nor the might of any Monarch: If we will be content to be ruled by him, serve and follow him, he'll put us into such a posture, that if the Prince of Darkness shall bring up all his reserve, and join 'em with those already in arms in his service, they shall never prevail against the Gospel, and then we shall march against our enemy with courage, and fight without fear, if we lose our lives, than we are sure to get well by the bargain; not a man that dies in such a cause, in such a quarrel, in such a condition, but gains a better Kingdom for himself, then that he redeems with loss of his life for another.  
Are not these good encouragements my masters? who would not fight for a Kingdom? Come, you that are behind hand with the Covenant (or have taken it with an ill resolution) lift up your eyes a little, see how gloriously the heavens look, and consider their Maker, ye have sworn many thousands of Oaths, enough (indeed) to damn you (i● God should be as harsh with you, as you have been with him) spare one now for a good purpose, do as your betters have done, enter into Covenant with your Maker, and then join with those that had rather lose their lives, then live to see the King lose his Kingdoms through the malicious practices of the Known enemies to God and Religion; this is the only way for ye to show that ye love the King, and to bring you into favour with God, that sets up, and pulls down at his pleasure.  
If you have honours, this is the way to increase 'em, if you have estates, by this means ye may preserve them, if you have honest friends, this is the way to keep 'em; but if ye want all or either of these, this is the way to purchase 'em: Is't not wonderful that all men generally should be so apt and active with hazard of their lives to purchase gold and glory, and that now there should be a generation of men living, that will hardly be entreated with the gain of both, to procure their own safeties? how many of us have already paid dear for our obstinacy? and hazarded our souls by losing our estates, an unparraled mark of malice. We have given to help on out ruins willingly, and by that means, have been forced to give again for our preservations against our wills: we have parted with a great part of our estates, for the hurt of the Kingdom, and a small part given for the preservation of it has undone us; O miserable wretches! we have studied Objections against the present taxes by the Parliament, and defences against the former by the King; unlawful Monopolies, then to pick our purses for ever, and keep us without Parliaments we talk of with content, but legal impositions now, to help put an end to our miseries, and to end with them, we cannot endure. This has been our best condition, and (indeed) the condition of the best of us; For many of us have run ourselves by worse practices into greater perils, we have had strange hopes to become gainers by changing our constant securities for apparent dangers; we have left our houses in the City, where we might have lived safely, and gone to our loving friends at Oxford, that we might be undone quickly; we have been always forward to receive the Cavalieres into our habitations, and they have been always as forward to carry away that we had at parting. How many houses, how many Towns, how many Cities, how many Counties have by our favouring that party, been brought to misery; look upon York the fountain of that River of calamity, that keeps still the winding current through Lincolnshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Darbishire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Lecestershire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire; (where it hath so overflown, it has almost spoiled the whole Country) from whence he runs on in his Malignant course toward Bristol, Tanton, and Exeter, and by the way consider what a multitude of people in all these parts have been guilty of their own undo, and therefore deserve no pity, but how many thousands of Innocents' (besides) have they been the destruction of, for which they are to answer? Alas poor York, thou hast suffered wonderfully in thy own person, thank thy Malignants; these unnatural wars were first bred in thee, and now thou art like to be buried in them. Thou art full of Soldiers within, and begirt with Soldiers without, thou were't the first City that raised them, and art like to be the first razed by them; how ever thy affrightments are great, and thy inward distractions no doubt are worse than thy outward alarms, who are our friends says one, they that are our enemies says another, who fights for us, they that fight against us, our enemies are within, and our friends are without, what shift shall we make to be conquered? we perish if we prosper; these are strange words, and they must needs be strange wars, when the City is in more danger by them that defend it, then by those that raise Batteries against it.  
When you have seen enough herein to make you sorrowful, convey your thoughts to Redding, there you shall find all quiet enough now, (at least in outward appearance) but the poor people have a war still within them, they grieve at their poverty, yet a number of them have gained by their losses, for humilitie's better than riches, there's a great deal less pride (now) then there was, and a great deal more repentance, but all the Country cries out, we are undone by it, and Redding must not only bear his own blame and loss, but be subject to a perpetual reproach for undoing his neighbours, this 'tis to be drunk with Maligo. Then survey Bristol, and consider their bargain, they have got the purchase they longed for, and that some of their great ones (before) hanged for, whose example could not fright the rest out of their humours, but made them more eager in pursuit of the gain and honour they dream's of; O how fearful they were of being preserved; many that had hardly prayed of a month before, fell now to their devotions, with such zeal, that God heard their prayers, granted their requests, and made 'em slaves and beggars: and now they have nothing to say, but that they are miserable, and have deserved it: But that that heightens their calamity, is the prosperous condition of glorious Gloucester, in whose story they read such fidelity, and valour, so much honesty and honour, that they are ashamed to look upon their own.  
But to make an end with Thee Worcester, (that hast taken a course to make an end of thyself) in former ages, a City, now (to thy own people) a prison; thou were't wont to look beautifully, be clad richly, fear daintily, and trade freely, now thou look'st ugly, goest beggarly, fearest hardly, and livest slavishly; it seems Obstmacie hath so bewitched thee, that misery and infamy are thy choice familiars; But 'tis pity thou shouldest be suffered to perish, though thou desirest it: no doubt the Parliament will consider what thou hast been, and be a means shortly to recover thee thy ancient Immunities, and make thee a City again, whether thou wilt or no.   
FINIS.