A PERFECT nocturnal Of several proceedings between Hiel the Bethelite, and his much indeered Spouse Madam POLICY. Being a Solitary Discourse between them both one Night in their BED, about the loss of their Children, and other accidents that fel out in reference to their building of Jerecho, in and about 1 Reg. 16 ult. Jos●. 6. 26. the time that King AHAB killed and took Possession. HIEL. OH how sad is my condition( my much endeered POL!) who have had the happiness to beget ●o many sweet Children by thee; and how I am like to go to the Grave childless, leaving nothing behind for a memorial of my Name. But accursed Jerecho which thou and I have unhappily laid the foundation▪ and are now a building. POL. I could wish with al my heart I had never put thee upon rebuilding that which the power of the Almighty laid flat, even with the ground; I am convinced that I have much wronged thee; for all that went before thee, yea and those that were contemporary with thee were al unwilling to touch that which the Lord had struck dead, and forbid to be medledwith, Josh. 6. 26. HIEL. Really Pol when I do remember the happy condition that I was in when I lived with thee at BETHEL voided of this great care and sorrow that now I hourly undergo, and the great affections that my best Friends bare to me and mine; my very heart breaks in pieces, although I am forced for my honor sake to put a good face upon my much troubled and turmoiled ●pi it. POL. Alas poor Heart, I dare say that thou canst not choose but be very much troubled, but thou hast a heart of a thousand, for what man in the world could endure to see his dearly begotten Children struck dead gradually before his face, from the Eldest to the youngest, and yet bear it with so much patience and seeming cheerfulness as thou dost. HIEL. My Deere thou knowest that there is no other way in the world to keep us up from sinking under these great disappointments; But to have a good heart though it be against a good Conscience, for otherwise we should be a laughing stock not only to the Bethelites▪ but to all other people in the World who have taken so much notice of our great undertakings. POL: But is there no way left to come off with honour cleverly( for that is a thing persons of our Quality must have a great respect unto) retaining o●r estimation and 〈◇〉 stil with the Bethelites and others, and working gradually to the remembrance of our works and undertakings out of the hearts and memory of all people. HIEL. Yes, yes Sweet Heart, there is a way that we may come off well enough, with more honour then ever Thou and I were invested with all. But I am very loathe to come of● that way yet, for it is not usual with persons of our Quality to stoop and creep through so strait a gate as meaner persons do in the like condition that we are in▪ POL: Prithee let me hear of that way, and I shal quickly tel thee my mind, and deal ingeniously with thee in every thing according to my best Judgement, which hitherto thou hast in some measure ●ound feasible. HIEL. Although thou art the Beloved of my Heart, and hast( till of late) been faithful unto me, yet I dare not let Thee know that way, for tis so contrary to thy dispofition, that I am sure thou wilt never let me go for our Artificers and poor Workmens sake. POL. How canst thou be so bound from her that never failed thee till counterbuft by a strong irresistible hand? I have never been faithless unto Thee in my Life, for what's fallen out with us in this Cause, is the same with our dear cousin Achitophel a while ago; therefore find no fault in me. But tel me truly what is the way whereby thou judgest we may be safe, for indeed at this time I do very much question my own abilities as to any thing that may be feasible. HIEL. Then rather then offend and disoblige thee my dear, I tel thee that I think the safest way is to leave off building, and return to Bethel, and sal down su● missively at the feet of Jehovah whom I have highly offended. POL: Oh! ●ow am I surprised at this sudden change in Thee My Deere Heart? Oh! th● thou hast never left me since our first acquaintance canst thou have such a thought as to return to Bethel? and part with so rare a fabric that shortly will seem( if not slighted by Thee and others) rather a Paradise then a Jericho? sure thou wilt not deal so hard with me as thou didst with others, if thou dost I am utterly undone, for al the Artificers with whom I have contracted will come upon me to stand to the contract; and if my dear Husband leaves me, O what will become of me! or wherewithal shal I pay them their o Answer with your cousin Achitophels portion. wages? HIEL. Pray my Deere be not troubled in mind, nor surprised, this is only a thing that now and then runs through my head, not intended yet, though pretended sometimes to please fools; therefore not asserted positively to be the way through which I shal go. But if I did declare it to the world, yet thou knowest that I have an excellent faculty to wave and slight it, and if need be to deny it with protestation if I see a more probable way for thy welfare and mine. POL: I must confess that many of these things have crept upon my thoughts, but they had but could entertainment there; but I am so dized of late that I do not know well what to say things are so untoward. HIEL. But what is that thou thinkest best to be done in order to our welfare and future tranquillity, prithee ask and give council. POL. I am at a stand & know not what to say, for my Brother Honour bids me go on, my Sister in Law Prudence bids me be wise, and truly my thoughts are briefly lead thus upon mature consideration too. viz: that our only way is topretend some great and weighty matters of importance that calls us away from the work for a while, or else we must pled inability( by reason of Age & much work) to finish so great a fabric, & so createsecretly a necessity to get some faithful Friends( if possible) that will take the work in hand, and carry it on in our Names( or at at least for our good) for our honours sake, that none may have hereafter occasion to say that we began a Work, and were not capable to finish it. HIEL. We have had such bad successses, and the hand of God upon our children, some dying and some lying bare to misfortune, that I fear none will dare meddle to build upon our foundation, for our Son Parlia that thou and I, & al our Friends had taken so much pains to bring up and order in al things to help us to carry on the work, grew so undutiful and so unserviceable to me in my great undertakings, that I was forced to kill him with my own hands; yet I am forced and necessitated to name my late infant after that Name, hoping that be will courageously assist his Aged Father in the carrying on of his great work that at last I may acquiesce in the work of my hands with comfort. But if he should grow incorrigible and untoward, I intend to improve that way also to the uttermost, that so by his ungratefulness I may the more ingratiate myself once more into the affections of the Bethelites and others, &c. or by that confusion that may arise by his ●ndutifulness, I may have the greatest ooportunity to set up my interest as firm as the Law of the M●des and Persians, and like the rare bide o● Arabia come forth in a glorious hue out of the ashes of Arnar▪ ●bial confusion, that may come to pass by the unchild-like carriage of this last infant. POL: Come come my dear Hiel, be not cast down at these things though they be contrary to thy great spirit, I must confess that although I had many Husbands and many Children by them, yet I have not had such beautiful Children by any one as I have had by Thee, for about the middle of thy years, and to these late dayes thy Seed was not corrupted, so that the Fruit of our Bodies were fair and lovely. But now in thy latter dayes thy seed is corrupted, so that our too often lying together contrary to former engagements makes our Issue uncapable of long life: but if we could but Purge and clear our bodies with safety, I trust we should yet wi●h that Good man Job see good dayes, and have more joy in the future Seed of our loins, then in the former that have been slain in the time of the building. HIEL. Really my deere Pol I have not been myself as formerly since the death of my once supposed excellency, and as I reckoned the beginning of my strength dearer unto me then Jacobs reuben my dear and Eldest child Ab-Don-Hispaniola, who if he had lived and come to Age, I should not have had an aching heart and trembling hands at the unhappy, uncomfortable building, although 20 other Children should have gone to wrack. POL: It went nearest my heart also of al the Children, & truly when I do call to mind the loss of that sweet face Boy Senior-plat-fleet, I cannot but sit down in sorrow. HIEL: I confess them two Boyes would a been a great stay unto us in our old Age, but now they being gone I have no way to subsist( but only by what I shal extract, like a rare Chimist, from the Bethelites by a violent fire as oil out of the ●lint) for those that were my old Credi: tors will hardly give me any further trust, & new ones I cannot get; they see things go so il with me, and my condition is so obvious to every ingenious eye, that 'twill go very hard with me at last, or I have exhaus stead almost al my Treasures in the building & bringing up my now dead Children except that little reserve in Plate, Jewels, yellow earth, &c. that thou knowest is laid up for the stormy weather that is to come upon us, which we must not spend upon ordinary occasions. POL: 'Tis very strange and sad, for the more we build the more is our loss, &c. for there is no considerable part of the building finished, but we loose a Child, or is taken ill. I have not seen the like in al my days, for our good Son Jamaica and his Nurses are very sick of a violent fever, and his Attendants are desperately troubled with the Consumption which He is very free from himself, being grown very thick▪ with faulst fatness in his late Distempers; and our black Boy Spanish catcher is sore sick in Cadiz bay of a new Disease called the Mont-ague which never troubled him before but once at the taking of gibraltar; this Ague is a great deal worse then the Kentish Ague( which troubles B: or portugal alluding to the black boyes work with K▪ John lately. our Brother Tom: Kelsey now and then of late) for it brings him down very low for al he was too hard for the Port-Ague. B. HIEL. My dear Pol since the building of the tithe▪ Tower( which I p●omised to some Friends that Lives in Jerusalem should not be built) we had great Losses for that Boy signior Plate▪ Fleet and some other hopeful Boyes are dead, besides dear Friends, to wit, Nol-praying Spirit, Saints Love to me, and that faithful Friend Sir Christian Wisdom, and that Boy that we got in our Progress to France is very sick, having received his deaths wound, that nothing can cure but a benediction from our cousin his Holiness which will not make for us a readmit, his Nature being changed, and I ●ear Mazarine have been too gracious with th●e in my absence, so that I never looked upon that boy as rightly begotten. POL: I think that tho● didst not do well in telling our Jerusalem Friends that thou saidest not build the Tyth-Tower, but rather raise the ●o●ndation by such a time, or else they might call thee the greatest juggler in E: and that they might expect that thou saidest Juggle them in al other things else, whereas thou shouldst( as thou hast a brave Faculty sometimes) wave that in expectation of the first Fruits of so rare a fabric. And as for Mazarin●s being too gracious with me; tis true I am a great Lover of the Man for his ingenuity, and if you and I do take our Pro●ress to Rome, we must do as Rome doth. HIEL, well said Pol, there is no wonder then that our Swedish BOY got in the way to Poland in our late progress there( accommodated with our New Lorded Estatles cousin) is very sick, having received his sore wound very lately at Warsovia seeing you are so apt to fall in Love with foreign Princes, &c. I am sure when we kept our progress in the Land of Israel our Children were rightly begotten, and thrived well in every Respect, but since we took our Progress beyond Seas, I do really believe that every child we have had are BASTARD● POL: Not so Sir I ●row, for our Neatherland-boy was truly bego●t●●, and thrives well, & although there be a hand-writing against us at present, yet that Boy I hope will be a comfort unto us in our old age: HIEL. How darest thou say 'twas truly begotten, when the Heer Mogens were sore sick of the Flux, and could no way stop it,( as thou hast confessed to me in private) but by getting into thy favour with whom thou hast committed Adul ery; and besides thou knowest ●ow necessity driven me almost to be a pandar unto thee that Time, but shane bid me go out of the room, and leave thee with thy Lover, therefore I expect the death of that Boy unless I were capable to give him a golden bill. POL. 'Tis very true they were sadly troubled with the Flux, but canst thou think in thy Heart that I had any way regarded that, for what are they to me, had not thy great necessity in reference to the building called me ●o do what I did. HIEL. Prithee Pol be honest if thou canst possible, else by that that time the Gates are set up we shal not have a Son alive, & 'twould trouble us both to go to the Grave childless. POL. Thou knowest my Deere ●I have always been faithful to thee till Thou and I took our progr●ss to the West-indies, where through the constitution of the Country I became unsatiable in my desires, that truly I have not been satisfied since▪ but o●ce a little with much ado at Lisbon. H●EL, Oh that West india progress breaks my heart when I think of it, and really I think I shal never forger it, for 'tis so hot a Country that it hath not onely ●and and marred my Beauty, but dried up almost all my blood, and although I take an excellent cause to increase and recruit it, yet ● find very little benefit by it, for as fast as I ●●ruit, it dries away, onely this I find that if I had not taken this course to dwelt, I should hardly have had a drop of blood left in my body by this time. POL: I fear that of late thou hast been somewhat a stranger to our dear Cozens Doctor Machavel, and Doctor Wentworth, else thy distemper could not be so bad: ●●ithee sand▪ for them both and advice with them▪ for thou knowest their abilitie●, & they know thy distemper of old, do not neglect thy self least thy Disease grow uncurable, for then I shal be very loathe to lie by Thee, for I may expect nothing of it but deceitful Children that will be so loathsome that I shal not enjoy myself with comfort, and withal they cannot be long lived. HIEL. I could wish with my soul that I had never taken one Dose of physic from them, for I have not been been well since, if I had kept in with Doctor Christian piudence I should have done well enough; but since I left him I had not one good nights rest although I am very carefully attended. POL. Oh my deere Hiel, why shouldst Thou say so? for both my Sons Machiavel and Wen●worth protested unto me more then once that they have been as faithfully careful of Thee as of their own souls, and do but compare the Receipts that they gave Thee with their Works that are extant, and thou wilt find no difference, and as to thy private distemper compare the sovereign Recei●ts that my cousin WENTWORTH gave thy predecessor( which thou hast got printed) I say compare them with those of both my Cozens to Thee, and thou wilt find that they have used their uttermost endeavour to keep Life in thee, and if possible to recover T●ee. HIEL. I do confess that they have used their uttermost endeavour, but 'twill not do, for they do not nor cannot understand my distempers and constitution of my body, neither dare I let them know it, for then they would apply such Medicines that would be too violent for me, that I should be forced to be let blood in the Neck vain as my predecessor was. POL. What then canst thou think to be the best way to recover thee to thy former health, or who wouldest thou have for thy physician, for after this rate thou dost but linger, and at last thou wilt be gone al on a sudden. H●EL. The best course that I can take for my recovery if I could bring my heart unto it is to go up to Jerusalem, for there in Zion the City of David there is, the most absolute physician in the world, and has such attendants about him that would never rest nor take their pleasure( as those drones do that belongs to Machavel, and Wentworth) until I were fully recovered; but I am ashamed to go thither, for I have offended them all, Doctors and Attendants, that I do somewhat scruple whither they would have any thing to do with me or no. POL: What would become of me if thou shouldst go thither▪ for thou knowest they hate me there as bad as my Brother Lucifer, and I am confident upon thy recovery they would go near to divorce us, and I poor I should be forced ●o seek another Husband, which I am sure would break my heart, for I should never get one that should make so much of me as thou hast done. HIEL, My dearest Heart fear thou not, but I shal take care of thee, for it I am forced to go up to Jerusalem, i'le bring thee home to Bethel, and leave thee there till I am fully recovered, and then all the wits in Jerusalem, and Davids City shal not divorce me from thee, but I shal return home to thee, and I hope live at Bethel as comfortably as ever I did, and let whose will build Jerecho. well, let's not be too hasty in this thing▪ but go on in our building, and get our Cozens Machiavel and Wentworth close to us; and if we could get some better attendance with them it would be better; suppose thou wouldst sand privately for some of the Jerusalem Doctors attendants, doubtless they would be very instrumental unto thee in thy sickness. HIEL. Truly Pol I do not intend hast in the business of Jerusalem, for by my good will Ishal never go thither while I breath, but if I am forced I cannot help it, thou knowest that necessity hath no law; but as to get better attendance it is impossible, unless I would change my Doctors, for these I have do know the Doctors mind in every thing that now I have; and as to get any of the Jerusalem Doctors attendants will never be, they are so faithful to their Master and his interest, that no honour that I can confer upon them will make them budge or stir a step for me. POL. Then my Deere if thou thinkest so we must make the most of those we have and give them as much encouragement as we can, for most of them do complain for wages, and are fain to run on the score, and build Sconches as well as we build Jerecho, which is a great shane unto us, among other things, &c. HIEL: Oh, that West-india progress hath put me quiter out of capacity, together with my Streights progress to see my cousin the Grand signior, who did not very kindly entertain me, &c. And the great charges about the recovery of Son signior plate fleet, otherwise I had been in as good a capacity to encourage my Attendance, Artificers, and Workmen as any man in the world. POL: Push, thou must be contented, for these are but common providence and trials to exercise thy Faith and patience, &c go on in thy work and prosper, and if any Michaiahs stand in thy way, or speak against thee, do with him as King Ahab did until thou finish thy intended work, and then thou mayst order him as thou wilt, when thou returnest in peace as he did. HIEL. well I have prosecuted this principle and practise too hard, I wish I had never known it, for thou knowest I have me● with some Michaia●s already, and have writ against them by my dear Master King Ah●bs copy; but they are of all the world like our Ancestors in Egypt, for the more they suffer the more they increase, and it was the worst counsel that ever thou gavest me in thy dayes to meddle with them, for if I had let them alone, and took no notice of them, the ●orwardest of them would a been Weary ere this time finding no opposition; but my hard dealing with them made others to look upon the Building earnestly, and secretly to Survey it, who do publicly declare against it that the foundation is not firm▪ and that 'tis contrary to Joshuas command, and my own Engagements often at Jerusalem, and that of necessity it must needs fall and come to nothing although we take great care and pains night and day in the management thereof. POL. I tel thee Hiel thou art not to humour such kind of fellows, whatever comes of it, for they know not what they would have, and withal they are wholly bent for the house of David, which run clear against our interest, and our Gods, which good King Jeroboam set up in Dan, and our own Town, what have we to do with David▪ we have no Inheritance in the son of Jesse, &c. I cannot endure to hear of them, much less to fall in with them, for they never loved me in their lives, but so far as I ●an with their judgement, and made for their Religion and interest, which I never loved, or cared ●or, it's possible they would be indulgent unto thee, but I am sure it would go very hard and sad with me. HIEL. My deere Pol, thou needest not fear that I shal fall in with them in hast, it shal be a greater necessity then I can yet discover, though I am much str●ightned at present, that shal make me adulteress myself, or in the least condescend unto them. POL. I would not have thee to have a thought that way, for there is no mercy to be expected from them. HIEL: Come thou art very much mistaken in that Pol, for I must needs tel▪ thee that my heart tells me that I may say of them and find it so, as my cousin Benhadads servants said of our Kings, that they were merciful. POL. 'twill be well if we find it so( if need require) which indeed I very much fear and dread, how ever let not so rare a fabric as Jerecho be neglected from being finished. HIEL. I do not intend it, thou mayest believe me whatever thou and the Artificers( who narrowly pries into every action of mine) may fear and dread, for I intend more faithfulness to your interest( if we can safely bring it about) then to any interest that yet I pretended for in my life. POL. well fare thy heart, go on prosperously to the hearts content of all our faithful Friends, though we go to the Grave childless; and so good night dear Hiel, for the fiddlers, and whole kennel of Musi●ioners are gone to Rest. Bonis Noses.