2.

All the particulars of their Declaration are now examined, and however these desperate men may flatter themselves, and how long soever they shall continue in this their damnable Apostasie; the present age and posterity will believe that in stead of rendring and making the KING appear unworthy of, or unequall to the high Office and charge, to which God hath advanced Him, [Page 150] they have in truth vindicated Him from all those aspertions and blemishes their malice had cast on Him, and that He appears the most worthy the great trust He was born to, if He had no other title to it, then His admirable virtue & perfection: After the boldest & strictest inquisition, that was ever made into the life & manners of any Gentleman; after their examining all the actions, and all the words of his life, & with impious licence, perverting and torturing those actions and words with their unreasonable glosses, and interpretations; after their breaking into His Chamber, by corrupting His neerest Servants, and thereby knowing what in any passion or indisposition He hath said or done;

After their opening His breast, and examining His most reserved thoughts, by searching His Cabinets, perusing His Letters, even those He had written in cipher to His dearest Consort the Queen, and His private memorials; They have not been able to fix a crime or error upon Him, which would draw a blush from the modestest cheek, nor by all their threats, and all their promises, to shake His pious and magnanimous resolutions; so that in truth, their main trouble and vexation is no other, then David heretofore gave Saul, who, when he saw that he behaved himself very wisely, he was afraid of him.

But these miserable men must know, that if the King were as unjust, and as oppressing as they would have Him believed to be, or as the best of them would be, if he were in His place; they have not any title or qualification to use Him as they have done: For if it were lawfull for Subjects to take up Armes against their Soveraign, upon pretence, that He were injurious, and performed not the duty and Office of a King, besides the confusion, that must follow, upon their assuming the judgment [Page 151] in that case, they would have it in their power to resist, and avoid one of the greatest and most immediate judgments which God sends to correct and chastise a Nation, which hath provoked him to displeasure: And the Egyptians wil I give over into the hand of a cruel Lord, and a fierce King shal rule over them, saies God himself by the Prophet Isaiah; He that can destroy a Nation by what judgement he pleases; he that can humble this people by a famine, and destroy that by a plague, may if he think fit, chuse to doe either by the cruelty and fiercenesse of a King, I gave thee a King in mine anger, saies the same Spirit by the Prophet Hosea. Now if it were lawful for us to be angry with that King, who~ God hath in his anger given us; or to be fierce against him, whose fiercenesse the Lord hath sent as his judgment upon us, we might easily elude those sentences of his wrath, and drive those afflictions from us, by our own courage, without waiting his leisure for our redemption: And it may be no ill reason of that expression in the Prophet Samuel, that Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft, that as men go to Witches, and Witches go to the Devill, to get or discover somewhat, which God would not have them get or discover; so they who rebell, endeavour by the help of the Devil, to be too hard for God Almighty, and to avoid by their own skill and activity, a calamity, by which God meant to reclaim them; The wrath of a King is as Messengers of death, but a wise man will pacifie it, saies Solomon; Not, oppose and resist, or rebell against it; and yet the same Solomon tels us, that wrath is cruell; There is an ingredient of injustice, of uncharitablenesse, of cruelty in all wrath, and yet the wise man, the honest, just, conscientious man, thinks of nothing but pacifying it; gentlenesse, application, and humility [Page 152] should be used to soften and mollifie his wrath; Indeed, so much is due to any wrath; A wise and a charitable man, will take so much pains to reform and compose the wrath and distemper of his Neighbour, of his equall; but there is much more to be done to the wrath of a King; and Tremelius extends this care of the wise man much further, then such a pacifying, and renders this Text, Vir sapiens expiabit eam, let this wrath be never so unjust, so unreasonable, so immerited, the wise man, expiabit eam;

he will behave himself as if the fault were in him, as if he had provoked and incensed the King to that wrath, he will expiate, he will give satisfaction by prayer, by submission, by any sacrifice that may pacifie, and be acceptable to the offended Majesty; and by an exact and punctuall performance of what becomes a Subject, convince the King of the errour and mistake of his passion; They who under pretence of innocence and of faultlesnesse, neglect and contemn the anger and displeasure of Princes, are not innocent enough, nor look on Majesty with that reverence, which becomes them; Solomons wise man will expiate the Kings wrath from what fountain of passion or prejudice soever it proceeds.