the clouds; but if a poor man speak, they say, What
fellow is this? And if he stumble, they will help to overthrow
him._[122] Therefore may my words be undervalued and my errors
aggravated, if I offer to speak of kings; but not by thee, O my God,
because I speak of them as they are in thee, and of thee as thou art in
them. Certainly those men prepare a way of speaking negligently or
irreverently of thee, that give themselves that liberty in speaking of
thy vicegerents, kings; for thou who gavest Augustus the empire, gavest
it to Nero too; and as Vespasian had it from thee, so had Julian. Though
kings deface in themselves thy first image in their own soul, thou
givest no man leave to deface thy second image, imprinted indelibly in
their power. But thou knowest, O God, that if I should be slack in
celebrating thy mercies to me exhibited by that royal instrument, my
sovereign, to many other faults that touch upon allegiance I should add
the worst of all, ingratitude, which constitutes an ill man; and faults
which are defects in any particular function are not so great as those
that destroy our humanity. It is not so ill to be an ill subject as to
be an ill man; for he hath an universal illness, ready to flow and pour
out itself into any mould, any form, and to spend itself in any
function. As therefore thy Son did upon the coin, I look upon the king,
and I ask whose image and whose inscription he hath, and he hath thine;
and I give unto thee that which is thine; I recommend his happiness to
thee in all my sacrifices of thanks, for that which he enjoys, and in
all my prayers for the continuance and enlargement of them. But let me
stop, my God, and consider; will not this look like a piece of art and
cunning, to convey into the world an opinion that I were more particular
in his care than other men? and that herein, in a show of humility and
thankfulness, I magnify myself more than there is cause? But let not
that jealousy stop me, O God, but let me go forward in celebrating thy
mercy exhibited by him. This which he doth now, in assisting so my
bodily health, I know is common to me with many: many, many have tasted
of that expression of his graciousness. Where he can give health by his
own hands he doth, and to more than any of his predecessors have done:
therefore hath God reserved one disease for him, that he only might cure
it, though perchance not only by one title and interest, nor only as one
king. To those that need it