l, in the midst of the furnace of thy
severe justice, a Posterity which may praise thee for thy mercie._

_And deal with me, not according to mans unjust reproaches, but
according to the innocency of my Hands in thy sight._

_If I have desired or delighted in the wofull day of my Kingdoms
calamities, If I have not earnestly studied, and faithfully
endeavoured the preventing and composing of these bloody Distractions;
then let thy hand be against me and my Fathers House. O Lord thou
seest I have enemies enough of men; as I need not, so should I not
dare thus to imprecate thy curse on me and mine, if my Conscience did
not witnesse my integrity, which thou, O Lord, knowest right well. But
I trust not to my own merit, but thy mercies; spare us, O Lord, and be
not angry with us for ever._

* * * * *

_13. Upon the calling in of the_ SCOTS, _and their Comming._

The _Scots_ are a Nation, upon whom I have not onely common ties of
Nature, Soveraignty, and Bounty, with My Father of blessed memory; but
also speciall and late obligations of favours, having gratified the
active Spirits among them so far, that I seemed to many to prefer the
desires of that party, before My own interest and honor. But, I see,
Royall bountie emboldens some men to ask, and act beyond all bounds of
modesty and gratitude.

My charity, and Act of Pacification, forbids Me to reflect on former
passages, wherin I shal ever be far from letting any mans ingratitude,
or inconstancy, make me repent of what I granted them for the publique
good: I pray God it may so prove.

The coming again of that Party into _England_, with an Army only
to conforme this Church to their late New model, cannot but seem as
unreasonable, as they would have thought the same measure offered from
hence to themselves.

Other errand I could never understand, they had, (besides those common
and vulgar flourishes for Religion and Liberty) save only to confirme
the Presbyterian Copy they had set, by making this Church to write
after them, though it were in bloudy Characters.

Which design and end, whether it will justifie the use of such violent
means, before the divine Justice, I leave to their Consciences to
judge, who have already felt the misery of the means, but not reaped
the benefit of the end, either in this Kingdom, or that.

Such knots and crosseness of grain being objected here, as will hardly
suffer that form which they cry up, a