at once satisfie all just desires and
interests of good Bishops, humble presbyters, and sober People; so as
Church affaires should be managed neither with tyrannie, paritie nor
popularitie; neither Bishops ejected, nor presbyters dispised, nor
People oppressed,
And in this integrity both of my Judgement and Conscience, I hope God
will preserve me.
_For thou, O Lord, knowest my uprightnesse, and tendernesse, as thou
hast set me to be a Defender of the Faith, and a Protectour of thy
Church, so suffer me not by any violence, to be overborne against my
Conscience._
_Arise O Lord, maintain thine own Cause, let not thy Church be
deformed, as to that Government, which derived from thy Apostles, hath
been retained in purest and primitive times, till the Revenues of the
Church became the object of secular envie; Which seeks to rob it of
all the incouragements of Learning and Religion._
_Make me as the good Samaritan, compassionate and helpfull to thy
afflicted Church; which some men have wounded and robb'd; others pass
by without regard, either to pitie or relieve._
_As my power was from thee, so give me grace to use it for thee._
_And though I am not suffered to be Master of my other Rights as a_
KING; _yet preserve me in that libertie of Reason, love of Religion,
and thy Churches welfare which are fixed in my Conscience as a
Christian._
_Preserve from sacrilegious Invasions, those temporall blessings,
which thy Providence hath bestowed on thy Church for thy glorie._
_Forgive their sins and errours, who have deserved thy just
permission, thus to let in the wilde Boar and subtil Foxes, to waste
and deform thy Vineyard, which thy right hand hath planted, and the
dew of heaven so long watered to a happy and flourishing estate._
_O let me not bear the infamous brand to all Posteritie, of being the
first Christian_ KING, _in this Kingdom, who should consent to the
oppression of thy Church, and the Fathers of it; whose errours I
would rather, with_ Constantine, _cover with silence, and reform with
meeknesse, then expose their persons, and sacred Functions to vulgar
contempt._
_Thou, O Lord, seest how much I have suffered with, and for thy
Church; make no long tarrying O my God to deliver both me and it, from
unreasonable men whose counsels have brought forth, and continue such
violent confusions, by a precipitant destroying the ancient boundaries
of the Churches peace; thereby letting in all manner of errours
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