_When thou hast vindicated thy glory by thy judgments, and hast shewed us how unsafe it is to offend thee, upon presumptions afterwards to please thee, Then I trust thy mercy will restore those blessings to us, which we have so much abused, as to force thee to deprive us of them._ _For want of timely repentance of our sins, Thou givest us cause to Repent of those Remedies we too late apply._ _Yet I doe not repent of my calling the last Parliament, because O Lord, I did it with an upright intention to thy glory, and My Peoples good._ _The miseries which have ensued upon me and my Kingdoms, are the just effects of thy displeasure upon us; and may be yet, through thy mercy, preparatives of us to future blessings and better hearts to enjoy them._ _O Lord, though thou hast deprived us of many former comforts; yet grant me and my People the benefit of our afflictions, and thy chastisements; that thy Rod as well as thy Staff may comfort us: Then shall we dare to account them the strokes not of an enemy, but a Father: when thou givest us those humble affections, that measure of patience in repentance which becomes thy Children; I shall have no cause to repent the miseries this Parliament hath occasioned, when by them thou hast brought me and my people unfeignedly to repent of the sins we have committed._ _Thy grace is infinitely better with our sufferings, then our Peace could be with our sins._ _O thou soveraign goodness and wisdom, who over-rulest all our Counsels; over-rule also all our hearts; That the worse things we suffer by thy Justice, the better we may be by thy mercie._ _As our sins have turned our Antidotes into Poison, so let thy Grace turn our Poison into Antidotes._ _As the sins of our Peace disposed us to this unhappy Warre, so let this War prepare us for thy blessed Peace._ _That although I have but troublesom Kingdoms here, yet I may attain to that Kingdom of Peace in my Heart, and in thy Heaven, which Christ hath purchased, & thou wilt give to thy servant (though a sinner) for my Saviours sake._ Amen. * * * * * 2. _Upon the Earl of Straffords death_. I looked upon my Lord of _Strafford_, as a Gentleman, whose great abilities might make a Prince rather afraid, then ashamed to employ him in the greatest affairs of State. For those were prone to create in him great confidence of undertakings, and this was like enough to betray him to great errors, and many enemies; whereof he could not but contract good store, while moving in so high a sphear, and with so vigorous a lustre, he must needs (as the Sun) raise many envious exhalations, which condensed by a popular _odium_, were capable to cast a cloud before the brightest merit and integrity.