I am sure they can never expect the divine approbation of such indecent actions, if they do but remember how God blest the modest respect & filial tenderness which _Noah's_ Sons bare to their Father; nor did his open infirmity justifie _Cham's_ impudency, or exempt him from that curse of being _Servant of Servants_; which curse must needs be on them who seek by dishonorable actions to please the Vulgar, and confirm by ignoble acts, their dependance upon the People. Nor can their malitious intentions be ever either excusable or prosperous, who thought to expose me to the highest reproach & contempt of my People, forgetting that duty of modest concealment which they owed to the Father of their Country, in case they had discovered any real uncomliness, which, I thank God they did not; who can, and I believe hath made Me more respected in the hearts of many (as he did _David_) to whom they thought, by publishing my private Letters, to have rendred me as a vile Person, not fit to be trusted or considered, under any Notion of Majesty. _But thou, O Lord, whose wise and all disposing Providence ordereth the greatest contingences of humane affairs, make me to see the constancie of thy mercies to me, in the greatest advantages thou seemest to give the malice of my Enemies against me._ _As thou didst blast the council of_ Achitophel _turning it to_ Davids _good and his own ruine: so canst thou defeat their Designe, who intended by publishing my private Letters, nothing else but to render me more odious and contemptible to my People._ _I must first appeal to thy Omniscience, who canst witnesse my integritie, how unjust and false those scandalous misconstructions are, which my Enemies endevour by those papers of mine to represent unto the world._ _Make the evil they imagined, and displeasure they intended thereby against me, so to return on their own heads, that they may be ashamed, and covered with their own confusion as with a cloak._ _Thou seest how mine Enemies use all means to cloud mine Honour, to pervert my purposes, and to slander the footsteps of thine Annointed._ _But give me an heart content to be dishonoured for thy sake, and thy Churches good._ _Fix in me a purpose to honour thee, and then I know thou wilt honour me, either by restoring to me the enjoyment of that Power and Majesty, which thou hast suffered some men to seek to deprive me of; or by bestowing on me that Crown of Christian patience, which knows how to serve thee in honour or dishonour, in good report or evil._ _Thou, O Lord, art the fountain of goodness and honour; thou art cloathed with excellent Majesty; make me to partake of thy excellency for wisdom, justice and mercy, and I shall not want that degree of Honour and Majestie which becomes the Place in which thou hast set me; who art the lifter up of my head, and my Salvation._ _Lord, by thy Grace, lead me to thy Glory, which is both true and eternall._ * * * * *