_But thou, O Lord art my witnesse in heaven, and in my Heart: If I have purposed any violence or oppression against the Innocent: or if there were any such wickednes in my thoughts._ _Then let the enemy persecute my soul, and tread my life to the ground, and lay mine Honour in the dust._ _Thou that seest not as man seeth, but lookest beyond all popular appearances, searching the heart, and trying the reins, and bringing to light the hidden things of darknesse, shew thy self._ _Let not my afflictions be esteemed (as with wise and godly men they cannot be) any argument as my sin, in that matter: more then their Impunity among good men is any sure token of their Innocency._ _But forgive them wherin they have done amiss, though they are not punished for it in this world._ _Save thy servant from the privy conspiracies, and open violence of bloody and unreasonable men, according to the uprightness of my heart, and the innocency of my hands in this matter._ _Plead my cause and maintain my right, O thou that sittest in the Throne, judging rightly, that thy servant may ever rejoyce in thy salvation._ * * * * * 4. _Upon the Insolency of the Tumults._ I Never thought any thing (except our sins) more ominously presaging all these mischiefs, which have followed, then those Tumults in _London_ and _Westminster_, soon after the convening of this Parliament; which were not like a storm at Sea, (which yet wants not its terrour) but like an Earth-quake, shaking the very foundations of all; then which nothing in the world hath more of horror. As it is one of the most convincing Arguments that there is a God, while his power sets bounds to the raging of the Sea: so 'tis no less, that he restrains the madness of the People. Nor doth any thing portend more Gods displeasure against a Nation, then when he suffers the confluence and clamours of the Vulgar to passe all boundaries of Laws and reverence to Authority. Which those Tumults did to so high degrees of Insolence, that they spared not to invade the Honour and Freedom of the two Houses, menacing, reproaching, shaking, yea, and assaulting some Members of both Houses, as they fancied, or disliked them: Nor did they forbear most rude and unseemly deportments, both in contemptuous words and actions, to my Self and my Court. Nor was this a short fit or two of shaking, as an ague, but a quotidian fever, always encreasing to higher inflammations, impatient of any mitigation, restraint, or remission. First, They must be a guard against those fears which some men scared themselves and others withall; when indeed nothing was more to be feared, and lesse to be used by wise men, then those tumultuary confluxes of mean and rude people, who are taught first to petition, then to protect, then to dictate, at last to command and over-aw the Parliament.