Let Me not so much consider, hither what they have done, or I have suffered [chiefly at first, by them] as to forget to imitate my crucified Redeemer, to plead their ignorance for their pardon; and in my dying extremities to pray to Thee, O Father, to forgive them, for they know not what they did.
The tears they have denied me in my saddest condition, give them grace to bestow upon themselves; who the lesse they were for me, the more cause they have to weep for themselves.
O let not my blood be upon them and their Children, whom the fraud and faction of some, not the malice of all, have excited to crucifie me.
But thou, O Lord, canst and wilt (as thou didst my Redeemer) both exalt and perfect me by my sufferings, which have more in them of thy Mercie, then of mans Crueltie, or thy own Justice.
27. To the Prince of Wales.
S On, If these Papers with some others, wherein I have set down the private reflections of my Conscience, and my most impartiall thoughts touching the chief passages, which have been most remarkable or disputed in my late troubles, come to your hands, to whom they are chiefly designed; they may be so far usefull to you, as to state your judgement aright in what hath passed; whereof a pious is the best use can be made; and they may also give you some directions, how to remedy the present distempers, and prevent (if God will) the like for time to come.
It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of my long restraint, when I find my leisure and solitude have produced something worthy of my self, and usefull to you; That neither You nor any other may hereafter measure my Cause by the Successe, nor my judgment of things by my Misfortunes, which I count the greater by far, because they have so far lighted upon you and some others whom I have most cause to love as well as my self, and of whose unmerited sufferings I have a greater sense then of Mine own.