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, scismes and disorders.
O thou God of order, and of truth, in thy good time abate the malice, asswage the rage, and confound all the mischievous devises of thine, mine, and thy Churches enemies.
That I, and all that love thy Church, may sing prayses to thee, and ever magnifie thy salvation, even before the sons of men.
18. Upon Uxbridge Treaty, and other Offers made by the King.
I Looke upon the way of Treaties, as a retiring from fighting like beasts, to arguing like men; whose strength should be more in their understandings, then in their limbs.
And though I could seldom get opportunities to Treat, yet I never wanted either desire or disposition to it; having greater confidence of my Reason, then my Sword. I was so wholy resolved to yeild to the first, that I thought neither my self, not others, should need to use the second, if once we rightly understood each other.