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.