NOTE G ( (.. 



other, out of the justifications of Job. For, after the clear submission and con 

 fession which I shall now make unto your lordships, I hope I may say and 

 justify with Job, in these words : I have not hid my sin as did Adam, nor con 

 cealed my faults in my bosom. This is the only justification which I will use. 

 &quot; It resteth, therefore, that without fig-leaves, I do ingenuously confess and 

 acknowledge that, having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally 

 from the house, but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter 

 sufficient and full, both to move me to desert the defence, and to move your 

 lordships to condemn and censure me. Neither will I trouble your lordships 

 by singling those particulars, which I think may fall off, 



&quot; Quid te exemtajuvat spinis de pluribus unal 



Neither will I prompt your lordships to observe upon the proofs, where they 

 come not home, or the scruples touching the credits of the witnesses ; neither 

 will 1 represent unto your lordships how far a defence might, in divers things, 

 extenuate the offence, in respect of the time or manner of the gift, or the like 

 circumstances, but only leave these things to spring out of your own noble 

 thoughts and observations of the evidence and examinations themselves, and 

 charitably to wind about the particulars of the charge here and there, as God 

 shall put into your mind, and so submit myself wholly to your piety and grace. 



&quot; And now that I have spoken to your lordships as judges, [ shall say a few 

 words to you as peers and prelates, humbly commending my cause to your 

 noble minds and magnanimous affections. 



&quot; Your lordships are not simple judges, but parliamentary judges ; you have 

 a further extent of arbitrary power than other courts ; and, if your lordships be 

 not tied by the ordinary course of courts or precedents, in points of strictness 

 and severity, much more in points of mercy and mitigation. 



&quot; And yet, if any thing which I shall move might be contrary to your honour 

 able and worthy ends to introduce a reformation, 1 should not seek it. But 

 herein I beseech your lordships to give me leave to tell you a story. Titus 

 Manlius took his son s life for giving battle against the prohibition of his gene 

 ral ; not many years after, the like severity was pursued by Papirius Cursor, 

 the dictator, against Quintus Maximus, who being upon the point to be sen 

 tenced, by the intercession of some principal persons of the senate, was spared ; 

 whereupon Livy maketh this grave and gracious observation : Neque minus 

 Jirnutta est disciplina militaris periculo Quinti Maiimi, quam miserabili supplicio 

 Titi Manlii. The discipline of war was no less established by the questioning 

 of Quintus Maximus, than by the punishment of Titus Manlius : and the same 

 reason is of the reformation of justice ; for the questioning of men of eminent 

 place hath the same terror, though not the same rigour with the puni&amp;gt;hment. 



&quot; But my case standeth not there. For my humble desire is, that his majesty 

 would take the seal into his hands, which is a great downfall ; and may serve, 

 I hope, in itself for an expiation of my faults. Therefore, if mercy and mitiga 

 tion be in your power, and do no ways cross your ends, why should I not hope 

 of your lordships favour and commiseration 1 



11 Your lordships will be pleased to behold your chief pattern, the King our 

 sovereign, a king of incomparable clemency, and whose heart is inscrutable for 

 wisdom and goodness. Your lordships will remember that there sat not these 

 hundred years before a prince in your house; and never such a prince, whose 

 presence deserveth to be made memorable by records and acts mixed of mercy 

 and justice: yourselves are either nobles (and compassion ever beateth in the 

 veins of noble blood) or reverend prelates, who are tbe servants of Him that 

 would not break the bruised reed, nor quench smoking flax. You all sit upon 

 one high stage ; and therefore cannot but be more sensible of the changes of the 

 world, and of the fall of any of high place. Neither will your lordships forget 

 that there are vitia temporis as well as vitia hominis, and that the beginning of 

 reformations hath the contrary power of the pool of Bethesda ; for that had 

 strength to cure only him that was first cast in, and this hath commonly strength 

 to hurt him only that is first cast in ; and for my part, I wish it may stay there, 

 and go no further. 



