304 EXPOSTULATION TO LORD 



remember us with sense of your past misfortune, 

 whose estate hath, and may hereafter lie in the power 

 of your breath. 



There is a great mercy in dispatch, delays are 

 tortures, wherewith by degrees we are rent out of 

 our estates ;* do not you, if you be restored, as some 

 others do, fly from the service of virtue to serve the 

 time, as if they repented their goodness, or meant 

 not to make a second hazard in God s house ; but 

 rather let this cross make you zealous in God s cause, 

 sensible in ours, and more sensible in all ; which 

 express thus. You have been a great enemy to 

 papists, if you love God be so still, but more indeed 

 than heretofore ; for much of your zeal was hereto 

 fore wasted in words : call to remembrance that they 

 were the persons that prophesied of that cross of 

 yours long before it happened ; they saw the storm 

 coming, being the principal contrivers and furtherers 

 of the plot, the men that blew the coals, heat the 

 iron, and made all things ready ; they owe you a 

 good turn, and will, if they can, pay it you ; you see 

 their hearts by their deeds, prove then your faith so 

 to : the best good work you can do, is to do the best 

 you can against them, that is, to see the law severely, 

 justly, and diligently executed. 



And now we beseech you, my lord, be sensible 

 both of the stroke and hand that striketh ; learn of 



* My lord Bacon observes elsewhere, that the Scripture saith, 

 there be that turn judgment into wormwood ; and saith he, surely 

 there be &quot; also that turn it into vinegar ; for injustice maketh it 

 bitter, and delays make it sour.&quot; ESSAY LVI. Vol. I. p. 180. 



