For your Majesty hath truly described,
not a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory, but a Moses
or a David, pastors of their people. Neither can I ever leese out
of my remembrance what I heard your Majesty in the same sacred
spirit of government deliver in a great cause of judicature, which
was, "That kings ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of
nature; and ought as rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative
as God doth His power of working miracles." And yet notwithstanding
in your book of a free monarchy, you do well give men to understand,
that you know the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as
well as the circle of his office and duty. Thus have I presumed to
allege this excellent writing of your Majesty, as a prime or eminent
example of tractates concerning special and respective duties;
wherein I should have said as much, if it had been written a
thousand years since. Neither am I moved with certain courtly
decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in presence. No, it
is flattery to praise in absence--that is, when either the virtue is
absent, or the occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural,
but forced, either in truth or in time.
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