THE Lord Chancellor's SPEECH UPON THE Lord Treasurer's Taking his OATH IN THE EXCHEQUER, The Fifth of December, 1672.  
LONDON, Printed in the Year, 1672   

THE Lord Chancellor's SPEECH Upon the Lord Treasurer's taking his Oath in the Exchequer the Fifth of December, 1672.  
My Lord Treasurer,  
THe King's Most Excellent Majesty knowing your Integrity, Abilities and Experience in his Affairs, and particularly those of His Treasury, hath thought fit to make choice of you to be His Lord High Treasurer of England; And what necessarily accompanies that Place, hath by His Letters Patents under the Great Seal, made you also Treasurer of His Exchequer.  
The Lord High Treasurer of England's Office, is held by the King's delivery of the White Staff; The Treasurers of the Exchequer hath ever been held by Letters Patents; And is that by which your Lordship is more immediately Entitled, to be a Chief Judge of this Court.  
It were too nice and tedious, and peradventure too Formal, to give an account of the several distinct Powers of these two Offices; Reason, and the length of Time hath now so Woven them together; But as they are both in your Lordship, I may justly say you are in a Place of the very first Rank, as to Dignity, Power, Trust, and Influence of Affairs. A Place that requires such a Man as our Great Master's Wisdom hath found for it: From whose natural temper we may expect Courage, Quickness, and Resolution; From whose Education, Wisdom and Experience; And from whose Extraction, that Noble and Illustrious House of the Cliffords, an Heroic Mind, a Large Soul, and an Unshaken Fidelity to the Crown.  
My Lord, 'Tis a great Honour, much beyond even the place itself, that you are Chosen to it by this King, who, without flattery I may say, is as great a Master in the Knowledge of Men and Things, as this or any other Age hath produced; And let me say farther, it is not only your Honour, that you are Chosen by Him; but it is your Safety too, that you have Him to Serve: with whom no subtle Insinuations of any near Him, nor the aspiring Interest of a Favourite, shall ever prevail against those that serve Him well. Nor can His Servants fear to be Sacrificed to the Malice, Fury, or Mistake of a more swelling popular greatness. A Prince under whom the Unfortunate fall gently. A Prince, in a word, that best of all Mankind, deserves the Title of Deliciae Humani generis.  
My Lord, I will not hold you long, for you have a Journey to go. After you have taken your Oath, and your Place in this Court, you are, according to ancient Custom, to Visit all the Offices in the Upper and Lower Exchequer, And therefore let me end with this Wish, or rather Prophesy. That you may exceed all your Predecessors in this Place: The Abilities and Fidelity of the Renowned Lord Burleigh; The Sagacity, Quickness and great Dispatch of his Son the Lord Salisbury; And the Uprightness, Integrity and Wisdom of that great Man that went last before you, the Earl of Southampton.  
FINIS.