WITTY OBSERVATIONS Gathered from our late Sovereign King JAMES in his ordinary Discourse.  
London november .8. 1643  
1. Word's are not the difference of good men and bad, for every man speaks well; therefore how noble thing is Virtue when no man dares profess any thing but it.  
2 I love not one will never be angry; for as he that is without sorrow, is without gladness, so he that is without anger is without love.  
3. There are degrees of men in respect of one another, but in respect of God all are equal; all are to use like duty, like reverence towards him, all are like beggars at God's door.  
4 We are departed no further from the Church of Rome, than they from their first Jesus.  
5 Give me the heart of a man, and out of that all other his deeds shall be acceptable.  
6 In clothes I would have a fashion should choose a man, and not a man a fashion.  
7 It is one of the miseries of a man, that when he is full of days and near his end, that he should love life most.  
8 It hath like operation to make women learned as to make Foxes tame, which teacheth them only to steal more cunningly; the possibility is not equal, for where it doth one good, it doth twenty harm.  
9 Parents may forbid their children an unfit marriage, but they may not force their consents to a fit.  
10 No Country can be called rich wherein there is war; as in the Low Countries there is much money, but the Soldiers have it in pay from the Governor, the Boars have it for victuals of the Soldiers, the Governors have it again in taxes, so there is no centre nor honour.  
11 No man gains by war, but he that hath not wherewithal to live in peace.  
12 God accepts the intent before the deed, for if I do justice because I would be accounted a just King, and not for God's glory, not because I stand answerable to God if I do otherwise; or if I punish a man rightly, but withal satisfy my own malice, both these are abominations. If I give alms only for my reputation sake, this is a wicked deed because there is nullum medium, Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.  
13 No man shall do ill that thinks ere he undertakes what the end will be, not what his passion will have it to be.  
14 Time is the essence of many Laws, so that a King may do well at divers times both in making and abrogating the same Laws.  
15 I desire not to live longer than I am accounted honest, reasonable, of honest and reasonable men: no longer to be a King than I use my power to maintain reason, and not to overthrow it.  
16 I should think it a sign that God leaves me not if I should kill a man by chance, I would most unwillingly do that ill that lieth not in my power to mend.  
17 I do not think the greatest Clerks, nearest heaven, much of their knowledge is superfluous: for Bellarmine makes 400. Questions of Faith, and not ten of which toucheth our salvation to understand.  
18 Many have attempted to make glass malleable, and so gold artificial, but both in vain; for God doth ever cross the invention of man, lest he should rejoice in his own works.  
19 The persons of all men are like equal to us, and our hate or love should only go according to their virtues or vices, these bonds of kindred should only command us in all civil duties, but not our judgements; and particular injuries should only make us hate that particular deed, but not the doer in general.  
20 Men of high understandings as they do many things above the common stream, so they fall often into into greater errors than those of mean capacity, which in all their actions will rather do nothing faulty than any thing extraordinary, being of a temper better mixed then the former.  
21 The Devil always avoids the mean, and waits upon the extremities; so he hath sought to divide betwixt Atheism and superstition.  
22 All extremities come round to one end, the simple obedience of the Papists, and the no obedience of the Puritan: the one breeds confusion, the other ignorance and security.  
23 The end of the Law is to punish sin when it is committed, but to keep it from being committed it cannot as the Pope who thinks by allowing fornication, to avoid adultery.  
24 I will not reward any in matter of justice, for that is not mine, but Gods, and the peoples.  
25. The wisdom of a King is known in the election of his Officers, as in places which requires a peculiar sufficiency, not to choose them whom he affects most, but to use every man according to his proper fitness.  
26 Virtue is easier than vice; for the essential difference betwixt vice and virtue is truth and falsehood; and it is easier and less pains to tell truth then lie. As for vices in the senses, custom is all in all: for to one that hath lived honestly its as much pains to commit sin, as for another to abstain.  
27 It is likely that the people will imitate the King in good, but it is sure they will follow him in ill.  
28 I have been often deceived, yet will I never leave to trust, neither shall the falsehood of some make me think there is none honest.  
29 All that ever write of Christ said he was an honest man, they had so much natural sight as to see his civil goodness; but they wanted the supernatural to see and perceive his Godhead.  
30 The same sentence with divers relations may be both holy and devilish.  
31 I wonder not so much that women paint themselves, as that when they are painted men can love them.  
32 Of all the number of men that have been slain in war, not the tenth part have been fight, but flying.  
33 Parsons errs in their resolutions in making the difficulty of our salvation, so lie in the hardness to find God's mercy, when indeed it consists in the right seeking of it, for the other is sure.  
34 God hath distributed his benefits so equal, that there is no country which excels not all other in some thing, so that as it borrows, so it dareth: so in men, there is none excelleth so in one thing, but he had need of another's wit in some other: from these two proceeds all traffic and society.  
35 The art of Physicians is very imperfect, for I doubt not but for every disease there is in nature several simples if they could find it out: So that their compounds do rather show their ignorance, than their knowledge.  
36 The Devil where he cannot have the whole, seeks ever to get one part of the soul, either the will or the understanding which he may come easiest by; as in Protestants the will, in Papists the understanding: a learned Papist, and an ignorant of two Religions.  
37 The Papists religion is like Homer's Iliads of the siege of Troy, or Virgil's Aeneides of the beginning of Rome, both of them had a foundation of truth; so had the Papist the Bible, but they have all added so much that the first truth is almost lost.  
38 God never fails of his word but where he threatens ill to man, as in the punishing to Niniveh; but always performs where he promiseth good, that, or better as he promised to Abraham, and his seed everlasting, earthly blessedness, and instead of that gives them heavenly.  
39 Not only the deliverance of the Jews till they came into the Land of Promise, but even their daily preservation was miraculous: for there was never any noted plague in Jerusalem, though it stood in an hot climate, which had it been would endangered the whole Nation, it being to assemble thither every year of necessity.  
40 Men are often in arguing carried by the force of words further asunder than their questions was at first, like to Ships going out of the same Haven, their journey's end is many times whole countries' distant.  
41 Cowardice is the mother of cruelty, it was only fear that made Tyrants put so many to death to secure themselves.  
42 The fashion of the Romans of killing themselves, was falsely called fortitude, for it was only to prevent the power of Fortune when indeed Virtue lveth quiet out of her reach. Nor can any man be overcome but of himself, and so most truly were they when they fled to death for a refuge against death.  
43 It's easier to reclaim a man from heresy then to convert an Atheist to the truth, for to believe is the first degree common to Religion, and an Atheist is to be brought so far before he come to choosing.  
44 All Gods miracles are above nature, but never against nature, for that were to destroy his own work which he cannot do; but he may excel it: therefore the miracles of the Papists Transubstantiation being against nature itself.  
45 Types are the image of the mind which God allowed the Jews to keep them from images of the Senate, and to show that his worship was to be in spirit and truth.  
46 The Church of Rome fell at first from her purity into infirmity, then into corruption, then into errors, then into heresies, and lastly into abominations: God still punishing sin with sin.  
47 Most heresies have proceeded from mingling Philosophy with Religion, from that and policy have all the Papists errors risen, when Christ tells them that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven.  
48 We cannot conceive extremity but by faith, we cannot understand what God is, and of that ignorance comes all sin; for surely if we knew him we could not offend him.  
49 Men as often fall out about small things as great, because after the first contradiction they maintain themselves not the thing.  
50 Before Christ came it was enough for the Fathers to believe only, since they must believe and understand both.  
51 Those Princes which think to secure themselves by blood, shall find that the more they kill, the more ever they have need to kill.  
52 The Church is to be believed in the interpretation of Scripture but not directly against it; for where it differs from that, it is no longer the Church.  
53 There are three kinds of wisdoms that use to be in Kings, a sanctified wisdom; a politic wisdom, which often strains itself to a less evil so to avoid a greater; and a wisdom of falsehood: The first is both lawful and necessary; the second is lawful but not necessary, the third is neither.  
54 All governments is severed in their constitutions, in their practice tend to a Monarchy, and wheresoever the better sort bear rule there is always some one that resembleth a King amongst them. Yea though in the State of Venice the Duke is as it were a dead man, yet were it impossible that their Commonwealth should long uphold itself without him.  
55 The preservation of the Bible is miraculous, that it should remain pure after it had passed the hands of Infidels which sought to destroy it, of Heretics which sought to pervert it to their own advantage.  
56 No indifferent gesture is so seldom done without-sin and laughter, for its commonly raised upon things to be pitied, therefore man only can laugh, and he only can sin.  
57 God made one part of man of earth, the basest element to teach him humility; his soul proceeded from the bosom of Himself, to teach him goodness; so that if he looks downward nothing is viler, if he cast his eyes to heaven he is of a matter more excellent than Angels, the former part was a type of Adam, the second of Christ, which gives life to that which was dead in itself.  
58 Much money makes a Country poor, for it sets a dear price upon every thing.  
59 At what time the Gospel did flourish, all kind of learning did ever abound; and upon the decay thereof there came always a vail of darkness upon the face of the earth; the reason is a part of Religion, but error and superstition is safer by the ignorance.  
60 A lie of error is a fault of credulity, not of falsehood; but a presumptuous lie is that which a man makes, as God made the world of nothing.   

This is Licenced and entered according to Order.  
FINIS.