The New Jerusalem

all of which, and more besides, Your Excellency has been content to forsake for the Name of the Lord. And therefore the blessing-rich God has, according to His promise, given back to Your Excellency a hundredfold for everything: from an outcast, He has made Your Excellency an accepted one; from an Exile: a person driven from their home for political or religious reasons, a true citizen; from a stranger, a Mother in Israel: a biblical honorific from the Book of Judges, referring to a woman who provides leadership and protection to her people, the consort of such an Illustrious Head, of such a widely-famed Prince, the Father of our Fatherland: a title of high honor, usually referring to William of Orange, but here applied to the Stadtholder to emphasize his role as protector of the nation; And thus Your Excellency’s sorrow is changed into joy, your humiliation into exaltation, your misfortune into the greatest fortune: this has been done by the Lord, and it is a wonder before our eyes, He who knows how to draw sweetness out of bitterness, and light out of darkness.

So it is that Your Excellency may say with David; You have snatched my Soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from slipping: which Your Excellency Christianly acknowledges, as Your Excellency asks in her Motto: a short phrase chosen to represent the guiding principles of a person or noble house, What shall I render unto the Lord? original Latin: "Quid reddam Domino?" — a quote from Psalm 116:12 How shall I repay the Lord for all His benefits that He does for me? The answer there