Then Israel's monarch after Heaven's own heart,.
His vigorous warmth did variously impart.
To wives and slaves; and, wide as his command,.
Scattered his Maker's image through the land (1-10).
The association between God and David is made through the clever comparison of divine and human fertility. There is some irony in seeing God's abundant creation reflected in the king's sexual extravagances, but the irony doesn't reduce the status of the king. It serves, at the beginning of the poem, to separate the person of the king from the office of the king, the common man from the man the country expects him to be. As a public figure, the king, as "Godhead's images" (792) is expected to uphold standards higher than the faceless, nameless mob. .
With higher standards expected of him, even things out of the king's control, such as growing older, are magnified. In addition to polygamy and adultery, Charles II is literally running out of time to produce an heir, and thus, produce a solution to continuing his once triumphant reign. Achitophel, the scheming thorn in Charles II's side, describes Charles II as a "has-been". He tells Absalom when trying to convince Absalom of his right to the kingship, "Let [David's] successful youth your hopes engage; / But shun the example of declining age (266-7)". Here, Achitophel draws upon the naturally occurring pitfalls of human nature- growing old, and growing impotent. Dryden must acknowledge the inadequacies whispered about the king in order to give a more objective and thorough view. However, he must do so in such a way that he can at once retain his validity and rhetorical potency while keeping his common and royal readers happy.
Dryden further strengthens his support of the divine right of kings through his portrayals of the inconsistent common man. He describes a commonwealth as "infected with public lunacy" (788), fickle and unreliable. By describing the mob in the imagery of nature, Dryden is not undermining his jab at the common man but strengthening it.