26. Upon the Armies surprisall of the King at Holmby, and the ensuing distractions in the two Houses, the Army, and the City.
W Hat part God will have me now to act or suffer in this new and strange scene of affaires, I am not much solicitous; some little practise will serve that man, who only seeks to represent a part of honesty and honour.
This surprize of me tels the world, that a King cannot be so low, but he is considerable, adding weight to that party where he appears.
This motion, like others of the Times, seems excentrique and irregular, yet not well to be resisted or quieted: Better swim down such a stream, then in vain to strive against it.
These are but the struglings of those twins, which lately one womb enclosed, the younger striving to prevail against the elder; what the Presbyterians have hunted after, the Independents now seek to catch for themselves.
So impossible it is for lines to be drawn from the center, and not to divide from each other, so much the wider, by how much they go farther from the point of union.
That the Builders of Babel should from division fall to confusion, is no wonder; but for those that pretend to build Jerusalem, to divide their tongues and hands, is but an ill Omen; and sounds too like the fury of those Zealots, whose intestine bitterness and divisions were the greatest occasion of the last fatall destruction of that Citie.