O My soule, commit thy way to the Lord, trust in him, and he shall bring it to passe.

But if thou wilt not restore Me and Mine, what am I that I should charge thee foolishly?

Thou O Lord hast given, and thou hast taken, blessed be thy name.

May My people and thy Church be happy, if not by Me, yet without Me.

XXVI. UPON THE ARMIES SURPRISALL OF THE KING AT HOLDENBY, AND THE ENSUING DISTRACTIONS IN THE TWO HOUSES, THE ARMY, AND THE CITY.

WHAT 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 practice will serve that man, who onely seeks to represent a part of honesty and honour.

This surprize of Me tells the world, that a KING cannot be so low, but he is considerable ; adding weight to that party where he appeares.

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 prevaile against the elder; what the Presbyterians have hunted after, the Independents now seek to catch for themselves.

So impossible is it 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 divi

sion 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 bitternesse and divisions were the greatest occasion of the last fatall destruction of that city.

Well may I change My keepers and prison, but not My captive condition, onely with this hope of bettering, that those who are so much professed patrons for the peoples liberties, cannot be utterly against the liberty of their KING; what they demand for their owne consciences, they cannot in reason deny to Mine.

In this they seem more ingenuous, then the Presbyterian rigour, who, sometimes complaining of exacting their conformity to lawes, are become the greatest exactors of other mens submission to their novell injunctions, before they are stamped with the authority of lawes, which they cannot well have without My consent.

'Tis a great argument, that the Independents think themselves manumitted from their rivals service, in that they carry on a businesse of such consequence, as the assuming My person into. the armies custody, without any commission,

but that of their owne will and power. Such as will thus adventure on a King, must not be thought over-modest, or timerous to carry on any designe they have a mind to.

Their next motion menaces, and scares both the two Houses and the city: which soone after, acting over again that former part of tumultuary motions, (never questioned, punished, or repented) must now suffer for both; and see their former sinne in the glasse of the present terrours and distractions.

No man is so blind as not to see herein the hand of divine justice; they that by tumults first occasioned the raising of armies, must now be chastened by their owne army for new tumults.

So hardly can men be content with one sinne, but adde sinne to sinne, till the latter punish the former; such as were content to see Me and many members of both Houses driven away by the first unsuppressed tumults, are now forced to flie to an army, or defend themselves against them.

But who can unfold the riddle of some mens justice? the members of both Houses who at first withdrew, (as My selfe was forced to doe)

from the rudenesse of the tumults, were counted desertors, and outed of their places in Parliament; such as stayed then, and enjoyed the benefit of the tumults, were asserted for the onely Parliament-men: now the fliers from, and forsakers of their places, carry the parliamentary power along with them; complaine highly against the tumults, and vindicate themselves by an army: such as remained and kept their stations, are looked upon as abettors of tumultuary insolences, and betrayers of the freedome and honour of Parliament.

Thus is power above all rule, order, and lawe; where men look more to present advantages then their consciences, and the unchangeable rules of justice; while they are judges of others, they are forced to condemn themselves.

Now the plea against tumults holds good, the authours and abbettors of them are guilty of prodigious insolencies; when as before, they were counted as friends and necessary assistants.

I see vengeance pursues and overtakes (as the mice and rats are said to have done a bishop in Germany) them that thought to have escaped