Castigatio Temporum OR A short View and Reprehension Of the ERROURS and ENORMITIES Of the TIMES BOTH In Church and State And what is the most probable Means to cure the Distempers in either Printed at London in the Year 1660. To the READER REader It is more then time for Principlis obstes sero Medicina paratur That thou and I should at last look to our Duties whenas Mankind especially in these Northern Regions are become so faithless and make such haste into forbidden wickedness that not only in Faith and Religion nothing is esteemed which is not New but in Morality also those Noblest Vertues of Justice and Obedience are persecuted as Vices and their Contraries have the Reward which is due to Vertue set upon them A short View and Castigation of the Publique Vices of the Times DOubtless it is a miserable Slavery where the Law is wandering or uncertain Misera servitus ubi Jus est vagum aut incognitum If then it be a miserable slavery where the Law is wandring and uncertain it must be there a more miserable slavery where the Supreme Power from whence all Law is derived is wandering and uncertain for there what can men trust to What security can any man have in his Life or Estate when it is not known where he shall expect it What Meum or Tuum can there be where no man can tell from whence to derive it And if it be true as it is That Justice comprehends in it self all Vertues Justitia in sese Virtutes continet omnes what man can there be just vertuous or honest where he knows not to what to conform his Actions In the beginning of our Distractions whenas Liberty and Priviledge were opposed to Prerogative they who asserted Liberty and Priviledge though then understood and called by one name viz. Parliament yet were compounded of two different Bodies that is two Houses one of Lords another of Commons those called themselves the Kings hereditary Council these the Representative Body of the Kingdom And these two strengthned by their Liberty and Priviledge and aided by their Brethren the Scots drive poor Prerogative out of all to the utter extirpation of it But because all power is incompatible and this power in two and therefore not possible long to consist the Representative Body (a) 6 Febr. 1648. turns the Hereditary Council out of doors and seizes and rifles all Records and Papers in a moment which they had been above eight years a doing And then they say the Supreme Power of the Nation is reduced to the prime and original Fountain viz. the People and by the People to them So that a small part of the House of Commons for above one half were dead or turned out of doors for adhering to the King and the Army turn'd out at one time eleven of them that were left and above one (b) 6 August 1647. half were imprisoned by the lesser part and the Army which intire and whole was not so much as a Court of Judicature but to some things amongst themselves nor had power to take any mans examination ascribe to themselves the Supreme power of the Nation and play such reaks as they became intolerable even to their own creatures who do by them as they had done by the poor Prerogative creatures the Lords (c) 20 April 1653. And then comes I Oliver Captain General of all the Porces of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland by the advice of my Officers of the Army c. And he himself Taxes and makes Laws But this Scoene is soon altered for the General as he is called summons (d) 4 July 1653. divers men from several parts to White-hall and if you believe Politicus leaning upon a bay window devolves to them the Sureme power of the Nation These are called Parliament too give the General White-hall but no damage to any of them not any of them parted with any thing by this Gift They make a Law too for Marriage by a Justice of Peace and to hang men by a Law a Posteriori that is a Law made after the Fact is committed as you see in their Law for hanging the Saylors It is not hard to finde this Act of Parliament for these did not I think make many more besides these three They say this pitiful thing could not agree in it self nor bear the burthen of the Nation upon their shoulders and therefore (e) 12 Decem. 1653. they return the General all his power again and so the General is as he was and they may go home again and look to their Cattle And then December 16. 1653. the General is sworn Lord Protector and swears to an Instrument of God knows whose making by which the Supreme power of this Nation is in one person and the free-born people of the Nation Sept. 3. 1654. the Protector summons another Parliament as he calls it but with no better success then the former All this while Taxes are imposed distrained for and levied without consent of Parliament Why what is become of the Rights and Priviledges of the English Nation Sure there is no such thing as Magna Charta or the Statute De Tallagio non concedendo But after that the Protector got another company of men 1657. who called themselves Parliament these made or renewed him Protector and gave him power to name his Successor and if you would have believed ita vertere seria ludo at next sitting we should have had the Other House and every secluded Member that should swear as he ought should have power to sit in this House And yet was the condition of this poor Nation as perplexed as ever before The Parliament hath given power to the Protector to nominate his Successor and the Instrument hath given it to the Council and who shall judge between these two What is the power of the Instrument What the power of the Protector What the power of Parliament What is a Parliament VVhich of these is Supreme To whom shall any man make his obedience And to what purpose should the rest of the Members be allowed to sit and another House made when these onely who are now admitted with the Protector can make Laws without them VVhether is the Protector obliged to observe the Instrument or the Humble Petition and Advice having sworn to both Nor would the Protector suffer this Parliament to sit after this expectation so long as to pass one Act conjunctly with the Other House Since Sept. 3. 1658. Death made another alteration by taking away the Protector Oliver by the Grace of God c. and they say that he designed his Son Richard his Successor who did swear they say to protect and govern this free-born people according to the Laws but what the Laws are no man can tell where the Legislator is not certainly known It is a question whether this Protector shall be Richard the First or Second or whether he be by the
Grace of God or not claiming all his Right from the Petition and Advice and his Fathers Nomination But all the World runs a madding still and is constant in nothing but Inconstancie and this poor Nation in all these changes findes nothing tending to her cure The Protector calls a company of men together (f) Jan. 27. 1658. viz. this House and the Other House and although he claims all his Right from the Petition and Advice as the chief Corner-stone yet was this House that made the Petition and Advice in election and constitution nothing like this House who then assumed to themselves the Supreme Authority of this Nation These men in this House not onely disallow those men who framed the Petition and Advice as no Free Parliament but having themselves but an entrusted power against all Rules of Law and Reason participate and communicate this their power to Irish and Scotish Members whereas Delegata potestas non potest participari And because they will not be less kind-hearted to the Tother House then their Scotish and Irish Members they for convenience will transact with the Members now sitting in the Other House as another House of Parliament But whether the Other House shall be Superiour Equal or Inferiour to this may be a great Question If Superiour to this then cannot this be the Supreme Authority of this Nation nay then cannot they be made and created by this House for no created Thing can be superior to its Maker and Creator If Equal then cannot it be the Other House but a part or relative to this which must needs be a breach of the Trust of this House nor shall ever the free-born people of this Nation need to elect Members to this House if this House can make Members of their own Scotish and Irish and another House of like Authority with themselves If the Other House be Inferiour to this then are the Lords and alwayes-received Upper-House of Parliament inferiour and subject to the Lower House and House of Commons the cheapest thing in the reckoning It is a strange thing to consider what a frenzie and madness this Nation is fallen into since 1641. when under a gratious and known Soveraign and received and known Laws the greatest blessings in the ordinary nature of things God can give a Nation not onely esteeming Liberty in the multiplicity of Laws and uncertain Governours (g) As if it were intolerable to obey one known Soveraign and known Laws and yet an casie thing to be inslaved to the arbitrary wills and lusts of many men who by no Right tyrannize over us but by their wilful rejecting their known Prince and Laws they labour under all those Miseries and Calamities which are incident to Confusion and yet think there is no way to peace but the contrary extreme If any man before these times should have named but the bringing in of Excise the most tolerable of Taxes we now groan under I am confident he would have been pulled in pieces by the Multitude And after all these publique Impositions and Taxes since 1641. which I am confident are twenty times more then all the Taxes in five hundred years under our Kings and the sale of the Crown and Church Lands the one the greatest Ornament of our Nation the other of our Church there is now a greater publick Debt upon this Nation then all the Texes imposed by or given to the Kings of England these hundred years will satisfie though not above two years ago a constant Salary was constituted sufficient to defray the charge of the Army and Navy They were wont to cry out of and to fear Arbitrary power whenas they felt it not or suffered under it what but Arbitrary power hath destroyed all the known Laws and Liberties of this Church and Nation What but an Arbitrary power has brought us into such a condition that we know not what is Just and Legal and what is not And if it be a miserable slavery where the Law is wandring and uncertain what a miserable slavery are we fallen into whereas Incertainty is the onely Certainty of our Condition and Perjury the least of our Crimes At first men protested to be true to the King and the Protestant Religion as it was established after they covenanted to be true and faithful to the King in order to the Solemn League and Covenant then engaged to be true to a Government without King or House of Lords but that not being consistent with the late Protectors greatness was repealed by a Parliament so called of his own making then the Protector and his creatures swear to an Instrument of their own making but this continued no longer then the Parliament so called which made the Petition and Advice and they made a new oath to be taken by the Protector his Council and all who shall sit in Parliament or bear Office in the Commonwealth I do wonder which of the Members in any of these last Parliaments after they came into the House ever regarded what he had sworn at the Door as if the being a Member had been sufficient priviledge against perjury and let any sober Christian lay his hand upon his heart and consider whether here has not been swearing and forswearing sufficient to swear all Religion of an Oath as well as Truth and Integrity quite out of doors for ever and what Conversation Truth Integrity or Ingenuity can be expected from those men in ordinary things who in things of highest concernment have so often violated and falsified their Faith Troth and Oathes But miserable sure is it with those men whose ills cannot be safe without attempting greater To all our antecedent Distractions and Confusions is yet added another of the Officers of the Army and where it will end God onely knows These men they say pretending great dangers and fears to the Saints get leave of the Protector to assemble and advise for safety and redress where after fasting and long Prayer they promulge a Petition to the Protector testifying their great care of him the Parliament and conservation of his glorious Fathers renowned Memory but it is a peculiar mark of godliness especially after a Fast with these Saints that men never understand their meaning by any thing they say the Protectors Father of renowned Memory next after old Satan the common Father of them all was most excellent at it for the word was scarce cold in their mouths whenas they not onely dissolve the Parliament but use the Protector just with that Veneration and Observance that his glorious Father of renowned Memory did the King at Hampton-Court and Carisbrook-Castle Where are all the Hails now of your Highnesses most obedient Soldiers and Subjects to live and die with your Highness in the preservation of the Rights Civil and Religious of this Nation Who gave or by what Birth-right do these Officers do these things Why may not the Under-Officers do by them as they have done by the Parliament and Protector and
of a full and free Parliament or that the Secluded Members might be admitted to sit againe After he arrived at London the first service these worthy Patriots put him upon was to make War upon the City Gates and Portcullices a thing as ill relishing the greatness of his spirit and undertakings as hateful and ridiculous to men in general the baseness of which Action together with the Reasons alledged by the Secluded Members it may be was the cause of their re-admission and Session Upon the 16 of this Month of March this many Tailed and many Headed thing although they by a most unparallel'd fact among them had cut off their Head called Parliament which had in so many shapes acted Tragedies the greatest part of 20 years was dissolved having against all Law and Justice not only been the ruine almost of infinite Families of all sorts of men and not only caused the Fields of the three Nations to run with more streams of humane bloud then ever was before mentioned by any story of the Nations in many years but also erected new and unheard-of Courts after the War was done to ensnare and take away mens lives having not only taxed the Subject fourty times more then all the Kings of this Nation have done in 500 years before but also embezel'd and sold all the Publick Revenues both of Church and Crown and yet left a greater Debt upon the Nation then all the Parliaments except the Sacrilegious gift of Church-Lands have given to the Kings of this Nation these 400 years having made the honour of the English Nation vile and contemptible to all Nations abroad having not only lost all faith at home but kept none abroad whereby the Publick Trade and Traffick of this Nation is interrupted and lost and yet have left above 50000 armed men besides the ordinary Militia to be maintained by the Nations yet as an Epicedium to manifest their Saintships to the world and how ill the Cavaliers have deserved because guilty of none of these things they not only exclude them but their posterity from being elegible in what they call this next Parliament Since it is impossible that any differences can be composed What are the most probable means to cure the distractions in the State where men will not submit to some certain and known rule to which the men differing ought indifferently to submit themselves and since all Factions have plaid reaks at the Helm and Imperiously without all Title or President not only arrogantly dominered over one another but also the rest of their fellow-Subjects and since the forsaking our known Governours to whom by all Laws of God and man we did ow our obedience and those known Laws which should be the Rule of the Subjects actions and put a period to their differences hath been the cause of all our civil distractions and since there is no other probable means under heaven to cure our distractions and compose our differences but by returning to our known Governours and Laws then at last let men lay a side all further animosities take hold of those means which may save the Ship of this Commonwealth before it utterly sinks to the Publick ruine of the Inhabitants But how the wounds of this distracted Nation may be so healed and the breaches so cemented that though all be sufferers yet the Nation redeemed will doubtless require the wisdom of a Full and Free Parliament duly constituted by whose judgement all the differences and civil distractions of the Nation ought to be determined and decided Qui molitur insidias in Patriam id facit quod infaelix Nauta perforans navem in qua ipse vehitur Let us see whether as the case now stands with us the condition of this Nation be any better in Religion then Government Credere Deum esse non est articulus fidei To believe there is a God is an Article of no mans Faith nor is that act Religion to worship serve God with which every individual man frames and purposes to himself as useful and expedient for him to do yet indeed it is very requisite that every man should every day with his private worship and service implore Gods preventing and assisting grace all the day after because no man or men can tell another man what he wants and to what sin by nature he is evilly prone to so well as himself for then all men who worship one God were of one Religion and of one Faith Let us therefore see what is Faith what Religion Who an Atheist and what Atheism Faith is an act of Beliefe in God as he hath revealed himself to mankind extraordinarily What is Faith and so as by nature no man could possibly without Gods grace attain to the knowledge or belief of it It was therefore an act of faith in the Children of Israel to believe in God as he had revealed himself to Abraham Isaac and Israel to the evidence of which no man inspired with all the knowledge and learning of Pythagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle and all other Philosophers could possibly by those helps onely attain and to believe in God as known to them and their Fathers by the name of Jehovah was an Article of Jewish Faith and to believe in God the Father as he hath revealed himself to mankind in his Son Jesus Christ God and Man is the sum of Christian faith and by doing in this faith ought every Christian man to seek out his Salvation with fear and trembling By Religion What Religion all men generally Christians Jewes Mahometans and Infidels who though misplacing the Deity in the Creatures as the Sun or Moon an Oak Apollo c. understand the restraining or binding men to the Publick worship and service of God in such an unity form and communion And so zealous were the Druides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nicias Orat Thuc. l. 7. in their Rites and Forms that none but their Priests and Scholars might learn them nor would they commit them to Letters both because they would not have them divulged lest they should grow contemptible by being exposed to the view of the rude and ignorant multitude and because their Scholars might the better retain and keep them in their memory Selden annal Anglobr l. c. 4 Cesar li. 6. de bell Gall. Camb Br. p. 13.14 If then Religion be the binding men to worship God in such a form c. let us see what makes and alters forms Forma rerum sicut numeri according to Aristotle consistunt in indivisibili Tho forms of things as numbers do consist indivisibly or integrally for as in numbers if you add to alter or diminish ought from any number it ceases to be the number it was before so in forms if you add diminish or alter ought it ceases to be the form it was before therefore St. Paul exhorts 1 Tim. 2. That first of all because there can be no Religion without it prayers and supplications