Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	church_n	communion_n	perform_v	3,059	5	9.9633	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35138	The catechist catechiz'd: or, Loyalty asserted in vindication of the oath of allegiance, against a new catechism set forth by a father of the Society of Jesus To which is annexed a decree, made by the fathers of the same Society, against the said oath: with animadversions upon it. By Adolphus Brontius, a Roman-Catholick.	Cary, Edward, d. 1711.; England. Parliament.	1681 (1681)	Wing C722; ESTC R222415	68,490	195

to be true in order to be believ'd M. What is a Promisory S. It is to swear a Promise in order to bind our selves to another M. In which of these two Oaths does an Oath of Allegiance consist S. In a promisory as is clear for by a promise alone I bind my Allegiance M. Is the English Oath of Allegiance wholly Promisory S. No the greatest part is meerly speculative and Assertory and therefore no Oath of Allegiance so that the Title ill becomes the whole and seems only put to draw in People M. Set me down the Conditions required for the Lawfulness of an Oath S. They are three Truth Lawfulness of the thing to be sworn and Necessity of swearing M. What do you mean by Truth S. I mean that I must understand the words I swear by and that I must have a moral certainty that the thing is so as I swear it to be which certainty admits no doubt of the thing 's being otherwise M. Is not the probability of a thing 's being so enough for one to swear it S. No for probability leaving a rational doubt whether the thing be so or no I cannot bring God's veracity to witness what I doubt of M. May not I upon a probability of a thing 's being so swear I think it is so S. I may because the Oath is then grounded upon the certainty I have of my Thought tho' never so weak and not upon the probability of the thing M. Pray come to the 2. Requisit what do you mean by the Lawfulness of a thing S. I mean that the thing be neither unlawful in it self as the telling of a lye nor by prohibition as eating Flesh upon Friday M. What do you understand in the third Requisite by Necessity S. I mean that one must not swear lightly but by reason of some Obligation grounded in a vertue as Charity Justice or Obedience M. Of which of these requisites does the Oath of Allegiance fail S. It fails of all It fails of Truth which is the first because many Illiterate Persons do not understand the force of the words and those who understand them have no moral certainty of the truth of the things signifi'd by them It fails of the 2. Requisit that is the Lawfulness of the thing I swear First by reason this Oath obliges me to unlawful Discoveries Secondly by reason it is prohibited by a lawful power and Thirdly by being made a mark of Religion M. What say you to the 3. Requisit which is Necessity S. It appears from the want of the two first requisits For it is so far from the requisit of Necessity as that it is necessary not to take it M. You seem then to hold this Oath cannot be taken without a grievous sin and without Perjury S. It is but what two Popes have declared with several Breves M. What is Perjury S. It is a calling God to witness a falsity M. In what consists it's Malice S. In making God who is Truth it self Witness of an untruth and as it were Perjured he being his own Oath in what he witnesses M. Is Perjury a great sin S. Yes a hainous one and so against Nature as the very Gentiles the Scythians and Aegyptians put the Perjured to Death the Indians cut off their Hands and Feet CHAP. III. Of the Title of the Act. M. WHat is the Title of the Act which orders the tendring the Oath S. It is An Act for the discovering and suppressing Popish Recusants M. What do you infer from this Title S. I infer what is naturally Inferr'd from a Title the intent of the Act which is to discover and suppress Popish Recusants by means of the Oath M. Do you then think the Oath to be intended as a distinctive sign of Popery S. Yes for what ever is ordered to Discover and Suppress Popish Recusants must be intended to distinguish them from others M. Why so Are there not other things enjoin'd by the Act to distingush Recusants as the going to Church to Communion c. which may verify the Title of the Act S. There are but those things discover Dissenters in General who refuse the Protestant Communion and Church no less than Catholicks The Oath of Allegiance is only proper to try Catholiks and therefore chiefly pointed at by the Title M. Have you considered the Preamble in the Act prefixed to the Oath it may perchance alter your Opinion S. I believe not I pray deliver it me M. It runs thus And for the better tryal how his Majestyes Subjects stand Affected in point of Loyalty and due Obedience be it also Enacted c. By which words you see the intent is to distingush Loyal from disloyal Subjects and not what you pretend from the Title of the Act. S. Be it said with your good leave this preamble Confirms the Oath to be not only a distinctive sign to discover a Papist but adds to the Discovery a Penalty the greatest imaginable of making a Papist to be reputed and persecuted as Disloyal and consequently to be suppressed as is designed in the Title M. Is then the Title of the Act fitly and fully apply'd to the Oath since other things are contain'd in the Act S. Yes for a Papist is Discover'd by his Refusal and his refusal of the Oath brings him in Disloyal and exposes him as such to the Laws to be Suppress'd which is the full intention of the Act for so are compleated the two parts of the Title to Discover and Suppress From this you must necessarily infer that this Law which settles Protestant Religion by the words Loyalty and Obedience understands and aims at nothing but a complyance with that Religion M. Can you make this out by another instance contained in the Act and prove that this Oath is intended for a distinction of Religion and not only a distinction of Loyalty S. Yes I can if you allow Communion and going to Church to be a distinctive mark of Religion M. I allow them for such S. If so be pleased to reflect how the same Act does declare that Communion is proposed for a distinctive sign of Loyalty and Obedience and not for a sign of Religion for the Preamble to the ordaining the taking of the Communion is this For the better discovery therefore of such Persons and their evil Affection to the Kings Majesty and the state of the Realm to the end that evil purposes may be better prevented be it Enacted that once in every Year following he receive the Lords Supper M. This is somthing for if the Receiving the Communion be a distinctive sign of Religion although the Preamble might be produced to perswade the contrary and that it is only a distinctive sign of Loyalty so the taking the Oath is clearly a distinctive sign to discover a Papist as the Title does declare though the Preamble alledged seem to bear another intent Nor can I invent a Reason when I compare the two Preambles why this latter Preamble

THE Assembly of your fathers in London their Negotiation there in the month of April 1678. wrought as different impressions in the minds of men as was their affection or disaffection towards them The Roman Catholicks thought them innocent others believed them Criminal some faulted their ill Principles but clear'd them from the ill Effects with which they stood charged But all men admired in that period the great Justice and Wisdom of God who to put an Everlasting Curse upon deposing and murthering Doctrine was pleased to let pass a severity upon some descendents from those Ancestors who by advancing unwarrantable Doctrines had wrought amongst us the disturbance both of Church and State for this was but an Effect of the sowre Grapes their Fathers had eaten At their next assembly Triennial which was at Ghent in the month of July 1681 the world was big with Expectation of some publick Act or deed whereby their whole Province should renounce and disown those fatal Principles the smart of which themselves and others for their sakes had so lately felt and long since the whole Mass of Roman Catholicks from the most Execrable Powder-Plot to this day This 't was thought by many would be the only Salve to all our Soar's would sweeten the Temper of the Government now exasperated and set them and all of us right in the opinion of all good men But alas all our hopes are faded for not only before this last Assembly both Manuscript and printed Libels were dispersed amongst their Confidents against the Oath of Allegiance but even then by common vote of the Consult a Peremptory Decree was made against it antecedent to which an Invective by way of a Catechism was set forth with an artifice fit to impose upon the weak and illiterate The first care of the Catechist is to rack the words of the Oath stretching them beyond all sense or reason so to raise a storm of scruples in the minds of his readers and cast a mist to offuscate the clearest light imaginable What can be more clear or Transparent to the meanest Capacity than the Exordium of this Oath and what can be more unhappily wrested and distorted from it's plain and common sense then it is by this Catechist Take an Essay The Oath begins thus I A. B. do truly and sincerely acknowledge profess testify and declare in my Conscience before God and the World that our Soveraign Lord the King is lawful and rightful King of this Realm and of all other his Majesty's Dominions and Countries Would you imagin he could stick at this yet so it is and the scruple is that by these words the King 's right in lieu of being asserted is brought into Question certainly either he or the Law-makers were strangely out for doubtless their design was to put it out of all Question the reason given is because sayes he To testify and declare as distinct from the other words is to bear Witness and as it were to act the part of a Judge in clearing a thing not so well known and is it not to question the right of a King to call the Subject and swear him a Witness of it Reverend Father I now give you only a Tast of his scruples reserving both this and the rest with their answers until I meet them in their Order and therefore at present shall only put this question to you whether in reason the Oath ought to be refused for such wretched Constructions as this is and what Oath can be devised against which a Thousand such exceptions may not be urg'd His next concern is to fix in the mind of his Disciples a Character of his Loyalty but in Terms so General so Equivocal that the Oath he offers to swear by may be taken the King may be deposed and murthered by the swearer and yet no man perjured His words are bushes in which lurks the Fox of Equivocation let 's beat a bush and try if we can unkennel him In the end of his book The refusers says he of the Oath are ready to swear his Majesty to be their Lawful King Very well but how long shall he be their Lawful King any longer then the Pope will allow him to be so Clearly no For since they refuse to renounce and abjure his deposing Power he is but a precarious King the Pope may depose him as he has attempted upon others he may absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance engaged to him by this Cobweb Oath nay he may by his Breves or Bulls Excommunicate his Subjects in Case they persevere to obey him for this is no new thing in the World and he may also declare all this to proceed from his Spiritual Power of which the Pope if we may credit this Catechist is sole Judge from whom there is no appeal as appears from his Nineth Chapter Is not this to Equivocate and sport with the Crowns and lives of Princes He proceeds in his Mock-Oath thus The refusers are ready to swear they will never teach or follow the Doctrine of deposing What in the name of Wonder is this will they abjure the deposing Doctrine No will they hold against it without an Oath No will they swear to stand by the King and disobey the Pope in case he should by his Breves or Bulls declare that as Vicar of Jesus Christ he absolves the Subjects from their Allegiance and Excommunicates all those who obey the King No For this disobedience to the Popes Breves they have Censured in others and in his Nineth Chapter he declares the Pope to be the Sole and Infallible Judge in the Case What then must be the import of these slippery words they will never teach or follow the Doctrine of deposing or what advantage comes to the King by them But admit the sense be that they swear to stand by the King notwithstanding any Papal deposition though they will not abjure his Power Is it honour or Conscience to swear to disobey the command of a Judge whom they hold with certainty to be infallible Can his Majesty repose any trust in them or can he believe any Oaths binding enough to those who maintain such Doctrines To hold the Pope Infallible and at the same time to swear to disobey his Bulls of deposition deserves neither credit from Pope nor King The last Article of his new Oath is that they are ready to swear that they will discover whatever Conspiracy against his Majesty So far 't is well but when the Pope shall Depose his Majesty then he will be no more his Majesty and so the King will find himself deluded by this Oath And what if after this the Pope shall prohibit this Oath by his Breve to be taken by Roman-Catholicks as undoubtedly he may and will for as the Power of Deposing is Abjur'd by our Oath of Allegiance so is the Exercise of that Power renounced by this new Oath and assuredly the Pope will be as tenacious of the Exercise of his Power

the Catechism and in the Appendix he declares the Pope to be Judge as to the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of an Oath This being so does not the Pope when he commands him to swear the deposing Doctrine to be an Article of faith by such a command declare that Oath to be Lawful for him to take Clearly then to say the Pope in that case is not to be obey'd is to make him judge and no judge as to the Lawfulness of an Oath Finally in his Nineth Chapter has he not declared the Pope to be Soveraign Judge in Spiritualls If then he shall declare it to be an Article of Faith that by vertue of his Spiritual Power he can depose Kings ought not this Catechist believe that power or right to be a Spiritual Right and consequently obey when the Pope shall command him to swear it In his Appendix he tells you no for he has a demonstration against his own Catechism Riddle now my riddle what 's this Infallible and not infallible a Judge and no Judge a Soveraign and no Soveraign how can that be Reverend Father Are these the Mysteries of Christian Doctrine THE DECREE Of the FATHERS of the Society of Jesus of the English Province At their Provincial Congregation made against the Oath of Allegiance at Ghent the Fifth day of July this present Year 1681. WITH Some Animadversions upon it THat we may proceed with uniformity amongst our selves in the manner of acting touching the Oath of Allegiance First Let us all profess that as much Obedience and Fidelity ought to be sincerely sworn and exhibited to our King from every one of us as is wont to be sworn and exhibited to any Princes whatsoever from other Catholick Subjects Secondly That the Oath as now it is sprinkled with many heterodor clauses cannot be taken as being condemned by many Breves of Popes Thirdly If any against the Decrees of Popes have taught the foresaid Oath to be lawful let him not be admitted to Absolution without Publick Recantation either made or sacredly promised Fourthly Those who against their Conscience have taken the Oath let them be deprived of Absolution without manifest signs of Repentance and promise of Amendment for the future But those who with a good Conscience have taken it are to be instructed and if they renounce it are to be absolved Fifthly Let care be taken lest either too much facility or morosity in absolving breed Scandal Exceptions Against The foregoing DECREE AGainst this Consult and the Decrees made by it there are many Exceptions First A few men overvoting the rest of the Consult and locking up with the key of pretended Authority the Understandings of the lesser number of the Consult and of all those who are not in the Consult do Tyrannize over them and oblige them when a question is put whether the Oath be True or False good or evil to answer in the sence of the Consult though their dictamen of Conscience be against it So that a Lay-Person who makes choice of a Confessor out of this Society for his Vertue and Learning and thinks to find an Oracle in him is gull'd For 't is the Consult that swayes by whom this Confessor though otherwise against his conscience must advise and act And therefore when 't is given out that all the Jesuits are against the Oath of Allegiance 't is in truth a great cheat for it may be more than half of them are for it but being over-aw'd by such Consults to whom they have vowed obedience they must either submit be punished or expelled the Order Secondly To determin of an Oath whether it be True or False Lawfull or Un-Lawful by number of votes of such Communities even in their fullest Assembly is to throw Cross or Pile even or odd in the search of Truth For if the votes happen to be odd then the Oath is True or if you will False but if they be even 't is a drawn match and then it must be put to the vote again till an odd one starts up and that must carry it In the framing of Laws for the well governing of such communities 't is confessed the plurality or number of votes must prevail because those Laws have all their force to bind the members of the community from the number of votes But the Truth of an Oath or the Conformity it has to the Law of God is independent from any Votes of the Communities and is Truth it self and known by a rational man such as preachers of the Gospel ought to be not by a Plurality of Votes but by the Laws of God and Reason or by an Authority Infallible so that to put Truth to the vote and act against conscience is unexcusable The first Article of this Decree promiseth much in shew but performs nothing in substance it equivocates with the King and in the end deludes him For when they offer to swear the same Allegiance to him as other Catholick Subjects do to any Princes whatsoever either those Princes are in Communion with the Church of Rome or out of it if they are in communion with the Church of Rome they have no reason to fear the Deposing Power since the men of the Deposing School have taught it only practicable in point of Heresie and Apostacy and therefore out of some reason of state may safely enough omit in their Oath the renouncing of that Power But if those Princes be out of communion with the Church of Rome I know not whether they have felt the smart of the deposing Doctrine sure I am our Princes as Henry the Eighth Queen Elizabeth and King James have run the risque of it both in their Crowns and Lives and consequently their Successours have reason to exact the renouncing of it whilst other Princes may not Besides if other Princes require less of their Subjects than they may must we who are Subjects pay less duty to our Prince than in Justice he requires The second Article is a great errour for after so many challenges never yet could they find the least position against Catholick Faith in this Oath and those who by importunity wrested any Decrees from the Pope suggested unto him as is manifest by their writtings that his Power of Excommunication and Supremacy in Spirituals was taken from him by this Oath so that those Breves were procured by artifice and surprize But admit the Pope had condemned it if that must deterr us from taking it I know no Oath of Allegiance which renounceth either the Pope's power of deposing or the exercise of that power but may by some Pope or other be condemned whilest that Pope asserts his power to Depose Nay the Oath which the Jesuits themselves offer to take may run the same Fate and so no Allegiance must be pay'd to the King but such as the Pope will allow him which may be none at all The third and fourth Article are the vain Attempts of Men without Authority For to frame Decrees for binding