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A78273
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The case of the Vniversity of Oxford: or, The sad dilemma that all the members thereof are put to, either to be perjur'd, or destroy'd. In a letter sent from thence to Mr Selden, Burgesse of the University.
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1648
(1648)
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Wing C1173; Thomason E443_19; Thomason E673_21; ESTC R204731
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5,571
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8
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THE CASE OF THE VNIVERSITY OF OXFORD OR The sad Dilemma that all the Members thereof are put to either to be perjur'd or destroy'd Jn a Letter sent from thence to Mr SELDEN Burgesse of the Vniversity ACADEMIA OXONIENSIS SAPIENTIA ET FELICITATE Printed in the Yeare 1648. SIR THe case of the Vniversity of Oxford is by the diligence and dexterity of those men who were sent downe by the two Houses to visit brought to a very short issue and in that present posture I can now without giving you any long divertisement or such which is unsuteable to your employments offer you a cleare and distinct view of it so far as may render that whole Body whom you in the House of Commons doe represent the object of your kindnes and compassion and then onely aske you this farther question Whether the destruction that now hath made its approach so neere to us the Axe which is now laid so close to the root of the Tree and is already falne a hewing may by no reason or remorse be averted or removed from us The onely question which is by these men propos'd to every single person in the Vniversity is Whether we wil submit to their Visitation or to the power of Parliament as they call it in this Visitation That without the Personall Consent of the King to this Commission as far as it respects the Vniversity in General and us as members thereof we cannot now submit to any Visitation without incurring the guilt of manifold perjuries In reference to our Vniversity Oathes we have long since given an Account by way of Plea to these men That our particular Locall or Collegiate Statutes which define us particular Visitors in our particular Colledges bind us under the same most evident Perjury to submit to no other Visitation but that which the Statutes of each have defined hath been also the Plea of the Heads of our Colledges in the name of their severall societies And for this and nothing but this that is in plaine words because they have with all civility to the two Houses and to the persons sent by them refused to incur that damning sin of Perjury which hath already helpt to bring such heavy judgements upon this Nation the Governours of the University are displaced and some imprison'd and Master Reynolds a Visitor put into the office of Vice-chancellour and into the Deanary of Christ-church two places of the greatest dignity and power one of the greatest profit in the Vniversity And in like manner the Heads of the Colledges and the Prebendaries of Christ-church have many of them already falne under the same punishments and the rest expect their turnes and severall of the Visitors also are put into their places And now the slaughter hastens to the doore of every of the ancientest or youngest Student Fellow Scholar Commoner or other member of the whole Vniversity the speed is so great the pursuit so vehement that foure whole Colledges have been in one day summoned to appeare before them without any delay to give positive Answer to this one Question Whether they will submit or no. By this 't is apparent to us that as the state of things now stands we have an easie though unhappy choice proposed to us viz. Whether we will prefer the preservation of our Estates or of our Soules by admitting perjury or ruine And in the making of the choice God hath given the whole University such an uniforme constancy and contempt of the world that we heare not of above three men that have considered their profit so much as to yeeld this submission And that it may be also apparent to all others that this is the choice I shall give you the plaine words of our Oaths by which we are withheld from submitting that the Honourable houses may judge if they please whether it be probable that Conscience hath by us been hypocritically pretended to destroy our selves as it hath sometimes been made use of by others for their visible advantages This I shall set down first as far as our obligation is founded in our Oathes to the University and then to our severall Colledges The Oath of the University to every man is this Tu jurabis te observaturum omnia Statuta libertates Privilegia Consuetudines istius Vniversitatis Thou shalt Swear to observe all the Statutes Liberties Priviledges and customes of this Vniversity The Schollar answers Juro I Swear and this he renews and repeats as often as he takes any degree in the University From hence we conclude that for any man wilfully to betray any one of the Priviledges or Liberties as well as to break the Statutes or Customes of the Vniversity can never be excused from the guilt and charge of down-right Perjury for which we must be banished the University if ever we be called to account for it by any just power And that one of our Priviledges is that we be Visited by none but the King or those that are sent by Him as we are verily perswaded so have we never heard of any other title or pretension of any which is thought even by our enemies to have any shew of Ground in our Charters or Customes against our Plea save onely that of the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Metropolitan to which our Answer is so cleare and punctuall viz. that in the vacancy of the Arch-bishops Sea all power that can be thought to belong to him must needs be acknowledged to divolve to the King the fountain of his power and so the Arch-Bishop having been long dead this power of Visiting us if any such belong to the Arch-Bishop must now needs be onely in the King that we professe never to have heard of any word of satisfaction that hath been offered to this enforcement of our Plea but are rather told that the Commission for this Visitation comming under the name of our Soveraigne Lord Charles c. is a Commission issued out by the King which as it seems to us an acknowledgement of the truth of all our pretensions so is it the imposing upon us the beliefe of that which we know to be otherwise having certaine knowledge that the King never consented to the issuing of this Commission and so having no excuse of ignorance in case we should yeeld submission to that Visitation as proceeding from him which is acknowledged by all to involve us in Perjury if it come not from him To this we may adde one obligation more that as 't is one of the Vniversities Priviledges to be exempt without all controversie as long as the Arch-Bishops Sea is vacant from all power but that of the King so 't is one of the Kings Priviledges and preheminencies to have this full and at this time sole power over us And then that branch of the Oath of Supremacie that obligeth all Subjects in these expresse words to assist and defend to our power all Priviledges and Preeminencies and Authorities granted and belonging to the Kings
Majesty or annexed to the Imperiall Crowne of this Kingdome doth certainly bind us to defend this as far as it is in our power to doe it For the obligations of Colledge-Statutes which name us particular Visitors and exclude all others from that employment I shall shorten your trouble and yet not faile in giving you and all men a perfect satisfaction by setting down a few plain words out of some of them In the Statutes of New Coll Magdalen Coll Corpus Christi and St. Johns in each of these without any considerable alteration these are the words Statuimus ordinamus volumus ut liceat D no Episc Winton Dioc qui pro tempore fuerit nulli alii nec aliis c. per se vel suum Commissarium specialem quem duxerit deputandum praeterquam per Cancellarium Vniversitatis seu ejus Commissarium generalem seu procuratores Vnivers oxon c. ac praeterquam Custodem aut aliquam personam nostri Collegii aut alios quoscunque in Vniversitate per unam quindenam anno proximo cum visitationem praecedente Studentes c. per quos aut ipsorum aliquem haec nolumus quomodolibet exerceri ad Collegii hujus visitationem liberè accederè Custodem ac alios singulos socios c. nostri Collegii in Sacellum ejusdem convocare From whence these few things are distinctly concluded by the Statutes of those Colledges 1. That the Bishop of Winchester by himself or some body deputed by him is the onely lawfull Visitour of those Colledges and all other person or persons in direct words nec alii nec aliis praeterea nemini are excluded by the Statutes 2. That it is not lawfull for the Bishop himself to depute any of those persons which are there excepted viz. the Chancellour or Vice-chancellour or Proctours of the Vniversity the Warden or President or any person of the said Colledges or any Student in the Vniversity that hath been commorant there fifteen daies in the year preceding the Visitation by which exception all those men which have lately been the onely actors in this businesse having now resided 't is to be supposed studied here for some time and now one nam'd and by them reputed to be Vice-chancellour others to be Governours of particular Colledges are made utterly uncapable of that employment I shall not need to mention any more it being cleer that these men are not deputed by that Bishop and as cleer that if they were deputed by him they are not qualified according to the Statutes but expresly excluded by them Now what is thus ordained by those statutes every member admitted into those Colledges is by Oath obliged to observe and not only involved in perjury if he do not but where other penalties are not named as in this matter there are not is liable to the pain of perjury that is deprivation of all benefits of his Colledge which is now become the punishment of none but those who will observe them Besides these Oaths which particularly and directly looke to the grand matter of the Visitation There be many other branches of our Oathes Academicall and Collegiate which are most neerly concerned in the present transactions The Statutes of the Vniversity to the observing of which our Oaths distinctly bind us prescribe the manner of Election of Proctours of calling and meeting in Convocations c. And therefore whensoever Proctours have bin removed by the KING the Vniversity-statutes have taken place in appointing the Successours and those as the Vice-chancellour also are obliged to take Oaths for the discharge of their places according to statute But all is now done directly contrary to all this And therefore herein no sworn member of the Vniversity can think fit without professing despight to Conscience or reputation to joyne with them And so in particular Colledges the Statutes are punctuall that after the departure or a motion of any Governour the Fellowes must proceed within such a time to the election of a new and he and none but he shall be reputed Warden President c. who shall be chosen by a major part of the Electours And then he that is chosen must take severall Oathes particularly to govern according to Statute before any of the muniments of the Colledge may be delivered up to him or before he enter upon the Government to act any thing in it And this is established by severall positive statutes to the observing of which all members of Colledges are precisely sworne And it is evident and acknowledged that no man can be made Deane or Prebendary of Christ-Church nor ever was since the foundation of the Church but by the KING 's personall consent and nomination under the Privy Seale and Broad Seale by which he is installed And to him that is thus possest of that Deanary every Student of that Church is by plaine words of the Oath of his admission bound to perform due obedience c. All which being now most cleerly violated by not onely Sequestring but removing the former and putting in new Governours by force without Election or taking of Oathes to the Colledges it follows that no sworn member of any Colledge can acknowledge any such Governours without wilfull un-excusable perjury The onely thing that hath yet been offer'd to us to answer the Force and urgence of all this Plea and at the presence of which all mention of our Oaths must vanish presently is the pretended Soueraigne power of the two Houses to make and abolish Laws and Obligations which having interposed here is consequently said to quit us of all these engagements which formerly lay upon us But this is so far from removing our scruples that it is it self a scruple much more hard to us to digest then the former For by our having taken the Oath of Supremacy we have acknowledged that to be onely in the KING and by our education in this Kingdome have been brought up in a firm belief grounded on the known Laws and Customes thereof that the power of enacting and repealing of Laws belongs not to the two Houses exclusively but to the KING with the Consent of the two Houses and we doe now professe never to have heard any thing to the contrary before these times nor since these times sufficient to alter our judgments in this particular And therefore whatsoever question be made of this truth by other men yet we whose hearts assure us that we make no question of it and consequently acknowledge that we do not yet conceive our selves to be freed from any one branch of any of these Oathes cannot imagine what colour it is possible for the Tempter to put upon this required submission by which to perswade us that it might be reconcileable with a good Conscience now or with any degree of excuse to God or men or of quiet and tranquillity within our owne breasts at the houre of death in case we should on such tearmes as these submit to this Visitation And as I thinke I might safely appeale to any Divine in the world as to a Confessour or Casuist for the stating of this Question Whether it were lawfull for us to submit supposing our many Oathes confestly bound us to the Contrary and that we are verily perswaded that those Oathes are in full force upon us and as confident that the two Houses could not dispence with them nor take off the obligingnesse of them So would I likewise appeale to any man living that ever pretended to assert either the Libenty of Conscience or propriety of goods Whether we ought in this case to be turn'd out of our free hold to the utter undoing of so great a multitude for no other crime but this of not submitting when that is nothing else but the following the dictates of our Consciences informed and regulated by the known Laws of the Land Having given you this short view of our state which as 't is told us assuredly by the Visitours is suddenly to bring a perfect vastation on this Vniversity I cannot but thinke it my duty to the publick which is now so disabled from meeting in a body that it cannot make any formall addresse to you to lay this representation before you and to desire by your assistance it may yet be resumed into consideration Whether it will be for the honour of Christian Religion or of the Pretestant profession that our bare demurring or refusing to submit our selves to the grossest and most unquestion'd perjuries should be voted by your Committee to be an high contempt of Authority of Parliament and such punishments assign'd thereto which if inflicted impartially must necessarily leave no one Scholar of what quality soever in this Vniversity which is of age to have taken Oathes of admission to the Vniversity or to any particular Colledge which shall not appeare to all men avowedly and confestly periur'd and lyable to all the shame and penalty that by Law belongs to that crime whensoever any man shall be willing to prosecute it against him We hope this representation may produce some other counsels if not we shall most cheerfully perish in our integrity And in the meane time in the name of our broken Body these few lines are designed to acknowledge your favour and to subscribe our selves Your c. FINIS