very suitable to our Method to consider next what provision our Common-wealth has made for discovery and conviction of Offenders Wherein after I have slightly toucht some of the Arguments mentioned in the first part of this Moderator I shall pass on to those aditionall reasons I have since collected And that the way of Indictment and conviction of witnesses and Jury is the only proceeding owned by the fundamentall Lawes of this Land IS abundantly proved by the chief Author and surest defender of all our Liberties Magna Carta so often confirmed in our ancient Parliaments so reverently upon all occasions cited by the last where every English man may read with joy these precious words No free man may be arrested or imprisoned but by due Proces of Law No man shall be put out of his freehold by either the King himself or any Commissioners but every ones right to be tryed by a Jury of his equalls Of which happy-freedom the Papists who long since procured it for this Nation enjoy not now the least shadow 5 Ed. 3. 9. It is enacted that no man from hence forth shall be attached upon any occasion nor his Lands Tenements Goods or Chattells seized against the form of the great Charter or against the Law of the Land To this regular form of proceeding Thieves and Robbers have a cleer and allowed right only Papists upon the single account of Religion are altogether excluded 25. Ed. 3. c. 4. None is to be convicted of any offence unlesse by indictment or presentment of good and lawfull men where such offence is supposed to be done This Justice every Murtherer can claim and no Judge dare deny only the Papist whom we can accuse of no other crime then difference of judgement in Religion is forced to convict himself by his own Oath without the least colour of any legall Indictment so expresly contrary to the known Lawes and ancient liberties of this Nation 28. Ed. 3. c. 3. No man of what Condition or Estate soever shall be put out of his Lands or Tenements without being brought to answer by due proces of Law This priviledge the most triviall fellow that has but a Cottage to hide his head in may uncontrollably challenge and God forbid it should be refused him but then how is it reasonable that Recusants many of them persons of very considerable quality be dispossest of so great Estates upon their own enforced Oaths without any due process of Law 42. Ed. 3. cap. 1. It is enacted that the great Charter shall be held and kept in all points and if any Statute be made to the contrary it shall be void Nay so great account have our wisest Ancestors made of this Magna Carta so carefully provided for its preservation and universall observance that it has no lesse then 30 times been solemnly confirmed by Authority of Parliament as is at large declared in Sir Ed. Coke's 5. Report fol. 64. B. and in his 8. Report fol. 19. B. 42. Ed. 3. cap. 3. It is Enacted That no man shall be put to answer without presentment before Justices or matter of Record or by due proces according to the Law of the Land and if any thing from henceforth be done to the contrary it shall be void in Law and holden for error No Court disallowes this advantage to the worst of Traitours no Committee allowes it to the quietest of Recusants All these so excellent Lawes such as no People under Heaven enjoy were made when the Legislative power was absolutely in the hands of Papists all these Priviledge so high and extraordinary that they deserve the name rather of the Peoples Prerogatives then their Liberties the Papists obtain'd and establishd in their times carefully transmitted to their posterities All these wise and prudent Cautions which so safely fence and preserve our Common Freedom from the encroachment of Arbitrary power were providently contrived by the Papists and from them are happily descended upon us And shall we now having reform'd their Faith forget our own reason so far as to deprive our Brethren of the benefit of those Lawes which their Fathers made only because they resemble them most in Religion Shall we so far yeild to passion as utterly deny them the immmunities of their Ancesters Or can we possibly arrive at this degree of partiality as not permit the greatest Malefactor to be his own accuser and yet enforce the most peaceable Recusant to be his own condemner Nay though the Thief arraign'd at the Bar confesse his guilt our Judges mercifully decline to condemn him without some Testimony of witnesses But if a Recusant will not voluntarily both arraign and condemn himself the practise of Haberdashers Hall is without thinking of further proof immediatly to proceed to Execution Nor was this tendernes towards the liberty of the subject regarded only in those old dayes but we have fresh Examples of a greater zeal and jealousie then ever those times were acquainted with For in the great Petition of Right 3. Car. all these Statutes were particularly recited and earnestly insisted upon by the Parliament then assembled And yet a fresher instance is that of the last Parliament who in their Act for Regulation of the Privy Councell and abolition of the Star-chamber did punctually repeat again all those Statutes and rely upon them as the Fundamentall and unchangeable Law of the Land Besides whereas Copy-hold Estates by the ancient Lawes and Customes of this Nation were never comprehended within the generall words of any Act of Parliament which alters the interest of the Land or the Custome of the Mannor to the prejudice either of Lord or Tennant as is resolved in Sir Edw. Coke's second Report fol. 8. Sir Fran. More's Reports 199. 428 c. Because no stranger can become Tennant of any Copyhold Estate without the Lords speciall assent and admission For which cause no Copyholds were ever lyable to any Execution of Statutes or Recognizances in debts or Formdon nor were within the Statute of 2 Hen. 5. cap. 15. for Heresy nor were seizable within the Statute 29 Eliz. cap. 6. nor 3. Jac. cap. 4. for Recusancy Yet contrary to this ancient fundamentall Law the Copyhold Estates of every suspected Recusant are seized upon and sequestred although there be no Ordinance or Act of Parliament expresly warranting any such proceedings Thus have we clearly demonstrated that the onely course allowed by the Law for determination of all Controversies is the ordinary Proces by Writ in Civill Causes and by indictment in Criminall and in both by Witnesses and a Jury of the Neighbourhood where the scene of the question lies And now we shall fully satisfy our undertaking if we can also prove That the late Parliament often engaged by solemn Acts and Declarations to maintaine the Lawes of the Land WHerein it is impossible for any that can reade English to retain the least doubt when he has perused these few Citations 26 May 1642. The Lords and Commons declare
abrupt decision of the Common Law as is there set down was thought to be a deturning of Religion from its right and usuall course since the Conscience must be taught not forced without that it should at any time be handled roughly as being of so delicate a temper as though it suffer an edge to be put on who doth more diminisheth or breakes it Besides to make the contravening of Doctrines to be capitall before they be fully proved is prejudiciall to that liberty without which none can justify himself before God or Man For if it be death and Sequestration is a kind of death to believe otherwise then wee are commanded how unsafe will it be to make exact enquiry and without it who can say his Religion is best Besides the Example is dangerous For if Infidels and Heathens to retain their People in obedience should do the like who would ever turne Christian Therefore Cranmer for three dayes together in the open Assembly oppos'd these Articles boldly c. Thus far this learned Historian The Statute of 1 Edw. 6. 1. in the beginning of the Reformation continued the same stile of punishing only the outward Act whilst it declares if any shall deprave despise or contemn the Sacrament of the Altar so called in the Act according to the Language of those times he should suffer imprisonment and make fine and ransom at the Kings pleasure In the Statutes of 1. Eliz. 1. 8. Eliz. 10. it is Enacted That if any person shall by Writing Printing Teaching or Preaching extoll c. The authority of the Bishop of Rome or by any Speeches Deed or open Act attribute any authority here in England to the said Bishop hee shall incur the penalty mentioned in that Statute Agreeable to the former Statutes is 13 Eliz. c. 12. being the Act made for the subscription to the Articles of Religion then newly modelled into a publique forme of confession of Faith The words of the Act are these If any such Ecclesiasticall person shall advisedly maintain or affirme any doctrine directly contrary or repugnant to the said 39 Articles and shall persist therein and not revoke his errour such maintaining or affirming and persisting shall be just cause to deprive such person of his Ecclesiasticall promotions Upon which Statute these things are observable First that these subscriptions being concerning matters of Faith are required of Schollers and Divines upon their pretence to Church preferments not of lay persons to dispossesse them of their temporall inheritances Secondly they must maintaine or affirm some doctrine opposite to these Articles to bring them within the penalty of that Law So that the believing only of the contrary is not sufficient Thirdly such maintaining or affirming is to be voluntary and not drawn out of them by the rack of an Oath Fourthly it being made a cause of Deprivation must be by witnesses and not by the enforced abjuration of the party Fifthly they are to lose only their Ecclesiasticall promotions and not to be deprived of their temporall Estate Not one of these so rationall and necessary cautions is at all now considered in the modern proceedings against Papists but the most unlearned Tradesman and ignorant Woman amongst them are compel'd to accuse themselves their Judges never asking after witnesses And this under forfeiture of full two thirds of all their Goods and Lands And even in the last Parliament many Ordinances have followed the same way of prohibiting externall disorders occasioned from difference in opinions but not precisely for the bare difference in opinion As that of the 11 Aug. 1645. made by the Lords and Commons Wherein it is Ordained that what person soever shall endeavour to bring the Directory into contempt or raise any opposition against it or shall practise write or Print or cause to be written or Printed any thing in derogation or depraving of the said Directory shall lose and forfeit for such offence such a sum of money as shall at the time of his conviction be thought fit to be imposed upon him by him before whom he shall have his tryall Conformable to this was an Order made in Parliament Decemb. 22. 1646. The Parliament taking into consideration that some Anabaptists and other Sectaries have disturbed the Ministers and Congregations in some Churches of this Realme in disparagement of the Lawes Statutes and Governments thereof do Order that the Constables and Headboroughs within their severall Parishes c. shall arrest the bodies of all such persons as shall disturbe any Ministers in holy Orders whilst he is in place of exercising his publique Calling by speaking to him or using irreverent gestures or actions and that they carry the bodies of such Offenders before some Justice of Peace of the same County to be dealt with as to Justice shall appertain So likewise 9. Aug. 1650. It is Enacted that every person that shall presume avowedly by words to professe or shall by writing proceed to affirm any Blasphemous Atheisticall or execrable Opinions derogatory to the Honour of God such persons so avowedly professing maintaining or publishing the said Opinions or any of them shall incurr the penalties of the said Statute Which shewes plainly that the last Parliament thought it not fit to punish any for erroneous Opinions though of the highest nature If the party shall onely believe them in his heart and keep them within his own breast Lastly as a finall decision of this point and full satisfaction of those objections which some make against the validity of an Ordinance it was Enacted 17 Car. by the King Lords and Commons That no person whatsoever exercizing any Ecclesiasticall much lesse temporall jurisdiction shall tender any Oath to any person either Ex Officio or at the instance of any whosoever whereby he may be charged to confesse or accuse himself of any crime and so expose himselfe to punishment then which no clearer or more definitive sentence can be imagined And which is very observable never in former times was any Abjuration required but of such as were first legally convict of Heresy Never till these times was the Abjuration it self made the conviction and therefore in the Statute of 2 Hen. 4. 15. These two conditions are punctually exprest That in case of Abjuration the opinion to be abjured be a known heresy and the party to abjure be legally found guilty before they proceed to exact his Abjuration According to this tenor run many other Statutes both ancient and modern which my design of brevity enforces me to omit and the full sufficiency of the Lawes already cited renders altogether unnecessary only I shall desire leave to extract these few sound and excellent words out of the Petition of Right 3 Car. That no free men be compelled to take any Oath not warranted by the Lawes of the Realme This being then concluded that thoughts are free from all humane Lawes and self accusation contrary to the English Lawes it is
our selves in the love of God not destroying men because they will not be of our faith c. As for the people speaking of Ireland what thoughts they have in matters of Religion in their owne breast I cannot reach but thinke is my duty if they walke honestly and peaceably not to cause them in the least degree to suffer for the same but to endeavour to walke patiently and in love towards them to see if at any time it shall please God to give them another or a better minde And in a Letter to the then Governour of Rosse in Ireland his Excellency speaking of Religion sayes He meddles not with any mans private Conscience The Army further declare That they doe not impower or intrust their Representatives to continue in Force or make any Lawes Oaths or Covenants whereby to compell by penalties or otherwise any person to any thing in or about matters of Faith Religion or Gods worship or to restraine any person from the profession of his Faith or excercise of Religion according to his Conscience Or to punish any person for refusing to answer to questions in criminall causes These Declarations of the Army were seconded by a Petition from the Cityes of London and Westminster Burrough of Southwark to the Parliament in these words That they would exempt matters of Religion and Gods worship from the compulsive and restrictive power of any authority upon earth and referre them to the supream power of Almighty God And that the Parliament would not proceed in making Ordinances or Lawes or in appointing punishments concerning opinions wherein themselves may easily be mistaken c. On all oportunities thus hath the Army declared what was the light they walk'd by in the dark thorny wayes of their precedent dangers And in the endeavour that every Conscience may have a comfortable repose they continue constant still and vigorous Nor can there be the least suspition of straying from these religious Principles having for their Guide his Excellency who hath fought his enemies as much into confusion by an unexampled regularity of manners and holy encouraging to piety by frequent exhortations tears and prayers as by the sharpnesse of his sword and a courage ever invincible Our next Progresse shall be to evince the truth and holinesse of these principles of the Army against the enforcing of Oaths coertion in Religion to be clearly establish'd upon that sure foundation THE LAW OF GOD OF which three words being of greater weight then three thousand volumes of mens Discourses I shall content my selfe and hope to content my Reader with the citation of these few Texts One witnesse shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity fault c. much lesse shall a man rise up against himself but in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established which Rule is confirmed in the Gospel In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established And our Lord Christ himselfe said to the woman accused of Adultery Where be thy accusers if they condemn thee not neither do I. In the proceedings upon this Oath of Abjuration there is no accuser no witnesse the party himselfe must be both against himself and what can be more opposite to Scripture then such enforcement And that carnall men and they who build on the Authority of Academick learning may see how abhorring to truth all force and violence offered to the Conscience is let their patience go a little forward and finde what have been The Opinions of the most eminent Divines in the Reformed Churches NOne are to be compelled to professe the true Religion by imprisonment or losse of goods The Magistrate ought to force no man to subscribe Articles concerning Religion but that is to be left to the grace of God in every one as the Lord shall direct The Magistrate misuses his power if he impose Lawes upon our Consciences For Paul did not subject the Consciences of Christians to humane Lawes but to the Ordinances of God Men are to be perswaded to Religion by reason not compelled thereunto by punishment The Gospel allowes not the Law of compulsion to be put upon the Conscience but only of councell and exhortation The Scripture commands that they who are weake in faith are to be borne withall untill the Lord shall reveale unto them all such things wherein they are ignorant and in the meane while they ought to be instructed not punished All men erring from the true Religion are to be reclaim'd by fatherly exhortations hearing the Word and good instructions not by force violence The Lord hath definitively declared that the Magistrates are not fit Judges in matters of Religion and therefore hath interdicted them all use of such Jurisdiction and reserved it to himselfe who at the last day by his Angels shall separate the Tares from the Wheat God alone is Lord of the Conscience and hath left it free from the Doctrines and Commandements of men which are in any thing beside his Word in matters of Faith so that to believe such Doctrines or to obey such Commands out of Conscience is to betray our liberty of Conscience and the requiring of an absolute obedience is to destroy liberty of Conscience and Reason also Faith hath no relation unto nor dependency at all upon compulsion and commandement but onely upon certainty and probability of arguguments drawn from reason or from something which men beleeve already Therefore the Ministers of Christ in this world have no power to punish any for not beleeving since Paul himselfe professeth We have no dominion over your faith Faith both in respect of the Object and of the Assent being the free gift of God which Man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards nor menace of tortures There is no coercive power left by our Saviour upon earth in matters of Religion but onely a power to proclaim the Kingdome of Christ and perswade men to submit themselves thereunto and by precepts good counsel to teach them that have submitted what to do that they may be received into the Kingdome of God when it comes c. Q. Eliz. in her owne private judgement often declared That she never thought it fit that the Consciences of her Subjects ought to be enforced albeit the Bishops prevailed with her against her own judgment to the contrary Nothing is more against Religion then to force Religion For as Paul saith the weapons of Christian warfare are not carnall Humane violence may make men counterfeit but cannot make them beleeve and is therefore fit for nothing but to breed Form without and Atheisme within and infinite prejudice to the Kingdome of Christ and consequently to the propagation of the Gospel doth follow thereby Such who have their portions in this life who serve no higher State then
preamble whereof the Lords and Commons reciting the calamities of the War declare That all the sequestred Estates should be applyed towards the supportation of the great charges of the Common-wealth And in the first Instructions to the Committees they are charged to use their best care and diligence for the speedy execution of the Ordinance for Sequestration as being a matter of great necessity and importance for the subsistence of the Army And observing some slowness in the Committee the Earl of Manchester a Commander in chiefe was empowred to execute that Ordinance and the Sequestrators commanded to pay the money they raised to the Committee of the Army One other argument there is that inclines me to believe the Parliament intended this Ordinance only as a provision in those distracted times and not as a standing Law for ever else surely they would never have put into their Commission so slight a thing as a Bayliff of a Corporation Were it handsome that the Mayor of Rising should come down from thatching some triviall Ale-house to tender the Oath of Abjuration to the noble Earle of Arundell or indeed how should a common tradesman whom without breach of charity we may presume can neither write nor read know what he does when he commands others to forswear such hard long words as Supremacy Purgatory and Transubstantiation what shall we that accuse the Papists of blind obedience say to our selves when our very leaders are so short-sighted T is true all these fair and just exceptions are fully answered by this one word Necessity a Heteroclyte that hath no Rule no Law and therefore as it is without Law to be judged without Law But then at least it ought to be a Law unto it selfe that is confined to circumstances wherein there is a true and reall necessity and therefore during the furious violence and careir of war such summary proceedings to prove without Witness and condemn without Jurors might easily find excuse but being restored now to a perfect calm and universall peace we are certainly obliged to return again to the known English tryall by Indictment and Conviction and not continue still throwing our neighbours goods over-board so long after the storm is ended If any object though the reason of Necessity remains now no longer since the gates of Westminster Hall are open and the old crowd of Suitors march peaceably there under the Scotch Colours yet the Supream Authority of the Nation is bound to render no other account of their Acts then the French King of his Edicts which alwayes close with this Frank and resolute Period Car tel est nostre plaisir I reply first That such Objection seemes rather to accuse the Government of Tyranny then faithfully defend its Authority no sound approaching so nigh Antipathy to an English Eare as that of being under an absolute and unlimited Master whether that boundlesse and uncontrollable Power be lodged in the single person of a King or the multiplyed of a Councill When by the change of circumstances any Law becomes unfit to be continued we are not forbidden to represent even to the highest Powers our reasons for a Repeale if we carry our Addresses with such regard that they appeare to intend a Reformation of the Errour not correction of our Superiors In which respect never did any Parliament give such high hopes of a thorow redress as that which lately sate by erecting so carefully those two grand Committees for regulating the Law and propagating the Gospel by inviting so solemnly all that would offer their proposalls to come into their assistance And as the whole Nation remains infinitely bound to the solicitude of the Army for whose satisfaction both those Committees were establish'd So are we all no less oblig'd to the Zeal of the Generall by whose personall presence every day at that of Religion it received so great Countenance and Encouragement And therefore I shall not entertain the least suspition that these few thoughts of mine should beget any offence since they aim only to propose the unsuitableness of this new uncharitable Oath of Abjuration to the ancient and best Lawes of the Land Even the Pope admits his Subjects when they apprehend some errour in the proceedings to appeale from himselfe mis-informed to himself better informed and yet we call his absolute ness a Tyranny and their obedience blindness How much more then may those true lovers of their Countreys happiness promise themselves security if not acceptance from the Parliament who either by humble Petition or other modest and untumultuous way represent to their consideration any mis-practiseor inconvenience which in time might prove a dangerous precedent to the just liberties of their Country What ever the Supream Authority of a Nation may by absolute prerogative command yet the Supream Authority of this hath alwayes disclaim'd such Arbitrary Dominion as Tyrannicall and often engag'd by most solemn Declarations for the perpetuall continuance to the people of the Lawes they are acquainted with amongst which as there is none more fundamentall and singular to the Nation then the ancient tryall by Witnesses and Verdict so we shall still endeavour to make more evident so important a truth by proposing A short Paralell betweene this Oath of Abjuration and that Ex Officio IN the grand Petition signed by the 9. Lords and presented to the late King at York we find this recorded as one of the principall grievances That many innovations in Oathes and Canons had beene lately imposed upon the Clergy and other his Majesties Subjects c. In redresse of which mischievous encroachment upon our just libertyes the late long Parliament enacted That no person exercising any Ecclesiasticall Power or Authority shall ex Officio or at the instance or promotion of any person whatsoever urge enforce tender give or minister to any person whatsoever any Oath whereby he shall or may be charged to confesse or accuse himselfe of any crime offence delinquency misdemeanour matter or thing by reason whereof he shall or may be lyable to any penalty or punishment whatsoever Before which Statute viz. 1607. the unreasonableness and illegality of that Oath had been clearly convinced by a learned Treatise of Oaths purposely written against it as also by M. Fuller in his arguments at the then Kings Bench against some branches of the High Commission Court both which pursued their points so efficaciously that the grievances they opposed were unanimously condemn'd as intollerable abuses And certainly no Mathematicall Demonstration can bear a higher and clearer evidence then that the principall reasons which I have here collected out of both those Treatises against that Oath Ex Officio are more strongly appiable to this of Abjuration Thus then they begin their just charge upon that unjust Oath First That contrary to the Law of Nature and the Fundamentall Lawes and Customes of this Nation the party examined is thereby forced to sweare against himselfe in a criminall cause before he knows his
Accuser and consequently compell'd to be instrumentall to his owne punishment This was condemned in the beginning of the last Parliament with infinite applause as a most unsufferable Tyranny but the Oath of Abjuration far exceeds it even in its two worst qualities cruelty and illegality Every Recusant whose Conscience cannot down with the Oath being unavoidably necessitated either to ruine his Soul by taking it against Conscience or his Estate by loss of two thirds if he refuse it Wherein there is one circumstance practised that raiseth this Oath to a most exorbitant unconscionableness For as to those whose Judgements take any other road as Antinomians Socinians or even Jewes their course is smooth and free but if we espy one whom we guess to be a Papist and whose Conscience we think is not plyant and nimble enough to leap over the block then presently this break-neck Oath of Abjuration is clapt in his way against which our own hearts if we but lay our hands upon them will tell us he must necessarily either stumble into a desperate poverty or which is worse fall down-right into a damnable perjury The Oath Ex Officio was aver'd to be a meer Alien introduc'd by the Prelates upon pretext of purging their Provinces of seduc'd people but indeed to maintain their Hierarchy and tyrannize over the Consciences of all dissenters contrary to Law and Equity This of Abjuration is a greater stranger never heard of till 1643 when the Presbyterian faction thought it a fit engine to skrew up their intended Kirk-tyranny By the Oath Ex Officio men were examined upon captious questions concerning their very Thoughts to the sifting and ransacking of their Hearts and Consciences and were therein subjected to a farre greater Tyranny then that of the Spanish Inquisition which extends to words and actions onely This of Abjuration compells even women and illiterate persons positively to renounce by meer adventure or implicite Faith many controversiall Doctrines about which the greatest Divines of Europe have so long disputed and are like perhaps never to agree Nor is this Oath contented with a modest and simple professing that they do not believe there is a Purgatory but absolutely exacts of them to swear down right there is none in the last period of the Oath where they are enforced to abjure and renounce all Doctrines in affirmation of the said points For my part as I thinke it a wilde conceit to hold there is a new World in the Moon So I am sure it is a desperate presumption positively to swear the contrary That Oath Ex Officio being commonly tendered to such as are suspected guilty of the crimes whereof they are to cleer themselves by their own Oath or otherwise to undergo a penalty must in all probability be an occasion of frequent perjuries to the losse not only of many Soules but to the great abuse of the name and majesty of God This of Abjuration exposes men to the same danger and God to the same dishonour And besides hath been so far from ever gaining any true convert to the Protestant Religion that it hath made many swear away that little Religion they had and ever after professe none For such indifferent and luke-warme Papists as take this Oath usually say they will rather trust God with their Soules then the Common-wealth with their estates Whence certainly it was that the famous Judge Sir Edward Coke breaks out into this complaint Experience now proveth the Consciences of men are grown so large that the respect of their private interests and commodities doth for the most part induce them to perjury According to which he there sets it down for a Rule that to swear in a mans owne case is frequently in this Age the Devills precipice whereby to throw men headlong into Hell And yet to these straits which my heart even bleeds to think hath this cruell Oath of Abjuration driven all Recusants live they never so peaceably and unoffensively This dangerous snare for it deserves no milder name since we never think of endeavouring by any rationall motives to perswade them out of their errours lyes continually before their feet to entrap them Where is our charity to Christians professing the same Saviour and believing the same Scriptures with our selves Where is our Justice to neighbours equally entitled by their birthright to the same freedom with our selves Is the extraordinary Liberty we held forth to all the World shrunk into this narrownesse that any peaceable person who professes the Gospell of Christ though in some things mistaken should by us be compel'd to this sad necessity either of absolute forswearing himself or utter impoverishing his family which in plain English signifies I tremble to utter it either Devill take his Soul or Sequestrator his Estate I acknowledg this a very harsh expression but he that reflects upon the generall proceedings hitherto with Recusants that we appoint no godly and gifted men to convert them but only Committeemen to ruine them will I feare finde too much truth in my words Upon occasion of the Oath Ex Officio a learned Member moved in Parliament December 1640. That the Law might punish not make Offenders That words and actions might be subject to Law but thoughts be free Another of the same learning and dignity in a speech in Parliament against the Oath Ex Officio set upon it this publique Brand That it was grown monstrous and become indeed no other then Carnificina Conscientiae Upon the same ground was built the fourth Article of the charge against the Bishop of Bath and Wells that he questioned one Master James a Minister of his Diocesse not only for matters of outward fact but likewise concerning secret thoughts All which extream and unsufferable inconveniences I confesse are so evidently appliable to the Oath of Abjuration that you need but only change names to make them exactly true of either except that in the one both far more difficult questions are required and far greater penalties imposed whereas in the other the point in doubt was very easie to resolve whether you had slept with your neighbours wife and the punishment a little peece of money to repair Pauls And certainly it was with reflection upon this Oath of Abjuration that the learned Master Hobbs sayes There is another errour to extend the power of the Law which is the Rule of actions only to the bare thoughts and Consciences of men by examination and inquisition of what they hold whereby men are either punished for their very thoughts or constrained to answer an untruth for fear of punishment By which meanes they are forced to accuse themselves of their opinions which is against the Law of Nature Nor doth this Oath of Abjuration extort the secret thoughts only but compells the renouncing of some positions which in the opinion of divers venerable writers are more receivable then the Doctrine of some avowed Protestants I instance in the point of