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A67430 The advocate of conscience liberty, or, An apology for toleration rightly stated shewing the obligatory injunctions and precepts for Christian peace and charity. Walsh, Peter, 1618?-1688. 1673 (1673) Wing W627; ESTC R17873 108,039 320

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it This argument I urge no further than to evince in their justification that their unwillingness to swear is no evidence to prove their want of allegiance or any backwardness to lay down their lives and fortunes in his Majesties service For the practical part of the Subjects allegiance is that which only concerns the security of a Prince which all Catholicks will gladly swear unto Therefore I hope a true and real tenderness of Conscience which can have no ill consequence with it in relation to his Majesties safety will give no offence to them that are over them nor be a motive to hold a rigorous hand upon them Especially seeing these threescores years since the Oath was first established it hath been refused by Catholicks to be taken upon the score of Conscience though universally taken by others of any dignity conferred upon them in Church or State Yet no Catholick in England of any note or quality that all this time did act contrary to their allegiance sworn unto in the Oath On the other side I could wish it were as difficult to name those amongst the takers of the Oath who have so fatally broken them half the Kingdome being in rebellion contrary to what they had sworn to the ruine of the best King and the best man which perhaps this Nation had ever cause to glory in As for the Oath of Supremacy Luther Calvin Knox Gilby all pretended Reformers disliked it Calvin in his Commentary on Osee saith who advanced Hen. 8. to such a height did not well for they no less than blasphemed when they called him Supream Head under Christ Chemnitius a learned Lutheran in his Epist ad eloc. Briard of Queen Eliz. Supremacy saith quod foeminae a saeculis inaudito fastu se papissam caput Ecclesiae facit So Gilby in Admonit ad Angl. Our Cartwright also teacheth against Supremacy So do Presbyterians generally here and beyond Sea Henry the eighth once acknowledged the Supremacy more than ever any King did as appeared by Cardinal Campeius and Wolsey Legates he being called before them After his will being not executed made the Oath against Supremacy This Oath of Supremacy as it is worded and according to the sense of the first Lawgiver cannot lawfully be taken by any Christian or assembly without contradicting his belief understanding it Grammatically according to the proper and natural sense of the words at least ambiguous if not formally contradictory or the cause or reason of framing this Oath by Hen. 8. and what power was exercised by virtue of it and of the Parliament enjoining it appears to be a jurisdiction purely spiritual was communicated to him and assumed by him It s evident also by the many practises it was only a spiritual by-title of Supremacy he sought for to deprive the Pope for he stood in need of such a power to justifie his divorce and dispense with his intention of taking Ecclesiastical livings of Abbies Monasteries into his hands The Protection in King Edward the sixth continued the Oath to make new Church-Laws Institutions and commit new Sacriledges changes ubique arti contrary to which King He● 8. published and declared Queen Mary renounces this jurisdiction and restores it to the Church Queen Elizabeth re-assumes it having a greater necessity for it then her Brother because her marriage was declared null by the Pope This Oath consists of two parts the affirmative as that the King is only Supream Head as well in Temporal as Spiritual c. Secondly the Negative that no Prince Prelate c. hath any jurisdiction or spiritual Power c. This Negative part of the Oath is contrary to a point of their Faith wherein not only all spiritual authority of the Pope but of a general Council or Western Church is disclaimed Is all jurisdiction purely spiritual only in the Kings right are Princes Pastors of Souls hath not a Heathen King the same spiritual right How could King James then call the Pope Patriarch of the West or how can a free general Council oblige Christians and to which learned Protestants profess to submit to as the chiefest authority under God And although in Queen Elizabeths time the Oaths were explicated that only civil and Kingly authority in causes Ecclesiastical was intended yet this negative clause cannot be by such expositions eluded Secondly An Oath to Catholicks and tender Consciences is so dreadful that they dare not call God to witness they sincerely swear the Pope ought not to have any Superiority in spiritual causes unless it might be permitted them at the same time and the same breath to signifie that it is intended of civil and Kingly authority in causes Ecclesiastical They tremble to swear at words ambiguous but formally contradictory Thirdly In the thirty nine Artticles of the Church of England it is defined that the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Kingdome and these Articles are confirmed by Act of Parliament Whereby it appears their intention is to require a renuntiation of a Catholick point of Faith and the Popes being Head of the Western Church This Act being made since the said exposition The Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance if the former were so expressed as to require an acknowledgement of a civil Supremacy in his Majesty and Ecclesiastical to the Church-Governours and if the unfortunate word Heretical and speculative points were left out of the other no Catholick would refuse either And more then this no Protestant Presbyterian c. that freely take them can intend by them an Oath being in it self a religious affirmation with Gods Seal Whosoever takes these Oaths absolutely must swear to take Almighty God to witness as he shall answer at the dreadful day of Judgment that he believes the Pope hath no Power c. now this word believe being in a matter of Religion and Profession of the same can signifie nothing but a Christian belief or Faith and imports thus much I N. N. do swear in the presence of Almighty God that the Pope hath no Power c. As I believe there is a God in Heaven or any other Article of Faith all this is virtually and really comprehended in the word believe Now what man of Conscience of what Opinion soever that feareth an Oath to use the Preachers words Eccles 9. 2. will venture his Soul so far as to swear all this are we all of us so certain that no forraign jurisdiction c. or that its Heretical c. as we are certain there is a God Heaven Hell c. and so make it a part of and Article of our Belief when it is not expresly nor plainly revealed in Scripture or declared by the Church and so not fundamental to our Belief or absolutely necessary to our Salvation If you say it may be obscurely delivered in Scripture then at least the unlearned cannot be able to discover it How then shall such dare to swear as in effect they do when they take the Oaths that