Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	according_a	understand_v	word_n	3,261	5	4.3089	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23640	Of perjury a sermon preach'd at the assizes held at Chester, April the 4th, 1682 / by John Allen, M.A. Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge ...	Allen, John, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge.	1682 (1682)	Wing A1034; ESTC R8027	18,954	36

do upon notice thereof disallow it then the Vow of either of them shall not stand shall be of none effect God will forgive and excuse them but the obligation shall not take place And if this be so then certainly by parity of reason we may conclude That no Subject hath a right or power to oblige himself by Oath to the Prejudice and against the Consent of the Soveraign And if any Man hath been drawn in and entangled in such snares He must forthwith disengage himself and come off begging God's and the King's pardon for his folly and rashness He must remember that he is pre-engag'd He may and ought to renounce the treacherous Oath as being illegal and unable to lay hold on his Conscience But this is not all if the Matter of these Oaths be unlawful if against our plain duty and our former Oaths and Obligations then do they certainly involve us in Perjury and cannot be justified neither by the goodness of the intention nor the greatness of some Mens fears nor the piety of their pretences nor their Zeal for Religion and the publick good Such are the Solemn Leagues and Covenants Engagements and Associations contriv'd by perfidious Politicians and greedily swallowed by the Seditious and the Schismatick by the Lovers of Change the Male-contents the blind and furious Zelots and the deluded and ill-taught party of the Nation 6 And lastly They are guilty of Perjury who make use of Tricks and Cheats and subtle Artifices to evade and elude the obligation of their Oaths who will not understand the words of an Oath in their Assertions or Promises according to the plain genuin and common acception of them but by fastning a secret Sense of their own upon some Ambiguous terms or by some Reserves or Exceptions or Additions within their minds do quite alter the meaning of the words and thereby intend neither to be oblig'd to speak truth nor perform their promises The Romish Casuists are notoriously faulty in this point they are not asham'd to prescribe Rules of Aequivocation Mental Evasion and Reservation they set down Forms and propose several Modells and Examples of them for the help of Novices they teach their Disciples when and where and upon what occasions they may be used and undertake to prove that they are lawful and expedient and in some cases necessary And their forward Scholars do easily learn and are very expert and ready to practise according to their instructions But perhaps They are not the only Aequivocators in the World they don't engross the whole Trade to themselves There are some True Protestants towardly enough to imitate the subtleties of the Jesuit who when they find they are cramp't and fetter'd by an Oath that does pinch and fret 'em then have recourse to Jesuitical distinctions to their shifts Reserves and Evasions they swear first and then after vows they make enquiry they will find or make some creeping hole to escape at they will skrew and wrest and wind and turn and torture the words till they have made 'em pliant and yielding to their Sense and consistent with their Designs They take no care to perform what they have sworn but only to for-swear themselves Ingeniously and according to Art But none of these tricks will exempt either sort of 'em from the guilt of this sin and that because an Oath ought to be taken and kept too in the most plain free open-hearted and ingenuous way that can be with all simplicity and sincerity of mind and in that Sense of the words that they usually bear and are commonly taken in and particularly in that Sense that the Parties to whom we swear they for whose satisfaction or information we give our promise or testimony do or must be suppos'd to understand 'em in I will dispatch this particular with this necessary Observation That there may be Aequivocation in the very frame of an Oath as well as in the minds of deceitful Swearers Some Oaths both of former and later date are so neatly contriv'd so cunningly worded and so doubtfully express'd are adorn'd and set forth in such specious colours are compos'd and recommended by such Zelous Reformers are guilded over with such glorious pretences that many easie and well-meaning people are drawn in 2 Sam. 15.11 in their simplicity and know not any thing of the main Design and the Rebellion intended But when they are once catch't then shall they be taught that theirs is a Sacred Oath that they must make a Conscience of this more then all their former obligations then shall they be taught to understand the words in a larger or quite different Sense and so by degrees shall at last come to think that they are bound in Conscience and by virtue of their Oath to destroy the Prince whom they promis'd to preserve to ruine the Religion which to the best of their thinking they swore to maintain and to commit those outrages that Murder and Sacriledge and Rapine which they never dream't of or could perceive in their Religious Covenant but would possibly have abhorr'd the very remote apprehensions of such horrid villanies That 's the First 2. The Second is the Heinousness of this sin of Perjury and that will appear in general First if we consider that there is no sin almost whatever so odious and infamous in the judgment of All Mankind that have any sense of Religion and common honesty as This For the Reverence of an Oath is Natural to us and implanted in us this Sacred and Solemn Appeal to God hath been ever held in so great Veneration both as a part of divine and immediate worship and as the main support of truth and faithfulness that whoever did presume to violate and profane it was generally abhorr'd as a most impious and treacherous Villain Methinks it makes ones stomach rise against him a Man can't excuse or pitty him can't find in his heart to pray for him or wish him well Give me leave therefore to expose this great Sin in its proper Colours and load it with its due aggravations that so All those that have seen how many ways it can be committed may by a just sense of its horrour and heinousness be admonish'd and terrify'd from involving themselves in so great guilt First then Perjury is an Affront to God and to All those glorious Attributes that shine forth and display themselves in the Government of the World He that forswears himself does thereby profane the most Holy and Reverend Name of God by making it the instrument of his deceit and treachery He appeals to the Searcher of Hearts to conceal and countenance his Hypocrisie He calls upon the God of Truth to attest a Falshood He dares his Power and defies his Justice and Vengeance He lays his unclean Hand upon the Holy Gospels He kisses the Book with his deceitful and lying Lips He invokes the help of God to protect and prosper his Perjury He renounces All the Truths He disclaims all