must meerly depend upon the fallible opinion of every one that takes that Oath touching what is or is not conducible to Publick Safety And whereas it is said that Promises Protestations and Oaths are only binding unto the Publick Safety there can be nothing more abominably and scandalously false For that the special matter of the Promise or the thing promised by Oath is that only thing to which the Oath and the Promise as such do properly oblige is a truth too apparent to be contradicted or doubted of Otherwise when a Witnesse hath sworn or promised by Oath to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth he may safely neglect this special matter of his Oath and speak any thing or nothing in case he be convinced in his judgment that the discovery of such a truth is inconvenient for the Publick Safety If the case be not the self-same when men have sworn or promised by Oath to bear faith and true Allegiance to the King his heirs and lawful successors wherein lies the difference Why doth not the Oath in this case bind simply to the special matter of it as well as in the former or in any other If Oaths be binding only to the Publick Safety or to some other real or pretended End and not at all to the persons of those men to whom the promises thereby confirmed are made nor to the special matter to wit the actual and effectual performance of what is promised two grosse absurdities will follow First that there can be no such thing as perjury or breach of Oath committed by any person in any case imaginable For that man is mad that will ever judge that to be Publick Safety wherein his own is not included and a mans own safety is that which every man doth naturally and necessarily desire and most earnestly pursue according to his power and the uttermost of his understanding in all his actions Therefore if an Oath binds only to this End he stedfastly aiming at this in the non-performance of his Oath is guilty of no breach of it in what case soever it be and so perjury is simply impossible in any case imaginable The second is That all promises confirmed by Oaths are to no purpose at all be the case what it will or can For they either have no binding force at all or they must needs binde to the performance of them and that to the person or persons to whom they are made if therefore they binde to neither of these they signifie just nothing and consequently all Oaths taken in confirmation of them are absolute perjuries and blasphemies For the Oath bindes only and precisely to what the promise doth because the Oath bindes only to make good the promise and the promise cannot be made in the aire but must necessarily be made to some person or persons If therefore the promise binde not to the persons of those men to whom it is made nor to the performance of what is promised no more doth the Oath and so nothing at all comes of either but palpable wrong to the persons abused and deluded by them and a blasphemous invocation of God to be witnesse to a lie The Authors of equivocations and men al reservations had not the wit to think of this new device to elude the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Those inventions were but toyes to this This had they happily hit on and could in their little modesty have owned they might have allowed the taking of those Oaths as lawful even in the plaine sense which the words do expressely signifie though they had held the real and actual performance of them never so unlawful For now they and all the world are taught to the high Scandal of the Protestant Profession that all Oaths and other Obligations of what kinde soever are not at all binding either to the real and true performance of them or to the persons of those to whom they are made though both these be expressed in the plaine words of the Oath but only to the Publick Safety though this be never mentioned at all therein Thus might those holy Fathers have eluded the Obligation of those Oaths and of all other put upon them or upon any of their party Especially if they had considered withal that that which was Publick Safety to their foes was no Publick Safety to them their own being least of all included in it and so the said Oaths could binde them to nothing at all if only to that which they in all reason must esteem the Publick Safety Psal. 15. Lord who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle c. He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not Also that Oaths should be binding only to the Publick Safety and not at all to the persons to whom they are made nor to the real and true performance of what is promised thereby is irrefragably confuted by the example of the Oath of Joshua and the Princes of Israel to the Gibeonites How comes the Oath of Allegiance back'd by those other of the Protestation and the Covenant to be lesse binding to the persons of the King and his Heirs than that was to the persons of the Gibeonites And how is real and effectual performance lesse necessary for the avoiding of perjury now than it was then Let all the Chaplains of old O lay their heads together to give a clear categorical answer But this will appear to be the harder undertaking if it be farther considered that by the late and present practice upon the Principle aforesaid two of those three qualifications which God * himself hath annexed to all Oaths are utterly despised and made nothing of to wit Truth and Righteousnesse For first the Truth that must be found in the Oath consisteth in the full Congruity of the thing promised in the real performance of it with the words of the Oath under which the promise is made As in the Oath of Allegiance J. A. B. do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true Allegiance to the Kings Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors If the Faith and true Allegiance to the King and his Heirs here promised do and shall fully answer to the words of the Oath henceforth then in that congruity of the thing promised and effectually performed with the expresse words of the promise is the truth of that Oath But if this Truth be wilfully neglected and the contrary thereto upon whatsoever pretence admitted it is unavoidably the most absolute and formal perjury that men can ever possibly be guilty of And then if truth be wanting the other qualification of Righteousnesse must needs be so For if the Faith and true Allegiance promised were not due by Law as by all Law Divine and Humane it is yet the solemne and expresse promise of it and that upon Oath must needs put the duenesse of it past all dispute Therefore the failer of truth in the difformity between the duty promised and the words of the
promise which the Oath includeth doth necessarily infer the failer of Righteousness also it being the special and proper act of Righteousnesse * to render to all their dues If the righteous scarely be saved * where shall the unrighteous and perjurious too appear There is another device to elude if God could be mocked the Obligation of this Oath And that is That when they took it they then did really and truly intend to perform it though they have seen cause since to be of another minde and that the truth of that their first intention is all the truth that belongeth to the Oath for ever after How cunning some men can be to damn their souls Meer Polititians and formal Atheists must they needs be that can with any confidence put all the little hope they have of Heaven upon the validity of that which upon the least consideration must needs appear to themselves to signifie just nothing For unlesse they took the Oath with no judgment they cannot but know that their inward intention of keeping it was not so much as mentioned therein Nor did they at all swear to intend then the performance of it but from thenceforth to perform it Therefore the truth of their intention if there were any never was nor is any thing at all to that special truth which ought from thenceforth that is in all time to come to be bound in the special matter of the Oath which is only and precisely the real and effectual performance of that formal act and duty of bearing faith and true Allegiance c. And as the pretended truth of intention is nothing to the truth or is not the formal truth of the real performance of that duty which is the only thing promised by the Oath So is it nothing at all conducing to the special and proper End of it For the End of that Oath was not to discover the secrets of mens hearts the knowledge whereof belongs to none but God and themselves but to bind them to their External and Civil duty The failer of truth therfore as touching this is without all contradiction that foul and grosse perjury for which there can be no Apology nor pardon without repentance If this Nation therefore should so far forget their natural and necessary duty of Allegiance to their only lawful Soveraign as to break through the strongest obligation of this most solemne publick and legal Oath and divers others by which they have promised and sworn the due performance of it such a National Wickednesse committed in an open bold and daring manner involving an Atheistical defiance of the God of Truth by whom they have sworn would very soon draw down upon them a National and fatal judgment and that infallibly And the reason hereof is because this kind of impiety not only dishonours God obliquely as all sinne doth but directly darkens the glory of God in his great Attribute of Truth wherein he alone excelleth all other that are falsely called so And because the scandal of the wilful breach of this National Oath can know no limit it can be no lesse than a total Eclipsing as much as in men lies of the glory of God which he will part with at no rate in the eyes of all the Nations of the world And in this kind of sin this is singular and proper that for this if wilfully committed no man may pray that God would remit or avert the temporal and speedy vengeance that is due unto it because this is the only proper Expedient for that necessary and indispensable Vindication of Gods glory in the eyes of men being by that kind of sin caused as much as in men lies to be disreputed among all other Nations to be the God of Truth or the only true God And the wilful Breach of this Oath is the more horrid in that it is committed against the highest cleerest greatest and most publickly known Right in all the world 1 Cor. 6. 7 8. Why do ye not rather take wrong Why do ye not rather suffer your selves to be defrauded Nay you do wrong and defraud and that your brethren What aggravation then were this And that your publick Father even the greatest nursing Father of the Church the truest Defender of the Faith and under God the greatest Patron of the purest Profession of that Faith in all the world and by all other Nations holding the same Profession ever so accounted But lest they that have never in their proper persons taken that Oath aforementioned should think themselves to be little concerned in it it is here to be farther noted 1. That the Law of God by the intervention of the inviolable and fundamental Law of the Land without which the eighth Precept as well as the fifth of the moral and eternal Law of God would have nothing in this Land to take effect upon doth of it self before and without that Oath oblige the conscience of every one of the free people of this Nation to perform the duty of bearing faith and true Allegiance to the lawful and rightful King and Governour thereof 2. That the Oath of Allegiance and every other legal Oath to the like effect being once taken by the whole Nations Representative in Parliament and in the capacity of such a Representative must necessarily oblige the Nation represented no lesse than the Representative it self and that according to the tenor of the Oath from thence forth that is in all time to come And this appears evidently by the example of the Oath of the Princes of Israel to the Gibeonites The Princes being the whole peoples Representative and for that cause stiled the Princes of the Congregation the whole people stood obliged by it though not formally taken by every one and that for ever after And this appears by the heavie judgment of God upon Sauls family four hundred and thirty years after for the breach of that National Oath though He himself had never formally taken it For though an Oath be vinculum personale yet that is no reason why in such a case it should not binde the consciences of those persons that formerly took it not but rather why it should to wit because those persons that took it took it not only in their own formal capacity as so many single men but more especially in their Publick and Representative capacity as sustaining the persons of all the rest of the people In which case the persons of all other represented by them are obliged by that Oath it being even to them at least by interpretation a personal Oath and they themselves personally took it For in this case or any other the like Quod quis facit per alium facit per se That which any one doth by another in his stead he doth by himself Therefore as the whole people do by their freely chosen Representative consent to the enacting of a Law so to the taking of this legal Oath and are therefore no lesse
any other men of what quality or in what capacity soever they be those Controulers themselves either have uncontroulable power or they have not If they have not then may they also be controuled by others and those again by others and so onward to an endlesse and indeterminable confusion If they have then there is some uncontroulable power beneath that which is in God And if so then certainly it can only be where God from whom all power is hath plac'd it that is where it hath ever visibly resided and practically appeared by divine permission approbation and special Ordination time out of minde If it hath so resided and appeared time out of minde in those that think they may controul it in the Supreme Magistrate then let them for ever have it But if on the contrary it hath been publickly and experimentally known to have resided ever in the Supreme Magistrate whose Supremacie hath been recognized even by National Oaths it is only His Right maugre all that can with sense be said to the contrary That though Supreme Magistrates be above every individual yet are they beneath and inferior unto the whole Certainly the too much boldnesse or the too little brains of such as being but a handful in comparison of the whole will yet pretend the authority of the whole for their lawlesse practises may justly be wondred at There never was a Schisme in the Church but the parties to it immediately took upon them the Name and Title of the Church as if there were no Church nor any true Christians beside themselves the unworthiest indeed of all other to be so accounted And exactly so it is in the Civil State Any number of persons once combined and formed into a faction especially having gained power enough as they think to prevail over the rest will immediately bestow upon themselves very liberally the Name and Title of the Nation the whole people and the Common-wealth and will certainly call their own Security in their unrighteous wayes the Publick Safety and the Common good and all other men that justly hate their grosse unrighteousnesse the Common Enemy And here a Party not very considerable in comparison of the whole takes upon them to talk of the whole as if there were no people in England or none of any note beside themselves Or if they speak as in behalf of the whole whose mind and will they either know not or know to be justly opposite to theirs they should remember that when the whole should appear and shew themselves in their Universal capacity in choosing freely their full and equal Representative they were to have the base bondage put upon them to be so limited therein as to be made the Instruments of their own destruction Have any of the Kings or Queens of England so tyrannically encroached upon the Peoples Right as to limit them in their Choise beyond or beside the limit of known Law and Custome But the whole people after too palpable Experiment of the Losse of their ancient Liberty will never be flatter'd into eternal bondage to any Party or Faction by being told of a new Discovery of an unknown right by those men that have deprived them of their old Nor will they ever be made believe that their Lawful Supreme Magistrate whom they very well know God hath set over them is inferiour to them But how little truth there is in the fore-recited Principle That Supreme Magistrates are inferiour to the whole though about every individual it evidently appears in that it plainly signifies little lesse than a contradiction For what is it but every individual in any number whatsoever that makes up the whole Or if it be meant not of every but of any one severally taken it signifies nothing unlesse it be That the Supreme Magistrate is superiour only to Thomas and William and James and John to wit severally but not joyntly And if this were true it would indeed be a brave encouragement to any powerful party that should oppose the Publick Weale and seek the subversion of the Fundamental Laws Customes and Constitution of the whole Civil Body of the Kingdome And how soon such a Party well armed will call themselves the Whole experience enough hath taught all men to know And then all the rest of the whole Nation is at their mercy and that without remedy For the Supreme Magistrate hath no authority over them as they are a combined pack of Rebels conjoyned in a close conspiracy whatsoever authority He may have over every individual in severalty from the rest now call'd the whole Who sees not that this Doctrine is meerly Anabaptistical striking at the root of all Magistracy properly so called For whatsoever power can be pretended or imagined to be in the whole people which is indeed the whole it is no such thing as Magistracy And if there be any such power that can justly nullifie or check all Magistracie the most rigid Anabaptists will require no more to warrant any enterprize for the utter subversion of it But that there should indeed be any power in a Nation beside the natural vigour that is in them but only the Civil power of Magistracy is a meer Chimaera All the individuals and every one put together the Magistrate excepted are but private persons endur'd with no more civil authority than any one of them is by himself alone Consequently the Supreme Magistrate must needs be above and Superiour to the Whole number of them all There is a sure way of arguing in Logick which they call Induction by which out of a full enumeration of every individual an Universal is undoubtedly concluded And Universal is that Whole that is made up of nothing else but of every particular or individual contain'd under it That the Supreme Magistrate therefore is Supreme to every individual without exception which are meer private persons all but inferiour to the Universal or whole for all that is too much a nicety at best for the whole weight of mens salvation to rely upon it being no lesse than damnation that God hath already denounc'd against them that practically er in this particular Besides it may be here considered that that which in every Nation makes the several individuals to become one Whole is that whereby they are incorporated as members of the Civil Body of a Kingdom or Common-wealth and that is the anciently received accustomed fundamental constitution of it This therefore dissolved either in all or in any of the Essentials of it the whole Compages and joynting together of this Body is utterly dissolved with it If therefore the Supreme Magistrate who in every ancient Kingdom can be no other but the King being the sole Head of the Civil Body of such be taken away suppressed and banished and the Kingdom by consequence cease to be what it was and hath ever been the people are no more one Whole however held together by constraint than a heap of stones and the only foundation