Page:A Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country (1675).pdf/23

 on by that Lord and others, that the Oath imposed by the Bill, con­tained Three Clauses, the two former Assertory, and the last Promissory, and that it was worthy the Consideration of the Bishops, Whether Assertory Oaths, which were properly appointed to give testimony of a matter of Fact, whereof a Man is capable to be fully assured by the evidence of his Senses, be lawfully to be made use of to Confirm, or Invalidate Doctrinal Propositions, and whether that Legislative power, which imposes such an Oath, doth not necessarily assume to it self an Infallibility? And, as for Promissory Oaths, It was desired that those Learned Prelates would consider the Opinion of Grotius [http://www.constitution.org/gro/djbp_213.htm de jure Bellj & pacis'', lib. 2. cap. XIII.] who seems to make it plain that those kind of Oaths are forbidden by our Saviour Christ, Mat''. 5. 34, 37. and whether it would not become the Fathers of the Church, when they have well weighed that and other places of the New Testament; to be more tender in multiplying Oaths, then hitherto the great Men of the Church have been? But the Bishops carried the Point, and an Oath was ordered by the major Vote.

The next thing in Consideration, was about the Persons that should be enjoyned to take this Oath; and those were to be, all such as enjoyed any beneficial Office or Employment, Ecclesiastical, Civil, or Military; and no farther went the Debate for some hours, until at last the Lord Keeper rises up, and with an eloquent Oration, desires to add Privy Counsellors, Justices of the Peace, and Members of both Houses; The two former particularly mentioned only to usher in the latter; which was so directly against the two Previous Votes, the first of which was enroll'd amongst the standing Orders of the House, that it wanted a Man of no less assurance in his Eloquence to propose it, and he was driven hard, when he was forced to tell the House, that they were Masters of their own Orders, and Interpretation of them.

The next consideration at the Committee was the Oath it self, and it was desired by the Countrey Lords, that it might be clearly known, whether it were meant all for an Oath, or some of it a Declaration, and some an Oath? If the latter, then it was desired it might be distinctly parted, and that the Declaratory part should be subscribed by it self, and not sworn. There was no small pains taken by the Lord Keeper and the Bishops, to prove that it was brought in; the two first parts were only a Declaration, and not an Oath; and though it was replyed that to declare upon ones Oath, or to abhorr upon ones Oath, is the same thing with I do Swear; yet there was some Rh