Page:Terræ-filius- or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford.djvu/49

 has, with great judgment and accuracy, discuss'd this point; viz. Whether a person, who has an estate of inheritance in land, or a perpetual pension of above five pounds per annum, as things now stand, may with equity, and a good conscience, take the aforesaid oath; and has determin'd it in the affirmative. But I am persuaded, that that excellent person would think it a very laudable design, as the value of things is so much alter'd since the foundation of most colleges, to have the statutes also alter'd; because many scrupulous persons, however safely they might do it, will not take an oath in any other, than the plain, literal, and grammatical sense of it: neither, in strictness, ought the contrary to be commonly practis'd, because it depreciates the value of an oath, and opens a door to numberless evasions and prevarications.

Within fifteen days after his admiſſion into any college, he is obliged to be matriculated, or admitted a member of the univerſity; at which time he ſubſcribes the thirty-nine articles of religion, though often without knowing what he is doing, being ordered to write his name in a book, without mentioning upon what account; for which he pays ten ſhillings and ſix pence.

At the ſame time he takes the oaths of allegiance and ſupremacy, which he is prætaught to evade, or think null: ſome have thought themſelves ſufficiently abſolved from them by kiſſing their thumbs, inſtead of the book; others, in the croud, or by the favour of an honeſt beadle, have not had the book given them at all.

He alſo ſwears to another volume of ſtatutes, which he knows no more of than his private college-ſtatutes, and which contradict one another in many inſtances, and demand unjuſt compliances in