Page:Terræ-filius- or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford.djvu/51

 conciences, and keep many conciences more truly crupulous; for when young men ee that they are obliged to wear one thing, and do another, they will, by degrees, grow harden'd in their minds, and wear off that trictnes and regard for an oath, which they once had, always finding out, in the nature and reaon of things, omewhat to abolve them from the obligation. Beides, I am afraid, that, in truth, all tatutes, wich we have worn to obey, ought, in foro concientia, to be obeyed, however unlawful the matter of them may have been rendered by the legilature of the land; unles, in puruance thereof, they have been repealed.

What makes me init upon this more than I otherwie hould, and trengthens my reaons for it, is, that we find the bihop of, at the royal viitation of Maudlin college, upbraiding them with this very thing: for when Dr. , the preent biop of , told him that he would ubmit to the King as far as was conitent with the tatutes; the bihop ask'd him, Whether he oberv'd all thoe tatutes? — You have a tatute, aid he, for mas; why don't you read mas? Which Dr. was forced to anwer in the manner before mentioned, that the matter of that oath was unlawful; and in uch a cae no man was obliged to oberve an oath; and beides, that that tatute was taken away by the laws of the land.

Such a reproach as this, however unjut, from the mouth of a bihop, was warning enough to them to take away, for the future, all occaion of triumph over the univerities: but there is a trange temper in ome men, which will not uffer them