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A59242 Reflexions upon the oathes of supremacy and allegiance by a Catholick gentleman, and obedient son of the church, and loyal subject of His Majesty. Sergeant, John, 1622-1707. 1661 (1661) Wing S2588; ESTC R33866 51,644 98

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by that of Allegiance Though how can Equivocation be excluded when according to them one Equivocation may be renounced by another A most horrid example whereof England has lately seen in the R. Padre Antonio Vais 72. Neither do Protestants think that a Declaration formerly made by the Pope and forbidding Catholicks to take those Oaths with any Interpretation whatsoever needs to be a hindrance to the taking of it in the forementioned sence so publickly avouched but onely in any secret meanings invented or mentally reserved by particular persons For surely the Pope intends not to take a power from Law-givers to interpret their own lawes nor to forbid their Subjects to admit their interpretations if they be agreable to truth and that the words be capable of being so interpreted as these are pretended to be Certain it is that the Pope was never informed of this so legal an interpretation For if he had he would never have forbidden that to distressed English Catholicks which to his knowledg all good Subjects in France Germany Venice c. neither will nor dare refuse to acknowledge and profess Besides say they is England now become the only Kingdom in Christendom where all manner of Briefs must be immediately submitted to without a publick Legal acceptation and without examination of the Motives or suggestions by which they w●re procured It is far otherwise now in the most Catholick Countries and was formerly even in England when it was most Catholick the Lawes then made against receiving or executing Bulls from Rome without a publick admission under the penalty of incurring a Praemunire are still in force 73. If Catholicks rejoyning say that there is another regard for which they are unwilling even to receive information touching any qualifications of these Oaths viz. because the mere admitting a probability that they may lawfully and without prejudice to Catholick Faith be taken would argue that so many vertuous wise and holy Men as have suffered death c. for refusing them have suffred without any necessary cause Such were Bishop Fisher Sir Thomas More c. in King Henry the eights dayes and many good Priests since 74. Notwithstanding say Protestants such a consequence is not necessary For first it hath been shewed that King Henry the eighth intended to exclude the purely spiritual Jurisdiction of the Pope his power of determining matters of Faith according to former Lawes of the Church c. And therefore no wonder that good Catholicks then would not betray their consciences But it is well known that Sir Thomas More advised the King to limit some excesses of the Popes Jurisdiction And an eminent writer tells us that Bishop Fisher offered to take the Oath if it might have been permitted him to explicate his sence of it which could be no other then this that he should deny the Popes temporal Jurisdiction Secondly as for those that suffred in Q. Elizabeths time it is certain that all good Catholicks would never have esteemed it a Martyrdom to dye for refusing to the King a supreme Kingly Power and attributing that to the pope They had therefore a quite different notion of what the state of England required by this Oath But of late good occasion has been given for a more exact examination of it For to make a sincere and ingenuous confession it was a Committee of the late rebellious parliament that probably first of all discovered what use they made of the foresaid proviso in the Act 5. Eliz. to warrant them to take this Oath without submitting their Religion to the King And the same use they judged that all other Sects might make of the same and justify their so doing by law even Roman Catholicks themselves 75. All these things considered it is no wonder that English protestants not being fully informed of the state of Catholicks should wonder at Roman Catholicks for their so Universal agreement in refusing an Oath so interpreted without the least prejudice to their faith but with so unexpressible a prejudice both to their estates and exercise of their Religion 76. The Authour of these Reflexions does freely acknowledge that he has been inquisitive with more then ordinary diligence into the grounds upon which Protestants do make no scruple at all to take an oath which if it had no Expounders to qualifie the sence properly imported by the words he knows they could not take it with a good conscience Nay moreover he has given all the advantage that he could to the proofes produced by them to justify that no other sence ought to be given therto by any English Subject in so much as he may apprehend that he shall incurr a danger to be esteemed by Catholicks to have a design to encourage them also to take it since that sence is such as is very convenient to the principles of Catholick Religion 77. But he protests the contrary His end in writing all this is besides a satisfaction given to his mind that he cannot now without breach of Charity charge Protestants with such an unsincerity in their taking this Oath as Presbyterians c. are apparently guilty of to afford unto the World an illustrious proof of the most perfect sincerity and the greatest tendernesse of conscience expressed on this occasion by the generality of English Catholicks that I believe ever was given by any Church since Christs time 78. They live here in their own native Country with lesse priviledg then strangers they are excluded from having any influence on any thing that concerns the Common-weale of which they are freeborn Subjects When laws are made against them as guilty persons they are not permitted to separate their cause from a few that only deserved the penalties of those lawes they are by lawes obnoxious to greater sufferings then enemies they see their families impoverished their houses invaded by savage officers their lives forfeited as Traytours for entertaining those without whom they could not live otherwise then as Pagans deprived of performing any service and worship to God c. All these miseries they groan under without proofe of any demerit on their parts the crimes of a few miserable seduced and seducing wretches and their bloody Doctrine by none in the Kingdom more detested then by themselves are made their guilt And these calamities they could avoid by taking an oath the present new acknowleded sence whereof as to his Majesties right is just and lawful And yet they dare not take it Why Because they fear God above all But do not Protestants fear him too They are no Judges of the consciences of others This they assure themselves of that if those that now take the Oath had been to have framed it they would have shewed a greater proof of their fear of God then to have expressed the Kings Supremacy in termes fit for none but K. Hen. the VIII 79. But moreover great difference there is between the case of Protestants and Roman Catholicks in regard of this Oath For
and accordingly in many particulars practised it to the which several clauses also both in this and following Statutes seem as if they gave warrant yet the Parliament by the said Provizo laid a ground how they might in future and better times shew how they meant no such thing The words are these PROVIDED alwayes that this Act nor any thing or things therein contained shall be hereafter interpreted or expounded that your grace your Nobles and Subjects intend by the same to decline or vary from the Congregation of Christs Church in any things concerning the very Articles of the Catholick Faith of Christendom or in any other things declared by holy Scripture and the word of God necessary for your and their Salvation but only to make an ordinance by policies necessary and convenient to repress vice and for good conservation of this Realm in peace unity and tranquillity from rapine and spoil insuing much the old ancient customes of this Realm in that behalfe Not minding to seek for any reliefes succours or remedies for any worldly things and humane lawes in any case of necessity but within this Realm at the hands of your Highness your Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realm which have and ought to have an imperial power and authority in the same and not obliged in any worldly causes to any other Superiour By this Proviso never repealed the Parliaments Ordinance is declared to be meerly Political that the Kings Independence on forraign power is in worldly things and humane lawes he being in worldly causes not obliged to any other Superiour 50. Thus far of the sence in which both the most judicious among the English Protestants have declared and have been authorised to declare what power it is that by the Oath is deferred to the Kings of England and renounced to be in any forraign Prince or Prelate to wit a civil Political power wheresoever it can be exercised in any causes Ecclesiastical c. Against this there is not extant a contradictory Testimony of any one Protestant Writer So that the Protestant Subjects of England do intend and judging that they have unquestiónable grounds to judge this only to be the sence of the Oath in this sence only do they take it and require it to be taken by others SECT VII In what sence the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegiance seem to be taken by Presbyterians Independents c. 51. IT is a wonderfull Mystery how it should come to pass that our English Prebyterians c. should especially now of late with so much willingness and greediness themselves swallow these Oaths and so clamorously not without threatning urge the imposing them upon others Is it because the Oath of Supremacy has so peculiar a conformity to their principles and that of Allegiance to their practises or that they are so ready and pressing to disclaim and condemn all that themselves have done these last twenty years 52. First for ther Doctrinal principles I do not find that any of those Sects of late in England in peaceable times have publickly declared in what sence they allowed his Majesty to have a supreme Jurisdicton in causes Ecclesiastical or Spiritaul as to themselves But as to the oppression and destruction of poor Roman Catholicks they have alwayes shew'd too great a willingness to exalt the Kings Authority and to draw out and sharpen his sword far more then himself was willing I do not find that any of them have busied themselves as a world of Protestants and Catholicks have with making discourses upon the Oathes Their silence in this point wherein they are doubtless much concern'd one way or other is surely very argumentative 53. Who ever knew or heard to flow from the tongue or drop from the pen of a Presbyterian so Christian a positon as is sincerely avouched both by English Protestants and the generall body of Roman Catholicks viz. That even in case a Christian or Heathen Prince should make use of his civil power to persecute truth that power ought not upon any pretences to be actively resisted by violence or force of armes but though they cannot approve they must at least patiently suffer the effects of his misused Authority leaving the judgment to God only How unknown at least how unreceived such a Doctrine has hitherto been among their Brethren abroad will but too manifestly appear in a volume entitled Dangerous positions collected by Archbishop Bancroft out of severall books written by Calvinisticall preachers What judgment their patriarch Calvin made of King Henry the eighths new Title of the Head of the Church we have seen before And what an exception terrible to Princes the French Calvinistical Church hath made in their confession of Faith speaking of Obedience due to the supreme Magistrate appears at least every Sunday in all their hands in print Where they acknowledge such obedience due to them except the Law of God and religion be interested or to use their own expression mogennant que l'empire de Dieu demeure en son entire that is upon condition that Gods Soveraignty remain undiminished Which clause what it means their so many and so long convinced Rebellions do expound 54. And as for their practices in England and Scotland it were to be wished they could be forgotten especially all that has hapned the last twenty years And it may suffiice only in gross to take notice that the most efficacious Engin for begining the late war and engaging their party in the prosecution of it was a publick declaration that their design was to root out Popish Doctrines favoured by the King and Bishops to abolish publick Formes of Church-service and to destroy Episcopacy and Church Government root and branch which had been established in England by the universal authority of the whole Kingdom 55. These things considered is it not a great Mystery that such persons of such perswasions should be so zealous to take and impose generally either of these Oaths To think that they do knowingly directly and formally forswear themselves and force others to do so would be uncharitable Therefore an Evasion they have to secure themselves in their own opinions from perjury How little they deferr to Kings in their own Ecclesiastical matters and Government yea how they declare that none must be excepted from their consistories and Synodical Jurisdictions even externally coercive is evident both in Sco●land and elsewhere And it is observable that in the form of an Oath lately contrived in Scotland the word Ecclesiastical is studiously left out How comes it then to pass that they can in England swear that the King is supreme Head and Governour in all causes Ecclesiastical or spirituall Who can reconcile these things together in such a sence 56. Surely it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to imagine any colourable Evasion or pretext for cousening themselves except it be this That both the Oaths were made only against Roman Catholicks acknowledging the Pope to be supreme