Allegiance required by K. W. and Q. M. of the Clergy at least in particular contain in them nothing but what they may lawfully do during the ceasing Obligation of Obedience to K. J. For those Acts according to the former Distribution must be either Bearing of Arms at their Command or assisting the Forces they raise by sending in Militia Soldiers or Payment of Taxes imposed by them in the legal Methods or Preaching or Praying for them Now the first of these bearing Arms in Person no Clergy-man as was before said can by Law be required to do and therefore they may be assured that will not by their Majesties who are engaged to govern by Law be demanded of them And as to the furnishing out such of the standing Militia appointed by Law as their Ecclesiastical or Temporal Revenues render them liable unto as the Law it self justifies him that by Command doth it so doth it by Penalties enforce those that refuse so to do And so that Assistance will come under the Consideration of the third Particular the Payment of Taxes in form of Law imposed And the Payment of such may by the plenary Possessor of the Throne be exacted from all Subjects with all the Penalties incurred by refusing in case any one deny them So that besides the Liberty left any one to deny them if he will run the hazard the quiet Payment of them amounts indeed to no more in a conscientious as well as prudent Consideration than the purchasing our own ease and compounding for a less Sum out of our Estates with those who may upon refusal enforce from us a far greater And we had somewhat above Forty years since a Case of the same nature though with far less colour of Law than this at present wherein the doing of this was universally allowed by the severest Assertors of Allegiance to K. C. I. and II. and therefore thence in Reason I think be now less disputable as to its lawfulness to those who have received the strictest Principles they argue from in the present Circumstances from them as will appear anon more largely in the handling of the Ninth Proposition And yet withal I conceive there is more to be said for such Payments now then at that Time there was Partly upon a Military Account because the end for which the Soldiery are to be maintained though it be true that in that War a dispossessed King was kept out of his Throne as in this is far more justisiable now than at that time it was For those Arms were taken against a Protestant Prince and upon false Imputations of his Inclinations to Popery only whereas in this case those Fears are really made good both as to the Person and his Designs And those great Concerns of our Religion Laws and Liberties were only then concluded to be in danger from remote Consequences of some suspicious Acts which are now bare-facedly undermined And partly upon a Civil Account The Laws have now their Free Course whereas then all Law was trampled on by the conquering Party either by Military Force or by Arbitrary Courts Whence it is but meet that that Law and the Administrators of it should be maintained by all those who receive the Benefit and Advantage thereof Nor is it certainly more inconsistent with the Obligations of any former Allegiance to pay for the Support of that Power that maintains me in my Right than to appeal to its Courts of Justice for legal Relief against any that would deprive me thereof The next Particular Preaching for them as the Persons actually invested with Supreme Authority can as required of us import no more than that which is our Duty at all Times by the Apostles Rule Tit. 3. 1. The putting our People in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates That is actively or passively to obey those Laws with the actual Administration whereof they are intrusted by the actual Possession of that Supremacy whence they are derived For as to the Title by which they hold that Supremacy as they will not allow us to maintain that of the dispossessed Prince in the Pulpit So neither do they there require us to maintain their own And it is well this is not imposed upon us for if it were we might have some colour to reluct seeing it is justly disputable whether it were ever any part of our work to dispute the Titles of Princes in the Pulpit or by asserting of them in divided Congregations to occasion them to be disputed by others whatever our private Judgment may be concerning them For if it were so it is beyond all doubt to me that our Saviour and his Apostles or some one of them would have left us such certain Measures as might have governed our own and enabled us to satisfie all other Mens Judgments in the Resolution of such various Cases of Conscience as on that account must in all Nations be supposed ever and anon to be started from the different Pretensions of Competitors Nor was it indeed expedient that our Lord should clog that Religion which he was first to recommend to the World universally prejudiced against it at that time upon other accounts with such a Doctrine as would have been more obnoxious to prejudice than any of the rest Such indeed as would probably have rendred all Princes jealous of the Progress of it seeing it would have endangered the exposing all their Titles to the Disputes of its Professors and rendred them determinable according to the Issue of them A Prejudice which he hath wisely prevented by leaving his Followers some general Rules only for their Deportment under such Princes and Governours as they found in present Possession who are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13. 2. and thereby reconciled his Doctrine to the Interests of all actual Superiors by what Title soever they hold their Authority Lastly As to Praying for them it seems but reasonable that seeing we cannot expect to lead quiet and peaceable Lives in all Godliness and Honesty while they that are possessed of Authority over us lead unquiet and unpeaceable ones therefore that being the means by God directed as most proper and effectual to that end I cannot see how it can be rationally doubted whether we may nay rather it follows in my Judgment that we must make Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks for Kings and all that are in Authority and so for their Majesties at present which may through Divine Grace enable them to promote that end And accordingly the People of God anciently made no scruple to pray euen for the Kings of Babylon who by no other Claim then the Success of their Arms could pretend to Jurisdiction over them Ezra 6. 12. Jer. 29. 7. And the Primitive Christians as Tertullian who also gives us the heads of the Petitions they offered on their behalf abundantly testifieth for these Roman Emperors whose Title was never a jot better as will anon be more fully
supposing them such yet they can be no otherwise such than as all others are that are so by vertue of an Affirmative Precept and so can be no otherwise obliging at least as to the circumstances of their Actual Exercise than as all things so commanded are and therefore do not bind us ad semper as the Schools speak That is they are not necessarily to be done at all Times whatever the consequences of them may be but the actual performance of them thus and thus and at this or that season is to be governed by circumstances and where those are such that the mischief that will probably be done is greater than the good that is likely to be consequent on so doing 't is then unlawful to do them because unseasonable This in general But let us further view them particularly 1. As to Preaching for K. J. If Preaching up his present Cause be meant thereby and declaring all those that are in Arms against him for their own Defence in Ireland together with the English Forces sent hence to assist them Rebels and incurring the penalty of Damnation for such Resistance it is to make our selves Judges of a War which we can never hope convincingly to prove unlawful except upon the supposition of an unlimited Right in the Prince to dispose universally of his Subjects as to Religion Laws Liberties and Lives as he pleaseth and the Duty of all that are within his Dominions tamely to suffer them all to be taken from them upon the Obligation of the Doctrine of Non-resistance And what can we hope for upon the preaching of this Doctrine be it never so true at this time of Day under such universal Prejudice against it that can rationally make amends for the Inconveniences necessarily attendant upon it not only to our Persons from the Laws in being which under the highest Penalties forbid us so to do but also to the whole Nation if our Doctrine should contrary to all rational probability be entertained by any considerable numbers For what could the Issue then be but the raising of a bloody Civil War in the bowels of it and that War if it should end in a Conquest on the side which by such Preaching we assist consequentially destructive to all those dear Enjoyments which as we are Christians and English-men are now secured to us under the Protection of the present Constitution and the Forces raised by it Besides that it would be a very difficult thing for us upon clear grounds to determine the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a War the Justice whereof depends on so many Intrigues of Circumstances in the first Original of it whence our measures must be taken which Men of our Profession cannot be throughly acquainted with the Truth or Falshood of For which of us can demonstratively make out against all contradiction the Legitimacy of the P. of W. though any of us in our own Judgments possibly might incline to that opinion as I believe most of us once did when he was so declared by the publick Authority then in being and therefore according to the direction of the Law in that case we inserted his Name or Title at least in the publick Liturgy which yet we must be able to do if we will undertake to condemn the invasion of his now-Majesty then Prince of Orange to preserve the Right his Princess had to the succession who if the Child were Illegitimate or Supposititious was the next in the Royal Line to whom it did belong as unlawful I speak this only to shew how unmeet it is for us in the Pulpit to ground Doctrines of such great importance to Salvation or Damnation to our People upon supposal of such things which we cannot Infallibly know to be true or such which as to matter of Fact our People not one it may be to a thousand dissenting will tell us to our teeth as soon as we come out of the Pulpit they never did nor can believe And undoubtedly our caution in things of this nature is not disallowed but rather encouraged and directed by our Saviours Example who himself in deciding a Question of Conscience in a Case that concerned Caesar by the very manner of delivering his Judgment therein declared himself studiously cautious of giving offence on both sides And though he determined it for the Emperor yet had we not an Instance of his own practice to warrant the interpreting him that way we could hardly gather it convincingly from his words alone But I suppose I need not very earnestly press this Point upon our Brethren who by their practice generally have shewn their Caution therein and seem thereby to grant my Assertion That preaching for K. J. in the present Circumstances is a piece of Allegiance the obligation whereunto ceaseth q d e. d. 2. Next as to Praying for him if it be a Duty it is to be performed either in private or publick or both And in both these supposing still that for him imports for the success of his present Arms I doubt not but to shew the cessation of this piece of Allegiance unto him too For to do this in publick it lies too much under the same inconveniences and disadvantages and much more so with the former of preaching for him for any of us to look upon our selves as obliged by Allegiance so to do And as to our private Devotions although any of us should think it our Duty to pray for him in his personal circumstances to wit for Gods sanctifying his afflictions to him his Conversion to the true Religion and preservation of him from evil accidents nay suppose some one think it his Duty to go farther and pray for his Restitution it self it contributes not much to the stating the Question in hand whether such private sentiments as to the former sorts be determined to be branches of the cessant Duty to K. J. or no. But as to the last his Restitution it will certainly deserve any Protestants serious consideration whether in Conscience he can satisfie himself even in his privatest Devotions to make his applications to Heaven for the assisting a Person to return to his former Estate whose Interest and Inclinations too except one could be certainly assured that he is become a true Convert and so hath disclaimed them are directly contrary to the true Interest of that Religion which of all in the World he is perswaded that God whom he makes his Applications to most approves and owns and hath made it appear that he doth so most remarkably of late by so strange a concatenation of Providential Intrigues throughout all Europe for the securing it as hardly any Age can shew the like Wherefore for any Christians of the Protestant Profession and especially of this Nation to endeavour though but by a secret wish to obstruct the progress of those great Affairs which in the Prospect of their probable Issue promise the whole Protestant Cause and chiefly in these Parts so fair were in all such in
it have passed for a fair Plea for the denyal of Allegiance to such a possessed Prince that we could not in Conscience give it because we should be obliged in our Liturgy to pray for Victory against the excluded Prince and his Army then ready to invade us for the Defence of his own and the Princesses Title Let us but soberly think what would have been the Consequence of such a Principle in those Circumstances and apply it to the present Case But to shew farther the fairness of my Interpretation of the said Petitions I will try next whether I cannot conclude the probability of it from the very practice of those Reverend Persons themselves with whom our present dispute lies It is not long since that the whole Clergy of this Land made their Prayers in the same Terms for K. J. Now it is hardly to be imagined that any Minister yea or understanding Member of this Church could offer up these Requests mentioned for him without great reluctancy in himself especially in his later Days but with some such and probably in most of them the same restriction or limitation supposed For else all that joyned in it must be concluded to have prayed against all the Protestants Interest in the World who it is evident were enemies against K. J. and his Religion if they should at any Time in never so just a War defend themselves against him by Arms. Such Clergy-men therefore who were generally all those of this Church who then used this General Form cannot fairly come off from the suspicious implication thereof but upon an Hypothesis of this nature that those Petitions in that Juncture intended no more then the subduing such Enemies of his as together with the destruction of his Person should at any Time design the subversion of his Government as legally established or the ruin of this Nation or some other of a like import Let then our Reverend Brethren allow the like supposal of sutable restrictions and limitations in the present case to these general expressions and they will not find it so difficult a matter to reconcile themselves to the use of them on the behalf of their present Majesties which they with others used so long without scruple for their Predecessor Lastly To give a full confirmation to my aforesaid supposition I think that clause in the last Act of Uniformity That in all those Prayers Litanies and Collects which do any way relate to the King Queen or Royal Progeny their Names be altered and changed from time to time and fitted to the present occasion undoubtedly they that made this Proviso mean the circumstances of the King or Queen Regnant after any change according to the direction of lawful Authority does much conduce thereunto It appears that the same Form is to be used by this clause still whatever occasion requires the alteration of the Names for the Proviso is only made for the alteration of these Suppose then the Throne at any time vacant by death and a competition arise concerning the Succession where during this Composition is this lawful Authority but in the actual Successor who enters upon the void Throne and is so far possessed of it as to send forth his Mandates all through the Nation to insert such Names as suit his circumstances Whence I further demand Whether the Clergy may not yea whether they must not take such a Mandate as sufficient warrant to use this Form in the very passages under Dispute with such alterations And if so then though the Person excluded in the Competition should chance to have the best Title of the two yet the present Possessors command is valid against him and the point in Dispute is evidently gained That the Clergy are according to the Law it self to be governed by the Prince Regnant in the particularities of these Petitions and we may and ought to offer them up for Him and whom he Names by Name when required But to put an end at last to this long Section and proceed I say Seventhly VII That the Principles of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience so far as for ought I can see they are owned by the Church of England oblige us not in our present circumstances to deny the giving or swearing Allegiance to K. W. and Q. M. That they do not may be fairly argued from the want of sufficient proof from those that say they do taken out of any publick Monuments or Records extant which legally include the whole Body of this Church to that purpose And by such indeed and such only must all things which are alledged to be the Doctrines of this Church be proved to be so For if we admit any other Evidence in this matter we shall have much ado to vindicate our Church in many great Points in Controversie betwixt us and the Papists together with our other Adversaries who from the writings of particular Doctors in it charge it with many absurd and false Assertions And therefore it hath been always in such cases the approved course of her learned Champions to put the Adversaries upon proof that those Doctrines which they charge on her are her own from her Articles Homilies Liturgy c. Let therefore any of those that endeavour to fasten upon the Church of England as her Doctrines any of those high Notions concerning Non-resistance and Passive Obedience which they pretend to have learned from her first State the Questions relating to them according to their own Judgments and then produce such Proofs of the full concurrence of this Church with them out of those Books or any other evidences of like nature which must first be done before they can rationally argue thence the inconsistence of this Oath of Allegiance with them as such And let none as some confident Authors of late have done call the wild and extravagant Opinions of some singular designing and interested Divines like themselves accommodated to the gust of a Court-Faction the Doctrines of this Church A thing wherein they have done their Mother very ill service whiles labouring to qualifie her pretended Principles to the humour of the disposers of those Preferments they sought for they were not only themselves made meer Instruments and Tools of a Jesuitical Faction but endangered also the the whole Church and Nation by raising Prerogative so high that when it fell into ill hands to manage it they took encouragement thence to trample down our Religion Laws and Liberties as supposing us all a company of tame Animals made only to bear whatever burdens they laid on us and withal the occasion too insolently to reproach us with our supposed Principles of Passivity whiles they gave us so many occasions to practise them as Julian once made use of our Saviours true Doctrine of not resisting evil in the very Instances whereby he explains it in a proud Scoff to those whom he maliciously persecuted It is true indeed that in the Declaration which the Parliament at the Return of K. Charles II.
after their having been so long exasperated with the consequents of the War made with his Father under colour of a Parliamentary right in the Militia of this Kingdom and pleaded for by those that defended their cause that opposed him with an unusual novel Distinction of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person and those that were commissioned by him required all the Clergy of England and all in publick Trust for the greater security of the restored King whom they thought then they could never do too much for to condemn that Position as it had been taught as Traiterous and abominable and to profess for themselves that they held it unlawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King and those that are Commissioned by him and therein as also in another Act concerning the Militia declared their own Judgments in those Points more fully than had ever by so publick a Body been done before But whether Acts of Parliament may be taken for sufficient Expositions of the Doctrine of this Church all those who are unsatisfied in the matter of that Declaration may possibly call in Question and for the most part resolve it in the Negative For my Part I will do neither but take it for what probably it was the Doctrine of so many of the Church then represented in Convocation as were consulted in the drawing up that Form and because the whole Convocation subscribed it at least after the Law passed as did also the generality of the Clergy after them allow it to have been the Judgment of the Church at that Time in the sense wherein they that imposed it understood it But surely neither the Parliament nor the Clergy in Convocation ever intended thereby to give any King of England so uncontrollable a Power of breaking down all banks of Law as to make the whole Church and Nation meer Tenants at Will to Him for their Religion Property Liberties yea and their very Lives themselves and leave the Subject no legal Remedy against the most illegal Violences They did therefore undoubtedly mean by those that are Commissioned by the King those only that are Commissioned as our Laws allow and to such intents and purposes as may consist with them We cannot surely imagine them to be so besotted as to resign all those dear Interests at once into the Hands of a Popish Army raised on purpose to destroy and root them out altogether which appears by what followed afterward in a subsequent Parliament where in the whole Estates there assembled perceiving that some ill-designing Persons took occasion from that Declaration to mount the Points of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience to an extravagant height to which at last according to their Project they arrived in hope by a Popish Successor to bring about those evil ends took a wise course to prevent the mischief by imposing such a Test upon all Commissioned Officers as excluded all Papists from being in Commission and if they should at any Time be so declared their Commissions void and all they did in pursuance of them null That former Parliamentary Doctrine therefore is expounded by this after commentary upon it from the same Authority which first expresly taught it But as to the proper Judgment of the Church of England declared by themselves in any Act or Record extant it is vain to seek for any resolution in this matter They no where that I can learn give us any Determination of theirs concerning the Titles to Crowns the extent of Prerogative in the Prince the measures of that Subjection which Allegiance includes nor concerning the extent of its obligation or the change which upon the various Turns of Providence may or may not be made therein Only as to Kings and Queens actually in Being they deny it at any time lawful to Rebel against them whatever they personally are or what Religion soever they are of and by force of Arms to endeavour to dispossess and destroy them Of such Doctrines as these all the Homilies of Obedience and against wilful Rebellion are full And by these Doctrines all Princes actually possessed of the Throne are alike secure as to any danger from the Church of England So that as to the Questions and Cases of Conscience which relate to our present Circumstances it will prove an undertaking too hard I suppose for any Person to make the Doctrines of this Church concerning Non-resistance to comply with that tame submission to an unbounded Prerogative trampling by unpresidented Dispensations all Laws underfoot which some Men as I before intimated have of late vented under her Name And I suppose also that the most Reverend the Archbishop of Canterbury the right Reverend Bishops with others of the Reverend Clergy and the worthy President and Fellows of Magdalen College were not wanting to their Duty of Non-resistance nor misunderstood the Doctrine of th is Church when they so notably pleaded their Right in Law against the Vsurpations of Prorogation to the utmost and thereby and by their Sufferings for it stopped the career thereof from its triumphant Progress throughout the Nation and as to what other Resistance hath since been made by a too unreasonably provoked Nation together with the Consequents of it How far the natural Duty of Self-preservation even by Arms against outragious illegal Violence and the Reason of Government and Subjection in all Political Societies governed by Laws together with the fundamental Constitution of this Monarchy c. pleaded on their behalf will justifie those that have had an hand in it in such a case of extream necessity I cannot find determinable from any publick Records of this Church To be sure it much concerns not our dissatisfied Brethrens Case that it should be determined seeing none of them have any way contributed to any such Resistance hitherto and are not as I think I have sufficiently evidenced above endangered for the future by any thing which this Oath obligeth them unto to lose the Honour and Comfort of keeping the Doctrine of Non-resistance inviolate to the utmost extent of it as stated by themselves And as to that of Passive Obedience it can surely be no farther a Duty in this Case than Non-resistance is for this is the necessary consequent of that whom I must in no sort resist I must consequently submit to suffer under in whatsoever he lays upon me and on the other side so far as I may lawfully resist I am not bound to suffer As in the Case of the Great and Reverend Persons but now mentioned who took shelter in the Law so far as it would be allowed them and then only suffered when it would stand them in no farther stead For otherwise it seems too high a strain of Passive Obedience and more than Religion or Reason requires for any one patiently to quit the Defence which God and Law allow him yea and the very Laws themselves which allow them to him that he may gain an Opportunity to exercise his Patience
my Judgment an high indication of a too stupid insensibleness of their dearest concerns but in any of us a too visible implication besides of that which is much worse an ungrateful longing to return back again to that Egyptian bondage from which the Lord by so many miracles of mercy hath so lately delivered us At least it can certainly be no part of our Duty to deprecate the continuation of that actual security from Romish Persecution which whiles we our selves were bound up by the influence of the Doctrines of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience upon our Consciences from giving the least assistance thereto God alone by his mighty Hand and out-stretched Arm hath wrought for us And now I hope I may take it for granted that I have satisfactorily established the verity of my second Proposition both in the general and also in all the particulars included in it and therefore may proceed to the next III. The third Proposition which I think none will put me to prove however for the perfecting the train of consequences in this Discourse it needs to be mentioned is this This cessant Allegiance to the former King there is none else that visibly claims but K. W. and Q. M. They are K. and Q. de facto and exercise all Acts of Supremacy without any visible opposition throughout this Nation The Forts and the Forces and the Royal Revenues of the whole Nation are wholly in their Hands There is not in the Proverbial Phrase of Scripture a Dog that opens his Mouth against them The Protection we have in our Lives Laws Properties Religious and Civil Liberties we receive from the Influences of their Government And therefore as a farther branch of this Proposition it follows that we are to pay it to them For surely if Protectio trahit Allegiantiam the Maxime of the Lawyers be true in any case it must needs be so in this whiles especially our Allegiance is at liberty as to him who only can have any Pretension to it else by the force of the first Proposition IV. The fourth Proposition is this The Allegiance which I may and much more which I must pay those to whom it is proved due by the preceding Propositions they may oblige me to promise and what I may be obliged to promise I cannot rationally refuse to secure to them if they demand it by an Oath This Proposition also I think fit to mention for the Reason before-mentioned the continuation of the threed of the Argument but I suppose it likewise needs no Proof it being a thing allowed in all humane conversation as equitable to give such security as our word at least for all Debts and that of an Oath particularly to those Superiours especially that will not take our bare word and an Oath for confirmation even the Scripture asserts to be the way to put an end to all strifes which in cases of that nature may arise And now I have done with the astructive part of this Discourse and affirmed both the Justice of the Claim of King William and Queen Mary to our Allegiance and our Oath to give them Assurance of it in the present Circumstances There remains therefore now no more to be done but the purfuance of the destructive part or Demolishing the Strengths of our supposed Antagonists by answering the Objections they do or it may be conceived might make against my former Assertions And this I shall endeavour by making good the Six Propositions following V. That whatever Right according to their Principles whom we have here to deal with may yet remain to K. J. as to their Allegiance is not by the Oath now required of them disclaimed nor that of their present Majesties asserted Sure I am it is not expresly as appears by the words of it there being nothing of Title or Right the one or the other way mentioned therein For the naming the Persons to whom it is Sworn King and Queen asserts only the Factum that they are actually so affirming nothing of the Title by which they are so The Omission whereof it being so expresly and largely set forth in the former Oath of Allegiance in this is certainly a great Instance of the tenderness which the Composers thereof had for the known Principles of our Reverend Fathers and Brethren and designed probably for the preventing of this very Objection which they foresaw would with greatest Difficulty be removed out of the way of those Persons whom they so much desired not to lay aside out of the publick Settlement which their seasonable standing in the Breach which our common Adversaries had made in the Bulwarks of our Religion Liberties and Properties with their own great hazard had given so great an Assistance to But this Caution of theirs as it unhappily falls out hath not done what it was intended for For it is still objected That the same is done implicitely by the very Nature of the thing required which was by the forbearing those explicite words design'd to be avoided For the Swearing Allegiance to One denies it in their Judgment to all Others and by consequence this Oath implies the Renunciation of the former Oath wherein the Right of K. J. was asserted To which I answer that does not necessarily follow if my former Hypothesis be true That a meer actual Allegiance to another which is all that this Oath obligeth us to does not involve a Negation of the Person 's Right who formerly had it but only the Cessation of the Obligation thence arising in the present Circumstances to act on his behalf I shall close this Paragraph with a Note or two out of the Reverend Dr. Sanderson who in his Book relating to the Case of the Engagement declares it as his Judgment That where the words of a Promise may in fair Construction be capable of a double meaning so as to be taken in one sense they shall bind to more and in another to less the Promiser may make his just advantage of the Ambiguity and take it in the same sense which shall bind to the less Because the Faith to be given is intended to the behoof of him to whom it is given and therefore it concerneth him to take care that his meaning be expressed in such words as will sufficiently manifest the Sense to the Vnderstanding of a reasonable Man Which if he neglect to do no Law of Equity or Prudence bindeth the Promiser by an over-scrupulous Diligence to lay a greater Obligation upon himself than he needed to do Wherefore if Allegiance in this Oath may fairly signifie either rightful Allegiance or actual Allegiance only if the words King and Queen may be interpreted in the same Latitude though it should be supposed that the Imposers intended to stretch them to the more nothing hinders the Swearer from interpreting them to the less rigorous Sense And so this Objection by his Judgment will fall to the ground of it self and need give our Brethren no trouble VI. That the Acts of