“The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, ‘Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.'”
Ps. 110:4
“For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that… we might have a strong consolation…”
Heb. 6:16-18
“When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for He hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.”
Eccl. 5:4-5
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Subsections
When Vowing is Warranted
Rechabites bound by Forefather?
Laying Hand on Bible while Swearing
Reformed vs. Aquinas
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Order of Contents
Vows as Worship 3
All Vows are Qualified 15+
Vows can Never Bind Beyond God’s Law 8+
Doubtful
Plain Sense of Words
Vows Sinfully Imposed & Taken Bind 3
Taking God’s Name in Vain 1
Minced Oaths 1
Latin 6
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Articles
1500’s
Melanchthon, Philip – 9. ‘On Monkish Vows’ in The Loci Communes of Philip Melanchthon… tr. Charles L. Hill (1521; Boston: Meador Publishing, 1944), pp. 126-29
Though Melanchthon (1497–1560) was a Lutheran, this work of his was the first ‘systematic theology’ of the Reformation, and, as it was very influential on reformed systematic theologies following shortly thereafter.
Zwingli, Ulrich – ‘Vows’ in Commentary on True & False Religion eds. Jackson & Heller (1525; Labyrinth Press, 1981), pp. 260-67
Bullinger, Henry
3rd Sermon, ‘Of the 3rd Precept of the Ten Commandments, & of Swearing’ in The Decades ed. Thomas Harding (1549; Cambridge: Parker Society, 1849), vol. 1, 2nd Decade, pp. 237-53
15. ‘Of Marriage, Vows & Chastity’ in Questions of Religion Cast Abroad in Helvetia [Switzerland] by the Adversaries of the Same, & Answered… tr. John Coxe (London, 1572), pp. 120-39
Calvin, John
ch. 7. ‘On Swearing [an Oath]’ in A Short Instruction for to Arm All Good Christian People against the Pestiferous Errors of the Common Sect of Anabaptists (London: Daye, 1549), no page numbers
ch. 13. ‘Of Vows. The miserable entanglements caused by Vowing rashly’ in Institutes of the Christian Religion tr. Henry Beveridge (1559; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), vol. 3, bk. 4, pp. 273-99
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – The Common Places… (d. 1562; London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583)
pt. 2
6. ‘The Third Precept: of Sanctification of the Name of God and Generally of Oaths’, pp. 368-74
9. ‘The Sixth Precept’
‘Of Cursings, Imprecations & Bannings’ 397
‘Of a Curse & Shunning of Revenge’ 403
13. ‘The Ninth Precept: of Not Bearing False Witness’
‘Whether Faith against a promise breaker must be kept’ 548-50
pt. 3, ch. 6, ‘Of Vows in General’ 175
‘Of the Vow of the Nazarites’ 177
‘Of the Vow of Jeptha’ 182
‘Of the Rechabites’ 188
‘Of Peregrinations [Pilgrimages]’ 191
Musculus, Wolfgang – Common Places of the Christian Religion (1560; London, 1563)
3rd Commandment, ‘The abuse of oaths’ 56.a
‘Vows’ 498.a
What a vow is 498.a
How many manner of vows there be 499.b
Of the circumstances of vows 500.a
That vows ought to be performed 501.a
How vows ought to be performed 501.b
Of cloister vows 503.a
Of the joining of the vow 504.a
Of willful poverty 505.a
Of the apparel of religious persons 506.a
Of the closeness of monasteries and cloisters 506.b
Of virginity 506.b
Of the loosing of a vow 508.a
Whether that all vows do bind 508.a
‘Oaths’ 571.a
Whether it be lawful for Christian men to use oaths 571.a
That the oath is not against the glory of God’s name 571.b
That an oath is not against the love of our neighbor 572.a
That an oath is commanded by God 572.a
The oath is commended by the examples of most godly fathers 572.b
That an oath is a piece of the service of God 572.b
That the oath made in the faith of God in truth and judgment is the badge or congnisance of the New Testament 573.a
That God, Christ his Son and the apostles used oaths 573.b
Of the sense of the words of Christ, ‘But I say unto you, ‘Swear not at all.’’ 574.b
Of the abuse of oaths 575.b
How they do offend which do require an oath 576.a
How they do offend which do swear 576.b
Of the discharge of oaths 577.b
de Brès, Guy – The Staff of Christian Faith… for to Know the Antiquity of our Holy Faith… gathered out of the Works of the Ancient Doctors of the Church… (London, 1577)
‘Of Marriage & of Vows’ 243-54
‘Of Vows’ 254-58
de Bres (1522-1567) was a Walloon pastor, Protestant reformer and theologian, a student of Calvin and Beza in Geneva.
Zanchi, Girolamo – ch. 22, ’Of Invocation & an Oath’ in Confession of the Christian Religion… (1586; Cambridge, 1599), pp. 170-73
Ursinus, Zachary – The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (Oxford, 1587), 3rd Commandment
1. What an Oath is
2. By whom we must swear
3. Of what things we are to swear
4. Whether all oaths are to be kept
5. Whether a Christian may take a right and lawful oath
Beza, Theodore, Anthony Faius & Students – 32. ‘Concerning Vows’ in Propositions & Principles of Divinity Propounded & Disputed in the University of Geneva by Certain Students of Divinity there, under Mr. Theodore Beza & Mr. Anthony Faius… (Edinburgh: Waldegrave, 1591), pp. 75-78
Perkins, William
8. Of Vows in A Reformed Catholic… ([Cambridge] 1598)
The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience… (Cambridge: Legat, 1606), bk. 2
Ch. 13, Of an Oath
Question 1, What is an oath?
Question 2, How an Oath is to be taken in a good and godly manner?
Question 3, How far forth does an Oath bind and is to be kept?
Ch. 14, Of Vows
Question 1, What is a Vow?
Question 2, Whether a vow, be now in the New Testament, any part of Religion, or God’s worship?
Question 3, When a Vow made does bind, and when not?
Question 4, Whether Monastical or Monkish vows bind or no?
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1600’s
Bucanus, William – 45. ‘Of Vows’ in Institutions of Christian Religion... (London: Snowdon, 1606), pp. 609-15
What is called a vow?
What is a vow?
Of how many sorts is a vow?
Who is he to whom the vow is made?
Who and what are we which do vow?
What thing is it which we ought to vow?
With what mind and to what end is a vow to be made?
Which is the first end of a lawful vow?
Which is the second end?
Which is the third?
Which is the fourth?
What caution is to be used in all these?
Are vows from the law or of faith, that is to say, legal or evangelical, enjoined to the ancient people only, or to Christians also?
Is it lawful to break vows?
Which are the things disagreeing to this doctrine?
Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Latin Text & English Translation Buy (1625; Brill, 2016)
vol. 1, 20. ‘Concerning the Oath’, pp. 488-512
vol. 2, 38. ‘On Vows’, pp. 482-98
Ames, William – bk. 2, ch. 10, ‘Taking Oaths’ in The Marrow of Theology ed. John Eusden (Baker, 1997), pp. 267-70
Leigh, Edward – ch. 13. Of a Religious Vow in A System or Body of Divinity… (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 8, pp. 740-49
Sanderson, Robert – ‘Excerpts of On the Obligation of a Promissory Oath‘ (1674) as translated in Richard Baxter, The Nonconformists’ Plea for Peace, or an Account of their Judgment in Certain Things in which they are Misunderstood… (London, 1679), ‘Three Venerable Monitors to Non-Conformists’, pp. 324-40
Sanderson (1587–1663) was an English, royalist theologian and casuist who specialized on conscience and oaths. He was recognized by near all parties as one of the best on those topics in his era.
Turretin, Francis – Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1994), vol. 2, 11th Topic
11. ‘Whether every oath so obliges the conscience that we are bound to keep it by an inevitable necessity. We distinguish.’ 66
12. ‘Whether it is lawful to use ambiguous equivocations and mental reservations in oaths. We deny against the papists and especially the Jesuits.’ 70
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1700’s
à Brakel, Wilhelmus – ch. 80, ‘Vows’ in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 4 ed. Joel Beeke, tr. Bartel Elshout Buy (1700; RHB, 1992/1999), pp. 39-45
a Brakel (1635-1711) was a contemporary of Voet and Witsius and a major representative of the Dutch Further Reformation.
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Books
1500’s
Musculus, Wolfgang – On Righteousness, Oaths & Usury trans. Todd Rester in Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics & Law Buy (CLP, 2013) 162 pp.
“This text is a translation of Wolfgang Musculus’ commentary on Psalm 15 and his related appendices on the topics of oaths and usury.” – Bookflap
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1600’s
Sanderson, Robert – De juramento: Seven Lectures concerning the Obligation of Promissory Oaths, read publicly in the Divinity School of Oxford (London: Moseley, 1655) ToC Index
Sanderson (1587–1663) was an English, royalist theologian and casuist who specialized on conscience and oaths. He was recognized by near all parties as one of the best on these topics in his era.
ToC
1. The things to be handled proposed.
2. The definition of an oath.
3. An oath is a religious act.
4. In an oath God is called to witness.
5. The matter of an oath is something in doubt.
6. The end of an oath is credit.
7. The definition given, contains all the four kinds of causes.
8. Oaths assertory and promissory.
9. Oaths comminatory.
10. Oaths execratory.
11. The definition and distinction of obligation.
12. Obligation to guilt and to punishment.
13. An oath is in the nature of it obligatory.
14. The different obligation of the assertory and promissory.
1. A premonition concerning style.
2. Hypothesis 1: Above all things simplicity becomes an oath.
3. Simulation and deceit are repugnant unto simplicity.
4-7. Simulation does not evade perjury.
8. Hypothesis 2: An oath is stricti Juris.
9. The interpretation of an oath ought not to be too loose.
10. All conditions are not to be expressed in an oath.
11. Hypothesis 3: An oath makes not a former obligation void.
12. An impossible thing obliges not.
13. An unlawful thing obliges not.
14. The difference between an unlawful oath and an oath of an unlawful thing.
3rd Lecture: 16 Cases
1-2. The use of method and order of the things to be handled; of the matter of an oath.
3. Oath of a thing simply impossible.
4. Oath of an impossible thing and from the beginning improbable.
5. Oath of an impossible thing and from the beginning probable.
6. Oath of a necessary thing.
7. Oath of an unlawful thing.
8. Oath of a thing simply unlawful.
9. Oath of a thing unlawful by circumstance.
10. Oath of a thing which seems unlawful to the party swearing.
11. Oath repugnant to former obligation.
12. Oath hindering some good.
13. Oath tending to the hurt of the party swearing.
14. Oath giving scandal to another.
15. Oath of an indifferent thing.
16. Oath to do what another would have to be done.
17-18. Oath to preserve laws and observe statutes.
19. Caution concerning a right understanding of the things mentioned.
4th Lecture: 17 Cases
1. The efficient cause of an oath and the things to be handled, proposed.
2. Oaths of children.
3. Oaths of madmen and fools.
4. Oaths of men drunk and enraged.
5-6. Oath of one being in the power of another.
7. The authority of him who gives an oath.
8. Faith to be kept with enemies, heretics, perjured persons.
9. Whether an oath oblige the heirs of the party swearing, and how far.
10. Oath to be performed by the heir or successor.
11. Voluntary oaths.
12. Oath obtained by fraud.
13. Oath taken through some light fear.
14. Oath extorted by force or fear.
15. Money promised unto a thief ought to be paid.
16. Solution of objections.
17. Whether silence promised unto a thief is to be kept.
5th Lecture: Of the External Form of an Oath, containing Ten Cases
1. Oaths by signs only, without words.
2. Oaths by the creature.
3. Oaths by idols.
4. How to know whether a man have sworn or no.
5. The first trial: the form of the words.
6. The second: the force of the words.
7. Of Joseph’s form: by the life of Pharaoh.
8. Third trial: the custom of the country.
9. Fourth: the intention of the party swearing.
10. The use of the said trials.
11. The solemn rite of an oath.
12. Whether solemnity increase obligation.
13. Solemnity of oaths omitted.
6th Lecture: Of the Internal Form & Final Cause of an Oath, containing Seventeen Cases
1. Of the internal form or interpretation of an oath.
2. Where the parties are agreed upon the sense of an oath.
3-4. Whether verbal equivocation avail anything.
5-6. Or mental reservation?
7. That an oath is not to be eluded by a studied subterfuge.
8. In what sense voluntary oaths are to be understood.
9-10. And in what oaths that are required.
11. How far the sense of an oath depends upon the scope of the same.
12. An oath upon condition.
13. Of the first and second intentions of an oath.
14. When a lawful thing is sworn for an evil end.
15. Whether the party swearing, not intending to swear, be obliged?
16. An oath by the way of complement.
17. When a man is doubtful whether he have sworn or no.
18. A man willing to swear, but intending not to oblige himself.
7th Lecture: Of the Solution of the Bond of an Oath; & of the Use & Abuse of Oaths, containing Five Cases & so Many Conclusions
1. What truth is required in a promissory oath.
2. What the solution of the bond is.
3. Whether an oath may be dispensed withal?
4. The Pope’s power of dispensing with oaths examined.
5. Whether an oath may be commuted.
6. The superior may invalidate the oath of his subject.
7. The matter of an oath ceasing, the obligation ceases.
8. An oath may be released by him unto whom it is made.
9. It is not unlawful to swear.
10. The custom of swearing in ordinary discourse: evil.
11. A man ought not to swear without necessity.
12. Cautions in oaths required by others.
13. An oath is not to be taken with an unsatisfied conscience.
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Calamy, Edmund – A Practical Discourse Concerning Vows, with a Special Reference to Baptism & the Lord’s Supper (London, 1697) 310 pp. ToC
Calamy (1671–1732) was an English presbyterian and church historian, significantly influenced by Baxter.
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Quote
1600’s
Richard Baxter
Five Disputations of Church-Government & Worship (London: R.W., 1659), 5th Disputation, ch. 2, pp. 411-12
“§44. 4. And though the taking of an oath be a sort of worship, yet not the natural worship of the First Commandment, nor the instituted of the Second, but the reverent use of his name in the third; so that it is not primarily an act of worship, but reductively and consequentially: It being the principal use of an oath to confirm the truth and end strife, by appealing to God, which appellation is indeed an acknowledgment of his government and justice. And the laying the hand upon the book, or kissing it, is but a professing sign of my own intentions, such as my words themselves are: and therefore is left to human choice, and a lawful thing. And I have met but with very few [non-conformists], among all our ceremonies, that questioned this.”
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On Vows as Worship, with a Distinction
Quotes
On Daniel Chamier
William Ames, A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship (Amsterdam: Thorp, 1633)
Manuduction, ch. 12, section 2, p. 147
“His words in sum are these: To vow, and to perform are elicited acts of religion, because by themselves and properly they appertain to religion, but the actions that are vowed are imperated [commanded] by religion, and belong unto worship, not properly, but by accident: those formally, these materially.”
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ch. 2, section 6, pp. 142-43
“Chamier (says the Rejoinder) [Panstratiae Catholicae] tome 3, bk. 20 [‘On Vows’], ch. 5 [‘In what way vows are the worship of God. Arguments of the Papists’], four times uses this distinction of worship proper and accidental.
But Chamier only calls those special material acts which are conjoined with formal acts of worship, accidental parts of worship: as if a man vowed to drink no wine for a certain time, his abstaining from wine pertains to worship only by accident. So if in solemn prayer for a prince, his titles and style be rehearsed, or any special terms of honor, this pertains to prayer by accident.”
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William Ames
A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship (Amsterdam: Thorp, 1633), ch. 2, section 2, pp. 150-51
“Some vows are no more worship for the matter of them (and that only is left unto choice, not the manner) than fighting in a lawful war upon the bond of an oath is religious worship.”
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Article
1600’s
Perkins, William – Question 2, Whether a vow, be now in the New Testament, any part of Religion, or God’s worship? in The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience… (Cambridge: Legat, 1606), bk. 2, ch. 14
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All Vows & Oaths are Qualified, & How
Order of Contents
Quotes 10+
Articles 5+
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Quotes
Order of
Ursinus
Perkins
Dort
Ames
Rutherford
Rouse
Ascham
Dury
Guthrie
Lytler
Honyman
Baxter
Turretin
Henry
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1500’s
Zachary Ursinus
The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (Oxford, 1587), 3rd Commandment, 4. Whether all oaths are to be kept, pp. 917-19
“Oaths conceived or made rightly of things lawful, true, certain, weighty, and possible, are to be kept. For if once thou hast acknowledged and testified thyself to be justly bound to keep thy promise, and hast called God to record hereof, when as afterwards thou wittingly and willingly breakest thine oath, thou dost violate and break a just bond, and doest either accuse God, the witness and maintainer of this bond, of vanity and lightness, or provoke Him to punish thee. Ps. 15:4-5…
But oaths that are made of unlawful things, either by an error, or by ignorance, or through infirmity, or against the conscience, it is sin to keep them. And therefore such oaths are to be retracted and recalled, least we add thereby sins unto sins…
They therefore who keep that which they have ill sworn heap sin unto sin; as did Herod putting John Baptist to death by pretence of keeping his oath: and likewise such as keep monastical vows, whereby they have sworn idolatry and impious single living…
and according to the example and doctrine of David, 1 Sam. 25, who swears that he will destroy Nabal together with his family, saying: ‘So and more also do God unto the enemies of David; for surely I will not leave of all that he has by the dawning of the day, any that pisses against the wall:’ But after he had heard Abigail speak, he gives thanks to God that the executing and fulfilling of his oath was hindered by her and confirms by a new oath that this is God’s blessing and benefit, saying: ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me; and blessed be thy counsels, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and that mine hand has not saved me. For indeed, as the Lord God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from hurting thee, etc.’…
Objection 2. The oath of peace which was made to the Gibeonites, Josh. 9, was [by deception and] against the commandment of God. It is lawful therefore to keep an oath made of things unlawful. Answer:
1. They were not excluded from peace if any of those nations which God has commanded to be destroyed, did ask peace of the Israelites and did embrace their religion. Now the Gibeonites desire peace and are adjudged to serve the tabernacle for woodcleavers and drawers of water perpetually. Therefore the peace which was promised them, albeit it was obtained by fraud and guile, yet was it not repugnant to God’s commandment.
2. The Israelites do not therefore keep this oath, as that they were bound thereby, because they sware it being deceived, and thinking the Gibeonites to have been of another country: but first for avoiding of offence, whereby the name of God might be disgraced among the heathen, if the Jews had not kept their oath; and then, because it was lawful and just to save them which desired peace and embraced their religion, although no oath had been made at all.”
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1600’s
William Perkins
The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience… (Cambridge: Legat, 1606), bk. 2, Ch. 13, “Of an Oath,” Question 3, “How far forth does an oath bind and is to be kept?”, p. 47
“VI. If at the first it were lawful, and afterward become impossible and unlawful. For such oaths God Himself may be said to reverse. Thus if a man bind himself by oath to live in single life without marriage, and after finds that God-has not given him the gift of continency; in this case, his oath becomes impossible to be kept, and therefore, being reversed by God and becoming unlawful, it may be broken without impiety.”
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Synod of Dort
Intro
Jer. 35 gives the account of the Rechabites. At the command of one of their forefathers who had so charged them and their descendants, they were to dwell in tents all their days and drink no wine. The prophet Jeremiah highly commends them for keeping “all that he hath commanded you” (v. 18).
However, in verse 11 of the chapter, it is described how the Rechabites, who dwelt in tents in the peripheral areas, at the coming of the King of Babylon in war towards them, came and dwelt in the walled city of Jerusalem, “for fear of the army of the Chaldeans”. Dort explains how this action was just.
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The Dordrecht Bible Commentary trans. Theodore Haak ed. H. David Schuringa (1657; North Star Ministry Press, 2019), vol. 4, p. 279 on Jer. 35:11
“In this verse they [the Rechabites] give a reason why in this one thing, namely that now [they] did not dwell in the tents but lived in the city of Jerusalem: that at this present [circumstance they] followed not their father’s charge, showing thereby that it was a human ordinance which in time of need and as occasion required, they might without breach of duty very well wave [it,] that they might not transgress the law of God, this was also Jonadab’s intention and was pleasing and acceptable unto God.”
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William Ames
Marrow of Theology (Baker, 1997), bk. 2, ch. 10, p. 269
“31. A promise that is confirmed by a lawful oath is to be kept, provided the circumstances remain the same…”
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Samuel Rutherford
Lex Rex… (1644; Edin., 1843), p. 118
“Exigencies of the law of nature cannot be set down in positive covenants, they are presupposed.”
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The Covenant of Life Opened (Edinburgh: Anderson, 1655), pt. 1, ch. 8, p. 49
“For… that covenant was like [the] letter of the king raised to such a day, and the date being expired, the letter cease[s] to be in force.”
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Francis Rouse
The Lawfulness of Obeying the Present Government… (London, 1649), p. 13 Rouse was a Westminster divine.
“There is another, in racking an oath or covenant to make it speak that which it meant not.”
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Anthony Ascham
‘Anthony Ascham on the Expiring of the Solemn League & Covenant, 1649’ (RBO)
“If the terms of our utmost ‘endeavors’ and ‘all the days of our lives’ are to be understood literally [in the SL&C], and that we must not survive any violation of the Covenant… The terms of ‘forever’ [which the SL&C does not use] or ‘for all the days of our lives’ are not in our contracts to be understood naturally, but morally.
For we find it plainly in the [Mosaic] Judicial Law that after a Jew had taken a servant and bored a hole through his ear he was (as the text [Ex. 21:6] says) to serve him ‘forever,’ although one of them might possibly have died the next day, and both of them after a while might have been made captives to others.
The law calls the league of marriage individua vitae consuetudo, a cohabitation for all the days of our lives,
for so it should be ex voto contrahenti [out of the vow binding], in the sincere desires of the contractors. Yet we know one ordinarily dies before the other and that many conditions may happen to legitimate their divorce afterwards, though the contract was never so religiously made in the presence of almighty God at first.”
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John Dury
Just Re-Proposals to Humble Proposals… concerning the Engagement which the Parliament hath ordered to be taken (London, 1650), p. 14
“and that the Engagement whereinto we are entered [to the English republican government, 1648], to be ‘true and faithful to this commonwealth, as it now is (viz.) established without a king and House of Lords,’ has nothing at all inconsistent with the former engagements [such as the SL&C, 1643], or does give us the least cause to carry about with us a conscience (as to these things) trembling and doubtful, because we find ourselves free from all guilt of the least intention of violating any former promises, in things which are possible and lawful to be done by us in our places, which were unalterable conditions of all human promises, at all times presupposed and implied therein.”
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Objections Against the Taking of the Engagement Answered… (London, 1650)
pp. 7-9
“for the obligation of all oaths is only observable while the matter thereof is in being: and this rule is undeniable, sublata juramenti materia tollitur obligatio [the matter of the oath being taken away, the obligation is removed]. I conceive therefore, that although when time was, I was bound to monarchical government, both to the substance and to the settled form and circumstances thereof, as they stood in law, yet that now I am no more bound thereunto, because ipso facto these ties are unloosed not by the absolution of any earthly power to pronounce the tie void (which nevertheless has also been done by the supreme power of the nation when they declared the government to be altered), but by the decree of heaven, which has providentially and ipso facto loosened the ties by removing the late king and his heirs from the legal capacity wherein they stood towards me formerly, that is, before this parliament made it treason to make any more addresses to him, and before he was sentenced for treason himself.
Now that God has a right by the changes of government to absolve you from your sacred ties I suppose you will not deny, and that He has changed this government is undeniable; for without Him it could not have been done, and He claims to Himself the sole power of changing governments, Dan. 4:17. And that the commonwealth has also a power according to emergencies to dispose of the government within itself for its own safety, I think will not by you be denied; and if by the changes which it has power to make within itself, as emergencies require, the matter of your oath be taken away, it is clear that thereby the obligation is extinct.
Above all this, I shall offer unto your consideration something concerning the original of your sacred tie; for the oath which you took to maintain certain forms and circumstances of government (which in their own nature are alterable) was lawful to be taken by you, either because the supreme authority that then was required it of you, and you saw no just cause to refuse that which they required, or because only you of your own accord did choose to take such an oath: I suppose you will not say the last… it will follow then that the tie to those things was sacred; that is, it was lawful for you to be bound by an oath to them only, because the supreme authority which was over you, and had power to establish those forms and circumstances of government, did require such an obligation from you, to engage you to be faithful thereunto, and if this is the only lawful original of such a sacred tie;
Then I say, that the dissolution of that tie, may arise from the same power which did establish it: he that has power to oblige me to a form of his creating has also power to absolve me from that obligation. In old times and now also in some places, the soldiers were wont to be obliged by oath to serve their commanders faithfully, till they should be dismissed: the Romans called this sacramentum militare: Now he that might lawfully give them this oath, might also absolve them from it; and so it is in all obligations unto things which in their own nature are not morally good, but good only ex instituto legitimo [out of the legitimate institution]: the power which gives them a being, may take it from them;
If therefore the supreme power which now is over you has absolved you from those ties, your voluntary continuance under them cannot make them any longer sacred, no more than your voluntary taking an oath at first to them, without the conduct of the authority which was over you, could have made your obligation lawful. I conceive then, that in things merely civil and human (that is of a changeable nature, as being subject to civil and human ordinances) your oath cannot put a stronger tie upon you towards them than their nature will bear; that is, you cannot be unalterably bound unto them, for if they cease to be, you cannot stand obliged towards them; now that they do cease to be is clear, and that they may cease to be by the power which is over you, and by the acts of divine providence absolving subjects from such oaths.”
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p. 14
“Now if any pretense to liberty in mine own behalf or others does become an occasion of discontentedness, of strife, of murmurings and of sullenness of spirit, whereby I am discomposed so that I cannot serve all men freely in the duties of my calling, then I am a transgressor of the apostle’s rule, and walk not according to the law of liberty in the kingdom of Jesus Christ: because I suffer my conscience to be under the power of some other relations to liberty which I have not made subordinate unto the relations of Christianity, which nevertheless cannot be prejudged by any oaths of an inferior concernment, according to the rule, Quod in juramento semper jus superioris intelligitur exceptum [That in an oath the right of something superior is always excepted], and in our National [Solemn League &] Covenant, the obligation towards the maintaining of the liberties of the kingdom is expressed to be only in order to our calling and place.
Now if we do not reckon our spiritual calling as Christians, and our place in the ministry to be the rule according to which that Engagement and the endeavors which we owe to our civil freedoms are to be managed, I know not what it is in our sphere of the ministry that can be meant by the restriction of that performance to our calling and place. I say then, that by the express words of the Covenant, I am obliged not to make my plea for civil liberties (if infringed) such as may prejudge my Christian or ministerial liberties; as if it should be lawful for me to forgoe these for want [lack] of satisfaction in those, or think it unlawful for me to make use of these when I conceive my self deprived of those.”
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Conscience Eased: or the Main Scruple which has Hitherto Stuck Most with Conscionable Men Against the Taking of the Engagement, Removed… (London, 1651), pp. 6-8
“1. That no human engagements are or ought to be binding to the conscience of those that take them further than the meaning of those that give them is declared and assented unto by the taker.
2. That no engagements whereof the meaning is declared ought to be further binding to the conscience than the intent declared is lawful and allowable in the presence of God.
3. That the intents of no engagements amongst men can be further lawful and allowable in the presence of God than as they are subordinate unto the main rules of our Christian profession and to the principles of natural equity in human societies, whence this corollary will follow:
That if upon unforeseen accidents and emergences (which alter the nature of all human affairs) one and the same intent and design may be at one time agreeable to these rules and principles, and at another time become disagreeable thereunto: then that intent and design not only may, but must be laid down; for it is wholly unlawful to maintain any purposes which cease the practice or the profession of duties flowing from these rules and principles.
4. That the intents and designs of the Oath of Allegiance [to Charles I, who was executed] and of the National [Solemn League &] Covenant were never made by the parliaments which framed them to contradict one another; or in their proper times to oppress the rules of our Christian profession or the principles of natural equity by which our society is upheld: although in respect of certain expressions which relate to the circumstances of several times wherein they were framed, they are clearly different one from another. Whence this again will follow:
That to be obliged to different intentions (though contrary) upon several occasion (if both agree in their proper times to the forenamed rules and principles) this can be no breach of duty or prejudice of conscience.
5. That it does belong only to the superior powers of human societies to judge and determine at all times that the public engagements and designs ought to be, and what the form of government is, which is most proper for the times, and agreeable to natural equity to be yielded unto by all for common preservation in humane societies.
6. That the supreme powers cannot be bound up unalterably to any particular design or human engagement so as not to be free upon emergencies to entertain other designs and engagements; when they shall think it most expedient for common safety, and agreeable to Christianity, nay, they are not only free to do this, but they are bound to it: else they are not faithful to the charge which God has committed to them.
7. That subjects (that is, particular men in private stations) ought not to make themselves interpreters of the intents of public engagements otherwise than as they are agreeable to the rules of Christianity and the principles of natural equity; and so far as they bear a sense agreeable unto these, so far they are bound in conscience professedly to own them; but if a sense be imposed upon them contrary to any of these, then they are not obliged to own that sense.”
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James Guthrie
Protesters No Subverters… (1658), p. 60
“But if they [the Resolutioners] will extend it [the ordination vows] further, and say that it is meaned of absolute subjection to the sentence of his brethren, whether he have offended or not, they may as well, and with more color of reason, say that he is bound by his oath, not only to give subjection, but also obedience† to all their admonitions, whether just or unjust, lawful or unlawful;
because there is no express limitation in the words of the oath, these qualifications, being as we said before, amongst the praecognita [things having been foreknown] and praesupposita [things having been presupposed] of all such questions and answers, and there being no need to express them, except where there are grounds of jealousy.”
† [Notice Guthrie’s distinction between subjection in things lawful (e.g. Rom. 13), versus obedience to all commands.]
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Richard Lytler
The Reformed Presbyterian, humbly offering to the consideration of all pious and peaceable spirits several arguments for obedience to the Act for Uniformity… (London: 1662), ch. 6, p. 47
“I beseech you consider, that if when an oath whose institution by God is to be the end of all strife [Heb. 6:16], shall have a natural tendency to the maintaining of strife, division and contention, to be the occasion of wars and commotions in the land of our nativity, to administer matter and occasion of jealousy in our superiors, that while we judge ourselves bound in conscience by an oath that we have taken to endeavour to alter and change the government, whether he will or no, there can be no safety.”
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Andrew Honyman
The Seasonable Case of Submission to the Church-Government as now Re-established by Law, briefly stated and determined by a Lover of the Peace of this Church & Kingdom (Edinburgh: Tyler, 1662), pp. 22-26
“Indeed, the bond of a lawful covenant is so sacred a tie, that, without contempt of the holy majesty of God, it cannot be violated, nor without great sin; no creature can absolve us from it, nor dispense with it; nor are we to break it for any temporal advantage, terror or trouble. Yet, (supposing the covenant to be lawful…) it is sure:
1. That a lawful oath may cease to bind us, so that though we do not that which was under oath promised to be done; yet, there is no perjury: Semper perjurus est, qui non intendit quod promittit; non semper perjurus est, qui non perficit quod promisit sub Juramento, say the casuists.
2. It is certain that a lawful, although in the interpretation of it, it be stricti juris, and is to be understood according to the intention of the givers of it, and as the plain words bear; yet, it binds not in the sense which any ignorant mind or overscrupulous conscience may put upon it, or that some persons, upon partial designs, may put upon it, Videndum est (say Casuists) ne stricta interpretatio abeat in nimis strictam et rigidam.
3. It is certain, an unlawful oath did never, nor does bind any conscience to do according to it, though it binds to repentance for making of it and adhering to it.
In considering and applying these things: as to the first, it would be remembered that an oath, howsoever in itself lawful, yet the case may be such that by something following after it, the oath may cease to bind us to the performing of what was sworn; yea, the case may be that an oath lawfully made yet cannot be lawfully kept; it were sin to keep it in some cases: then, and in that case, it is not we that loose ourselves, but God looses us, when an oath, lawful at the making, cannot be kept without sin against Him.
Amongst other cases, wherein the ceasing of an obligation of a lawful oath may be seen, these three cases are worthy to be considered and seriously is it to be pondered whether they be applicable to the present question anent a discharge from the bond of the [Solemn League and] Covenant, as to the second Article of it, which is now under question:
1. If the matter of an oath be such as a superior has it in his power to determine of it, the oath of the inferior or subject person ceases to oblige him and is loosed when the superior consents not to what he has sworn:
This is both agreeable to reason, because no deed of a person inferior or subject to others should prejudge the right of the superior nor take from him any power allowed to him by God in any thing: And also, all sound divines do acknowledge this upon the common equity of that law, Num. 30:4. If it be said that the matter of the second article of the Covenant, being not of indifferent nature, but determined by the Word of God, and so not under the power of a superior on earth to determine in it, it would be remembered that in all this part of the discourse, where the ceasing of the obligation of the Covenant is spoken of (as to the second article), they are dealt with who plead the obligation of the Covenant only [in distinction from God’s moral law], and upon that account do scruple.
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If it be said again, that the consent of our superior has been obtained to that to which we have determined ourselves by our oath in the second article, and therefore our oath, before God, is confirmed, and he has not power to revoke his consent, according to that law, Num. 30:14:
It would be considered whether it was the Lord’s mind in that law, that if children or wives, having vowed, should by some means drive their parents or husbands out of the house, deprive them of all their worldly comforts, and then, when they had put them thus undutifully under sad tentations, bargain with them either to ratify their vows, or never to enjoy these comforts they had deprived them of, whether it was the Lord’s mind that consent, so obtained, should be an irrevocable confirmation of their vows who had carried themselves so undutifully? There is no evidence for that.
And the application is easy, since it is known that the Covenant was contrived and carried on as if the design had been laid to extirpate episcopacy whether the king would consent or not, or whatever course should be taken to force his consent, vi et armis [by force and arms], or by suspending him from the exercise of his royal power: an unparalleled way of usage from subjects to their sovereign.
Again it would be considered whether this be, De jure naturali [of the natural law], that a consent of a superior once given to the vow of an inferior, he has no power to revoke his consent upon reasonable causes, and to make void the vow, albeit, if he do it rashly and unreasonably, he sins. Great scholars are of the mind, he may revoke his consent: Lessius, Tract on a Vow, doubt 13. It is thought by him and others, that the precept eatenus [so far] is judicial, as it makes an irrevocable confirmation of the vow once consented to.
If it be further said, if the superior, under oath, give his consent to the inferior’s oath, or if he himself swear the same thing, then there is no power left of revoking his consent, or doing or putting his inferiors to do contrary to the oath: This is granted, unless upon some other ground there be a clear loosing of the superior’s oath and a ceasing of the obligation of it.
Leaving these things to be applied, let us look upon the second case, wherein the obligation and binding-power of an oath ceases and the oath is loosed.
It is this, when the matter concerning which the oath is continues not in the same state it was in at the making of the oath, when something in providence before the accomplishment of the oath occurs that makes the performance of the oath either sinful or importing some turpitude and something against moral honesty, or when the case comes to be that, that the plain end and expectation of the oath upon which it was founded appears frustrated: according to the language of divines, Res non permanet in eodem statu, ideo cessat juramenti obligatio. For example:
If a man swear that at such a certain time he shall deliver to such a man his sword, if in the meantime that man turn mad, and, in probability, might kill himself or others with the sword, had he it in his hand, there lies no obligation upon the swearer to deliver it to him; Nay, it were a sin and against charity to perform what he had promised.
Again, if a man swear to marry such a woman at such a time, if before that time he is made certain she is with child to his own brother, it were a grievous sin of incest to marry her (under pretense of keeping his promise). Or, if she should, before the marriage day, be found with child to another man (not so related to him) yet, to marry her, as it could not but have something against moral common honesty in it; so the plain end and expectation of his oath, on which it was founded, being frustrated by the woman’s whoredom, (viz. the having of a loyal honest and comfortable yoke-fellow), albeit he had made twenty oaths to her, they bind him not; God has loosed the man, Res non permanet in eodem statu.
Now, as to the present case of the covenanters, let it be considered whether the matter abides in that same state, i.e. whether there do not something now occur that puts us in that condition that without sin we cannot perform what we did promise in that second article of the Covenant.
It will be said: ‘What is the sin?’ For answer, it must be still supposed (as before we admonished) that in this part of the discourse concerning these who plead the bond of the Covenant merely, that the matter of the second article of the Covenant (about which the debate is) is in itself indifferent; and that episcopacy in itself, or by any law of God, is not unlawful, or prohibited. If it were this way unlawful there needed little question be made about the bond of the Covenant (for, what is unlawful must never be allowed, be it sworn against or not), but, supposing the indifferency and lawfulness of episcopacy in itself, I say the covenant cannot now oblige against it, there being so notable an alteration of the case and state of matters that whoever now do think themselves bound to stand to the Covenant, as to that second article (for there are other matters in that Covenant from which we can never be disobliged or loosed, they being necessary by divine and moral Law) do think themselves bound to a perpetual disobedience to the magistrate, in a matter wherein he has power to command them; and this is a perpetual sin. Perkins, Of Oaths, says well, ‘No oath can bind against the wholesome laws of the commonwealth: because every soul is subject to superior powers, Rom. 13.’
Neither is it material whether the laws be made before or after the oath; both ways the matter of the oath becomes impossible, de jure, as casuists speak: And now we are to think, the matter remains not in the same state, when the doing of what we did swear, imports sin.
I know Timorcus (p. 19) pleads that even upon supposition that it is in the power of the magistrate to set up the episcopal form of government, that yet we cannot own it but must suffer under it: because (says he) upon that supposition, that the matter of the oath [in this point], was res indifferens et libera in itself, yet it is no more free to us, Juramentum (says he) tell it libertatem: But, by his favor, albeit in indifferent things of private concernment wherein private persons bind themselves, and wherewith the magistrate meddles not, an oath may take away our liberty; yet, a subject’s oath cannot take away the power of the magistrate in commanding things which he sees for public good, and the matters not being in themselves unlawful: Neither can it take away or hinder the liberty, or rather duty of subjects in obeying what is lawfully commanded; otherwise, subjects, by their oaths might find a way to plead themselves free from obedience to magistrates in all things indifferent which they should command them; which is absurd.
But 3., it would be remembered that when the keeping of an oath is certainly a hindrance of some greater good (especially if other circumstances concur, that render the oath non-obliging), the obligation of it, in some cases, may cease.
This anent the loosing of oaths, because of the obstacle put to some greater good, which might be attained by not doing what is sworn, is indeed a very ticklish and tender question and all had need to look to it, lest under pretense that the keeping of an oath is an obstacle to a greater good attainable, by not keeping the oath there be a wide gap opened to all perjury; and the popish casuists are herein too lax for laying that ground that it is de jure naturali, that every one should do that which is best; they conclude, that where the performance of what is sworn is likely to hinder a greater good that might be attained by not keeping the oath, that in that case an oath binds not at all.
Protestant casuists, as Bishop Sanderson, do deny this principle without limitation, thus expressed; yet do grant, that it is true when there concurs some other thing (as usually there does) which may render the oath void, or the keeping of it unlawful, or looses from it the impeditiveness of greater good, there has weight.
But, we may say, albeit other things did not concur to the nulling or voiding of an oath, yet if the standing to it be found impeditive of a greater good, to which we are bound by a prior obligation, then the oath, being an obstacle of such a greater good, ceases to bind the swearer.
If a man should swear never to go near such a river or water, having once been in hazard there, yet where he sees at some distance from it his brother likely to perish in the water, and it is probable to him that he could be able to save his life, the prior and greater bond of charity and of God’s Law commanding, that binds him to go help his brother and looses him from his oath.
And as to our case, besides what has been said for the clearing, upon other grounds, of the non-obligation of the Covenant in that second article (the matter thereof still supposed as indifferent and episcopacy not forbidden by any divine Law), may we not clearly see that there is (by adhering to that oath as still binding) an obstacle put to the attainment of a greater good and of greater necessity, and to the seeking after that greater good [to] which we are pre-obliged by former bonds to labor after?
Is not that great duty of preaching the Gospel of peace lying upon ministers (woe to us if we preach not) and lying upon many ministers antecedently to the making of this Covenant, and upon adhering to that Covenant in the second article, proves a hindrance to that greater duty whereto we are pre-obliged; shall it still be thought to bind so, that rather than we will acknowledge God’s loosing us by a former obligation to a greater duty, we will, by adhering to it, put ourselves in incapacity (according to law) to serve any longer in the ministry?
Do there not also lie upon us all pre-obligations to obey the magistrate in things not against God’s Law (such as now episcopacy is supposed to be) to procure the public peace and good of Church and State, and prevent horrid confusions, which (as matters go) cannot be avoided by sticking at that article in the Covenant?
Shall not the peace of conscience that shall arise from tendering these great interests be as much, and more than any peace of conscience pretended to be in keeping the oath, which (though we should not be ready to judge any) may perhaps, upon examination, be found rather a piece of satisfaction to the will, than peace of the conscience, God having loosed and set free conscience from that bond, in hoc rerum statu [in this state of things]?”
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Sometimes souls may make snares of oaths to themselves by overstretching them, and so do run themselves into the perplexities they needed not.”
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Richard Baxter
A Christian Directory... (London, 1673)
pt. 3, ch. 5, title 2, pp. 702-13
Ҥ12. Rule 2. Those conditions are to be taken as intended in all oaths (whether expressed or no) which the very nature of the thing does necessarily imply (unless any be so brutish as to express the contrary): And these are all reducible to two heads: 1. A natural, and 2. A moral Impossibility.
1. Whoever swears to do anything, or give anything, is supposed to mean, ‘If I live; and if I be not disabled in my body, faculties, estate; If God make it not impossible to be, etc.’ For no man can be supposed to mean, ‘I will do it whether God will or not, and whether I live or not, and whether I be able or not.’
2. Whoever vows or swears to do anything must be understood to mean it, ‘If no change of providence make it a sin: or if I find not contrary to my present supposition, that God forbids it.’ For no man that is a Christian is to be supposed to mean when he vows, ‘I will do this though God forbid it, or though it prove to be a sin,’ especially when men therefore vow it because they take it to be a duty. Now as that which is sinful is morally impossible, so there are diverse ways by which a thing may appear or become sinful to us:
1. When we find it forbidden directly in the Word of God, which at first we understood not.
2. When the change of things does make that a sin which before was a duty: of which may be given a hundred instances: As when the change of a man’s estate, of his opportunities, of his liberty, of his parts and abilities, of objects, of customs, of the laws of civil governors, does change the very matter of his duty.
§13. Question: But will every change disoblige us? If not, what change must it be? seeing casuists use to put it as a condition in general, Rebus sic stantibus [“Things thus standing”]. Answer:
No: it is not every change of things that disobliges us from the bonds of a vow. For then vows were of no considerable signification. But:
1. If the very matter that was vowed, or about which the vow was, do cease, Cessante materia cessat obligatio [“The matter ceasing, the obligation ceases]: As if I promise to teach a pupil, I am disobliged when he is dead. If I promise to pay so much money in gold, and the king should forbid gold and change his coin, I am not obliged to it.
2. Cessante termino vel correlato cessat obligatio [The limit or co-relative ceasing, the obligation ceases]: If the party die to whom I am bound, my personal obligation ceases. And so the conjugal bond ceases at death and civil bonds by civil death.
3. Cessante fine, cessat obligatio [The end ceasing, the obligation ceases]. If the use and end wholly cease, my obligation which was only to that use and end ceases. As if a physician promise to give physic for nothing for the cure of the plague, to all the poor of the city, when the plague ceases, his end, and so his obligation ceases.
4. Cessante persona naturali relata cessat obligatio personalis [The natural related person ceasing, the obligation ceases]. When the natural person dies, the obligation ceases. I cannot be obliged to do that when I am dead which is proper to the living. The subject of the obligation ceasing, the accidents must cease.
5. Cessante relatione vel persona civili, cessat obligatio talis, qua talis [the civil relation or person ceasing, the obligation ceases so far, as such]: The obligation which lay on a person in any relation merely as such, does cease when that relation ceases. A king is not bound to govern or protect his subjects if they traitorously depose him, or if he cast them off and take another kingdom (as when Henry III of France left the kingdom of Poland); nor are subjects bound to allegiance and obedience to him that is not indeed their king: A judge, or justice, or constable, or tutor, is no longer bound by his oath to do the offices of these relations than he continues in the relation: A divorced wife is not bound by her conjugal vow to her husband as before: nor masters and servants when their relations cease: nor a soldier to his general by his military sacrament when the army is disbanded, or he is cashiered or dismissed.
§14. Rule 3. No vows or promises of our own can dissolve the obligation laid upon us by the Law of God. For we have no coordinate, much less superior authority over ourselves; Our self-obligations are but for the furthering of our obedience.
§15. Rule 4. Therefore no vows can disoblige a man from any present duty, nor justify him in the committing of any sin. Vows are to engage us to God, and not against him: If the matter which we vow be evil, it is a sin to vow it, and a sin to do it upon pretense of a vow. Sin is no acceptable sacrifice to God.
§16. Rule 5. If I vow that I will do some duty better, I am not thereby disobliged from doing it at all when I am disabled from doing it better.
Suppose a magistrate seeing much amiss in Church and commonwealth, does vow a reformation and vow against the abuses which he finds; If now the people’s obstinacy and rebellion disable him to perform that vow, it does not follow that he must lay down his scepter and cease to govern them at all because he cannot do it as he ought, if he were free.
So if the pastors of any Church do vow the reformation of Church abuses, in their places, if they be hindered by their rulers, or by the people, it does not follow that they must lay down their callings and not worship God publicly at all because they cannot do it as they would and ought if they were free, as long as they may worship him without committing any sin.
God’s first obligation on me is to worship Him, and the second for the manner, to do it as near his order as I can: Now if I cannot avoid the imperfections of worship, though I vowed it, I must not therefore avoid the worship itself (as long as corruptions destroy not the very nature of it and I am put myself upon no actual sin). For I was bound to worship God before my vows, and in order of nature before my obligation de modo: And my vow was made with an implied condition, that the thing were possible and lawful: And when that ceases to be possible or lawful which I vowed, I must nevertheless do that which still remains possible and lawful.
To give over God’s solemn worship with the Church is no reformation. To prefer no worship before imperfect worship is a greater deformation and corruption than to prefer imperfect worship before that which is more perfect. And to prefer a worship imperfect in the manner, before no church worship at all, is a greater reformation than to prefer a more perfect manner of worship before a more imperfect and defective. To worship God decently and in order, supposes that He must be worshipped: And he that does not worship at all, does not worship Him decently.
If a physician vow that he will administer a certain effectual antidote to all his patients that have the plague, and that he will not administer a certain less effectual preparation, which some apothecaries through covetousness or carelessness had brought into common use, to the injury of the sick: His vow is to be interpreted with these exceptions, ‘I will do it if I can, without dishonesty or a greater mischief: I will not administer the sophisticated antidote when I can have better: I vow this for my patients benefit and not for their destruction.’
Therefore if the sophisticated antidote is much better than none, and may save men’s lives, and the patients grow wilful and will take no other, or authority forbid the use of any other, the physicion is neither bound to forsake his calling rather than use it, nor to neglect the life of his patients: (If their lives indeed lie upon his care and they may not be in some good hopes without him, and the good of many require him not to neglect a few): But he must do what he can when he cannot do what he would, and only show that he consents not to the sophistication.
§17. Rule 6. Though he that vows a lawful thing, must be understood to mean, if it continue possible and lawful; yet if he himself be the culpable cause that afterwards it becomes unpossible or unlawful, he violates his vow. He that vows to give so much to the poor, and after prodigally wastes it, and has it not to give, does break his vow; which he does not if fire or thieves deprive him of it against his will. He that vows to preach the Gospel, if he cut out his own tongue, or culpably procure another to imprison, silence or hinder him, does break his vow; which he did not if the hinderance were involuntary (and insuperable); Consent does make the impedition his own act.
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§43. 3. A vow is as null or not to be kept when the matter is something that is morally or civilly out of our power to do: As if a servant or child, or subject vow to do a thing which he cannot do lawfully without the consent of his superior. This vow is not simply null: for it is a sinful vow! (unless it was conditional):
Every rational creature is so far sui juris [of his own law] as that his soul being immediately subject to God, he is capable of obliging himself to God; and so his vow is a real sinful vow when he is not so far sui juris as to be capable of a lawful vowing or doing the thing which he vows. Such a one is bound to endeavor to get his superior’s consent, but not without it to perform his vow: no though the thing in itself be lawful. For God having antecedently bound me to obey my superiors in all lawful things, I cannot disoblige myself by my own vows.
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§. 45… 5. The end of the laws of men must be distinguished from the words: And a great difference must be put between those forbidden acts [by the magistrate] that do no further harm than barely to cross the letter of the law, or will of a superior, and those that cross the just end of the command or law; and that either more or less; as it is more or less hurtful to others, or against the common good: For then the matter will become sinful in itself…
§46. Rule 27. A vow may be consequently made null or void: 1. By cessation of the matter, or anything essential to it (of which before §13) or by a dispensation or dissolution of it by God to whom we are obliged. No doubt, it is in God’s power to disoblige a man from his vow: But how He ever does such a thing is all the doubt: extraordinary revelations being ceased, there is this way yet ordinary, viz. by bringing the matter which I vowed to do under some prohibition of a general law by the changes of his providence.
§. 47. Rule 28. As to the power of man to dispense with oaths and vows, there is a great and most remarkable difference between those oaths and vows where man is the only party that we are primarily bound to, and God is only appealed to as witness or judge, as to the keeping of my word to man; and those oaths or vows where God is also made (either only or conjunct with man) the party to whom I primarily oblige myself.
For in the first case man can dispense with my oath or vow, by remitting his own right and releasing me from my promise; but in the second case no created power can do it. As e.g. if I promise to pay a man a sum of money or to do him service, and swear that I will perform it faithfully; if upon some after bargain or consideration he release me of that promise, God releases me also; as the witnesses and judge have nothing against a man whom the creditor has discharged.
But if I swear or vow that I will amend my life, or reform my family of some great abuse, or that I will give so much to the poor, or that I will give up myself to the work of the Gospel, or that I will never marry, or never drink wine, or never consent to Popery or error, etc. No man can dispense with my vow, nor directly disoblige me in any such case; because no man can give away God’s right: All that man can do in any such case is to become an occasion of God’s disobliging me: If he can so change the case, or my condition, as to bring me under some law of God which commands me the contrary to my vow, then God disobliges me (or makes it unlawful to keep that vow). And here because a vow is commonly taken for such a promise to God, in which we directly bind ourselves to Him, therefore we say, that a vow (thus strictly taken) cannot be dispensed with by man, though in the sense aforesaid an oath sometimes may.
§48. The Papists deal most perversely in this point of dispensing with oaths and vows: For they give that power to the Pope over all the Christian world, who is an usurper and none of our governor, which they deny to princes and parents that are our undoubted governors: The Pope may disoblige vassals from their oaths of allegiance to their princes (as the Council of Lateran before cited), but no king or parent may disoblige a man from his oath to the Pope: nay, if a child vow a monastical life and depart from his parents, they allow not the parents to disoblige him.
§49. Rule 29. In the determining of controversies about the obligation of oaths and vows, it is safest to mark what Scripture says, and not to presume upon uncertain pretenses of reason, to release ourselves, where we are not sure that God releases us.
§50. Rule 30. That observable chapter, Num. 30, about dispensations, has many things in it that are plain for the decision of diverse great and usual doubts: But many things which some do collect and conclude as consequential or implied are doubtful and controverted among the most judicious expositors and casuists.
§51.
1. It is certain that this chapter speaks not of a total nullity of vows ab initio [from the beginning], but of a relaxation or disannulling of them by superiors, for:
1. Bare silence (which is no efficient cause) does prove them to be in force.
2. It is not said, ‘She is bound, or not bound’, but ‘Her vow and bond shall stand,’ vv. 4, 7, 9, 11, or shall not stand, vv. 5, 12, and he shall make it of none effect: v. 8. The Hebrew, verse 5, signifies, Quia annihilavit pater ejus illud. And v. 8, Et si in die audire virum ejus, annihilaverit illud, et infregerit votum ejus.
3. It is expressly said that she had ‘bound her soul’ before the dissolution.
4. It is said, ‘The Lord shall forgive her,’ vv. 5, 8, 12, which signifies a relaxation of a former bond. Or at the most, the parents’ silence is a confirmation, and his disowning it hinders only the confirmation: So the Chaldee Paraphrase, the Samaritan and Arabic, ‘Non erunt confirmata.’ The Syriac, ‘Rata vel irrita erunt.’
2. It is certain that a father has the power of relaxation here mentioned as to an unmarried daughter in her youth living in his house, and a husband over his wife: For it is the express words of the text.
3. It is certain that this power extends to vows about all things in which the inferior is not sui juris, but is under the superior’s care and oversight, and cannot perform it (in case there had been no vow) without the superior’s consent.
4. It is certain that it extends not only to matters concerning the governors themselves, but concerning vows to God, as they are good or hurtful to the inferiors.
5. It is certain that there are some vows so necessary and clearly for the inferior’s good that in them he is sui juris, and no superior can suspend his vows: As to have the Lord for his God: and not to commit idolatry, murder, theft, etc. No superior can disoblige us here: For the power of superiors is only for the inferior’s indemnity and good.
6. It is certain that the superiors recall must be speedy or in time, before silence can signify a consent and make a confirmation of the vow.
7. It is certain that if the superior have once ratified it by silence or consent, he cannot afterwards disannul it.
8. It is agreed that if he a while dissent and disannull it, and afterward both inferior and superiour consent again, that it remains ratified.
9. It is agreed that the superior that can discharge the vow of the inferior cannot release himself from his own vows (If the Pope could release all men, who shall release him?).
§52. 2. But in these points following there is no such certainty or agreement of judgements, because the text seems silent about them, and men conjecture variously as they are prepared:
1. It is uncertain whether any but women may be released by virtue of this text:
1. Because the text expressly distinguishing between a man and a woman does first say, Si vir—’If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.’ And
2. Because women are only instanced in; when Scripture usually speaks of them in the masculine gender, when it includes both sexes, or extends it to both.
3. And in the recapitulation in the end it is said by way of recital of the contents, v. 16, ‘These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses between a man and his wife; between the father and his daughter—in her youth in her father’s house,’ as if he would caution us against extending it any further: And though many good expositors think that it extends equally to sons as to daughters in their minority, because there is a parity of reason, yet this is an uncertain conjecture:
1. Because God seems by the expression to bound the sense.
2. Because God acquaints not man with all the reasons of his laws.
3. Because there may be special reasons for an indulgence to the weaker sex in such a weighty case.
And though still there is a probability it may extend to sons, it is good keeping to certainties in matters of such dreadful importance as oaths and vows to God.
2. It is uncertain whether this power of disannulling vows do belong also to other superiors, to princes, to inferior magistrates, to pastors, to masters, to commanders as to their soldiers, as well as to parents and husbands: some think it does, because there is, say they, a parity of reason. Others think it is dangerous disannulling oaths and vows upon pretenses of parity of reason when it is uncertain whether we know all God’s reasons: and they think there is not a parity, and that it extends not to others:
1. Because Parents and Husbands are so emphatically named in the Contents in the end, v. 16.
2. Because it had been as easie to God to name the rest.
3. Because there is no instance in Scripture of the exercise of such a power, when there was much occasion for it.
4. Because else vows signify no more in a kingdom than the king please, and in an army than the general and officers please: and among servants than the master please, which is thought a dangerous doctrine.
5. Because there will be an utter uncertainty when a vow binds and when it does not, to almost all people in the world: For one superior may contradict it, and another or an hundred may be silent: The king and most of the magistrates through distance will be silent, when a master or a justice or a captain that is at hand may disannul it: one officer may be for it and another against it: A master or a pastor may be for it, and the magistrate against it: and so perjury will become the most controverted sin and a matter of jest.
6. Because public magistrates and commanders and pastors have not the near and natural interest in their inferiors as parents and husbands have in their children and wives: And therefore parents have not only a restraining power (as husbands here also have), but also a disposing power of the relation of their infant children, and may enter them in baptism into the vow and Covenant of Christianity, the will and act of the parents standing for the child’s till he come to age: But if you say that upon a parity of reason all princes and rulers and pastors may do so with all that are their inferiors, it will seem incredible to most Christians.
7. Because public magistrates are justly supposed to be so distant from almost all their individual subjects as not to be capable of so speedy a disowning their personal vows. Whatever this text does, it is certain that other texts enough forbid covenants and combinations against the persons or power or rights of our governors, and not only against them but without them, in cases where our place and calling allows us not to act without them. But it is certain that God who commanded all Israel to be entered successively into the Covenant of circumcision with Him, would not have held them guiltless for refusing that Covenant if the prince had been against it. And few divines think that a subject or soldier or servant that has vowed to forbear wine or feasting or marriage is discharged if his prince or captain or masters be against it. Jonathan and David were under an oath of friendship (called the Lord’s oath, 2 Sam. 21:7). Saul as a parent could not discharge Jonathan as being a man at full age. Quaere: Whether Saul as a king being against it, did null the oath to david and Jonathan? No, the Scripture shows the contrary.
8. Because else that benefit which God extends only to a weaker sort, would extend to any, the wisest and most learned persons through the world, whose vows to God even for the afflicting of their own souls may be nulled by the king or other superiors. Many such reasons are urged in this case.
3. It is uncertain whether this chapter extend to assertory or testimonial oaths (if not certain that it does not). It speaks but of binding their souls in vows to God, which is to offer or do something which by error may prove prejudicial to them. But if a parent or husband (much more a king or general) might nullify all the testimonial oaths of their inferiors that are given in judgment, or discharge all their subjects from the guilt of all the lies or false oaths which they shall take, it would make a great change in the morality of the world.
4. It is not past all controversy how far this law is yet in for force: seeing the Mosaical Law as such is abrogated; this can be now no further in force than as it is the law of nature, or some way confirmed or revived by Christ. The equity seems to be natural.
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§55. Rule 33. There are so great a number of sins and duties that are such by accidents and circumstantial alterations, and some of these greater and some less, that it is a matter of exceeding great difficulty in morality to discern when they are indeed sins and duties and when not, which must be by discerning the preponderancy of accidents; and therefore it must be exceeding difficult to discern when a vow shall weigh down any of these accidents and when not.
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§. 57. Rule 35. Thus also the case must be resolved whether an oath bind that hinders a greater good which I might do if I had not taken it. In some cases it may bind: As if I swear to acquaint none with some excellent medicine which I could not have known myself unless I had so sworn: or in case that the breaking of the oath will do more hurt to me or others than the good comes to which I omit: or in case all things considered, the doing of that good hic et nunc [here and now] is not my duty: See Dr. Sanders of the difficulties here also, pp. 78-79.
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§60. Rule 38. If the matter of an oath be such as makes me directly the tempter of myself or others, it is a sin, and not to be kept, unless some greater good preponderate that evil. For though it be no sin to be tempted, yet it is a sin to tempt. Though it be no sin to tempt by a necessary trial (as a master may lay money before a suspected servant to try whether he be a thief), nor no sin to tempt accidentally by the performance of a duty (as a holy life does accidentally tempt a malignant person to hatred and persecution), yet it is a sin to be directly and needlessly a tempter of ourselves or others unto sin; and therefore he that vows it must not perform it. As if you had vowed to persuade any to unchastity, intemperance, error, rebellion, etc.
§61. Rule 39. If the matter of an oath be such as accidentally lays so strong a temptation before men (especially before a multitude), as that we may foresee it’s exceeding likely to draw them into sin, when there is no greater good to preponderate the evil of such a temptation, it is a sin to do that thing, though in performance of a vow. When actions are good or evil only by accident, then accidents must be put in the balance against each other, and the weightiest must preponderate.
As in matter of temporal commodity or discommodity, it is lawful to do that action which accidentally brings a smaller hurt to one man, if it bring a greater good to many; or which hurts a private person to the great good of the commonwealth: But it is not lawful to do that which clearly tends (though but by accident) to do more hurt than good, as to sell powder and arms when we foresee it will be used against the king and kingdom; or to sell ratsbane when you foresee it is likely to be used to poison men.
Much more should the salvation of many or one be preferred before our temporal commodity; and therefore for a lesser good we may not tempt men to evil, though but accidentally: As he that lives where there is but little need of taverns or ale-houses, and the common use of them is for drunkenness, it is unlawful for him there to sell ale or wine, unless he can keep men from being drunk with it (as if they take it home with them or be unruly, he cannot). For thus to be a foreknowing tempter and occasion unnecessarily is to be a moral cause.
Two things will warrant a man to do that which by accident tempts or occasions other men to sin: One is a command of God: when it is a duty which we do. The other is a greater good to be attained by the action, which cannot be attained in a less dangerous way. As in a country where there is so great a necessity of ale-houses and taverns that the good that is done by them is greater than the hurt is like to be, though some will be drunk; it is lawful to use these trades though some be hurt by it: It is lawful to sell flesh though some will be gluttonous: It is lawful to use moderate, decent ornaments though some vain minds will be tempted by the sight to lust. As it is lawful to go to sea though some be drowned.
To act a comedy, or play at a lawful game, with all those cautions which may secure you that the good of it is like to be greater than the hurt, is not unlawful: But to set up a common play-house or gaming house where we may foresee that the mischief will be far greater than the good (though the acts were lawful in themselves), this is but to play the Devil’s part, in laying snares for souls: Men are not thus to be tised to Hell and damned in sport, though but accidentally, and though you vowed the act.
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§. 67. Rule 45. He that vows absolutely or implicitly to obey another in all things is bound to obey him in all lawful things, where neither God, nor other superior or other person is injured; unless the nature of the relation, or the ends or reasons of the oath, or something else infer a limitation as implied.”
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pt. 4, ch. 19, title 2
p. 115
Ҥ8. Question 3. Is a man obliged by a contract which he made in ignorance or mistake of the matter?
Answer: I have answered this before in the case of marriage, pt. 2, ch. 1. I add here, we must distinguish:
1. Between culpable and inculpable error;
2. Between an error about the principal matter and about some smaller accidents or circumstances;
3. Between a case where the law of the Land, or the common good interposes and where it does not.
1. If it be your own fault that you are mistaken, you are not wholly freed from the obligation: But if it was your gross fault, by negligence or vice, you are not at all freed. But if it were but such a frailty as almost all men are liable to, so that none but a person of extraordinary virtue or diligence could have avoided the mistake, then equity will proportionably make you an abatement or free you from the obligation. So far as you were obliged to understand the matter, so far you are obliged by the contract; especially when another is a loser by your error.
2. An inculpable error about the circumstances or smaller parts will not free you from an obligation in the principal matter: But an inculpable error in the essentials will.
3. Except when the law of the land or the common good, does otherwise overrule the case: For then you may be obliged by that accident. In diverse cases the rulers may judge it necessary, that the effect of the contract shall depend upon the bare words or writings, or actions; lest false pretenses of misunderstanding should exempt deceitful persons from their obligations and nothing should be a security to contractors. And then men’s private commodity must give place to the law and to the public good.
4. Natural infirmities must be numbered with faults, though they be not moral vices, as to the contracting of an obligation, if they be in a person capable of contracting. As if you have some special defect of memory, or ignorance of the matter which you are about! Another who is no way faulty by over-reaching you, must not be a loser by your weakness. For he that comes to the market, or contracts with another who knows not his infirmity, is to be supposed to understand what he does, unless the contrary be manifest: You should not meddle with matters which you understand not: Or if you do, you must be content to be a loser by your weakness.
5. Yet in such cases, another that has gained by the bargain, may be obliged by the laws of equity and charity, to remit the gain, and not to take advantage of your weakness: But he may so far hold you to it, as to secure himself from loss: except in cases where you become the object of his charity, and not of commutative justice only.”
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p. 117
Ҥ19. Question 12. If another man deceive me into a promise or covenant against my good, am I bound to perform it when I have discovered the deceit? Answer:
Yes, 1. in case that the law of the land or other reasons for the public good require it; 2. Or in case that you were faulty by negligence, heedlessness, or otherwise guilty of your own deceit, in any considerable and avoidable degree. Otherwise, in that measure that he deceived you, and in those respects you are not obliged.
§20. Question 13. If the contracting parties do neither of them understand the other, is it a covenant: or if it be, whose sense must carry it? Answer:
If they understand not each other in the essentials of the contract, it is no contract, in point of conscience: except where the laws, for the public safety, do annex the obligation to the bare external act. But if they understand not one another in some circumstances, and be equally culpable or innocent, they must come to a new agreement in those particulars: But if one party only be guilty of the misunderstanding, he must bear the loss if the other insist on it.
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§22. Question 15. If I say I will give such or such a one this or that, am I bound thereby to do it? Answer:
It is one thing to express your present mind and resolution without giving away the liberty of changing it: And it’s another thing to intend the obliging of yourself to do the thing mentioned, and that obligation is either intended to man or to God only; and that is either in point of rendition and use, or in point of veracity, or the performance of that moral duty of speaking truth.
If you meant no more in saying, ‘I will do it,’ or ‘I will give it,’ but that this is your present will and purpose and resolution, yea, though it add the confident persuasion that your will shall not change, yet this no further obliges you than you are obliged to continue in that will: And a man’s confident resolutions may lawfully be changed upon sufficient cause.
But if you intended to alienate the title to another, or to give him present right, or to oblige yourself for the future to him by that promise; or to oblige yourself to God to do it by way of peremptory assertion, as one that will be guilty of a lie if you perform it not; or if you dedicate the thing to God by those words as a vow, then you are obliged to do accordingly (supposing nothing else to prohibit it).”
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pp. 119-20
Ҥ35. Question 28: May one person disoblige another of a promise made to him? Answer:
Yes, if it be no more than a promise to that person: because a man may give away his right. But if it be moreover a vow to God, or you intend to oblige yourself in point of veracity under the guilt of a lie if you do otherwise, these alter the case and no person can herein disoblige you.
§36. Question 29. But what if the contract be bound by an oath, may another then release me? Answer:
Yes, if that oath did only tie you to perform your promise and were no vow to God which made him a party by dedicating anything to Him: For then the oath being but subservient to the promise, he that discharges you from the promise, discharges you also from the oath which bound you honestly to keep it.
§37. Question 30: Am I bound by a promise when the cause or reason of it proves a mistake? Answer:
If by the cause you mean only the extrinsic reasons which moved you to it, you may be obliged nevertheless for finding your mistake: Only so far as the other was the culpable cause (as is aforesaid) he is bound to satisfy you: But if by the cause you mean the formal reason, which constitutes the contract, then the mistake may in some cases nullify it (of which enough before).
§38. Question 31. What if a following accident make it more to my hurt than could be foreseen? Answer:
In some contracts it is supposed or expressed that men do undertake to run the hazard: and then they must stand obliged.
But in some contracts, it is rationally supposed that the parties intend to be free if so great an alteration should fall out. But to give instances of both these cases would be too long a work.
§39. Question 32: What if something unexpectedly fall out which makes it injurious to a third person? I sure cannot be obliged to injure another. Answer:
If the case be the latter mentioned in the foregoing answer, you may be thus free: But if it be the former (you being supposed to run the hazard and secure the other party against all others) then either you were indeed authorized to make this bargain or not: If not, the third person may secure his right against the other.
But if you were, then you must make satisfaction as you can to the third person. Yet, if you made a covenant without authority, you are obliged to save the other harmless, unless he knew your power to be doubtful and did resolve to run the hazard.
§40. Question 33: What if somewhat fall out which makes the performance to be a sin? Answer:
You must not do it: But you must make the other satisfaction for all the loss which you were the cause of unless he undertook to stand to the hazard of this also (explicitly or implicitly).
§41. Question 34: Am I obliged if the other break covenant with me? Answer:
There are covenants which make relations (as between husband and wife, pastor and flock, rulers and subjects), and covenants which convey title to commodities, of which only I am here to speak. And in these there are some conditions which are essential to the covenant:
If the other first break these conditions, you are disobliged. But there are other conditions which are not essential, but only necessary to some following benefit: whose non-performance will only forfeit that particular benefit: and there are conditions which are only undertaken subsequent duties, trusted on the honesty of the performer: And in these a failing does not disoblige you. These latter are but improperly called conditions.
§42. Question 35: May I contract to perform a thing which I foresee is like to become impossible or sinful before the time of performance come, though it be not so at present. Answer:
With all persons you must deal truly; and with just contractors, openly: But with thieves and murderers, and persecutors, you are not always bound to deal openly. This being premised, either your covenant is absolutely, ‘This I will do, be it lawful or not, possible or impossible’: and such a covenant is sin and folly. Or it is conditional, ‘This I will do, if it continue lawful or possible.’ This condition (or rather exception) is still implied where it is not expressed, unless the contrary be expressed:
Therefore such a covenant is lawful with a robber with whom you are not bound to deal openly: because it is but the concealing from him the event which you foresee. As e.g. you have intelligence that a ship is lost at sea, or is like to be shortly taken by pirates, which the robber expects shortly to come safe into the harbor: You may promise him to deliver up yourself his prisoner when that ship comes home.
Or you know a person to be mortally sick and will die before the next week: you may oblige yourself to marry or serve that person two months hence: For it is implied if he or she be then alive. But with equal contractors, this is unlawful, with whom you are obliged not only to verity, but to justice, as in the following cases will be further manifested.”
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The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued (1683; London: Parkhurst, 1689), ch. 37, p. 126
“4. It is none of our controversy whether this [SL&C] or any other covenant or vow do bind us to rebellion, sedition or any unlawful act; we renounce all such obligation.
5. Yea, we hold that neither this, nor any other vows of our own can prevent any obligation that the king has authority to impose upon us in things great or small; else men might disable magistrates to rule them and exempt themselves from obedience by vowing beforehand not to obey.”
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Francis Turretin
Institutes (P&R), vol. 2, 11th Topic, 11th Question, §II, p. 67
“Thus when the formal reason of an oath is taken away, the oath ceases by reason of the event.”
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Matthew Henry
Commentary on Jer. 35, verses 1-11
“Note, the rules of a strict discipline must not be made too strict, but so as to admit of a dispensation when the necessity of a case calls for it, which therefore, in making vows of that nature, it is wisdom to provide expressly for, that the way may be made the more clear, and we may not afterwards be forced to say, ‘It was an error,’ Eccl. 5:6.
Commands of that nature are to be understood with such limitations. These Rechabites would have tempted God, and not trusted Him, if they had not used proper means for their own safety in a time of common calamity [which they did, Jer. 35:11], notwithstanding the law and custom of their family [Jer. 35:7-10].”
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Articles
1600’s
Perkins, William – The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience… (Cambridge: Legat, 1606), bk. 2
ch. 13, Question 3, ‘How far forth does an Oath bind and is to be kept?’
ch. 14, Question 3, ‘When a Vow made does bind, and when not?’
Ascham, Anthony
ch. 3, ‘Whether we may lawfully take new oaths for the interest of the unjust party, especially after former oaths of allegiance to another party?’ in A Discourse, wherein is Examined what is particularly Lawful during the Confusions & Revolutions of Government… (London, 1648), pt. 2, pp. 43-56
The Bounds & Bonds of Public Obedience, or, A Vindication of our Lawful Submission to the Present Government, or to a Government Supposed Unlawful, but Commanding Lawful Things, Likewise how such an Obedience is Consistent with our Solemn League & Covenant… (London, 1649), pt. 2, pp. 38-50 Despite EEBO-TCP attributing this to Rouse, it was most likely that of Ascham.
“By these steps we are come at last ad sacras columnas, to those sacred pillars on which the holy [Solemn League and] Covenant [1643] hangs almost in every church, as a sanctum aeternitati, a law sacred to eternity. The hands which hung it there have not (they say) power to take it down again. Who therefore may undertake to tell these persons that they actually are or else may be freed from it, seeing they find themselves obliged if they can, to tie all the world with them in the same sort of knot?
Here is certainly a zeal worthy to be • ixt on that, which should oblige always; and the world must confess that there has been no public oath taken by any person anywhere who have been more scrupulously attent not to double with their God in relation to his part in contract. But yet let not these consciences be scandalized if I say it was compiled by none but mortal men, taken only by such, and as a promissory oath cannot possibly be free from those exceptions and accidents wherewith time changes the constitution of all those things, which it does not absolutely destroy, wherefore upon a sober review of all I doubt not, but as many oaths and leagues are transient, so to show that this according to its nature, and as it is originally a league or covenant, that is, as it is a formal compact, relating to the public and united corporation of several nations and magistracies (by which each people were united together, and without which neither people were respectively to act anything separately within and against themselves):
I say I doubt not but to show that such a covenant, upon what has intervened is expired to us the people of England, and that without any default of ours; and though our Magistrate would give it a new life and obligation; yet to many principal things it can oblige no longer; and for the next we are to consider that though something of our first end in reformation stream through the Covenant; yet its spring-head rises higher than it; which end we are in all forms to pursue still, and are now left tied to so much of the Covenant only as we were obliged to for all our days withal our mights and souls, before we took it at all. Lastly, if it were granted, that the Covenant is not expired, yet I shall here show, that our submission to this present government is no way inconsistent with it.
In which few words, though I have stated the main of its difficulties, yet ere I apply myself to answer objections, I shall briefly premise what I have observed others have omitted, it being hard to find how we may be untied from a thing till we have found how the knot at first was made.
Whatsoever we can say, affirm or deny, is either assertory or promissory. The first relates to the time past or present (is if I affirm Titius to be, or have been at Rome) and therefore upon the very saying or swearing, the whole truth and obligation is fulfilled, and passed with the time which accompanied it. The other relates to the time present, as it is then sincerely said or sworn; and to the future for the sincere fulfilling them, which yet is dubious, conditional and not in our powers, as when Titius promises Sempronius when his ship returns.
For this reason some say all promissory oaths are absolutely unlawful, because oaths must be true and certain; but all future effects of things are uncertain. I answer:
That for so much as concerns the form of my oath here, it is true and certain, that my mind and words went truly together in the act of swearing and that I will make my deed and words go truly together, when the supposed condition betwixt us (and which, as we mutually consent to, is in neither of our powers at present) shall absolutely come to pass. This was the case of Abram’s servant when he swore to take a wife for Isaac; a future (in several circumstances) very uncertain, both in respect of what might happen to the servant, to Isaac and to the virgin; we know what happened to Job’s children and family through the accident of war and the malice of the Devil, and how Joseph was shuffled away by his own friends and kindred.
It is not enough to say, such supposed tacit conditions cannot be in oaths, for:
First, if such conditions be in promises, and that I may lawfully make a promise to another, then I may lawfully swear a promissory oath to him which we see cannot be separated from such conditions as are not, cannot and need not be expressed betwixt us at the beginning. For (to take away the supposition of fraud betwixt us) we both agree in this that we cannot foresee with what circumstances our futures may be perplexed.
Therefore it is sufficient that we swore things not necessary, but possible; such as might happen or not happen, because depending on things which depend not totally on us, nor on our will, but rather mixedly on the wills of others, and on that which to us is change or fortune, for which reason he is not forsworn who effects not always what he by oath promises, no more than he sins who always effects not his simple promise.
Secondly, this tacit condition in a promissory oath and in things naturally and morally possible, is proved by the very nature and definition of the oath. For it is only an attestation and imprecation of God in such manner, that if the promiser fail, he would have him to whom he promised, understand that he puts himself under God’s severe wrath.
From hence it is to be noted that the bare promise obliged as strictly before he swore as after he swore; and of the reason is:
Because he was obliged by nothing but by that which was in pact. The investing it with an oath, or with God’s punishment, relates only to the penalty: so that a promissory oath signifies no more than such a penalty upon such a promise: But a penalty (as we know) in law and equity relates only to that which is unlawful, such as is the violation of a pact.
The addition of never so many penalties, to a thing in itself unlawful, can never fasten any obligation on me to do it; Nor can several penalties to an obligation in itself lawful, add anything to the first jus or right of it, but only to my future fear, lest I do injustice.
The capital question therefore in these cases will be: What the nature of the things are to which we obliged ourselves at first? For according as they stand or fall, our relations or obligations, to them stand or fall whither we will or no.
Thirdly, we find such tacit conditions concealed and supposed in the oaths of Solomon to Bathsheba, of David concerning Nabal’s house, of God concerning the destruction of Ninevah and of Abram’s servant concerning Isaac’s wife, etc.
By a reflection on all this, viz. that seeing there may be a promise, and consequently a promissory oath, and that the nature and obligation of a promise and of such an oath is one and the same, we have gained a great point: that the Covenant (which is a promissory oath) is not in its own nature of an eternal obligation, but is involved in tacit conditions and accidents of the world, which may justly incumber us from effecting it, or from being further obliged to it, as well as other promises may, which yet are made bona fide [by good faith] at the beginning. The difficulty only is to see, whether de facto that has intervened which has now taken away the formal and original obligation, which we of the people had to it at first, by authority of our magistrate, and so taken away, as we may be secure and out of fear of the penalty, which we then submitted to in it.
I shall not here make use of what others have laboriously argued, that the matter of the Covenant is such as we cannot be obliged to, but let it be as good or as bad as men please to suppose; I say in the first place, that all the good or bad, was formed into a political oath, authorized upon two kingdoms, by the sanction of two public magistracies, who as collaterals obliged themselves to cooperate faithfully together and obliged those of their distinct nations to cooperate respectively and subordinately with them for attaining a former end in such a way of reformation as is therein expressed; but by such means, as they in their public and respective capacities, not we in our particulars should judge most consonant to equity and true to religion. For which reason we happily are pointed at there, only in our private places and callings.
Here therefore there is a relation of several things concurrent, viz. of two magistracies united as a means for the easier reaching the end of those respective reformations which they were obliged to make before they entered in league, and of two people, who by the union of their respective magistracies, pass (for so much as is therein expressed) into an union one with another, and are to have their private capacities and endeavors managed by them, and never against them by any virtue of this league. Besides it is a considerable circumstance in the magistrates managing the whole, that states or civil constitutions by reason of the diseases of ambition and avarice, are naturally as much subject to future changes, as any other things are; and without the supposition of tacit conditions, we may as little swear to preserve the State of a public body, as we may swear to preserve the State of our own particular bodies, or as a parent may to preserve his child, which when it shall be taken away by diseases, or by justice, he may be sorry for the loss, but may not justly complain of it.
And indeed so it is come to pass without any default in us of the English people, or of our public magistrate (under whom we were to act in these private places and callings) that neither of us can be said to have laid the Covenant aside, although we could not keep it from expiring, because the failing was in that which was never supposed to be in our powers, viz. in many conditional things which came cross and in the breach of fidelity in another collateral and concurring power.
If you please to object here as an aggravation and an incitement for us of the Covenanted people to rise kill and slay, that the Covenant is buried not as a thing really expired and dead, but that the people out of interest must be told so, only because the former magistracy is really laid aside and changed [by Cromwell’s regime], which if people should thoroughly consider, would quickly make them find matter enough in the Covenant to take arms.
I shall not in the way of answer to this repeat anything concerning the cause, the means and the concurrences to this our present change; every covenanter both of England and Scotland, knowing well that there was no change of government here till the Covenant was nationally broke (and so many here were ensnared, both Royalists and Parliamentarians) by the Scots, who thought to have used it for a change of government, and as a stratagem to give law in another judicatory: Neither shall I argue in this place, how compatible any change may be with a covenant so conditional, in which kings as parties are totally excluded from judging either for themselves or for others, which point shall be further argued at last; But I shall content myself to take what is here granted in the objection, viz. that the government is really changed [by Cromwell’s regime]; The consequence then to us of the people will be, that seeing by the fourth article of the [Solemn League and ] Covenant [1643], we may not without apparent breach of it act the sense of the Covenant, but as we receive it from our respective and supreme judicatory of England only, and that the said government which it relates to, is confessed to be gone, have you not then clearly confessed that the obligation to act anything publicly by Covenant is likewise gone? according to an old axiom, Sublato relato tollitur correlatum [By the relative being removed, the correlative is taken away].
If this present government which we are changed to, and which now protects us, should think fit by the way of Covenant to give a new life to that remaining part of it which may be observed, yet you [who deny that Cromwell’s regime is legitimate] will not allow any obedience to them, though in things never so lawful; Neither will that fourth article allow me to obey any foreigner, nor those without whose consent the Covenant was made, and consequently without whom it is to be interpreted, as the late proceedings of the Scots at the Hague plainly show:
So that after all this, if I in my private capacity be as you say still indispensibly obliged by it, to begin or assist to public troubles [rather than to submit to Cromwell’s government], do you not fall into a worse absurdity and maintain an oath against the Fifth Commandment, or against all magistracy, which is an impossibility? Nothing ever cautioned in terms more expressly for our duty of making discoveries, of bringing to condign punishment, of our supreme respective judicatories and the like than the Covenant did, which are things relating to none but our supreme magistracy, unless you please plainly to assert another absurdity, that every single man who has taken it, is thereby absolved from his magistrate, and is made one himself to judge of the other, and thereby authorized not by way of toleration to profess but to establish what religion he would, to punish at his own tribunal whom he would, and to reform the state as he would. For he to whom you will allow a capacity of making war, has also a capacity of making peace, and laws for the security of his peace.
Thus we see how the government is changed, and the formal obligation of the Covenant at an end; But what if I should grant you by the way of supposition, that in case both the Covenant and the former Government were standing together in as full force as you desire, and as it was when the Scots first delivered the king up to the parliament of England? I would then know of you whether if our Parliament had then for reasons best known to themselves (and of which we can never judge competently) declared us of the people, free from any further obligation of the Covenant, might we justly have thought our solemn league at an end, and that we ought to act nothing publicly any longer by it?
If you will say we should have been still obliged to act upon it, then I ask you again under whom? For I have proved it must be always under a magistrate, and you have all along proved that it must only be under our lawful magistrate, how lawful soever the thing be in itself which is commanded, you would not allow the king to be the person to be obeyed, whom you thought fit to keep in an imprisonment. The Parliament (according to our supposition) would not be any longer obliged to it, or be obeyed in it, and the Scots acknowledge themselves in the fourth article to be the supreme judicatory only of Scotland, and I cannot act publicly by a private capacity or magistracy. Therefore in such a case, the Covenant how good soever, had not obliged any longer, nor is it in itself eternal.
You will not deny perhaps but one man may free another from an oath when it is for the worldly profit of him who pleases to release it, as every man may throw away anything of his own right; but you will not allow it in sacred things where God is a party. I answer:
[Firstly,] That though no parent can dispense his wife or child from the fear of God and the duties they owe to him, yet he allowed him to break the child’s vow for giving him a sacrifice, and both to be guiltless [Num. 30]; and then why may not we be now absolved, if our public parent judges it not fit that we should be any longer tied formally to a conditional oath; though it have relation to some sacred things?
You will say no, because the parent did not as a party solemnly concur to the child’s vow, and having never consented he might the better dissent; but our public parent did concur at a party to our oath. The Parliament and people took the Covenant jointly together, and it is said that if the father hear the vows and contradicts them not in the same day, then he confirms them and cannot break them without iniquity. To this I reply:
First, that, v.16, it is said the child is free after the dissent of the parent, and that the parent is charged with whatsoever was amiss in him, which is excuse enough for us of the people.
Secondly, the difference is great in a main point of the parallel; because after the concurrence of the father to the child’s vow for sacrificing something to God, that might be completed in the temple without his further helping it on; but we cannot do anything in our case without the cooperation of our public parent all along, neither can he do anything without the concurrences of many other possible, but uncertain conditions, and if he in effect find those conditions have come contrary to his public endeavors, what may we do? Will it be enough for us to rest in having attempted the utmost of our private endeavors with him? or will you authorize every man upon private judgment or interpretation to begin a war in his own sense.
A league or pact authorized betwixt private neighbors over a whole nation or over part of it, is not as a league betwixt prince and prince: because these have conditions expressed how and when to begin war upon one another in case their leagues be broken. But there is no such thing expressed in terminis [in the terms] in that Covenant which we have made one with another, and which we made subordinately to our magistrate: so that if we or the magistrate fail, we are equally left to God’s justice solely and to the forfeiture of our own penalties due to him, and everyone is to answer for his own deficiency in his own station:
And being left to ourselves again, we are left to act only so much of our oath or of the ancient end of it, as we were bound to before we swore: which is a great deal; because we were bound by precept before we were by promise all the days of our lives to do our utmost for the glory of God, and the good of our neighbor.
Secondly, princes or states who by the supremacy of their powers are able to make laws for their separated kingdoms; when they unite their supreme powers, they are able to make a common law for all their kingdoms together, which is called a league or compact; But a law when it comes to be broken (which is a public thing, and therefore of every man’s interest) may be vindicated publicly by war, and by those who have a posse regni [capacity to rule]. But I cannot say the same may be done for the Covenant, for quo jure [by which law] can it be done?
The Scots, indeed, by one way of arguing make it greater than a law, and by another [way] make it less; which is when they one while affirm it unalterable and unreformable as a divine text, and another while confess it was not made by the joint concurrence of all those who with them are essential to the making [of] a public law. I conceive we may safely say it is of a constitution inferior to that of a law, and therefore its obligation is less, though its penalty be greater to the failers in it. It was made use of only as a convenient instrument or means for the better attaining [of] some laws as its end. A law it was not because it was not made by all the then legislative powers of the kingdom. For the king’s concurrence in England, if not in Scotland, was then held requisite for passing a law and he ever dissented from this Covenant. Half the inferior sort of the people have not any interest in it, nor have taken it: And not having any obligation to it, how I pray you can they justly be drawn into the penalty due to it? as they must all be, if a war (which is effectually a penal thing) be begun though by a part of the nation; for the nature of war is such that it puts a whole Kingdom into imminent danger of desolation, though but begun in a part and by a party of it.
Thus far I have endeavored to show the true fast and loose of all promissory oaths, and how their obligations cease according to the nature of the things which they are affixed to.
The author of the Grand Case of Conscience, p. 1, objects that if inconvenience may break a promise or disengage an oath, then many may be cheated, and David was much mistaken, Ps. 15:4, ‘Who saith he shall dwell in God’s Tabernacle, who sweareth to his own hindrance and changeth not.’ I answer:
David speaks here of an oath violated by a change only in the promiser, who by his oath has passed a right to another: and therefore can no longer dispose of it again; the party to whom he swore may dispose of it as he pleases and may dispense him of it; because no man has a right to make another man keep his own longer than he please himself. It is a duty to pay a debt, but not to receive it.
Finally, this is nothing to those cases where the change is not in us, but in other persons and in things which relate principally and conjointly to the fulfilling of the oath or promise. For if I promise Titius a sword at such a time, and he then chance to be mad [insane] (an accident not expressed betwixt us at first); am I bound to put it into his hands in this change because I was the first promiser?
Whereas it is said, that the obligation of some things end because they can be no longer kept, as that of the king’s person, etc. He answers, p. 11, that if men shall by violence put an end to the thing, that thereby the obligation may end too, that is a breach of Covenant. A woman promises to be faithful to her husband so long as he lives; but if she, to marry another, kills him, she breaks her promise.
I grant it easily that they who use violence to break lawful contracts, sin grievously; which is a thing now confessed in every Church of Scotland; but what is that to those who use no violence to break them at all, nor can help it when it is done although many be undone by it? One thing I most earnestly desire to learn in this question propounded (I guess) concerning the king’s death [in 1649]; which was a consequence of the others’ breach and tamperings.
If by the Covenant we were indispensably obliged to preserve his person, how came it to pass that we were obliged by the same Covenant to wage war against him? I have heard of a distinction betwixt his power and his person, but never of any betwixt his person and himself. So that if the Covenant could have dispensed any soldier of England or Scotland to kill his person by an accident of war (as his life was oft in danger before he came to the scaffold) his death had been violent, and the obligation to preserve him had ended, and yet according to this argument the Covenant had not been broken. Why then should these men think the world so dull as not to understand plainly enough that the Covenant provided for his death more ways than one? True it is, that the Covenant held out a faint and a conditional preservation of him, and after all no man can sincerely stretch it further: From whence if we will let him judge this one controversy, he has left it recorded to posterity, in his supposed book, ch. 9, ‘In vain is my person excepted by a parenthesis of words, when so many hands are armed against me with swords.’ Moreover in his chapter of the Covenant, he feared it provided for him in a logic too loose and circumstantial. From all which what did he conclude, but that he would not allow of a Covenant-argument for his life?
I know the answer here is obvious, that bullets were not shot directly against him (as few are against any in a town or in a battle) and that if he would have withdrawn his person, he should have been out of danger; but then I pray you what advantage had he in this by Covenant, more than any common soldier of either side? who when they retire, are equally out of danger; Nay he had less advantage, for by preserving him, they meant keeping him after he was rescued from others, and by keeping him they meant not him primarily, but something else, to which all consideration of him was to give way.
As for others which were to be brought to punishment, they had some of them leave to go beyond the seas, others to enjoy liberties at home; and of all the excepted persons, there was never any of them who was here deprived of life, but as our troubles and wars increased, their number (which was strange) lessened even to six or seven at last, and most of those out of the kingdom. I know they have distinctions wherefore so much might be remitted to those and not to the king, although he had on his behalf the word ‘preservation’ in the Covenant, but these distinctions are but their strong justifications for that which is the bottom of this argument, if all Covenanters durst speak plainly alike.”
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Eaton (1596?–1665) was an English Independent divine. These papers relate to the English Engagement controversy (1649).
Previously the population had taken an oath of allegiance to King Charles I, his heirs and successors. The king was put on trial and beheaded (1649). The radical republican regime (later to be headed up by Cromwell) instituted an Engagement oath to their government. The question was whether one could morally take this new Engagement oath given their previous oath of allegiance to the royal line. Eaton argues, amongst other things, all such oaths of allegiance are conditional in numerous ways, and not absolute.
In the first paper Eaton briefly sets out two positions on the subject. The English presbyterian Edward Gee, who reflects a more traditional English political philosophy then responded. The third paper is Eaton’s response to Gee, which reflects and defends the political philosophy of the Cromwellian regime.
“National Covenant” in the title refers to the fundamental political ideas and bonds of the English nation, not to the Scottish National Covenant (1638).
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2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – “Editor’s Extended Introduction” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
p. 98 fn. 275
p. 108
“Covenanting”, pp. 118-23
“Leading Conforming Covenanters: Baillie, Honyman & Leighton”, pp. 123-27
“Indulged Covenanters”, pp. 128-29
“The Solemn Leage & Covenant: Not Perpetual or Unqualified as a Civil Bond”, pp. 130-33
p. 152
p. 177
“Remaining Objections”, pp. 179-85
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Vows, Oaths, Covenants & Constitutions can Never Bind Beyond God’s Law
Order of Contents
Intro
Article 1
Quotes 6+
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Intro
Willem Apollonius (†1657) was a Dutch presbyterian. His work below on Church government was written at the request of his Dutch presbytery and approved by them. He is refuting the errors of the English Independents and Congregationalists.
The Independents and Congregationalists held that a man-composed, local church covenant was necessary to the right establishing and constitution of a particular church. The presbyterians, following Scripture, denied this. Apollonius rightly argues that such covenanting cannot bind beyond God’s Law.
Reasons for this include that vows, oaths and covenants must always, as all things, be in concurrence with God’s natural, moral and positive laws, and receive all of their bindingness therefrom. No human will or force (that of others or our own) can ever bind any creature apart from God’s laws. Nor can any human words, will, force or religious vow ever legitimately bind us from keeping God’s Law, said Jesus, in accord with the light of nature (Mt. 15:3-6):
“Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? God commanded, saying, ‘Honour thy father and mother’: and, ‘He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.’
But ye say, ‘Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free.’ Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.”
Vows or covenants that would cause us to omit duties or sin are either to be ignored in that instance, or repented of. WCF 22.7 teaches this:
“No man may vow to do anything forbidden in the word of God, or what would hinder any duty therein commanded, or which is not in his own power, and for the performance whereof he hath no promise of ability from God.[q]”
[q] Acts 23:12,14. Mark 6:26. Numb. 30:5,8,12,13“
Concerning claimed binding traditions which go beyond God’s laws, Jesus said (Mt. 15:9):
“But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Paul admonished in Gal. 5:1:
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
WCF 22.6 says legitimate vows are done “out of faith, and conscience of duty”:
“whereby we more strictly bind ourselves to necessary duties, or to other things, so far and so long as they may fitly conduce thereunto.[p]
[p] Deut. 23:21-23. Ps. 50:14. Gen. 28:20-22. 1 Sam. 1:11. Ps. 66:13,14. Ps. 132:2-5“
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Article
2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – “Editor’s Extended Introduction” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
p. 98 fn. 275
p. 108
“Covenanting”, pp. 118-23
“Leading Conforming Covenanters: Baillie, Honyman & Leighton”, pp. 123-27
“Indulged Covenanters”, pp. 128-29
“The Solemn Leage & Covenant: Not Perpetual or Unqualified as a Civil Bond”, pp. 130-33
p. 152
p. 177
“Remaining Objections”, pp. 179-85
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Quotes
Order of
Ames & Chamier
Rutherford
Apollonius
Scottish Protestors
Baxter
Fisher
Fentiman
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1600’s
William Ames on Daniel Chamier
William Ames, A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship (Amsterdam: Thorp, 1633), Manuduction, ch. 12, section 2, p. 147
“His words in sum are these: To vow, and to perform are elicited acts of religion, because by themselves and properly they appertain to religion, but the actions that are vowed are imperated [commanded] by religion, and belong unto worship, not properly, but by accident: those formally, these materially.”
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Samuel Rutherford
Lex Rex... (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843), p. 44
“Where God has not bound the conscience, men may not bind themselves, or the consciences of the posterity.”
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Apollonius
A Consideration of Certain Controversies at this Time Agitated in the Kingdom of England concerning the Government of the Church of God (London, 1645), ch. 2, ‘Of a church-covenant’
pp. 15-16
“3. We grant that there may be an express and solemn covenant, in the presence of God and the Church, upon extraordinary occasions, entered into by all the members of the visible Church of one nation or kingdom: when the Church in that kingdom or nation has made defection from God and his worship, or some other necessity call for it; for the preserving, or propagating, or restoring of the decayed worship of God.
By which covenant notwithstanding there does not accrue to the Church of that kingdom any new right, but that right which before they had to enjoy the ordinances of God, which by reason of their defection, or some other cause, was hindered and as it were suspended, they may now freely and purely again reduce to practise. Thus did the Church of God under the Old Testament often in the time of defection, or extraordinary necessity, enter into a solemn Covenant in the presence of God.
4. …it is lawful also expressely, publicly and solemnly to vow to God those things which are in the precepts of God enjoined to all believers: But that necessity of making this public, solemn and express covenant, in the presence of the whole Church, requiring it as a thing of absolute necessity to the essential constitution of a particular church, we do not acknowledge:
But that union above mentioned, we conceive sufficient by the Word of God for the joining men professing the faith into one particular church. So that, by the Word of God, to the essence and entireness of a particular Church, this union is sufficient.”
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p. 18
“3. No man can enjoin anything upon the consciences of men (as absolutely necessary to enjoying the sacraments of divine grace and the benefits of the ministry of the Church) which God has not enjoined, without damnable will-worship. But God has not enjoined such a covenant on the consciences of men as absolutely necessary…”
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On the mid-1600’s Scottish Protesters
Kyle Holfelder, Factionalism in the Kirk during the Cromwellian Invasion & Occupation of Scotland, 1650 to 1660: The Protester-Resolutioner Controversy (1998), p. 82
“In a telling moment of passion during the consideration of the Remonstrance, James Guthrie, when reminded by Robert Douglas that there were standing acts of kirk and state approving the treaty of Breda [1650], retorted, “presse me not with humane constitutions in matters of conscience.” (Wood, Vindication, 4) When the moderates responded by charging Guthrie with “vilifying Acts of the Assembly” and subverting the government of the kirk, the radicals replied that human constitutions could not bind the consciences of men further than the law of God would allow. (The Nullity of the Pretended Assembly, 23-4) It was this cardinal principle, which was to actuate the radicals’ dissent throughout the remainder of the 1650s.”
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Richard Baxter
Catholic Communion Doubly Defended by Dr. Owen’s Vindicator & Richard Baxter… (London: Parkhurst, 1684), section 5, ‘A comparison of the use of a faulty translation of the Scripture and a faulty liturgy’
“Some that live in countries where none in twenty miles openly use the New [translation of Scripture, the KJV] one, come to Richard Baxter for counsel; he desires them to bring one of the contrary judgment and judge when they hear both: He tells them that:
1. They should keep up the New Translation as far as they can in God’s public worship, while the hurt will not be greater than the benefit.
2. That when they have no public church or worship to join with, but what uses the Old [faulty] one, they should rather join with such than none, as also when they cannot have the New one without more hurt than benefit.
3. And that while they can have the New one, they should not renounce communion with the churches that use the Old one, as separating from it as unlawful, but only disown the faults of the Old one, while they disown not the communion of the churches in the use of it.
The other says:
1. That it is a cursed thing to offer God a worse [worship] while we have better.
2. That we are sworn [by the SL&C] against it.¹
¹ [The SL&C does not mention the KJV, but the argument is that the KJV is held (by them) to be part of the reformation, or the reforming process, that the SL&C binds to.]
3. That it is false worship and obeying man before God.
4. That we [the ones who only use the New translation] do but keep our possession, which they would put us out of, and it’s they that separate from us, and not we from them.
5. That we keep to God’s Word, which is the only rule. And therefore communion with the Old Translation is unlawful, and we should rather suffer death.
Baxter answers:
I. (1) That it is a cursed thing to give God no public worship because we cannot have the New Translation, and to live like atheists if we cannot have what we would. None is worse than the Old. Family worship without church worship is worse than an Old Translation. (2) And that it is not we that offer God the worse before the better; it is they that exclude the better, which we protest against, having not our choice.
II. That he that sware [1.] to give over all church worship unless he have the New Translation, swore wickedly like an atheist; and he that swore [2.] to communicate with no church that used the Old Translation, swore wickedly like a schismatic; and he that swore [3.] that God’s providence should never return him to a necessity of using the Old,¹ swore blasphemously, as if he could have governed the world against God.
¹ [Note that such conditions are not in the SL&C.]”
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The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued (1683; London: Parkhurst, 1689)
ch. 37, p. 126
“I hold myself bound by this [Solmen League &] Covenant [1643] to nothing which I had not been bound to if I had never taken it. For I never thought that by vows we may make new religions or laws to ourselves, but only bind ourselves to that which God does make our duty.”
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ch. 58, p. 232
“Did the [Solemn League and] Covenant or our Profession [of Christianity] ever bind us to take the [Anglican] Liturgy, to be worse than it is, or the parish churches to be [considered] no churches, or their communion utterly unlawful? Or did it bind us to prefer a desertion of all public communion before it? No, it did not; but if it had, it had been sinful, and to be repented of.
But, 1. We were bound by God’s word (and no covenant, or practices bind us to any more than Scripture binds us to) to avoid all that is sin.
2. And when we have our choice to prefer the best; he that does either turn to sin, or prefer a less good, when it is so, before a greater, goes back; but he that prefers no public worship before the parish worship goes back indeed and breaks the Covenant, by profaneness and schism. God’s Word is a clearer and surer test of our duty and controversies than any human covenants.
When ministers were changed [in] 1647, many places got out [of the church] some tolerable weak ministers to get in abler men in [the churches in] great towns. When the bishops returned, their abler ministers being dead or ejected, they took the old ones again. Did these go back from Covenant Reformation or duty when they could have no better? Had not those been the revolters [to the Covenant] that would rather have had none?”
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1700’s
James Fisher, Ebenezer Erskine & Ralph Erskine
The Westminster Assembly’s Shorter Catechism Explained… (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1765), pt. 2, p. 68
“Q,. 62. Is our obligation to moral duties increased by
our vowing or engaging to perform them?
A. Although it is impossible that our obligation to moral
duty can be increased by any deed of ours beyond what
it is already by the law of God, which is of the highest
authority, yet by reason of our own voluntary and superadded engagement, this obligation from the law may make a deeper impression than before, Ps. 44:17-18, and our sins receive a higher aggravation if we either omit the duty engaged to or commit the evil opposite to it, Dt. 23:21-22.”
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2000’s
Travis Fentiman
“Editor’s Extended Introduction”, “Church Government is Secondary” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025), pp. 108-9
“Consequently, Church government, by the Word, which defines it, can never arise higher than bearing secondary weight or ever override more fundamental obligations, no matter what is enacted in Church or civil constitutions, oaths, covenants, etc., lest we go beyond the Word (1 Cor. 4:6) and become sectarian (all in the name of reforming).
Ideal, external Church government is a goal to be worked towards, but it does not necessitate or warrant of itself separation…”
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Oaths should not Include Doubtful Matters
Quote
The Reformed Presbyterian, humbly offering to the consideration of all pious and peaceable spirits several arguments for obedience to the Act for Unifromity, as the way to unity (London, 1662), ch. 6, pp. 38-39
“I have somewhere read a very good direction… concerning making vows and covenants: That no action which is matter of question and dispute, especially of religion, should be the matter of a vow.
And the instance that is given is in a case somewhat like ours, which I desire may be laid to heart; Sie Novatus Novitios suos compulit ad jurandum, ne unquam ad Catholicos Episcopos redieriat. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, bk. 2. For Novatus, the authour of the second great schism, as I find in Mr. Brinsley’s Arraignment of Schism, for him to compel his novices which he had drawn into that sin with him, to enter into an oath that they would never return to the catholic bishops, never be ordained by them more, or submit to their jurisdiction; the matter of this oath was unlawful in a very mild sense, because doubtful.”
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An Oath is to be taken in the Plain & Common Sense of the Words
See also ‘May One take an Oath of Allegiance or Otherwise to a Usurper?’
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Article
2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – Wamphray’s 5th Objection, pp. 151-52 in “Editor’s Extended Introduction” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
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Vows Sinfully Imposed & Taken in a Sinful Manner Bind
See also ‘May One take an Oath of Allegiance or Otherwise to a Usurper?’
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Quotes
Order of
Rutherford
Baxter
Fentiman
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1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
Lex Rex (Edinburgh: Ogle, Oliver & Boyd, 1843), Question 12, ‘Whether or not a Kingdom may Lawfully be Purchased by the Sole Title of Conquest?’, p. 47
“Assertion 2 – This title by conquest, through the people’s after consent, may be turned into a just title, as in the case of the Jews in Caesar’s time, for which cause our Savior commanded to obey Caesar, and to pay tribute unto him, as Dr. Ferne [a royalist] confesses, (sec. vii, p. 30)…
…2. Though the consent be some way over-awed [by intimidation], yet is it a sort of contract and covenant of loyal subjection made to the conqueror, and therefore sufficient to make the title just; otherwise, if the people never give their consent, the conqueror, domineering over them by violence, has no just title to the crown.”
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Richard Baxter
The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued (1683; London: Parkhurst, 1689), ch. 37, pp. 126-27
“I am neither so blind, wicked or singular as to deny the common doctrine of casuists, protestants and Papists, that though a vow be both sinfully imposed and sinfully taken, yet it binds in materia necessaria et licita [in necessary and lawful matter].
Yea, that if part of the matter be unlawful, yet it binds to that part which is lawful. Else a knave might exempt himself from the performance of all his vows by foisting in some unlawful matter or by making them in an unlawful manner.”
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2000’s
Travis Fentiman
“Editor’s Extended Introduction”, “The 3rd Indulgence &
Wamphray’s Arguments” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
“The king of Babylon sinfully exacted from king Zedekiah of Israel an oath to serve him. Zedekiah broke this oath and would not serve him in that broken and declining Church-state. God condemned Zedekiah for it, seeing as he should have kept the sinfully exacted service (Eze. 17:11–19).”
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On Taking God’s Name in Vain
Quote
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
The Divine Right of Church Government… (1646), p. 88
“…a bearing testimony by word that God is true and knows all secrets, and will be avenged on perjury, is inseparable from vocal swearing by the name of God…”
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On Minced Oaths
Seville, George H. – ‘Minced Oaths’ 1953 10 paragraphs with a historical introduction.
Seville (1876-1977) was a UPCNA minister, a missionary to China and a seminary professor.
The articles Scripturally addresses using exclamations like ‘Gee’, ‘gosh’, ‘darn’, ‘mercy’, ‘goodness’, ‘gracious’, etc.
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Alsted, Johann H. – ch. 22, ‘On Vows’ In Theological Common Places Illustrated by Perpetual Similitudes (Frankfurt, 1630), pp. 129-32
Voet, Gisbert
2. Of Human Satisfactions (with many absurd questions, including about Purgatory, Intercessions for the Dead, Indulgences, Release from Purgatory, Vows, Things Vowed & Pilgrimages) in Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 2, tract 3 Abbr.
vol. 3
79. On a Religious Vow 1100
80. pt. 2 1113
81. pt. 3 1123
vol. 4
On an oath in general 785
On perjuries, perfidies, mental reservation, idle words & actions, & of a fearful oath 785
Of vows 786
Sanderson, Robert – Of the Obligation of an Oath in Works, ed. William Jacobson (Oxford Univ. Press, 1854), vol. 4, pp. 243-365 no ToC
Sanderson (1587–1663) was an English, royalist theologian and casuist who specialized on conscience and oaths. He was recognized by near all parties as one of the best on those topics in his era.
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“And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.”
Gen. 28:20-22
“If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord… being in her father’s house in her youth; And her father hear her vow… and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand… But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows… shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her.”
Num. 30:3-5
“They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter into my rest.’ Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”
Heb. 3:10-12
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