Direct. VII. No man should pretend danger or scruple against his renewing the vow of christianity, or any one essential part of it; viz. To take God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for my God, and Saviour, and Sanctifier, my Owner, Governor, and Father; renouncing the devil, the world, and the flesh. Because there is an absolute necessity, præcepti et medii, of performing this, and he that doth it not shall certainly be damned; and therefore no worse matter can stand up against it: he that denieth it, giveth up himself despairingly to damnation. Yet I have heard many say, I dare not promise to turn to God, and live a holy life, lest I break this promise, and be worse than before. But dost thou not know, that it must be both made and kept, if thou wilt be saved? Wilt thou choose to be damned, for fear of worse? There is but one remedy for thy soul, and all the hope of thy salvation lieth upon that alone. And wilt thou refuse that one, for fear lest thou cast it up and die? when thou shalt certainly die unless thou both take it, and keep it, and digest it.
Direct. VIII. About particular sins and duties, deliberate resolutions are the ordinary means of governing our lives; and vows must not be used where these will do the work without them. For extraordinary means must not be used, when ordinary will serve the turn. Nor must you needlessly draw a double guilt upon yourselves in case of sinning. And in mutable or doubtful cases, a resolution may be changed, when a vow cannot. Try therefore what deliberate resolutions will do, with the help of other ordinary means, before you go any further.
Direct. IX. When ordinary resolutions and other helps will not serve the turn, to engage the will to the forbearance of a known sin, or the performance of a known duty, but temptations are so strong as to bear down all, then it is seasonable to bind ourselves by a solemn vow, so it be cautelously and deliberately done, and no greater danger like to follow. In such a case of necessity, 1. You must deliberate on the benefits and need. 2. You must foresee all the assaults that you are like to have to tempt you to perjury, that they come not unexpected. 3. You must join the use of all other means for the keeping of your vows.
Direct. X. Make not a law and religion to yourselves by your voluntary vows, which God never made you by his authority; nor bind yourselves for futurity to all that is a duty at present, where it is possible that the change of things may change your duty. God is our King and Governor, and not we ourselves: it is not we, but he, that must give laws to us. We have work enough to do of his appointing; we need not make more to ourselves, as if he had not given us enough. Vows are not to make us new duties or religions, but to further us in the obedience of that which our Lord hath imposed on us. It is a self-condemning sin of foolish will-worshippers, to be busy in laying more burdens on themselves, when they know they cannot do so much as God requireth of them. Yea, some of them murmur at God's laws as too strict, and at the observers of them as too precise, (though they come far short of what is their duty,) and yet will be cutting out more work for themselves.
And it is not enough that what you vow be your duty at the present, but you must bind yourselves to it by vows no longer than it shall remain your duty. It may be your duty at the present to live a single life; but if you will vow therefore that you will never marry, you may bind yourselves to that which may prove your sin: you know not what alterations may befall you in your body or estate, that may invite you to it. Are you sure that no change shall make it necessary to you? Or will you presume to bind God himself by your vows, that he shall make no such alteration? Or if you were never so confident of your own unchangeableness, you know not what fond and violent affections another may be possessed with, which may make an alteration in your duty. At the present it may be your duty to live retiredly, and avoid magistracy and public employments: but you may not vow it therefore for continuance; for you know not but God may make such alterations, as may make it so great and plain a duty, as without flat impiety or cruelty, you cannot refuse. Perhaps at the present it may be your duty to give half your yearly revenues to charitable and pious uses: but you must not therefore vow it for continuance (without some special cause to warrant it); for perhaps the next year it may be your duty to give but a fourth or a tenth part, or none at all, according as the providence of God shall dispose of your estate and you. Perhaps God may impose a clear necessity on you, of using your estate some other way.
Direct. XI. If you be under government, you may not lawfully vow without your governors' consent, to do any thing which you may not lawfully do without their consent, in case you had not vowed it. For that were, 1. Actually to disobey them at the present, by making a vow without the direction and consent of your governors. 2. And thereby to bind yourselves to disobey them for the future, by doing that without them, which you should not do without them. But if it be a thing that you may do, or must do, though your governors forbid you, then you may vow it though they forbid you (if you have a call from the necessity of the vow).
Direct. XII. If oaths be commanded us by usurpers that have no authority to impose them, we must not take them in formal obedience to their commands. For that were to own their usurpation and encourage them in their sin. If we owe them no obedience in any thing, we must not obey them in so great a thing: or if they have some authority over us in other matters, but none in this, (as a constable hath no power to give an oath,) we must not obey them in the point where they have no authority. But yet it is possible that there may be other reasons that may make it our duty to do it, though not as an act of formal obedience: as I may take an oath when a thief or murderer requireth it, not to obey him, but to save my life. And if any man command me to do that which God commandeth me, I must do it, because God commandeth it.
Direct. XIII. If a lawful magistrate impose an oath or vow upon you, before you take it you must consult with God, and know that it is not against his will. God must be first obeyed in all things; but especially in matters of so great moment, as vows and promises.
Quest. I. What if I be in doubt whether the oath or promise imposed be lawful? must I take it, or not? If I take an oath which I judge unlawful or false, I am a perjured or profane despiser of God: and if a man must refuse all oaths or promises, which the magistrate commandeth, if he do but doubt whether they be lawful, then government and justice will be injured, while every man that hath ignorance enough to make him dubious, shall refuse all oaths and promises of allegiance, or for witness to the truth.
Answ. I. I shall tell you what others say first in the case of doubting. Dr. Sanderson saith, Prælect. iii. sect. 10, p. 74, 75, Tertius casus est cum quis juramento pollicetur se facturum aliquid in se fortassis licitum, quod tamen ipse putat esse illicitum. Ut siquis ante hæc tempora admittendus ad beneficium (ut vocant) ecclesiasticum, promisisset in publicis sacris observare omnes ritus legibus ecclesiasticis imperatos; vestem scilicet lineam, crucis signum ad sacrum fontem, ingeniculationem in percipiendis symbolis in sacra cœna, et id genus alios; quos ipse tamen ex aliquo levi prejudicio putaret esse superstitiosos et papisticos: quæritur in hoc casu quæ sit obligatio? Pro Resp. dico tria: Dico 1. Non posse tale juramentum durante tali errore sine gravi peccato suscipi. Peccat enim graviter qui contra conscientiam peccat, etsi erroneam. Judicium enim intellectus cum sit unicuique proxima agendi regula; voluntas, si judicium illud non sequatur, deficiens a regula sua, necesse est ut in obliquum feratur. Tritum est illud, Qui facit contra conscientiam ædificat ad gehennam. Sane qui jurat in id quod putat esse illicitum, nihilominus juraturus esset, si esset revera illicitum: atque ita res illa, ut ut alii licita, est tamen ipsi illicita: sententiam ferente apostolo, Rom. xiv. 14, &c. Dico 2. Tale juramentum non obligare, &c.– That is, The third case is, when a man promiseth by oath that he will do a thing which in itself perhaps is lawful, but he thinketh to be unlawful: as if one before these times being to be admitted to an ecclesiastical benefice, (as they call it,) had promised, that in public worship he would observe all the rites commanded in the ecclesiastic laws, to wit, the surplice, the sign of the cross at the sacred font, kneeling in the receiving of the symbols in the holy supper, and others the like; which yet out of some light prejudice, he thought to be superstitious and papistical. The question is, what obligation there is in this case? For answer I say three things: 1. I say that an oath, while such an error lasteth, cannot be taken without grievous sin; for he grievously sinneth, who sinneth against his conscience, although it be erroneous. For when the judgment of the intellect is to every man the nearest rule of action, it must be that the will is carried into obliquity, if it follow not that judgment, as swerving from its rule. It is a common saying, He that doth against his conscience, buildeth unto hell: verily he that sweareth to that which he thinketh to be unlawful, would nevertheless swear if it were indeed unlawful. And so the thing, though lawful to another, is to him unlawful, the apostle passing the sentence, Rom. xiv. 14, &c. 2. I say, that such an oath bindeth not, &c. – Of the obligation I shall speak anon;52 but of the oath or promise, I think the truth lieth here as followeth.
1. The question de esse must first be resolved, before the question of knowing or opinion. Either the thing is really lawful which is doubted of, or denied, or it is not. If it be not, then it is a sin to swear or promise to it; and here there is no case of error. But if it be really lawful, and the vowing of it lawful, then the obligations that lie upon this man are these, and in this order: (1.) To have a humble suspicion of his own understanding. (2.) To search, and learn, and use all means to discern it to be what it is. (3.) In the use of these means to acknowledge the truth. (4.) And then to promise and obey accordingly. Now this being his duty, and the order of his duty, you cannot say that he is not obliged to any one part of it, though he be obliged to do it all in this order, and therefore not to do the last first, without the former: for though you question an hundred times, What shall he do as long as he cannot see the truth? the law of God is still the same; and his error doth not disoblige him: Nemini debetur commodum ex sua culpa. So many of these acts as he omitteth, so much he sinneth. It is his sin if he obey not the magistrate; and it is his sin that he misjudgeth of the thing; and his sin that he doth not follow the use of the means till he be informed. So that his erring conscience entangleth him in a necessity of sinning; but disobligeth him not at all from his obedience. 2. But yet this is certain, that in such a case, he that will swear because man biddeth him, when he taketh it to be false, is a perjured, profane despiser of God; but he that forbeareth to swear for fear of sinning against God, is guilty only of a pardonable, involuntary weakness.
Direct. XIV. Take heed lest the secret prevalency of carnal ends or interest, and of fleshly wisdom, do bias your judgment, and make you stretch your consciences to take those vows or promises, which otherwise you would judge unlawful, and refuse. Never good cometh by following the reasonings and interest of the flesh, even in smaller matters; much less in cases of such great importance. Men think it fitteth them at the present, and doth the business which they feel most urgent; but it payeth them home with troubles and perplexities at the last: it is but like a draught of cold water in a fever. You have some present char to do, or some strait to pass through, in which you think that such an oath, or promise, or profession would much accommodate you; and therefore you venture on it, perhaps to your perdition. It is a foolish course to cure the parts (yea, the more ignoble parts) with the neglect and detriment of the whole: it is but like those that cure the itch by anointing themselves with quicksilver; which doth the char for them, and sendeth them after to their graves, or casteth them into some far worse disease. Remember how deceitful a thing the heart is, and how subtly such poison of carnal ends will insinuate itself. Oh how many thousands hath this undone! that before they are aware, have their wills first charmed and inclined to the forbidden thing, and fain would have it to be lawful; and then have brought themselves to believe it lawful, and so to commit the sin; and next to defend it, and next to become the champions of Satan, to fight his battles, and vilify and abuse them, that by holy wisdom and tenderness have kept themselves from the deceit.
Tit. 2. Directions against Perjury and Perfidiousness: Land for keeping Vows and Oaths
Direct. I. Be sure that you have just apprehension of the greatness of the sin of perjury.53 Were it seen of men in its proper shape, it would more affright them from it than a sight of the devil himself would do. I shall show it you in part in these particulars.
The heinousness of perjury.
1. It containeth a lie, and hath all the malignity in it which I before showed to be in lying, with much more. 2. Perjury is a denial or contempt of God. He that appealeth to his judgment by an oath, and doth this in falsehood,54 doth show that either he believeth not that there is a God,55 or that he believeth not that he is the righteous Governor of the world, who will justly determine all the causes that belong to his tribunal. The perjured person doth as it were bid defiance to God, and setteth him at nought, as one that is not able to be avenged on him. 3. Perjury is a calling for the vengeance of God against yourselves. You invite God to plague you, as if you bid him do his worst: you appeal to him for judgment in your guilt, and you shall find that he will not hold you guiltless. Imprecations against yourselves are implied in your oaths: he that sweareth doth say in effect, Let God judge and punish me as a perjured wretch, if I speak not the truth. And it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for vengeance is his and he will recompence, Heb. x. 30, 31: and when he judgeth the wicked, "he is a consuming fire," Heb. xii. 29. 4. Perjury and perfidiousness are sins that leave the conscience no ease of an extenuation or excuse; but it is so heinous a villany, that it is the seed of self-tormenting desperation. Some sins conscience can make shift a while to hide, by saying, It is a controversy; and, Many wise men are of another mind; but perjury is a sin which heathens and infidels bear as free a testimony against (in their way) as christians do. Some sins are shifted off by saying, They are little ones. But56 christians and heathens are agreed that perjury is a sin almost as great as the devil can teach his servants to commit. Saith Plutarch,57 He that deceiveth his enemy by an oath, doth confess thereby, that he feareth his enemy, and despiseth God. Saith Cicero, The penalty of perjury is destruction from God, and shame from man. Saith Q. Curtius, Perfidiousness is a crime which no merits can mitigate. Read Cicero de Offic. lib. iii. Saith Aristotle, He that will extenuate an oath, must say, that those villanous wretches that think God seeth not, do think also to go away with their perjury unpunished. In a word, the heathens commonly take the revenge of perjury to belong in so special a manner to the gods, that they conclude that man, and usually his posterity, to be destinated to ruin, that is perjured and perfidious: insomuch that it is written58 of Agesilaus and many others, that when their enemies were perjured, and broke their covenants, they took it for a sign of victory, and the best prognostic of their success against them. Plutarch recordeth this story of Clemens, that having made a truce for seven days with the Argives, he set upon them, and killed and took many of them in the night; and when he was charged with perfidiousness, answered, I made not a truce with them for seven nights, but for seven days. But the women fetched arms out of the temples of the gods, and repulsed him with shame, and he ran mad, and with his sword did mangle his own body, and died in a most hideous manner. When conscience is awakened to see such a sin as perjury, no wonder if such run mad, or hang themselves; as perfidious Ahithophel and Judas did. No doubt but everlasting horror and desperation will be the end of such, if true conversion do not prevent it. 5. It is a sin that ruineth families and societies,59 like fire that being kindled in the thatch, never stoppeth till it have consumed all the house. Though "the curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he blesseth the habitation of the just," Prov. iii. 33; yet among all the wicked, there are few so commonly marked out with their families to shame and ruin, as the perjured. Whatever nation is stigmatized with a fides Punica vel Græca, with the brand of perjury, it is not only their greatest infamy, but, like "Lord, have mercy on us" written on your doors, a sign of a destroying plague within.60 Saith Silius,
Non illi domus aut conjux aut vita manebit
Unquam expers luctus, lachrymæque: aget æquore semper
Ac tellure premens; aget ægrum nocte dieque;
Despecta ac violata fides —
Saith Claudian,
In prolem dilatarunt perjuria patris,
Et pœnam merito filius ore luit. —
So Tibullus,
Ah miser: et siquis primo perjuria celat,
Sera tamen tacitus pœna venit pedibus.
Saith Pausanias, The fraud that is committed by perjury, falleth upon posterity. 6. Perjury and perfidiousness are virtually treason, rebellion, and murder against kings and magistrates, and no more to be favoured in a kingdom, by a king that loveth his life and safety, than the plague in a city, or poison to the body. Tristissimum et domesticum regibus omnibus pharmacum, liberorum, amicorum et exercitus perfidia, saith Appian. What security have princes of their crowns, or lives, where oaths and covenants seem not obligatory? There is then nothing left but fear of punishment to restrain the violence of any one that would do them mischief; and craft or strength will easily break the bonds of fear. He that would dissolve the bond of oaths, and teach men to make light of perjury, is no more to be endured in a kingdom, than he that openly inviteth the subjects to kill their king, or rise up in rebellion against him. If he that breaketh the least of God's commands, and teacheth men so to do, shall be called least in the kingdom of God, Matt. v. 19, then surely he that breaketh the great commands by the most odious sin of perjury, and teacheth men so to do, should neither be great, nor any thing, in the kingdoms of men. 7. Perjury is the poison of all societies, and of friendship, and of human converse, and turneth all into a state of enmity, or hostility, and teacheth all men to live together like foes. He that is not to be believed when he sweareth, is never to be believed: and when oaths and covenants signify nothing, and no man can believe another, what are they but as so many foes to one another? How can there be any relations of governors and subjects? of husband and wife? of master and servants? or how can there be any trading or commerce, when there is no trust? Perjury dissolveth all societies by loosening all the bonds of association. Well might Dionys. Halic. lib. iii. say, The perfidious are far worse than open enemies, and worthy of far greater punishment. For a man may more easily avoid the ambushments of foes, and repel their assaults, than escape the perfidiousness of seeming friends. Saith Val. Max. lib. ix. c. 6, Perfidiousness is a hidden and insnaring mischief; whose effectual force is in lying and deceiving: its fruit consisteth in some horrid villany; which is ripe and sure when it hath compassed cruelty with wicked hands; bringing as great mischief to mankind, as fidelity bringeth good and safety. He that teacheth the doctrine of perjury and perfidiousness, doth bid every man shift for himself, and trust no more his friend or neighbour, but all take heed of one another, as so many serpents or wild beasts. Lions and bears may better be suffered to live loose among men, than those that teach men to make light of oaths. 8. Thus also it destroyeth personal love, and teacheth all men to be haters of each other: for it can be no better when men become such hateful creatures to each other, as not at all to be credited or sociably conversed with. 9. Perjury and perfidiousness do proclaim men deplorate; and stigmatize them with this character, that they are persons that will stick at the committing of no kind of villany in the world, further than their fleshly interest hindereth them. No charity bindeth a man to think that he will make conscience of murder, rebellion, deceit, adultery, or any imaginable wickedness, who maketh no conscience of perjury and perfidiousness. Such a person alloweth you to judge that if the temptation serve, he will do any thing that the devil bids him: and that he is virtually a compound of all iniquity, and prepared for every evil work. 10. Lastly, as perjury doth thus dissolve societies, and turn mankind into enmity with each other, so it would make the misery uncurable, by making even penitents incredible. Who will believe him, even while he professeth to repent, that hath showed that when he sweareth he is not to be believed? He that dare forswear himself, dare lie when he pretendeth repentance for his perjury. It must be some deeds that are more credible than words and oaths, that must recover the credit of such a man's professions. If perjury have violated any relations, it leaveth the breach almost uncurable, because no professions of repentance or future fidelity can be trusted. Thus I have partly showed you the malignity of perjury and covenant-breaking.
Direct. II. Be sure that you make no vow or covenant which God hath forbidden you to keep. It is rash vowing and swearing which is the common cause of perjury. You should, at the making of your vow, have seen into the bottom of it, and foreseen all the evils that might follow it, and the temptations which were like to draw you into perjury. He is virtually perjured as soon as he hath sworn, who sweareth to do that which he must not do; the preventive means are here the best.
Direct. III. Be sure you take no oath or vow which you are not sincerely resolved to perform.61 They that swear or vow with a secret reserve, that rather than they will be ruined by keeping it, they will break it, are habitually and reputatively perjured persons, even before they break it; besides that, they show a base, hypocritical, profligate conscience, that can deliberately commit so great a sin.
Direct. IV. See that all fleshly, worldly interest be fully subdued to the interest of your souls, and to the will of God. He that at the heart sets more by his body than his soul, and loveth his worldly prosperity above God, will lie, or swear, or forswear, or do any thing to save that carnal interest which he most valueth. He that is carnal and worldly at the heart, is false at the heart; the religion of such a hypocrite will give place to his temporal safety or commodity, and will carry him no further than the way is fair. It is no wonder that a proud man, or a worldling, will renounce both God and his true felicity for the world, seeing indeed he taketh it for his god and his felicity; even as a believer will renounce the world for God.62
Direct. V. Beware of inordinate fear of man, and of a distrustful withdrawing of your heart from God. Else you will be carried to comply with the will of man before the will of God, and to avoid the wrath of man before the wrath of God. Read and fear that heavy curse, Jer. xvii. 5, 6. God is unchangeable, and hath commanded you so far to imitate him, as "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," Numb. xxx. 2. But man is mutable, and so is his interest and his affairs; and therefore if you are the servants of men, you must swear one year, and forswear it, or swear the contrary, the next: when their interest requireth it, you must not be thought worthy to live among men, if you will not promise or swear as they command you; and when their interest altereth and requireth the contrary, you must hold all those bonds to be but straws, and break them for their ends.
Direct. VI. Be sure that you lose not the fear of God, and the tenderness of your consciences. When these are lost, your understanding, and sense, and life are lost; and you will not stick at the greatest wickedness; nor know when you have done it, what you did. If faith see not God continually present, and foresee not the great approaching day, perjury or any villany will seem tolerable, for worldly ends: for when you look but to men's present case, you will see that "the righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hands of God; no man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before them. All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath," Eccles. ix. 1, 2. But in the end, men "shall discern between the righteous and the wicked," Mal. iii. 18. Therefore it is the believing foresight of the end, that by preserving the fear of God and tenderness of conscience, must save you from this, and all other heinous sin.
Direct. VII. Be not bold and rash about such dreadful things as vows. Run not as fearlessly upon them as if you were but going to your dinner; the wrath of God is not to be jested with. Usque ad aras, was the bounds even of a heathen's kindness to his friend. Meddle with oaths with the greatest fear, and caution, and circumspection. It is terrible here to find that you were mistaken, through any temerity, or negligence, or secret seduction of a carnal interest.
Direct. VIII. Especially be very fearful of owning any public doctrine, or doing any public act, which tendeth to harden others in their perjury, or to encourage multitudes to commit the sin.63 To be forsworn yourselves is a dreadful case; but to teach whole nations or churches to forswear themselves, or to plead for it, or justify it as a lawful thing, is much more dreadful. And though you teach not or own not perjury under the name of perjury, yet if first you will make plain perjury to seem no perjury, that so you may justify it, it is still a most inhuman, horrid act. God knoweth I insult not over the papists, with a delight to make any christians odious! but with grief I remember how lamentably they have abused our holy profession, while not only their great doctors, but their approved general council at the Lateran under Pope Innocent the Third, in the third canon hath decreed that the pope may depose temporal lords from their dominions, and give them unto others, and discharge their vassals from their allegiance and fidelity, if they be heretics, or will not exterminate heretics (even such as the holy men there condemned were, in the pope's account). To declare to many christian nations, that it is lawful to break their oaths and promises to their lawful lords and rulers, or their vows to God, and to undertake, by defending or owning this, to justify all those nations that shall be guilty of this perjury and perfidiousness, oh what a horrid crime is this! what a shame even unto human nature! and how great a wrong to the christian name!
Direct. IX. Understand and remember these following rules, to acquaint you how far a vow is obligatory: which I shall give you for the most part out of Dr. Sanderson, because his decisions of these cases are now of best esteem.
Rule I. The general rule laid down Numb. xxx. 2, 3, doth make a vow, as such, to be obligatory, though the party should have a secret equivocation or intent, that though he speak the words to deceive another, yet he will not oblige himself. Such a reserve not to oblige himself hindereth not the obligation, but proveth him a perfidious hypocrite. Dr. Sanderson, p. 23, Juramentum omne ex sua natura est obligatorium: ita ut si quis juret non intendens se obligare, nihilominus tamen suscipiendo juramentum ipso facto obligetur: that is, If he so far understand what he doth, as that his words may bear the definition of an oath or vow; otherwise if he speak the words of an oath in a strange language, thinking they signify something else, or if he speak in his sleep, or deliration, or distraction, it is no oath, and so not obligatory.
Rule II. Those conditions are to be taken as intended in all oaths, (whether expressed or no,) which the very nature of the thing doth necessarily imply64 (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 sweareth to do any thing, or give any thing, 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, &c. 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 voweth or sweareth to do any thing, 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 forbiddeth it. For no man that is a christian is to be supposed to mean when he voweth, 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 divers 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 doth make that a sin, which before was a duty; of which may be given an 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, doth change the very matter of his duty.