Quest. 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. Answ. No: it is not every change of things that disobligeth 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:65 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: If the party die to whom I am bound, my personal obligation ceaseth. And so the conjugal bond ceaseth at death, and civil bonds by civil death. 3. Cessante fine, cessat obligatio: If the use and end wholly cease, my obligation, which was only to that use and end, ceaseth. 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 ceaseth, his end, and so his obligation, ceaseth. 4. Cessante persona naturali relata, cessat obligatio personalis: When the natural person dieth, the obligation ceaseth. 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 obligation which lay on a person in any relation merely as such, doth cease when that relation ceaseth. 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 continueth 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.
Rule III. No vows or promises of our own can dissolve the obligation laid upon us by the law of God. For we have no co-ordinate, much less superior authority over ourselves; our self-obligations are but for the furthering of our obedience.
Rule IV. 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 pretence of a vow. Sin is no acceptable sacrifice to God.
Rule V. 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.66 Suppose a magistrate, seeing much amiss in church and commonwealth, doth vow a reformation, and vow against the abuses which he findeth; if now the people's obstinacy and rebellion disable him to perform that vow, it doth not follow that he must lay down his sceptre, 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 doth 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 ceaseth to be possible or lawful which I vowed, I must, nevertheless, do that which still remaineth 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, supposeth that he must be worshipped; and he that doth not worship at all, doth 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 physician 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 consenteth not to the sophistication.
Rule VI. Though he that voweth 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 becometh impossible or unlawful, he violateth his vow. He that voweth to give so much to the poor, and after prodigally wasteth it, and hath it not to give, doth break his vow; which he doth not if fire or thieves deprive him of it against his will. He that voweth to preach the gospel, if he cut out his own tongue, or culpably procure another to imprison, silence, or hinder him, doth break his vow; which he did not if the hinderance were involuntary and insuperable: consent doth make the impedition his own act.
Rule VII. In the taking and keeping of oaths and vows we must deal simply and openly without equivocation and deceit.67 Psal. xxiv. 3-5, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation."
Rule VIII. He that juggleth or stretcheth his conscience by fraudulent shifts and interpretations afterwards, is as bad as he that dissembleth in the taking of the oath. To break it by deceit, is as bad as to take it in deceit. Psal. xv. 1, 4, "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle – he that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not." Saith Dr. Sanderson,68 Ista mihi aut non cogitare, &c. "It seemeth to me that the greater part of the men of these times either think not of these things, or at least not seriously; who fear not, at large and in express words, without going about, to swear to all that, whatever it be, which is proposed to them by those that have power to hurt them: yea, and they take themselves for the only wise men, and not without some disdain deride the simplicity and needless fear of those, that lest they hurt their consciences forsooth, do seek a knot in a rush, and oppose the forms prescribed by those that have power to prescribe them. And in the mean time they securely free themselves from all crime and fear of perjury, and think they have looked well to themselves and their consciences, if either when they swear, like Jesuits, they can defend themselves by the help of some tacit equivocation, or mental reservation, or subtle interpretation which is strained and utterly alien from the words; or else after they have sworn can find some thing to slip through, some cunning evasion, as a wise remedy, by which they may so elude their oath, as that keeping the words, the sense may by some sophism be eluded, and all the force of it utterly enervated. The ancient christians knew not this divinity, nor the sounder heathens this moral philosophy. For otherwise saith Augustine, They are perjured, who keeping the words, deceive the expectation of those they swear to: and otherwise saith Cicero," &c. He goeth on to confirm it at large by argument.
Rule IX. An oath is to be taken and interpreted strictly. Sanderson saith,69 Juramenti obligatio est stricti juris; that is, non ut excludat juris interpretationem æquitate temperatam; sed ut excludat juris interpretationem gratia corruptam: "not as excluding an equitable interpretation, but as excluding an interpretation corrupted by partiality: " that it be a just interpretation, between the extremes of rigid, and favourable or partial; and in doubtful cases it is safer to follow the strict, than the benign or favourable sense. It is dangerous stretching and venturing too far in matters of so sacred a nature, and of such great importance as vows and oaths.
Rule X. In the exposition of such doubtful oaths and vows, 1. We must specially watch against self-interest or commodity, that it corrupt not our understandings. 2. And we must not take our oaths or any part of them in such a sense, as a pious, prudent stander-by that is impartial, and no whit interested in the business, cannot easily find in the words themselves.70
Rule XI. In doubtful cases the greatest danger must be most carefully avoided, and the safer side preferred: but the danger of the soul by perjury is the greatest, and therefore no bodily danger should so carefully be avoided: and therefore an oath that in the common and obvious sense seemeth unlawful should not be taken, unless there be very full evidence that it hath another sense. Sand. p. 46, Nititur autem, &c. This reason leaneth on that general and most useful rule, that in doubtful cases we must follow the safer side: but it is safer not to swear, where the words of the oath proposed, do seem according to the common and obvious sense of the words to contain in them something unlawful; than by a loose interpretation so to lenify them for our own ends, that we may the more securely swear them. For it is plain that such an oath may be refused without the peril of perjury; but not that it can be taken without some danger or fear. The same rule must guide us also in keeping vows.
Rule XII. It is ordinarily resolved that imposed oaths must be kept according to the sense of the imposer. See Sanders. p. 191, 192. But I conceive that assertion must be more exactly opened and bounded. 1. Where justice requireth that we have respect to the will or right of the imposer, there the oath imposed must be taken in his sense; but whether it must be kept in his sense is further to be considered. 2. When I have done my best to understand the sense of the imposer in taking the oath, and yet mistake it, and so take it (without fraud) in another sense, the question then is somewhat hard, whether I must keep it in the sense I took it in, or in his sense, which then I understood not. If I must not keep it in my own sense, which I took it in, then it would follow that I must keep another oath, and not that which I took: for it is the sense that is the oath. And I never obliged myself to any thing, but according to my own sense: and yet on the other side, if every man may take oaths in their private sense, then oaths will not attain their ends, nor be any security to the imposers.
In this case you must carefully distinguish between the formal obligation of the oath or vow as such, and the obligation of justice to my neighbour which is a consequent of my vow. And for the former I conceive (with submission) that an oath or vow cannot bind me, formally as such, in any sense but my own in which bona fide I took it. Because formally an oath cannot bind me which I never took: but I never took that which I never meant, nor thought of; if you so define an oath as to take in the sense, which is the soul of it.
But then in regard of the consequential obligation in point of justice unto man, the question I think must be thus resolved: 1. We must distinguish between a lawful imposer or contractor, and a violent usurper or robber that injuriously compelleth us to swear. 2. Between the obvious, usual sense of the words, and an unusual, forced sense. 3. Between a sincere, involuntary misunderstanding the imposer, and a voluntary, fraudulent reservation or private sense. 4. Between one that I owe something to antecedently, and one that I owe nothing to but by the mere self-obligation of my vow. 5. Between an imposer that is himself the culpable cause of my misunderstanding him, and one that is not the cause, but my own weakness or negligence is the cause. 6. Between a case where both senses may be kept, and a case where they cannot, being inconsistent. Upon these distinctions, I thus resolve the question.
Prop. I. If I fraudulently and wilfully take an oath in a sense of my own, contrary to the sense of the imposer, and the common and just sense of the words themselves, I am guilty of perfidiousness and profaneness in the very taking of it.71
Prop. II. If it be long of my own culpable ignorance or negligence that I misunderstood the imposer, I am not thereby disobliged from the public sense.
Prop. III. When the imposer openly putteth a sense on the words imposed contrary to the usual, obvious sense, I am to understand him according to his own expression, and not to take the oath, as imposed in any other sense.
Prop. IV. If the imposer refuse or neglect to tell me his sense any otherwise than in the imposed words, I am to take and keep them according to the obvious sense of the words, as they are commonly used in the time and place which I live in.
Prop. V. If it be long of the imposer's obscurity, or refusing to explain himself, or other culpable cause, that I mistook him, I am not bound to keep my oath in his sense, as different from my own (unless there be some other reason for it).
Prop. VI. If the imposer be a robber or usurper, or one that I owe nothing to in justice, but what I oblige myself to by my oath, I am not then bound at all to keep my oath in his sense, if my own sense was according to the common use of the words.
Prop. VII. Though I may not lie to a robber or tyrant that unjustly imposeth promises or oaths upon me, yet if he put an oath or promise on me which is good and lawful in the proper, usual sense of the words, though bad in his sense, (which is contrary to the plain words,) whether I may take this to save my liberty or life, I leave to the consideration of the judicious: that which may be said against it is, that oaths must not be used indirectly and dissemblingly: that which may be said for it is, 1. That I have no obligation to fit my words to his personal, private sense. 2. That I deceive him not, but only permit him to deceive himself, as long as it is he and not I that misuseth the words. 3. That I am to have chief respect to the public sense; and it is not his sense, but mine, that is the public sense. 4. That the saving of a man's life or liberty is cause enough for the taking a lawful oath.
Prop. VIII. In case I misunderstood the imposed oath through my own default, I am bound to keep it in both senses, (my own and the imposer's,) if both be consistent and lawful to be done. For I am bound to it in my own sense, because it was formally my oath or vow which I intended. And I am bound to it in his sense, because I have in justice made the thing his due. As if the king command me to vow that I will serve him in wars against the Turk; and I misunderstand him as if he meant only to serve him with my purse; and so I make a vow with this intent, to expend part of my estate to maintain that war; whereas the true sense was that I should serve him with my person: in this case, I see not but I am bound to both.
Indeed if it were a promise that obliged me only to the king, then I am obliged no further and no longer than he will; for he can remit his own right: but if by a vow I become obliged directly to God himself as a party, then no man can remit his right, and I must perform my vow as made to him.
Rule XIII. If any impose an ambiguous oath, and refuse to explain it, and require you only to swear in these words, and leave you to your own sense, Dr. Sanderson thinketh that an honest man should suspect some fraud in such an oath, and not take it at all till all parties are agreed of the sense.72 And I think he should not take it at all, unless there be some other cause that maketh it his duty. But if a lawful magistrate command it, or the interest of the church or state require it, I see not but he may take it, on condition that in the plain and proper sense of the words the oath be lawful, and that he openly profess to take it only in that sense.
Rule XIV. If any power should impose an oath, or vow, or promise, which in the proper, usual sense were downright impious, or blasphemous, or sinful, and yet bid me take it in what sense I pleased, though I could take it in such a sense as might make it no real consent to the impiety, yet it would be impious in the sense of the world, and of such heinous consequence as will make it to be unlawful. As if I must subscribe, or say, or swear these words, There is no God; or, Scripture is untrue; though it is easy to use these or any words in a good sense, if I may put what sense I will upon them, yet the public sense of them is blasphemy; and I may not publicly blaspheme, on pretence of a private right sense and intention.
Rule XV. If the oath imposed be true in the strict and proper sense, yet if that sense be not vulgarly known, nor sufficiently manifest to be the imposer's sense, and if the words are false or blasphemous in the vulgar sense of those that I have to do with, and that must observe and make use of my example, I must not take such an oath, without leave to make my sense as public as my oath. As if I were commanded to swear, That God hath no foreknowledge, no knowledge, no will, &c.; it were easy to prove that these terms are spoken primarily of man, and that they are attributed to God but analogically or metaphorically, and that God hath no such human acts formaliter, but eminenter, and that forma dat nomen, and so that strictly it is not knowledge and will in the primary, proper notion, that God hath at all, but something infinitely higher, for which man hath no other name. But though thus the words are true and justifiable in the strictest, proper sense, yet are they unlawful, because they are blasphemy in the vulgar sense: and he that speaks to the vulgar is supposed to speak with the vulgar; unless he as publicly explain them.
Rule XVI. If the supreme power should impose an oath or promise, which in the ordinary, obvious sense were sinful, and an inferior officer would bid me take it in what sense I pleased, I might not therefore take it: because that such an officer hath no power to interpret it himself; much less to allow me to take it in a private sense. But if the lawgiver that imposeth it bid me take it in what sense I will, and give me leave to make my sense as public as my oath, I may take it, if the words be but dubious, and not apparently false or sinful: (so there be no reason against it, aliunde, as from ill consequents, &c.)
Rule XVII. If any man will say in such a case, (when he thinketh that the imposer's sense is bad,) I take not the same oath or engagement which is imposed, but another in the same words, and I suppose not inferior officers authorized to admit any interpretation, but I look at them only as men that can actually execute or not execute the laws upon me; and so I take a vow of my own according to my own sense, though in their words, as a means of my avoiding their severities: as this is a collusion in a very high and tender business, so that person (if the public sense of the oath be sinful) must make his professed sense as public as his oath or promise; it being no small thing to do that which in the public sense is impious, and so to be an example of perfidiousness to many.
Rule XVIII. Though an oath imposed by a usurper or by violence is not to be taken in formal obedience, nor at all, unless the greatness of the benefit require it, yet being taken it is nevertheless obligatory73 (supposing nothing else do make it void). Man is a free agent, and cannot be forced, though he may be frightened: if he swear to a thief for the saving of his life, he voluntarily doth choose the inconveniences of the oath, as a means to save his life. Therefore being a voluntary act it is obligatory; else there should be no obligation on us to suffer for Christ, but any thing might be sworn or done to escape suffering: see of this Dr. Sanderson largely, Prælect. iv. sect. 14-16. The imposition and the oath are different things: in the imposition, a thief or tyrant is the party commanding, and I am the party commanded; and his having no authority to command me, doth nullify only his command, and maketh me not obliged to obey him, nor to take it in any obedience to him; but yet if I do take it without any authority obliging me, (as private oaths are taken,) it is still an oath or vow, in which the parties are God and man; man vowing and making himself a debtor to God; and God hath authority to require me to keep my vows, when men have no authority to require me to make them. All men confess that private vows bind; and the nullity of the imposer's authority, maketh them but private vows. This case is easy, and commonly agreed on.
Rule XIX. If in a complex vow or promise there be many things which prove materially unlawful, and one or more that are lawful, the conjunction of the things unlawful doth not disoblige me from the vow of doing the lawful part. Otherwise a man might make void all his vows to God, and oaths and covenants with men, by putting in something that is evil with the good; and so God, and the king, and our neighbours would have their debts paid by our sin and injury done them on the bye.
Rule XX. If some part of that which you vowed become impossible, that doth not disoblige you from so much as remaineth possible. As if you vow allegiance to the king, and tyrants or disability hinder you from serving him as subjects in some one particular way, you remain still obliged to serve him by those other ways in which you are yet capable to serve him. So if you had taken an oath against popery, to preach against it, and reject the practice of it, and for ever renounce it; this would not bind you from the common truths and duties of christianity, which papists hold in common with all other christians: nor could you preach against popery, if you were hindered by imprisonment, banishment, or restraint; but you have still power to forbear approving, consenting, subscribing, or practising their errors; and this you are still bound to do.
Rule XXI. Though you are not bound to do that of your vow which changes have made impossible or unlawful, yet if another change make them possible and lawful again, your obligation doth return afresh (unless you made it with such limitation). It is not a temporary cessation of the matter, or end, or correlate, that will perpetually discharge you from your vow. If your wife be taken captive many years, when she returneth, you are bound to the duties of a husband. If the king be expelled by usurpers, you are bound at present to so much duty as is possible, and to obey him as your actual governor when he returneth. But in the case of servants and soldiers, and other temporary relations, it is otherwise; for a removal may end the relation itself. If you promise to preach the gospel, to medicate the sick, to relieve the poor, to reform your families, &c. you are not hereby obliged to do it while any unresistible impediment maketh it impossible; but when the hinderance ceaseth, you are obliged to do it again; the matter and your capacity being restored.
Rule XXII. Therefore many a vow and promise may be lawfully unperformed, which may not be renounced or disclaimed. When you are taken captives you must forbear your duty to your king, your father, your husband or wife, but you may not therefore renounce them, and say, I have no obligation to them: no, not to the death; because they are relations for life; and how improbable soever it may seem that you should be returned to them, yet God can do it, and you must wait on him.
Rule XXIII. A former vow or promise is not nullified by a latter that contradicteth it.74 Otherwise a man might disoblige himself at his pleasure. Yet he that maketh contrary vows, obligeth himself to contraries and impossibles; and bringeth a necessity of perjury on himself, for not doing the things impossible which he vowed. And in some cases a later promise to men may null a former, when we made the former with the reserve of such a power or liberty, or are justly supposed to have power, to recall a former promise: or when it is the duty of a mutable relation which we vow, (as of a physician, a schoolmaster, &c.) and by a later vow we change the relation itself (which we may still lawfully change).
Rule XXIV. The actus jurandi must still be distinguished from the materia juramenti; and it very often cometh to pass that the act of swearing (or the oath as our act) is unlawfully done, and was a sin from the beginning, and yet it is nevertheless obligatory as long as the res jurata, the matter sworn, is lawful or necessary.75 Dr. Sanderson instanceth in Joshua's oath to the Gibeonites. The nature of the thing is proof enough; for many a thing is sinfully done, for want of a due call, or manner, or end, that yet is done, and is no nullity. A man may sinfully enter upon the ministry, that yet is bound to do the duty of a minister; and many marriages are sinful that are no nullities.
What is the nullity of an oath.
Rule XXV. The nullity of an oath ab initio, is quando realiter vel reputative non juravimus; when really or reputatively we did not swear. The sinfulness of an oath is when we did swear really but unlawfully as to the ground, or end, or matter, or manner, or circumstances. Really that man did not swear, 1. Who spake not (mentally nor orally) the words of an oath. 2. Who thought those words had signified no such thing, and so had no intent to swear either mentally or verbally. As if an Englishman be taught to use the words of an oath in French, and made believe that they have a contrary sense. 3. Who only narratively recited the words of an oath, as a reporter or historian, without a real or professed intent of swearing. Reputatively he did not swear, 1. Who spake the words of an oath in his sleep, or in a deliration, distraction, madness, or such prevalent melancholy as mastereth reason; when a man is not compos mentis, his act is not actus humanus. (2.) When a man's hand is forcibly moved by another against his will to subscribe the words of an oath or covenant; for if it be totally involuntary it is not a moral act. But words cannot be forced; for he that sweareth to save his life, doth do it voluntarily to save his life. The will may be moved by fear, but not forced. Yet the person that wrongfully frighteneth another into consent, or to swear, hath no right to any benefit which he thought to get by force or fraud; and so in foro civili such promises, or covenants, or oaths may quoad effectum be reputatively null; and he that by putting his sword to another man's breast doth compel him to swear or subscribe and seal a deed of gift, may be judged to have no right to it, but to be punishable for the force; but though this covenant or promise be null in foro humano, because the person cannot acquire a right by violence, yet the oath is not a nullity before God; for when God is made a party, he hath a right which is inviolable; and when he is appealed to or made a witness, his name must not be taken in vain. 3. It is a nullity reputatively when the person is naturally incapable of self-obligation, as in infancy, when reason is not come to so much maturity as to be naturally capable of such a work; I say naturally incapable, for the reasons following.
Rule XXVI. We must distinguish between a natural incapacity of vowing or swearing at all, and an incapacity of doing it lawfully; and between a true nullity, and when the oath is only quasi nullum, or as null quoad effectum, or such as I must not keep. There are many real oaths and vows which must not be kept, and so far are quasi nulla as to the effecting of the thing vowed; but they are not simply null; for they have the effect of making the man a sinner and perjured. They are sinful vows, and therefore vows. A natural incapacity proveth it no vow at all; but if I am naturally capable, and only forbidden, (by God or man,) this maketh it not no vow, but a sinful vow, of which some must be kept and some must not.
Cases in which a vow must not be kept.
In these following cases a real vow is quasi nullum, or must not be kept.
1. In case the thing vowed (all things considered) be a thing which God hath forbidden to be done; that is, in case it be a thing in itself evil; but if the thing in itself be a duty, though there be some inseparable sins which we shall be guilty of in the performance, we must not therefore leave the duty itself undone which we have vowed: as if I vow to praise God, and yet am sure that I cannot praise him without a sinful defect of that love and delight in him which is due, I must not therefore forbear to praise him; else we must cast off all other duty, because we cannot do it without some sin. But yet, though in case of unwilling infirmity, we must thus do the duty though we are sure to sin in it, yet in case of any chosen, voluntary sin, which we have an immediate power to avoid, we must rather forbear the duty itself (vowed or not vowed) than commit such a sin; as if I vow to preach the gospel, and am forcibly hindered unless I would voluntarily tell one lie, or commit one sin wilfully for this liberty; I ought rather never to preach the gospel; nor is it then a duty, but become morally impossible to me; as if in France or Spain I may not preach unless I would take Pope Pius's Trent confession or oath. Nay, if those very defects of love, and wandering thoughts, which now inseparably cleave to my best performances, were morally and immediately in my power, and I could avoid them, I ought not electively and by consent to commit them, for any liberty of duty, but rather to forbear the duty itself as no duty to me when it cometh upon such conditions; for then it is supposed that I could serve God better without that duty, because I could love him more, &c.