can take this negative oath by the rule of God's law, with a found and good confcience; against the light whereof, if I fhould take it, I should thereby declare myself either to be an atheift, in thinking there was no God to punish for fo great wickedness, or else to imagine, that he were either unjuft, and would not punish, or unable, and could not, or else careless of the actions of men, that he either feeth not, or regardeth not their wicked acts; which opinion the very heathens confuted and rejected, as you` may find at large in Tully's firft book de natura Deorum.

Is not the violation through fear, felfrespect, and far more the wilful prevarication, perjurious repeal, abrogation, and abjuration of our facred lawful oaths, a most deteftable, crying, fcandalous, damning fin, exceeding dishonourable to God, and injurie ous to religion? Let any perfon of the most ordinary

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`ordinary capacity anfwer, and he must be forced to fay yes. Would it not be a most impious, unchriftian, exccrable, if not atheistical practice, for any perfon or perfons whatfoever, to impofe an oath diametrically repugnant to, and inconfiftent with, their former oaths to their lawful fovereign, to enfnare and wound their confciences, and involve them in the guilt of inevitable and moft apparent perjury? Do not the oaths of fupremacy and allegiance, extending not only to the late King George's perfon, but his heirs and fucceffors, inviolably bind both them, their pofterities, and the whole three nations, in perpetuity, in point of law and confcience, fo fong as there is any heir of the crown or royal line in being? Were not the late illegal oaths and engagements to the protector Cromwell, enforced on the people against their confciences, being directly contrary to their former lawful

oaths

oaths to our kings, their heirs, and fucceffors, abfolutely void in confcience, yea, mere profanings and abuses of God's facred name, while King Charles or any of the family of Steuart was alive? And if these oaths were taken out of fear or weakness, were no ways to be obferved, no more than David's oath or refolution to destroy Nabal with all his pofterity, 1 Sam, xxv, or Herod's oath, which he had more justly violated than obferved, in beheading St. John the Baptift, St. Matt. xiv. 6. The heinous fin of perjury, was by the Egyptians accounted a double offence, in that it put the cheat upon

God and man.

From what hath been faid, I may infer two things; First, That it concerns us all to continue firm and loyal to the king, and true to the monarchy, to keep our old lawful oaths, and at all times to abhor all new and illegal ones. Secondly, That oaths are

no fecurity to princes, but rather tend to weaken their power, and may fome time or other involve the nation in perjury.

Hitherto I have been endeavouring to fhow the divine and natural inftitution of regal government, and to free it from fubjection to any arbitrary election of the people; I have likewife enquired, whether human laws have a fuperiority over princes, because those that maintain the acquifition of royal jurifdiction from the people, do fubject the exercise of it to pofitive laws, but in this they err; for, as kingly power is by the law of God, fo it hath no fuperior to limit it for a father was originally an abfolute fovereign, with power of life and death, and a great family, as to the right of fovereignty, is a little monarchy. Aristotle fays, At the beginning cities were, and now nations are, under the government of kings, the eldest in every houfe is king; and a

perfect

perfect kingdom, fays he, is that wherein the king rules all things according to his own will; for he that is called a king according to the law makes no kind of government, To majefty or fovereignty belongeth an abfolute power not fubject to law; it behoveth him that is a fovereign not to be in any fort fubject to the command of another, whose office it is to give laws unto his fubjects, to abrogate laws unprofitable, and in their ftead to establish others, which he cannot do, that is himself fubject to law, or to others which have the command over him for the first mark of sovereign majesty is to be of power to give laws, and to command over them unto the fubjects; and who fhould thofe fubjects be that would yield their obedience to the law, if they had alfo power to make the laws? Who is it that fhould give the law, being himself conftrained to receive it from them, unto whom himself

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