Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

moral mastiff: but if you hurt him, he will fly in your face, and tear out your throat.

MORTGAGE.

In case I receive a thousand pounds, and mortgage as much land as is worth two thousand to you, if I do not pay the money at such a day, I fail-whether you may take my land and keep it in point of conscience? Answ. If you had my lands as security only for your money, then you are not to keep it; but if we bargained so, that if I did not repay your one thousand pounds, my land should go for it, be it what it will, no doubt you may with a safe conscience keep it; for in these things all the obligation is servare fidem.

NUMBER.

ALL those mysterious things they observe in numbers, come to nothing, upon this very ground, because number in itself is nothing, has not to do with nature, but is merely of human imposition, a mere sound. For example, when I cry, one a clock, two a clock, three a clock, that is but man's division of time; the time itself goes on, and it had been

all one in nature if those hours had been called nine, ten, and eleven. So when they say the seventh son is fortunate, it means nothing; for if you count from the seventh back wards, then the first is the seventh, why is not he likewise fortunate?

OATHS.

1. SWEARING was another thing with the Jews than with us, because they might not pronounce the name of the Lord Jehovah.

2. There is no oath scarcely, but we swear to things we are ignorant of. For example, the oath of supremacy; how many know how the king is king? What are his right and prerogative? So how many know what are the privileges of the parliament, and the liberty of the subject, when they take the protestation? But the meaning is, they will defend them when they know them. As if I should swear I would take part with all that wear red ribbons in their hats-it may be I do not know which colour is red-but when I do know, and see a red ribbon in a man's hat, then will I take his part.

3. I cannot conceive how an oath is im

posed where there is a parity, viz. in the house of commons, they are all pares inter se; only one brings paper, and shows it the rest, they look upon it, and in their own sense take it. Now they are but pares to me, who am none of the house, for I do not acknowledge myself their subject; if I did, then no question, I was bound by an oath of their imposing. It is to me but reading a paper in their own sense.

4. There is a great difference between an assertory oath and a promissory oath. An assertory oath is made to a man before God, and I must swear so, as man may know what I mean. But a promissory oath is made to God only, and I am sure he knows my meaning. So in the new oath it runs, "Whereas I believe in my conscience, &c. I will assist thus and thus." That "whereas" gives me an outloose; for if I do not believe so, for ought I know, I swear not at all.

5. In a promissory oath, the mind I am in is a good interpretation; for if there be enough happened to change my mind, I do not know why I should not. If I promise to go to Oxford to-morrow, and mean it when I say it, and afterwards it appears to me, that it

will be my undoing, will you say I have broke my promise if I stay at home? Certainly, I must not go.

6. The Jews had this way with them concerning a promissory oath or vow: if one of them had vowed a vow, which afterwards = appeared to him to be very prejudicial by reason of something he either did not foresee, or did not think of, when he made his vow; if he made it known to three of his countrymen, they had power to absolve him, though he could not absolve himself, and that they picked out of some words in the text. Perjury hath only to do with an assertory oath, and no man was punished for perjury by man's law till queen Elizabeth's time; it was left to God, as a sin against him; the reason was, because it was so hard a thing to prove a man perjured. I might misunderstand him, and he swears as he thought.

7. When men ask me whether they may take an oath in their own sense, it is to me, as if they should ask whether they may go to such a place upon their own legs, I would fain know how they can go otherwise.

8. If the ministers that are in sequestered livings will not take the engagement, threaten to turn them out and put in the old ones, and

then I will warrant you they will quietly take it. A gentleman having been rambling two or three days, at length came home, and being in bed with his wife, would fain have been at something, that she was unwilling to, and instead of complying, fell to chiding him for his being abroad so long. Well, says he, if you will not, call up Sue (his wife's chambermaid); upon that she yielded presently.

9. Now oaths are so frequent, they should be taken like pills, swallowed whole; if you chew them, you will find them bitter; if you think what you swear, it will hardly go down.

ORACLES.

ORACLES ceased presently after Christ, as soon as nobody believed them. Just as we have no fortune-tellers, nor wise men, when nobody cares for them. Sometimes you have a season for them, when people believe them; and neither of these, I conceive, wrought by the devil.

[ocr errors]

OPINION.

1. OPINION and affection extremely differ; I may affect a woman best, but it does not follow I must think her the handsomest woman

« FöregåendeFortsätt »