But saints, whom oaths or vows oblige,
Know little of their privilege; 120
Further, I mean, than carrying on
Some self-advantage of their own:
For if the devil, to serve his turn,
Can tell truth; why the saints should scorn,
When it serves theirs, to swear and lie, 125
I think there's little reason why:
Else h' has a greater power than they,
Which 'twere impiety to say,
We're not commanded to forbear,
Indefinitely, at all to swear;130
But to swear idly, and in vain,
Without self-interest or gain.
For breaking of an oath and lying,
Is but a kind of self-denying,
A saint-like virtue; and from hence 135
Some have broke oaths by Providence.[1]
Some, to the glory of the Lord,
Perjur'd themselves, and broke their word:[2]
And this the constant rule and practice
Of all our late apostles' acts is.140
Was not the Cause at first begun
With perjury, and carried on?
Was there an oath the godly took,
But in due time and place they broke?[3]
- ↑ That is, by the direction of the spirit, which was commonly assumed as an excuse for violating oaths. When it was first moved in the House to proceed capitally against the king, Cromwell stood up and told them: "That if any man moved this with design, he should think him the greatest traitor in the world; but since Providence and necessity had cast them upon it, he should pray to God to bless their counsels."
- ↑ "The rebel army," says South, "in their several treaties with the king, being asked by him whether they would stand to such and such agreements and promises, still answered, that they would do as the spirit should direct them. Whereupon that blessed prince would frequently condole his hard fate, that he had to do with persons to whom the spirit dictated one thing one day, and commanded the clean contrary the next." Harrison, Carew, and others, when tried for the part they took in the king's death, professed they had acted out of conscience to the Lord.
- ↑ The Covenanters, to accommodate their "Large Declaration" to the scruples of the Presbyterians in the matter of Episcopacy, inserted, "That the swearer is neither obliged to the meaning of the prescribed oath nor his
