"Swear Not at All"; Containing an Exposure of the Needlessness and Mischieviousness, as Well as Antichristianity of the Ceremony of an Oath a View of the Parliamentary Recognition of Its Needlessness, Together with Proof of the Open and (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1817 edition. Excerpt: ...for security against fire. What you may thus perpetuate is the remembrance of your own folly: what you can not and will not perpetuate, should men be weak enough to receive them, are--any such perpetually foolish laws. 1J. Mischief 6. Corrupting the national morals and understanding--Oxford University Oaths. Thin are the partitions by which the moral and intellectual parts of man's frame are divided: scarcely can corruption gain the one without making its way to the other. When, in the shape of an immense mass of unperformable engagements, all sanctioned by an oath, the seeds of perjury had betn thus thickly sown, it could not be long ere they began yielding such their fruits: fruits more or less bitter to some stomachs, but at-any rate conspicuous to all eyes: --a remedy was deemed necessary. The simple course would have been to abolish the oath: but this would have been contrary to more than one fundamental principle of ecclesiastical polity. 1. One is--that the Church is infallible; that is, that a set of professors, who, at the expense of the people, are paid by the sovereign--such of them as do any thing--for reading and endeavouring to explain a most important indeed, but not the less obscure and mysterious book, --written at different times, befere the use of printing, in different dead languages, --remain for ever, as they and their predecesssors have been for two hundred and fifty years past, under the happy incapacity of putting in any one instance a wrong sense upon it. The influence of this attribute displays itself in both departments of the mind; the understanding and the will: opinions, real or pretended, are by it converted, --that is, the words given as containing the expression of them are converted, --into articles of faith: ...