A26924:839
The English nonconformity as under King Charles II and King James II truly stated…
The English nonconformity as under King Charles II and King James II truly stated and argued by Richard Baxter ; who earnestly beseecheth rulers and clergy not to divide and destroy the land and cast their own souls on the dreadful guilt and punishment of national perjury ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1689
Chapter 55: POINT XII. Whether all Trusted in Corporations may declare, That there is NO OBLIGATION…
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
L. But all this we are bound to otherwise before.
M. Then you confess that it is good; and then the Vow in question binds us to it. I hope you are not so ignorant as to think that 2 Vow binds not a man to do that which he is bound to before. I told you before, tho' a man be bound by his Vow in Baptism to Christ, his renewing it at every Sacrament layeth more and more Obligation on him. If a man have taken the Oath of Allegiance, every time he taketh it, he is again bound to the same thing. One may have a thousand Obligations to one and the same Duty.
L. But one thing is unanswerable: No man is bound by a Vow that had not a self-obliging power: But the Subjects of England and Scotland, had no self-obliging power to take that Covenant, because the King was against it. The 30. of Levit proveth this at large.
M. Indeed if the Act of Vowing were not only sinful but a mere nullity, that Vow being no Vow, could not bind: But that Levit. 30. doth no whit prove this, I have fully manifested in my Christian Directory in the chap. of Vows, to which I refer you part. 3. cap. 5. Where the whole case of Vows is so largely opened, that I will here only say this little. The text of Levit. 30. doth expressly speak only of Women, that are in a Parents or Husbands house, and only of Vows made freely to God of doing or offering something to him: Yea it seemeth limited to them, of which many reasons may be given. And many reasons I have there mentioned pag. 33. why it doth not extend to Princes and Magistrates for releasing their Subjects from their Vows, tho' some pretend a parity of reason. But these things are certain.