Oaths, casuistry, and equivocation: Anglican responses to the engagement controversy

Historical Journal

Volumn 44, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 59-77

  Vallance, Edward ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949249632     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X01001662     Document Type: Article

References (146)

1. M. A. Judson, From tradition to political reality (Ohio, 1980)
2. Q. Skinner, ‘History and ideology in the English revolution’, Historical Journal, 8 (1965), pp. 151–178
3. idem, ‘The ideological context of Hobbes's political thought’, Historical Journal, 9 (1966), pp. 286–317
4. idem, ‘Conquest and consent: Thomas Hobbes and the Engagement controversy’, in G. E. Aylmer, ed., The Interregnum (London, 1972), pp. 79–98
5. J. M. Wallace, ‘The Engagement controversy 1649–52: an annotated list of pamphlets’, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 68 (1969), pp. 385–465
6. idem, Destiny his choice: the loyalism of Andrew Marvell (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 9–69.
7. G. Burgess, ‘Usurpation, obligation and obedience in the thought of the Engagement controversy’, Historical Journal, 29 (1986), pp. 515–537.
8. W. Urwick, Historical sketches of nonconformity in the county palatine of Chester (London, 1864), p. xxx.
9. J. P. Kenyon, ed., The Stuart constitution (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 263–6, 458–9.
10. See B. Worden, The Rump Parliament (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 226–232.
11. Certain sermons appointed by the Queen's Majesty to be declared and read, ed. G. E. Corrie (Cambridge, 1850), p. 617.
12. W. Ames, Conscience with the power and cases thereof(n. p., 1639), pp. 48–59
13. W. Perkins, ‘The whole treatise of cases of conscience’, in T. F. Merrill, ed., William Perkins 1558–1602 English puritanist (The Hague, 1966), pp. 140–142
14. J. Hall, Resolutions and decisions of divers practicall cases of conscience (1649), pp. 73–81
15. R. Sanderson, De juramento: seven lectures concerning the obligation of promissory oathes, trans. Charles I? (1655), pp. 47–48.
16. Ames, Conscience with the power, pp. 54–55
17. Sanderson, De juramento, pp. 55–58.
18. On oaths see J. Spurr, ‘Perjury, profanity and politics’, The Seventeenth Century, 8 (1993), pp. 29–50
19. on casuistry, A. R. Jonsen and S. Toulmin, The abuse of casuistry: a history of moral reasoning (University of California Press, 1988)
20. on equivocation and mental reservation, J. P. Sommerville,‘“The new art of lying”: equivocation, mental reservation and casuistry’, in E. Leites, ed., Conscience and casuistry in early modern Europe (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 159–185
21. P. Zagorin, ‘England and the controversy over mental reservation’, in idem, Ways of lying: dissimulation, persecution and conformity in early modern Europe (London, 1990), ch. 9.
22. T. Morton, A full satisfaction concerning a double romish iniquitie (1606), p. 54
23. H. Mason, The new art of lying (1624), pp. 7–9.
24. Baxter, Christian directory, p. 430.
25. Christian directory, pp. 700–713.
26. Perkins, ‘The whole treatise of cases of conscience’, pp. 140–142
27. Ames, Conscience with the power, pp. 51–53.
28. Sanderson, De juramento, p. 184.
29. Jonsen and Toulmin, Abuse of casuistry, pp. 59–72, 125–34.
30. Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. Mathew Sylvester (1696), pp. 64–65.
31. Calendar of State Papers Domestic (CSPD), 1650, pp. 88–89.
32. R. Sanderson, Works, ed. W. Jacobson (6 vols., Oxford, 1854), v, p. 23
33. A copie of a letter against the Engagement (n. p., 1650), p. 8.
34. R. Sanderson, A resolution of conscience by a learned divine (1649)
35. idem, ‘The case of the engagement’, in Works, v, pp. 17–36
36. H. Hammond, A brief resolution of that grand case of conscience (1650)
37. Hammond, Humble address, p. 2.
38. Modern policies, princ. v.
39. Sanderson, A resolution of conscience, pp. 1–2
40. Hammond, A brief resolution, p. 5
41. Filmer, Directions to obedience, pp. 46–47.
42. F. Rous, The lawfulnesse of obeying the present government (1649), p. 1.
43. H. Ferne, Conscience satisfied that there is no warrant for the armes now taken up by subjects (Oxford, 1643), pp. 32–33
44. idem, A reply unto severall treatises (Oxford, 1643), p. 19
45. D. Digges, The unlawfulnesse of subjects taking up arms against their soveraigne (n. p., 1643), pp. 13,47–8, 116.
46. Hammond, A briefe resolution, pp. 5–6.
47. W. Wynne, The life of Sir Leoline Jenkins (2 vols., 1723), 11, pp. 647–650.
48. J. P. Kenyon, The short constitution (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 263–266.
49. R. Ward, The analysis, explication and application of the sacred and solemne league and covenant, (1643), p. 2.
50. E. Gee, An exercitation concerning usurped powers (1650), pp. 12, 56.
51. A pack of old puritans maintaining the unlawfulness and inexpediency of subscribing the new engagement (1650),p. 20
52. Gee, An exercitation, pp. 22–23
53. [H. Hall], Digitus testium, or a dreadful alarm to the whole kingdom (1650), p. 26.
54. J. Sanderson,‘But the people's creatures’: the philosophical basis of the English Civil War (Manchester, 1989), p. 157.
55. T. Paget, A religious scrutiny… together with a faithfull and conscientious account for subscribing the Engagement (1650), pp. 21, 32.
56. J. Dury, Considerations concerning the present Engagement, whether it may be lawfully entered into, yea or no? (1649), pp. 9–10
57. [J. Dury], A disingag'd survey of the Engagement in relation to publike obligations (1650), p. 3.
58. Certain particulars further tending to satisfie the tender consciences of such as are required to take the Engagement (1651), pp. 3–4.
59. The diary of Ralph Josselin, 1616–1683, ed. A. Macfarlane (British Academy, 1976), p. 186.
60. [Dury], A disingag'd survey, pp. 4, 8.
61. M. Nedham, The case of the commonwealth of England stated (1650), pp. 25–31.
62. [J. Dury], A second parcel of objections against the taking of the Engagement answered (1650), pp. 26–34.
63. [A. Ascham], The bounds and bonds of publique obedience (1649), pp. 40–42
64. A. Ascham, A discourse (1648), p. 81.
65. S. Eaton, The oath of allegiance and the national covenant proved to be non-obliging: or, three several papers on that subject (1650), pp. 1–2, 36.
66. J. A. W. Gunn, Politics and the public interest in the seventeenth century (London, 1969)
67. J. Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic, 1623–1677 (Cambridge, 1988), ch. 13.
68. Nedham, Case of the commonwealth, p. 26.
69. Sanderson was a close associate of Laud and a favoured chaplain of Charles I, I. Walton, The compleat angler, the lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert and Sanderson, ed. G. Keynes (London, 1929), p. 480
70. but was also adopted by moderate puritans as a shining example of a good Calvinist bishop, F. D., Reason and judgement: or, special remarques of the life of… Dr. Sanderson (1663).
71. He was also highly respected by European theologians, H. R. McAdoo, The structure of Caroline moral theology (London, 1949), p. 72.
72. Sanderson, De juramento, pp. 42, 48.
73. De juramento, p. 199.
74. De juramento, pp. 54–56.
75. Ames, Conscience with the power, pp. 54–55.
76. Jonsen and Toulmin, The abuse of casuistry, pp. 125–134.
77. Commons Journal (CJ), VIII, pp. 256, 259.
78. British Library (BL) Add. Roll 7180 ‘Engagement to be faithful to the Commonwealth taken at Wigan’
79. F. A. Inderwick, ‘The Rye Engagement’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 39 (1894), pp. 16–27
80. Gloucestershire Record Office D1571 F116.
81. ‘Illustrations of the state of the church during the Great Rebellion’, ed. N. Pocock, Theologian and Ecclesiastic, 6–15 (1848–1854), 8, p. 286.
82. Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC), De L'Isle MSS, VI, pp. 466–478.
83. De L'Isle MSS., VI, p. 472.
84. De L'Isle MSS., VI, p. 598.
85. HMC, Ormonde MSS, new series, 1, pp. 144–146.
86. Calendar of the correspondence of Richard Baxter, ed. N. H. Keeble and G. F. Nuttall (2 vols., Oxford, 1991), 1, pp. 58–59.
87. A. Fletcher, A county community in peace and war: Sussex, 1600–1660 (London, 1975), pp. 296–297.
88. CSPD, 1650, p. 20.
89. CSPD, p. 427.
90. CSPD, pp. 440, 470.
91. CSPD, 1651, pp. 5, 22.
92. Wallace, ‘Engagement controversy’, p. 395.
93. See K. Thomas, ‘Cases of conscience in seventeenth-century England’, in J. S. Morrill, P. Slack, and D. R. Woolf, eds., Public duty and private conscience: essays in honour of Gerald Aylmer (Oxford, 1993), pp. 29–57
94. The complete works of James Harrington, ed.J. G. A. Pocock (Cambridge, 1977), ‘Historical introduction’.
95. HMC 14th Report, Portland MSS, III, p. 172.
96. Bodleian Library, Oxford (Bodl.), MS Tanner 56 fo. 257.
97. Though the parliamentarian administrator William Jessop recorded the process of self-examination by which he cleared his own scruples over the Engagement, see G. E. Aylmer, The state's servants: the civil service of the English Republic, 1649–1660 (London, 1973), pp. 234–238
98. BL Add. MS 46190 fos. 190–193.
99. Sanderson, Works, V, pp. 20–35.
100. Two cases resolved by the late learned father in God, Robert Sanderson (1668).
101. Theologian and Ecclesiastic, 6, pp. 224, 7–8, 51.
102. Bodl. MS Tanner 233 fos. 135–147.
103. It was first ascribed to Filmer by G.J. Schochet, ‘Sir Robert Filmer: some new bibliographical discoveries’, The Library, 26 (1971), pp. 135–160
104. but James Daly noted that allusions to the benefits of mixed government, distinction between the nature and exercise of power, and questions of written style cast serious doubt on Filmer's authorship, Sir Robert Filmer and English political thought (Toronto, 1979), pp. 194–198.
105. Daly suggested that Sanderson might be the author but this is clearly not the case. Folios 148 to 172 in the Tanner volume are copies of cases of conscience by Sanderson (see Works, v, pp. 84–8, 104–22)
106. but they are titled as ‘A discourse upon a Case of Conscience not mine; but by a learned divine.’ My suggestion is that the volume was a notebook of Sir John Monson's which had been copied by Filmer as preparation for work on the subject of adiaphora, see Daly, Filmer, pp. 108–109.
107. See Sanderson's preface in James Ussher's, The power communicated by God to the prince (1661).
108. [Sir J. Monson], A discourse concerning supreme power and common right (1680).
109. Sanderson, De juramento, pp. 194–200.
110. Sanderson, Works, v, p. 22.
111. Works, pp. 26–27.
112. Works, p. 28.
113. Works, pp. 34–35.
114. P. G. Lake, ‘Serving God and the times: the Calvinist conformity of Robert Sanderson’, Journal of British Studies, 27(1988), pp. 81 -116
115. Jones and Toulmin, Abuse of casuistry, pp. 211–212.
116. Bodl. MS Tanner 233 fo. 135.
117. M.S. Tanner, fo. 136.
118. M.S. Tanner, fos. 138–110
119. Sanderson, Works, v, p. 28.
120. Sanderson, Works, v, p. 27.
121. Bodl. MS Tanner 233 fos. 141, 144.
122. Elizabethan casuistry, ed. P. J. Holmes, Catholic Record Society, 67 (1981), p. 65.
123. Sanderson, Works, v, pp. 20, 37–60; vi, p. 330n.
124. Works, v, p. 23; vi, pp. 368–371.
125. Works, v, p. 34.
126. Bodl. MS Tanner 233 fos. 146–147.
127. Certain observations upon the new league or covenant (Bristol, 1643), p. 9
128. The iniquity of the late solemne league (Oxford, 1643), p. 7
129. [R. Sanderson], The reasons of the present judgement of the University of Oxford (1647), pp. 22–23.
130. C. Russell, The fall of the British monarchies (Oxford, 1991), p. 295.
131. Oxfordshire and North Berkshire Protestation returns and tax assessments, 1641–1642, ed. J. S. W. Gibson (Oxfordshire Record Society, 59, 1994), pp. 149–172.
132. Bodl. MS Tanner 233 fos. 146–147.
133. Modern policies, princ. VII
134. A copie of a letter against the Engagement, pp. 10–11.
135. Some Anglicans privately condemned the use of equivocations as well, see Samuel Dillingham's letter to William Sancroft 11 Dec. 1650, Theologian and Ecclesiastic, 8, pp. 162–163.
136. [Dury], A second parcel of objections, p. 26.
137. [Dury], Considerations concerning the present Engagement, passim.
138. Certain particulars, pp. 2–3.
139. J. Wenlock, The humble declaration of… (1662), pp. 96–97
140. for evidence of similarly equivocal subscriptions being accepted see the case of Dr John Conant, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1657 to 1660, Register of the visitors of the University of Oxford, ed. C. M. Burrows (Camden Society, n. s., 29, 1881), pp. xlvii-xlviii.
141. However, bare promises of good behaviour seem to have been insufficient, Register of the visitors of the University of Oxford, p. 274n.
142. BL Add. MS 32093 fos. 272–275
143. BL Add MS 746 fo. 146
144. Bodl. MS Tanner 461 fos. 54–55
145. M. Goldie, ‘The revolution of 1689 and the structure of political argument’, Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, 83 (1980), pp. 473–564, at pp. 522–3.
146. Sanderson, Works, vi, p. 411.