§. 125. Of equivocation upon oath.
A Fourth error is to swear deceitfully: which is commonly called equivocati∣on. This is a most undue kind of swearing, whereof Papists are in a high de∣gree guilty. There is a kind of verball equivocation, when a word or sentence may be diversly taken: which is a rhetoricall figure: as when Christ said: our friend Lazarus sleepeth: and his Disciples thought that he had spoken of taking rest in sleep, Joh. 11. 11, 13. But the equivocation which we speak of is a mentall equivocation:* 1.1 and that is, when a man sweareth a false thing, yet so, as he reserveth something i•…•… his mind, which, if it were uttered, would make the speech true: as if one, guilty with others, be upon oath demanded, whether he ever saw such an one, answereth, I never saw him (though he have seen him often, and well know him) reserving this clause in his mind, in heaven: which expressed maketh the answer true: but it i•…•… nothing to the mind of him that propounded the question; neither can any such mat∣ter be fetcht out of the words: so as such an oath commeth nothing short of per•…•…u∣ry. The end of an oath in determining controversies would thus be taken away.
Notwithstanding those enormous consequences of equivocation, Papists use to equivocate, not only all their life time, but also upon their death beds. 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Tresham, one of the conspirators in the Gun-powder Treason, a little before his death, protested upon his salvation, that for sixteen years before that time, he had not seen Henry Garnet Superiour of the Iesuites in England, and yet both the said Henry Garnet himself, and sundry others confessed that the said Garnet and Tresham had within two years space been divers times together, and mutually conferred one with another. Garnet being then asked, what he thought of Treshams Protestation, answered, that he thought he made it by equivocation.
This kind of deceit Papists have taken from Arrius an ancient H•…•…retick: who be∣ing* 1.2 to be freed out of banishment, if he would professe the Nicene faith, caused the Articles of his own h•…•…retical faith to be written in a Paper, and put them into his bosome: and in the presence of those who were to take his protestation, immediat∣ly after the Articles of the Nicene faith were read unto him, laying his hand upon his bosome, protested that he would constantly hold that faith. His Judges thought