The Review, or, A representation of the late sufferings & condition of the dissenters written some years since, but not then suffer'd to come abroad : now publish'd as well to encrease their gratitude to the King for delivering them from all those calamities, as to excite them to joyn vigorously in all lawful means that many conduce to the prevention of their falling under the like, or worse severeties hereafter.

SECT. III.

1. WE are not permitted to make explications, nor to declare our sense of the Subscriptions, Declarations, and Oaths that are imposed upon us. They are formed in Ambiguous Words, and such as are capable of sundry acceptations, but in which of them we understand, and could take, and submit unto them, we are not allowed to say. They must be swallowed in the lump, without any chewing. No sense of savour may be put upon them, though sense be sufficient to search the Government, and agreeable to the Laws of the Land

2. That the Conformable Gentry and Clergy (we mean such as are men of conscience and consideration) do put a favourable sense and interpretation upon them, we are sufficiently assured by their Books, and the Conversation we have with some of them. And so favourable, candid and engenuous, is the sense they give of them, that might we be permitted to declare it, we our selves, at least very ma∣ny of us, could submit unto them; but this is a fovour that is not allowed us, 'tis an indulgence that hath not been granted us, nor for ought that we can perceive, is like to be.

3. Were we satisfied that we might take the required Subscriptions, Declarations and Oaths in our own sense, without declaring our ex∣plication; we might long since many of us have been Conformists, or might be suddenly so, but that is a thing in which we cannot be as∣sured. If such a Liberty be taken we think the Impossition, and re∣quiring of them will be of little use, or signification, because it is no great difficulty by Interpretations, and mollisying expositions in our minds, to enervate the force, and void the obligation of all the Oaths and Subscriptions in the World.

4. We know, that there is a mean betwixt a rigorous, strictt, severe, and a loose, vagous and licentious Intrepretation; but we do also know that 'tis no easie manner to find it; and that all men that may be concerned in such things, are not skilled in splitting hairs, or divi∣ding Attoms, that persons of tender and scrupulous Consciences, will be everlastingly zealous lest they should poise the Golden Mean, and embrace the loose and vagous sense and exposition.

5. If this scrupulosity of Conscience be a Fault, 'tis such as very good men are liable unto, and know not how to remedy it. To be afraid of sin, is (we are sure) a very commendable quality, and wor∣thy of encouragement and praise. If any be superstitiously timorous, and fear where no fear is, we think them worthy of pity and indulgence, and that in Impositions, Oaths and Subscriptions, it ought to be re∣membred, that there are, and ever will be such men in the World; and therefore that such things be never required, but in cases of great and absolute necessity, in plain, obvious, and necessary things; and that the forms in which they are proposed, be drawn with great wariness and caution, and expressed in words of Common use, and as free as possible from all ambiguity of signification.