AUTHORITY OF AN OATH : 
 
 A CHARGE 
 
 DELIVEKED AT THE VISITATION 
 
 OF THE. 
 
 DIOCESE OF CARLISLE, 
 
 MAY, 1882. 
 
 BY 
 
 C. J. BURTON, M.A.. 
 
 CHANCELLOR. 
 
 LONDON: JAMES PARKER & SONS. ^ 
 CARLISLE: C. THURNAM & SONS. 
 
 1882.
 
 AUTHORITY OF AN OATH. 
 
 Reverend Brethren, and Brethren of the Laity, 
 
 It is my intention, at the present time, to 
 address you on a subject equally solemn and important, 
 more especially as none of us can feel otherwise than 
 anxious on the grave aspect it offers to our notice. You 
 will readily see that I am referring to the controversy 
 recently raised on what amongst Christian people ought 
 to be no controversy at all. It is, in effect, whether what 
 we may designate as a compact between Grod and man 
 shall be maintained or not : it is whether we should con- 
 sider G-od as not watchful of human action, as indifferent 
 to human faith and conduct, and as, in truth, leaving Him 
 in all things regardless of right or wrong. This is the 
 situation in which the world must be placed if the original 
 engagement between God and man be not holden full and 
 sacred, and if it be left to the wish or the want of the hour 
 to determine rule of conduct or decision of act. It will be 
 well to look back to that the earliest age of the world, in 
 which God founded and established the great principle on 
 which its works and duties were to be carried on. He left 
 nothing to chance, nothing to caprice ; but determined, as 
 all lay before Him in one great sheet, what was fitting and 
 would be advantageous to every circumstance and event. I 
 mean to say, He established the world on a settled principle, 
 seeing that all He had made was good, that is, suited to His 
 own purpose, and that it should remain so established for 
 ever. That was the obligation under which He bound both 
 it and Himself ; that which we call the material world, the 
 firmament, the air, the earth, the waters, had a direction
 
 given to them which they were compelled to obey. Their 
 obedience, or their regular conduct, was a rule binding on 
 their part as it were, while on His there was an equal engage- 
 ment that their safe being and progress should be secured. 
 I am compelled to use this view of the case almost supposing 
 that the unconscious world, as we may call it, felt bound to 
 the acting of its own part. God had pronounced its duties 
 in such language as this: — " Let there be light — the greater 
 light to rule the day, — the lesser light to rule the night," — 
 and so in all other parts of this unconscious creation. Now, 
 this is what I would apply to man himself in its force and 
 meaning. He was made a reasonable, and, on conditions, a 
 living and immortal being ; life being given to his external 
 substance as formed of the dust of the ground, and his 
 immortal part being of the breath of God Himself, immor- 
 tality was granted to either on the great conditions of faith 
 and obedience. 
 
 The government of the world, command over all living- 
 creatures, and an undying state to body and soul, were thus 
 given. He was told, when placed in the Garden of Eden, 
 that his continuance there would depend, as I have said, on 
 his faith and obedience : that if he offended in one declared 
 point he should die, fully implying that if he did not disobey 
 that interdiction he should live, thus establishing a solemn 
 compact between the Creator and the created, which either 
 was bound, as by oath, to hold sacred and pure. This was 
 man's position, and thus he stood, his heart, his conscience, 
 his body and soul, being all open to God's eye, and all 
 inviolably as was intended to be fit for its observance. So 
 stood God and His creature man. We must now look at 
 man in far different circumstances. The compact between 
 his Creator and himself had passed away, the terms of it 
 were broken, and the benefits forfeited in all wherewith man 
 was concerned : he was cast to the ground dependent on the 
 mercy of an offended God : he had incurred the sentence of 
 death, and the fullness of it was deservedly his due. God 
 
 U.UC
 
 was merciful, all powerful iu mercy while stern ; His offended 
 honour demanded the sentence disobedience had earned, and 
 it was accordingly inflicted. 
 
 The covenanted life had passed away, and man stood 
 forth a creature devoted to death. We must here look to 
 the important fact that man consisted of two parts — in body 
 he was earthly, in soul he was of the breath of Cfod. The 
 sentence of death operated in due time on the former, and it 
 did return to its original dust ; the latter vanishing as it 
 were into an unseen state, awaiting that just dealing which 
 will one day be shewn in its reunion with the revived body. 
 So had Grod ordained, and so had His mercy determined on 
 the means by which that and His justice should meet together. 
 We find Grod thus addressing Himself to the serpent, the 
 author of the great ill. He said, " And I will put enmity 
 between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her 
 seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his 
 heel." In this, as we have well learnt, redemption is fore- 
 shewn as planned for the restoration of man to the Divine 
 favour : redemption in which the great party was to be His 
 own Son, incarnate, the second Person in the ever-blessed 
 Trinity, as subsequent revelation, or Divine communications 
 have well indicated ; and all this was confirmed, as is testified 
 by S. Paul, in that he says in speaking of the Priesthood of 
 Christ, " The Lord sware and will not repent. Thou art a 
 priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek. By so mucli 
 was Jesus made a surety of a better testament — For the law 
 maketh men High Priests which have infirmity, but the 
 word of the oath which was since the law maketh the Son, 
 who is consecrated for evermore." We have it here in 
 clearest testimony that God did bind Himself by oath to 
 the fulfilment of His promise in the redemption of man. 
 He sware ; and how did He swear ? by Himself, because 
 there was no one greater than Himself. It is to be borne 
 in mind that Melchisedek was Priest of the Most High 
 God, King of Salem, which is, King of Peace. Now, the
 
 promised redemption was peace — our blessed Lord is called, 
 and justly called, the Prince of Peace, in that through Him 
 peace was re-established between God and man, and it is 
 the construction, and to us it is an acknowledgedly true 
 construction, that Melchisedek was a Priest under the Cove- 
 nant of Grace vouchsafed by God in consequence of the fall 
 of our first parents ; that is, he was a true worshipper, a 
 Priest in true worship, testifying, and looking forward to 
 the re-establishment of peace between God and His fallen 
 creatures in the redemption by Christ. In all this solemn 
 and awful circumstance God appears to the world binding 
 Himself by oath, and making it an evidence not only 
 between Himself and man, but between man and man when 
 deemed essential to the ratification of a covenant or in 
 testimony of truth. Who can look back on all this, a 
 mighty power, great worth, and what ought to be reliable 
 responsibility in that to which it testifies, or to which it 
 engages, without confession of the sacred obligation to be 
 drawn from it ? The Holy Scriptures abound with references 
 which are binding by oath in the various relations of life, 
 and it must be taken as undoubted that their great exemplar, 
 their most authorizing reason, and gratifying usage must 
 be sought in this condescension of God to the wants and 
 the advantage of those beings, who, as created by Him 
 appeared rightly to call on His assistance and justification 
 in what might be deemed necessary to their peace and safety, 
 and other requirements of life. It will be well that we look 
 with attention to some of the many instances with which 
 the Holy Scriptures abound. By so doing, we shall not 
 only feel strengthened in our reliance on this as a beneficial 
 means of dealing one with another, but also as a justifica- 
 tion of the usage itself, and an answer to those who would 
 decry it either as useless, or unauthorized, or as a wrongful 
 doing. It is by such practice that we may in all circum- 
 stances and in all difficulties of life, place ourselves on sure 
 ground, both as concerning our own security and our own
 
 position, as of discovering wherein the will of God. shall lie, 
 and so best draw to ourselves that approval by Him in 
 which are our true security and peace. 
 
 When the Patriarch Abraham gave the important and 
 sacred commission to his servant with respect to obtaining a 
 wife for his son Isaac, we find him addressing him in these 
 terms — " And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the Grod 
 of heaven, and the Grod of the earth, that thou shalt not take 
 a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among 
 whom I dwell." In the promulgation of the law, Moses, 
 referring to Gen. xxvi, 3, thus addresses the people — " But, 
 because the Lord loved you, and because He would keep the 
 oath which He had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord 
 brought you out with a mighty hand." Again, in his 
 exhortation to obedience, he says " That thou shouldest 
 enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into His 
 oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day, 
 that He may establish thee to-day for a people unto Himself, 
 and that He may be unto thee a God, as He hath said unto 
 thee, and as He hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to 
 Isaac, and to Jacob." We find a reiteration of God making 
 a covenant with oath in the words of David in the First Book 
 of the Chronicles, where he says, " Be ye mindful always of 
 His covenant ; the word which He commanded to a thousand 
 generations ; even of the covenant which He made with 
 Abraham, and of His oath unto Isaac." And in the Second 
 Book of the Cbronicles, where Asa is moved by Azariah to make 
 a solemn covenant with God, it is stated, " And all Judah 
 rejoiced at the oath ; for they had sworn with all their heart, 
 and sought Him with their whole desire." In the fifth 
 chapter of the Book of Nehemiah we find these words — 
 " Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them that 
 they should do according to this promise." Turning now to 
 the New Testament, in the Gospel of S. Luke, in the prophecy 
 of Zechariah, we read, " To perform the mercy promised to our 
 fathers, and to remember His holy covenant; the oath which
 
 8 
 
 He sware to our father Abraham." Again, in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, it is written, " For when Grod made promise to 
 Abraham, because He could swear by no greater. He sware by 
 Himself, saying, &c," — and again, " Wherein Grod, willing 
 more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the 
 immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath." Who 
 can now fail after strong references like these, and many more 
 might be adduced, to see at once the value and obligation of 
 that adjuration which we term our oath ? It comes to us from 
 the highest authority, even from Grod Himself; often, indeed, 
 applied by Himself, if we may so speak, in His dealings with 
 man. In all His communications on the world we inhabit, it 
 is sanctioned ; likewise by His own Blessed Son, and that 
 Gospel which says that our oath is the ending of strife. Here, 
 however, I would remark, that in the time of our Lord much 
 scandal was caused, and much evil encouraged by the abuse of 
 this solemn means of leading to the settlement of questions, 
 to which in the manner then commonly used, it had been so 
 unfairly applied. Our Lord says, " Swear not at all," &c. 
 A very erroneous construction has been put on these words. 
 He was discoursing on the abuse of the appeal to Divine 
 authority, not giving a judgment on the subject of oaths. 
 Grod's name was appealed to in most of the ordinary questions 
 of life, and so appealed to as to be offensive in the eyes of 
 both Grod and man. It is to that, and that only, that our 
 Lord's words apply themselves : He says, " Swear not at all," 
 that is, as men then made it their practice in their most 
 ordinary communications, but, He made no change in that 
 law of God, and God's own sanction of it in His own expression 
 of its obligation, by any word deprecating that proper and 
 legitimate use, which, through the authorities I have quoted, 
 mark its sacredness and worth. Now let us just consider in 
 what respect we ourselves stand to this great obligation, this 
 divine creation of an infrangible bond. Our laws stand upon 
 it as their foundation, and as a defence against all injury and 
 wrong. Our rights and liberties as a people and a nation
 
 under constituted government, have the guarantee, the solemn, 
 the awfully declared protection of that oath called the 
 Coronation Oath to protect the rights, properties, and liberties 
 of all estates of men within this land. By it the Sovereign 
 is bound to maintain the sacred character, the rightfully 
 inviolable condition of our Holy Church ; the lives, and 
 properties, and liberties of all within that Sovereign's 
 dominions. It is, indeed, an awful obligation, but not to be 
 disputed : that is the condition, the firm, the immediate 
 condition on which the sovereignty is assumed. We do not 
 mean to say that the Coronation Oath is the oath taken at the 
 commencement of a reign, for the coronation itself is usually 
 deferred till a somewhat distant time, but this oath stands in 
 prospect, and with a full understanding to all parties concerned 
 that it will be formally and duly taken. Besides which, and 
 immediately as can be on accession, the Sovereign does enter 
 into an obligation as binding and as solemn in its material, 
 manner, and bearing, as the Coronation Oath itself shall 
 command. So do our people stand under the broad and 
 strong panoply of one of the most sacred obligations, most 
 binding in its effects, and most enlarged in its character 
 which man can conceive. We deem ourselves safe from all 
 inroads on our privileges as Christian men, as Christian 
 churchmen, and as free inhabitants of one common country. 
 Surely this of itself would be enough to stamp the word oath 
 with that soundness which is a divine institution of such 
 strong practical bearing, and such an obligation on the 
 Sovereign to do right, as ought not to fail of the fullest effect 
 which God has ordained by its means. 
 
 Next look to our Constitution as it stands under the 
 Sovereign authority, which, in truth, represents all authorities 
 under it, seeing that from it, under God, all authorities do 
 emanate. Who is admitted to any situation of trust, I 
 mean of public trust, without the security of an oath, be 
 that trust, whether as concerns Church or State ? We trust 
 no man with authority without placing him under this
 
 10 
 
 obligation, and we act rightly. We take the bond of his 
 conscience, nor care we to go further ; he binds himself both 
 to God and man to act rightly, according to the intention of 
 the appointment with which he is vested. Again, look to 
 our judicial proceedings — specially, I mean, because they 
 may in truth be set under that portion of our subject we 
 have just looked to. Our Judges, be they ecclesiastical or 
 civil, can perform no function of their office without the 
 obligation of an oath ; they can permit no proceeding in 
 their respective courts, they can sanction no pleading for 
 either indulgence or constraint without its previous guard of 
 honest purpose in the applicants. So our Juries are bound 
 by oath within the ear and under the sacred influence of a 
 Judge, solemnly occupying his ssat as in the sight of God. 
 Their consciences are bound by that equal charge of truthful 
 obligation in which he so solemnly sits before them ; witnesses 
 there indeed on questions relating to rights between man 
 and man can deliver testimony but on oath, and so present 
 themselves as under the eye of Almighty God Himself. 
 Then look, and here it is with great diffidence I speak, 
 because I cannot but be aware from the circumstances of the 
 times, that what I urge may meet with dispute, look then I 
 say to our Legislative Assemblies. They sit in their respective 
 places to advise the Sovereign, to serve and to defend the 
 people ; themselves the authors of those laws and obligations 
 by which the Sovereign is bound. We admit them to their 
 high functions under this sacred security — we call upon 
 them also to give the security of their conscience that they 
 will do right, fearing not — we trust no one who refuses this 
 security ; we have no hold on Jiis conscience, and therefore 
 we can have no faith in anything he can elsewise promise. 
 Who indeed can trust him who says he knows not God, or 
 who says he has no fear of God, or indeed who will not say 
 that he looks up to God in all he does, or says, or thinks 
 without due regard to His will and pleasure, or that God 
 does not watch over his path and his ways ? Would we trust
 
 11 
 
 the man in the ordinary concerns of life who will not engage 
 himself to be bound by the terms of mutual obligation ; 
 would we trust the man in any transaction whatever whom 
 we know to be reckless as to an honest performance of his 
 own engagement ? I think not — so, we cannot trust him to 
 be our legislator, our guide, and to a great extent our master 
 who will not rightly bind himself to perform his duty by us, 
 under the obligation, and in consequence subject to the all- 
 seeing eye of a Superior Being. We cannot enter into any 
 consideration of the awful subject which I have now set 
 before you, without casting ourselves in deep and solemn 
 thought on its bearing upon ourselves ; upon ourselves, my 
 Reverend Brethren, as Ministers of that Church which God 
 established under the solemnity of an oath, when, as the 
 Scripture says, " He could swear by no greater than Himself," 
 He sware by himself that Christ was and should be a Priest 
 for ever after the order of Melchisedek. Thus was the 
 Christian Priesthood established ; it took its effect from 
 thence, and was in His view through all succeeding time a 
 Priesthood after that order which is called the order of 
 Melchisedek, and is thus confirmed to us as the only true 
 and holy faith by which man's salvation should be secured. 
 "We, in our character, as Ministers of Christ, are included in 
 this solemn compact. Our Church is established for ever. 
 It was thus appointed for the service of all mankind ; all 
 are called to it, and all will be judged by it. I do not say 
 that God designed in any part of His plan, to make it a 
 recognized Christian Church throughout the world. Such 
 was not His purpose. The visible settlement of it was to be 
 progressive, and we doubt not that in His own good time it 
 will be of universal acknowledgment. Still, we know that 
 Christ was born and lived and died in redemption of all men. 
 His merits were confined to none, and in the eye of God we 
 cannot doubt that by means unknown to us, and incompre- 
 hensible, it has an effect upon all. Long was the interval 
 between the promise of redemption and the actual appear-
 
 12 
 
 ance and visible merits of the Redeemer, and we may not 
 say that the grace of redemption was not operating through 
 that period. God's oath was with it, and that oath secured 
 its continuance. We may not doubt that the faith spoken 
 of as the order of Melchisedek was a true faith ; the only 
 true faith possibly then known or recognized in the world, 
 and hence it is, I argue, that our Church stands in Christ on 
 God's oath, and that it is under the operation of that oath 
 we now do actually minister in that branch of it which we 
 believe to be true and acceptable, and within the survey of 
 the Heavenly King. 
 
 This will at once set forth to you the awful situation in 
 which we stand, that we are bound, under this oath of God, 
 and may not by any failure in word or deed shew other than 
 a due regard of it. Does not this pointedly tell us what is 
 our obligation, and how we are to testify or have testified 
 our conviction of it. Look back to the time and occasion 
 when each one of us severally presented ourselves for admis- 
 sion into this Priesthood, that we did so present ourselves 
 under that appointment of it which was declared by God 
 Himself, that we are servants under that His oath, and that 
 we became, under the operation of it, and by the operation 
 of that influence which God's oath then poured down upon 
 those who rightly and truly presented themselves before Him 
 for acceptance, as His accredited servants. We bound our- 
 selves by oath, hence it is that we must feel it a duty resting 
 upon us to acknowledge that so solemn a form of obligation 
 originating with God Himself is fit and indeed necessary in 
 all the obligations which fall on the Christian man. We are 
 bound by our special duties, and woe be to us if we break 
 our faith. Woe be to us, if, in defiance of God's declared 
 righteousness we in any wise lose sight of the obligation 
 which by His wisdom, justice, and mercy has been laid upon 
 us. Thus it is with all men — the duties of the present life 
 having been appointed by God, and the Christian dispensa- 
 tion having been of His direct ordering, and provision, are
 
 13 
 
 Christian duties. Through the mediation of the Kedeemer, 
 man has become, so to speak, again sanctified in the eye of 
 his Creator ; so it is, I say, his duties are Christian duties, 
 and are to be regarded in a Christian spirit. This is what 
 we are bound to teach and insist on — in all they do and pur- 
 pose men must shew their faith in Cod, and manifest their 
 obedience to His Word. He has, through all generations to 
 the present time, spread the sanctity of His own oath upon 
 us. We are to receive it according to that ordering which 
 we find throughout the sacred Scriptures, and with which we 
 have so good reason to believe Himself to be well pleased. 
 These are the grounds which I have briefly and it may be 
 imperfectly placed before you, and on and by reason of which 
 I must implore you to uphold the sanctity of that procedure 
 by which Cod both proved Himself to be known and true, and 
 by which also He would have His reasonable creatures to 
 shew their integrity also. I need not enlarge further, and 
 will therefore content myself with simply praying you to 
 give an attention at least to the great subject I have ventured 
 to discuss ; to urge you by all that is good and sacred not to 
 separate yourselves from that method or demonstration of 
 truth by which C-od declared He Himself would be known to 
 be true, and which He has given you as a rule by which to 
 direct yourselves. I have thus, my Brethren, Ecclesiastical 
 and Lay, set before you the origin and authority of that 
 solemn, and what ought to be most effectual obligation 
 which can assist to the obedience and best administer to the 
 welfare of ourselves in all the duties, observances, and cir- 
 cumstances of life. It comes to us from the great God 
 Himself, and is substantially connected with our true welfare 
 both here and hereafter ; it binds us one to another in all 
 that can concern mutual service, it binds subjects to lawful 
 authority, acting as in the fear of Cod and dependent on 
 His mercy and protection. It engages us all to our mutual 
 duties, forming where rightly observed, a powerful link to 
 the general welfare. But here, my Eeverend Brethren, I
 
 14 
 
 must more especially call upon you to give your deepest 
 regard to the high duty which so lies upon you ; you stand 
 before your God and your people under this most solemn 
 covenant; you are bound to Him, the Author of this oath, 
 the most solemn covenant in which man can be called on to 
 engage himself. Look back to your call to the Ministry, to 
 the circumstances in which it was made, the appeal which 
 you have answered in your veriest conscience, to promote 
 the welfare of your people by leading and preserving them 
 in the rightful service of their Grod and their Eedeemer. 
 You admit all this as concerning ourselves, and so in the 
 strongest manner that can be imagined, confessing this 
 solemn form and precedure to be a covenant binding for 
 ever. Grod is with it, sees it, and has it in perpetual memory 
 before Him. This same covenant is in its force and its power 
 bounden upon all men, and cannot be lightly regarded 
 without sin. God will not be mocked by either its non- 
 observance, or by the contempt with which the insanity 
 of evil men would deal with it. To suppose such a state of 
 things may seem to some a hard charge, but we cannot help 
 knowing, we can no longer hide from us the truth that there 
 is a powerful and evil endeavour abroad to weaken moral and 
 religious obligations. Let me ask you what, if that endeavour 
 were to succeed, would be our condition ? what the security 
 in any relation of life ? Where would be the trust either of 
 us in our governors, or of our governors in us ; both revelation 
 and experience have taught us that man must be bound by 
 what he feels to be binding in his inmost soul, and surely 
 that would be enough, or ought to be enough with reasonable 
 creatures to receive and direct. 
 
 Yet let us go further ; we are living within the notice of 
 that high and all powerful Being who governs all things ; who 
 has His purpose in all, and will not suffer Himself to be 
 thwarted in any design. Awful is the obligation thus 
 created — you are bound by all effectual means, on all 
 occasions, and without any hesitation or drawing back, to
 
 15 
 
 discountenance and overthrow whatever would lead you from 
 that high sense of duty which I have said so lies upon you. 
 In few words, trust not the man, trust not any body of men, 
 who refuse to present their conscience as under the eye of 
 Omniscience, but cast from you all consideration, and, let 
 me add, all fear of such as would lead you from your duty 
 to God, your proper regard for the welfare of each other, 
 and that salvation of your immortal souls which God has so 
 plainly, so wisely, and so kindly made the great principle on 
 which our present relations may be so established as to lead 
 to all that is holy, just, and good, and again I say, so to pre- 
 pare yourselves by a true and unswerving obedience in this 
 life for acceptance and blessedness in that which is to come. 
 
 CBAS, THURliAM AND SOXS, STEAM PRINTERS, CARLISLE.
 
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