He did, for about a year's time, continue to read his matchless Lectures, which were first de Juramento, a point very difficult, and at that time very dangerous to be handled as it ought to be. But this learned man, as he was eminently furnished with abilities to satisfy the consciences of men upon that important subject; so he wanted not courage to assert the true obligation of Oaths in a degenerate age, when men had made perjury a main part of their religion. How much the learned world stands obliged to him for these, and his following Lectures de Conscientiâ, I shall not attempt to declare, as being very sensible that the best pens must needs fall short in the commendation of them: so that I shall only add, that they continued to this day, and will do for ever, as a complete standard for the resolution of the most material doubts in Casuistical Divinity. And therefore I proceed to tell the Reader, that about the time of his reading those Lectures,—the King being then prisoner in the Isle of Wight,—the Parliament had sent the Covenant, the Negative Oath, and I know not what more, to be taken by the Doctor of the Chair, and all Heads of Houses; and all other inferior Scholars, of what degree soever, were all to take these Oaths by a fixed day; and those that did not, to abandon their College, and the University too, within twenty-four hours after the beating of a drum; for if they remained longer, they were to be proceeded against as spies.
Dr. Laud, then Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earl of Strafford, and many others, had been formerly murdered by this wicked Parliament; but the King yet was not: and the University had yet some faint hopes that in a Treaty then in being, or pretended to be suddenly, there might be such an agreement made between King and Parliament, that the Dissenters in the University might both preserve their consciences and subsistence which they then enjoyed by their Colleges.
[Sidenote: A mistaken hope]
[Sidenote: Manifesto to Parliament.]
And being possessed of this mistaken hope, that the Parliament were not yet grown so merciless as not to allow manifest reason for their not submitting to the enjoined Oaths, the University appointed twenty delegates to meet, consider, and draw up a Manifesto to the Parliament, why they could not take those oaths but by violation of their consciences: and of these delegates Dr. Sheldon,—late Archbishop of Canterbury,—Dr. Hammond,—Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Morley,—now Bishop of Winchester,—and that most honest and as judicious Civil Lawyer, Dr. Zouch,[17] were a part; the rest I cannot now name: but the whole number of the delegates requested Dr. Zouch to draw up the Law part, and give it to Dr. Sanderson: and he was requested to methodise and add what referred to reason and conscience, and put it into form. He yielded to their desires and did so. And then, after they had been read in a full Convocation, and allowed of, they were printed in Latin, that the Parliament's proceedings and the University's sufferings might be manifested to all nations: and the imposers of these oaths might repent, or answer them: but they were past the first; and for the latter, I might swear they neither can, nor ever will. And these Reasons were also suddenly turned into English by Dr. Sanderson, that those of these three kingdoms might the better judge of the loyal party's sufferings.
[Sidenote: "Cases of Conscience">[
[Sidenote: The King's errors]
[Sidenote: Translation of "De Juramento">[
About this time the Independents—who were then grown to be the most powerful part of the army—had taken the King from a close to a more large imprisonment; and, by their own pretences to liberty of conscience, were obliged to allow somewhat of that to the King, who had, in the year 1646, sent for Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Hammond, Dr. Sheldon,—the late Archbishop of Canterbury,—and Dr. Morley,—the now Bishop of Winchester,—to attend him, in order to advise with them, how far he might with a good conscience comply with the proposals of the Parliament for a peace in Church and State: but these, having been then denied him by the Presbyterian Parliament, were now allowed him by those in present power. And as those other Divines, so Dr. Sanderson gave his attendance on his Majesty also in the Isle of Wight, preached there before him, and had in that attendance many, both public and private, conferences with him, to his Majesty's great satisfaction. At which time he desired Dr. Sanderson, that, being the Parliament had proposed to him the abolishing of Episcopal Government in the Church, as inconsistent with Monarchy, that he would consider of it; and declare his judgment. He undertook to do so, and did it; but it might not be printed till our King's happy Restoration, and then it was. And at Dr. Sanderson's taking his leave of his Majesty in his last attendance on him, the King requested him to betake himself to the writing Cases of Conscience for the good of posterity. To which his answer was, "That he was now grown old, and unfit to write Cases of Conscience." But the King was so bold with him as to say, "It was the simplest answer he ever heard from Dr. Sanderson; for no young man was fit to be a judge, or write Cases of Conscience." And let me here take occasion to tell the Reader this truth, not commonly known; that in one of these conferences this conscientious King told Dr. Sanderson, or one of them that then waited with him, "that the remembrance of two errors did much afflict him; which were, his assent to the Earl of Strafford's death, and the abolishing Episcopacy in Scotland; and that if God ever restored him to be in a peaceable possession of his Crown, he would demonstrate his repentance by a public confession, and a voluntary penance,"—I think barefoot—from the Tower of London, or Whitehall, to St. Paul's Church, and desire the people to intercede with God for his pardon. I am sure one of them that told it me lives still, and will witness it. And it ought to be observed, that Dr. Sanderson's Lectures de Juramento were so approved and valued by the King, that in this time of his imprisonment and solitude he translated them into exact English; desiring Dr. Juxon,[18]—then Bishop of London,—Dr. Hammond, and Sir Thomas Herbert,[19] who then attended him,—to compare them with the original. The last still lives, and has declared it, with some other of that King's excellencies, in a letter under his own hand, which was lately shewed me by Sir William Dugdale, King at Arms. The book was designed to be put into the King's Library at St. James's; but, I doubt, not now to be found there. I thought the honour of the Author and the Translator to be both so much concerned in this relation, that it ought not to be concealed from the Reader, and 'tis therefore here inserted.
[Sidenote: Expelled from Oxford]