Southgate's Sermons.
The year 1648 produced events, that were alike the glory and the shame
of England. It was first signalized by the illustrious stand which the
university of Oxford made against successful usurpation, by appointing
delegates to examine the oaths they were now required to take, and to
state why, in reason and conscience, they could not submit to the
imposition. These delegates, to their eternal renown, and to the honour
of those for whom they acted, "though then under the power of a strict
and strong garrison put over them by Parliament, the King in prison, and
their hopes desperate, passed a public act and declaration against the
covenant, with such invincible arguments of the illegality, wickedness,
and perjury contained in it, that no man of the contrary opinion, nor
even the assembly of divines, which then sat at Westminster, ever
ventured to make any answer to it." And the publication of their
reasons, "must remain to the worlds end, as a monument of the learning,
courage, and loyalty of that excellent place, against the highest malice
and tyranny that ever was exercised in or over any nation.
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