The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-30 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY OATHS.

A very interesting report has been published by the
Select Committee appointed to make inquiries into the
oaths'Cf Members upon being admitted to take their
'seats in the House of Commons. In a report of tit enty-
seven pages of the ordinary Parliamentary size will be
found the entire history of the swearing in of Members
down to our own time, and counting from the Act cf
EliZAbeth, which directs that Members shall take the
oath of Supremacy "corporally upon the Evangelists."
Previous to this date it does not appear that any trace
exists of the exaction of an oath front Members omtali-
ing thkir.seats. Early in tha reign of Jame find
an oath directed against the Popish recusants, which ap-
pears to be nearly similar to the present oaths of alle-
giance and abjuration. During the Protectorate the
form of swearing becomes modified to the following
effect :—" I, A. 8., do, in the presence and by the
name of God Almighty, promise and swear that to
the uttermost of my power, in my p!a.N.. I will. up-
hold and maintain the true reformed Protestant Christian
religion in the purity thereof, as it is csnrsiued in the
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, &c."
The earliest enactments of Charles 11. are directed
against the Quakers, his lateht against the Papists—then
it is we meet with the declaration against ansubstan-
:iation, Ste. It is in the Act of Ist William and Mary,
commonly called the Toleration Act, that w, find the
first trace of the resolution to exclude all persons not
p:ofessteg the Christian religion from the walls of Par-
liament. It is then.in recited that there are certain
persons, dissenters from the Church of England, who
scruple at the taking of any oath, and as a measure of
relief to them it is enacted that they may avoid taking
the oaths exacted et the time from other Members of
Parliament, upon their subscribing a declaration against
the Pope's supremacy as also the following profession
of faith:—" I, A. 8., do profess frith in God the
Father, and in Jesus Christ his eternal Son, the true
God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God and blessed for
evermore, and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of
the Old and New Testament to be given by divine in-
epiration." Such was the state of things in the days of
William and Mary. A wicket of admission was opened
for Christian Dissenters. Papists, and all persons not
Christians, were still jealously excluded from An active
share in the legislation and government of the country.
In the eighth year of the reign of William lIL it was
decided that by law a Quaker was admitted to make his
or her solemn affirmation, in place of al oath, in all
courts of justice and other places where by law an oath
was required. _ _

Under these circumstances John Archdale, a Quaker,
was elected for Chipping Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire,
in the year 1698. He refused to take the oaths, hut de-•
mended that his declaration of fidelity, &c., should be ac-
cepted as it would in other cases where an oath was re-
quired. The House, however, refused to listen to his
demand, and he was rejected. We n tit pass over the
,Abjuration oath, ending, as it doss, with the words,
" upon the true faith of a Christian"—as also that of
Anne—that we may arrive at the permission granted by
the statutes of George I. to the Quakers to subscribe
declaration of fidelity, instead of the oaths in question.
in all courts of justice and elsewhere, &c. We next
come to the Jews. As we are now upon the very ground
owe: wh'ch there has been so much skirmishing, we
must here be a little more exact. By the 10th George 1.,
esp. 24,-=it is enacted, " that whenever any of his
Majesty's subjects professing the Jewish religion shall
present himself to take the Oath of Abjuration in
pursuance of, &c., the words, upon the true
faith of a Christian,' shall be omitted out of
the said oath its administering the same to such person;
and the taking the said oath by such person professing
the Jewish religion without the words afore: aid • * *
shall he deemed to be a sufficient taking of the Abjura-
tion Oath." This statute was followed up three years
afterwards by another one to the same effect. Other
Acta there are set out in the report of the Select Corn-
mine* bearing upon the forms of oath taken by Membi rs
prior to Mr. Pease's case; but for these we must refer
our readerscase is
to
tooth ierreeh in the
report itself.
That
public recollection, and
has been so often and so fully discussed, that we
need
not here again enter into particulars. Suffice
it to say that, after due ciinsultation, Mr.
Pease
was admitted to take his seat in the House
upon making his solemn affirmation and declaration, to
the effect of the oaths directed to be taken at the table
of the House. Mr. Pease himself was called us a wit-
ness before the Select Committee, and stated most clearly
and expressly, that in the declaration made by hits', the
words " upon the true faith of a Christian" were omitted.
Quakers. Moravians, Separatists have br ea now expressly
relieved by statute. The Queen's subjects who proeeis
the Jewish religion are, therefore, alone excluded from a
seat in Parliament in consequence of the preliminary
ceremonials.
At the commencement of the report the members of
the Select Committee favour us with a short syDoP,is
the position of the Jews in England. They were ba-
nished from the realm in the 18th year of the reign
of King Edward 111., and did not return to this country
until the days of Oliver Cromwell. During the
Protectorate some Dutch Jews came over to England
and prayed the Protector that be would let them have
their synagogues and the free exercise of their religion.
Upon this occasion it was that Bynne published his Shor t
Demurrer to the Jews' long discontinued barred Remitter
into England. It seems that no considerable number of
them came over to England until the Restoration. From
peace—discharging faithfully the obliga-
that date to the present they have teea allowed to live
amongst us in
tions of good citizens and good subjectsof the Crown.
One by. Que the restrictions have fallen aeay which
prevented their, admission into ()flicks of public trust, &o.
One only impediment exists to their complete emanci-
pation iu the concluding words of a declaration, which
have been dispensed with in the case of others, and may
therefore without impropriety cease to be requited from
Jews. who may henceforward be returned to serve as
Alembics of Parliament —Times.

Authorship is, according to the spirit in which it
is pursued, an infamy, a pastime, a handicraft, an art, a
science, a* virtue.—Eltzd Cook's Journal.
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