Canaanites, Deut. xx. 15, 16; but the first
law was common, as hath been proven.

Joseph Hall seemeth to deny that the oath of the princes of Israel had any
power to bind, but upon another ground than Dr Forbesse took to himself.
"It would seem very questionable (saith Hall(1280)) whether Joshua needed
to hold himself bound to this oath; for fraudulent conventions oblige not;
and Israel had put in a direct caveat of their vicinity."

_Ans._ I marvel how it could enter in his mind to think this matter
questionable, since the violation of that oath was afterwards punished
with three years' famine, 2 Sam. xxi. 1, 2. Yet let us hearken to his
reasons. One of them is forged; for the princes of Israel who sware unto
them put in no caveat at all. The text saith only in the general, that
they sware unto them, Josh. ix. 15. As touching his other reason, it is
answered by Calvin,(1281) _Juris jurandi religio_, saith he, _eousque
sancta apud nos esse debet, ne erroris praetextu a pactis discedemus,
etiam in quibus fuimus decepti_. Which, that it may be made more plain
unto us, let us, with the Casuists, distinguish a twofold error in
swearing.(1282) For if the error be about the very substance of the thing
(as when a man contracts marriage with one particular person, taking her
to be another person) the oath bindeth not; but if the error be only about
some extrinsical or accidental circumstance (such as was the error of the
Israelites' taking the Gibeonites to dwell afar off when they dwelt at
hand), the oath ceaseth not to bind.

_Sect._ 6. This much being said for the binding power of that oath of the
church of Scotland, let us now consider what shifts our opposites use to
elude our argument which we draw from the same; where, first, there
occurreth to us one ground which the Bishop of Edinburgh doth everywhere
beat upon in the trace of this argument, taken out of the 21st article of
the Confession of Faith, wherein we find these words: "Not that we think
that any policy and an order in ceremonies can be appointed for all ages,
times, and places; for as ceremonies, such as men have devised, are but
temporal, so may and ought they to be changed when they foster rather
superstition than that they edify the kirk using the same: 'whereupon the
Bishop concludeth,(1283) that none who sware the aforesaid article could,
without breach of this oath, swear that the ceremony of sitting at the
receiving of the sacrament could be appointed