the temple and gifts upon the altar were so sacred as whosoever did swear by them became thereby a debtor that is was obliged to performance and this was the onely form of oath wherein the name of God was not exprest which they esteemed binding as to all other forms whether by the temple or altar by heaven or earth or any creature in either of them men might bandy them at pleasure without the least regret of conscience or purpose of performing them From this doctrine their Proselites were drawn into an opinion that they might call heaven and all therein save God himself earth and all therein save Corban to bear witnesse of their sincerity in making oath by their names and yet still remain as free from obligation to perform those oaths as if they had not swore at all but onely past their bare word and from this opinion into a custome of larding their common discourse wsth all such oathes as if they had been no more then ornaments of speech then slowers of Rhetorick as if swearing by heaven had not implied swearing by him that dwells therein Jurejurando supplentes orationem Philo Jud. de decalogo quasi non satius esse mutilam relinquere Sceptram non putat esse Deos as the Poet speaks of a perjur'd King He did not think that swearing by his scepter was swearing by God who put the scepter into his hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Apollonius in Philostratus l. 6. censured Socrates He did not think that when he sware by a cock or goose and such creatures he sware by their Creator but did purposedly choose to swear by such things that he might not bring himself under an obligation to keep his oath as he conceived he must have done if he had sworn expresly by God 4. This being the state of the malady the great Physician of souls applys himself to the confutation of the opinion which bred and fed it in the 23. of S. Matthew where herefels that Pharisaical glosse which made void the Law of God and in the 5. of S. Matthew he decries the custom of their Proselites grounded upon that glosse nay indeed the general custom of the Jews in our Saviours time for the Pharisees being reputed the Puritans of that time the strictest sect amongst them it cannot be otherwise deem'd in reason but their doctrine and the Disciples practise had a general influence upon all that would seem nicely religious and made this disease of common swearing by heaven earth temple or any creature but the Corban in a manner Epidemical and we finde the Scribes and their Scholars as deep in this mire as the Pharisees for our Saviour joyns them both together in preaching up this nice distinction betwixt swearing by the temple or altar and swearing by the gifts of the temple or gifts upon the altar this last form of swearing they accounted binding but the first as nothing to swear by the temple they said was nothing they taught that that was not swearing by God and therefore did not make him that swore a debtor by oath to the performance of his word That Epidemical practise I say of such customary swearing by Gods creatures without any respect to God as if this had been no appeal to the Creator and as it were a pawning of those invisible things of God of which the meanest of his handiworks bears the impression which this doctrine drew after it is that to which Christ administers a remedy in this prohibition wherein he forbids swearing in our ordinary converse by the meanest creature and by consequence much more by the name of God himself though he mention not that form of swearing because the Jewes never sware by that name but solemn oaths but not a reverentiall swearing when we are lawfully thereunto called For the evincing the truth and sutablenesse of this applying Christs prohibition to common and not solemn swearing I shall produce arguments taken from those very passages in both the forementioned texts which the Quakers wrest to the favoring of their contrary opinion Arg. 1. That Christ prohibits oaths in common speech onely is manifest from the kinde of oath that that law speaks of which Christ cleats from the false glosse of the Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 5.33 out of Levit. 19.12 and Deut. 5.11 Thou shalt not forswear thy self but shalt perform unto the Lord all thy oaths For swearing by non-performance of an oath speaks the oath here mentioned not to be assertory but promissory Now in all Judicatures the Jews were daily called upon to make assertory oaths touching matter of fact for the decision of controversies but as to solemn promissory oaths such as Moses administred when he made all Israel avouch God for their God such as Joshua took of the Israelites when he made them renounce the Gods of Canaan and Caldea and swear to serve and adhere to the God of Abraham such as some religious Kings of Judch and Ezrah made the Jews take when they swore them to the Covenant they were so rare and extraordinary as the last of that kinde that we reade of was that which Nehemiah administred to them that had married strange wives Neh. 13.25 I made them swear by God c. which was near 400. years before Christs Incarnation and therefore there could not be at the time of Christs preaching any one Jew living who had transgrest the law of God in solemn swearing to a promise and not performing his Oath Yea the Jewes were by the favour of the Romans exempted from taking the military oath because the taking of it in the gentile form and the keeping of it in some cases as marching or fighting on the sabbath day was deemed contrary to the law of God as Dolobella writes in his letter to the Ephesians Joseph Ant. 14.17 and Josephus tells us that upon the like reasons the Jewes procured of Lentulus a dismission from the wars Religionis ergo esse immunes a militia pronunciavi c. Autiq. Jud. l. 14. c. 17. I have past this sentence from the tribintall that the Jewes be exempted from the military oath upon the account of their religion Dolobella in his decree of discharging the Jewes pleads the example of the Roman Generalls his predecessors The first time that the Roman Emperours fore't the military oath upon the Jewes was upon occasion of a vagrant Jew with his confreers abusing the piety of Fulvia a Roman Matron near the expiring of the reign of Tiberius and the government of Pilate when the Emperor banisht them the City and the Consulls liâ—ted 4000. of them for the wars the greatest part of whom chose rather to suffer death then take the military oath Joseph Autiq. l. 18. c. 5. Breifly no people upon earth were more scrupulously tender of taking solemn promissory oaths then the Jews were at that time that our Saviour gave them this prohibition and taxed them for not performing to God their oaths And therefore to apply Christs
then shall an oath of the Lord be between them both that he hath not put his hand to his neighbours goods and the owner of it shall accept thereof and he shall not make it good It is the righteous Gods will that Justice be administred in this and the like cases now under the Gospell as well as formerly under the law but in such like cases it cannot be determined according to the Evangelical rule who shall bear the losse without the interposition of an oath For if the mans bare word be taken for the proof of his innocency the controversy will be decided by one onely witnesse directly against Christs precept Mat. 18.16 That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be establisht And therefore the guiltlesse party in such cases as this where no man but himself is privy to his innocency must in vindication thereof take in God to witness with him that so the matter may be decided by two witnesses at least to wit by him that makes oath and by God whom he calls to witnesse with him Breifly we must either make Christ by this prohibition swear not to patronize such injustice under the Gospell as God would not patronize under the law or proceed to the determination of controversies contrary to Christs rule or else put an end to such like strife by the interposure of an oath And therefore swearing in such cases is so far from being a sin as it is a necessary duty not to be neglected without manifest injustice to the preventing whereof and the doing of right betwixt man and man nothing is more contributary then Evangelicall grace so far is sanctity from exempting its possessors from the discharge of those offices of charity which they owe to themselves and their neighbour in such cases Arg. 3. That which the spirit of Christ in the old Testament Prophets 1 Peter 1.11 did commend as that which should be the practise of the choise servants of God in the Christian Church called from amongst the Gentiles after his rejection of the Jewes may lawfully be done by the holiest Christian But the spirit of Christ in the old Testament-Prophets did commend swearing by the God of truth as that which was to be the practise of Gods elect servants in the Christian Church after his rejection of the Jewes and choosing the Gentiles Therefore the holiest Christian may lawfully swear by the God of truth The major is undeniable the Assumption I prove from Isaiah 65 1â— And ye shall leave your naine for a curse to my chosen that is The peoople that I shall choose from amongst the gentiles shall use your name the name of a Jew in execrations when they have a minde to denounce a curse they shall do it in this or the like form the Lord make thee like a Jew whom he hath cast off and made a vagabond upon erath parllel to that Jeremy 29.22 of them shall be taken up a curse that is the form of a curse by all the captivity of Judah saying the Lord make the like Ahab and Zedekiah two false prophets whom the king of Babylon rosted in the fire For the Lord God shall slay thee and call his servants by another name that is God will dissolve the Judaick Church Common-wealth so that his people shall no longer be discriminated from the rest of the world by the name Jew but by another new name that which was given at Antioch where the disciples were first called Christian by which name ever since the people of the God of Abram have been called and disserenc't from all other people upon the face of the earth That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall blesse himself in the God of truth and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth The sum of this whole Paragraph is breifly this You Jewes boast of your priviledged of my electing you out of all Nations to be my peculiar people and you please your selves with these conceits that if I cast you off I shall have none to worship me in the whole world I shall break my promise made to Abraham But know ye that Abraham hath another seed then carnal Jews and when I cast you off I will take the spirituall seed of Abraham his children by faith to be my people who shall be known from others by the name Christian by these I will be secured not as I am now by you in a corner of the world Judaea but in the earth for the uttermost parts of the earth shall be my possession and whosoever through the wide world under the Christian name shall call upon the name of the true God shall belesse themselves in his name and swear by him as the God of truth as the God who by choosing gentile-beleevers to be his people keeps faith with Abraham See Calvin S. Jerom in locum Oecolampadii hypomnemata c. Arg. 4. That which the spirit of Christ that was in the prophets foretold should be done in the time of the Gospel by the Lords people as an evidence of their conversion unto the Lord may lawfully be done by Christians But the spirit of Christ which was in the prophets foretold that in the time of the Gospel the Lords people should swear by his name as an evidence of their conversion unto the Lord. Therefore a Christian may lawfully swear by the Lords Name The major is beyond all possibility of doubt if it be considered how it is limited for I do not say that whatsoever the prophets foretold should come to passe may lawfully be done for I know they foretold the treason of Judas the Jewes rejecting of Christ c. but that whatsoever they foretold should be done as a signe of grace as an evidence of their conversion that do it may be done without sin For sin cannot be an evidence of grace works of darknesse cannot demonstrate him that does them to be a childe of light The truth of the minor is clear from Jsaiah 45.23 I have sworn by my self the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousncesse and shall not return shall never be repeal'd that unto me every knee shall how every tongue shall swear From which Text that I may manifest the indubitable truth of each branch of my assmption Let it e observed 1. That this prophesie is to receive its accomplishment in gospel times For God speaks here to the ends of the earth bids them look to him and he saved promiseth salvation to the Gentiles calleth the dispersed of the nations to come near and sweareth that every knee shall bow unto him Now the ends of the earth the nations dispersed did not look to God were not brought nigh till Gospel-times till then not the gentile world but onely the Jewish people did bow the knee and swear to the God of Israel to the Lord Jehovah Before the coming of Christ and the gentiles embracing the Gospel they were without God aliens
hath not prohibited such as I am now speaking of are lawful for me I am at liberty to do them or leave them undone as stands most with conveniencie so far as either Jew Grecian or Barbarian retain any true principles I am theirs and urge those principles as my own upon them in order to my drawing them to embrace the gospell So when S. James saith nor by any other oath this universal must be limited to the preceding words viz. swear not by heavener earth and contains a prohibition to swear by any other oath of that sort which he had named but not any other sort of oath as that from of oath is which I urge the lawfullnesse of for it is apparent that S. James doth here epitomise the saying of Christ in S. Matt. and having mention'd swearing by heaven or earth he comprehends the remainder of Christs instances swearing by the temple by Jerusalem or the hair of our head in this abbreviation or any other oath as if he had said swear not at all by heaven earth or any other of those forms of swearing by the creature that Christ forbad the nse of in his Sermon on the mount when he publisht his royall law or indeed by any form of that kinde From the bare letter therefore of these texts nothing can be inferred contradictory to my assertion for they prohibit swearing by any creature and I maintain the lawfulness of swearing by the Lord of all creatures and to them that stick in the bark of the words themselves as the Quakers do no other answer need be given to stop their mouths but this Sol. 2. But that I may satisfie persons of more sober mindes and speak the whole and naked truth ex animo I give this as the full and adequate answer to all fanatick reasonings from these Texts against solemn and reverential swearing that Christ and S. James are so far from prohibiting the reverential use of Gods name in solemn oaths as they establish it while they forbid all irreverentiall swearing by so much as Gods creatures forbid to swear at all though it be but by the creature lightly and in common discourse upon this reason because he that swears by heaven swears by him whose throne it is he that swears by earth swears by him whose footstool it is because though Gods name be not expresly mentioned in such forms of oaths yet it is implied and therefore we are not to use such forms in our common speech any more then the name of God himself which in the opinion of all but profest Athiests is not to be sworn by but with reverence and in extreme necessity For the removal of ambiguity and stating the case before I come to prove this assertion let me premise these observations 1. The Scriptures make a wide disserence betwixt swearing by the true and swearing by a false God in point of lawfulnesse but none in point of the obligatoriness of the oath because he that swears by a false God does conceive him to be the true and under that notion appeals to his heart-searching knowledge omnipotency c. and therefore the true God interprets it as an assront offered to him when perjury is committed in the use of the name of an idol Excellent is that observation of the imitator of Solomon Wisdome 14.28 The worshippers of idols do lightlie forswear themselves for insomuch as their trust is in idols which have no life though they swear falslie yet they look not to be hurt Howbeit for both causes shall they be justly punished both because they thought not well of God giving heed to idols and also unjustly swore in deceit despising holiness For it is not the power of them by whom they swear but it is the just vengeance of sinners that punisheth alwayes the offence of the ungodly understand him to speak of the Athiestical Idolater for as to the superstitious Pagan he thinks that Idol he swears by to be a god indeed prorsus perjurus es quin per illud quod sanctum putas falsum juras Aust de verb apost Ser. 28. thou art altogether perjured because thou swearest falsly by that which thou thinkest is holy Hence as Judicious Grotius observes the people of God would never swear by the Gods of the Gentiles but if they with whom they made contract by oath could not be induced to swear otherwise themselves would swear as they ought by the true God and take an oath from the gentile such as could be had which yet they looked upon to be as good a security in respect of its obliging the gentiles conscience as their swearing by the true God was in respect of its obliging their conscience as we see in the covenant betwixt Laban and Jacob where Laban swore by the God of Chaldea but Jacob By the fear of his father Isaack to put it beyond all doubt that he swore not by that God whom Nahor Terah and even Abram himself worshipt before his call out of Chaldea for Isaack never fear'd or serv'd other God but him who made heaven and earth and yet he accounts Labans oath to oblige Laban to the performance of the covenant betwixt them as well as his oath did oblige himself Gen. 31.53 Hence that saying of Sophocles in his Hippodamia the minde is incited by swearing diligently to avoid two evils to be blamed by men and to offend the Gods and that of Cicero Offic. 3. quod affirmate quasi Deo teste promisseris idtenendum est thou must keep that which thou positively promises before God as witnesse Hence perjury amongst the heathens is reckoned amongst those crying sins which divine vengeance never permits to escape unpunisht and which sometimes God visits upon the posterity of guilty parents 2. As to the forms of swearing whether Gods name be expresly mentioned in them or only implied by mentioning some of his creatures with respect to him as when we call earth or heaven c. to bear witness to what we say I do not sinde any disserence made betwixt them either in point of lawfulnesse or obligation by the people of God or God himself in any age either that before the law or that under the law or this under the Gospel So far were the Old-Testament-Saints from thinking the use of such like forms wherein not God but the creature with relation to God was named to be prohibited by and a transgression of that divine law Deut. 6.13 Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and shalt swear by his name that is onely as our Saviour expounds that text Mat. 4.10 As the holyest of them never scrupled to use such forms themselves or gave the least hint of their disgusting that practise in others The good Shuâ—amite sware by the life of Elisha 2 King 4.30 As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth Elisha by the life of Elijah 2 King 2.2 Hannah by the life of Elie. 1 Sam. 1.26 As thy soul liveth my Lord I am
therefore they are so ready to offer the sacrifice of fools As there are certain forms of words at the using whereof evill spirits by vertue of diabolicall institution present themselves so all forms of invoking God either by Oath or prayer exhibit the divine presence to us of which presence if they had regard the one would not think it nothing to swear nor the other to pray unadvisedly neither of them would be so hasty with their mouths so hasty to utter quicquid in buccam if they did consider they were before God My ranking them together will displease them both but let them wreak their spleen upon Solomon who hath coupled them as brethren in iniquity as alike-guilty of Athiestical prophanesse and hath prescribed the same method of cure for them both if they have wit or grace to apply themselves to the observation of his rules Eccles 5.1 2. And it is as manifest from the Instances of Christ and Saint Paul that more then these sometimes and in some cases proceeds from good from a divine principle from an honest and gracious heart to wit when strong asseverations even by oath are used 1. Reverentially as a solemn invocation of Gods name as the celebration of the highest and most august act of divine worship and adoration that can possiblie be tendred to the divine majesty 2. Deliberately with due consideration and preponderation of the weight of the thing the importance of our Neighbours beleeving it the probability that he will be prevail'd to beleeve us upon the interposition and assurance of the oath c. Et ideo non invenitur jurasse nisi scribens ubi consideratio cautior non habet linguam praecipitem We do not finde saith S. Austin de mend c. 15. that S. Paul did swear but when he was writing because the pen is not so great a blabb as the tongue men are more circumspect of the words that fall from their quill then of them that drop from their lipps 3. Sincerely with a purpose to lay as great an Obligation upon thy self to keep thy promise and swear truly as thy making oath imports to thy neighbour when thy minde and words are both of a colour and the impressions of thy soul correspond with the expressions of thy mouth when thy conscience can tell thee that thou speakest before God in thy heart what thou utterest to thy neighbour in words All these conditions concur'd in our Saviours and S. Pauls asseverations and therefore though they were more then these yet they proceeded not of evill but from a good and honest heart and were all wanting in those Pharisaicall oaths which our Saviour condemns wherein they had neither reverentiall thoughts of God for they conceived they did by those forms swear by God nor weighed the matter and ponderated circumstances but upon every slieght upon no occasion bolted out fruitless oaths nor did they intend to binde themselves to a performance of their word for they accounted themselves as free after such oaths as if they had never made them Such kinde of additions to our yea and nay are of themselves evil and theresore forbidden But the ground and reason of Christs prohibition does not reach the other sort of additions 9. That I may make the two Testaments kisse one another at partting and bring the ends of my discourse together Let it be considered from the prophesies before-quoted That to interpret those Evangolical texts as prohibitions to Christians to swear in any case draws after it these blasphemous consequences 1. That Christ who came to accomplish and seal prophesies to fullfill what was spoken by the mouth of the prophets which have been since the world began did contradict by his precepts and prohibit the accomplishment of those prophesies that foretold that under the Gospel when Gods name should be great in all the earth his elect and chosen servants should swear by the God of truth as an evidence of their conversion to him from idols 2. That S. James was by the Holy Ghost which Christ promised should leade his Apostles-into all truth to forbid that viz. to learn to swear after the way of Gods people the Lord liveth under pain of falling into condemnation or at least into hypocrisy which the Spirit of Christ in the holy Prophets perswades Christians to do under pain of utter destruction in case of neglect and by the promise of being built up in the midsts of Gods people in case they would dilligently learn to swear by his name which the same spirit commends to Christians as a signe of their sincere and cordiall acceptance of the true God for their God 3. That if the Christian Church does not perform homage to the God of truth by swearing as well as blessing in his name If their tongue does not as well swear as their knees bow to him then the Christian people are not the people of the Messias the Messias is not yet come but still to be expected then the blessed Jesus is not that Christ of whom the prophets speak but as the Jews at his arraignment and their posterity blasphemously stile him a deceiver and a counterfeit For by the prophets it was foretold that at his exhibition and vocation of the gentiles to the knowledge of the true God the gentiles called by his name should swear by the God of truth throughout the earth c. Yield but this much to a Jew or Pagan that the Christian law forbids worshipping of God by swearing by his name forbids any other confirmation of what we affirm but yea yea nay nay and you do not only deprive the Christian Cause and Church of one of her strongest bulwarks of one of those demonstrations of the spirit the spirit of prophesy in the holy men of old whereby the Champions of the Christian faith have inrefragably proved against all assailants that Jesus is the prophets Christ viz. because since his calling of us gentiles by his gospell we have worshipt the true God by swearing by his name but also administer to Insidells an unanswerable argument for them to prove that that Jesus whom we Christians worship for the Christ is not indeed the very Christ viz. because he hath forbid that worship to be exhibited which the prophets foretold men should learn to tender the God of truth at the coming of that Christ whom they speak of It is not possible to imagine any thing more unlike or opposite to one another then that Christ and his disciples which the prophets describe are to what this glosse of the Quakers presents Jesus Christ and his disciples to be In the reign of the Prophets Christ Gods chosen ones of the Gentiles are to do him homage to acknowledge their subjection to him dependance on him awe of him and his dreadfull attributes by swearing by his name But in the reign of the Quakers Christ the world indeed may take its own course but they whom God hath called and chosen out of the world are