not your Garments Joel 2. 13. Who hath required these things at your hands Isa 1. 11 12 13. viz. in this hypocritical fashion These seeming Negatives are not absolutely but comparatively spoken to such a degree of love or care or fear reverence and duty as are due to Gods great Commands and chief Designs which must be the main biass of mens affections and obediential actions as most intent to moralitie and not to content themselves with emptie formalities So in Ironical assentings or seeming concessions which are the sharpest prohibitions and reproches as Fill ye up then the measure of your Fathers He that is filthy let him be filthy still and he that is unjust be unjust still These are not spoken in a flat and plain way but in such a dialect and emphasis of familiar Oratory as the times and country did well understand to signifie other then the words sounded either more or less And it had been a very ridiculous childishness to have urged the Letter in its syllabical appearance and against its rational meaning which as S. Austin long ago observed must never be so put upon the biass of the bare words as to sway or swerve them contrary to that Divine Verity Morality and Sanctity which shines most clearly in other places and whose light must be brought to enlighten those that are more involved and obscured by reason of some proper phrase or idiotisme of expressing things after the manner of men in those times Else many things spoken even of God and by God himself and holy men after the manner of men as seeing hearing smelling being injured angry and repenting c. will be as blasphemies and irreconcilable as both Jewish Rabbins and Christian Doctors observe to his essential Attributes and immutable Perfections Here the words look to the appearance as when Angels are called young men Mark 16. 5. Joh. 20. 12. Luk. 24. 4. but the sense must look to the essence and reality Men will make as mad work of Scripture as Hogs will do with Gardens and Fields when in stead of orderly plowing and sowing that we may reap a fair and fruitful Harvest we inordinately and rashly root up all things by a confused rudeness which ends either in barrenness or in briars and thorns endless janglings and perplexities What long and sad contentions have the Papists made in the Western Churches the last 300. years by rigidly urging those words of Consecration in the Lords Supper to a literal severity making the Bread after Consecration so much Christs Body substantially and not sacramentally which all good Christians believe that there remains no more natural substance of the Bread but only under the accidents of Bread the sole and entire substance of Christs Body the same which is at once in Heaven and in every place where this Sacrament is celebrated yea in every crum of it By which Superseraphick opinion Faith must not only forsake the senses and look above them but flatly deny and contradict them in every verdict which they give of their proper objects according to experience and right Reason which are a part of the Creators light to mankind And all this by a magisterial novel and seraphick severity beyond the judgement of the ancient Churches is imposed by pressing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rigid Letter of the words in that part of the blessed Sacrament and allowing no Metonymy or Symbolical speaking which is so frequent in Scripture-Mysteries and sacred correspondencies between the signs and things signified as the Lamb is called the Passeover and Christ our Passeover and the Rock Vine Dove c. While yet in the other part of the same Sacrament they are forced to subdue and soften the words to their due sense by such Metonymues and Tropes as must make the Cup to signifie or mean the Wine and the Cup or Wine to signifie the New Testament in Christs Blood Certainly as in such expressions which Christ there useth and which we read in other Scriptures of parallel sense to set forth Divine Mysteries by their adapted Signs and Symbols or Emblems and Seals there must be believed something more sublime in them then the narrowness of the words or perhaps the hearts of men in this world can fully comprehend so to be sure nothing is by Scripture imposed upon us to be believed which is flatly contradictive to right Reason and the suffrages of all our senses and to the Analogy of Faith in the Scriptures But here the meaning of the words must be measured by semblable places and like expressions which are not wanting in the Scriptures and yet are not so wrested by any Christians that are Masters of Sense Reason and true Religion who do not cease by believing to be rational Creatures or to be men by being Christians If the Quakers will fairly admit such Cautions and limitations as they do to other places in the interpreting these Scriptures which they chiefly alledge to justifie their denial of all Swearing whatever I shall not doubt to reconcile them to my sense of them nor shall I grudge to give them this second commendation for their due regard to Scripture as the sure and sufficient rule of a Christians actions for the main and substance of them But these Scriptures must be duly examined exactly weighed and aptly reduced to that standard of Truth which is most constant and clear in both Morals Fiducials Thirdly Yea I shall adde a third Commendation of these Quakers who shall rise in judgement at the last day against many of those that speak much against them for this That they seem to have so great a fear of an Oath that out of a jealousie of Swearing amiss they will not swear at all Although they are superstitious in the degree of their fear which I shall prove to be not justly grounded on the words they alledge yet no good man can blame them to have as God commands a just abhorrence of the sin of profane easie trivial familiar false and inconsiderate Swearing for which the Land mourneth Jer. 23. 10. which so disposeth men as Saint Austin sayes to false Swearing and gross Perjury which are sins of the first magnitude Nor can indeed much credit be given any more then to a Lyar to any man that swears never so solemnly and in Judicature who is a common Swearer and hath no reverence either of the Majesty of God or the sacredness of an Oath I formerly observed the great dread and just horror of all Swearing even that which the Laws required wherewith the poor Quakers might easily be scared and possessed in those barbarous times of their first breeding when so many lawful Oaths were despised and impudently violated nay when Perjury and Rebellion were adopted to the Family of Religion and voted for Reformation when men were grown so preposterously zealous for God that they would both lye and forswear to advance his Interest
Reason or true Scripture-demonstration is sufficient to make the man of God perfect to every good word and work without any additions or detractions which are but as the Wens or witherings the excrescencies or deficiencies of mens extravagant minds and actions so far from advancing the peace of Conscience or the honour of true Religion that they debase and deforme both of them As no Laws of men contrary to Gods Word are to be actively obeyed so Laws of men which are not contrary to right Reason and Scripture must not be disobeyed but conscientiously observed for the Lords sake 1 Pet. 2. 13. Rom. 13. 5. in whose wisdom and authority such Laws are made and executed The contrary will not only trouble the publick Peace but that also of a mans own soul at least when after the vain flashes of light kindled from the sparks of their private fancies they shall lie down in darkness as to their comfort and reward from God whose judgment is according to righteousness and truth Secondly I cannot but commend the Quakers for their declared esteem in this of the authority of the holy Scripture as the rule of Faith and holy life For as by their instances alledged out of Scripture they profess a fear to sin against the commands there given by Christ against Swearing so I may charitably presume however they are by many suspected to slight the Scriptures and fly to Inspirations or Lights within them that they will be no less strict in doing what therein is required of them as to Truths to be believed Mysteries to be celebrated and Duties to be done to God and Man The only Caution that here must be given them is to take heed that they do not wrest the Scriptures 2 Pel. 3. 16. by their ignorant and unstable minds that they believe not every Spirit or seeming and partial Allegation of Scripture since the Devil oft feathers his temptations and fiery darts as against Christ Mat. 3. with Scriptural Citations partially and preposterously applied Not the Letter in its abruptness or nakedness of sense must be swallowed presently but the mind of God must be searched out in the scope and end also in the manner and emphasis of what is expressed Scripture is indeed sufficient for the substance of all necessary Truths to be believed and Duties to be done or left undone but it doth not stretch it selfe to the instances of every particular circumstance or ceremony which private Prudence or publick Laws may regulate according to order and decency to edification Nor is Scripture to be well understood in retaile that is by single places taken apart by themselves but in whole-sale by the proportion of Faith the analogous or concurrent sense which is made up or twisted from many places Many things in some Scriptures are expressed darkly metaphorically figuratively parabolically comparatively by way of allusion in Metonymies Synecdoches Ironies and Hyperboles in Vniversalities which are limited to the subject intended Many popular expressions have special regard to particular times places persons customs and usages and must be so taken as temporary and occasional These must have commodious interpretations consonant to that grand tenour of Gods word which as the life and spirit runs through all the parts of it but resides most eminently in some places as the Soul in the Brain or Heart which are as the essential vital integral and principal parts of Scripture the main standards and measure of all others and of true Religion both as to Morals and Evangelicals Mysteries to be believed and Duties to be performed Unless we observe these prudentials in searching the mind of God and taking the true meaning of the Scriptures we shall as Saint Austin observes draw poyson with Spiders from those sweet flowers which would afford us honey A depraved and private interpretation is the corruption wrack torture of Scripture whose every line is as the Sun-beams light and straight of it self but erroneous minds like Glasses of Refraction or false Mediums pervert them from their simplicity to their own destruction as S. Peter speaks It were endless to enumerate those places of Scripture which have either more or less or something other in their meaning and design then the Letter seems to hold forth in the bare words of it Extraordinary Commands as to Abraham for sacrificing his Son Isaac to the Israelites to rob by way of borrowing and recompense the Egyptians the heroick impulses and actions of others as Moses Phineas Elias and Sampson Commands to do things less comely and honest either in a reality or in a vision and representation as Hosea's marrying an Harlot the faults or failings of others which were holy men as to their integritie barely recorded but not there blamed as Rebecca's and Jacob's supplanting by a lye and fraud the officious lyes of the Midwives Rahab and others David's feigning himselfe mad the equivocations and dissimulations of others These and such like that have any thing in them which seems or is contrary to the constant rule of Morality Piety Sanctity Honesty and Veracity must be salved by such an interpretation and taken in such a sense as may no way bring them into an ordinary rule or imitable example contrary to the express and constant command of God in his Word which is never to be allayed by the mixtures of humane Passions Frailties and Infirmities So in things that are preceptive either enjoyning or forbidding by way of proverbial speaking the meaning must not be stretched on the tenter or rack of the Letter but as we gather some fruit that grow with thick shells only to gaine the small kernels in them so in these no more is to be collected from the Letter then what may have due regard to the design and scope of the speaker So in the fifth sixth and seventh Chapters of Saint Matthew Christs Sermon in the mount hath many such expressions as of anointing the Head Face in fasting pulling out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand giving to them that ask to sell all and give to the poor to turn the other Cheek to the smiters These do not run Christians upon maiming and deforming their Bodies or expose them to poverty and stupidity but only they teach them to bear with patience repeated injuries rather then be put beyond the bounds of Christian patience and charity and to sustain any outward difficulties rather then inward enormities of lust or covetousness and the like So not to lay up treasure on earth to take no thought for their life or care for to morrow Labour not for the meat that perisheth c. Joh. 6. 27. to call no man Father or Master on Earth Mat. 23.9 not to salute any man by the way Luk. 10. 4. not to put on costly Rayment or Jewels c. 1 Pet. 3. 3. So Hosea 6. 6. I will have mercy and not sacrifice So Rent your Hearts and
they excused from perjury or false-swearing in those cases if in assertory Oaths they sware falsly or in promissory either not intending to perform what they so sware or not after performing them so far as was in their power But the Yea and Nay the Affirmative or Negative of such swearing in word ought to be also Yea and Nay in the purpose and performance And although they ought not so to swear yet having so sworn they were obliged to the moral ends of an Oath which is to make it good in Truth and Faith Agreeable to the same end and scope and almost in the same words Saint Iames writes to the dispersed Christian Iewes who still retained that evil Custome of ordinary Swearing by the Creatures as Heaven and Earth and other such like Oathes without any conscience of the manner or matter or making good in effect such Oaths The meaning therefore of both places as the learned Grotius and others observe is no more then to take away the ordinary abuse of such swearing but not that right use which God had allowed and commanded in his word Nor is there more implied in these words as to the subject matter then in those where God complains that because of Swearing the land mourns Hos 4.2 3. that is by unlawful Oaths and the curse shall come into the house of the Swearer Zach. 5.4 that is such as use idle false and forbidden Swearing Zach. 8.17 Not those who swear as they might do by the name of the Lord in righteousness judgement and truth which God no where reproves As if one should inveigh against drinking and feasting and singing and danoing and dalliance there where the usual viot excess and wantonness of any people had generally run these things to an inordinacy which doth no way condemn the sober modest and seasonable use of them That this thus limited sense of Christs words against the abuse of Swearing so familiar among the Iewes was Christs meaning in the negative part of his words appears by the affirmative part of them which the Quakers themselves will I suppose confess must not be taken in an exclusive latitude or such a broad universality of command as enjoynes us to use no other words in any communication by way of affirming or denying any thing but only Yea Yea and Nay Nay Which words the Quakers so much affect to use as if they would fancy themselves literally or verbally tied to those Monosyllables and those to be repeated in all their assertions or promises yet none of them in case of more full declaring their assent or dissent upon any matter do seruple to use such paraphrases or enlargements of speech as the matter or the parties understanding or diffidence may require For if they would keep all their communication to those precise words Yea Yea Nay Nay they would be no less obstructive to civil and private conversation then they seek to be to judicial proceedings by their refusing at all to swear Doubtless our Saviours own larger expressing of himselfe in many cases by such periphrases or commentaries of words as amount to affirmations or negations besides and beyond the bare terms of Yea Yea and Nay Nay do abundantly justifie together with the practise of all the Apostles that these proverbial Phrases or Epitomes of speech here commanded under the words of Yea and Nay do only import that plainness or simplicity of Christians meaning and doing as may be consonant to their words in truth and honesty without fraud or falsity in common speech not at all forbidding either more ample expressions of their sense in private converses nor yet forbidding such religious and judicious use of Swearing in great and publick matters as are necessary to carry on humane affairs with iustice and Peace but only such false frivolous and fraudulent Oaths as for the matter manner and meaning are by the Law of God by all right Reason and Religion prohibited and which then were so familiarly used and abused by the Iewes upon those presumptions and dispensations which they had taken up As then the affirmative part of Christs words are not to be understood literally as a confining of all Christians communication to Yea and Nay but only to that truth and honesty of mind intent and action which Christ aimes at and beyond which whatever is of fraud and falsity is from evil in mens hearts so as to the negation of swearing not at all it cannot in Reason or Religion be extended further then that swearing which is from evil and tends to evil not that which is from good and tends to good namely the veneration of God and love of Truth and Iustice which are not from the evil one the Devil nor from evil principles in men nor for evil designs As for that absolute and universal Negative which they urge from the words of Christ of not swearing at all nothing is more clear and usual in Scripture then to confine the meaning of such Generals to the particular subject and scope intended as I formerly shewed in many instances out of the holy Scriptures but yet further to clear this truth from the most short and exact way of the Scripture-style which is in the commands of the Decalogue In the second Command we are forbidden to make to our selves any graven Image or similitude of Creatures in the way of Worship or Religion yet we read that Moses in the Tabernacle made the Cherubins so did Solomon several Images of Flowers and Beasts in the Temple and for his Throne and without sinne So in the fourth Command All manner of work is forbidden on the Sabbath day yet the intent is only against ordinary works of our civil callings not against works of Religion or decency or charity or necessity against which the Pharisaical rigor and severity had stretched the Letter of the Law beyond the meaning as our Saviour convinceth them Mat. 12. Mark 2. 27. Luk. 14. 3. In the sixth Command Thou shalt not kill the putting men to death in just and legal wayes or in self-defense is not forbidden but only as to private revenge and malice So the tenth Command Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy Neighbours is to be understood only of an evil and injurious coveting of what is our Neighbours but not of such a desire as is commensurate to Justice and Charity which desires in honest wayes of buying or exchanging to get those things which our want requires and our Neighbours sufficiency willingly affords us Else we must always want but never wish or fairly endeavour for supply by those wayes of commutative justice which by mutual necessities invite men to society Such commodious Interpretations of Scriptures are as necessary to attain their true meaning as the contrary wrestings of them upon a bare Letter are pernicious to all Reason Justice and true Religion and indeed contrary to the very word
a Christian may swear vainly and rashly by a spontaneous and occasional easiness either promising or asserting although it be a truth and by the true God but without reverence to God and in matters of so little yea no importance or difficulty as neither deserve nor need nor require an Oath To this we all agree with the Quakers Christs words condemning all such profane and trivial swearing much more if it be in fraud and falsitie which makes such Oaths as the Coyn of an Usurper which is false metal and stamp too a complicated sin and one of the strongest chains of darkness which the Devil and a mans own lusts hamper the Soule withal 2. Not is it any question whether Christians may swear in any case by any Creature as such not relating by it and through it to God above all who is the Alpha and Omega the center and circumference of all things from whom they have their being and in whom is the Idea or Prototype of all their perfections To terminate an Oath in a Creature is to put the stamp of Divinity on it to make it an Idol in Gods stead and to profane his holy name by swearing by it as by a false God The swearing by any Creature as such we all own to be a great sin according to those instances which our Lord Christ and Saint Iames from his mouth give us when they explain their meaning of Swear not at all c. 3. Nor is it a question whether an Oath made by the name of any Creature and in a thing lawful may yet be broken or whether it be a sin to swear falsly by them All agree that though the Oath be rash as by a Creature yet it binds in things lawful no less at least to truth and justice then any simple promise and it may be something more Here that is true Fieri non debuit factum valet Like Bastards they should not have been begot but they must be kept unless the matter be sinful as Herod's Oath was which beheaded Iohn Baptist Mat. 14. 9. 4. But the question is Whether those words of Christ and the Apostle do utterly forbid all Swearing in any case whatsoever to all Christians so that by the Law of Christ it is a sin to swear as in private so in publick transactions or any Courts of Judicature be the matter of the Oath never so just and true and the manner of it never so solemn and sacred and the Authority requiring them never so lawful in civil respects This the Quakers affirm led thereto as they profess meerly by the Conscience of that obedience they oweto Christ whose will they say is expresly declared in those words to all his Disciples Not to swear at all in no case at no time upon no mans command Nor do they argue any thing further by way of rational deduction moral grounds or religious principles either from the nature of an Oath or from the consent of other Scriptures or from the Divine Attributes and glory but barely insist upon the words and urge the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Letter as an absolute or universal Negative without any limitation or dispensation So feeding on the rinde or shell of the Letter and gnawing the bone of the bare words that they never come at the kernel and marrow or true meaning of them On the other side I do deny in the behalf of my own Conscience and the consentient sense of this Church and Kingdome yea of all Christian and Reformed Churches of any renown That all swearing is forbidden by those words of Christ and his Apostle But that our Saviours words are to be understood with such a limited sense and strict interpretation as suited to his scope and design which was to rectifie popular errors and remove common abuses in Swearing but not wholly to forbid the use of it in a religious and lawful way And because it is not sufficient in order to my design which is to justifie the legal proceedings of this Kingdoms Iustice by Oaths and to satisfie the scruples of the Quakers to oppose my Nay to their Yea or to offer the husk and chaff of words void of such Reasons as either slow from the nature of all things and all actions as good or evil morally or from the will of God revealed in the Scriptures which is a Treasury of right Reason as well as a Rule of true Religion I will endeavour to give those Reasons which induce me to believe that the Quakers as Christ said to the Saducees do erre not knowing or not right understanding the mind of Christ in those Scriptures which is not to forbid all Swearing nor such as the just and religious Laws of England do require of all under its subjection in some cases I will not seek to oppress or confound the Quakers with the shew of many Reasons as if I would carry the cause by number and not by weight but content my self with those few which are most pregnant plaine and easie to be understood by them 1. Reason From the occasion of Christs and the Apostles words and the scope or end of them to which his own instances by way of explication of his meaning do best direct us both as to what he forbids and enjoynes to some of which the Quakers themselves do consent 2. Reason From the moral and religious nature end and use of Oaths which God had instituted and approved without any repeal by Christ or his Apostles 3. Reason From other places of the New Testament which give light to these both by principles granted and suitable examples expressed To these Reasons I will add by way of full measure heaped up and running over the concurrent judgement of other Christians and Churches ancient and modern in their interpretation of these words with answer to the Allegations made from the sayings and manners of some Primitive Christians This done the conclusion will easily follow with great clearness and good authority to all that are truely wise and have their eyes opened and senses exercised to discerne good and evil The first Reason is from the occasion scope and end of our Saviours words and so of the Apostles For these as the biass of all speech do best discover the speakers mind there being no surer way to wrest and pervert Scriptures then to take them abruptly and absolutely when they have a relative comparative or limited sense in the aim and purpose of the speaker Our blessed Saviour in this Divine Sermon on the Mount of which Saint Matthew gives us so large an account makes it his main aim and scope first to set forth those spiritual heavenly and eternal blessings which beyond those sensible earthly and temporary ones which were so much of old set before the Jews to invite them to obedience of Gods Laws were now to be chiefly regarded by Christians as their peculiar comforts hopes and rewards under the Gospel
of the Law and the intent of the Law-giver Else what shall we make of that seeming contradiction Jer. 7. 22. I spake not to your Fathers nor commanded them in the day I brought them out of Egypt concerning burnt-offerings c. But this thing I I commanded them Obey my voice c. Here the principal intention of God must give the Interpretation and take away the Contradiction Nor are affirmative places of Scripture to be many times less limited from their seeming Latitude Indefiniteness and Universality As All things are yours takes not away meum and tuum the properties of Christians as to what they have by private right and possession So All things are lawful must not be stretched to any immoral licentiousness but confined to such things as are by no word of God forbidden but left in an indifferency and to be used as Reason and Religion requires or the moral end of all things doth permit So I please all men in all things So To the pure all things are pure the meaning must not be after the Manichean and Familistical imagination as if such as are pure might do or use any thing even to those mixtures which are morally impure or sinful for these are alwayes and at all times forbidden to all men who may not fancy that pure which God hath marked with the brand of sinful impurity nor may they count that sinfully impure on which God hath set no such stamp â—y any Law forbidding it If Scriptures as I have largely shewed must be understood only by the bark or shell of words and not by the kernel and intent we shall make those expressions to be approbations which are the sharpest reproofes and prohibitions yet by way of Irony and seeming concession As Eccl. 11. 9. Rejoyce O young man in thy youth walk in the wayes of thine heart and the light of thine eyes So Christs commending the unjust Steward doth not import his justifying of his 〈◊〉 but of that prudence though sinister which he shewed to preserve himself from temporal extremities the more to reproach the improvidence negligence and supineness of those who will not use honest means for their eternal preservation It were easie by many more parallel instances besides those I for merly gave to manifest to the Quakers or any men not wilfully shutting their eyes against that light of Reason and Religion which shines in the Scriptures That since the Holy Oracles of God are spoken or written for the instruction of men and in such a familiar style or mode of speech as was used among men in the several times languages and occasions of writing them which the Hearers or Readers then easily understood it cannot be any part of Religion so to urge any Letter Phrase or Form of speech as to swerve the sense of words from the evident scope intent or end of the speaker which is gathered both from the rise or occasion and end why he spake and any additional instances which are oft given as explications and special marks or boundaries of the speakers meaning which are here evident For the Jewes were not blamable for swearing by the name of the true God as by the Law and Prophets they were commanded in righteousness judgement and truth nay they even superstitiously waved this kind of swearing but for their new and customary forms of swearing by the Creature and fancying it no forswearing themselves in case they were false either in intention or execution This being the usual and almost only swearing in fashion among them it is no wonder that our Saviour aiming only at this gives such a prohibition of Swear not at all that is not at all for matter or manner as you have accustomed your selves to swear contrary to or beyond what God allowes in his Law which was the thing I was to prove 2. My second Reason to prove that our Saviour and the Apostle do not forbid all swearing with its due reverence and integrity is from the moral nature end and use of an Oath First by the light of Reason and principles of innate Divinity yet unextinguished in the heart of man-kind it hath ever been and still is owned and used as a special part of Religion a solemn agnition of the Divine Being and Attributes in Omniscience Justice and Power which all men attest as believing that none can escape that Witness and Judge of all things Thus Egyptians Scythians Persians Greeks Romans and all Nations that had any thing Civil and Religious among them have used some form of Swearing by their respective Deities as a special honour and appeal to their Soveraignty as the only means in cases dubious to give satisfaction gain credit and make men assured of the veracity and honesty of the speaker in their promises and testimonies in their leagues and contracts And however the noblest and wisest of the Heathens required no less veracity and certainty in the bare words then Oathes of men yet they highly distinguished between swearing and forswearing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This last they thought a great sin and to be punished by the Gods if either they meant not as they sware or performed not what they had justly sworn yea and they oft brought in their Gods and Jupiter himselfe as chief swearing Polybius observes that in the better and simpler ages of the world Oathes were seldom used in Judicatures but after that perfidy and lying encreased the use of Oathes encreased as the only remedy meet to restrain those mischiefs that where men could not see or be sure the omniscience and vengeance of God should be invocated on mens consciences which none could elude or escape Hierocles also tells us That men ought not to swear but for great and necessary ends which cannot otherwaies be obtained But where the end was good and this a necessary means there they thought agreeable to true Reason and Religion that swearing was a lawful means Secondly God himself the great patern of all holiness and perfection would not have given so many express commands and regulations concerning Swearing if all swearing had in its nature been morally and so eternally evil The moral precept is Exod. 20. 7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain or upon falsity which imports a lawful use of Gods name as is explained Lâ—â— 19. 12. Ye shall not Swear by my name falsly nor shalt thou profane the name of the Lord thy God Which sense is further cleared Deut. 6. 13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and shalt swear by his name which is repeated Deut. 10. 20. So of vowing by an Oath to God Num. 30. 2. Deu 23. 21. So Is 45. 23. To me every tonguâ— shall swear So again Isa 65. 16. He that sweareth in the Earth shall swear by the God of Truth Jer. 4. 2. And thou shalt