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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66244	A practical discourse concerning swearing especially in the two great points of perjury and common-swearing / by William Wake ...	Wake, William, 1657-1737.	1696 (1696)	Wing W252; ESTC R38405	66,425	210

Allow'd but Required the Vsing of it And that too with Relation to that part of it of which He tells us nevertheless in this very Chapter That He came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it And which we ought not therefore to doubt was what He Intended in the Third as we Confess it was what He Did in the Other Commandments 12. I CONCLUDE therefore that upon all these Accounts it is at least very Improbable that our Blessed Saviour should have designed Vtterly to Forbid all manner of Swearing as Sinful and Vnlawful I add 2dly That whatever that Passage we are Here enquiring into may seem to Offer to the Contrary it is Certain He did not do it as I shall now make Appear 13. THAT St. Paul has solemnly Sworn in almost every One of his Epistles is a Truth so Evident that it must be Impossible for any One who knows what an Oath is to be able seriously to doubt of it God is my Witness says He Rom. i. 9 I call God for a Record upon my Soul 2 Cor. i. 23 The God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ who is Blessed for Evermore knoweth that I lie not 2 Cor. xi 31 Behold before God I lie not Gal. i. 20 And several other Expressions he elsewhere has of the like nature 14. NOW in All These either this Great Apostle was Guilty of Sinning or he was not That he committed any Sin in thus Writing but especially a Wilful Known and Deliberate Sin is very hard to suppose I am sure must never be allowed by those who believe him to have been acted by the immediate Inspiration of the Holy Ghost in what he wrote And yet supposing our Saviour to have utterly forbidden the Use of Swearing to All Christians and upon Any Occasion How shall we ever be able to Excuse him from a Gross Presumptuous Contempt of his Commandment 15. THAT St. Paul should have continued all his Life ignorant of such a Prohibition is very strange Nor has it that I know of been Pretended by Any 16. THAT he had any particular Allowance made to him to exempt him from the Obligation of it and to Authorize him to Act directly Contrary to the Command of Christ and to the Common Duty of all other Christians does not appear nor ought without some very good Grounds to be supposed by us I conclude therefore That had the Use of Swearing been utterly Taken away under the Gospel neither would St. Paul have laid so great a Stumbling-block in our way as he could not but think his Example might be likely to prove to the Church of Christ Nor would the Holy Ghost have given so much Countenance to a Practice neither very Commendable in its self nor upon any Account to be Imitated by Those for Whose Benefit and Instruction those very Epistles were Inspired by him 17. BUT we have not only the Example of St. Paul tho' that were enough to direct us in this Matter Our Blessed Saviour Himself has done likewise and that by the Confession of those who yet will by no means allow of his Apostles Swearing It has been thought by some that that Form of Speech so often used by our LORD in Confirmation of what He delivered Verily verily I say unto you was not meerly a Vehement Asseveration but rather a Direct and Forman Oath Tho' in this I confess I am not so well satisfied as to be willing to lay any great stress upon it yet that he did truly Swear at his Arraignment before the High-Priest is hardly to be doubted When being Adjured by him after the Manner used among the Jews to tell him Whether he were the Christ or No He readily complied with the Obligation that was laid upon him and answer'd plainly that he was And in the x th of the Revelations St. John puts it beyond all dispute that the Angel with whom he discoursed did do likewise and that with great solemnity too For he lifted up his hand and SWARE by Him that Liveth for Ever and Ever Ver. 5 6. 18. I CONCLUDE therefore That what God both * Prescribed and * Practiced under the Law * What not only St. Paul but our Saviour Christ himself and an Angel from Heaven continued to Vse under the Gospel * What being duly perform'd is for the Honour of God and the Benefit of Mankind but being * Vtterly Forbidden must turn very much to the Detriment of the World As it cannot be in its self Evil so neither was it ever intended to have been Abolish'd by our Blessed LORD as such 19. BUT what then shall we say to this Passage of St. Matthew Swear not at All. Can any thing be more Express Or could our Saviour have spoken more plainly had he design'd to have done what some pretend he has done 20. TO this I Answer and it is the next Consideration I have to offer for the clearing of this Difficulty 2dly That it is not enough that the Words of any Prohibition are General to oblige us to understand it in the utmost extent that the Expressions are capable of But we must withal consider what it is reasonable to suppose was designed to have been forbidden by them 21. FOR Proof of which Remark Let us look back only to the 21 st Verse of this Chapter where we meet with a Case not very different from that before us Ye have heard says our Saviour that it has been said by them of old times Thou shalt not Kill And in the xx th of Exodus the Command is Absolute and Express Thou shalt not Kill And some we know have been so very tender as to imagine that it is no less unlawful in any Case or upon any Pretence to put a Man to Death than others have thought it to be to take an Oath And yet at the same time that that Prohibition was delivered to the Jews God himself establish'd the Power of Life and Death in the Civil Magistrate and in one of the first Laws that was given to Mankind declared That whoso shed Man's Blood by Man should his Blood be shed 22. TO know therefore how far we are to extend the Force of any Prohibition we must consider not only how General the Letter of the Law is but what were the Occasion and Design of Making of it Now the End of the Sixth Commandment was to restrain Private Violence and to tie up Mens Hands from rashly Assaulting and Hurting of one another And therefore to Private Persons and in all the Common Circumstances of Life the Command is Absolute and admits of no Restriction Thou shalt not Kill But in the Publick Administration of Justice In Defence of a Man 's own Life In a Lawful War where the Welfare and Security of our Country are at stake in these Cases as the Design of the Law is not concern'd so neither must the Meaning of it be extended to them 23. AND so it is in the

to shew the Malignity of it And how desperate an Offence is thereby committed not only against God but against the Common Peace and Welfare of Mankind THE truth is Perjury as it is a Sin of the most Hainous Nature whether we consider the Honour of God or the Interests of Men So has it always been pursued not only with the severest Denuntiations of Vengeance in the other World but for the most part with very shameful and bitter Punishments in this INDEED among the ancient Romans tho' the Censors enquired very scrupulously into it yet for a long time the Penalty of it was only a Publick Infamy And so happy were those Times that that alone was thought to have been Punishment enough for it But as the Manners of Men grew worse so both they were forced to Encrease the Rigour of their Laws as to this Matter And most other Nations proceeded against it with the utmost severity and thought the Guilt of it could be expiated with nothing less than the Life of him who fell under it And tho' contrary to what I have now observed of the Roman Law our own Statutes have of latter Times been more favourable to such Offenders Yet by our old-common-Old-Common-Law they were treated with such a Rigour as tho' it did not extend to Death yet seems to have been more bitter than even Death its self would have been FROM this Sin of Perjury by all confess'd to have been no less forbidden under the Law than under the Gospel I go on to that in which some have thought the Perfection of the Gospel above the Law to have consisted as to this Matter namely to enquire Whether it be Lawful for us Christians to Swear at all THAT it were very much to be wish'd that Men would Live so Well and Deal so Faithfully with one another as not to need ever to make use of an Oath for the confirmation of what they say is not to be questioned Nor do I doubt but that they might live so as to avoid it in many Cases in which they too easily indulge themselves in the use of it But yet still the present State of the World consider'd I do not see how it is possible for the Best Christian altogether to decline it Nor is there any reason why Any one should make it a Matter of Conscience wholly to avoid it WE are told indeed of Gregory Nazianzen that upon his Conversion to the Christian Faith he resolved once for all never to Swear while he lived and that he did manage himself in such wise as to keep to his Resolution and did not Swear to the Day of his Death And several of the Ancient Fathers there are who have spoken in such Terms of this Matter as if such a Resolution had not been so much the Particular Praise of that Great Man as the Common Duty of All Christians But yet when all is done either the Methods of Government must be wholly changed and some new Models be set up that were never yet practised in the World Or were those Fathers now living they must set some Bounds to their Expressions and plainly Restrain them to that which I do indeed look upon to have been their True Meaning viz. Not to Forbid All Swearing whatsoever but only All Voluntary and Vain Swearing and in which they were most certainly in the right IT was a Remarkable Deference that was paid to the Honesty of One heretofore among the Athenians That being call'd upon a certain Occasion to Swear to the Truth of what he said and being come to the Altar as the Manner there was in order thereunto the Judges would by no means allow of it but thought it a shame that a Person of such known Integrity should not be credited without an Oath And in some of the Ancient Canons confirm'd as to this Matter by the Civil Laws there was that Respect paid to the Priestly Function that he who was admitted into Holy Orders was from thenceforth free from All Obligation to Swear even in those Cases in which All Others were expresly required to do it Only if need were they might be obliged to give some other Caution of their Fidelity that did not seem so much to reflect upon the Sacredness of their Character BUT still to Swear upon a just Occasion was in the general allow'd to be not only Lawful but Necessary And those very Exemptions that freed some certain Persons from it did but the more confirm the Churches Approbation of it in Others TO enter upon a Particular Examination of the several Passages of the Primitive Fathers which seem to speak against All Swearing whatsoever is an Undertaking neither Proper for this Place nor otherwise Necessary for the Vindication of what I have Asserted in the following Discourses But that the most Severe among them did allow of Swearing when duly Required and Reverently Perform'd is evident from hence That we find the most Religious Emperours and over whom those Fathers which seem to speak with the greatest Warmth against it had a very Powerful Influence nevertheless both to have Solemnly Sworn themselves and to have continued the Necessity of others doing likewise And yet it does not appear that ever they were censured by any of those Fathers upon this Account BUT this is not all They did not only Consent to the Necessity of Mens Swearing as Imposed by the Imperial Laws but they themselves Pursued the same Method and by their own Constitutions required it likewise IT was a very Solemn and which ought yet more to be Remark'd a Voluntary Oath too that Athanasius made in his Apology to Constantius to free himself from a certain Suspicion which that Emperour had it seems without any just Grounds taken up against him St. Austin freely tells us what his own Practice in this particular was That he neither chose to Swear when he could avoid it nor refused to Swear when he was lawfully required so to do Even St. Basil himself than whom none has Written more expresly against All Swearing yet in his Canonical Epistles not only imposes no Punishment on those who Swore as they ought to do but by assigning a suitable Pennance to those who Sware amiss did in effect acknowledge the Lawfulness of Swearing when piously and carefully perform'd And a more ancient Father than he St. Cyprian complaining of the Decay of Discipline in the Church and that so far as to ascribe the Decian Persecution to the declension of it inveighs indeed bitterly against the Iniquity of those Times for Swearing falsly and without a due regard to what they Swore but says not a word against the thing its self Which yet had he thought all Swearing whatsoever to have been unlawful he would hardly have let pass without declaring upon that occasion his Resentments against it IT was much about the same time that we find Another