man affirms or denies upon oath a matter of fact past or present when he swears that a thing was or is so or not so A promissory oath is a promise confirmed by an oath which always respects something that is future And if the promise be made directly and immediately to God then it is call'd a Vow if to men an Oath I proceed to the II. Thing which is to shew the great use and even necessity of Oaths in many cases Which is so great that humane Society can very hardly if at all subsist long without them Government would many times be very insecure And for the faithfull discharge of Offices of great trust in which the welfare of the Publick is nearly concerned it is not possible to find any security equall to that of an Oath because the obligation of that reacheth to the most secret and hidden practices of men and takes hold of them in many cases where the penalty of no humane Law can have any awe or force upon them And especially it is as the Civil Law expresseth it maximum expediendarum litium remedium the best means of ending controversies And where mens estates or lives are concerned no evidence but what is assured by an Oath will be thought sufficient to decide the matter so as to give full and generall satisfaction to mankind For in matters of so great concernment when men have all the assurance that can be had and not till then they are contented to sit down and rest satisfied with it And among all Nations an Oath hath always been thought the onely permptory and satisfactory way of deciding such controversies III. The third thing I proposed was to vindicate the Lawfulness of Oaths where they are necessary And it is a very strong inducement to believe the lawfulness of them that the unavoidable condition of humane affairs hath made them so necessary The Apostle takes it for granted that an Oath is not only of great use in humane affairs but in many cases of great necessity to confirm a doubtful thing and to put an end to controversies which cannot otherwise be decided to the satisfaction of the Parties contending An oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife And indeed it is hardly imaginable that God should not have left that lawfull which is so evidently necessary to the peace and security of Mankind But because there is a Sect sprung up in our memory which hath called in question the lawfullness of all Oaths to the great mischief and disturbance of humane Society I shall endeavour to search this matter to the bottom and to manifest how unreasonable and groundless this Opinion is And to this end I shall First prove the lawfulness of Oaths from the authority of this Text and from the reasons plainly contained or strongly implied in it Secondly I shall shew the weakness and insufficiency of the grounds of the contrary Opinion whether from reason or from Scripture which last they principally rely upon and if it could be made out from thence would determine the case 1. I shall prove the lawfulness of Oaths from the authority of this Text and the reasons plainly contained or strongly implyed in it Because the Apostle doth not only speak of the use of Oaths among men without any manner of censure and reproof but as a commendable custome and practice and in many cases necessary for the confirmation of doubtfull matters and in order to the finall decision of Controversies and Differences among men For First He speakes of it as the generall practice of Mankind to confirm things by an oath in order to the ending of differences And indeed there is nothing that hath more universally obtained in all Ages and Nations of the World than which there is not a more certain indication that a thing is agreeable to the Law of Nature and the best Reason of Mankind And that this was no degenerate practice of Mankind like that of Idolatry is from hence evident that when God separated a People to himself it was practised among them by the holy Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob and was afterwards not only allowed but in many Cases commanded by the Law of Moses which had it been a thing evil in it self and forbidden by the Law of Nature would not have been done Secondly Another undeniable Argument from the Text of the Lawfulness of Oaths is that God himself in condescension to the Custome of men who use to confirm and give credit to what they say by an Oath is represented by the Apostle as confirming his promise to us by an oath vers 13. When God made the promise to Abraham because he could swear by none greater he swears by himself For men verily swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife Wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsell confirmed it by an oath which he certainly would not have done had an oath been unlawfull in it self For that had been to comply with men in an evil practice and by his own example to give countenance to it in the highest manner But though God condescend to represent himself to us after the manner of men he never do's it in any thing that is in it's own nature evil and sinfull Thirdly From the great Usefullness of Oaths in humane affaires to give credit and confirmation to our word and to put an end to Contestations Now that which serves to such excellent purposes and is so convenient for humane society and for mutual security and confidence among men ought not easily to be presumed unlawfull till it be plainly proved to be so And if we consider the nature of an oath and every thing belonging to it there is nothing that hath the least appearance of evil in it There is surely no evil in it as it is an act of religion nor as it is an Appeal to God as a witness and avenger in case we swear falsly nor as it is a confirmation of a doubtfull matter nor as it puts an end to strife and controversy And these are all the essential ingredients of an Oath and the ends of it and they are all so good that they rather commend it than give the least colour of ground to condemn it I proceed in the 2d Place to shew the weakness and insufficiency of the grounds of the contrary opinion whether from Reason or from Scripture First from Reason They say the necessity of an Oath is occasioned by the want of truth and fidelity among men And that every man ought to demean himself with that faithfulness and integrity as may give credit and confirmation to his word and then Oaths will be needless This pretence will be fully answered if we consider these two things 1st That in matters of great importance no other obligation besides that of an oath hath been thought sufficient amongst the best and wisest
to it For though some men pour out Oaths so freely as if they came naturally from them yet surely no man is born of a swearing constitution All that can be pretended for it is Custome and Fashion But to shew that this is no Excuse it is very observable that it is particularly in the matter of Oaths and Perjury that the Holy Ghost gives that caution Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil And lastly it deserves to be considered that this sin is so much the greater because of the frequent returns of it in those that are accustomed to it So that although it were but small in it self as it is not yet the frequent practice of this sin would quickly mount it up to a great score 2. Secondly To represent the heinousness of the sin of Perjury But before I aggravate this Crime it is fit to let men know how many ways they may be guilty of it 1st When a man asserts upon oath what he knows to be otherwise Or promiseth what he does not intend to perform In both these cases the very act of swearing is Perjury And so likewise when a man promiseth upon oath to do that which it is unlawfull for him to do because this oath is contrary to a former obligation 2dly When a man is uncertain whether what he swears to be true This likewise is Perjury in the act though not of the same degree of guilt with the former because it is not so fully and directly against his knowledge and conscience For men ought to be certain of the truth of what they assert upon oath and not to swear at venture And therefore no man ought positively to swear to the truth of any thing but what he himself hath seen or heard This being the highest assurance men are capable of in this world In like manner he is guilty of perjury in the same degree who promiseth upon oath what he is not morally and reasonably certain he shall be able to perform 3dly They are likewise guilty of Perjury who do not use great plainness and simplicity in oaths but answer aequivocally and doubtfully or with reservation of something in their minds thinking thereby to salve the truth of what they say And we all know who they are that make use of these arts and maintain them to be lawfull to the infinite scandall of the Christian Religion and prejudice of humane Society by doing what in them lyes to destroy all Faith and mutual Confidence among men For what can be a greater affront to God than to use his Name to deceive men And what can more directly overthrow the great end and use of oaths which are for confirmation and to put an end to strife Whereas by these arts the thing is left in the same uncertainty it was before and there is no decision of it For there is hardly any form of words can be devised so plain as not to be lyable to Equivocation To be sure a man when he swears may always reserve something in his mind which will quite alter the sense of what ever he can say or promise upon oath And this may be laid down for a certain Rule That all departure from the simplicity of an oath is a degree of Perjury and a man is never a whit the less forsworn because his perjury is a little finer and more artificiall than ordinary And though men think by this device to save themselves harmless from the guilt of so great a Sin they do really increase it by adding to their iniquity the impudent folly of mocking God and deceiving themselves And whereas it is pleaded in the favour of mental reservation that the whole Proposition as made up of what is exprest in words and of that which is reserved in the mind is true For instance if a man being ask'd upon Oath whether he be a Priest shall answer he is not reserving in his mind that he is not a Priest of Bacchus or some such thing the whole Proposition is true and then they say a man may swear to that which is true without danger of perjury This is of no force because though the whole Proposition be true it is deceitfull and contrary to that sincerity which ought to be in an oath And the end of an oath is hereby likewise defeated which is to ascertain the truth of what we say But if a man reserve something in his mind which alters the truth of what he says the thing is still as doubtfull and uncertain as it was before Besides if this be a good reason a man may swear with reservation in all cases because the reason equally extends to all cases for if the truth of the Proposition as made up of what is express'd in words and reserv'd in the mind will excuse a man from Perjury then no man can be perjur'd that swears with reservation But this the Casuists of the Roman Church do not allow but only in some particular cases as before an incompetent Judge or the like for they see well enough that if this were allow'd in all cases it would destroy all faith among men And therefore since the reason extends alike to all cases it is plain that it is to be allow'd in none 4thly He is guilty of Perjury after the act who having a real intention when he swears to perform what he promiseth yet afterwards neglects to do it Not for want of Power for so long as that continues the obligation ceaseth but for want of Will and due regard to his oath Now that Perjury is a most heinous Sin is evident because it is contrary to so plain and great a Law of God one of the ten Words or Precepts of the Moral Law Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain thou shalt not bring or apply the name of God to a falshood Or as Josephus renders it Thou shalt not adjure God to a false thing Which our Saviour renders yet more plainly Matth. 5. 33. Thou shalt not forswear thy self For he seems to refer to the third Commandment when he says Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time thou shalt not forswear thy self as he had done before to the 6th and 7th when he says It was said to them of old time thou shalt not kill thou shalt not commit adultery So that the primary if not the sole intention of this Law Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain is to forbid the great sin of Perjury And I do not remember that in Scripture the phrase of taking God's name in vain is used in any other sense And thus it is certainly used Prov. 30. 9. Lest I be poor and steal and take the name of the Lord my God in vain i. e. lest Poverty should tempt me to steal and stealth should engage me in Perjury For among the Jewes an oath was tendered to him that was suspected of theft as appears
The Lawfulness AND Obligation of Oaths A SERMON Preach'd at the ASSISES Held at KINGSTON upon THAMES July 21. 1681. By JOHN TILLOTSON D. D. Dean of Canterbury and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill And William Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1681. To the Right Worshipfull and my Honoured Friend JOSEPH REEVE Esq High Sheriff of the County of SURREY SIR WHen I had perform'd the Service which you were pleas'd to call me to in the preaching of this Sermon I had no thoughts of making it more publique And yet in this also I was the more easily induced to comply with your desire because of the suitableness of the Argument to the Age in which we live Wherein as men have run into the wildest extremities in other things so particularly in the matter of Oaths some making conscience of taking any Oath at all and too many none at all of breaking them To convince the great mistake of the one extreme and to check the growing evil and mischief of the other is the chief design of this Discourse To which I shall be very glad if by God's blessing it may prove any wise serviceable I am Sir Your very faithfull and humble Servant JOHN TILLOTSON The Lawfulness AND Obligation of Oaths A SERMON Preach'd at the Assises held at Kingston upon Thames July 21. 1681. Heb. vi 16. And an Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife THE necessity of Religion to the support of humane Society in nothing appears more evidently than in this That the obligation of an Oath which is so necessary for the maintenance of peace and justice among men depends wholly upon the sense and belief of a Deity For no reason can be imagined why any man that doth not believe a God should make the least conscience of an Oath which is nothing else but a solemn appeal to God as a witness of the truth of what we say So that whoever promotes Atheism and Infidelity doth the most destructive thing imaginable to humane Society because he takes away the reverence and obligation of Oaths And whenever that is generally cast off humane Society must disband and all things run into disorder The just sense whereof made David cry out to God with so much earnestness as if the World had been cracking and the frame of it ready to break in pieces Psal. 12. Help Lord for the righteous man ceaseth and the faithfull fail from among the children of men Intimating That when Faith fails from among men nothing but a particular and immediate interposition of the Divine providence can preserve the World from falling into confusion And our Blessed Saviour gives this as a sign of the end of the World and the approaching dissolution of all things when faith and truth shall hardly be found among men Luke 18. 8. When the Son of man comes shall he find Faith on the earth This state of things doth loudly call for his coming to destroy the World which is even ready to dissolve and fall in pieces of it self when these Bands and Pillars of humane Society do break and fail And surely never in any Age was this Sign of the coming of the Son of man more glaring and terrible than in this degenerate Age wherein we live when almost all sorts of men seem to have broke loose from all obligations to faith and truth And therefore I do not know any Argument more proper and usefull to be treated of upon this Occasion than of the Nature and Obligation of an Oath which is the utmost security that one man can give to another of the truth of what he saies the strongest tye of fidelity the surest ground of Judicial proceedings and the most firm and sacred bond that can be laid upon all that are concerned in the administration of publick Justice upon Judge and Jury and Witnesses And for this reason I have pitched upon these Words In which the Apostle declares to us the great use and necessity of Oaths among men An Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife He had said before that for our greater assurance and comfort God hath confirmed his promises to us by an Oath condescending herein to deal with us after the manner of men who when they would give credit to a doubtfull matter confirm what they say by an Oath And generally when any doubt or controversie ariseth between Parties concerning a matter of fact one side affirming and the other denying an end is put to this contest by an Oath An Oath for confirmation being to them an end of all strife An Oath for confirmation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the greater assurance and establishment of a thing Not that an Oath is alwaies a certain and infallible decision of things according to truth and right but that this is the utmost credit that we can give to any thing and the last resort of truth and confidence among men After this we can go no farther for if the Religion of an Oath will not oblige men to speak truth nothing will This is the utmost security that men can give and must therefore be the final decision of all contests An Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife Now from this assertion of the Apostle concerning the great use and end of Oaths among men I shall take occasion 1. To consider the nature of an Oath and the kinds of it 2. To shew the great use and even necessity of Oaths in many cases 3. To vindicate the lawfulness of them where they are necessary 4. To shew the sacred obligation of an Oath I shall be as brief in these as the just handling of them will bear 1. For the nature of an Oath and the kinds of it An Oath is an invocation of God or an appeal to him as a witness of the truth of what we say So that an Oath is a sacred thing as being an act of Religion and an invocation of the Name of God And this whether the Name of God be expresly mentioned in it or not If a man only say I swear or I take my Oath that a thing is or is not so or so or that I will or will not do such a thing Or if a man answer upon his Oath being adjured and required so to do Or if a man swear by Heaven or by Earth or by any other thing that hath relation to God in all these cases a man doth virtually call God to witness and in so doing he doth by consequence invoke him as a Judge and an Avenger in case what he swears be not true And if this be exprest the oath is a formall Imprecation but whether it be or not a curse upon our selves is always implyed in case of perjury There are two sorts of Oaths Assertory and Promissory An assertory oath is when a
to the manner of men expresseth himself Deut. 32. 40. If I lift up my hand to heaven and swear In allusion to this custome the Psalmist describes the Perjured person Psal. 144. 8. Whose mouth speaketh vanity and whose right hand is a right hand of falshood And there is not the least intimation in Scripture that either of these Ceremonies were prescribed and appointed by God but voluntarily instituted and taken up by men And thus among us the Ceremony of Swearing is by laying the hand on the holy Gospel and kissing the Book which is both very solemn and significant And this is the reason why this solemn kind of Oath is called a corporall Oath and was anciently so called because the sign or ceremony of it is performed by some part of the Body And this Solemnity is an aggravation of the Perjury because it makes it both more deliberate and more scandalous I shall speak but briefly to the IV. And last particular viz. the sacred obligation of an Oath because it is a solemn appeal to God as a witness of the truth of what we say To God I say from whose piercing and all-seeing eye from whose perfect and infinite knowledge nothing is or can be hid So that there is not a thought in our heart but he sees it nor a word in our tongue but he discerns the truth or falshood of it Whenever we swear we appeal to his knowledge and refer our selves to his just judgment who is the powerfull Patron and Protectour of Right and the Almighty Judge and Avenger of all falshood and unrighteousness So that it is not possible for men to lay a more sacred and solemn obligation upon their Consciences than by the Religion of an Oath Moses very well expresseth it by binding our souls with a bond Numb 30. 2. If a man swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond intimating that he that swears lays the strongest obligation upon himself and puts his Soul in pawn for the truth of what he says And this obligation no man can violate but at the utmost peril of the judgement and vengeance of God For every Oath implies a Curse upon our selves in case of Perjury as Plutarch observes And this was always the sense of Mankind concerning the obligation of Oaths Nullum vinculum ad astringendam fidem majores nostri jurejurando arctius esse voluerunt saith Tully Our fore-fathers had no stricter bond whereby to oblige the faith of men to one another than that of an Oath To the same purpose is that in the Comedian Aliud si scirem qui firmare meam apud vos possem fidem sanctius quà m jusjurandum id pollicerer tibi If I knew any thing more sacred than an Oath whereby to confirm to you the truth of what I say I would make use of it I will crave your patience a little longer whilest by way of inference from this Discourse I represent to you the great Sin of Swearing in common conversation upon trivial and needless occasions and the hainousness of the sin of Perjury 1. First The great sin of Swearing upon trivial and needless occasions in common conversation Because an Oath is a solemn thing and reserved for great occasions to give confirmation to our word in some weighty matter and to put an end to controversies which cannot otherwise be peremptorily and satisfactorily decided And therefore to use Oaths upon light occasions argues great profaneness and irreverence of Almighty God So Vlpian the great Roman Lawyer observes Nonnullos esse faciles ad jurandum contemptu Religionis that mens proneness to swearing comes from a contempt of Religion than which nothing disposeth men more to Atheism and Infidelity Besides that it doth many times surprize men unawares into Perjury And how can it be otherwise when men use to interlard all their careless talk with Oaths but that they must often be perjur'd And which is worse it prepares men for deliberate perjury For with those who are accustomed to swear upon light occasions an Oath will go off with them more roundly about weightier matters From a common custome of swearing saith Hierocles men easily slide into perjury Therefore says he if thou wouldest not be perjured do not use to swear And this perhaps is the meaning of St. James when he cautions Christians so vehemently against common swearing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so some of the best ancient Copies read it least ye fall into hypocrisy that is least ye lye and be perjured by using your selves to rash and inconsiderate swearing And men expose themselves to this danger to no purpose Oaths in common discourse being so far from confirming a man's word that with wise men they much weaken it For common swearing if it have any serious meaning at all argues in a man a perpetual distrust of his own reputation and is an acknowledgment that he thinks his bare word not to be worthy of credit And it is so far from adorning and filling a man's discourse that it makes it look swolne and bloated and more bold and blustring than becomes persons of gentle and good breeding Besides that it is a great incivility because it highly offends and grates upon all sober and considerate persons who cannot be presumed with any manner of ease and patience to hear God affronted and his great and glorious Name so irreverently tost upon every slight occasion And it is no excuse to men that many times they do it ignorantly and not observing and knowing what they do For certainly it is no extenuation of a fault that a man hath got the habit of it so perfect that he commits it when he do's not think of it Which consideration should make men oppose the beginnings of this Vice lest it grow into a habit very hard to be left Nemo novit nisi qui expertus est quà m sit difficile consuetudinem jurandi extinguere saith St. Austin No man knows but he that hath tryed how hard it is to get rid of this custome of Swearing But yet it is certain men may do it by resolution and great care of themselves For he that can chuse whether he will speak or not can chuse whether he will swear or not when he speaks Major consuetudo majorem intentionem flagitat the more inveterate a custome is the greater care should be used to break our selves of it In short This practice is so contrary to so plain a Precept of our Saviour and by the breach whereof we incurr so great a danger as St. James assures us that it must be a great charity that can find out a way to reconcile a common custome of swearing with a serious belief of the Christian Religion Which I would to God those who are concerned would seriously lay to heart Especially since this Sin of all others hath the least of Temptation to it Profit or Pleasure there is none in it nor any thing in mens naturall tempers to incite them