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
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
Egipts foregoing her native gentile-tongue and using the speech of that people over whom God had a peculiar Soveraignty in swearing to him after their form was a signe of Gods conquest of the Egiptians of his translating them from his dominion of Satan into the Kingdom of his dear Son so farr is swearing by the Lord of hosts or in the name of the true God in cases of importance from being a sin as it is an evedence of the Christian worlds conversion to and recognition of that God Arg. 5. The holiest Christian may lawfully and laudably do that which the spirit of Christ that spake by the prophets hath made the doings of in Gospell-times the condition of Gods accepting men for his people But the spirit of Christ in the Prophets hath made mens learning to swear by his name such a condition as upon the fulfilling thereof he will number men amongst his disciples account them his people that do and root out and utterly destroy them that do not learn to swear by his name Therefore the holiest Christian may lawfully swear by Gods name The major is plain for it is impossible that God should tempt men to sin by making the committing thereof the condition of the grand and comprehensiye promise such as this is of being his people which includes all the benesits and priviledges of that relation This were to allure us to sin by stronger motives then Satan can possibly lay before us The minor I prove from Jeremy 12.16 And it shall come to pass that if they will diligemly learn the ways of my people to swear by my name in this or the like form the Lond liveth as they taught my people to swear by Baal then shall they be built in the midst of my people but if they will not obey I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation saith the Lord. It is beyond all possibilty of rational doubt that this Prophesie relates to the time of the Gospel for it is directed to the Gentiles of whom Gods people had learnt to swear by Baal called by God his evil neighbours vers 14. that is Nations bordering upon Judea his own inheritance his own land whom he blames for touching the inheritance which he had caused his people of Israel to inherit that is for turning the Jews out and taking to their own possession the Holy Land as did the Assyrians and their confederates in the Jewish Wars the Samaritans Phoenicians Ammonites Edomites c. whom he threatens to pluck out of their own land as they had driven the Jews out of theirs and to pluck out the house of Judah from amongst them this God perform'd at their restauration from the Babilonian captivity To these Gentile-borderers I say God directs this threat vers 14. Thus saith the Lord against all my evil neighbours that have touched c. and this promise vers 15. And it shall come to passe after that I have plucked them out I will return and have compassion upon them and bring every man to his heritage and his own land After the mention of which restauration of those Gentile-borderers doth immediately follow this promise and if they will learn the ways of my people to swear by my name c. This promise then concerns that time when God would return to and have compassion on the Gentiles when he would call her beloved that was not beloved and them a people that was not a people and is made to them that had withdrawn Israel from the worship of the true God to their Idols in whom they had perswaded them to put confidence by whom they had taught them to swear in such forms as Baal liveth by the life of Baal c. and manifestly imports this sense If as you Gentiles have taught my people the Jews to swear by your Gods you will learn of them when the law shall go out of Sion into all the world by the ministry of the Apostles to swear by my name then you shall be built up amongst my people Yea the matter of this promise being the ingrafting of the gentiles into the Church the luying of them as living-stones in Gods spiritual temple the building of them upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets in the midst of Gods people it could not possibly take effect while the partition-wall stood nor have its accomplishment till Christ by the blood of his Crosse had removed the enmity and making peace had reconciled both Jew and Gentile unto God in one body Ephes 2.16 2. A dilligent learning to swear by Gods name is here made the condition of Gods promise of grafting the gentiles into the stock of Abraham of his accounting them his spirituall seed of his building them up amongst his people of his giving them a name and a place in his house as being that which is the way of Gods people nay the ways of Gods people the Old Testament-way and the New Testament way of their protesting what God they serve in contradistinction to the ways of all other people each of which swear by the name of that false God whom they respectively served and in distinction from all other ways of confessing the true God men may confess God in prayer in thanks-giving in attendance upon the Word and Sacraments and yet not glorifie him sufficiently in order to Gods accepting of them as true worshippers in order to his reputing them living-stones fit to be laid in the walls of his house the Church except to those forementioned and all other wayes of expressing their homage they adde this of swearing by his name except withal they dilligently learn to acknowledge his omnisciency omaipo encie justice and divine vengeance by appealing to those dreadful attributes by swearing by his fearful name when they are lawfully thereunto called where this most solemn invocation of the divine majesty is denied him he esteems all other acts of invocation not serious enough to oblige him that tenders them to a sincere confession Men may possibly dissemble in their bare word-professions of God and his attributes and therefore he puts Christians here to the utmost trial of their sincerity by this most awful address to him He that swears by his Name calls God for a witness against his soul dares him to his face challengeth the divine vengeance to do its worst in case he swear falsly and therefore God esteems this as the highest and most august act of Divine worship that the creature can possibly exhibite to him and as that which eminently contains all others and comprehends the whole condition of the Gospel all the ways of Gods people confessing to him Hence S. Austin in Psal 63.12 interprets qui jurant in eo by qui sit Christianus he that swears by him that is saith he every profest Christian Nam juramentum sumitur pro toto cultu ut in Esai 45.23 jurabit omnis lingua for swearing by God implies the whole worship of God as in Isaiah Every tongue
this above all things swear not Is swearing forsooth worse then adultery I say not is false-swearing but Is swearing It swearing I say worse then man slaughter God forbid what meant then this above or before all things isto verbo cautus nos facit adversus linguam nostram si de manu aliquid faceres facilius manui tui imperares ne faceret lingua facilitatem habet motus in udo posita est facilt in lubrico labitur as S. Austin resolves in the same Sermon By this caution the Apostle would have us set a watch upon our tongue If thou wert bid to with-hold thy hand thou mightest more easily command that the tongue is nimble and quick in motion it is plac't in a watry Element it stands on a slippery place and easily lapseth But yet it is as apt to lie slander and calumniate as to swear This form of speech therefore doth most properly import priority of place and time in our communication which the Apostle would not have us assigne to swearing as if he had said Now that I am perswading you to patience by the example of the Husbandman of the Prophets of Job c. vers 7 8 c. Let me give you this caution that you would take heed of humouring the impatience of your spirit by permitting it to hurry you forthwith to swearing upon every provocation though it be but by such petty Oaths as the Pharisees have taught you Let not an Oath lie uppermost upon your heart and come first of all before all things out of your mouth Try all other ways of satisfying those with whom you converse of the truth of your speeches before you attest it by Oath quantam ad me pertinet juro sed quantum mihi videtur magna necessitate compulsus Cum videro non mihi credi nisi faciam ei qui mihi non credit non expedire quod non credit c. As for my own part I sometimes swear but so far as I am able to judge not but when I am compell'd with the greatest necessity when I see that I cannot be believed except I swear and that it stands not with my neighbours good that he does not believe me Id ibid. An oath is the greatest bond of fidelity amongst men and therfore we should have recourse to it as our sacred anchor when nothing else will establish men in the truth of what we say That faith which we make by oath is the most perfect that can be given saith Halicarnassensis The most firm and therefore should be the last pawn of our veracity saith Procopius Persicorum l. 2. But does it follow that because we must not swear at all not by any kinde of oath first of all or before all other wayes of procaring credit to our words that therefore we may at the last extremity have recourse to a solemn Oath 8. The argument that our Saviour urgeth to perswade us that we swear not at all but let our communication be yea yea nay nay evinceth Christ to intend in this prohibition common but not solemn swearing For whatsoever is more then these cometh of evill or the evill one that is of the devil For except we understand Christ to speak here of such voluntary asseverations as men make in their ordinary discourse and not of such as either the weight of the case or the necessity of justice call for we must be constrain'd impiously to assert that in all those passages prae-alledged in S. Paul where he called God to witnesse came from an evill spirit that our blessed Saviour so often as he said amen amen which is more then yea yea had those words put into his mouth by the evill one that the elect Angell which Christ sent from heaven to communicate the knowledge of future things to S. John was inspired by the devill when we swear by him that liveth for ever Is it a hard matter now to choose whether we should think that the chosen vessel the elect Angel yea the Archangell of the Covenant were led by an evill spirt â—o say more then yea yea nay nay Or that those men are led by a spirit of errour and under Judiciall blindenesse that cannot see that the words of Christ must necessarily be referred to volantary rash oaths in our common discourse upon slieght occasion without reverence of the divine Majestie or intention to ratifie some truth or promise of weight But that which will give a clearer light to this text and be a more full demonstration of the truth that I am contending for is this observation That Christ affirms whatsoever is more then these in the case wherein he prohibits the use of more to be intrinsecally and of its own nature of an evill originall For he does not ground this position whatsoever is more is of evill upon either his prohibition or command As if his meaning were that 't is therefore evill because he hath now forbid the use of more but on the contrary he grounds both his prohibition Swear not and his injunction let your communication c. upon this argument because whatsoever is more then these is of evill and presseth the intrinsecal evil that is naturally in that which he prohibits antecedently to his forbidding of it as the reason of his prohibition He does not say I have now forbid you to swear or to use any more then yea and nay and therefore the use of more is evill But the use of more in the case that I speak of is evil and therefore I probibit it whence it unavoidably follows that in all cases wherein Christ here forbids swearing it was ever a sin to swear a sin in the Patriarchs and Old-Testament Saints before this prohibition as well as it is in us Christians since that is rashly prophanely irreverently in our ordinary communication and that Christ hath not made that kinde of reverent swearing a sin to Christians that was the duty and commendation of his antient people 1. It is manifest that all rash swearing whether in Jew or Christian proceeds from the evill heart of him that inures himself to it from that pride athiesm and hypocrisy that lodgeth in the breast doth the mouth utter all vain fruitlesse and precipitate oaths and asseverations and therefore he that fears God will abstain from all customary oaths not only for fear of the event ne jurando ad facilitatem jurandi veniatur ex facilitate ad consuetudinem ex consuetudine in perjurium decidatur S. Austin de mend c. 15. lest by swearing we contract a facility to swear and fall from a facility to a custom and from custome into perjury but in regard to that evill fountain the prophanenesse of the swearers hearts whence all such slink calves of the lips are cast In a word the Russian disgorgeth oaths from the same Principle that the Fanatick powreth out extempore prayers neither of them consider that they are before God while they invoke his name and