Objections to taking an oath in any form, are by no means of recent origin in our country. Quakers, indeed, are generally supposed to be the only or the first persons to have objected, from religious scruples, to take an oath, even when required to do so by a judge in the furtherance of justice; but this is by no means the case. The unlawfulness of taking an oath was one of the tenets of the old Anabaptists, long before the Quakers had a name or existence in Christendom. And, in ages of our history still more remote, whilst the intolerant spirit of the times suggested a very summary method to prevent the spreading of the same error, measures were also taken to inform the people of England of the true state of the case. Whilst the Constitutions of Arundel provided that, "None shall bring into dispute the determinations of the Church concerning oaths to be taken in the ecclesiastical or temporal courts, on pain of being declared a heretic;" it was at the same time directed, that "it shall be publicly taught and preached by all, that, in judicial matters, oaths may lawfully be taken*."

Now how much soever we may disclaim the spirit of the penal clause in these Constitutions, disobey. If oaths are at all lawful, which is the question now to be examined, I cannot consider the form now prescribed by our laws so essentially objectionable, as to justify any subject who lives under the protection of those laws, in refusing to submit to it.

Arundel, Lindwood, 297.

that the doctrine required by them to be taught is agreeable to the principles of Christian truth, can, I conceive, admit of no doubt at all with reasonable and well-informed men, who will patiently and calmly examine the question for themselves, with the same openness to conviction which they would entertain in any secular or philosophical inquiry; weighing the true intent and meaning of words rather than their sound, and looking to the spirit and circumstances of a command, rather than to its mere letter.

In the first place, oaths were not only tolerated among the Israelites, when the Almighty was their immediate sovereign legislator, but, in some cases, positively commanded. This fact proves, that by themselves, in their nature, they are not evil. For had they been intrinsecally sinful, GOD, the author of the Mosaic Polity, would not have enjoined them*. I do not here allude to the command, “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name," because I can regard that rule as nothing more than a prohibition against swearing by any other name whatever except only the name of Jehovah; just as

* Augustin, in his Comment on St. James, uses the same argument. "If an oath had been sin, we should not have read in the Old Testament, 'Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform to the Lord thy oath;' for a sin would never have been enjoined on us."

Deut. vi. 13.

"Be

we must interpret the precept of the Apostle, ye angry, and sin not*," as a prohibition of immoderate and implacable anger, rather than as any recommendation of anger itself. But there are direct commands to the civil magistrate to administer "an oath of the Lord," in confirmation of the truth†.

Jehovah represents himself as confirming his promises by an oath; the patriarchs and holy men of God, on important occasions, took an oath themselves, and caused others to swear, without any intimation ever being given to them or to us of the impropriety of their acts in that particular. There is no instance of an oath, as such, being forbidden in the Old Testament. All the admonitions and threats there, are against three species of oaths: 1. Those which were sworn by any false God. 2. Those which were sworn falsely by the true God; and, 3. Such as were taken on ordinary and trivial occasions. All which particular prohibitions tend to show, that an oath which violates none of these, is lawful; in the same way that exceptions affirm a rule.

It follows of necessity, that oaths are not, in themselves, sinful. But are they not prohibited to Christians by the positive injunction of our Lord himself, and of his inspired apostle St. James ? "I say unto you, Swear not at all:" "Above all things, brethren, swear not‡." Now that both the † Exodus xxii, 11. ‡ Matt. v. 34.—James v. 12.

*

Eph. iv. 26

blessed Founder of our faith, and his apostle, intended only to forbid all vain, and rash, and common swearing, and to reprobate the self-deceiving folly of the Jews, who called upon creatures to witness their oaths in the hope at once of deceiving those to whom they swore, and still of not incurring the guilt of perjury, seems to me a conclusion from their words altogether evident and satisfactory. That neither Christ nor his apostle intended to pronounce on the absolute unlawfulness of an oath is, I conceive, put beyond fair controversy by the very terms of their prohibition, by the example which Christ, our perfect pattern, himself set us on one of the most solemn occasions of his life upon earth, and by the conduct and words of the apostles themselves, when acting under his direction, and speaking immediately in his cause, and in his

name.

Were we inquiring into the real purport of any human uninspired teacher's precept, an exception might be fairly taken against an appeal to his example as conclusive, because many of us "say, and do not." But, in the case of our Lord, this objection would be irreverence itself; whilst his example is unequivocal, and precisely to the point. When the high-priest put him upon his oath judicially, he broke the silence which he had previously kept, and forthwith made answer.— "I call upon thee (said Caiaphas) to swear by the

living God, whether thou be the Christ." "I am," was, in effect, the reply; "Thou hast said*," being as much a direct answer in the affirmative, as our word " Aye," or "Yes."

This argument from the example of our Lord, seems to me so very important, and if satisfactorily established, so conclusive of the point in question, that I have been induced to throw together in the Third Part, Sect. D, the reasons that compel me to regard the interpretation which I have here given, as the only correct and sound view of the passage. And I cannot help humbly, but earnestly inviting my readers to a careful and patient examination of the chain of arguments there offered.

Can we, I would ask, conceive a more favourable opportunity to have offered itself than this, for Christ to have refused to take an oath himself, alleging its inconsistency with his spiritual kingdom, and to have delivered a prohibition against all oaths among his followers for ever? Yet, instead of intimating the slightest objection to the oath, he received it in the form in which the high-priest offered it, and swore by the living God.

St. Paul takes an oath again and again, most unequivocally, to the truth of his assertions; "God

* Matt. xxvi. 63. The Greek words are:-'Eogxiwor κατὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος, and Σὺ εἶπας—which our translation renders, “I adjure thee by the living God," and "Thou hast said."