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might more correctly fall under a subsequent head, when we come to consider the propriety of oaths of office, I cannot refrain from contrasting these sentiments, whether we regard them as implying the positive prohibition, or steady discountenance of clerical* or other oaths on the part of the Church†, with the practice which I have witnessed with much pain, of subjecting the venerable Primate of all England, every year, to the necessity of taking an oath to discharge faithfully the duties of his office as President of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The same oath must be administered to the Bishops before they can act as Vice-Presidents. This is, indeed, enjoined by the Charter of the Corporation; but it is, I humbly think, unnecessary, and, therefore, on the principles which I trust we have already established, unjustifiable. But this is only one instance, and by no means the most objectionable instance, of the administration of oaths required in our country,

Pope Pascal II., about the commencement of the eleventh century, in a letter to the Archbishop of Polonia, urges the duty of never taking an oath, except on great and urgent occasions, and when there exists a kind of necessity.-Lab: Concil:

I am by no means disposed to maintain the reasonableness of the distinction which would exempt clergymen from such oaths as laymen ought to be compelled to take. In the instance we are now examining, I maintain, that the oath of the President of such a Society, whether he were a clergyman or a layman, would be unnecessary.

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which might be discontinued, without the slightest evil or inconvenience arising from their abolition. At least, in this sentiment I am fortified by the opinion of the great majority of persons, whether of the clergy or the laity, with whom I have had an opportunity of conversing on the subject. Can any one for a moment imagine that it is necessary to bind such a personage as the Archbishop of Canterbury by an oath to be faithful to his duty at the board of a charitable institution? The very Athenians, forbidding their honest citizen to swear, might put us to shame*. The subject was not so well understood a century ago, when the charter was granted, as it now generally is; and I have good hope, that the present members of that body, without one dissentient opinion, would gladly find themselves relieved from the obligation to observe so unnecessary, and, therefore, so unjustifiable a form. Moreover, we are told on high Law authority, that no charter whatever-nothing short of an Act of Parliament, can authorize the taking or administering of such an oath†.

* See Part II., Oaths of Ancient Greece and Rome. See Coke, Inst. iii., 155.

CHAPTER VI.

PRACTICAL TENDENCY OF A MULTIPLICATION OF OATHS.

If we look to the practical tendency of a multiplication of oaths, independently either of Scripture doctrine or primitive testimony, the conclusion forced upon our minds will be, that our present system calls for the interference of a Christian Legislature. From the practice (unhappily, we are compelled to say our practice,) of exacting an oath on all occasions, in every state of every dispute, at every turn of every matter, civil, criminal, ecclesiastical, financial*,-equally in the investigation of the most horrid fratricide before the most solemn tribunal of the land, and in settling the most trifling squabble between two quarrelsome drunkards,—the evils naturally, if not necessarily, resulting, are great and manifold: among the rest, we may at present specify three.

First, a sad diminution of the reverence of an oath, even when duly administered by authority: secondly, a proportionate undervaluing of the simple truth, when unaccompanied by that usual

* I have the greatest satisfaction in being able to state, that numberless oaths have been very lately dispensed with in the Custom-house, by Act of Parliament, and, as I am informed by those who are most competent to judge, without any injury whatever to the revenue.

sanction and thirdly, an evil which seems to be a natural consequence resulting from these two, a recourse to that sanction in common conversation; -an appeal to heaven on trifles, and in every-day intercourse.

With regard to the first evil, we may observe that no principle is more generally established by reasoning and experience, than the common adage, "Familiarity breeds contempt." And I would confidently appeal to the experience of every one, whether by the administration of oaths, as at present witnessed in our Courts of Justice, or our Offices of Police, any religious reverence is promoted towards the Great Being whose name is used, or any sense cultivated of the awful resposibility by which a sworn man is bound. On the contrary, does not the respect with which we once contemplated an appeal to the Omniscient and Omnipotent One, gradually but rapidly diminish, as we become more familiar with the ceremony by its constant repetition ? This effect may, undoubtedly, be owing in some measure to the manner in which the ceremony is conducted; and to this we shall refer hereafter: at present, we allude to the diminished reverence, as a consequence of its frequency*. And if this be the case even in a Court

*Since this chapter was first written, I have carefully read the treatise of Michaëlis to which we must again refer. His testimony, incidentally given to the point we are here

of Justice, how much more widely and generally must this disregard of the Holy Name of God be expected to prevail through the bulk of the people, in consequence of the multiplication of oaths every where, increased as (with few exceptions) they have been a thousand-fold among us, by new enactments of the legislature beyond all proportion to the increase of our population, or to the greater complication of our affairs. Probably the operation of the poor-laws alone, in all their various ramifications, causes more oaths to be sworn in England now, than the entire administration of justice formerly required to be taken in the whole country. And the facility, the utter recklessness, with which paupers will swear, often ignorantly rather than wilfully, as to their settlement, whatever is required of them by the parish officers, or whatever their own wishes lead them to assert, will scarcely be believed, except after personal experience: but it supplies a melancholy proof of the low condition to which the religious sanction of an oath is sunk among us.

examining, is clear and direct. "Our civil punishments of perjury [in Germany] do not stand, certainly, on a better footing than this" [he is speaking of the Roman punishment, or rather, as he most incorrectly infers, the nonpunishment of perjury in Rome]; "only they are now necessary, considering that honesty and the influence of Religion are no longer so universal among mankind, and that oaths have in a great measure lost their respect, in consequence of their pernicious multiplication.”MICHAELIS'S Commentary on the Laws of Moses.

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