2. If it be forbidden it is either, 1. As an act in worship not commanded, and so will-worship. 2. Or as a significant ceremony in worship not commanded. 3. Or as an uncommanded significant ceremony, which hath in itself some forbidden matter or manner. But it is not forbidden in any of these respects; therefore not at all.
I. Not as an act not commanded in worship; for _a quatenus ad omne valet consequentia_, then all acts in worship not commanded would be unlawful, which is false: for, 1. The acts used in swearing, Gen. xxiv. 2; xiv. 22; Apoc. x. 5, were not commanded and yet lawful; of which more anon. 2. God hath not commanded what tune to sing a psalm in, what division to make of the Bible into chapters and verses, whether to use a written or a printed Bible, what words, what method, what particular text to choose, what translation to use, with many such like.
II. Not as a significant ceremony not commanded; for then all such should be forbidden, which is not true. For, 1. Abraham's swearing by lifting up the hand, (and so the angels, Apoc. x.) and Abraham's servant by putting his hand under the thigh, were significant ceremonies. And he that will say they were commanded must prove it. The contrary may well by us be supposed, 1. Because no such law is notified in Scripture, and here _non apparere_ and _non esse_ are equal, because of the perfection of God's laws. 2. Because it is mentioned, as Paræus and other commentators note, as some accustomed rite, and so dependeth not on any particular precept to Abraham alone as a prophet. 3. Because it is not one but several sorts of swearing rites that are mentioned, lifting up the hand, and putting it under the thigh.
2. Almost all christians take some uncommanded significant ceremony in swearing to be lawful. The ceremony mentioned by Paræus, ibid. as used in the Palatinate, is such, of lifting up three fingers, _Hodie nos juramus, digitis tribus dextræ sublatis, invocantes vindicem S. Trinitatem_. The English annotations tell you that the customs of countries are very various in this point, yet most agree in adding some outward attestation of action or gesture to words in taking of an oath, to make it better remembered and more regarded, than bare words of affirmation, promise, or imprecation. And Josephus (cited by Grotius) tells us it was then the custom among the Jews to swear by this ceremony of putting the hand under the thigh (whether in token of subjection, or because it was the place of the sword, the instrument of revenge, as Grotius and others, or in expectation of the promised seed, as the fathers thought). And the case of Joseph's adjuration shows it. Vid. Perer. in Gen. xiv. and xxiv.