Adieu, Good-bye or God be with you, and God forbid, which may have had a pious origin, constantly used without any recognition of their true import, but even persons professing to fear God often allow themselves to use his name as a mere expression of surprise. God is everywhere present. He hears all we say. He is worthy of the highest reverence ; and He will not hold him guiltless who on any occasion uses his name irreverently.
Oaths.
The command not to call upon God to confirm a lie, cannot be considered as forbidding us to call upon Him to confirm the truth. And such is the general nature of an oath. Oaths are of two kinds, assertatory, when we affirm a thing to be true ; and prom- issory, when we bring ourselves under an obligation to do, or to forbear doing certain acts. To this class belong official oaths and oaths of allegiance. In both cases there is an appeal to God as a witness. An oath, therefore, is in its nature an act of wor- ship. It implies, (1.) An acknowledgment of the existence of God. (2.) Of his attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, justice, and power. (3.) Of his moral government over the world ; and (4.) Of our accountability to Him as our Sovereign and Judge. Hence " to swear by the name of Jehovah," and to acknowledge Him as God, are the same thing. The former involves the latter.
Such being the case, it is evident that a man who denies the truths above mentioned cannot take an oath. For him the words he utters have no meaning. If he does not believe that there is a God ; or suppose that he admits that there is some being or force which may be called God, if he does not believe that that Being knows what the juror says, or that He will punish the false swearer, the whole service is a mockery. It is a great injustice, tending to loosen all the bonds of society, to allow atheists to give testimony in courts of justice.1
The imprecation usually introduced in the formula of an oath, is not essential to its nature. It is indeed involved in the appeal to God to bear witness to the truth of what we say, but its direct assertion is not necessary. Indeed, it is not found in any of the oaths recorded in the Bible. Some strenuously object to its intro-
i In a recent murder trial in one of the courts of New York, a young scientific physician was called to give testimony on what constitutes insanity. He distinctly asserted that thought was a function of the brain ; that Where there is no brain there can be no thought ; and that a disordered brain necessitates disordered mental action. Of course, God having no brain cannot be intelligent? in other words, there can be no God. Such a man may be a good -chemist or a good surgeon; but he is no more competent to be a witness in a court of justice, tha it he is fit to be a Treacher.
308 PART m. Ch. XIX.— the law.
duction, as involving a renunciation of all hope of the mercy and grace of God, and as an equivalent to an imprecation on one's self of everlasting perdition.
The Lawfulness of Oaths.
The lawfulness of oaths may be inferred, —
1. From their nature. Being acts of worship involving the acknowledgment of the being and attributes of God, and of our responsibility to Him, they are in their nature good. They are not superstitious, founded on wrong ideas of God or of his relation to the world ; nor are they irreverent ; nor are they useless. They have a real power over the consciences of men ; and that power is the greater according as the faith of the juror and of society in the truths of religion, is the more intelligent and the stronger.
2. In the Scriptures, oaths, on proper occasions, are not only permitted, but commanded. " Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and shalt swear by his name. (Deut. vi. 13.) " He who blesseth himself in the earth, shall bless himself in the God of truth ; and he that sweareth in the earth, shall swear by the God of truth." (Is. lxv. 16.) " It shall come to pass, if they will dili- gently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, Jeho- vah liveth ; (as they taught my people to swear, by Baal ;) then shall they be built in the midst of my people." (Jer. xii. 16 ; iv. 2.) God Himself is represented as swearing. (Psalms ex. 4 ; Heb- rews vii. 21.) " When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself." (Heb. vi. 13.) Our blessed Lord also, when put upon his oath by the high priest, did not hesitate to answer. (Matt. xxvi. 63.) The words are, 'EgopKifa o-€ Kara rov ®eov tov Zjuvtos, which are correctly rendered by our version, " I adjure thee (call on thee to swear) by the living God." Meyer in his comment on this passage says : " An affir- mative answer to this formula was an oath in the full meaning of the word." And our Lord's reply, u Thou sayest," is the usual Rabbinical form of direct affirmation.1 The Hebrew word 2?$$n is rendered in the Septuagint by 6p/a'£a) and ifrpKifa, and in the Vulgate by adjuro. See Genesis 1. 5, " My father made me swear, wpKia-i //.€." Num. v. 19, " The priest shall charge ner by an oath, opKul avrrjv." It appears from this passage as well as from others in the Old Testament, that oaths were on certain occasions en- joined by God himself. (Ex. xxii. 10.) They cannot, therefore,, be unlawful.
1 See Schoettfren's Hor. Hebr. et Tatm., Matt. v. 34; Dresden and Leipzig, 1733, p. 40.
f 7.] THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 309
Seeing, then, that an oath is an act of worship ; that it is en- joined on suitable occasions ; that our Lord himself submitted to be put upon his oath ; and that the Apostles did not hesitate to call God to witness to the truth of what they said ; we cannot admit that Christ intended to pronounce all oaths unlawful, when he said, as recorded in Matthew v. 34, " Swear not at all." This would be to suppose that Scripture can contradict Scripture, and that Christ's conduct did not conform to his precepts. Neverthe- less, his words are very explicit. They mean in Greek just what our version makes them mean. Our Lord did say, " Swear not at all." But in the sixth commandment it is said, " Thou shalt not kill." That, however, does not mean that we may not kill ani- mals for food ; for that is permitted and commanded. It does not forbid homicide in self-defence, for that also is permitted. Neither does it forbid capital punishment ; for that is not only permitted but even commanded. The meaning of this command has never been doubted or disputed, because it is sufficiently explained by the context and occasion, and by the light shed upon it by other parts of Scripture. As, therefore, the command, " Thou shalt not kill," forbids only unlawful killing ; so also the command, " Swear not at all," forbids only unlawful swearing.
This conclusion is confirmed by the context. A great part of our Lord's Sermon on the Mount is devoted to the correction of perversions of the law, introduced by the Scribes and Pharisees. They made the sixth commandment to forbid only murder ; our Lord said that it forbade all malicious passions. They limited the seventh commandment to the outward act; He extended it to the inward desire. They made the precept to love our neighbour consistent with hating our enemies ; Christ says, " Love your enemies, bless them that curse you." In like man- ner, the Scribes taught that the law allowed all kinds of swearing, and swearing on all occasions, provided a man did not forswear himself ; but our Lord said, I say unto you, in your communica- tions swear not at all ; this is plain from ver. 37, " Let your com- munications (Aoyos, word, talk) be Yea, yea ; Nay, nay : for whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil." It is unneces- sary, colloquial, irreverent swearing our Lord condemns. This has nothing to do with those solemn acts of worship, permitted and commanded in the word of God. The Jews of that age were espe- cially addicted to colloquial swearing, holding that the law for- bade only false swearing, or swearing by the name of false gods ; i
1 See Meyer on this passage, who refers to Philo. De Spec. Leg. ; A. Lightfoot, fforas ;
310 PART m. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
hence our Lord had the more occasion to rebuke this sin, and show the evil of any such adjurations.
When are Oaths lawful,
1. As an oath involves an act of worship, it is plain that it should not be taken on any trivial occasion, or in an irreverent manner.