THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF TAKING OATHS. CONSIDERABLE differences of opinion have prevailed amongst moral and political philosophers respecting the value and justifiability of oaths; but if the disputants profess to hold themselves bound by the teaching of Jesus, as is commonly the case, there is no room for questioning that, in obedience to his commands, they must not venture upon taking an oath, either in their private conversation or in the performance of citizen duties. He said, "Ye "have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say "unto you, Swear not at all, neither by heaven for it is God's throne; nor by "the earth for it is His footstool; neither by Jerusalem for it is the city of "the Great King; neither shalt thou swear by thine head, because thou "canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communications be yea, yea, nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”* There are men who do not understand this language to mean that the system of oath-taking was to be abandoned; but who maintain that instead of repudiating the practice it distinctly approves it, and who hold that none save those who are corrupt at heart can distort the words of our Lord into an approval of refusing to attest our statements by an oath.' 6 666 Paley argues that, "as to the seeming universality of the prohibition "swear not at all,' the emphatic clause 'not at all' is to be read in connexion "with what follows, i.e. neither by the heaven' nor by the earth,' nor by Jerusalem,' nor by 'thy head; not at all, does not mean upon no occasion, "but by none of these forms." Surely if Jesus had meant only to forbid four modes of taking an oath, he selected that form of language which was the least fitted for his purpose. The 'not at all' must be wholly omitted as destroying that sense, and the form of testimony which follows is equally valueless. Had he said, 'Thou shalt not swear by heaven, by earth, by 'Jerusalem, or by thine head,' then it would have been less unreasonable to suppose he intended to draw the line at that point; but speaking as he spake no such conclusion can be justified. It seems, however, that this evasion has approved itself to the orthodox mind, for its use has become quite common. By another section of divines, it has been contended that Jesus did not intend to repudiate the use of oaths for judicial purposes, but only in relation to what is called profane swearing. Pitman says, "As our Saviour in "the preceding prohibition alludes to the oaths used in common conversation, "he has not banished them from courts of judicature." Here the point at issue is very coolly assumed, and then treated as an undoubted fact. Jeremy Taylor pursues the same course, arguing that Jesus did not aim at abolishing the use of oaths when deposing in judgment, but only oaths promissory, or vows; adding, “that all promises with oaths are forbidden to Christians, unless they be made to God, or God's vicegerent in a matter not trifling." His argument is so conducted, that, although at the opening he fully recognises that "Christ forbade all swearing," before he arrives at its close, he succeeds in introducing so many modifications that there are no barriers against swearing left standing. He admits that oaths promissory' are forbidden, yet urges that princes and such as have power of decreeing the injunction of 'promissory oaths be very curious and reserved, not lightly enjoining such * Matthew v. 33-37. Practical Commentary, &c., p. 66. + Moral Philosophy Chap. xvi. § iii. 2. § Life of Christ, Part ii. sec. xii. §§ 18-22 So 'promises, neither in respect of the matter trivial, nor yet frequently, nor 'without great reason enforcing.'* Put into plain language, this is only saying Christ forbade the use of promissory oaths, and therefore princes 'must not make it their too common practice to insist upon their use.' that, according to this, the will of princes is of superior authority to the direct commands of Jesus. Jeremy Taylor had made up his mind that oaths must be administered; that, especially in the revolutionary age in which he lived, they could not be avoided; and then he felt it to be necessary to strain the words of the Great Teacher into conformity with the popular usages. If no such custom had prevailed, and it had been proposed to introduce it, no man would have more eloquently argued against it, urging from the text that to swear for any purpose would be to violate the law given by Jesus. The plain fact of the matter may be thus simply stated. The usages of society have, in opposition to the injunction of Jesus, maintained the system of swearing; while professed believers desire to force a seeming harmony between the prohibition and the continuance of the custom. They are not really careful to observe the commands of their Master; but only to have it believed that they are so. As formal Christians they think much of the name, but little of real obedience. They pursue such courses as are most convenient for them, and then measure and fix the meaning of his words by that convenience. They do not go to his teaching to search out the rule of duty; but endeavour to discover how his sayings may be strained into conformity with their practices. Hence it comes that when in plain language he condemns any practice which is popular, and supported by law, they hesi tate not to set forth that his words are not to be understood in their obvious meanings, but only in a non-natural sense. When he says, 'Thou shalt do no 'murder,' they recognise that his meaning is precisely that which lies upon the surface of the words, but when he says 'Swear not at all,' then, because they wish to preserve the oath-taking custom, they resort to all kinds of arguments to show that he meant to enjoin men to swear in the absolute sense, whenever called upon officially to do so;-the negative in all its forms is carefully excised, and the non-natural is made to triumph. They are not brave enough honestly to say that, finding it convenient to continue the system of swearing, they oppose the teaching of Jesus; they are not candid enough to do justice to his aims and motives, and simplicity of speech; but to shield their own perversity and cowardice, they proceed, practically, and in the most scandalous manner, to represent him as the greatest Jesuit that ever existed—that is, they make him out to have used language with double meanings, language that could only have deceived all who heard him speak, and thus while professing to honour his name, they offer the greatest insult to his memory. To illustrate this I shall subjoin a few out of hundreds of examples, in which men have distorted his words, so as to force them to bear these foriegn meanings. Some of the German critics have made the discovery that Jesus did not 'intend his words to be used as of things and men as they then existed.' They argue that Christians were not to make oath one to another, but only to the world. Within the spiritual kingdom there were to be no oaths,' yet in all external action the righteous are to use them until the world becomes spiritual. As a rule they are not to swear in common conversation. "But "when adequate reason for an oath occurs, it is not only permitted but even "commanded, as a service to God and to our neighbour, to corroborate our * Life of Christ, Part ii. sec. xii, § 22. plain words by such confirmation as may maintain the truth, and advance "the cause of charity.' ."* Stier enters into a lengthened argument, to show that Jesus meant all that, but the judicious reader is not long in perceiving that the author carried his conclusion with him, and did not reach it through the force of his argument. It is needless to travel any farther upon this path, for it will yield nothing satisfactory. The only result to be arrived at by a painfully minute comparison of the explanations, is that all the writers were juggling with words whose plain meaning cannot be misunderstood. A body of thieves could juggle just as well with the words 'thou shalt not steal.' They could most learnedly prove them to mean only that 'men should not do so in daily life,' and that the prohibition does not apply to the hungry man or the English soldier who has found his way into a Chinese residence, or, in fact, to a thousand other conditions easily to be conceived. There is no better reason for limiting the one than the other, for in each case the original language conveys a direct repudiation of the practice it names. In justice however to those who have not consented to play fast and loose with the obvious meaning of words, it should be mentioned that thousands have withstood every temptation, and have borne the severest punishments rather than take an oath. Many of the early Fathers would not swear, though commanded by the civil officers, and threatened with death for their refusal, and St. Basil dealt severely with his Christian brethren who weakly submitted.† At great cost, and enduring many sufferings, members of the Society of Friends have consistently refused to violate this injunction of Jesus, and their learned writers have left Christian men without any excuse in misunderstanding its meaning. Penn applied his vigorous mind to it, and succeeded in presenting the whole argument in a concise form.‡ Barclay completely exhausted it, and has shewn not only that the words of Jesus cannot be properly understood in any other sense than as prohibiting the use of oaths in every form, and under all circumstances; but, also, that the New Testament writers in other words repeat his teaching. § He does not how ever notice the all-important proof found in the fact that Jesus belonged to the Essenes, and that they would not take an oath. It is perfectly true that in many particulars he had gone beyond the limits of their teaching, and had risen to the perception of truths which lay beyond their ken; but there were others in which he still held himself to be a member of their body. One of the latter lay in this, that they would not consent to take an oath because of believing it to be essentially sinful. Josephus says of them, "Their word 66 on every occasion is as firm as an oath; they avoid the administration of oaths 'as believing the custom of swearing to be worse than perjury." This was what Jesus believed, and therein lies the meaning of his words, "But let your "communications be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than this "cometh of evil." The great majority of men failed to perceive any evil in an oath-could not understand that a solemn swearing to the truth of a statement would produce evil; the Essenes had, in common with Solon and other great lawgivers, arrived at another conclusion, which Jesus shared; unhappily none of the men wrote down their reasons. They denounced the practice as productive of evil, but have left us to imagine their motives, or to find in our own experience sufficient reason for repudiating the practice. P. W. P. "Words of the Lord Jesus," vol. I. p. 187. + Serm. xiii. De patient. ? "Apology," Prop. xv. §§ x-xii., Eighth Ed., pp. 542-556. Works, vol. II. p. 363. De Bell. Jud. ii. § 8. SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL SUNDAY EVENING LECTURES. BY P. W. PERFITT, PH. D. ; THIS is rather long for quotation, but is worth reading many times, for what can answer the common religious theories better than such a poem? There it is as in thought it grew up in the human heart, and gradually got itself shaped into poetic form, precisely the same as any other of the numerous poems antiquity has bequeathed us. It is, however, a question if the man who wrote it, wrote out of the fulness of his heart, in the same manner as a Burns or a Cowper have written the only thing certain is, that all the inspiration he had was of the same nature as theirs. There is an undertone of deep religious feeling expressed in the poem, but, I confess, without any corresponding proof of heart-felt earnestness. When a young man reads the Hebrew Melodies of Lord Byron, he feels very much astonished at what he has heard about the scepticism and immoralities of their author, and inquires if the whole story be not a vile fabrication. Time, however, reveals to his mind that there is no necessary connection between the highest active morality and poetic excellence, and upon this well-known fact we proceed when we judge David as a man, apart from David as a poet. Still, however, it is not to be disguised that many excellent critics have denied that he wrote any of the Psalms, and it is only upon conjecture we assign this or any other to his pen. In this collection there are many private pieces-what we should now call fragmentary passages-fugitive pieces written for the relief of a troubled heart. It not unfrequently happens to those who habitually use the pen that hours come when sorrow is throned in the heart, and, although endeavouring their best, they cannot rouse themselves out of the miry slough of despondency into which they have sunk. Adequate reasons for this-physical and mental-can sometimes be assigned, but more frequently there are none to be discovered. They have sunk into a gloominess of spirit, and cannot for a time be roused into activity. Then it is that, travelling through their past, and surveying the weaknesses of which they have been guilty, they unduly magnify and misreport them. The cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, is so distended and coloured by over-heated fancy, by a misled imagination, that it shuts out all light and gladness, and leaves them immersed only the more deeply in a sense of sin and shame, wholly disproportioned to the offence and its causes. Poor Cowper was frequently the victim-for years the victim, of this mental malady, and, in his case, it was without cause. Many have cited his case as furnishing a terrible proof of the evil consequences of thoroughly believing in the Christian religion, forgetting that men of all creeds have suffered the same. There are hymns in the Rig Veda, in which, with all the passion and broken-heartedness of the Psalm-writer, the subject is dwelt upon, and judging from various Greek and other fragments which have reached us, especially in the Anthology, I should be more inclined to view it as physico-mental, that as essentially associated with any religious theory. The celebrated melancholy poem of Cowper is but the reproduction in English of various passages from the Psalms: "Hatred and vengeance-my eternal portion, Wait with impatient readiness to sieze my Damned below Judas, more abhorred than he was, Who for a few pence sold his Holy Master! Twice betrayed, Jesus me, the last delinquent, Deems the profanest. Man disavows and Deity disowns me, Hard lot, encompassed with a thousand dangers; Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice The author of the eighty-eighth Psalm was in no better frame of mind. He was not acquainted with the system of theology-the Calvinism, embodied in Cowper's poems, but his heart was quite as completely overwhelmed by sadness. His soul was full of trouble," he "was counted with them who go down to the "pit," and all his friends had turned their backs upon him. The world had for him neither joy, nor the hope of joy; and he who wrote the seventeenth was in no better condition. As we read such compositions, we cannot avoid feeling how absurd it is for men to declare that God inspired the authors. Would He inspire men to write that which is untrue? He had not cast the writers off for ever; He had not forsaken them, any more than He had forsaken others, and hence, if it be said that He instructed them, that He inspired them, then it must be acknowledged that, under His guidance they wrote that which is untrue. I repudiate the entire theory as unworthy of credit. The fact is that the authors wrote the thoughts of their own minds-diseased thoughts too-precisely the same as Cowper did. We have quite as much reason to believe he was heaven-directed as that they were. But probably, with a little reflection, the majority of men will reach the conclusion that Heaven would hardly trouble itself to inspire men, so that they may write out morbid pictures of life which, besides that they do themselves no good, are particularly likely to inflict injury upon their innocent readers. It is quite natural to find in this collection a number of national songs. Every nation must sing its own heroes, and, in some kind of song, write out its great successes, else all the valour is lost, and experience is not accumulated in any practical shape. The song of the former victory inspires the young soldier, who is now entering upon his first field of fight, and he dares, and conquers, as a consequence of the inspiration thus received, far more than he could otherwise have fronted. But the peculiarities of nations, their religious theories, will naturally get themselves written out in these songs, and as the spirit of the nation is, so will be the writing. In England we write of Nelson and the North,' but the Hebrews would have written Of God and the North,' for God is the great Hero in all their battle songs, and He it is who delivered them from danger. Read it in the hundred and twenty-ninth : "Often have they oppressed me from my youth, (May Israel now say) Often have they oppressed me from my youth, Yet have they not prevailed against me; The plowers plowed upon my back, They made their furrows long; The Righteous God hath cut the cords of the wicked, The foes of Zion shall return confounded, As grass upon the housetops must they be, |