that they are ever like to be reformed, and not grow careless and accustomed to the sin? Your first care must be for preventing the sin, and doing the duty; saying, as David, “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me: I was dumb with silence, I held my peace." "My tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long "." My tongue shall speak of thy word c." My tongue is as the pen of a ready writer." But your next care must be to repent of the faults which you commit, and to judge yourselves for them and reform: remembering that " there is not a word in your tongues, but is altogether known to God."

Direct. xv. Make use of a faithful monitor or reprover.' We are apt, through custom and partiality, to overlook the faults of our own speech. A friend is here exceeding useful. Desire your friend therefore to watch over you in this: and amend what he telleth you of: and be not so foolish as to take part with your fault against your friend.

Tit. 2. Special Directions against profane Swearing, and using God's name unreverently and in vain.

I. To swear is an affirming or denying of a thing, with an appeal to some other thing or person, as a witness of the truth or avenger of the untruth, who is not producible as witness or judge in human courts. An affirmation or negation is the matter of an oath: the peculiar appellation is the form. It is not every appeal or attestation that maketh an oath. To appeal to such a witness as is credible and may be produced in the court, from a partial, incredible witness, is no oath. To appeal from an incompetent judge or an inferior court, to a competent judge or higher court, is no swearing. To say, 'I take the king for my witness,' or 'I appeal to the king,' is not to swear by the king: but to say, ⚫ I take God to witness,' or 'I appeal to God as the judge of the truth of what I say,' is to swear by God. But to appeal to God as a righteous Judge, against the injustice or cruelty of men, without relation to his attesting or judging

a Psal. xxxix. 1--3.

d Psal. xlv. 1.

b Psal. xxxv. 28.
e Psal. cxxxix. 4.

© Psal. lxxi. 24 cxix. 172. f Deut. vi. 13. x. 20.

any affirmation or negation of our own, is no swearing by him, because there wanteth the matter of an oath. An oath is an appeal to some supernatural or higher and more terrible power, than that of the court or person we swear to, to make our testimony the more credible, when other evidences of certainty or credibility are wanting. So that a legal testimony or appeal are not swearing.

Swearing is either just and lawful, or sinful and abusive. To a just and lawful oath it is necessary, 1. That it be God alone ultimately that we swear by because no witness and avenging judge above human courts can be appealed to but God: and therefore to swear by any creature properly and in the sense that God is sworn by, is to idolize it, and to ascribe to it the properties of God". (Of which more anon.) 2. It is necessary to a just oath, that the matter be true as it is assertory or negative, and also if it be promissory, that the matter be, 1. Honest and lawful, 2. and possible. And where any one of these is wanting, it is unlawful. 3. It is needful that there be an honest end; for the end is a principal ingredient in all moral good and evil. 4. It is needful that it be done upon a sufficient call and honest motives, and not unnecessarily or without just reason. 5. And the manner and circumstances must be lawful.

And oath is an equivocal word, taken sometimes for that which is formally so, as before described; and sometimes for that which is but the matter and expressive form without any real intent of swearing. Or, an oath is taken either for the whole human act completely, containing the words signifying and the purpose signified; or else for the outward sign or words alone. (As the word prayer signifieth sometimes the bare form of words, and sometimes the words and desire signified by them. And as the word sacrament is sometimes taken for the external signs only, and sometimes for the signs with the mutual covenanting and actions signified.) Here it may be questioned,—

Quest. Whether it be swearing or not, which is frequently used by ignorant, careless people, who use the words or form of an oath, in mere custom, not knowing what an bath is, nor having any thought or purpose of appealing to God, or to the creature by which they swear. The reason

Isa. xlviii. 1. Jer. iv. 2.

of the doubt is, because it seemeth to be but the matter or external part of an oath; and it is the form that specifieth and denominateth. He that should ignorantly speak the words of an oath in Latin or Greek while he understandeth not the language and intendeth no such thing, doth not swear.'

Answ. 1. In the full and properest sense of the word, it is before God no oath if there be no intent of confirming your speech by an appeal to God, or to that which you swear by. As a ludicrous washing and using the words of baptism, is no true baptism, no more than a corpse is a man. (And thus it is true which the Papists say, that the intention of the baptizer is necessary to the being of baptism: that is, it is necessary to the being of sacramental administration to the baptizer himself, before God, that he really intend to baptize; and it is necessary to the being of baptism before God in the person baptized that he himself if at age, or those that have power to dedicate him to God if he be an infant, do really intend it: and it is necessary to the being of the external ordinance in 'foro ecclesiæ,' 'before the church,' that both the baptizer and baptized do profess or seem to intend it.) 2. But if you use such words as are the ordinary form of an oath in a language which you understand, so as the hearers may justly suppose you to understand it, it is an oath, coram hominibus,' before men,' and in the latter narrower sense of the word. And it shall be obligatory and pleadable against you in justice by those you swear to: yea, and God take you thereby to be obliged thus to men: and if it be a profane, causeless swearing, men must call it an oath ; for they see not the heart; even as they must take him to be baptized that professeth to intend it: and' in foro humano,' it is so indeed: and God himself will account you a sinner, even one that useth the external form of an oath, and that which before men, is an oath, to the wrong of his name and honour, and to the scandal of others. And it will not excuse you that you knew not that it was an oath, or that you knew not the nature of an oath, or that you rashly used it, not considering that it was an oath : for you were bound to have known and to have considered: you should have done it, and might have done it if you would. But if they

any court of himself, doth

were words which you could not know to have been the form or expressions of an oath, but the hearers might perceive that you meant no such thing, but something else, then you are excusable, if you had just cause to use them.

II. As to the case of swearing by creatures, how far is it sinful; it is just like the case of worshipping images, or by images. He that worshippeth an image or any creature as God, and ultimately terminateth his worship in it, doth commit direct and full idolatry": which is so much the greater sin, by how much the baser the thing is which he idolizeth. But if he make the image or creature but his medium of that worship which should be immediately offered to God, in whom it is ultimately terminated, then it is not gross idolatry, but it is false and forbidden worship of the true God. But if the creature be made but the medium of that worship which God would have offered him by a medium, then it is lawful so to use or worship it (as to honour and admire God as appearing in his works; to give that worship or honour to our parents and rulers as his officers, which is ultimately terminated in God); just so it is in the case of swearing: for swearing is a part of the worship of God. He that sweareth by any creature as a God, or as the avenger of those that by falsehood elude the judgment of man, doth commit idolatry in it1; as Julian did when he swore by the sun (which he praised by his orations and worshipped as God). But he that only sweareth so by a creature, as to intend God ultimately as the witness and avenger, but yet so as that the creature only is named, or so named as hath an appearance of idolatry, or tendeth to entice the mind from God, or scandalously to obscure his honour, or in any other forbidden way, doth swear by the true God intentionally, but in a sinful manner. But he that directly sweareth by God (upon a just call), and by the creature (or nameth the creature rather), but in a just, and clear, and inoffensive subordination to God, is excusable. So we use to lay our hands on the Bible and thus to swear 'So help me God, and the contents of this book.' Thus on great occasions many good men in their writings to clear themselves from some caDeut. x. 23. Isa. xlv. 23. lxv. 16. Jer. iv. 2. 1 Amos. viij. 14. Hos. iv. 15.

Zeph. i. 5. Jer. xii. 16. Isa. xix, 18.

lumny have said I call God, and angels, and men to witness.' Many in naming creatures intend rather a curse than a swearing by the creature: as 'If it be not so, let God destroy me by this fire, or this water, &c.'

Quest. Is it lawful to lay hands on the book and kiss it in swearing as is done in England?'

Resp. To take an oath as imposed in England with laying the hand on the Bible and kissing it, is not unlawful.

Proved 1. That which is not forbidden by God is lawful (before God). But so to take an oath is not forhidden by God Therefore, &c. The minor will be proved sufficiently by disproving all the pretences of a prohibition. The major needeth no proof.

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: forá 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 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 by us may well 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