THE CASE OF THE QUAKERS RELATING TO OATHS STATED.  
Wherein they are Discovered, To oppose Prophetical, To pervert Evangelicall, To falsify Ecclesiastical, and To contradict their own Doctrine.  
By J.S.  
Feb. 17. 1673.  
Imprimatur, Auto, Saunders, Ex Aedibus Lambothavis.  
LONDON, Printed for H. Brome, at the Sign of Gun at the West End of S. Paul's, 1674.   

THE PREFACE.  
THe Envious man finding the whole Fabric of our Church too heavy a burden to bear away at once, divided the work of her ruin to the heads and shoulders of many Instruments; committing to one Sect the study to pull up her hedge, to another the attempt to overthrow her doctrine; to another the care to undermin her worship: And because their respective tasks still proved too difficult for any one of these Parties to compass alone, he subdivided these Provinces to subordinate Vice-gerents; allotting to one the defacing of her Ceremonies, to another the vilifying of the substance of her common and stated Devotions, to another the opposing of her extraordinary and most august acts of Sacred Worship; amongst which the Invocation of God's Name in Solemn and Religious Swearing fell to the Quakers Lot; who being a Generation of men that stick in the bark of the letter, admitting neither coherence of Texts nor analogy of faith; and stumbling upon two Texts that abstracted from both these, seem to favour their Opinion, have with raised outcries attempted to explode that Catholic Custom of the Universal Church, of giving God the honour of appeal to his Omnisciency; for the umpirage of such controversies, as by his Ordinance cannot be determined without an Oath: For the Redemption of these sacred spoils out of their Sacrilegious hands, I have undertaken this expedition, and entered upon this Race, wherein the Prizes I run for, are, First, The maintenance of this Ancient Truth (diametrically opposite to their new Error, so fare as by their canting I 〈◊〉 discern their minds,) viz, That Christians of the highest rank as greatest proficiency, may lawfully (in soon cases) confirm the 〈◊〉 Oath. Secondly, The Vindication of the Evangelical Writings frim false glosses. Thirdly, The Demonstration of their a faithfulness, on their Quotations of Ecclesiastical Testimonies in favour of their Cause.   


SECTION I. Christians of the highest rank and greatest Proficiency, may lawfully in some cases confirm the Truth with an Oath.  
Arg. 1. SAint Paul both knew the mind of Christ, 2 Cor. 1.23 And served God in the spirit, in the Gospel of his Son, Rom. 1.9. yet he was so far from pleading that of the Essenns mentioned by Josephus, Bell. Jud. lib. 2. c. 7. who professed, that [quicquid dixerint validius esse omni juramento & supervacuum esse ipsis jurare] their word was stronger than the oath of other men, and therefore it was superfluous for them to swears Or that of the Scythians, who told Alexander (as Quintus Curtius reports) that their love of veracity was so eminent, as their affirming a thing was in stead of an Oath. Or the custom of the Heroic Age wherein (as Homer relates) the shaking of their Sceptre or shaking by the hand, did more oblige men to speak the truth, and perform promises, than the most sacred Oaths could oblige succeeding degenerate Ages. So far (I say) was S. Paul from pleading such examples or his own exemption from his performance of this office of charity, to common humane infirmity, which in many cases requires the interpositon of an oath in order to the procuring an indubitable persuasion of the truth: as he frequently confirms what he asserts in such like forms of sacred oaths as these, [God is my witness,] Rom. 1.9. [I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the holy Ghost] Rom 9.1. [I call God for a record upon my soul, that, &c] 2 Cor. 1.23. [The God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows that I lie not] 2 Cor. 11.37. [As God is true our word towards you, was not yea and nay.] 2 Cor. 1.18. [Before God I lie not] Gal. 1.20 [God is my record] Phil. 1.8. [The are witnesses and God also] 1 Thes. 2.10. upon which St. Austin, Juravit autem ipse Apostolus in Epistolis suis, & sic ostendit quomodo accipiendum quod dictum est. [Non Jurate omnino.] (Augustine de mend. cap. 15.) for the Apostle himself did swear in his Epistles, and thereby demonstrate, how that is to be understood where it is said, swear not at all. That these forms of speech are sacred oaths, is manifest from Genesis 31.50.53. where Laban and Jacob are said to swear in these forms of words [So God is witness betwixt men and thee,] and [the God of Abram, the God of Nahor, the God of their father's judge betwixt us] and [Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac, that is, by God whom his father worshipped. And (to spare the labour of making more quotations) from the definition of an oath: which in Philo's phrase (de legibus particularibus) and in the common notion of mankind, is nothing else but a calling of God to witness to the truth of what we say. From which, if eminency of Holiness would excuse any man, it would have excused S. Paul, who before the writing of those Epistles, had given greater testimony of his sincerity, veracity, and love to truth, than any man living can (either in truth, or with Christian modesty) lay claim to. Who can have the face to say? That he hath delivered the truth with greater demonstration of the spirit and of power, in words which the Holy Ghost teacheth: (1 Cor. 2.4.13.) That he hath, by manifestation of the truth, commended himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God (2 Cor. 4.2.) more, than this chosen vessel did? which of them, that tell us, we may take their word and spare their oath, dares vie with him in the perils, pains, hardships, labours, losses, which he sustained for the truth's sake? If then S. Paul (notwithstanding Christ's prohibition, and that he could plead more for men's taking his bare yea and nay, than any man now living can plead) did yet frequently confirm his say with an oath; what more then Essaean, than Scythian, than Luciferian pride, possesseth those monsters of men, who have the impudence to plead their own eminency in grace, as that which exempts them, from calling God for a record against their soul, when the considerableness of the thing requires it; From exhibiting to the divine Majesty that part of incommunicable honour due to his sacred and dreadful name. Away with that smoky pride out of God's house, let it not be so much as named amongst Saints, whose character is humility.  
Ang. 2. Without the interposition of an oath 'tis impossible in many cases that Justice can be administered according to the rule of the Gospel. To instance in one for all. Exod. 22.10, 11. [If a man deliver unto his neighbour an ox, or ass, or sheep to keep, and it die, or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it: then shall an oath of the Lord be between them both, that he hath not put his hand to his neighbour's goods, and the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he shall not make it good.] It is the righteous Gods will, that Justice be administered, in this, and the like cases, now under the Gospel, as well as formerly under the law: but in such like cases, it cannot be determined according to the Evangelical rule, who shall bear the loss, without the interposition of an oath. For if the man's bare word be taken for the proof of his innocency, the controversy will be decided by one only witness: directly against Christ's precept: Mat. 18.16. That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And therefore the guiltless party, in such cases as this (where no man but himself is privy to his innocency) must in vindication thereof, take in God to witness with him: that so the matter may be decided by two witnesses at least, to wit, by him that makes oath, and by God whom he calls to witness with him. Briefly we must either make Christ by this prohibition [swear not] to patronise such injustice under the Gospel, as God would not patronise under the law; or proceed to the determination of controversies contrary to Christ's rule: or else put an end to such like strife, by the interposure of an oath. And therefore swearing in such cases is so far from being a sin, as it is a necessary duty, not to be neglected without manifest injustice: to the preventing whereof, and the doing of right betwixt man and man, nothing is more contributory than Evangelicall grace: so far is sanctity from exempting its possessors from the discharge of those offices of charity, which they own to themselves and their neighbour in such cases.  
Arg. 3. That which the spirit of Christ in the old Testament. Prophets (1 Peter 1.11.) did commend, as that which should be the practice of the choice servants of God in the Christian Church called from amongst the Gentiles, after his rejection of the Jews, may lawfully be done by the holiest Christian.  
But the spirit of Christ in the old Testament-Prophets did commend swearing by the God of truth, as that which was to be the practice of Gods elect servants in the Christian Church, after his rejection of the Jews and choosing the Gentiles.  
Therefore the holiest Christian may lawfully swear by the God of truth.  
The major is undeniable, the Assumption I prove, from Isaiah 65. 1●. [And ye shall leave your naine for a curse to my chosen] that is, The people that I shall choose from amongst the gentiles shall use, your name (the name of a Jew) in execrations, when they have a mind to denounce a curse, they shall do it in this or the like form, [the Lord make thee like a Jew whom he hath cast off and made a vagabond upon erath] parllel to that, Jeremy 29.22. of them shall be taken up a curse (that is, the form of a curse) by all the captivity of Judah; saying, the Lord make the like Ahab and Zedekiah (too false prophets) whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire. [For the Lord God shall slay thee and call his servants by another name,] that is, God will dissolve the Judaic Church & Commonwealth, so that his people shall no longer be discriminated from the rest of the world by the name [Jew] but by another new name that which was given at Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christian, by which name ever since the people of the God of Abram, have been called and disserenced from all other people upon the face of the earth. [That 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.] The sum of this whole Paragraph is briefly this. You Jews boast of your privileged, of my electing you out of all Nations to be my peculiar people; and you please yourselves with these conceits, that if I cast you off, I shall have none to worship me in the whole world, I shall break my promise made to Abraham. But know ye that Abraham hath another seed then carnal Jews; and when I cast you off I will take the spiritual seed of Abraham (his children by faith), to be my people; who shall be known from others by the name, [Christian] by these I will be secured, not (as I am now by you) in a corner of the world, Judaea, but in the earth, for the uttermost parts of the earth shall be my possession, and whosoever through the wide world, under the Christian name, shall call upon the name of the true God, shall belesse themselves in his name, and swear by him as the God of truth, as the God, who by choosing gentile-beleevers to be his people, keeps faith with Abraham. See Calvin, S. Jerom, in locum. Oecolampadii hypomnemata, etc.  
Arg. 4. That which the spirit of Christ, that was in the prophets foretold should be done in the time of the Gospel by the Lord's people, as an evidence of their conversion unto the Lord, may lawfully be done by Christians.  
But the spirit of Christ which was in the prophets foretold that in the time of the Gospel, the Lords people should swear by his name, as an evidence of their conversion unto the Lord.  
Therefore a Christian may lawfully swear by the Lords Name.  
The major is beyond all possibility of doubt, if it be considered how it is limited, for I do not say, that whatsoever the prophets foretold should come to pass, may lawfully be done (for I know they foretold the treason of Judas, the Jews rejecting of Christ, & c.) but, that whatsoever they foretold should be done as a sign of grace, as an evidence of their conversion that do it, may be done without sin: For sin cannot be an evidence of grace; works of darkness cannot demonstrate him that does them to be a child of light. The truth of the minor is clear, from Jsaiah 45.23. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousncesse, and shall not return (shall never be repealed) that unto me every knee shall how, every tongue shall swear. From which Text that I may manifest the indubitable truth of each branch of my assmption, Let it e observed.  
1. That this prophecy is to receive its accomplishment in gospel times. For God speaks here to the ends of the earth, bids them look to him and he saved, promiseth salvation to the Gentiles, calleth the dispersed of the nations to come near, and sweareth that every knee shall bow unto him. Now the ends of the earth the nations dispersed did not look to God, were not brought nigh till Gospel-times, till than not the gentile world, but only the Jewish people did bow the knee and swear to the God of Israel, to the Lord Jehovah. Before the coming of Christ and the gentiles embracing the Gospel, they were without God, aliens and strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, and the Covenants of promise, afar off, etc. Ephes. 2.11. etc.  
2. That swearing to the Lord is here prophesied of, as that divine service and homage, by the performing whereof gentile-converts were to declare their owning of, and conversion to the true God. St. Paul quotes this very Text to prove that all inen (Gentiles its well as Jew's) own service to christ, Rom 14, 9, 10. He is Lord of all (that is all nations are to do him homage) for it is written, As I live (saith the Lord) every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. It were blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to say, that the Apostle perverts the prophet's words: but he knowing the mind of the Lord in this text, renders that word in the prophet, [every tongue shall swear,] (which denotes an eminent act of saving confession) by a word which comprehends the whole service of God: thereby implying that swearing by the Lord is one part of divine worship, and so eminent a part of confession to God, as it virtually contains all other acts of such confession; and that we confess our belief in, and subjection to the true God, as well by swearing by his name, as by any other act of divine worship we perform to him. Briefly, the plain sense of the prophet, as S. Paul expounds this text, is this, That as the Gentiles, till Christ (that light that lightens the gentiles) served dunb idols, confessing them to be Gods, by bowing the knee, by swearing to them: so after Christ's calling the gentiles to the Obedience of the true God, man should turn from idols, & acknowledge the living God to be, what his names and attributes import, infinitely knowing, just, powerful, etc. by transferring unto him those divine honours, of bowing the knee and swearing, which before their conversion, they conferred upon false Gods.  
3. That God himself swears by himself (than which infinite wisdom cannot devise a more obliging oath) that the Gentile-Church as well as the Jewish synagogue should by swearing to the Lord makes confession with the mouth unto salvation, that by two immutable things he might more abundantly show unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of this his Council and predetermination, that Christians should homage him with this kind of divine service: and give them as full assurance as 'tis possible for God to give of the acceptableness of this part of sacred worship, And if this be not sufficient to put an end to all controversy touching this question, [whether a Christian may lawfully take an oath,] I shall despair of ever prevailing with such obstinate and reprobate-minded men, by the plainest demonstratious I can lay before them: for how can I hope to convince him with the strongest reasoning, who dare reason against God's oath: Howbeit, That the matter to which God here swears (to wit, that under the Gospel mon shall, in token of their conversion to the living God, swear to him) may be more plain; I shall give a further proof there of out of Isaiah 19.18. etc. In that day shall five Cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of hosts: There shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at the border thereof. And it shall be for a sign and for a Witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. For they shall cry unto the Lord, and he shall send thence a Saviour. And the Lord shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation, yea, they shall Vow a Vow unto the Lord and perform it, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them. Upon which text I note.  
1. That this prophecy concerns Gospell-times, Onias indeed that mock-high-priest, alleged this prophecy to Ptolemy Philometer, and applied the accomplishment of it to that mock-temple which he built at Heliopolis, in imitation of that at Jerusalem, Joseph. Antiq. l. 13. c. 6. and that discreet and sober Jewish priest Josephus himself in his Jewish wars (l. 7 c. 30.) seems to approve of that interpretation. But how wide such Expositors were of the mark of truth, and how unapplicable this Prophecy is to any time, but that when Egypt was called by the preaching of the Gospel to the acknowledgement of the true God, hath abundantly been demonstrated by Eusebins in his Demonstratio Evangelica, and the rest of the ancient Christian Apologists, upon these reasons.  
1. Cnias' erected an altar in Egypt out of a factious opposition to the true high priest Simeon and the Jerusalem Jews of his communion, and occasioned a schism from the Jadean Church, as Josephus confesseth: Bell. Jud. l. 7. c. 30. But the effect of erecting the altar mentioned in this prophecy was the uniting the Egyptians and Jews into one Church, verse. 23. In that day (when this altar shall be erected to the Lord in the midst of Egypt) there shall be an high way out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians shall come into Egypt and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve (the Lord) with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hand, and Israel mine inheritance. Nunc Christo regnante torus mundus uno altari contentus est: (Oecolampad.) now under Christ's kingdom the whole world is content with one altar.  
2. After God had chosen out Jerusalem for the place where he would be worshipped, the Jews were prohibited by the Mosaical law to sacrifice any where but there; And therefore all the sacrifices that were offered upon the altar, that Onias erected in Egypt; were an abomination to the Lord. But God promiseth in this text, to have respect unto the oblations offered upon this altar, whether by Jew or Gentile; and therefore the acceptable sacrifice and oblations here mentioned, can be no other than that pure oblation, which after the coming of Christ should every where be offered, when God's name should be great amongst the Gentiles, Mal. 1.11. Nor the altar here specified any other then that which S. Paul mentions, Heb. 13.10. We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the tabernacle; that is, Christ's Table-throne of grace, whereon we offer to God his Creatures of bread and wine, and in the Sacramental use of them, celebrate the commemoration of Christ's one oblation of himself once made for all, and ourselves unto God, as a living sacrifice, together with our contributions of charity, a sacrifice wherewith God is well-pleased. Respondeant Judaei, lege praeceptum est ut altare non siat nisi in loco, quem elegerit Dcus, & hostiae tantum a sacerdotibus Levitici generis immolentur. Ecce Esaias aperte decet qued Aegiptii colent Deum & hostias & mumera offerant. Si Aegiptii Sacerdotium habeant; impletur & in illis Pauli testimonium dicentis: translato Sacerdotio, necesse est ut leg is translatio fiat. Hieronymus in locum. Let the Jew, if he can, answer this, saith S. Jerome, In the Law there was a precept, that no altar should be set up but in the place that God should choose; and that the beasts should be sacrificed only by the Priests of Levies stock; But lo Esaias saith plainly, that the Egyptians shall offer sacrifices and oblations; If the Egyptians have a Priesthood, that Testimony of S. Paul is fulfiled in them, saying, If the Priesthood be changed, there must of necessity be a change also of the Law.  
3. Not the Egyptians but the Jews sacrificed on that altar which Onias erected: but upon the altar to be erected, according to the tenure of this prophecy in Egypt, the Egyptians were to do sacrifice and make oblation unto the Lord.  
4. During the continuance of the Mosaical law and the standing of Onias his temple and altar in Egypt, and before the erecting of the Christian altar and the standard of Christ in Egypt, the Egyptians cried for salvation unto their Idols not unto the Lord, made vows to them, swore by them: they spoke the language of the heathen not of Canaan: neither had they a Saviour sent unto them, till God sent Christ to bless them. Nor did Israel, Egypt, Assyria, and other gentiles serve God together in the communion of one Catholic Church. Nor did God bless the Gentiles (as he promiseth here he would bless the Egyptians and Assyrians) by the name of his people, till Christ took down the partition-wall, made of twain (Jew and Gentile) one body, and called them a people that were not formerly the people of God. It is manifest out of S. Jerom, (upon this text) who conversed with the Palestine Jews, that their Expositors applied this text to the days of the Messiah: but when our Apologists upon that concession proved the blessed Jesus to be the Christ; some of them applied it to the end of the world: at what time they conceive their Messiah will come, upon the very same mistaken scripture-texts, upon which our Millenaries ground their expectation of Christ's personal reign.  
2. I note from this prophecy: that swearing to the Lord is here commended as a sign, witness, and argument of Egypt's conversion to the Lord of hosts: And it shall be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord in the land of Egypt, that is, it shall be à witness that the land of Egypt is become the Lords inheritance, that the Egyptians have dedicated themselves to the Lord: that he is their God and they his people, [It shall be for a sign] this hath relation to the whole clause aforegoing: not only to the pillar erected, which is mentioned immediately before, as if the sense were [this pillar shall be a sign] for the altar in the midst of Egypt, the Egyptian Cities, speaking the language of Canaan, and their swearing to the Lord, are as much signs as that: Nor doth the prophet speak in the plural number [they shall be signs] as if he meant the two last particulars joined by a conjunction copulative, the altar and the pillar, but in the singular [It shall be a sign] that is, the whole series of those divine dispensations; when the Egyptian cities shall speak the holy language, when they shall swear to the Lord, erect an altar and pillar to the Lord, this shall be a sign of Egypt's submitting to Christ's sceptre. Nihil alud vult, quam mutatum cultum idolorum & translatum in honorem Dei. Oecolam. in locum. the meaning of all this is, that divine honour and worship which they had given to their idols, they should alter the property thereof, and transfer it to the true God. Is any thing more obvious than that Egypt's swearing, erecting altars and pillars to Idols, was a sign of her owning those Idol Gods? or that Egypt's speaking the language of God's people, setting up an altar and pillar to the Lord, her making vows and paying them, her offering sacrifice and oblations to the Lord, were trophies of Christ's victory over Egypt, and signs of Egypt's submission to Christ: with what show of reason than can we except swearing to the Lord out of the catalogue of those signs, seeing that is spoken with the same breath, belongs to the same thing, and therefore must be put in the same case, and be interpreted, (Monumentum, & professio publica quam Egiptii, statuent ad testandam fidem & communionem suam cum Deo & Ecclesia ejus, Junius in locum. as well as any of the rest: A monument and public profession which the Egyptians were to erect to testify their faith and their communion with God and his Church.  
2. Swearing to the Lord is in this Text made a branch of speaking the language of Canaan. They shall speak the language of Canaan, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, swearing by the name of the Lord, as the authentic Translation of the Septuagint renders it, which Christ and the Apostles perpetually used in all their quotations of the Old Testament, as that which had been current through the world for above 200. years before Christ's Incarnation, without contradiction of the Jews, and not so obnoxious to adulteration afterwards, as the Hebrew Copies were, who were in the custody of the Jews alone, and in a language which none understood but themselves; and therefore as apt to be corrupted, as the Jews (out of an odium to Christian Religion) were apt to corrupt them: as it is manifest they have done in most of those Texts which concern the Messiah; though this by good providence hath escaped their lime-twigg-fingers: for the Hebrew now extant retains the participle, jurantes; So that to swear by the Lord of hosts is to speak the language of Canaan, that pure language which God promised to restore to all Nations at the coming of Christ; That pure and undefiled Religion which was at first revealed to man in Paradise; for before Christ all Nations but the Jews, the inhabitants of Canaan, swore by other Gods, and to swear by the Lord of hosts was the proper idiom of Jury, where that God was well known. I know Jerom hath a conceit that Nabuchadnezzar after his conquest of Egypt, sent a colony of syrians & Arabians into certain Egyptian cities, who introdueed the use of their tongue into those Cities; But he learned this of the Jewish tradition-mongers (of whom he was too great an admirer, and through his credulity received oftentimes false aims) who put this Exposition upon this clause, on purpose to divert it from bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel. And he must be a very great stranger to the propriety of prophetic language, that knows not, that the language of Canaan imports in their dialect the speaking after the mode and form of God's people, and that therefore Egypt's foregoing her native gentile-tongue, and using the speech of that people, over whom God had a peculiar Sovereignty, in swearing to him after their form, was a sign of God's conquest of the Egyptians, of his translating them from his dominion of Satan into the Kingdom of his dear Son: so far is swearing by the Lord of hosts, or in the name of the true God, in cases of importance, from being a sin, as it is an evedence of the Christian world's conversion to, and recognition of that God.  
Arg. 5. The holiest Christian may lawfully, and laudably do that, which the spirit of Christ that spoke by the prophets, hath made the do of in Gospell-times, the condition of Gods accepting men for his people.  
But the spirit of Christ in the Prophets hath made men's learning to swear by his name, such a condition, as upon the fulfilling thereof, he will number men amongst his disciples, account them his people that do, and root out and utterly destroy them that do not learn to swear by his name.  
Therefore the holiest Christian may lawfully swear by God's name.  
The major is plain, for it is impossible that God should tempt men to sin by making the committing thereof the condition of the grand and comprehensiye promise, such as this is of being his people, which includes all the benesits and privileges of that relation. This were to allure us to sin by stronger motives than Satan can possibly lay before us.  
The minor I prove from Jeremy 12.16. And it shall come to pass that if they will diligemly learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name (in this or the like form) the Lond liveth; as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then shall they be built in the midst of my people; but if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the Lord.  
It is beyond all possibilty of rational doubt, that this Prophecy relates to the time of the Gospel, for it is directed to the Gentiles, of whom God's people had learned to swear by Baal, called by God, his evil neighbours, vers. 14. that is, Nations bordering upon Judea, his own inheritance, his own land, whom he blames for touching the inheritance which he had caused his people of Israel to inherit, that is, for turning the Jews out, and taking to their own possession the Holy Land, as did the Assyrians and their confederates in the Jewish Wars, the Samaritans, Phoenicians, Ammonites, Edomites, etc. whom he threatens to pluck out of their own land, as they had driven the Jews out of theirs, and to pluck out the house of Judah from amongst them: this God performed at their restauration from the Babylonian captivity: To these Gentile-borderers (I say) God directs this threat, vers. 14. Thus saith the Lord against all my evil neighbours that have touched, etc. and this promise, vers. 15. And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out, I will return, and have compassion upon them, and bring every man to his heritage, and his own land. After the mention of which restauration of those Gentile-borderers, doth immediately follow this promise, and if they will learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, etc. This promise than concerns that time when God would return to, and have compassion on the Gentiles, when he would call her beloved that was not beloved, and them a people that was not a people, and is made to them! that had withdrawn Israel from the worship of the true God to their Idols, in whom they had persuaded them to put confidence, by whom they had taught them to swear, in such forms, as Baal liveth, by the life of Baal, etc. and manifestly imports this sense. If as you Gentiles have taught my people (the Jews) to swear by your Gods, you will learn of them (when the law shall go out of Zion into all the world, by the ministry of the Apostles) to swear by my name, than you shall be built up amongst my people. Yea, the matter of this promise being the engrafting of the gentiles into the Church, the luying of them as living-stones in Gods spiritual temple, the building of them upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets in the midst of God's people: it could not possibly take effect while the partition-wall stood, nor have its accomplishment till Christ by the blood of his Cross had removed the enmity, and making peace, had reconciled both Jew and Gentile unto God, in one body. Ephes. 2.16.  
2. A diligent learning to swear by God's name, is here made the condition of God's promise of grafting the gentiles into the stock of Abraham, of his accounting them his spiritual seed, of his building them up amongst his people, of his giving them a name and a place in his house: as being that which is the way of God's people, nay the ways of God's people, the Old Testament-way and the New Testament way, of their protesting what God they serve, in contradistinction to the ways of all other people; each of which swear by the name of that false God, whom they respectively served; and in distinction from all other ways of confessing the true God: men may confess God in prayer, in , in attendance upon the Word and Sacraments, and yet not glorify him sufficiently, in order to Gods accepting of them as true worshippers, in order to his reputing them living-stones, fit to be laid in the walls of his house, the Church; except to those forementioned and all other ways of expressing their homage, they add this, of swearing by his name, except withal they diligently learn to acknowledge his omnisciency, omaipo: encie, justice, and divine vengeance, by appealing to those dreadful attributes, by swearing by his fearful name, when they are lawfully thereunto called, where this most solemn invocation of the divine majesty is denied him; he esteems all other acts of invocation not serious enough to oblige him that tenders them to a sincere confession: Men may possibly dissemble in their bare word-professions of God and his attributes, and therefore he puts Christians here to the utmost trial of their sincerity, by this most awful address to him: He that swears by his Name, calls God for a witness against his soul, dares him to his face, challengeth the divine vengeance to do its worst, in case he swear falsely; and therefore God esteems this as the highest and most august act of Divine worship that the creature can possibly exhibit to him, and as that which eminently contains all others, and comprehends the whole condition of the Gospel, all the ways of God's people confessing to him. Hence S. Austin in Psal. 63.12. interprets, qui jurant in eo, by qui sit Christianus, he that swears by him, that is, (saith he,) every professed Christian: Nam juramentum sumitur pro toto cultu ut in Esai. 45.23. jurabit omnis lingua; for swearing by God implies the whole worship of God, as in Isaiah; Every tongue shall swear to me; which is the reason why he singles out this lesson, as that which whoso learns diligently, shall have the benesit of the book, be numbered: with Saints; be written amongst the living in Jerusalem, be built up as a lively stone in the midst of God's people; or if you will have it in David's phrase, Psa. 63.12. Every one that sweareth by him, shall glory or (as the Septuagint is rendered in our Liturgy) shall be commended as precious stoner, opposed to refuse stones: But I overdo my undertaking, in glving reasons, why God makes the learning of this lesson, the condition of this promise: It is sufficient to justify swearing by God's Name, from the imputation of sin, that it hath pleased him, to make the learning thus to swear, the condition of his accepting us as sincere disciples, of his engrafting us into his Evangelical Church.  
3. The not learning those ways of God's Old and New-Testament people, to swear by his Name, the non-acceptance of this graclous proposal, the non-uttending to those terms, the not-observing of this condition, the not-obeying God in observing the command here implied, of diligently attending to learn the way of confessing to God, renders men obnoxious to the dint of this fearful doom: I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the Lord: whatever Nation or generation of men, (be they Familists, Anabaptists, Catherists, Quakers) will not learn diligently to swear by the name of God, to swear the Lord liveth, and the like Christian forms, they may perhaps bolster one another up with vain hopes, of Gods accepting them, with groundless presumptions, that they are the people of God; but God doth here reject them, and dismounts all their proud confidences; those Babol-builders architects of confusion, may strengthen one another's hands in carrying up their castles in the air, in: ●lanting their Sodom-vines, but when their backslidings from the common faith are multiplied to the full sum, when their measure of apostasy is filled up, when God hath by these his scourges debated to his measure with his Church, for her humiliation and purgation, and has done his work, his whole work upon mount Zion, that he intends to make them instrumental to; he will pluck up all such plants, pull down all such buildings, and utterly destroy all such people. He who wilt not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain, will not let them escape unpunished, who will not learn to swear by it, in judgement, righteousness, and truth. They shall perish who run foul upon this Scylla, as certainly, as they who fall into that Charybdis. A truly-sanctified conscience steers a middle course betwixt these extremes, and while it fears an oath, in vain and profane swearing, after the guise of heathens, fears also not to learn this way of God's people, to swear religiously by his name. To this course we are directed by the compass not only of those texts that I have alleged, but of those also which are urged by the Quakers, and out of which they squeeze objections against this prophetical doctrine, which the holy Men of God, who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, have thus plainly delivered: which that I may make manifest, it will be requisite that we take the measure of those Evangelical Scriptures which are forced to speak against the Prophets.   

SECTION II. The Texts which they commonly urge, are.  S. Mat. 5.34. 
But I say unto you, swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, neither by Jerusalem, etc. But let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil.  S. James 5.12. 
Above all things, my brethren, swear not at all, neither by heaven, nor earth, nor any other oath, lest ye fall into condemnation.  
Sol. 1. IF I would argue ad hominem or (in Solomon's phrase) answer a fool according to his folly: I need give no other solution of their paralogisms grounded upon these texts than this: They deal with these texts, as the devil did with that which he quoted to Christ, Mat. 4.6. out of Psa. 91.11. He shall give his angels charge over thee, etc. For as he perverted that to a damnable sense by leaving out that essential part of it, In all thy ways, So these men wrist those portions of Scripture, by making a stop at swear not at all, and leaving out the words following, neither by heaven, etc. which were spoken with the same breath and are an essential part of the sentence: which entirely stands thus: swear not at all, neither by heaven not earth, etc. and prohibits swearing at all, by these or any other creatures. But what makes this against swearing by the Lord? here is nothing forbid, but what was forbid in the law, when swearing by the Lord was not only lawful, but expressly commanded, as the objectors confess, and is manifest from Deut. 6.13. and 10.29. yet then swearing by them that were not God, was prohibited, and therefore charged upon the Jews as a sin, Jerem. 5.7. how shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forgotten me, and sworn by them that are no Gods. Heaven, Earth, Jerusalem, etc. are not God, and therefore Christ's forbidding us to swear by them or any other creature, is consistent as well now as it was formerly with the command of swearing by the Lord. And whereas they urge that of S. James, nor any other oath, as if that made any kind of oath unlawful; there is nothing more obvious to him that piously searcheth the mind of God in sacred writ, than this observation: That there are many propositions laid down in general terms, whose sentence must be limited to the matter in hand, or else they manifesily contradict the light of nature, and other sacred Texts. As, when Christ saith, John 10.8. All that ever came before me were theives and robbers. If we expound that saying, without any limitation at all, we must necessarily thence infer; that Moses and the Prophets, and John the Baptist were thiefs, for they came before Christ: But if we confine it to the subject on which Christ discourseth, viz. I am the door, the way, etc. then the sense will be found as importing no more but this, that all who came before Christ, pretending that they were, the door, the way, that is, the Messiah, the Christ, or that great shepherd, etc. were theives. When St. Paul saith, all things are lawful for me, if, by all things we understand all things without exception, it will follow, that it was lawful for him to steal, lie, mnrder, blaspheme, and what not; when he saith, I become all things to all men, if we expound his words without limitation, the consequence will be, that he became a drunkard, an Epicure, an Atheht, an Apostate, to gain such kind of men. But if we limit those say to the subject upon which he treateth in those places, the sense will be such as becomes the Apostle of the holy Jesus, viz. all things that God hath not prohibited, such as I am now speaking of, are lawful for me, I am at liberty to do them, or leave them undone, as stands most with conveniency, so far as either Jew, Grecian, or Barbarian, retain any true principles, I am theirs, and urge those principles, as my own, upon them, in order to my drawing them to embrace the gospel. So when S. James saith, nor by any other oath, this universal must be limited to the preceding words, viz. swear not by heavener earth, and contains a prohibition to swear by any other oath of that sort which he had named, but not any other sort of oath as that from of oath is, which I urge the lawfulness of, for it is apparent that S. James doth here epitomise the saying of Christ in S. Matt. and having mentioned swearing by heaven or earth, he comprehends the remainder of Christ's instances, swearing by the temple, by Jerusalem, or the hair of our head, in this abbreviation, or any other oath, as if he had said, swear not at all, by heaven, earth, or any other of those forms of swearing, by the creature, that Christ forbade the nse of, in his Sermon on the mount, when he published his royal law, or indeed by any form of that kind. From the bare letter therefore of these texts, nothing can be inferred contradictory to my assertion, for they prohibit swearing by any creature, and I maintain the lawfulness of swearing by the Lord of all creatures: and to them that stick in the bark of the words themselves, as the Quakers do, no other answer need be given to stop their mouths, but this.  
Sol. 2. But that I may satisfy persons of more sober minds, and speak the whole and naked truth, ex animo, I give this as the full and adequate answer to all fanatic reasonings from these Texts, against solemn and reverential swearing, that Christ and S. James are so far from prohibiting the reverential use of God's name in solemn oaths, as they establish it, while they forbidden all irreverentiall swearing, by so much as God's creatures, forbidden to swear at all, though it be but by the creature lightly, and in common discourse, upon this reason, because he that swears by heaven, swears by him whose throne it is; he that swears by earth, swears by him whose footstool it is, because, though God's name be not expressly mentioned in such forms of oaths, yet it is implied, and therefore we are not to use such forms in our common speech, any more than the name of God himself, which in the opinion of all but professed Atheists, is not to be sworn by, but with reverence, and in extreme necessity. For the removal of ambiguity and stating the case, before I come to prove this assertion, let me premise these observations.  
1. The Scriptures make a wide disserence betwixt swearing by the true and swearing by a false God, in point of lawfulness: but none in point of the obligatoriness of the oath; because he that swears by a false God does conceive him to be the true, and under that notion appeals to his heart-searching knowledge, omnipotency, etc. and therefore the true God interprets it as an assront offered to him, when perjury is committed, in the use of the name of an idol: Excellent is that observation of the imitator of Solomon, Wisdom 14.28. The worshippers of idols do lightly forswear themselves; for insomuch as their trust is in idols which have no life: though they swear falsely, yet they look not to be hurt: Howbeit for both causes shall they be justly punished; both because they thought not well of God, giving heed to idols; and also unjustly swore in deceit, despising holiness; For it is not the power of them by whom they swear, but it is the just vengeance of sinners, that punisheth always the offence of the ungodly; understand him to speak of the Athiestical Idolater; for as to the superstitious Pagan, he thinks that Idol he swears by to be a god indeed; prorsus perjurus es quin per illud quod sanctum putas falsum juras: Aust the verb apost. Ser. 28. thou art altogether perjured, because thou swearest falsely by that which thou thinkest is holy. Hence, as Judicious Grotius observes, the people of God would never swear by the Gods of the Gentiles, but if they, with whom they made contract by oath, could not be induced to swear otherwise, themselves would swear (as they ought) by the true God, and take an oath from the gentile, such as could be had: which yet they looked upon to be as good a security, in respect of its obliging the gentiles conscience, as their swearing by the true God was, in respect of its obliging their conscience: as we see in the covenant betwixt Laban and Jacob, where Laban swore by the God of Chaldea, but Jacob By the fear of his father Isaac, to put it beyond all doubt, that he swore not by that God whom Nahor, Terah, and even Abram himself worshipped, before his call out of Chaldea; for Isaac never feared or served other God but him, who made heaven and earth; and yet he accounts Laban's oath to oblige Laban to the performance of the covenant betwixt them, as well as his oath did oblige himself, Gen. 31.53. Hence that saying of Sophocles in his Hippodamia: the mind is incited by swearing diligently to avoid two evils, to be blamed by men, and to offend the Gods: and that of Cicero, Offic. 3. quoth affirmate quasi Deo teste promisseris, idtenendum est: thou must keep that which thou positively promises before God as witness. Hence perjury amongst the heathens is reckoned amongst those crying sins, which divine vengeance never permits to escape unpunished, and which sometimes God visits upon the posterity of guilty parents.  
2. As to the forms of swearing, whether God's name be expressly mentioned in them or only implied, by mentioning some of his creatures, with respect to him: as when we call earth or heaven, etc. to bear witness to what we say. I do not finde any disserence made betwixt them, either in point of lawfulness or obligation, by the people of God, or God himself, in any age, either that before the law, or that under the law, or this under the Gospel. So far were the Old-Testament-Saints from thinking the use of such like forms (wherein not God but the creature, with relation to God, was named) to be prohibited by, and a transgression of that divine law. Deut. 6.13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name; that is, only, as our Saviour expounds that text. Mat. 4.10. As the holiest of them never scrupled to use such forms themselves, or gave the least hint of their disgusting that practice in others. The good Shu●amite swore by the life of Elisha, 2 King. 4.30. As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth: Elisha by the life of Elijah, 2 King. 2.2. Hannah by the life of Elie. 1 Sam. 1.26. As thy soul liveth my Lord I am the woman. Abner by the life Saul, 1 Sam. 17.55. As thy soul liveth, oh King, I cannot tell. Abigail by the life of David, 1 Sam. 25.22. As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth: Uriah by the life of David, 2 Sa. 11.11 Persalutem tuam & per salutem animae tuae non faciem hanc rem; By tby health, and by thy souls health, I will not do this thing. It were endless to give all the Instances that offer themselves.  
And if the New-Testament-Church had not been of the same perswasior, viz. that such kinds of Oaths are not comprised in the prohibition either of Moses or Christ, S. Paul would not have let that form fall from his pen, 1 Cor. 15.31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I protest by your rejoicing, or more properly, I swear. Ambiguitatem Graecus sermo dissolvit; as S. Austin well observes, Serm. 28. in verb. Abost. The greek text removes all ambiguity, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that tongue is a note of swearing, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per Jovem, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per Deum: you converse (saith he) daily with Grecians, and though you cannot speak nor understand greek, yet this you understand, that a Grecian swears when you hear him say, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; and therefore let none of you doubt but that the Apostle swears, when you hear him say, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I swear by your rejoicing: Nor would the Primitive Christians, (who (under the Pagan persecutions,) rejoiced to suffer the most exquisite tormerts that witty malice could invent, rather than be persuaded to swear by the heathen gods, or the Genii of the Emperors,) have sworn (without the least scruple of conscience) by the health of the Emperor; (as Tertullian in his Apology for them against the Gentiles, cap. 32.) assureth us they did. Sed & juramus sicut non per genius Caesarum, it a per salutem eorum quae est angustior omnibus geniis: We do not only pray for the Emperor's health, but we also swear by it, which is a far more sacred form of oath, then that which you Gentiles use, when you swear by the Emperors Genii, and therefore we refuse to swear in that form, because we Christians know, that they are devils whom you call Genii; But yet we swear by the health of the Emperor, which is more worth than all the Genii. The form of the military oath which Christian Soldiers took even in Constantine's time, is thus laid down in Vegetius: Per Majestatem Imperatoris quae secundum Deum generi humana diligenda est & colenda; By the Majesty of the Emperor, which according to God's Ordinance humane kind aught to love and reverence: If we would not therefore incur that guilt, of condemning the generation of the righteous, that have been in all generations, which the man after God's heart deprecates; we must subsciibe to this, that in such form; of swearing, though we name some creature, yet we swear not ultimately by that creature, but by that God whose creature it is: Hence S. Austin Serm. 28. in verb. Apost. qui per lapidem jurat sifalsum jurat perjurus est, non te audit lapis loquentem, sed punit Deus falentem. He that swears by a stone, if he swear falsely is perjured, the stone indeed to speak properly does not hear thee speaking, but God hears thee forswearing, and punisheth thee for thy cozenage, as if the stone by which thou swaredst had heard thy words, and repercusts them into the ears of God: alluding to that of Joshua, chap. 24.27. Behold this stone shall be a witness unto us, for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spoke unto us, etc. But what need I call in humane, when we have as plain divine Testimony of this Truth as can be expressed by tongue, given in by Christ himself, Mat. 23.21. Whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein; and he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and him that sitteth thereon.  
3. But the Pharisees made so great a difference betwixt these forms of swearing, in point of obliging the conscience of him that swore to a performance of promissory, and to speaking the truth in assertory oaths; as to teach that swearing in any form but that which they called Corban, or that wherein God was expressly named did not bring him that took it into an obligation of performance. This strange doctrine of theirs is fully stated, and substantially confuted by our Saviour, Mat. 23.16. woe unto you blind guides, which say, whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but he that shall swear by the gold of the temple, or by the gift that is on the altar, he is a debtor, that is, obliged to pay his vows. By the gold of the temple they did not mean that wherewith the temple was overlaid (for that was a part of the temple, and as blind as these guides were, they could not be such stark-mad fools, as to think swearing by a part was more binding than swearing by the whole;) but that where with the temple-treasury was endowed, a part being put for the whole; gold, for the gold; silver, and other donatives belonging to the sacred treasury, whether they were already brought in thither; or laid up by order of the Sanhedrin in other places (as for more safety the sacred pole-money or half-shekel, which every Israelite paid every year for his soul, to the use of the temple, was in times of war deposited in some strong hold, till a sufficient convoy could be procured to bring into the sacred treasury, either whole or in parcels, as they had occasion to employ it, either in repairing the temple, or in buying of sacrisices, Joseph. Antiq. l. 14. c. 12.) or but so much as was devoted to the temple by vow, though not yet paid into the collectors hands; of which we have a notable instance, Mark 7.11. But ye say, if a man shall say to his father or mother, it is Corban, that is to say, a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profitod, he is free from the duty of relieving his indigent parents, and you suffer him no more to do aught for his father or mother; that is, if a man's parents in their necessity shall ask the honour of maintenance and beg relief of his son: if his son shall say, Oh father, that which thou desirest me to relieve thee with, is a gift, I have consecrated it by vow to the sacred treasury, and am obliged to pay it thither, and therefore cannot without sacrilegious perjury divert it to thy maintenance. Theophrastus as he is quoted by Josephus against Appion, l. 1. makes mention of this Oath, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by Corban, or the gift, as sacred amongst the Jews, and therefore amongst other peregrine forms of swearing forbid by the laws of the Tyrians, door neighbours to the Jews. The Pharisees (I say) taught, that Corban the gifts of the temple; and gifts upon the altar, were so sacred, as whosoever did swear by them, became thereby a debtor, that is, was obliged to performance; and this was the only form of oath wherein the name of God was not expressed, which they esteemed binding: as to all other forms whether by the temple or altar, by heaven or earth, or any creature, in either of them men might bandy them at pleasure, without the least regret of conscience, or purpose of performing them.  
From this doctrine, their Proselytes were drawn into an opinion that they might call heaven and all therein, save God himself; earth and all therein save Corban to bear witness of their sincerity in making oath, by their names, and yet still remain as free from obligation to perform those oaths, as if they had not swore at all, but only past their bare word: and from this opinion into a custom of larding their common discourse wsth all such oaths, as if they had been no more than ornaments of speech, than flowers of Rhetoric; as if swearing by heaven had not implied swearing by him that dwells therein. Jurejurando supplentes orationem (Philo Jud. de decalogo.) quasi non satius esse mutilam relinquere. Sceptram non putat esse Deos (as the Poet speaks of a perjured King,) He did not think that swearing by his sceptre, was swearing by God, who put the sceptre into his hand: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (as Apollonius in Philostratus, l. 6. censured Socrates:) He did not think that when he swore by a cock or goose, and such creatures, he swore by their Creator, but did purposedly choose to swear by such things, that he might not bring himself under an obligation to keep his oath, as he conceived he must have done, if he had sworn expressly by God.  
4. This being the state of the malady, the great Physician of souls applies himself to the confutation of the opinion which bred and fed it, in the 23. of S. Matthew, where herefels that Pharisaical gloss, which made void the Law of God: and in the 5. of S. Matthew, he decries the custom of their Proselytes, grounded upon that gloss, nay indeed the general custom of the Jews in our Saviour's time; for the Pharisees being reputed the Puritans of that time, the strictest sect amongst them, it cannot be otherwise deemed in reason, but their doctrine, and the Disciples practise, had a general influence upon all that would seem nicely religious, and made this disease of common swearing, by heaven, earth, temple, or any creature, but the Corban, in a manner Epidemical; and we find the Scribes and their Scholars, as deep in this mire as the Pharisees; for our Saviour joins them both together in preaching up this nice distinction, betwixt swearing by the temple, or altar, and swearing by the gifts of the temple, or gifts upon the altar; this last form of swearing they accounted binding, but the first as nothing; to swear by the temple they said was nothing, they taught that that was not swearing by God, and therefore did not make him that swore, a debtor by oath, to the performance of his word. That Epidemical practice, I say, of such customary swearing by God's creatures without any respect to God (as if this had been no appeal to the Creator, and as it were a pawning of those invisible things of God, of which the meanest of his handiworks bears the impression) which this doctrine drew after it, is that to which Christ administers a remedy in this prohibition, wherein he forbids swearing in our ordinary converse, by the meanest creature (and by consequence much more by the name of God himself, though he mention not that form of swearing, because the Jews never swore by that name but solemn oaths.) but not a reverential swearing when we are lawfully thereunto called. For the evincing the truth and suitableness of this, applying Christ's prohibition to common and not solemn swearing, I shall produce arguments taken from those very passages in both the forementioned texts, which the Quakers wrest to the favouring of their contrary opinion.  
Arg. 1. That Christ prohibits oaths in common speech only, is manifest from the kind of oath that that law speaks of, which Christ cleats from the false gloss of the Scribes and Pharisees, Mat. 5.33. out of Levit. 19.12. and Deut. 5.11. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord all thy oaths: For swearing by non-performance of an oath, speaks the oath here mentioned not to be assertory but promissory. Now in all Judicatures, the Jews were daily called upon to make assertory oaths, touching matter of fact, for the decision of controversies, but as to solemn promissory oaths (such as Moses administered when he made all Israel avouch God for their God; such as Joshua took of the Israelites, when he made them renounce the Gods of Canaan and Caldea, and swear to serve and adhere to the God of Abraham; such as some religious Kings of Judch and Ezrah made the Jews take when they swore them to the Covenant) they were so rare and extraordinary, as the last of that kind that we read of, was that which Nehemiah administered to them that had married strange wives, Neh. 13.25. I made them swear by God, etc. which was near 400. years before Christ's Incarnation, and therefore there could not be at the time of Christ's preaching any one Jew living, who had transgressed the law of God in solemn swearing to a promise, and not performing his Oath. Yea the Jews were by the favour of the Romans exempted from taking the military oath, because the taking of it in the gentile form, and the keeping of it in some cases (as marching or fight on the sabbath day) was deemed contrary to the law of God. as Dolabella writes in his letter to the Ephesians, Joseph. Ant. 14.17. and Josephus tells us, that upon the like reasons, the Jews procured of Lentulus a dismission from the wars. Religionis ergo esse immunes a militia pronunciavi, etc. Autiq. Jud. l. 14. c. 17. I have passed this sentence from the tribintall, that the Jews be exempted from the military oath upon the account of their religion. Dolabella in his decree of discharging the Jews, pleads the example of the Roman Generals his predecessors. The first time that the Roman Emperors forced the military oath upon the Jews, was upon occasion of a vagrant Jew, with his confreers, abusing the piety of Fulvia a Roman Matron: near the expiring of the reign of Tiberius, and the government of Pilate, when the Emperor banished them the City, and the Consuls li●ted 4000 of them for the wars; the greatest part of whom chose rather to suffer death then take the military oath. Joseph. Autiq. l. 18. c. 5. Briefly, no people upon earth were more scrupulously tender of taking solemn promissory oaths than the Jews were at that time that our Saviour gave them this prohibition, and taxed them for not performing to God their oaths. And therefore to apply Christ's discourse here to such kind of oaths, is as preposterous as the laying of a plaster to the toe when the head is wounded: but the applying of it to their stipulations by oath in their private contracts, betwixt man and man, in their common converse, and mutual trading, was so proper and seasonable, as nothing could be more: for in this case they were lavish of their oaths and regardless of performing them, beyond all humane belief; and if our Saviour had not read the riddle, and told us what shifts they had to baffle the law, and pave their own consciences, so as they could without straining, swallow such camel oaths, as by heaven, by Jerusalem, and make no bones, either of taking or keeping them; It could hardly enter into our minds to conjecture at what door this conceit entered into theirs; that those kind of oaths were not the oaths of God, and therefore did not bind the votaries to pay their vows unto the Lord, but might be broken without the guilt of perjury.  
2. The applying of Christ's prohibition to solemn Oaths, either promissory or assertory, or to any but common discourse-Oaths, makes Christ himself a transgressor of the law; I tremble at the thought of this consequence which as naturally flows from the Quakers hypothesis, as light from the sun: if we consider at what time Christ preached his sermon in the Mount, to wit, while that sacred polity of the Jews, which God himself erected, was yet standing, while those municipal laws under obligation, to which (as well as the ceremonial) Christ was born, were yet in force; while Jerusalem was yet the City of the great King, and the Jews under the government of God established by Moses at God's command; in order to the keeping of peace, and execution of justice, wherein God had instituted Judicatories greater and lesser, and prescribed rules for the Judges to walk by in their administrations, amongst which this was one, that all controversies that came before them, should be determined by the oaths of witnesses: Had Christ therefore at this time prohibited the taking of oaths, in this case, it would have been an obstruction to all legal proceed, according to that form of process instituted by his Father: It had been the proclaiming of indemnity to thiefs, murderers, blasphemers, and all sorts of wicked and injurious persons, and a turning of hell lose in that Kingdom of God; for by the standing and yet unrepealed laws of that Kingdom, questions of that nature could not be brought to a determination, nor malefactors to condign punishment without oath. It had been a pragmatical and precocious dissolution of the whole frame of the divine polity before the time appointed by God, and assigned by his propaets, a turning God out of possession of his Kingdom of Judea, before he had erected his Kingdom in the gentile world, and by consequence an unpeopling all the visible dominion he had on earth, and leaving him destitute of subjects. For the veil of the temple was not yet rend with the force of Christ's expiring breath, the hand-writing of Ordinances was not yet cancelled by the blood of the cross, the law either ceremonial or municipal had not yet lost its obliging force upon all them that were born under it (as our Saviour was, till by his death he had purchased exemption from it and dominion over it) and therefore had Christ or any of his Disciples been called before the Judicatures to bear witness in a case, wherein the civil law of Moses required an oath; they would have thought themselves obliged in conscience to have given oath. If he had been made a Judge for the dividing of the inheritance betwixt the two contending brothers, he would in obedience to the law have taken the oaths of witnesses, if there had been occasion for it. If he would have undertaken to have determined the case of the woman taken in adultery, as he asked for the accusers, Woman where are thy accusers? so he would have asked for their witnesses, and have called the witnesses to their oaths. Briefly, as they that expound Christ's prohibition of solemn Oaths, do by their refusing to learn to swear by the Lord, declare themselves to be none of God's people, none of Christ's Disciples, but unchristen themselves, so by fastening this sense upon our Saviour's words, they un-Christ the blessed Jesus, and make him a sinner in stead of a Saviour, ranking him with those false Christ's, who under pretence of greater purity, sought the dissolution of the civil polity, whose stories you may see in Josephus.  
3. After this prohibition, we sir de S. Paul, who received his Gospel, not from man but God, approving of, and appealing to the evidence of witnesses, in such Courts, as he knew no evidence would be taken but by Oath, which certainly he would not have done, if he had conceived Christ to have forbidden the use of solemn oaths; when he pleaded his cause before Lysias, he appealed to the testimony of the then highpriest, Simon the son of his quondam master Gamaliel, and the whole Sanhedrin (Josephus in the history of his own life) to bear witness, that he had been educated a Pharisee, and had been a zealous persecuter of the Church, in going with the high priests orders & letters at that time that Christ appeared to him; of all which the high priest and all the estate of the Elders can boar me witness, Act. 22.5. In his apology before Felix, he challengeth his accusers to prove the matters of fact they charged him with, Act. 24.13. Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me; he blames them for not bringing up witnesses (the Jews of Asia who found him in the temple) to allege if they had aught against him, and challengeth all that were then in the Court, to say, if they found any evil-doing in him, while he stood before the Council, vers. 19, 20. In his answer before Agrippa; he appeals to the testimony of those that knew him from his youth, Act. 26.5. who knew me from the beginning if they would testify: S. Paul knew very well, that in a matter of life or death (as this was) no evidence would pass in Court without oath, and therefore if he had thought solemn swearing to have been made unlawful by this prohibition of Christ, he would rather have undergone a thousand deaths then tempt so many to make shipwreck of their immortal souls, by calling them to that unlawful act.  
4. None of those forms of swearing mentioned here by Christ, nor any of like nature, would pass for current or legal before a Jewish Magistrate, but only such forms, as wherein the Name of God was invoked expressly. The Law was so clear, Thou shalt swear by the Lord thy God, as whoever should in any Court of Judicature tender any other form of oath, that form might have been excepted against by him against whom it was given, as insufficient, to end the controversy depending, as void in their Judaical law, which being of divine institution, it was not within the verge of humane power, either to dispense with, or alter the forms of proceeding therein expressed. From this custom of the Jews in open Court, to swear by no other name, but that of God, the maker of heaven and earth, and sea, Appion accused the Jews of singularity, as hereby discriminating themselves from all other Nations, who did not so strictly tic up themselves to that form of swearing in their Judicatorles, Joseph. l. 2. in Appion. Philo Judaeus in his Allegories of the Law, lib. 2. pronounceth all them accursed that say, they swear by God; but 'tis usual for the wisest Jewish Scribes to run beyond their wits, in allegorising the Law, because they do not look to Christ the end of it; Howbeit he recovers himself, in his treatise of the Decalogue, where speaking of solemn swearing before a Judge in a case of controversy, he defines it, a citation of God, to bear witness in doubtful cases and aggravates the sin of perjury in that case, from the infamy which it casts upon his name. And in his Treatise of special laws, where he adviseth, that when the necessity of the thing required an oath, men would not presently have recourse to God himself, but use some other form, and rather call in some of God's creatures to be a witness, doth give sufficient hints, that he speaks there of elective oaths only, which men use in private, and not such as men are called to take in the course of law; and therefore puts in this proviso, Salvis legibus, when the law allows thee another form, that is, in thy ordinary communication, manifestly implying, that no form was good in law, but that wherein God himself was named for a witness. And indeed both Judge and litigants must have been out of their wits, if they had laid the decision of controversy upon such oaths as were prae-declared to be of no validity, as these forms were which christ prohibits. Briefly, the Jews were accoustomed in their mutual converse only, and not solemnly before the magistrate, to swear by the heaven and earth, Therefore this prohibition of Christ reacheth only elective, and not solemn and necessary oaths.  
5. The reason which Christ annexeth to his prohibition, and prefixeth to his command, that our word should be yea and nay, is an evidence that Christ here speaks of common discourse, swear not by heaven, for it is God's throne, etc. As if he should have said, the reason why such like oaths, are so common in your mouths, is this conceit, that you swear not by God in the use of such forms, and therefore are not obliged by them any more than by your bare word. But I tell you that heaven is God's throne, and therefore he that sweareth by that, sweareth by him that sitteth thereon, etc. nay, your head and every hair that grows thereon is God's creature, and he that swears by that, appeals to its maker: you cite God to bear witness every time you use such oaths, and God is not lightly, and upon every slight occasion in men's common speech, to be summoned in to bear witness, as the pharisees themselves confess, in their avoiding such oaths in their oreinary communication, as they think are appeals unto God. And therefore now you have learnt that in swearing by the creature, men swear also by the Creator; as you would not be sound guilty of taking his name in vain, disuse your tongues in your common talk from such forms, and let your ordinary word be yea or nay.  
6. The motive that S. James urgeth, argueth that 'tis common swearing that he prohibits, lest ye fall into condemnation, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or according to other Copies, lest ye fall into hyyocrisie, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. If we follow the first reading, the emphasis, will lie in the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whence comes our English (with a little variation, to trip or unawares stumble; lest unexpectedly ye fall flat into the guilt of perjury, and while you dream not of it, become obnxious to that damnatfon, which is the wages of taking God's Name in vain: For while you fancy, that so long as you use not God's Name, but only swear by heaven and earth, it is nothing, (when in very deed he that swears by heaven, swears also by him that dwells therein) you precipitate yourselves hoodwinked into the abyss of perjury, every time you call any of God's creatures to witness to a falsity, and he that upon such grounds as the Scribes and Pharisees have laid, inures himself to common swearing, cannot be in extreme peril of setting Gods seal unwittingly to many an untruth; If we follow the other reading, lest ye fall into hypocrisy, which with Grotius, H. Stephen, and others, I rather incline to; (Its more likely that an hasty Scribe might overslip [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] and he that should read the Copy after him divide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to make it sense, into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, then that any should have the boldness to insert it.) It will bear more resemblance to Christ's Discourse about the Pharisaical mode of swearing, for which he calls them hypocrites, and for teaching, that men might use such forms without laying thereby the least obligation upon themselves to perform their promises. Now as this doctrine betrayed their Profelites to a customary use of oaths, so by that custom they contracted an habit of lying, even then when they seemed to be most serious, and to give their words the greatest consirmation: So that in effect their whole communication was a constant trade of hypocrisy and dissimulation. And while they pretended one thing (to give assurance by oath that they would fulfil their promise) and yet intended another (to lay no obligation upon themselves) by that kind of oath, what was this but to play the knave under the vizor of an honest man?  
7. No less plain Testimony to this truth, doth S. James his preface to this prohibition administer, But above all things my brethren swear not, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not where else in all the Scriptute rendered [above] but [before] and it should be so rendered here: For the Apostle doth not by this phrase denote the priority of dignity of this caution (as if he would have us esteem more highly of this precept then of all the rest; for he commands several things of equal, if not more importance, and which it concerns us as much to observe whether we weigh the considerableness of the duties, or the proneness of men to be negligent in the observance of them.) Quid est ante omnia nolite jurare? jurare enim pejus est quam furari? quam adulterari? non dico falsum jurare: Jurare dico; Jurare pejus est quam haminem. occidere? absit, hominem occidere furari adulterari peccatum est, jur are non est peccatum, August. Serm. 28. de verb. Apostoli, c. 8. what means this, above all things swear not? Is swearing (forsooth) worse than adultery? I say not, is false-swearing? but Is swearing? It swearing I say worse than man slaughter? God forbidden! what meant then this, above or before all things? isto verbo cautus nos facit adversus linguam nostram, si de manu aliquid faceres, facilius manui tui imperares ne faceret; lingua facilitatem habet motus, in udo posita est, facilt in lubrico labitur, as S. Austin resolves in the same Sermon: By this caution the Apostle would have us set a watch upon our tongue; If thou wert bid to withhold thy hand, thou mightest more easily command that; the tongue is nimble and quick in motion, it is placed in a watery Element, it stands on a slippery place, and easily lapseth; But yet it is as apt to lie, slander, and calumniate, as to swear: This form of speech therefore doth most properly import priority of place and time in our communication, which the Apostle would not have us assign to swearing; as if he had said, Now that I am persuading you to patience by the example of the Husbandman, of the Prophets, of Job, etc. vers. 7, 8, etc. Let me give you this caution, that you would take heed of humouring the impatience of your spirit by permitting it to hurry you forthwith to swearing upon every provocation, though it be but by such petty Oaths, as the Pharisees have taught you; Let not an Oath lie uppermost upon your heart, and come first of all before all things out of your mouth; Try all other ways of satisfying those with whom you converse, of the truth of your speeches, before you attest it by Oath: quantam ad me pertinet juro, sed quantum mihi videtur magna necessitate compulsus; Cum videro non mihi credi nisi faciam, & ei qui mihi non credit non expedire quod non credit, etc. As for my own part I sometimes swear, (but so far as I am able to judge) not but when I am compelled with the greatest necessity, when I see that I cannot be believed except I swear, and that it stands not with my neighbours good, that he does not believe me, Id ibid. An oath is the greatest bond of fidelity amongst men, and therefore we should have recourse to it as our sacred anchor, when nothing else will establish men in the truth of what we say; That faith which we make by oath is the most perfect that can be given, saith Halicarnassensis. The most firm, and therefore should be the last pawn of our veracity, saith Procopius Persicorum, l. 2. But does it follow, that because we must not swear at all, not by any kind of oath, first of all, or before all other ways of procaring credit to our words, that therefore we may at the last extremity have recourse to a solemn Oath.  
8. The argument that our Saviour urgeth to persuade us, that we swear not at all, but let our communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; evinceth Christ to intent in this prohibition, common, but not solemn swearing. For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil, or, the evil one, that is, of the devil. For except we understand Christ to speak here of such voluntary asseverations as men make in their ordinary discourse, and not of such as either the weight of the case, or the necessity of justice call for; we must be constrained impiously to assert, that in all those passages prae-alledged in S. Paul, where he called God to witness, came from an evil spirit; that our blessed Saviour so often as he said, amen, amen, which is more than yea, yea; had those words put into his mouth by the evil one; that the elect Angel which Christ sent from heaven to communicate the knowledge of future things to S. John, was inspired by the devil, when we swear by him that liveth for ever. Is it a hard matter now to choose, whether we should think, that the chosen vessel, the elect Angel, yea, the Archangel of the Covenant, were led by an evil spirit, ●o say more than yea, yea; nay, nay; Or that those men are led by a spirit of error, and under Judicial blindness, that cannot see, that the words of Christ must necessarily be referred to volantary rash oaths, in our common discourse, upon sleight occasion, without reverence of the divine Majesty, or intention to ratify some truth or promise of weight? But that which will give a clearer light to this text, and be a more full demonstration of the truth that I am contending for, is this observation.  
That Christ affirms whatsoever is more than these, in the case wherein he prohibits the use of more to be intrinsically, and of its own nature, of an evil original. For he does not ground this position [whatsoever is more, is of evil] upon either his prohibition or command; As if his meaning were, that 'tis therefore evil because he hath now forbid the use of more; but on the contrary, he grounds both his prohibition [Swear not] and his injunction [let your communication, etc.] upon this argument, because whatsoever is more than these, is of evil: and presseth the intrinsecal evil, that is naturally, in that which he prohibits, (antecedently to his forbidding of it,) as the reason of his prohibition. He does not say, I have now forbidden you to swear, or to use any more than yea and nay, and therefore the use of more is evil; But, the use of more in the case that I speak of, is evil, and therefore I probibit it: whence it unavoidably follows, that in all cases wherein Christ here forbids swearing, it was ever a sin to swear▪ a sin in the Patriarches, and Old-Testament. Saints, before this prohibition, as well as it is in us Christians since; that is, rashly, profanely, irreverently, in our ordinary communication: and that Christ hath not made that kind of reverend swearing a sin to Christians, that was the duty and commendation of his ancient people.  
1. It is manifest, that all rash swearing, whether in Jew or Christian, proceeds from the evil heart of him that inures himself to it; from that pride, athiesm, and hypocrisy that lodgeth in the breast, doth the mouth utter all vain, fruitless, and precipitate oaths and asseverations; and therefore, he that fears God, will abstain from all customary oaths, not only for fear of the event (ne jurando ad facilitatem jurandi veniatur ex facilitate ad consuetudinem ex consuetudine in perjurium decidatur, S. Austin de mend. c. 15. lest by swearing we contract a facility to swear, and fall from a facility to a custom; and from custom into perjury,) but in regard to that evil fountain, (the profaneness of the swearers hearts) whence all such slink calves of the lips are cast. In a word, the Russian disgorgeth oaths from the same Principle, that the Fanatic poureth out extempore prayers, neither of them consider, that they are before God, while they invoke his name, and therefore they are so ready to offer the sacrifice of fools. As there are certain forms of words, at the using whereof, evil spirits, (by virtue of diabolical institution) present themselves, so all forms of invoking God, either by Oath or prayer, exhibit the divine presence to us, of which presence, if they had regard, the one would not think it nothing to swear, nor the other to pray unadvisedly; neither of them would be so hasty with their mouths, so hasty to utter, quicquid in buccam, if they did consider they were before God. My ranking them together will displease them both, but let them wreak their spleen upon Solomon, who hath coupled them as brethren in iniquity, as alike-guilty of Athiestical profaneness, and hath prescribed the same method of cure for them both, if they have wit or grace to apply themselves to the observation of his rules. Eccles. 5.1.  
2. And it is as manifest from the Instances of Christ and Saint Paul, that more than these sometimes, and in some cases, proceeds from good, from a divine principle, from an honest and gracious heart, to wit, when strong asseverations even by oath are used.  
1. Reverentially, as a solemn invocation of God's name, as the celebration of the highest and most august act of divine worship and adoration that can possibly be tendered to the divine majesty.  
2. Deliberately, with due consideration and preponderation of the weight of the thing, the importance of our Neighbours believing it, the probability that he will be prevailed to believe us, upon the interposition and assurance of the oath, etc. Et ideo non invenitur jurasse nisi scribens ubi consideratio cautior non habet linguam praecipitem. We do not find, (saith S. Austin de mend. c. 15.) that S. Paul did swear, but when he was writing, because the pen is not so great a blab as the tongue; men are more circumspect of the words that fall from their quill then of them that drop from their lips.  
3. Sincerely, with a purpose to lay as great an Obligation upon thyself to keep thy promise, and swear truly, as thy making oath imports to thy neighbour, when thy mind and words are both of a colour, and the impressions of thy soul correspond with the expressions of thy mouth; when thy conscience can tell thee that thou speakest before God in thy heart what thou utterest to thy neighbour in words.  
All these conditions concurred in our Saviour's and S. Paul's asseverations, and therefore though they were more than these, yet they proceeded not of evil, but from a good and honest heart, and were all wanting in those Pharisaical oaths which our Saviour condemns, wherein they had neither reverential thoughts of God (for they conceived they did by those forms swear by God) nor weighed the matter and ponderated circumstances, but upon every sleight, upon no occasion bolted out fruitless oaths: nor did they intent to bind themselves to a performance of their word, for they accounted themselves as free after such oaths as if they had never made them. Such kind of additions to our yea and nay, are of themselves evil, and theresore forbidden; But the ground and reason of Christ's prohibition does not reach the other sort of additions.  
9 That I may make the two Testaments kiss one another at partting, and bring the ends of my discourse together, Let it be considered from the prophecies before-quoted, That to interpret those Evangolical texts as prohibitions to Christians to swear in any case, draws after it these blasphemous consequences.  
1. That Christ who came to accomplish and seal prophecies, to fulfil what was spoken by the mouth of the prophets, which have been since the world began, did contradict by his precepts and prohibit the accomplishment of those prophecies, that foretold, that under the Gospel, when God's name should be great in all the earth, his elect and chosen servants should swear by the God of truth, as an evidence of their conversion to him from idols.  
2. That S. James was by the Holy Ghost (which Christ promised should lead his Apostles-into all truth) to forbid that, (viz. to learn to swear after the way of God's people the Lord liveth) under pain of falling into condemnation, or at least into hypocrisy; which the Spirit of Christ in the holy Prophets persuades Christians to do, under pain of utter destruction, in case of neglect, and by the promise of being built up in the midsts of God's people, in case they would diligently, learn to swear by his name: which the same spirit commends to Christians as a sign of their sincere and cordial acceptance of the true God for their God.  
3. That if the Christian Church does not perform homage to the God of truth by swearing as well as blessing in his name; If their tongue does not as well swear as their knees bow to him, than the Christian people are not the people of the Messiah, the Messiah is not yet come, but still to be expected; then the blessed Jesus is not that Christ of whom the prophets speak, but as the Jews at his arraignment, and their posterity blasphemously style him, a deceiver, and a counterfeit; For by the prophets it was foretold, that at his exhibition and vocation of the gentiles to the knowledge of the true God, the gentiles called by his name should swear by the God of truth, throughout the earth, etc. Yield but this much to a Jew or Pagan, that the Christian law forbids worshipping of God, by swearing by his name, forbids any other confirmation of what we affirm but yea yea, nay nay; and you do not only deprive the Christian Cause and Church of one of her strongest bulwarks, of one of those demonstrations of the spirit (the spirit of prophecy in the holy men of old, whereby the Champions of the Christian faith have inrefragably proved against all assailants, that Jesus is the prophets Christ, viz. because since his calling of us gentiles by his gospel, we have worshipped the true God by swearing by his name; but also administer to infidels an unanswerable argument for them to prove, that that Jesus whom we Christians worship for the Christ, is not indeed the very Christ, viz. because he hath forbid that worship to be exhibited, which the prophets foretold men should learn to tender the God of truth, at the coming of that Christ, whom they speak of. It is not possible to imagine any thing more unlike, or opposite to one another, then that Christ and his disciples, which the prophets describe, are, to what this gloss of the Quakers presents Jesus Christ and his disciples to be. In the reign of the Prophets Christ, God's chosen one's of the Gentiles are to do him homage, to acknowledge their subjection to him, dependence on him, awe of him, and his dreadful attributes, by swearing by his name; But in the reign of the Quakers Christ, the world indeed may take its own course, but they whom God hath called and chosen out of the world, are not to swear at all. The people of the Prophets Christ, at what time he should publish his royal law, and men should be taught of God, wore to learn to swear, the Lord liveth, and to be made to ply this lesson with a promise to be built up, if they learned it diligently, with a threat, to be plucked up, if they did not, But the people of the Quakers Christ, are taught of God, that they must not learn this lesson, and are terrified from their book with clamours against it, as evil, as leading to destruction, etc. For the opposition is so palpable, as I need not illustrate it with more Instances. It can now therefore be a matter of no great difficulty to determine, whether exposition and practice, grounded upon these expositions, is more justifiable. That of the Christian Church in all ages which so expounds Christ's words, as not prohibiting her to give to God the honour that's due to him, by a reverential invocating of his great name, in sacred and solemn oaths, to the end that the say of the prophets may be fulfilled, & our Jesus demonstrated to be the Christ; or that of the Quakers whose gloss defrauds' God of his due homage, robs the King of Saints of one of the prime Jewels of his crown, presents the ever-blessed Jesus in the form of an Impostor and false Christ, leads directly to the gulf of grossest infidelity and denial of Christ; and sets the Old and New-Testaments, the Prophets and Evangelists at greater odds, than the Manichaeans did; making the Gospel to contradict those holy Prophets, to whose testimony our Saviour constantly appealed, for the decision of that great question, whether he was that Christ that was to come? putting it to this issue, that he would forego the claim, and give them leave to call him deceiver; if he did not exactly answer that model, which the Prophets had drawn of him that was to come; if they could discern one line in the whole body of his person, of his doctrine, of his followers, disproportionable to those features with which the pencil of the Prophets had painted the Messiah, John 5.39, 46. and John 10.37. and Mat. 11.4. All that our Saviour did, all he suffered, all he taught, was by rule of prophecy, doing, suffering, teaching no other things then what the Prophets said he should, Act. 26.22. and therefore that must needs be an unclean beast that does not divide the hoof, that is, that interpretation of any Evangelical Text, is bancful to the soul that is not supported by the Prophetical as well as Apostolical Writings; much more that which goeth and pusheth at the Prophets, with so manifest a contradiction as that doth, which interprets Christ to forbid his Disciples to do, what the prophets say, he should teach his Disciples to learn, to wit, to swear the Lord liveth, to speak the language of Canaan in swearing to him, to confess unto him by swearing by his Name; The performance of which homage to the divine Majesty, that it might be more august, reverential, obligatory to the Votaries, and satisfactory to all in point of an indubitable determination of controversy; It is and always was the will of God, that Oaths should be reserved and sequestered to the service of God, and the public weal of mankind, and not squandered away in our ordinary converse; which will of the holy God, when the Scribes and Pharisees had made void by their Traditional glosses, our Saviour vindicates, and restores to its primitive lustre, by wiping off that dust, and renewing this prohibition, Swear not at all, (that is, in your common talk) not so much as by heaven or earth, or an hair of your head, but let your common word be yea yea, nay nay.   

SECTION III.  
WHen I had blown off the dust, of false glosses from those sacred Texts, which the Quakers pervert to the condemnation of the universal practice of the Church of Christ, I hoped I had done enough to the Vindication of this part of divine worship, and to the ur deceiving of that deluded party; But their stating the case, relating to Oaths and swearing, and presenting it to the serious consideration of the King and both Houses of Parliament, speaks them ambitions to be thought to have better company in their way of expounding Christ and Saint James, than I am sure ever set foot in it, or cast an eye towards it (except it was asquint) even Primitive Christians, Martyrs, and Fathers, who were (as they say) of the same mind and judgement with them. It will be requisite therefore that I demonstrate the impertinency of those Examples which they allege, and the want of either ingenuity or honesty that they bewray in making of them.  

Example 1.  
Policarp being demanded to swear by the Emperor's good fortune or Caesar's prosperity, denied, saying, he was a Christian, and so was committed to the flames because he would not swear, etc.   

Answer.  
It is a bad omen when men stumble on the threshold, as they do here in this first Example, in their alleging whereof they commit more palpable errors then there are sentences.  
1. Whereas they interprot [good fortune] by prosperity, as if the: Preconsul had required no more of him but to swear by Caesar's prosperity: Eusebius in the place quoted, hath [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] which his Translator renders, Jura per Caesaris genium, swear by the genius, the good deamon, or good fortune of Caesar; which form of oath Policarp and the whole Army of Martyrs refused to take, because that which the Gentiles styled genii, the Christians knew to be devils, which were worshipped under the names of good Angels; as hath been already observed out of Tertullian, and every schoolboy construe that verse, Te facimus fortuna deam coeloque lecainus; we make thee a Goddess of fortune (which is the english of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) and place thee in heaven, a doughty argument: Policarp would not swear by an heathenish goddess, or their Gods, who were devils, and therefore Christians must not swear by the true God, when the quite contrary follows: For God would not grudge idols that honour, if it were not his own peculiar.  
2. Their comparing the oath which the Preconsul tendered to Policarp, to that form of oath which is in use in this kingdom, as they manifestly do, in that parenthesis [which was then their national oath] asperseth the King and both Houses of Parliament with the crime of heathenish idolatry.  
3. Their expounding the Preconful his speech [take thine oath and I will discharge thee] defy Christ, who said, swear not, as if Policarp had refused to swear upon the account of Christ's prohibitition, and not upon the account of the impiety of the form of the oath itself; or as if to swear at all, though by the true God, had been to defy Christ; or as if swearing and refusing to swear at all, had then been the mark of distinction betwixt heathens and Christians: when indeed the true criterion was this, that the gentiles would have had the martyrs swear by the idols, but the martyrs would not swear but by the God of truth: these I say are most manifest perversions of the texts both of Eusebius and M. Fox.   

Example 2.  
Pontius and Blondina refused to swear, being often urged, Euseb, l. 5. cap. 10.   

Answer.  
It should be cap. 1 where Eusebius reports their Martyrdom, and gives this reason why they would not swear, Vrgebanturque per gentilium idola jurare, they were urged to swear by the Idols of the Gentiles.   

Example 3.  
Basilides a Soldier, being required to give an oath in a matter concerning his fellow-soldiers, denied to do it, plainly affirming he was a Christian, Euseb. l. 6. cap. 5. for I must make hold to set down the book which they have omitted, Fox vol. 1. fol. 71.   

Answer.  
Eusebius his words are, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, come a commilitonibus suis Sacramento adigerctur; being urged by his fellow-soldiers to take the Military oath, which was wont then to be by the Idols and the Emperors, saith M. Fox in the place quoted. I do not remember that ever I met with so many authoritles together so wickedly falsified, as these are.   

Example 4.  
In the Ploughman's Complaint is this, viz. Lord, thou givest us a commandment of truth, in bidding us say, yea yea, nay nay, and swear for nothing; but Lord, etc.   

Answer.  
This I confess comes home to the point, if the allegation be faithful, but if this Ploughman be Chaucer's Jack Upland, (as by his stile he seems to be) I never read that he was Canonised a Martyr, or dubbed a Father of the Church, though he be the dad of English Poets; nor do I think his Romance will pass amongst rational men for good authority.   

Example 5.  
John Wicliff was condemned for holding forth, that all Oaths which be made for any comtract or bargain betwixt man and man, were unlawful, Fox vol. 1. fol. 387.   

Answer.  
This was indeed the 41. Article charged against him; but what is this to solemn swearing when we are lawfully called to it?   

Example 6.  
William Swinderley, the 14. Article against him was, that he should say, that no man ought to swear for any thing, but simply without an oath to affirm or deny. Fox vol. 1. fol. 614.   

Answer.  
The Answer which (in the place quoted) he returned: to that charge, shall be mine; Oft (saith he) have I said, and yet will, that men should not swear by any creature, and that no man should swear in idle, as well nigh all people useth.   

Example 7.  
These general received doctrines by the poor Christians in this nation was, that neither Pope, nor Prelate, nor-Ordinary, can compel any to swear by any creature of God, or by the bible-book. Fox. vol 1. fol: 687.   

Answer.  
Both poor and rich Christians of the Church of England, do retain the same doctrine at this day, and when either Pope, Prelate, or Ordinary, impose any other form of oath upon you but what is established by law, and wherein you are urged to swear, not by any creature, but by God, Creator, and Redeemer, you may complain and be relieved.   

Example 8.  
William Thorpe, when Tho. Arundel Archbishop of Canterbury bid him lay his hand upon the book that he might swear thereby, replied, Sir, A book is nothing else but a thing coupled together of many creatures, and to swear by any creature, both God's Law and man's is against it. One Article against him was, that he preached in S. Chads Church in Shrewsbury, that it is not lawful to swear in any case. Fox. vol. 1. fol. 689.690.692.701.   

Answer.  
It was ingeniously answered, and pat to the Archbishops urging him to swear (not as the law ordains upon) but by the book. But yet withal, that holy Martyr in the place quoted hath these words. [Sir, this thing I say here, before these your Clerks, that how, where, when, and to whom men are bound to swear, I will, through God's grace, be ever ready thereto.] And as to the Article, he denied that ever he Preached any such doctrine, either at Shrewsbury, or any where else, but only, that by S. James his authority, it is not lawful to swear by any creature; nor in any case, where the taking of an oath could be excused to them, that have power to impose an oath. In which point I cordially concur with him.   

Example 9  
Elizabeth Young, Anno. 1558. refused to swear, and persisted in that refusal, etc. Fox. vol. 3. f. 910.   

Answer.  
One of the oaths that was tendered her, was, what books she had sold, this she refused to take, because she would not betray her Christian friends; and the other oath they would have had her make was, whether she was a man or woman? this she refused, because that might be determined without an oath, to wit, by being searched by women, and therefore she offered herself to be searched, denying to give them any other satisfaction but that, and her bare affirming herself to be a woman, because what was more than that, in that case, was of evil. Fox in the place quoted.   

Example 10.  
The Waldenses professed it to be no way lawful for a Christian to swear, whose defence Bishop Usher undertakes, De success. cap. 6.   

Example 11.  
One Article urged against the Protestants of Piedmont, Anno 1655. was, that they believed, it was not lawful to swear any thing. Morland, hist. pa. 217.   

Answer.  
I join these, because they of Piedmont are the Relics of the old Waldenses, against whom this was wont to be charged by the Papists, that they were wholly against all swearing. In which point the Archbishop of Armagh undertakes to vindicate them: but how ● not by maintaining the opinion, but, by proving it to be a calumny cast upon them by their adversaries. Frater Nicolaus Eymericus, 2. part. direct. inquisitor. Haeresis Waldensium, tertia dicitun quod jurare in judicio, sive extra judicium, in quacunquo causa, est illicitum & mort ale peccatum quartus eorum error est, quod dej●●are in judicio coram judicibus ale dicenda veritate & revelandis complicibus suis in hae secta, non est illicitum & peccatam, imolicitum & sanctum. Friar Nicelus Eymericus (in the second part of his directions to the Inquisitors,) reckons this to be the 3d heresy of the Waldenses; That to swear, whether it be before a Judge or extra-judicially, in any case, is unlawful, and a mortal sin. Their fourth error is. That to swear-falsly before a Judge in open Court, when the Question is about confessing truth, or revealing their Complices and fellow-Sectarians, is not unlawful or a sin, but lawful and sacred. This Bishop Usher relates in the place forequoted, pag. 162. on purpose to evince the slanderous pens of Roman Scribes, from the incoherency of their calumnies, and from the extreme unlikelihood that they who held it lawful (in some cases) to forswear, should hold it unlawful (in any case) to swear. If you did not see this to be the defence which that learned Primate made, where are you eyes? if you did, where is your conscience? and where do you think must be our wit, if we believe those men upon their bare word, who belie so many Authors in writing?   

Example 12.  
Erasmus, Plato, Meander, Antonius, Hesiod, Theognis.   

Answer.  
This rancking Erasmus with heathens, smells rank of the Jesuits spirit, whose devise it is to paint him hanging betwixt heaven and hell, as being neither Papist nor Protestant, in their verdict, and by consequence either a Mahometan or Pagan. But whatever his judgement was, as to Papists or Protestants, it was far enough from the opinion of the Quakers; for where he speaks of the unlawfulness of swearing, of the uselessnesse of oaths, he speaks of swearing in our ordinary communication, as is manifest from that clause [In your bargains,] ye need no oath, ye need no execration, which the Quaker Apologist either ignorantly or maliciously omits. I appeal to the place by him quoted, (his Annotations on Mat. 5.34) As to the rest of those authorities that are joined with his, they are answered (Sect. 1. Argum. 1.) where S. Paul's practice is opposed to them which ought to be of more weight with Christians then all the say of all heathen Poets and Philosophers.   

Example 13.  
S. Austin in Psa. 88 It is well that God hath forbidden men to swear, lest by custom of swearing, etc. de mondacio. lest by swearing ye come to a custom.   

Answer.  
The very words here alleged, evince, that S. Austin speaks of common swearing, and certainly he must be beside his Text, if from the Old Testament he infer the unlawfulness of all kind of swearing; what his judgement is about oaths, in his Treatise de mendacio, hath been already declared.   

Example 14. and 15.  
The Albines in France, and Michael Saddler in Germany.   

Answer.  
Your Authors say only, that that charge was alleged against them, but not that it was proved.   

Example 16, 17, 18.  
Jerome, Chrysostom, Justin Martyr, Walter Brute.   

Answer.  
When you name the Texts of these three Fathers, we shall examine whether you faithfully report them: As to Walter Brute, It is true, he affirmed what is alleged, but with protestation, that he would retract that opinion, if he were convineed of the error of it; and accordingly did, upon conference with the Bishop of Hereford, submit himself to the determination of the Church, as appears from your own Author, Fox vol. 1. pag. 653.   

The Last Example.  
The Order of Middlebrough, which is no ways applicable to the Quakers Case, who have refused to pay Church-duties, and thereby robbed the Royal Exchequer, which is partly supplied out of ●…ths and first-fruits.  
But why do you urge these Examples, or trouble his Majesty ●nd the Parliament with your Plea, to be exempted from taking an Oath? because (forsooth) your conscience will not allow you to ●…rear, when you actually do swear in as solemn and august a form 〈◊〉 'tis possible for the tongue of man to express, even then when 〈◊〉 to say you dare not swear, pag. 8. God who is the searcher of heart's 〈◊〉, that it is with holy respect, etc. just like that sullen boy, whom when his mother commanded to say, good morrow; to his godfather, ●●…sisted in a silent dump, till he was sound basted, and then blub●… out this outery, I cannot say, good morrow, not I     
FINIS.