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fure to disparage the credit of all pretenfions of the fame nature. Chriftianity has fuffered more injury from this caufe, than from all other caufes put together.

As there may be falsehoods which are not lies, fo there may be lies without literal or direct falfehood. An opening is always left for this fpecies of prevarication, when the literal and grammatical fignification of a sentence is different from the popular and customary meaning. It is the wilful deceit that makes the lie; and we wilfully deceive, when our expreffions are not true, in the fenfe in which we believe the hearer apprehends them. Befides, it is abfurd to contend for any fenfe of words, in oppofition to usage, for all fenfes of all words are founded upon ufage, and upon nothing else.

Or a man may act a lie; as by pointing his finger in a wrong direction, when a traveller inquires of him his road; or when a tradefman fhuts up his windows, to induce his creditors to believe that he is abroad for to all moral purposes, and therefore as to veracity, fpeech and action are the fame; fpeech being only a mode of action.

Or, laftly, there may be lies of omiffion. A writer of English hiftory, who, in his account of the reign of Charles the First, fhould wilfully fupprefs any evidence of that prince's defpotic measures and defigns, might be faid to lie; for, by entitling his book a biftory of England, he engages to relate the whole truth of the hiftory, or, at leaft, all that he knows of it.

CHAP.

CHA P. XVI.

OATH S.

I. FOR MS of Oaths.

II. Signification.
III. Lawfulness.
IV. Obligation.

V. What oaths do not bind.

VI. In what fenfe oaths are to be interpreted.

I. The forms of oaths, like other religious ceremonies, have been always various; but confifting, for the most part, of fome bodily action, * and of a prefcribed form of words. Amongst the Jews, the juror held up his right hand towards heaven, which explains a paffage in the cxlivth Pfalm, "whose mouth fpeaketh vanity, and their right"hand is a right-hand of falsehood." The fame form is retained in Scotland still, amongst the fame Jews. An oath of fidelity was taken, by the fervant's putting his hand under the thigh of his lord, as Eliezar did to Abraham, Gen. xxiv. 2. from whence, with no great variation, is derived perhaps the form of doing homage at this day, by putting the hands between the knees, and within the hands of the liege.

It is commonly thought that oaths are denominated corporal oaths from the bodily action which accompanies them of laying the right hand upon a book containing the four gofpels. This opinion, however, appears to be a mistake; for the term is borrowed from the ancient ufage of touching, upon these occa fions, the corporale, or cloth which covered the confecrated elements.

Amongst

Amongst the Greeks and Romans, the form varied with the fubject and occafion of the oath. In private contracts, the parties took hold of each other's hand, whilst they fwore to the performance; or they touched the altar of the God, by whofe divinity they swore. Upon more folemn occafions, it was the custom to flay a victim; and the beast being Struck down, with certain ceremonies and invocations, gave birth to the expreffions Tuva op, ferire pactum, and to our English phrafe, tranflated from thefe, offtriking a bargain."

The forms of oaths in Chriftian countries are alfo very different; but in no country in the world, I believe, worse contrived, either to convey the meaning, or imprefs the obligation of an oath, than in our own. The juror, with us, after repeating the promise or affirmation, which the oath is intended to confirm, adds, "fo help me God:" or more frequently the fubftance of the oath is repeated to the juror, by the officer or magiftrate who adminifters it, adding in the conclufion "fo help you "God." The energy of the fentence refides in the particle fo; fo, that is, bác lege, upon condition of my speaking the truth, or performing this promife, and not otherwise, may God help me. The juror, whilst he hears or repeats the words of the oath, holds his right hand upon a bible, or other book, containing the four gofpels. The conclusion of the oath fometimes runs," ita me Deus adjuvet,

et hæc fancta evangelia," or "fo help me God, "and the contents of this book ;" which laft claufe forms a connection between the words and action of the juror, that before was wanting. The juror then kiffes the book: the kifs, however, feems rather a reverence to the contents of the book, as, in the popish ritual, the priest kiffes the gospel before he reads it, than any part of the oath.

This obfcure and elliptical form, together with the levity and frequency with which it is administered,

K

niftered, has brought about a general inadvertency to the obligation of oaths, which, both in a religious and political view, is much to be lamented: and it merits public confideration, whether the requiring of oaths on fo many frivolous occafions, efpecially in the customs, and in the qualification for petty offices, has any other effect, than to make them cheap in the minds of the people. A pound of tea cannot travel regularly from the fhip to the confumer, without cofting half a dozen oaths at the leaft; and the fame fecurity for the due difcharge of their office, namely, that of an oath, is required from a churchwarden and an archbishop, from a petty constable and the chief juftice of England. Let the law continue its own fanctions, if they be thought requifite; but let it fpare the folemnity of an oath. And where it is neceffary, from the want of fomething better to depend upon, to accept men's own word or own account, let it annex to prevarication penalties proportioned to the public confequence of the offence.

II. But whatever be the form of an oath, the fignification is the fame. It is "the calling upon "God to witnefs, i. e. to take notice of what we

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fay, and invoking his vengeance, or renouncing "his favour, if what we fay be false, or what we "promise be not performed."

III. Quakers and Moravians refufe to fwear upon any occafion; founding their fcruples concerning the lawfulness of oaths, upon our Saviour's prohibition, Matth. v. 34. "I fay unto you, fwear not at

"all."

The answer which we give to this objection cannot be understood, without firft ftating the whole paffage: "Ye have heard, that it hath been faid, "by them of old time, thou shalt not forfwear thy"felf, but fhalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: "but I fay unto you, fwear not at all; neither by "heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by earth, for

"it is his foot-ftool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is "the city of the great King; neither fhalt thou "fwear by thy head, because thou canst not make "one hair white or black: but let your communi"cation be yea yea, nay nay, for whatfoever is "more than thefe cometh of evil."

To reconcile with this paffage of Scripture, the practice of fwearing, or of taking oaths, when required by law, the following obfervations must be attended to.

1. It does not appear, that fwearing " by "heaven," "by the earth," " by Jerufalem," or

by their own head," was a form of fwearing ever made ufe of among the Jews in judicial oaths: and consequently, it is not probable that they were judicial oaths, which Chrift had in his mind when he mentioned those inftances.

As to the feeming univerfality of the prohibition, "fwear not at all," the emphatic claufe "not "at all," is to be read in connection with what follows; "not at all," h. e. "neither by the hea"ven," nor" by the earth," nor by " Jerufalem," nor by thy" head:" "not at all" does not mean upon no occafion, but by none of thefe forms. Our Saviour's argument feems to fuppofe, that the people to whom he fpake, made a diftinction between fwearing directly by the "name of God," and swearing by thofe inferior objects of veneration, "the heavens," "the earth, "Jerufalem," or "their own head." In oppofition to which diftinction he tells them, that, on account of the relation which these things bore to the fupreme Being, to fwear by any of them, was in effect and fubftance to [wear by him; " by heaven, for it is "his throne; by the earth, for it is his footstool; "by Jerufalem, for it is the city of the great "King; by thy head, for it is his workmanship, "not thine, thou canst not make one hair white or "black" for which reafon, he fays, "fwear not

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