PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

Oaths. 189
great King; neither shalt thou swear by thy .head,
becal:~e thou canst not make one bair whIte or
black: but let your communication bE yea yea, nay
nay, for whatsoever is more than these ~ometh of
e\,i!."
To reconci!e with (his passage of scripture the
practice of swearing, or of taking oaths, ,vhen required
by law, the following observatinns must be
attended to.
J. It does fiot appear, that ~wearing "by heaven,"
"h)1' the earth," "by ./crusalenz," or "by their own
head," was a form of s\\!'earing c\yer Inade use of
among~t the Jews in judicial oath: and consequent-
1~:, it is nC)t probable that they \\7ere judi~ial oaths,
,\~hich Christ had in his mind when he mentioned ·
those instances.--
2. As ~o the seeming universality of the prohibition,
"s,\~ear not at all," -the emphatic clause " not
at all," is to be rrad in connexion with \\~hat fol~
lo\vs; "llot at all," i~ e. neither "by the heaven,"
nor " by the earth," nor" by J£rusolc]I~," nor " by
thy head ;" "110t lit all," does not mean np('ln no OCca~ion,
but bv nOlle of these form~. Ollr Saviour's
J
argutll(::nt seen1S to ~llppnse, that the people to whom
he spake, nlade a dj~tinctjon between s,vearing- directly
b)1 "the name of God," and swearing by those
inf::-rior cblects of \~enerati()n, "the heavens~"" the
earth," "Jerllsakm," ur "their own head." In cpposi!!()n
to ,,-ilich di!'til1cti()n he te]ls theIn, tll~lt, on
accr,u11t of the relati(:n \\-11icl1 thL~e things bore to
the SuprLol11\: Being~ to ~,\:ear I))' any of thern_ \vas in
eUt·ct an