may stupify the monitor in their own bosoms, by throwing the blame of perfidy upon each other; but it is yet worthy to be remembered, that they act in the presence of a Being with whom the night shineth as the day, and that they must appear before a tribunal where there will be "no shuffling." For beings acting under these conditions, there surely can be no wiser or better course than that of simple, unsophisticated verity, under what relations soever they may be called upon to act.

CHAPTER THIRD.

OF OATHS.

I. The theory of oaths.

It is frequently of the highest importance to society, that the facts relating to a particular transaction should be distinctly and accurately ascertained. Unless this could be done, neither the innocent could be protected, nor the guilty punished; that is, justice could not be administered, and society could not exist.

To almost every fact, or to the circumstances which determine it to be fact, there must be, from the laws of cause and effect, and from the social nature of man, many witnesses. The fact can, therefore, be generally known, if the witnesses can be induced to testify, and to testify the truth.

To place men under such circumstances, that, upon the ordinary principles of the human mind, they shall be most likely to testify truly, is the design of administering an oath.

In taking an oath, besides incurring the ordinary civil penalties incident to perjury, he who swears, calls upon God to witness the truth of his assertions; and, also, either

expressly or by implication, invokes upon himself the judgments of God, if he speak falsely. The ordinary form of swearing in this country, and in Great Britain, is to close the promise of veracity, with the words "So help me God;" that is, may God only help me as I tell the truth. Inasmuch as, without the help of God, we must be miserable for time and for eternity; to relinquish his help if we violate the truth, is, on this condition, to imprecate upon ourselves the absence of the favor of God, and, of course, all possible misery forever.

The theory of oaths, then, I suppose to be as follows:

1. Men naturally speak the truth, when there is no counteracting motive to prevent it; and, unless some such motive be supposed to supervene, they expect the truth to be spoken.

2. When, however, by speaking falsely, some immediate advantage can be gained, or some immediate evil avoided, they will frequently speak falsely.

3. But, when a greater good can be gained, or a greater evil avoided, by speaking the truth, than could possibly be gained or avoided by speaking falsely, they will, on the ordinary principles of the human mind, speak the truth. To place them under such circumstances, is the design of an oath.

4. Now, as the favor of God is the source of every blessing which man can possibly enjoy, and as his displeasure must involve misery utterly beyond the grasp of our limited conceptions; if we can place men under such circumstances, that, by speaking falsely, they relinquish all claim to the one, and incur all that is awful in the other, we manifestly place a stronger motive before them for speaking the truth than can possibly be conceived for speaking falsehood.

Hence, it is supposed, on the ordinary principles of the human mind, that men, under such circumstances, will speak the truth.

Such I suppose to be the theory of oaths. There can be no doubt, that, if men acted upon this conviction, the truth would be, by means of oaths, universally elicited.

But, inasmuch as men may be required to testify, whose practical conviction of these great moral truths is at best but weak, and who are liable to be more strongly influenced by immediate than by ulterior motives, human punishments have always been affixed to the crime of perjury. These, of course, vary in different ages, and in different periods of society. The most equitable provision seems to be that of the Jewish law, by which the perjurer was made to suffer precisely the same injury which he had designed to inflict upon the innocent party. The Mosaic enactment seems intended to have been, in regard to this crime, unusually rigorous. The judges are specially commanded not to spare, but to exact an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It certainly deserves serious consideration, whether modern legislators might not derive important instruction from this feature of Jewish jurisprudence.

II. The lawfulness of oaths. On this subject, a diversity of opinion has been entertained. It has been urged, by those who deny the lawfulness of oaths,

1. That oaths are frequently forbidden in the New Testament; and that we are commanded to use yes for our affirmative, and no for our negative; for the reason that, "whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil, or of the evil one."

2. That no man has a right to peril his eternal salvation, upon a condition, which, from intellectual or moral imbecility, he would be so liable to violate.