Commentary on the Gospels and Acts, Commentary 1 · Chapter 5 · Verse 33
Verse 33. Thou shalt not for swear thy self.]
An oath is, foreign, a hedge which a man may not break. It must not be … without necessity. Hence the Hebrew foreign Nishbang is a passive, and … to be sworn, rather then to swear. For if the doubt or … may be asloiled, or ended by Verily, or Truly, or such naked …, we are, by the example of our Saviour, to forbear an oath. But having sworn, though to his …, a man must not change, Psal 15. 4. upon pain of a curse, yea a book full of …, …. 5. 3 4. It is not for men to play with oaths, as children doe with nuts: to slip them at pleasure, as monkies doe their collars: to snap them asunder, as Samson did his cords. It was an impious and blasphemous speech of him that …, My tongue hath …, but my minde is unsworn. Andforeign …. who can but detest that abominable doctrine of the … of old, and their heirs the Jesuites alate,
Jura, perjura, secretum prodere noli.
….God will be a swift witnesse against perjured persons, Mal. 3.…, …, …, all …, … …. as those that villainously abuse his Majesty, making him an acceslary, yea a partner in their sin, thinking him like themselves, and therefore calling him to justifie their untruths. Had Shimei peace, that brake … oath to Solomon? Or …, that kept not touch…, …. with the King of Babylon? Or Ananias and Saphira, that but uttered an untruth, swore it not? God punisheth perjury with destruction, men, with disgrace, saith a fragment of the twelve Tables in Rome. The AEgyptians and … punished it with death. So did Philip Earl of Flanders, and others. But where men have not done it, God hath hanged up such with his own hands, as it were, as our Earl Godwin: Rodolphus Duke of Suevia … ….that rebelled against his master Henry Emperour of Germany, ….to whom he had sworn allegiance: Ladeslaus King of …, at the great battell of Varna, where the raging Turk (provoked…. … …. 297. by his perjury) appealed to Christ: Michael Paleologus Emperour of Constantinople, who for his perjury, and other his foul and faithlesse dealings, lieth obscurely shrowded in the sheet … defame, saith the History. Richard Long, souldier at Calice, deposing…. 144. falsly against William Smith, Curate of Calice, shortlyAct. and …. fol 1 117. after, upon a displeasure of his wife, desperately drowned himself. And within the memory of man, Feb. 11. 1575. Anne … forswore her self at a shop in Woodstreet, London, and praying God she might sinke where she stood, if she had not paid for the wares she took, fell down speechlesse, and with an horrible stinke died soon after. Thus God hangeth up evil-doers in gibbets, as it were, that others may hear and fear, and doe no ….more so.
But shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths.]
As David, I have …, and I will perform, &c. Psal. 119. 106. And yet David was not alwaies as good as his oath, as in the case of …, Iacob pater votorum … tur …&c. Nor did … of a long time perform his vow, …. 28 21 though once (at least) admonished, Gen. 31. 13. till he was … arrouse, by the … of the Shechemites, We … in …, … by …, as … friends.and … own … danger, to go up to Bethel, and doe as he had promised. The font in baptisme is Beersheba, the well of an oath, there we … swear our selves to God, which S. Peter calleth the stipulation of a good conscience. This oath we renew,1 …. 3 21. when we come to the other Sacrament: and often besides, when the Lord … siege to us by some disease or other distresse, what promises and protestations make we, as Pharaoh and those votaries, Psal. 78? But sciapato il morbo, fraudato il Dio, as the… 78. 35. Italian Proverb hath it: the disease or danger once over, God is defrauded of his due. See it in those, Jer. 34. who forfeited their fidelity, though they had cut the calf in twain, and passedVide Virgil. l. 8. …, soe lus … Tatij que . thorow the parts thereof (a most solemn way of sealing up Covenants) and are sorely threatned for it, that God would in like sort cut them in twain, and destroy them, which was the import of that Ceremony.