They deny it also on account of the construction of the sentences, and of the meaning of the several words in these.  For the words, “Swear not at all,” in the second of the verses, which have been quoted, have an immediate reference to the words in the first.  Thus they relate to the word “forswear,” in the first.  But if they relate to the word “forswear,” they must relate to perjury, and if to perjury, then to a civil oath, or to an oath, where an appeal is made to God by man, as to something relating to himself.  The word oath also is explicitly mentioned in the first of these verses, and mentioned as an oath which had been allowed.  Now there was one oath, which had been allowed in ancient time.  The Jews had been permitted, in matters of judgment, to swear by the name of God.  This permission was given them, for one, among other reasons, that they might be prevented from swearing by the name of those idols by which their neighbours swore; for a solemn appeal to any Heathen god necessarily includes an acknowledgment of the omnipresence of the same.

That they related to this oath in particular, the Quakers conceive to be obvious from the prohibition in the verses which have been cited, of swearing by heaven, by earth, and by other things.  The Jews, knowing the sacredness of the name of God, had an awful notion of the consequences of perjury, if committed after an appeal to it, and therefore had recourse to the names of the creatures, in case they should swear falsely.  But even the oaths, thus substituted by them, are forbidden by Jesus Christ; and they are forbidden upon this principle, as we find by a subsequent explanation given by St. Matthew, that whosoever swore by these creatures, really and positively swore by the name of God.  But if they are forbidden, because swearing by these creatures is the same thing as swearing by God who made them, then the oath “by the name of God,” which had been permitted to the Jews of old, was intended by Jesus Christ to be discontinued, or to have no place in his new religion.

The Quakers then, considering the words in question to have the meaning now annexed to them, give the following larger explanation of what was the intention of our Saviour upon this occasion.

In his sermon on the Mount, of which these words on the subject of oaths are a part, he inculcated into his disciples a system of morality, far exceeding that of the Jews, and therefore in the verses which precede those upon this subject, he tells them, that whereas it was said of old, “thou shall not kill,” he expected of them, that they should not even entertain the passion of revenge.  And whereas it was said of old, “thou shalt not commit adultery,” he expected, that they should not even lust after others, if they were married, or after those in a married state.  Thus he brings both murder and adultery from act to thought.  He attaches a criminality to unlawful feelings if not suppressed, or aims at the subjugation of the