When the Article says that a man “may swear when the Magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity,” this is understood to mean when solemn testimony is required “in courts of justice” or “before a civil tribunal,” as Browne notes. Oaths thus fulfill a high civic function, which is described at some length in the Homily Against Swearing and Perjury:
By lawful oaths which kings, princes, judges and magistrates do swear common laws are kept inviolate, justice is indifferently ministered, harmless persons, fatherless children, widows and poor men are defended from murderers, oppressors and thieves, that they suffer no wrong, nor take any harm.[1]
In permitting Christians to swear oaths in such settings, the Article further affirms the civil realm and the goodness of Christian participation in it:
Our blessed Lord, we may be sure, never intended that his religion should weaken the ties that bind men together in civil communities, nor that by becoming good Christians, we should be made bad subjects. On the contrary, by forbidding the use of oaths in our ordinary conversation, he gave additional force and solemnity to judicial adjurations.[2]
However, whether judicial oaths hold the same power today that they did when the Article was written is another matter. An oath, properly understood, is
An appeal to God, who knows all things, and will judge all men: so it is an act that acknowledges both his omniscience, and his being the Governor of this world, who will judge all at the last day according to their deeds, and must be supposed to have a more immediate regard to such acts, in which men made him a party.[3]
If a society is increasingly populated by those who do not believe in the Christian God (or any god at all), it becomes harder to say what constrains such people to testify truthfully in a court of law, where they either mouth oaths invoking God even as they do not believe in Him, or else merely “affirm” that what they are about to say is true, without any appeal to a higher power. For this reason, Locke famously wrote that “those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.”[4] Having said this, we need not despair over the power of oaths even in irreligious times:
A secret conviction of the power and omniscience of God is implanted in every heart, which neither sophistry can suppress, nor wickedness entirely eradicate. This will always operate to a certain extent, even in the most abandoned; for men know that, though perjury may escape instantaneous punishment in this world, it is of all sins the most sure of vengeance in the world to come.[5]
Although some will doubtless stifle their consciences and commit the sin of perjury when convenient, the natural knowledge of God shared by all people nevertheless works its influence even on those who would deny Him. Hence the power of oaths still pertains today, and Christians should gladly acquiesce in swearing them for the purpose of furthering civil justice.
Notes
- Bray, Homilies, 61. See also Burnet, Articles, 515, and Tomline, Christian Theology, 483–84. ↑
- Waite, Articles, 568. See also Waite, Articles, 564; Green, Articles, 319; Bicknell, Articles, 560; and Thomas, Articles, 484. ↑
- Burnet, Articles, 515. See also Waite, Articles, 566–67; Tomline, Christian Theology, 483; Forbes, Articles, 802; Baker, Articles, 213; and Bicknell, Articles, 559. ↑
- John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Mario Montuori (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), 93, italics original. Compare Waite, Articles, 568. ↑
- Waite, Articles, 567–68. ↑
