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TABLE TALK
May 25. 1830
ОглавлениеEPISTLES TO THE EPHESIANS AND COLOSSIANS.—OATHS
The Epistle to the Ephesians is evidently a catholic epistle, addressed to the whole of what might be called St. Paul's diocese. It is one of the divinest compositions of man. It embraces every doctrine of Christianity;– first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity, and then those precepts common to it with natural religion. The Epistle to the Colossians is the overflowing, as it were, of St. Paul's mind upon the same subject.
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The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to make a man invoke God's wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in my judgment, a sin to do so. The Jews' oath is an adjuration by the judge to the witness: "In the name of God, I ask you." There is an express instance of it in the high-priest's adjuring or exorcising Christ by the living God, in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, and you will observe that our Lord answered the appeal.54
You may depend upon it, the more oath-taking, the more lying, generally among the people.
54
See this instance cited, and the whole history and moral policy of the common system of judicial swearing examined with clearness and good feeling, in Mr. Tyler's late work on Oaths.—ED.
