call upon Him as witness, it is in order that our own word — weak in itself — should be made strong and inviolable by the intervention of the Sacred Name. But if we are filled with God, and clothed with Jesus Christ, the truth itself is in us; and our utterances, being strengthened by the merits of the very source whence they spring, need not to be supported by the sacredness of an oath.
There used to be people who thought that they were not swearing solemnly so long as they did not bring in the name of God: — that if they only asseverated by heaven, or earth, or the Holy City — and so forth — they were not taking a profane oath. But Jesus Christ here decides that in all this there is something which, as relating to God, should be held as more or less sacred, and should not be profaned by man’s using it to swear by.
There is yet another remarkable saying on this point. ‘Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.’ [1] Of all the things we call our own, there is not one that we can really control — not even the colour of our hair. Never say, then, ‘ I swear by my head,’
- ↑ Matt. v. 36.
