Otherwise, if we do venture to swear, without due advice and care,
without much respect and awe, upon any slight or vain (not to say
bad or unlawful) occasion, we then desecrate swearing, and are
guilty of profaning a most sacred ordinance: the doing so doth
imply base hypocrisy, or lewd mockery, or abominable wantonness and
folly; in bodily invading and vainly trifling with the most august
duties of religion. Such swearing therefore is very dishonourable
and injurious to God, very prejudicial to religion, very repugnant
to piety.


III. We may consider that the swearing prohibited is very noxious
to human society.

The great prop of society (which upholdeth the safety, peace, and
welfare thereof, in observing laws, dispensing justice, discharging
trusts, keeping contracts, and holding good correspondence mutually)
is conscience, or a sense of duty toward God, obliging to perform
that which is right and equal; quickened by hope of rewards and fear
of punishments from Him: secluding which principle, no worldly
confederation is strong enough to hold men fast, or can further
dispose many to do right, or observe faith, or hold peace, than
appetite or interest, or humour (things very slippery and uncertain)
do sway them.

That men should live honestly, quietly, and comfortably together, it
is needful that they should live under a sense of God's will, and in
awe of the divine power, hoping to please God, and fearing to offend
Him, by their behaviour respectively.