not scorn, by such a practice, to shake his own credit, or to
detract from the validity of his word; which should stand firm on
itself, and not want any attestation to support it. It is a
privilege of honourable persons that they are excused from swearing,
and that their verbum honoris passeth in lieu of an oath: is it not
then strange, that when others dispense with them, they should not
dispense with themselves, but voluntarily degrade themselves, and
with sin forfeit so noble a privilege?


X. To excuse these faults, the swearer will be forced to confess
that his oaths are no more than waste and insignificant words,
deprecating being taken for serious, or to be understood that he
meaneth anything by them, but only that he useth them as expletive
phrases, [Greek], to plump his speech, and fill up sentences. But
such pleas do no more than suggest other faults of swearing, and
good arguments against it; its impertinence, its abuse of speech,
its disgracing the practiser of it in point of judgment and
capacity. For so it is, oaths as they commonly pass are mere
excrescences of speech, which do nothing but encumber and deform it;
they so embellish discourse, as a wen or a scab do beautify a face,
as a patch or a spot do adorn a garment.

To what purpose, I pray, is God's name hooked and haled into our
idle talk? why should we so often mention Him, when we do not mean
anything about Him? would it not, into every sentence to foist a dog
or a horse, to intrude Turkish, or any barbarous gibberish, be
altogether as proper and pertinent?

What do these superfluities signify, but that the venter of them