Ally’d to this Plea, is theirs that will not flatly swear by God, but by certain fictitious terms and abbreviatures, as by Dod, &c. and by the like disguizing of them believe to justify their Oaths; as if they cared not, so (like Saul to (1 Sam. 28. 8) the Witch of Endor) they may go mask’d to Satan.
Ans. To these I shall only answer with the Apostle, Be not deceived, (Gal. 6. 7) God is not mocked; since (as the same Apostle elsewhere says) He (1 Cor. 3. 19) taketh the wise in their own craftiness. Well may this childish Evasion cheat our own Souls, but never him, who judgeth as well as he discerns Intents; and regards not so much the precise signification of your words, as what they are meant and understood for; which (in such cases) is usually an Oath, since the same credit is both given and expected upon these mongrel Oaths, that is paid to those they mean, but would not seem. These people bring into my mind the Bloody Persecutors of our first Christians, who cloathed them in the skins of savage beasts, that it might seem no crime to worry them; for so these Hypocrites disguise God’s Name, to give themselves the license to dishonour it.
‘Tis a very pretty slight of these Gentlemen, to cozen the Devil to their own advantage, and to find out By-ways to Damnation, and descend to Hell by a pair of backstairs; and methinks argues a Cunning much about the size of his, that pleaded he was innocent of falsifying the King’s Coin, because he had displac’d some Letters in the Motto. But to Hell, as to Towns, these singular By-paths (tho less frequented) may lead directlier than the broad Highways: And to these Gentlemen, and those that rely upon the last answer’d Objection, I shall at present only recommend the serious pondering of that passage of the Wise-man in the Proverbs: All the (Prov. 16. 2) ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits.