Lastly, My concluding Precept is, To make frequent and serious Reflections upon the Vanity and Foolishness of Swearers, who live as if they meant to remove all our wonder from the Folly of our First Parents, that lost Paradise for an Apple. Sure that these people are not quarter’d in Bedlam, (where far less Frenzies have imprison’d many) proceeds rather from the Multitude of the infatuated, than any want of Madness in their actions: But howsoever, wise men build Cages for them in their opinions, and in their soberer Thoughts condemn them to inhabit those Frantick Lodgings.
That usual expression of Scripture1 which sometimes puts the word Folly instead of the word Sin, seems chiefly calculated for the Swearer’s Vice, to which it does so eminently belong, and which is so uncapable of being wrong’d by the appellation.
But to what has been already delivered, to shew how little shelter our Swearers find from all their weak Apologies, (as certainly the Fruitlesness and Inexcusableness of their Vice considered, almost no Sinners have more to answer for, and less to answer) we must now add, That they want not only the Temptation of an Excuse, but the very Excuse of a Temptation, (unless its being forbidden, pass for one). For (First) this Mungrel Issue cannot (as other Vices use to be) be said at Nature’s door; we cannot father it upon Traduction, since we inherit it not from our Parents; nor is it born with us, but learn’d by us; so that here, before we can be Sinners, we must have been Disciples. But (then) all other Vices have either Honour, (as Ambition), or Profit, (as Avarice), or Delight, (as Uncleanness), to plead for their excuse; Swearing alone can plead nothing but Guilty: So that if ever that expression of the Apostle, which mentions Superfluity of Naughtiness, (Jam. 1. 21) belong’d to any sin, ‘tis certainly here to be appropriated.
The silly Indians, that part with Gold and Jewels, for Glasses, Whistles, and such trifling Gugaws, are Solomons to Swearers: Betwixt whose Madness, and the fam’d folly of Lysimachus, who (parch’d with extreme Thirst) to get a little drink, became a voluntary Prisoner to his (soon after vanquish’d) Enemies, I find no disparity advantageous to Swearers; it being a less ill bargain, to sell away ones Liberty for ones Belly-full of Water, than to sell away ones Soul for a Mouth-full of Air. This Swearing is a Hook without a Bait: And when Hell employ’d its spurious brood of Vices into the world to seduce mankind, it furnish’d every one of them with a Dowry, either of Fame, of Pleasure, or Advantage, to entice Lovers with; only poor Swearing was left Portionless; a Mistress (only) for those generous and disinterested Sinners, that need no Temptation; but loving Wickedness (as they ought to do Virtue) for its own sake alone, aim’d at nothing in the act of sin, beyond the satisfaction of having committed it. To whom the Lord may justly say, as he did to the Israelites in the Prophet, You have sold your selves (Isa. 52. 3) for nought. For whereas usually those Vices that rifle the Soul, do bribe the Senses; in swearing the poor Soul is stript of her Graces, and robb’d of her Joys, without the least Emolument (of Pleasure or Advantage) accruing to the Senses. This swearing (in my opinion) is e’en as foolish as loving a cruel Mistress; a man parts with his heart, and gets nothing in exchange for it. An Oath is like the Powder that charges a Granado, its properties are to make a momentary, displeasing noise, to offend those that are within the reach of it, and to spoil that from which it parts. Nor is that criminal blast unlike the Prophet’s description of the Cankerworm; of which he gives this Character, That it spoileth, (Nahum 3. 16) and fleeth away.
But the less advantages this Vice affords, the more culpable it is; the Disobedience as well as Folly of a forbidden act being increased by the want of its being beneficial; he that trespasses for least, transgresses most; for sure ‘tis rather an aggravation than an excuse of having injured any body, that you get nothing by it. The Ambitious and the Incontinent, are like great Ladies, that surfeit upon Apricocks, Nectarines, and Melons: Whereas the Swearer is but too justly resembled to those Beggars, that kill themselves with Blackberries and Slows, and such like Trash, the Excrements of Hedges; having Appetites as ridiculously noxious, as those of some of our Green-sickness Girls, whose Stomachs rise at Dainties, and long for Loam and Charcoal.
For my part, would I renounce my interest in Virtue, it should be for the attaining of a Scepter, a Fame transcending Caesars; and (in a word) where the Happiness I forfeited should seem so recompenc’d by that I gain’d by losing it, that wise men themselves should have occasion rather to compassionate my frailty, than admire my weakness. For I confess it would extremely trouble me to hang for my Thirteenpence-half-penny; and I am confident, that many of those this senseless Vice has damn’d, do find a vast accession to the Pains of Hell it self, in the consideration of the Cause of their enduring them.
Since then, Swearing is a Vice so ill qualified, that you want a Temptation to it, you find no Pleasure in it, nor do derive any Advantage from it; O let not your obstinacy to doat upon an empty fleeting sound, that has nothing in it of a Sin, except the Guilt, hinder you from shunning Torments that will equal your Wretchedness to your Folly, and from keeping up a Title unto Joys, whose very Hope transcends all Earthly Happiness, by opposing all your past Unnecessary Oaths, by one Inviolable Promisary One, Never to Swear Needlesly again.
← Direction 5 · Contents · A Dissuasive from Cursing →
Footnotes
-
Gen. 34. 7. Josh. 7. 15. Judges 20. 6. ↩