truth, who perhaps know but little of religion. But if so, then he, who
makes Christianity his guide, will not be found knowingly in a
falsehood, though he be deprived of the opportunity of swearing.

But if it be true, that truth existed before the invention of oaths, and
that truth would still be spoken, even if all oaths were abolished, then
the Quakers say, that oaths are not so necessary as some have imagined,
because they have but a secondary effect in the production of the truth.
This conclusion they consider also as the result of reason. For good men
will speak truth without an oath, and bad men will hardly be influenced
by one. And where oaths are regarded, it is probable that truth is
forced out of men, not so much, because they consider them as solemn
appeals to God, as that they consider the penalties, which will follow
their violation; so that a simple affirmation, under the same pains and
penalties, would be equally productive of the truth.

The Quakers consider oaths again as very injurious to morality. For
first, they conceive it to be great presumption in men to summon God as
a witness in their trilling and earthly concerns.

They believe, secondly, that, if men accustom themselves to call upon
God on civil occasions, they render his name so familiar to them, that
they are likely to lose the reverence due to it, or so to blend
religious with secular considerations, that they become in danger of
losing sight of the dignity, solemnity, and awfulness of devotion. And
it is not an unusual remark, that persons, most accustomed to oaths, are
the most likely to perjury. A custom-house oath has become proverbial in
our own country. I do not mean by this to accuse mercantile men in
particular, but to state it as a received opinion, that, where men make
solemn things familiar, there is a danger of their moral degradation.