OATH, a solemn affirmation or decla ration, made with an appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed. The appeal to God in an oath, implies that the person imprecates his vengeance an I renounces his favor if the declaration is false ; or if the declaration is it promise, the person inrokes the vengeance of God if be should fail to fulfil it. A person who is to be a witness in a cause may have two oaths aehninistered to him ; the one to speak the troth, in relation to what the court shall think fit to ask him, concerning him self or anything else that is not evidence in the cause; and the other purely to give evidence in the cause wherein he is produced as a witness. The laws of all civilized states have required the security of an oath for evidence given in a court of justice; and the Christian religion, while it utterly prohibits profane and needless swearing, does not seem to for bid oaths duly required, or taken on ne cessary occasions. But the Quakers and Morticians,—swayed by the sense which they put upon that text of Scripture in St. Matthew, which says, "Swear not at all," and St. James's words, eh. w. 12,— refuse to swear on any occasion, even at the requisition of a magistrate, and in a court of justice. Any believer in a defi nite form of religion can be a witness, and the oath may be administered " sm.:aid ing to such forms and ceremonies as he may declare to be binding." But persons
who cannot take an oath are incapable of being witnesses; such, therefore, as will not declare their belief in God. in a fuhire state of rewards and punishments, and that perjury will be punished by the Deity, are excluded; as well as those who, from their years of ignorance, are inca pable of comprehending the nature of an oath.—Oaths to perform illegal nets do not bind, nor do they excuse the per formance of the act. Perjury is the wil ful violation of an oath mlittinistered by lawfal authority to a witness in it judi cial proceeding. Different formalities h ire been customary in different coun tries iu taking oaths. The Jews some times swore with their hands lifted up, and sometimes placed under the thigh of the person to whom they swore. This was also the custom among the Athenians nut the Romans. The ancients guarded against perjury very religiously; and for fear they might fall into it through neglect of due form. they usually de clared that they bound themselves only so far as the oath was praelicable : and lest the obligation should lio upon their ghosts, they made an express obligation, when they swore, that the oath should be cancelled at their death. perjury they believed could not pass unpunished, and expected the divine vengeance to overtake the perjured villain even in this ire.