John Trapp Complete Commentary
Matthew 5:34
But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Ver. 34. Swear not at all] Not at all by the creatures. a (which the Pharisees held no fault), nor yet by the name of God in common talk, lightly, rashly, and irreverently; for such vain oaths the land mourneth. Oaths, alas, are become very interjections of speech to the common people, and phrases of gallantry to the braver. He that cannot swear with a grace, wanteth his tropes and his figures befitting a gentleman. Not to speak of those civilized complements of faith and loyalty (which are counted light matters), who hears not how ordinarily and openly ruffianly oaths and abhorred blasphemies are darted up with hellish mouths, against God and our Saviour, whom they can swear all over, and seldom name, but in an oath? How can these pray, "Hallowed be that Name," that they so daily dishallow? b Some cannot utter a sentence without an oath, yea, a fearful one, an oath of sound, if enraged especially. Oh the tragedies, the blusters, the terrible thunder cracks or fierce and furious language, interlaced with oaths, enough to make the very stones crack under them! Yea, to such a height and habitual practice hereof are some grown, that they swear and foam out a great deal of filth, and perceive it not. Had these men such distemper of body as that their excrements came from them when they knew not of it, it would trouble them. So it would, I dare say, did they believe the Holy Scriptures, threatening so many woes to them, yea, telling them of a large roll, ten yards long and five yards broad, full of curses against the swearer, yea, resting upon his house, where he thinks himself most secure, Zechariah 5:2,3 "Brimstone is scattered upon the house of the wicked," saith Job, Job 18:15 as ready to take fire if God but lighten upon it. They walk, as it were, upon a mine of gunpowder, and it may be just in God they should be blown up, when their hearts are full of hell, and their mouths even big with hellish blasphemies. Surely their damnation sleepeth not; God hath vowed he will not hold them guiltless, sworn these swearers shall never enter into his rest, Exodus 20:7; Psalms 95:11. And for men, those that have but any ingenuity abhor and shun their company. The very Turks have the Christians blaspheming Christ in execration, and will punish their prisoners sorely, when as through impatience or desperateness they burst out into them. Yea, the Jews, as their conversion is much hindered by the blasphemies of the Italians (who blaspheme oftener than swear), so in their speculations of the causes of the strange success of the affairs of the world, they assign the reason of the Turks prevailing so against the Christians, to be their oaths and blasphemies, which wound the ears of the very heavens. They can tell that swearing is one of those sins for the which God hath a controversy with a land, Hosea 4:2; Jeremiah 23:10. And I can tell what a great divine hath observed, that the stones in the wall of Aphek shall sooner turn executioners than a blasphemous Aramite shall escape unrevenged. So much doth a jealous God hate to be robbed of his glory, or wronged in his name, even by ignorant pagans (how much more by professed Christians!) whose tongues might seem no slander. Those that abuse earthly princes in their name and titles are imprisoned, banished, or hanged as traitors. And shall these go altogether unpunished? Hell gapes for such miscreants, &c.
Neither by heaven] As the Manichees and Pharisees did, and held it no sin. But God only is the proper object of an oath, Isaiah 65:16; Jeremiah 12:6. The name of the creature, say some, may be inferred, the attestation referred to God alone. But they say better that tell us that the form of an oath is not at all to be indirect or oblique, in the name of the creature. Albeit I doubt not but he that sweareth by heaven sweareth by him that dwelleth in heaven, &c. And forasmuch as God clotheth himself with the creatures, Psalms 104:1,2, is it fit for us to spit upon the king's royal robes, especially when they are upon his back? But forasmuch as we must shun and be shy of the very show and shadow of sin, they do best and safest that abstain from all oaths of this nature, 1 Thessalonians 5:22. They do very ill that swear by this light, bread, hand, fire (which they absurdly call God's angel), by St Ann, St George, by our Lady, &c., by the parts of Christ, which they substitute in the room of God. The barbarous soldiers would not break his bones, but these miscreants with their carrion mouths rend and tear (oh cause for tears!) his heart, hands, head, feet, and all his members asunder. Let all such consider, that, as light a matter as they make of it, this swearing by the creature is a "forsaking of God," Jeremiah 5:7, a provocation little less than unpardonable; an exposing God's honour to the spoil of the creatures, which was the heathen's sin, Romans 1:23; and abasing themselves below the meanest creatures, "for men verily swear by the greater," Hebrews 6:16. And the viler the thing is they swear by, the greater is the oath, because they ascribe thereto omniscience, power to punish, justice, &c., Amos 8:14; Zephaniah 1:3,5; besides a heavy doom of unavoidable destruction denounced against such. They that speak in favour of this sin allege 1 Corinthians 15:31. But that is not an oath, but an obtestation; q.d. my sorrows and sufferings for Christ would testify, if they could speak, that I die daily. And that, Song of Solomon 3:5, where Christ seemeth to swear "by the toes and hinds of the field." But that is not an oath either, but an adjuration: for he chargeth them not to trouble his Church; or if they do, the roes and hinds shall testify against them, because they do what those would not, had they reason as they have. In like sort Moses attesteth heaven and earth, Deuteronomy 32:1; and so doth God himself, Isaiah 1:2. And for those phrases, "As Pharaoh liveth," "As thy soul liveth," &c., they are rather earnest vouchings of things than oaths. c And yet that phrase of gallantry now so common, "As true as I live," is judged to be no better than an oath by the creature, Numbers 14:21; cf. Psalms 95:11. And we may not swear in jest, but in judgment, Jeremiah 4:2 .
For it is God's throne] We must not conceive that God is commensurable by a place, as if he were partly here and partly there, but he is everywhere all-present. The heavens have a large place, yet have they one part here and another there, but the Lord is totally present wheresoever present. Heaven therefore is said to be his throne, and he is said to inhabit it, Isaiah 66:1, not as if he were confined to it, as Aristotle and those atheists in Job conceited it; d but because there he is pleased to manifest the most glorious and visible signs of his presence, and there in a special manner he is enjoyed and worshipped by the crowned saints and glorious angels, &c. Here we see but as in a glass obscurely, his toe, train, hind parts, footstool. No man can see more and live; no man need see more here, that he may live for ever. But "there we shall see as we are seen, know as we are known," see him face to face, Isaiah 6:1; Isaiah 60:13; Isaiah 66:1; Exodus 33:23; 1 Corinthians 13:12. Oh how should this fire up our dull hearts, with all earnestness and intention of endeared affection to long, lust, pant, faint after the beatifical vision! How should we daily lift up our hearts and hands to God in the heavens, that he would send from heaven and save us; send his law, and command deliverance out of Sion; yea, that himself would break the heavens and come down, and fetch us home upon the clouds of heaven, as himself ascended, that when we awake we may be full of his image, and as we have borne the image of the earthly, so we may bear the image of the heavenly! St Paul, after he had once seen God in his throne, being rapped up into the third heaven (like the bird of Paradise), he never left groaning out, Cupio dissolvi, " I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, which is far far the better." e And Pareus, a little before his death, uttered this swan song,
" Discupio solvi, tecumque, o Christe, manere:
Portio fac regni sim quotacunque tui. "
Oh that I were in heaven! Oh that I might
Be ever with the Lord! Oh blissful plight!
Thus must our broken spirits even spend and exhale themselves in continual sallies, as it were, and egressions of thoughts, wishings, and longings after God, affecting not only a union, but a unity with him. f St Austin wished that he might have seen three things, Romam in flore, Paulum in ore, et Christum in corpore: Rome flourishing, Paul discoursing, and Christ living upon the earth. But I had rather wish, with venerable Bede, "My soul desireth to see Christ my King upon his throne, and in his majesty." g
a Deiurando per creaturas, contra Lyram, et de iuramenti usu, contra Anabapt. videbis Pareum in Jacob, v. 12.
b Sunt qui altius linguas suas in Christi sanguine demergunt, quam illi olim manus.
c Non est forma iuramenti, sed asseverationis seriae, et obtestationis domesticae; q.d. quam vere vivit Pharao, &c. Alsted.
d Job 22:14. Docuit Aristoteles providentiam Dei ad coelum lutae usque protendi, non ultra.
e πολλω μαλλον κρεισσον. A transcendant expression, like that 2 Corinthians 4:17 .
f Mi sine nocte diem, vitam sine morte quietam,
Dei sine fine dies. Vita, quiesque Deus.
g Anima mea desiderat Christum regem meum videre in decore suo. Beda.