To one who does not carry foregone conclusions of his own to the interpretation of the New Testament, it can hardly appear otherwise than certain that the Founder of Christianity intended to prohibit all oaths. His precept, “Swear not at all,” occurs in a series of specifications of maxims drawn from the standard morality of his day, under each of which he sets aside the existing ethical rule, and substitutes for it one covering precisely the same ground, and conformed to the intrinsic right as represented in his own spirit and life. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil.” “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies.” The analogy of these and other declarations of the same series compels us to believe that when Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths,” the precept which followed, “I say unto you, Swear not at all,” must have applied to the same subject-matter with the maxim which precedes it,—that Jesus must have intended to disallow something that had been previously permitted. If so, not trivial or profane oaths alone, but oaths made in good faith and with due solemnity must have been included in the precept, “Swear not at all.”(13) It is historically certain that the primitive Christians thus understood the evangelic precept. They not only refused the usual idolatrous forms of adjuration, but maintained that all oaths had been forbidden by their Divine Lawgiver; nor have we any proof of their having receded from this position, until that strange fusion of church and state under Constantine, in which it is hard to say whether Christianity mounted the throne of the Cæsars or succumbed to their rule. Section IV. Honesty.