invoked, he is present by means of his name, and hears. In such a use of it, God's name is hallowed."[1]
From this passage we learn, what is important to be known, that the conscientious scruples of the Quakers and others in regard to taking an oath on solemn and official occasions, are groundless, and that to swear on such occasions is not to take God's name in vain. It is satisfactory to have all such questions as this settled, as they are in the New Church, by the teachings of revealed Truth.
But we also here learn the sinfulness of ordinary swearing, or uttering a profane oath. The use of such language, whether the speaker is aware of it or not, is incited from those horrid hells where the spirit of blasphemy reigns; and the practice of it must tend to keep the mind in connection and communion with that class of infernals. Whoever, therefore, does not wish to keep his spirit conjoined and bound to the hells, must refrain from such a practice as a sin.
The use, moreover, in common discourse, of terms opposite to those of God, as "the devil," or " hell," "damnation," or any similar expressions, flows doubtless from a similar source. The infernals breathe into the angry mind or the loose mind the thought of themselves, and prove their presence in the speaker's heart, by inciting the utterance of their own wicked names from his lips. All bad language, in a word, proceeds from a bad source, and will be scrupulously avoided by him who desires to keep his spirit in a state of innocence, and in communion with the angels of heaven.
- ↑ True Christian Religion, n. 297.
