A learned and very useful commentary on the whole epistle to the Hebrews wherein every word and particle in the original is explained ... : being the substance of thirty years Wednesdayes lectures at Black-fryers, London / by that holy and learned divine Wiliam Gouge ... : before which is prefixed a narrative of his life and death : whereunto is added two alphabeticall tables ...

§. 127. Of perjury.

A Sixt errour is Perjury. Perjury in generall is a false swearing: or ratifying a lye with an Oath.

Perjury may be distinguished according to the distinctions of an Oath set down, §. 119. It may have respect either to matters past or to come.

• 1. When a man swears that to be true, which he knoweth or thinks to be false, he forsweareth himself.
• 2. When a man sweares that to be false which he knoweth, or believeth to be true, then also he forswears himself.
• 3. When a man by oath promises to do what he intends not, that is perjury.
• 4. When a man sweareth to do a thing, and at the time of swearing intends to do it, yet afterwards, though he might do it, yet doth it not, forsweareth himself.

Perjury in every case is a most heynous sin: and that to God, our neighbour, and our selves.

• 1. Gods name is highly prophaned hereby, and his Majesty vilified: for he is made like the devill, a patron of a lie. In this respect he is provoked to execute extraordinary vengeance on perjured persons, as he did on Zedekiah Ezek. 17. 19. These two clauses, ye shall not swear by my Name falsly, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God, (Lev. 19. 12.) so joyned together, give proof, that to swear falsly is to profane Gods name. Hereupon a false oath is put in the number of those things that God hateth, Zec. 8. 17. Surely there is no fear of God in false swea∣rers: they seem to out-face, and to challenge the most high against themselves▪
• 2. Neighbours are exceedingly beguiled by such: they are made to believe a lye, and to expect that which will never fall out.
• 3. False swearers pull much mischief upon their own pates: they make themselves liable to his vengeance, who is a consuming fire. He threatneth to be a swift wit∣ness against such (Mal. 3. 5.) and to cause his curse to remain in the midst of his house that sweareth falsly by his name, to consume it with the timber and stones thereof, Zec. 5. 4. There is no one sin that sets the conscience more on a rack▪ for the most part, then this: and none that ordinarily bringeth greater infamy upon a man.