in various departments of life, and in affairs of daily recurrence, required and made indispensable by law, yet the breach of them is not punishable, because the law, the very law which exacts them, "deems them unnecessary at least." All Oaths of office are condemned in one mass by this single sentence: no breach of them can be visited as a crime by the penalty of perjury, because (to quote the reason of the Commentator) they are unnecessary. Not even the breach of any oath required by Act of Parliament, except in a judicial proceeding, involves the crime of perjury unless the statute enacts, that such oath when false shall be perjury, or shall subject the offender to the penalties of perjury*. But on this point I have already spoken under another view of the subject. At present, I have instanced these cases, only in illustration of the prevalent distinction between the crime of perjury as a "public wrong," and the guilt of "false-swearing," as an offence against God.

The history of Perjury, considered as a crime

* Neither a false oath in a mere private matter, nor the breach of a promissory oath, whether private or public, is punishable as perjury. And the Judges, on a case reserved, were unanimous that upon no oath taken before a surrogate for the purpose of procuring a licence, however grossly false, could perjury be assigned, though the oath is required to be taken, and the very terms of it are defined by Act of Parliament. 4 G. IV., c. 76.-See Russell, art: Perjury. See also pp. 50, 51. of this Treatise.

against the state, and therefore to be punished by the civil magistrate, is full of interest. It is however, at the same time, surrounded by many difficulties, and involved in much doubt. For that punishments have been, in various ages and countries, enacted against perjury, and have been actually inflicted, there can, I conceive, be no question: and yet, against the clear evidence of history, we repeatedly are told, not in learned dissertations only, but on the testimony of practical men, that the falseswearer and perjurer was left in former days entirely to the vengeance of the Deity, whose majesty he had insulted, and whose anger he had invoked.

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CHAPTER XI.

PERJURY AMONG THE JEWS.

How far, in practice, the Jews considered the falseswearer amenable to human punishment, is a question of much uncertainty. That the law of Moses provided no specific penalty for that exact offence, merely as a breach of oath and as a substantive crime, may, I think, be reasonably maintained. In one case, indeed, involving the happiness or misery of families, an oath of purgation is prescribed, with all the impressive details of its administration,—and a punishment is threatened to be miraculously and visibly inflicted on the offender, who should be hardened enough to defy Jehovah by perjury, as she had already by adultery broken his sacred law*. But this provision (of which it is probable that the mass of expurgatory oaths which once overspread Christendom with impiety, were, in their origin, the corrupt and perverted imitation), was solitary: and, as far as it goes, instead of sanctioning the Jewish people in taking into their own hands the punishment of perjury, should seem rather to intimate, that the Almighty would reserve to himself and his own immediate act the just visitation of the guilty soul. On the legendary traditions

* Numbers v., 11, to the end.

respecting this ordeal, and its awful consequences, with which Jewish writers abound (and among the rest Josephus himself), we need not dwell. It is a subject at once which requires much delicacy in its discussion; and of which any further examination into the details would be superfluous here.

I am not aware that in the Mosaic code any specific punishment to be inflicted by the hand of man is assigned to perjury, as such and in itself, independently of other circumstances. The perjured soul exposed itself to the full vengeance of heaven, and except in those most absurd and wicked distinctions, by which in this, as in other parts of the divine law, the Jews would "make the word of God of none effect by their traditions," the fear of the penalty of perjury at the hand of heaven seems to have taken fast hold upon their minds. But when I venture to say, that no punishment appears to have been awarded against perjury, as such, and as in itself a substantive crime I am aware of the exemplary penalty assigned to false accusation. The law is written in Deuteronomy xix. 19: " If a false witness rise up against any man, to testify against him THAT WHICH IS WRONG, then both the men between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord, before the priests, and the judges which shall be in those days; and the judges shall make diligent inquisition, and behold if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against

his brother, then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother." Now we need not here stay, to examine whether in this passage the expression that which is wrong, implies the falsehood of the testimony of the accuser, or the nature of the offence imputed to the defendant. Though, perhaps, the most correct interpretation is, that those words actually imply "the guilt of apostasy," as the crime with which the innocent defendant is charged. The word in the Hebrew,

, means, a falling away, or a turning aside, the very same word which is used a few chapters only before, where there can be no doubt of its meaning. (Deut. xiii. 5.) “And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to TURN YOU AWAY from the Lord your God." But be this as it may, I think it is quite clear that not the guilt of perjury, but the malicious offence of false accusation is here provided against. Had it been perjury, it would have required the penalty, in the case of false-witness in behalf of another, or in the case of property in dispute, to be inflicted just as certainly as in the case here specified. But that is not so. A similar remark will apply to some enactments in the ancient Roman code.

"The Mosaic Law," (I quote the words of a celebrated writer,)" prohibits perjury most peremptorily, as a heinous sin against God, but still