A Key (Penn)/Section XIII
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT
[edit]Perversion 17: The Quakers are enemies of all government; first, in that each one acts according to his own conceit; secondly, because they will not support civil government and so are useless if not dangerous to it; thirdly, because they refuse to give evidence upon oath.
Principle: This is a calumny, their lives and conversations sufficiently show. They believe magistracy to be an ordinance of God, and that he that rules well deserves to be valued and esteemed; and further, they are a people that love good order and good government among themselves.
It is true indeed that they cannot kill their own kind, and so are not fit for warriors with carnal weapons, because they believe their blessed Lord forbade the use of them to His followers, when He said "They that take the sword, shall perish with the sword." The use of the sword in war God suffered for the hardness of men's hearts: in fine, it came in with the Fall and must go out with it also. And as Christ, the repairer and restorer, comes to rule in the heart, love will take place of wrath, and forgiveness overcomes injury and revenge. For which cause, the weapons of this people's warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of sin. They take their beginnings in Christ. the beginning and the end of all true Christians. Let not this people be thought useless, or inconsistent with government, for introducing this harmless way to the distracted world— for somebody must begin it—but rather embrace the principle and follow the example, believing with them that Christ, the blessed Shepherd of His flock, will preserve the faithful followers of His peaceable and forgiving doctrine.
It is their desire to be able to give evidence. But they cannot swear at all, Christ having commanded His followers that their yea and nay should serve instead, because what is more comes of evil. So that it is for Christ's sake that they cannot swear Who is the Truth and has taught them to speak truth without an oath.