Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/476

 : What reflections may best enable us to avoid it.

The highest degree of guilt forbidden by this law of God, is false testimony in a literal sense, or deliberate and solemn perjury in a court of justice, by which the life of an innocent man is taken away, the rightful owner stripped of his possessions, or an oppressour supported in his usurpations. This is a crime that includes robbery and murder, sublimed to the highest state of enormity, and heightened with the most atrocious aggravations. He that robs or murders by this method, not only does it, by the nature of the action, with calmness and premeditation, but by making the name of God a sanction to his wickedness. Upon this it is unnecessary to dwell long, since men, arrived at this height of corruption, are scarcely to be reformed by argument, or persuasion; and indeed seldom suffer themselves to be reasoned with or admonished. It may be, however, proper to observe, that he who is ever so remotely the cause of any wickedness, if he really designs, and willingly promotes it, is guilty of that action in the same, or nearly the same, degree with the immediate perpetrator; and, therefore, he that suborns a false witness, or procures such a one to be suborned, whether in his own cause, or in that of another, is guilty of the crime of perjury in its utmost extent.

Nor is that man only perjured, who delivers for truth what he certainly knows to be false; but he likewise that asserts what he does not know to be true. For as an oath taken implies, in the opinion of the magistrate who administers it, a knowledge of the fact required to be proved, he that, by offering himself an evidence, declares himself acquainted with what he is ignorant of, is guilty of bearing false witness, since, though what he swears should happen to be true, it is not true that he knew it.

Such remarks as these seem, at the first view, very trifling, because they are obvious, and yet are made necessary by the conduct of mankind. Every man almost has