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assured, at the requisition of a magistrate or a public functionary; yet it deserves the attention of a Christian legislator, whether the introduction [of oaths] on every the slightest occasion can have any other tendency than to defeat the purpose, by rendering them of no authority; to say nothing of the blow which it strikes at the root of public morals. If it was a complaint made by an ancient prophet, "By reason of swearing the land mourneth," we have assuredly not less reason to adopt the same complaint. Perjury, it is to be feared, is an epidemic vice in this nation. Among many it is reduced to a system; and, awful to relate, there is, as I am credibly informed, a tribe of men who make it their business to take false oaths at the custom-house, for which they are paid a stated price. The name by which these wretched men are known is, it must be confessed, highly apposite; they are styled damned souls.* But to proceed.

2. The second way in which this precept is violated is the profane use of the name of God on trivial occasions; in familiar discourses, whether it be in mirth or in anger. There are some men who are in the constant habit of interlarding their common discourses with the name of God; generally in the form of swearing, at other times in the language of cursing and execration, without any assignable motive, except it be to give an air of superior spirit and energy to their language. The mention of the Deity is often so introduced as evidently to appear a mere expletive; nor is any thing more common than to hear such persons declare they absolutely mean nothing by it. When persons of this description are inflamed with anger, it is usual for them to express their resentment in the form of the most dreadful execrations, wishing the damnation of their fellow-creatures. There are multitudes who are scarce ever heard to make mention of the name of the Deity but upon such occasions.

To evince the criminality and impiety of this practice, let me request your serious attention to the following considerations:

(1.) The practice of using the name of God on slight and trivial occasions is in direct opposition, not only to the passage [selected for our meditation], but also to a variety of others which identify the character of God with his name. He demands the same respect to be paid to his name as to himself. When the prophet Isaiah foretels the propagation of true religion, he expresses it in the following terms :"They shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel." "I will sanctify my great name."‡ The piety of the tribe of Levi is thus expressed :-"My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name." "I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen." The respect which God pays to his name is a frequent plea with the saints of God in their supplications for mercy: "What

On Friday, the 15th of July, 1831, the Marquis of Landsdowne declared in the House of Peers, on introducing a bill for the regulation of oaths in certain government departments, that 10,000 oaths were taken in the department of the Customs, and 12,000 in that of the Excise, during the preceding year.-ED.

† Isa. xxix. 23.

Ezek. xxxvi. 23.

Mal. ii. 5.

|| Mal. i. 14.

wilt thou do unto thy great name?"*"If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayst fear this glorious and fearful name, The Lord thy God."†

When our Lord directs us to pray that all due reverence [be given to that name], he expresses it thus:-"Hallowed be thy name." It is proper to remark, that as there were " gods many, and lords many," among the heathen, to distinguish himself from these pretended deities he was pleased to reveal himself to Abraham and to his descendants under the peculiar name of JEHOVAH, which signifies essential, independent, and unchanging existence.‡ The reverence paid to this name among the Jews was carried to the greatest possible height: it was never pronounced in common, nor even read in their synagogues; but whenever it occurred in the Scriptures, the word Adonai was substituted in its place. Among Christians, God has not been pleased to assume any appropriate appellation; but, as the existence of the pretended deities is entirely exploded, the term God invariably denotes the One Supreme. The meaning of it is no longer ambiguous, it always represents the true God; and whatever respect was justly due to the name of Jehovah among the Jews is equally due to that term which is appropriated among Christians to denote the existence and perfections of the same glorious Being. Hence it follows, that when we are taught to pray that the name of God may be hallowed, the meaning of that petition [is] that [the] appellation, whatever it be, by which the Supreme Being, in the various languages of the world, is denoted, may be duly reverenced. The term God among Christians is no more ambiguous than the term Jehovah among the Jews; it denotes one and the same object: and it is therefore as criminal for us to use the one with levity as a similar treatment of the other would have been among the Jews. And hence it is manifest that the whole spirit of the passages here quoted, respecting the name of God, is applicable in its full weight to the subject before us, and directly militates against the practice we are now condemning.

(2.) From the remarks which have been made it follows, that the practice of using [his name] lightly, and [on] trivial occasions, is an infallible indication of irreverence towards God. As there is no [adequate] method of communicating [thought] but by words, which, though arbitrary in themselves, are agreed upon as the signs of ideas, no sooner are they employed but they call up the ideas they are intended to denote. When language is established, there exists a close and inseparable connexion between words and things, insomuch that we cannot pronounce or hear one without thinking of the other. Whenever the term God, for instance, is used, it excites among Christians the idea of the incomprehensible Author of nature: this idea it may excite with more or less force and impression, but it invariably excites that idea, and no other. Now, to connect the idea of God with what is most frivolous and ridiculous is to treat it with contempt; and as we can only contemplate [objects] under their ideas, to feel no

* Josh. vii. 9.

† Deut. xxviii. 58.

+ See p. 13-16.

reverence for the idea of God is precisely the same thing as to feel a contempt for God. He who thinks of [the name of] God without being awed by it cannot pretend to be a fearer of God; but it is impossible to use the name of God lightly and unnecessarily without being in that predicament. It is evident, beyond all contradiction, that such a man is in the habit of thinking of God without the least reverential emotion. He could not associate the idea of God with levity, buffoonery, and whatsoever is mean and ridiculous, if he had not acquired a most criminal insensibility to his character, and to all the awful peculiarities it involves. Suppose a person to be penetrated with a deep contrition for his sins, and a strong apprehension of the wrath of God, which is suspended over him; and are you not [immediately] aware of the impossibility of his using the name of the Being who is the object of all these emotions as a mere expletive? Were a person to pretend to the character of an humble penitent, and at the same time to take the name of God in vain, in the way to which we are now alluding, would you give the smallest credit to his pretensions? How decisive then must that indication of irreverence be which is sufficient to render the very profession of repentance ridiculous!

But this practice is not only inconsistent with that branch of religion which [constitutes] repentance; it is equally inconsistent with sincere, much more with supreme, esteem and veneration. No child could bear to hear the name of a father whose memory he highly respected and venerated treated in the manner in which the name of the Supreme Being is introduced. It would be felt and resented as a high degree of rudeness and indignity. There is, in short, no being whatever, who is the object of strong emotion, whose distinguishing appellations could be mentioned in this manner without the utmost absurdity and indeli cacy. Nothing can be more certain than that the taking the name of God in vain infallibly indicates a mind in which the reverence of God has no place. But is it possible to conceive a state of mind more opposite to reason and order than this? To acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being, our Maker and Preserver, possessed of incomprehensible perfection, on whom we are totally dependent throughout every moment of duration, and in every stage of our existence, without feeling the profoundest awe and reverence of him, is an impropriety, a moral absurdity, which the utmost range of language and conception is inadequate to paint. If we consider the formal nature of sin as a deliberate transgression of the Divine law, it resolves itself chiefly into this, that it implies a contempt of infinite Majesty, and supreme power and authority. This disposition constitutes the very core and essence of sin. It is not merely the character of the wicked that they contemn God; it enters deeply into the character of wickedness itself; nor is there a heavier charge, among their complicated crimes, adduced against the ancient Israelites, than that they "lightly esteemed the Rock of their salvation."

With respect to the profane oaths and execrations which most of

* Deut. xxxii. 15.

those who are habituated to "take the name of God in vain" frequently utter when they are transported with emotions of anger, their criminality is still greater as they approach the confines of blasphemy. To hurl damnation at our fellow-creatures whenever they have fallen under our displeasure is precisely the conduct of the fool described by Solomon, who "casteth about firebrands, arrows, and death, and saith, Am not I in sport ?"*

We will do them the justice of supposing that they are far from really wishing the eternal destruction of their fellow-creatures; but, admitting this to be the case, admitting they have no such intention, is not this more than to insinuate that these terms have absolutely no meaning, and that the sanction of the Divine law, the punishment of a future state, have no such existence, but are become mere figures of speech, that Christianity is exploded, and that its most awful doctrines, like the fables of pagan superstition, serve only the purpose of allusion? Is it possible for him who lives under an habitual conviction of there being an eternal state of misery reserved for the impenitent, to [advert to] the terrors of that world on every slight occasion to give additional force to the expressions of his anger?

(3.) The practice of taking the Lord's name in vain is not only a great indication of want of reverence for God, but is calculated to wear out all serious religion from the mind. The effect of associating the most awful words expressive of religious objects with every thing which is mean and degrading, is adapted, in the highest degree, to sink them into contempt. He who has reflected the least on the laws of the human mind must be aware of the importance of association, or of that principle in consequence of which ideas and emotions which have been frequently presented to the mind at the same time naturally recall each other. It is by virtue of this law of nature, principally, that habits are formed, and that the links which connect things in the memory are constituted. By virtue of this it is that objects which have been frequently presented along with ludicrous and ridiculous circumstances acquire a character of ridicule. Hence the art of turning persons or things into ridicule is to place them in juxtaposition with what is low and trivial; in consequence of which the emotion of contempt excited by the latter is made to adhere to the former, and stamps them with a similar character. These remarks, obvious as they are, may be sufficient to evince the pernicious effect of taking the Lord's name in vain. Though it is not the formal design of those who indulge this practice to turn the most sacred objects into ridicule, it perfectly answers that purpose as much as if it were their professed intention.

The practice [whose evils] we are endeavouring to [point out] will be more certainly productive of that effect, because it is usually connected with a total absence of the mention of God on all other occasions. Among this description of persons the name and attributes of the Supreme Being, and the punishments of eternity, are rarely, if ever, introduced but in the way of profanation.

If the most awful terms in religion are rarely or never employed but

* Prov. xxvi. 18, 19.

in connexion with angry or light emotions, he must be blind indeed who fails to perceive the tendency of such a practice to wear out all traces of seriousness from the mind. They who are guilty of it are continually taking lessons of impiety, and their progress, it must be confessed, is proportioned to what might be expected.

(4.) The criminality of taking the Lord's name in vain is enhanced by the absence of every reasonable temptation. It is not, like many other vices, productive of either pleasure or emolument; it is neither adapted to gratify any natural appetite or passion, nor to facilitate the attainment of a single end which a reasonable creature can be supposed to have in view. It is properly the "superfluity of naughtiness," and can only be considered as a sort of peppercorn rent, in acknowledgment of the devil's right of superiority. It is a vice by which no man's reputation is extended, no man's fortune is increased, no man's sensual gratifications are augmented. If we attempt to analyze it, and reduce it to its real motive, we find ourselves at a total loss to discover any other than irreligious ostentation, a desire of convincing the world that its perpetrators are not under the restraint of religious fear. But as this motive is most impious and detestable, so the practice arising from it is not at all requisite for that purpose; since the persons who [persist in] it may safely leave it to other parts of their character to exonerate them from the suspicion of being fearers of God. We beg leave to remind them that they are in no danger of being classed with the pious either in this world or in that which is to come, and may therefore safely spare themselves the trouble of inscribing the name of their master on their foreheads. They are not so near to the kingdom of God as to be liable to be mistaken for its subjects.

XXXV.

ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT OF THE NAME CHRISTIANS. Acrs xi. 26.—And the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

It is the glorious prerogative of God to bring good out of evil, and by the powerful superintendence of his providence to overrule the most untoward events, and render them conducive to the ends of his glory and the good of his people.

The persecution which arose upon the death of Stephen affords a striking instance of this; whence the disciples, being all scattered and dispersed, besides the apostles, went everywhere preaching the word; in consequence of which, the neighbouring districts and provinces were much sooner visited with the light of the gospel than they would have been but for that event.

Had the church of Jerusalem continued to enjoy [it] undisturbed in that abundance of spiritual prosperity which attended it, and in the

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