superstition. But it is not enough that the service we perform be enjoined by him. Unless we are persuaded of the divine requirement, we cannot act from regard to his authority, nor serve him in the faith of being accepted of him; and are thus on a level with the willworshipper. Nay, while we profess to be serving and honouring him, we are in fact dishonouring him and sinning against him. "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” "They who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth;" and, "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin."

Many are disposed to assent to the lawfulness, and even to concede the duty, of personal vowing, who do not admit that social vowing is warrantable. Now, to show that the latter rests on the same divine authority as the former, let it be considered,—

1. That it is plainly indicated by the light of nature. Nature itself teaches that men are wholly and continually dependant on God, not only in their individual, but also in their social capacity; and, therefore, that they ought both singly and socially to acknowledge his sovereignty over them, and property in them, and their obligations to him; and to do this even in the most express and solemn manner, by professing and promising subjection and allegiance to him. Hence, nothing is more common in the history and poetry of ancient times, than to read of the vows of armies, cities, and nations, acting according to the dictates of natural conscience. Very memorable are the words of Epictetus, an ancient heathen sage, "Thou art his workmanship: he hath not only made thee, but bestowed all his benefits upon thee. To this God ye ought to swear as the soldiers do to Cæsar. But they, indeed, for the sake of wages, do swear that they will above all things study the welfare of Cæsar; and while you are loaded with so many and so great benefits by God, will you not swear unto him? or when you have sworn, will you not perform? And what should you swear? That you will always obey his voice; that you will never complain of him, nor of any thing he does to you; and that you will always do and suffer willingly, whatsoever he shall think necessary to put upon you."

2. It is required by the moral law. There were three sorts of laws given to Israel-the moral, the ceremonial, and the judicial. The moral law respected them as rational creatures; the ceremonial, as the Old Testament Church; and the judicial, as a nation and a peculiar people. The ceremonial law was figurative of good things to come, and was utterly abrogated by the death of Christ. "He abolished, in his flesh, the law of commandments contained in ordinances." The judicial, excepting so much of it as was moral and revealed by the light of nature, necessarily ceased with the fall of the Jewish state. But the moral law has nothing in it to render it peculiar to one nation or people. It is founded on the relation in which we stand to God as his creatures and offspring. The question is therefore easy of solution. To which of these laws does vowing belong? The Jews, in their covenanting with God, did indeed bind themselves to all the duties required by the ceremonial and judicial, as well as by the moral law; but there is abundant evidence that

vowing is in itself a moral duty. If it had been ceremonial, it would have been a carnal ordinance, and also typical of some better thing to come. But is not vowing as spiritual a service as prayer and praise? Or if it was typical, what is its antitype? It could not appertain to the judicial law; for there was vowing in the world before Israel as a nation had an existence, and, consequently, before that law was given. Vowing is a duty so intuitively perceived, so universally known, and of so high antiquity, that we never read in Scripture of its institution. In this respect it has the distinguishing characteristic of prayer, praise, and every other duty which is purely moral in its nature. The very first precept of the moral law-whether expressed negatively, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" or in its positive form, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve "-requires men, collectively as well as individually, to own the only living and the true God, and to engage themselves to him to be his servants. But if the first commandment enjoins vowing, so also do the second and the third; for the second requires us to render, and the third, religiously and devoutly to present, whatever service the first recognises as due to the object of worship. Hence it is, that in the word of God, vowing is inculcated as a duty incumbent on all men, and especially on such as are favoured with the holy oracles, and profess to be his people: "Vow and pray unto the Lord your God; let all that are round about him bring presents unto him that ought to be feared."

3. It is on our part a becoming and necessary response to the unconditional grant and gracious proposals which God makes to us in the New Covenant. The duties binding on us from the moral law, and enjoined on his rational creatures by God as a lawgiver, we are warranted and encouraged to perform by his gracious declarations and invitations in the gospel. În his law, he speaks to men in the character of their great and dread Sovereign, enjoining what is their duty, whether they will perform it or not, and enforcing his requirements by the most equitable and momentous sanctions; but as the God of grace, he speaks to us as a promising God in Christ, before he expects of us the performance of acceptable obedience. As the eagle stirreth up her nest, and teaches her young to fly, by bearing them on her wings; so does He instruct us to enter into covenant with himself, in language which cannot be misunderstood by a truly enlightened mind. He speaks in this manner, by the gospel of his grace, to all that are favoured with his word, "Behold I make a covenant with you: I will be your God, and ye shall be my people." The very design and tendency of the grace offered and proposals made to us in these words, are to lead men as individuals, families, churches, and nations, not only to acknowledge him by that profession of his name which is contained in every act of worship; but also to own him as their God, and dedicate themselves to him by an express vow, saying, "The Lord is our God, and him only will we serve.' Arrogant it would have been for us to proffer such a claim, and form such a resolution, had he not first come forth to meet us with condescending overtures of grace and peace; but now that he has done this,

it is presumptuous in men, whether as individuals or communities, to refuse their vow, either implicit or explicit, by which alone they can take hold of his covenant, and thus enter into covenant with God. To withhold consent to his covenant, under pretence of humility, is to act like Ahaz, who, on being invited to ask a sign, either in heaven above, or in the depth beneath, answered, "I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord." It is only when our personal and social vows are as definite and express as are God's own gracious declarations to us, that we fully respond to them, and suitably honour him. withhold the responsive vow-personal, ecclesiastical, or nationalwhen he proposes to men bis covenant of promises with all plainness, perspicuity, distinctness, fulness, and freeness, is, to say the least of it, ungrateful and heartless on their part, and highly displeasing to him.

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4. It is a special part of the honour due to the Lord Jesus Christ in his Mediatorial character as King of nations. The Father has given him to be Head over all things to the Church. He is the Governor among the nations. "He has on his vesture and on his thigh, a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords."

Never was a king more entitled to the allegiance of his subjects, never was there one more worthy of their homage than he. Never did a king require and desire more open, decided, cordial, and solemn expressions and professions of attachment, and devotedness to his person and government, than he claims and merits of all who are under his gracious reign. He has undertaken to defend, guide, govern, bless, and prosper the nations that acknowledge him and submit to him; and the grateful return he expects from them is a revenue of all kingly honour and glory, including praise, service, homage, benediction, and dedication. See the lxxii. Psalm. "By himself he has sworn, the word has gone out of his month in righteousness and shall not return, that unto Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear." It is not enough, therefore, that in all their public actings, nations favoured with the gospel call on his name, recognise his word and law as their supreme rule, honour his Sabbath, respect his ordinances, and protect and befriend his Church; they ought also, in their representative and collective capacity, with all the formality, and publicity, and solemnity of an express vow, to own him as their heavenly King, to promise allegiance to him, to make a surrender of themselves to him, and to engage, in the strength of his grace, to obey him, and to promote the interests of his kingdom; as in the following form of renunciation and abjuration of his rivals, accompanied with covenanted subjection to him: "O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us; but by thee only will we make mention of thy name: they are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and hast made all their memory to perish."

5. It is recommended by Scripture example. The following instances are selected, and submitted to the serious attention of the reader :

The covenanting of Israel at Horeb, recorded in Ex. xix. chap., and more largely in chap. xxiv. Having seen that vowing belongs

neither to the ceremonial nor judicial laws given to Israel, but plainly to the moral law, it follows that every instance of it in Scripture is proposed to us as a pattern for our imitation, not as to the circumstances and contents of the vow, but as to the performance of the duty itself. The fact that Israel did enter into covenant with God at Horeb, cannot be denied; but many attempt to set aside all reasoning from it in favour of the duty of nations to do so under the New Testament.

Some object that God never authorised any nation, except Israel, to enter into covenant with him. This is an assertion so bold and reckless, that it amounts to the astounding announcement that God has never exhibited himself to any nation as the God of grace in Christ Jesus, save only to the nation of Israel. The language which he addresses to every nation favoured with the gospel is, "I will be your God, and ye shall be my people." He thus proposes his covenant unto them, and lays them under the highest obligation to enter into covenant with him by a corresponding profession and engagement on their part-"I will say it is my people, and they shall say, the Lord is my God."

Others object that the covenant which God made with Israel at Horeb was a national covenant of works, requiring obedience from them as the condition of their inheriting Canaan, and being recognised by him as his peculiar people. It cannot be too much deplored as inimical to the welfare, and blasting to the hope of the Church, that the doctrine contained in the objection should be taught even from some of our theological chairs. The propounders of this doctrine seem to be led away from the truth by the mere verbal construction and sound of the language in which the happy result of Israel's obedience to God's covenant was originally announced: "Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me, above all people; for all the earth is mine." But with equal reason might we conjecture that Christ makes a covenant of works with his people when he says to them, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love."

"Ye are my

friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." The objections show that the legal spirit which hankers after the law of works still lurks in the Church, and occasionally stalks abroad, even in the sunshine of the gospel day. One would have thought that it had been cast out by the Apostle, no more to return, when he said, "The Covenant which was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was four hundred years after cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise." It is readily granted that there was at Sinai a revelation of God's fiery law as a covenant of works, denouncing wrath against every instance of transgression and disobedience; even as under the New Testament dispensation, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. But neither to Israel nor to us is that

law proposed in its covenant form, that the fulfilment of its demands may be attempted as the condition of acceptance with God. On the contrary, the design of the promulgation of the law, in its original form as a covenant of works, whether from Mount Sinai or Mount Zion, is to shut up sinners to the righteousness of faith, and to show believers their blessed freedom from the curse of the broken law, and their obligation to Christ, who has redeemed them from it. Israel were no more able to perform one act of holy obedience to the law of works, as the condition of their acceptance with God, than we are at this day; and the justice of God was as really opposed to the rewarding of a legal covenant obedience then, even with a temporal inheritance, as it is now to the recompencing of men's own righteousness with eternal life. The great sin of ancient Israel was, that they overlooked God's covenant of grace, and presumed to meet the demands of the law as a covenant of works. "Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone."

On the supposition that God did enter into a covenant of works with Israel as a nation, when he denounced all manner of temporal evil against them, in case of disobedience on their part, and promised all temporal blessings as the reward of well-doing; the stipulated obedience must have been either spiritual, holy, and filial, from supreme love to God; or external and servile, from fear of punishment, and hope of reward. If the former, it was beyond the strength of every unrenewed man, "for the carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." If the latter, a premium is put on hypocrisy and self-righteousness, which are above all things detestable to God. It is admitted that the Most High may show his regard to holiness and to his own law, by rewarding mere external service with many honours and blessings of a temporal kind, as in the instance of Ahab, and of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. But his word and perfections forbid the supposition that he ever does approve of the semblance of holiness, stipulate with men for mere outward performances or appearances of obedience, and sustain these as entitling the actor to any reward. To transact with fallen men by a covenant of works, on condition of obedience to be rendered in their own strength, is either to propose to them impossible terms, or to lower the demands of the law to their sinful weakness; and to transact with them by such a covenant, on condition of obedience to be performed by them in the strength of grace already received, or to be communicated, is to connect merit with imperfect obedience, and make grace the minister of sin.

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There is therefore no more ground to conclude that God made a covenant of works with Israel, than to imagine that he proposes similar covenant to us, when he says that he will "render to every man according to his deeds: to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but