of the temper of Ahab, the king of Israel, who caressed the false prophets that lured him on to his ruin, while he avowed his hatred of Micaiah, because he "prophesied evil of him, and not good.”* The disinterested patriot who devotes his nights and days to promote the interests of his country may very probably fall a victim to its vengeance, by being made answerable for events beyond human foresight or control; and one unsuccessful undertaking shall cancel the remembrance of a series of the most brilliant achievements. The most important services frequently fail of being rewarded when they are not recommended by their union with the ornamental appendages of rank or fortune. "There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man." From these and various other causes that might be specified, we see how uncertain are the recompenses of this world, and how delusive the expectations they excite, and to what cruel reverses and disappointments they are exposed. How different the reward which awaits us in heaven; how infallibly certain the promise of Him that cannot lie; how secure the treasure that is laid up in heaven, which "rust cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal!" They are not liable to the fluctuations of time and chance, but are secured by the promise and the oath of God. II. The recompenses of heaven are satisfying. How far this quality is from attaching to the emoluments and pleasures of this world universal experience can attest. They are so far from satisfying, that their effect uniformly is to inflame the desires which they fail to gratify. The pursuit of riches is one of the most common and the most seductive which occupy the attention of mankind, and no doubt they assume at a distance a most fascinating aspect. They flatter their votary with the expectation of real and substantial bliss; but no sooner has he attained the portion of opulence to which he aspired, than he feels himself as remote as ever from satisfaction. The same desire revives with fresh vigour; his thirst for further acquisitions is more intense than ever; what he before esteemed riches sinks in his present estimation to poverty, and he transfers the name to ampler possessions and larger revenues. Say, did you ever find the votary of wealth who could sit down contented with his present acquisitions? Nor is it otherwise with the desire of fame, or the love of power and pre eminence. The man of pleasure is still, if possible, under a greater incapacity of finding satisfaction. The violence of his desires renders him a continual prey to uneasiness; imagination is continually suggesting new modes and possibilities of indulgence, which subject him to fresh agitation and disquiet. A long course of prosperity, a continued series of indulgences, produces at length a sickly sensibility, a childish impatience of the slightest disappointment or restraint. One desire ungratified is sufficient to mar every enjoyment, and to impair the relish for every other species of good. Witness Haman, who, after enumerating the various ingredients of a most brilliant fortune, adds, "Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting in the gate."* The recompenses of the world are sometimes just, though they never satisfy; hence the frequency of suicide. * III. The recompenses of heaven are eternal. * * * XXXIV. ON TAKING THE NAME OF GOD IN VAIN. EXODUS XX. 7.-Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. THE laws given to the Israelites were of three kinds—ceremonial, judicial, and moral. The ceremonial consisted of those religious observances and rites which were partly intended to separate the peculiar people of God from surrounding nations, and partly to prefigure the most essential truths and blessings which were to be communicated to mankind at the advent of the Messiah. These, being in their [nature] typical, necessarily ceased when the great Personage to whom they pointed made his appearance. The judicial laws respected the distribution of property, the rights of rulers and subjects, and the mode of deciding controversies, together with a variety of other particulars relating to civil polity, which is always of a variable and mutable nature. The third sort are moral: these are founded in the nature of things, and the reciprocal relations in which God and man stand towards each other, and are consequently unchangeable, since the principles on which they are founded are capable of no alteration. The two former sorts of laws are not obligatory upon Christians, nor did they, while they were in force, oblige any besides the people to which they were originally addressed. They have waxed old, decayed, and passed away. But the third sort are still in force, and will remain the unalterable standard of right and wrong, and the rule throughout all [periods of time.] The Ten Commandments, or the "Ten Words," as the expression is in the original, uttered by God, in an audible voice, from Mount Sinai, belong to the third class. They are a transcript of the law of nature, which prescribes the inherent and essential duties which spring from the relation which mankind bear to God and to each other. The first four respect the duty we owe to God, and the last six that which we owe to our fellow-creatures. The first ascertains the object of worship; the second the mode of worship, forbidding all Esther v. 13. visible representations of the Deity by pictures or images; the third inculcates the reverence due to the Divine name; the fourth the observation of the Sabbath, or of a seventh part of our time to be devoted to the immediate service of God. These ten rules, in order to mark their pre-eminent importance and obligation, were inscribed by the finger of God on two tables of stone, which Moses was commanded to prepare for that purpose. Our attention is at present directed to the third of these precepts— "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ;" in treating of which we shall endeavour,— I. To determine what is forbidden in this commandment; and, I. In considering what is forbidden by the precept before us, it were easy to multiply particulars; but the true import of it may, if I am not mistaken, be summed up in the two following: 1. It forbids perjury, or the taking up the name [of God] for the purpose of establishing falsehood. Vanity is frequently used in Scripture for wickedness, and particularly for that species of wickedness which consists in falsehood; and after all that has been [advanced] on that famous saying of our Lord, "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment,"* it is most probable that he means by idle word, a word which is morally evil, partaking of the nature of falsehood, malice, pride, or impurity. It is in this [view] only, as it appears to me, that the truth of our Lord's saying can be soberly and consistently maintained. When the pretended prophets are threatened on account of their uttering vain visions, the vanity ascribed to them meant their falsehood. In all civilized countries recourse has been had to oaths, which are solemn appeals to God respecting a matter of fact for the determination of controversies which could not be decided without the attestation of the parties concerned, and of other competent witnesses. Hence an oath is said by the apostle to be "an end of all strife." To take a false oath on such occasions, which is the crime of perjury, is one of the most atrocious violations of the law of nature and of God which can be committed, since it involves two crimes in one; being at once a deliberate insult to the majesty of God, and an act of the highest injustice towards our fellow-creatures. A perjured person is accordingly branded with infamy, as well as subjected to severe punishment, which is equally demanded by the honour of God and the welfare of society. It may be reasonably hoped there is no person in this assembly who has been guilty of this crime, or is under any strong temptation to commit it. But I cannot omit this opportunity of expressing regret that the multiplication of oaths by the legislature in the affairs of revenue and of commerce has tended to render them too cheap, and has greatly diminished the horror with which the very idea of a false oath ought to be accompanied. Though it is always lawful to swear to a fact of which we are well assured, at the requisition of a magistrate or a public functionary; ye 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: 66 (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 yi 23 Mal li 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. |