An oath reverently taken in a court of justice, and upon a folemn occafion, is in fact an act of religion. It is an appeal to the great God of heaven, whorn we call upon to be witnefs of the truth of what we are going to fay. It is an acknowledgment, therefore, that we believe God knows our hearts, and will punish our falfehood. And in this light it is, that the Apostle tells us, An oath for confirmation puts an end to all firife. It is making our laft appeal to God Almightywe can make no farther appeal. And indeed an oath has been in all governments, heathen as well as chriftian, confidered as the ftricteft bönd by which a man can poffibly be tied, and the beft fecurity which we can give to those with whom we may have any important dealings.-If a folemn oath then be acknowledged an act of religion, common fwearing may well be reckoned an act of impiety, because it manifeftly tends to make a folemn oath cheap and contemptible.You must all fee, without farther reafoning, that the more a man ufes himself to fwearing, the lefs reverence he will have for an oath. He who makes fwearing a part of his ordinary converfation, will hardly, I fhould think, pay

any

any reverence to an oath, on the moft awful occafion. I have heard of people who have accustomed themselves to take medicines till medicine had no effect upon them.

Thus common fwearing has a tendency to make you think too lightly of oaths, and fo leads to perjury. But it has a tendency to perjury in a still more direct way. The common fwearer, I fuppofe, hardly knows when he fwears; and must undoubtedly, in the course of his converfation, fwear to many a falfehood. Does any of you believe it poffible, that a common fwearer is always fo guarded as to weigh deliberately every oath he takes? and that he performs every action to which he binds himself by his rafh oaths? I fear not: he has gotten fuch a habit of fwearing, that his oaths burft, in a manner. involuntarily from him. I have myself often heard people fwear to the truth of things which I knew were falfe; and fo, I fuppofe, have you. And is it not a dreadful confideration, think you, that a man is thus daily heaping up perjuries upon his head? When you fwear you will do a thing, you bind yourfelf to the performance of it by the moft facred of all obligations. If the thing you have fworn to be unlawful, you are certainly

per

certainly not bound: but to whatever mischievous inconvenience your oath may lead you, you muft certainly discharge it, or be guilty of jury. This was the cafe of the wicked Herod, when for his oath's fake he murdered John the Baptift. We ought, in these cases, to repent of the first fin, but not to make it worse by adding another to it.

And, think you, is the common fwearer always fo guarded? does he never, think you, fwear to do a thing, which he neither does, nor intends to do? If he does not, he is certainly more cautious than common fwearers ufually are. You may fay, perhaps, that you were but in jeft; that you did not intend to perform the thing you fwore to. You may fay fo, if you please; but you may as well pretend to fay, that you committed a murder or a highway robbery in jeft: the thing itself is forbidden; and if you transgrefs the commandments of God, it fignifies very little whether you tranfgrefs them with a laughing face, or a ferious one.

But though fwearing may not have this bad confequence, of leading us into perjury, yet in itself it is a very wicked practice, from its being directly oppofite to the commands of our bleffed

Saviour.

may

Saviour. To quote any other paffages of fcripture would be needlefs, when our Saviour's own words in the text are fo exprefs to the point, and fhew fo plainly that it is a practice he entirely difapproves. This is fo ftrong an argument against it, that no Chriftian fhould defire. another-I say unto you, fwear not at all, is fo plain a command that it cannot be miftaken. In some cases a man may doubt whether he be in the right or not the limits between good and bad be fo nice, that it is not every one who can distinguish them. But the practice of com-. mon fwearing, my brethren, is fo directly forbidden by Chrift, that he who tranfgreffes, fins with his eyes wide open.-And here, let me add, that our Saviour not only forbids us to fwear by our Maker, but by every thing else: Swear not by heaven, fays he, for it is God's throne; neither by the earth, for it is his footflool, neither by Jerufalem, for it is the city of the great king: but let your communication (that is, your common converfation) be yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatfoever is more than thefe, cometh of evil.By thefe expreffions our bleffed Lord intimates to us, that all rash and irreverent fwearing in our common converfation, by any of the crea

tures

tures of God, is confidered as an equal affront to the majesty of God, as if we swore by God himfelf: for it must mean that, or it means nothing. In our common conversation therefore, our Saviour adds, we have nothing to do with swearing at all: we have only to affert that a thing is fo, or is not fo. Let your communication be yea, yea, or nay, nay; if we go beyond that, and confirm what we fay by an oath, we are plainly told it is evil.

Under this head we may take notice of a practice, which many people indulge, of mentioning the name of God in common converfation, in a light, irreverent manner: they cannot wonder, for inftance, without crying out, Good God! This is certainly taking God's name in vain: his name thould never be mentioned, but in the moft ferious manner.

SINCE then the wickednefs of fwearing, my brethren, is evidently fo great-fince it tends to make oaths in a court of justice less refpected-fince it evidently tends to perjury, and fince in itself, and in its fimpleft form, it is abfolutely, and in the moft pofitive manner, forbidden by our bleffed Saviour, let us have that

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