reward."* "Let no man beguile you of your reward." "Thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."‡ "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be." But still we must never lose sight of its true nature—that "it is of grace, not of debt." It is what the infinite condescension of God is pleased to bestow on those who love [him,] not what any man claims as equitably due: for our best performances are mixed with sinful imperfections, which need themselves to be pardoned; not to say that the ability to perform them is the effect of renewing and sanctifying grace; so that while in one sense they are our deeds, they are in another his donations. The felicity which God will bestow upon his faithful servants may be properly denominated a reward, on the following accounts: 1. It is inseparably joined to obedience, and is promised as a motive to encourage and sustain it. Christ will be the "Author of eternal salvation to them," and them only, "who obey him.”|| 2. It will be bestowed expressly as a mark of approbation and acceptance of the obedience to which it is annexed. It will be bestowed as a token and demonstration of God's complacency in righteousness. "Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you, and to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels."P "And he said unto him, Well done, thou good servant; because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities."** 3. The reward, the felicity bestowed, will be proportioned to the degree of religious improvement, "to the work of faith and labour of love." We are reminded of those who are "saved as by fire ;" and of those who have "an abundant entrance;" of "a righteous man's," and of "a prophet's reward;" of some who "sow sparingly," and of others who "sow bountifully," both of whom shall reap accordingly. II. Having said enough to establish the Scripture idea of rewards, I proceed to the more immediate object in view, which is, by a comparison of both, to evince the superiority of heavenly to earthly rewards, of its recompenses to those of time. 1. The rewards of heaven are certain. Whether we shall possess them or not may be matter of great uncertainty, because it is possible we may not be of the description of persons to whom they are promised. The heirs of salvation may, at certain seasons, entertain doubts of their finally obtaining them; but they are in themselves certain, since they are secured by the "promise of him who cannot lie." On this account they are strikingly contrasted with earthly recompenses. The most passionate votary of the world is never certain he shall possess an adequate recompense for all his toil, and care, and earthly sacrifices. How often does she mock her followers with delusive hopes, entangle them in endless cares, and exhaust them with hopeless and consuming passions; and after all assign them no com 1 Cor. iii. 8, 14. | Heb. v. 9. † Col. ii. 18. Matt. vi. 6. Ø Rev. rvij. 12. pensation. After years of unremitting fatigue and unceasing anxiety, the object they have pursued eludes their grasp, or appears as remote as ever, till, at the close of life, they are compelled to sit down in hopeless disappointment, and confess that they have "sown to the wind, and reaped the whirlwind." Of the many prizes which the world exhibits to human hope, there is not one whose possession is certain; nor is there a single desire with which she inspires her votaries but what is liable to become a source of anguish, by being disappointed of its gratification. Whatever be the immediate object of pursuit, success depends on circumstances quite out of our power; we are often as much injured by the folly of others as by our own. If the object which we are pursuing be highly desirable, others feel its attraction as well as ourselves; and we find ourselves engaged in a race where there are many competitors, but only one can gain the prize. How different is it with heavenly rewards! In relation to them, no well-meant effort is unsuccessful. We lay up as much treasure there as we sincerely and perseveringly endeavour to accumulate; nor is the success of our efforts liable to be defeated by the jealousy of rivals. Our attempts to promote the benefit of our fellow-creatures are estimated according to their events rather than their intentions; and, however sincere and zealous they may have been, unless they are productive of some probable benefit, they are treated with neglect and ingratitude. How different in regard to the recompenses of Heaven! He will reward, not only the services we have performed, but those which it was our wish to have performed. The sincere intention is recompensed as well as the deed. "Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honour, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayst judge my people, over whom I have made thee king: wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee.”* The friendship of mankind is sometimes as much endangered by the greatness of the benefit conferred as by neglect; and while little acts of attention and kindness cement the ties of friendship, such is the perverseness of human nature, that great favours weaken and dissolve them. While they are sufficiently aware of the advantages that they derive, they hate the obligation which they entail; and feeling themselves incapable of making an adequate return, they consult at once their pride and their indolence by forgetting it. But how different is it in relation to the Supreme Being! we can never lay him under obligation; yet his kindness disposes, while his opulence enables, him to reward in the most liberal manner. Many are so immersed in meanness and folly that they have little care but to be amused: the voice of truth and the admonitions of wisdom are discord to their ear; and he who desires to conciliate their regard must not attempt to do them good, but must sooth their pride, inflame their corruptions, and hasten on their destruction. They are 2 Chron. i. 11, 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 preeminence. 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. 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 com municated 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 |