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

* Eccles. ix. 14, 15.

desire revives with fresh vigour; his thirst for farther 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

The man of pleasure is still, if possible, under a greater incapacity of finding satisfaction. 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.

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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 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 preeminent 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,

II. The grounds on which this prohibition proceeds.

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:

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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 judgement," 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 † Heb. vi. 16.

*Matt. xii. 36.