fore it be yet too late; that we may be able, from our hearts, to join in the triumphant fong of the text, The Lord is king: the earth may be glad thereof; yet the multitude of the ifles (and our own in particular) may be glad thereof.

SERMON IX.

MAT. V. 34.

BUT I SAY UNTO YOU, SWEAR NOT AT ALL.

I

DESIGN, in the following difcourfe, to fhew

you

the

great

wickedness of common fwearing. I shall endeavour, as far as I can, to deter the young finner from forming habits of this vice; and, if it be in my power, to reclaim the old one.-I fhall first, therefore, fhew you the wickednefs of common fwearing; and, fecondly, I fhall exhort those who practise it to lay it aside,

THE first argument against the wickedness of common fwearing may be taken from its tendency to perjury, by making a folemn oath received with lefs reverence.

An

•

An oath reverently taken in a court of juftice, and upon a folemn occafion, is in fact an act of religion. It is an appeal to the great God of heaven, whom we call upon to be witness 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 ftrife. It is making our last 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 bond 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 manifestly tends to make a folemn oath cheap and contemptible. You must all fee, without farther reasoning, 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 most 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 per jury in a still more direct way. The common

swearer, I fuppofe, hardly knows when he fwears; and must undoubtedly, in the course of his conversation, fwear to many a falsehood. 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 false; and fo, I fuppose, 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 yourself to the performance of it by the most facred of all obligations. If the thing you have fworn to be unlawful, you are certainly

certainly not bound: but to whatever mischiev ous inconvenience your oath may lead you, you muft certainly discharge it, or be guilty of perjury. This was the cafe of the wicked Herod, when for his oath's fake he murdered John the Baptift. We ought, in these cafes, to repent of the first sin, 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 tranfgrefs 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 itfelf it is a very wicked practice, from its being directly oppofite to the commands of our bleffed

Saviour,