The following message was recorded at Antioch Presbyterian Church, an historic and charter congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America, ministering to upstate South Carolina since 1843. Come and visit us at the crossroads of Greenville and Spartanburg counties. Experience our past and be a part of our future. For more information, visit antiochpca.com. You're listening to a recording of Whatsoever Things Are True, classic discourses on truth by Dr. James Henley Thornwell. Discourse number six, vows. There is a marked difference between Protestant and Romish communions in their estimate of the value and importance of vows as an element of religious worship. The Church of Rome has perverted, and Protestants have neglected them. The will, worship, and superstition fostered by the one have produced a reaction to the opposite extreme in the other. In this, as in most other cases, the truth lies in moderation. It is obvious to remark that this species of devotion has entered into all religions, whether pagan, Jewish, or Christian. Wherever God and Providence have been acknowledged, there too have been acknowledged the sanctity of oaths and the piety of vows. A form of worship so universal must be founded in nature, and however it may have been corrupted by the mixture of false doctrines or perverted by ignorance and superstition, there must be something in it which is consistent with reason, and which should be reclaimed from prostitution and restored to its right place among the functions of the religious life. I have no doubt that in the Church of Rome the extravagant commendation of supererogatory works, which are productive of nothing but pain to the flesh and vanity and pride to the spirit, has detracted from the weightier matters of the law, and degraded piety from obedience to God to the punctilious observance of the uncommanded devices of men, while the doctrine of vows and its connection with a show of wisdom and will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body has practically destroyed in many instances all real piety of life. Among Protestants, on the other hand, the general inattention to the principle which has made the vow as universal as the oath has prevented many from apprehending in anything like their true sacredness and interest the peculiar obligations of religion. Johnson's horror of a vow is well known. He looked upon it as nothing but a snare to the conscience, and had almost said that he who could not get to heaven without one deserved not to go there at all. I have thought, therefore, that it would not be amiss to devote a little more attention to this subject than it has usually received from the Protestant pulpit, and have collected my thoughts under the heads of the nature, uses, and obligation of vows. First, then, a vow is of the general nature of a promise. The schoolmen have discussed the question whether it consists essentially in a mere purpose of the will, or whether the act of reason, which is in other instances transmutes a resolution into a promise and gives it its binding force, must here also be superinduced. the definition which confounds it with a deliberate and firm resolution, making it a mere conceptio boni propositi cum animi deliberatione firmata, qua quis ad aliquid faciendum vel non faciendum se Deo obligat. Proceeds on the that the only importance of signification in ordinary promises is to make known the thoughts and intent of the heart. That if men could read the purposes of each other as they are secretly formed in the mind, these purposes would instantly create obligations and impart rights. But this is obviously a mistake. There is a broad distinction betwixt a purpose and a promise. The promise is the child of the purpose, but there must be a father to beget it. There must be something added to the purpose before it can bind as an engagement. The intervening act by which a purpose is changed is an ordination of the reason by which the purpose is voluntarily made the rule or law of a future thing to be done by ourselves. The promise sustains the same relation to our own future acts which a command or order bears to the acts of a servant. The constituting of this relation is essential to obligation. It is explicitly announced by signification in promises among men. It is enough that it exists in promises to God. This act or ordination of reason is simply the voluntary determination to be considered as bound. Voluntas se obligandi. Where this does not obtain either explicitly or implicitly, a resolution terminates upon ourselves and carries no other duty along with it than what is essentially involved in the matter of it. Where it is not signified, there is no promise. Where it does not exist, no vow. Note Aquinas, Summa, 2.2 Quistio 88, Article 1. End note. 2. What distinguishes the vow from every other promise is the party to whom it is made, God. By virtue of this relation, it becomes an act of religious worship and partakes, at the same time, of the nature of an oath. He takes a very limited view of what constitutes the worship of God, who restricts it exclusively to those exercises of prayer, praise, or thanksgiving which are specifically religious. Our whole life should be one great instance of devotion. It is the end, the intention, or as the schoolmen phrase it, the ordination, of it which determines the character of an act. And if in all that we do we aim at the glory of God, every action of nature becomes religious, every meal an instrument of piety, every office of ordinary life a holy oblation. It is the spirit and temper of the soul which settles the question of worship. A cup of cold water given to a disciple in the name of a disciple is not simply charity, it is an offering acceptable to God. As in the vow, the ordination of the action is to God, whatever may be the nature of the things to be done, whether natural, civil, or spiritual, the action becomes religious. It takes its denomination from its end. The writers of the Romish church make it an act of the highest religious worship, an act of Latria, and are accordingly at one with Protestants in affirming that vows can be lawfully made to God only. This, beyond all controversy, is the doctrine of the Scriptures. Hence, the indignation of the Lord against the children of Israel for making vows to the Queen of Heaven. The crime was idolatry. But a vow is also of the nature of an oath. Although primarily it respects God simply as the party to whom a promise is made, yet secondarily, in consequence of His relations to the creature, it must also regard Him as a witness and a judge. The oath is a solemn invocation of God in which his name is made the guarantee of the truth of what we say, or, in case of falsehood, in which we deliberately abjure his favor. We suspend our claims to the divine protection upon our veracity. The peculiarity of its sanction is the reverence for the divine being upon which all its sacredness depends. Its peculiar guilt consists in taking the name of the Lord our God in vain. All this is obviously implied in the vow, and hence it may be compendiously defined as a promissory oath, using that phrase not in its common acceptation as a promise to which men are the parties, confirmed by an oath, but as a promise which is at the same time an oath. The Jews, accordingly, were accustomed to couple imprecations with their vows. The psalmist repeatedly employs terms of swearing and vowing as synonymous expressions. 3. The circumstance that it is God with whom we have to deal in the vow determines at once the nature of its matter and the spirit or temper in which it should be made. Without entering into the frivolous discussions of the schoolmen de Bono Meliori, which they made essential to the validity of vows, it is obvious that nothing can legitimately constitute the matter of our engagements which is inconsistent with reverence for his name, forbidden by his word, hurtful to our virtue, or beyond our strength of nature or of grace. Such oblations, instead of being worship, are a mockery. I would not say, the common doctrine of the schools, note, votivero que sunt de rebus vanis et inutilibus sunt magis deridenda quam servanda. Aquinas, Summa, 2.2 Quaestio 88, Article 2. Sanderson, in his little treatise, De Juramento, takes the view which is adopted in the text, and note, That light and frivolous promises, provided they respect things that are not essentially unlawful, are absolutely null. They no doubt bind the conscience, but I will say that they argue a contempt of God, and that it is utterly unlawful to make them. To call His awful name upon actions that are silly and ridiculous, that neither in themselves nor their tendencies have a moral significance, is a crime of impiety and profaneness, which is even as the sin of perjury. What can be his conception of God who approaches the terrible majesty with absurd promises to walk with pebbles in his shoes, to stand for a given time upon a single foot, to lie in a particular posture or to eat with a particular implement, and imagines that these worse and childish follies are accepted as proofs of extraordinary piety? Verily, their foolish heart is darkened, and they have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of a child, pleased with a rattle and tickled with a straw. To guard against profaneness in making vows, let the following cautions in relation to the matter be observed. First, if they respect an act which is specifically religious, which is directly and immediately, and not merely by virtue of the intention and act of worship, let it be well settled that it is appointed in the word of God. As it is a prerogative of the monarch to ordain the ceremonial of his court, so it belongs exclusively to God to determine by what external observances his holy name shall be honored. Nothing is more offensive or insulting than will-worship. He takes such pleasure in obedience, quote, that he pronounces a curse, end quote, says Calvin in his Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 13, quote, on all acts of will-worship, however specious and splendid they may be in the eyes of men. If God abominates all voluntary services invented by us without His command, it follows that nothing can be acceptable to Him except what is appointed by His Word. Let us not, therefore, assume to ourselves such a great liberty as to presume to vow to God anything that has no testimony of His approbation." End quote. In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Second, in the next place, if the vow respects any other act, let us be certain that the act is either the illicit or imperate one of some virtue. That is, that it consists in doing something positively commanded, or avoiding something positively forbidden, or in making that which is naturally indifferent conduce to our improvement. There can be no doubt about the lawfulness of engagements to perform our duty or to abstain from sin. All illicit acts of virtue are clearly within the scope of a vow, but the case is not as plain when it comes to the curtailment of Christian liberty. That should not be done except to save ourselves from temptation or others from offense. When an indifferent thing, by being specially sanctified to God, can promote my own piety or the piety of others, it seems to me that it can legitimately constitute to the matter of a vow. Liberty is then used for the glory of God, and the use of it is manifestly consistent with His will. In the language of the schools, it becomes a greater good. This is the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas. Note Summa 2.2, Questio 88, Article 2. See also Bishop Hall, Cases of Conscience, Decade 3, Case 4, Bishop Reynolds on Hosea, and note. Maceration of one's own body, says he, by vigils and fasts, for example, is not accepted of God except insofar as it is a work of virtue, that is, insofar as it is done with proper discretion for the purpose of restraining concupiscence without too much inconvenience to nature. End note. The same is the doctrine of Calvin. If a person, says he, has fallen into any crime through the vice of intemperance, nothing prevents him from correcting that vice by a temporary renunciation of all delicacies, and enforcing this abstinence by a vow to lay himself under the stronger obligation." Yet, he adds, quote, I impose no perpetual law on those who have been guilty of such an offense. I only point out what they are at liberty to do if they think that such a vow would be useful to them. I consider a vow of this kind, therefore, is lawful, but at the same time, left to the free choice of every individual, end quote. Third, the matter of a vow should further be something clearly in our own power, either according to the strength of nature or the promises of grace. In the case of commanded duties or prohibited sins, we can throw ourselves upon the everlasting covenant and should make all our engagements in humble reliance upon its provisions. But in uncommanded instances, we should measure our ability before we venture to assume so solemn an obligation. The aids of grace will be imparted only insofar as may be conducive to God's glory. And as the circumstances which today justify a particular use of liberty may change tomorrow, no man can contract any permanent obligations in regard to these things in dependence upon God's help. He has no promise to justify such faith. Vows of this class, therefore, should always be temporary. Otherwise, they become a temptation and a snare. To illustrate my meaning, there may be a conjuncture of circumstances which render it highly inexpedient at one time for a man to marry. It may subsequently, by a change in his condition, be as evidently his duty to do so. If now he had contracted a vow of perpetual celibacy, he is engaged to do what he is not sure that he shall have strength to perform, and what God has nowhere promised to enable him to do. The Lord has commanded chastity, and all his people may rely upon his grace to preserve them from uncleanness. But chastity is not virginity. The wife is as pure as the virgin, the husband as chaste as the eunuch. We dare not, therefore, pledge ourselves to perpetual continence when it may be that God designs to protect our purity by the holy estate of wedlock. This is the class of vows which entangle the conscience, those which relate to matters of indifference, that only partake of the character of virtue in the way of accident. Hence the advice of Taylor, quote, let not young beginners in religion enlarge their hearts and straighten their liberty by vows of long continuance, nor indeed can anyone else without a great experience of himself and of all accidental dangers. Vows of single actions are safest and proportional to those single blessings ever begged in such cases of sudden and transient importunities, end quote. The matter of one class of vows is the consecration of a person or thing to the service and glory of God. The thing to be done is the renunciation of all rights of property on our part, and the devotion of the object, whatever it may be, to the service and glory of God. Such was Hannah's vow, quote, And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me and not forget thine handmaid, Such also was Jacob's vow. He consecrated the stone and the tithes to the Lord. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me and keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God. And this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee. End quote. These are what Calvin calls vows of thanksgiving. He finds, quote, Thus we are to understand all those places in the Psalms which speak of vows. Vows of this kind may also be now used among us whenever God delivers us from any great calamity, from a severe disease, or from any other danger. For on such occasions it is not inconsistent with the duty of a pious man to consecrate to God some oblation that he has vowed merely as a solemn token of grateful acknowledgement that he may not appear unthankful for his goodness." Such, it may be added, is the vow implied in the very nature of the Christian profession. A man yields himself to God a living sacrifice. He is sanctified to the divine service and glory, renounces all right of property in himself and dedicates his faculties and members as instruments of righteousness unto holiness. Such also is a good man's consecration of his children to the Lord. They are devoted, and he feels that he has no more right to train them for merely secular ends than an ancient Jew had to use the vessels of the sanctuary for the ordinary purposes of life. It is nothing less than sacrilege to treat them in any other way than as holy to the Lord. The vow of personal consecration made in baptism is repeated in every reception of the Lord's Supper. The sacraments are seals of a covenant by which God certifies his promises to us, and by which we solemnly pledge an absolute allegiance to him. Every Christian man, therefore, can justly appropriate the language of David with all the comfort and consolation it imparts. Thy vows are upon me, O God. And with the apostle he rejoices that he is not his own, but is bought with a price. 2. Having sufficiently indicated the nature of vows, I proceed to the question of their use. Is it or is it not expedient to make them? Of course, the discussion must be confined to those which are lawful and proper, which are consistent with the will of God, not rashly made nor disproportioned to our powers. There is but little force in the objections insofar as such vows are concerned that they curtail our liberty, multiply temptations, and are without warrant from the example of Christ and his apostles. There is no abridgment of liberty in strengthening the bonds of duty, no necessary peril in what nothing but depravity can convert into an instrument of sin, and no reflection upon Christ, whose whole life was a vow, nor upon the apostles, who were body and soul devoted to the work of the Lord. That is not freedom which absolves from obligation. That is not a snare which is only made so by our voluntary neglect. And that is not unchristian which aims at the perfection of Christian life. The truth is, the whole question concerning the utility of vows turns upon the spirit and temper in which they are made. They have no absolute efficacy in themselves. There is no charm by which the mere making of them shall be an instrument of good. All depends upon the state of mind which prompts them, the purpose and ends for which they are made. Here, as in everything else, the maxim of the Apostle holds good. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. 1. If vows are made in the spirit of bribes, if they proceed from low and degrading thoughts of the Godhead and are presented as inducements which have an intrinsic value in the court of heaven, they are insults to Deity and injuries to us. God maintains no intercourse of barter and traffic with his creatures and those who look upon his covenants as the interchange of reciprocal benefits are puffed up with pride and have already fallen into the condemnation of the devil. All things come of him and it is only of his own that we can give him. 2. In the next place, those who look upon vows as instances of extraordinary merit eviscerate them of all their tendencies to good. There is no righteousness but in obedience to God, and as the vow is only an acknowledgment of duty coupled with a fixed resolution to perform it, there is nothing more in it than the honesty of a debtor who admits the debt and makes arrangements to discharge it. So far those vows which respect uncommanded instances from possessing extraordinary merit that the sole merit or moral excellence which belongs to them is derivative and secondary. It springs from their relation to commanded duties. They are the merest purilities except as they are ordained to the ends of virtue. They become lawful only when they are assumed as the instruments or means of enforcing prime obligations. They are like the ancient phylacteries, memorials of duty rather than duties themselves. To treat them therefore as proofs of extraordinary righteousness is to reverse the relation of means and end, and to substitute the sign for the thing signified. He that enters into engagements of this sort, with the secret feeling that he is pleasing the Lord of hosts with the display of unwanted zeal, may expect the confounding rebuke that, quote, obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams, end quote. It is a preposterous notion that there is something more than God requires, a righteousness of supererogation in these instances of vows that has corrupted the whole subject and made it stink in the nostrils of humble piety. This dead fly has polluted the whole box of ointment. The divine law is the standard of moral perfection, and nothing is good which does not express the spirit and temper of this perfect standard. There is no going beyond it. There may be a fearful falling short of it. Whatever expedience we employ to impress this law upon the conscience and to engrave it in the very texture of the will, they are good or otherwise according to their tendencies to secure the result. The man is righteous or unrighteous, holy or sinful, according as his heart is in union and sympathy with the holy commandment. The effect of exalting supererogatory observances above simple obedience, and treating him preeminently as a saint, whatever may be the general temper and disposition of his mind, who excels in ascetic devotions, has been to degrade religion from its noble eminence as a reasonable service to the emptiest show of fooleries. Vows conceived in such a spirit are as fatal to prosperity as the mildew or pestilence. They are a high conspiracy against heaven, an impious and daring attempt to reverse the order which God has established and to make His will subordinate and secondary to the little contrivances of man. It is to subvert morality and to convert religion into superstition. Hence, Taylor, in his Holy Living, in order to obviate this tendency to pervert the vow into will worship, has very reasonably advised, quote, that every vow of a new action be also accompanied with a new degree and enforcement of our essential and unalterable duty. Such was Jacob's vow that besides the payment of a tithe, God should be his God. That so he might strengthen his duty to him, first in essentials and precepts, and then in additionals and accidentals. For it is but an ill tree that spends more in leaves and suckers and gums than in fruit, and that thankfulness in religion is best, that first secures duty and then enlarges in counsels." End quote. Three. Vows that are made in conformity with the spirit of the gospel, with proper views of the majesty and goodness of God, and of the weakness and ill desert of men, made in faith and as the honest expressions of sincere worship are undoubted, helps to piety. These are not the vows which become hindrances and snares. In the first place, they obviously strengthen the general bonds of duty, they consecrate the offices of life, they diffuse the influence and savor of the divine name around moral and civil observances, and attach the sacredness of religion to everything which they touch. The vow introduces a new sanction, and this sanction, which of all others is dearest to the Christian heart, reverence for the glory of God. It pronounces the divine name and makes that to be specifically religious, which before was only natural or civil, and thus superinduces what Augustine calls a blessed necessity to good. It confirms the will by a direct sense of the majesty and holiness of God. It is indeed the general spirit of religion concentrated on a single act. As a peculiar motive of the vow is reverence for God, it is manifest that every instance of fidelity strengthens the principle until it is matured into the stability of habit. In the next place, vows are conducive to piety by increasing the sense of union with God. They keep alive the consciousness that we are His and that He is ours. David, when overwhelmed by afflictions and oppressed by dangers, often established his heart with the reflection that the vows of his God were upon him. The feeling was that God had a peculiar interest in him as one devoted to His service, and that the deity was not likely to abandon his own property as a spoil to men of violence and blood. We keep aloof from the throne of grace when we distrust our right to be found there. Nearness of access is in proportion to the feeling of intimacy betwixt God and the creature. It is precisely this feeling which the vow cherishes. This is eminently the case with that general vow of consecration which is involved in the very notion of the Christian profession. Its language is, My beloved is mine, and I am his. We know that God careth for his own, and in proportion as we cherish a conviction that we belong to him, will be the frequency of our approaches to his seat and the strength of our reliance on his name. It is the prerogative of faith to appropriate God in the promises of the covenant, and whatever has a tendency to increase the feeling of propriety reacts upon faith and strengthens that very feature of it by which it is made the instrument at once of comfort and of growth in grace. There is no privilege, no exaltation of blessedness comparable with that by which a sinner is permitted to avouch the Lord to be his God. Everything of good, whether for this world or that which is to come, is embraced in the compendious declaration, I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee. The vow corresponds to this promise and presents a man as an oblation to the Lord, holy and acceptable through Jesus Christ. It is an exercise of faith which strengthens faith. In the third place, vows and exercising specific virtues contribute to the habit of them, and through the intimate connection which obtains among them fortify the general principle of integrity. Calvin recognizes four ends to which our vows may be rightly directed, two referring to the past and two to the future. Quote, to the time past belong those vows by which we either testify our gratitude to God for benefits received, or in order to deprecate his wrath, inflict punishment upon ourselves for sins we have committed. The former may be called vows of thanksgiving, the latter vows of penitence." The vows which he refers to the future, quote, have for their object partly to render us more cautious of danger, partly to stimulate us to the performance of duty, end quote. It cannot be denied that whatever strengthens the sentiment of gratitude or reminds us of our guilt and unworthiness, whatever guards us against future temptations or arms us for future conflict is of no mean utility to the divine life. The stronger the tie which binds us to God and duty, the better. If a man honestly aims at divine glory and his own spiritual improvement, if his heart is right, the solemn bonds of a vow will cooperate mightily with the ordinary sanctions of law. The precept binds by its native force. The obligation is sweetened when a man chooses it by a free act and rewrites it upon his conscience. The vow becomes an additional security for obedience, and every instance of fidelity is an instance of moral progress. To the conscientious man a vow is a monitor, a heavenly mentor constantly at his side, and when the flesh would plead and remonstrate it gently whispers, remember that this duty has been made your choice. Your vow did not create the obligation, although in uncommanded instances it gave a specific consent, but already existing, your vow accepted it and accepted it as a good. The truth is, all the objections that can be justly urged against the benefit of vows apply only to that class of them which are rash and imprudent, which are either offensive in matter or relate to acts which we have no warrant for assuming an obligation to perform. Still, I am far from thinking that vows should be made common. To make them common is to cheapen them, to reduce them to the level of ordinary obligations. And when this process is once begun, the next step will be to deny the reality of all obligations which have not been self-imposed. Human nature is a weak thing, and as its tendency is to run into extremes, it would be nothing strange that it should oscillate from the point of highest reverence for a vow to that of comparative contempt. What I insist on is that the vow is an act of solemn religious worship, that it is of the nature of an oath, and that, when properly used for proper ends and on proper occasions, it is eminently conducive to virtue. It loses its efficacy, however, just as the oath does, if made the ordinary form of Christian obedience. It should be reserved for extraordinary occasions, when we wish to erect a monument to God's goodness, or a memorial of our own shame, or to begin a new epic in the Christian life. Familiarity here, as in the case of the oath, is destructive of reverence. There is a marked difference between the questions whether the vow, as an extraordinary act of worship, that is, in its true character and relations, or as an ordinary act of worship, that is, perverted from its true character and relations, is of beneficial tendency. No one can be more deeply sensible than I am that the consequences of the habit of turning every duty into a vow are pernicious in the extreme. It proceeds from a weak and superstitious spirit, and if permitted to operate without check will multiply scruples until it converts religion into torture. The abuse of vows consists in their frequency. Let that be guarded against, and they can certainly be turned to a good account. The occasions on which they should be resorted to every man must determine for himself. His own heart is the best expositor of extraordinary circumstances in his own life. He knows its critical points, the events which have given shape and direction to his history and have left their mark upon his character. 3. The next point to be discussed is the obligation of vows. The fact of their obligation is, of course, not disputed. The convictions of every heart coincide here with the positive declarations of Scripture. When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it, for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee, and it would be sin in thee. That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform, even a freewill offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the Lord thy God, which thou hast promised with thy mouth. When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldst not vow, than that thou shouldst vow and not pay. vow and pay unto the Lord your God. But while the fact is clear, the immediate grounds of the obligation are not directly stated, though they are implicitly assumed. I cannot forbear to notice how completely the theory of Dr. Paley in regard to the obligation of promises breaks down in its application to vows. He is perfectly conscious of it and frankly confesses it, and yet it seems to have raised no sort of misgivings as to the soundness of his principles. It is clear that whatever is the formal cause of the obligation of a promise as such must extend to every promise. The whole essence must be found in the species. The production of a case, therefore, in which a promise really exists, and yet is not binding upon the given ground, is conclusive evidence that the ground in question is not the formal cause of obligation in any promise. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. We are shut up to the admission either that there is no specific reason in the case, or that Dr. Paley's theory is false. Either no promise is obligatory because it is a promise, or Dr. Paley has failed to indicate why any is obligatory. Listen to his naive confession. Quote, vows are promises to God. The obligation cannot be made out upon the same principle as that of other promises. The violation of them nevertheless implies a want of reverence to the Supreme Being, which is enough to make it sinful. End quote. Vows are promises, but they do not oblige, because they are promises. There can be no deception in the case, and consequently no breach of confidence or pose, which makes it so important to keep other promises. But though not binding as promises, they are still to be kept, because a breach of them implies a want of reverence for the Supreme Being. But how does this want of reverence appear? If there was nothing sacred in the vow considered as a promise, if it carried no obligation or enjoined no duty, if it were a mere moral nullity, where is the want of reverence to be found? Did not Dr. Paley feel in penning, and does not every reader feel in perusing these lines, that it is precisely because the vow is binding as a promise that the violation of it casts contempt upon God? Such inconsistencies and contradictions result from partial schemes of philosophy, and this is one among the thousand that might be produced, which convicts the system of expediency as expounded by Dr. Paley of gross and flagrant falsehood. Of all philosophies, it is the most shallow and superficial, and its principal recommendation is to simple minds, whom it flatters with the belief that they are possessed of principles without the labor of patient thought. The true ground of the obligation of vows is very easily explained. We have but to recur to the definition, a promise made to God, or a promise which is at the same time an oath. As a promise, it is obligatory from the twofold consideration of truth and justice, which has been already explained. God is a person, and we may maintain relations to him analogous to those which subsist among men. We can give Him of His own. The notion is preposterous that our engagements to the Almighty do not give Him a covenanted right to exact obedience at our hands. He does not deal with us as things. In making us originally in His own glorious image, He stamped it upon us as a prerogative of our nature to be persons. And in conformity with this high distinction, He conducts all the dispensations of His providence towards us. We are always treated by Him as persons. We are not tools and instruments, but conscious and responsible agents, capable of giving and receiving rights. Hence the relation of justice pre-eminently a personal relation in our intercourse with Him, as well as with one another. And although the cattle upon a thousand hills are his, and he has no need of our sacrifices and offerings, though we ourselves belong to him in all that we have and are, yet he condescends to accept at our hands what is our own by a free donation from himself. He permits us to transfer to Him such rights as we have, and even represents Himself, all blessed though He be, as injured by faithless dealings on our part. Hence the Scriptures do not hesitate to speak of Him as wronged, robbed, defrauded. The very passages which inculcate the faithful observance of a vow put it distinctly on the ground of justice. It is the payment of a debt. If Dr. Paley had apprehended the essential rectitude of truth and justice, he would have seen the folly of resolving the obligation of promises into the inconveniences of deceit, and would have been saved his embarrassment in the awkward effort to make infidelity to God a sin. A rustic could have told him, I must fulfill my vow because my word is out and God has a right to expect it of me. but a vow also partakes of the nature of an oath. This is its specific difference. And while it binds as a promise upon the grounds of truth and justice, it binds as an oath upon the principle of reverence for God. He that keeps a vow is not only just but pious. He that breaks it is not only guilty of injustice, but perjury. Hence the enormous malignity of the sin, the word of God, as well as the common consent of all civilized nations, has attributed the highest degree of sanctity to the oath, and he that is not held by it has cut loose from all moral obligations. He that has no reverence for the awful name of God has severed the last tie which binds him to truth. He is an outlaw in the universe, a star of disastrous omen that is broken beyond the attraction of its central sun, and must be left to pursue its course unchecked by the only power that could keep it in its orbit. Nullum vinculum ad astrigendum fidem, says Cicero. Me iores nostri iore iorando arctius esse valurerunt. And the highest authority has assured us that the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. So sacred were oaths esteemed among the ancient Romans that they needed no protection from law. The perjured man was simply exposed by the censor and that was enough. The brand of infamy was upon him and like the taint of leprosy debarred him from the fellowship of his species and left him to the vengeance of the insulted God. And yet what gives to perjury its malignity above a common lie, and it is a thought which I would earnestly impress upon the youthful mind, is perhaps the most common of all the sins that are daily committed. It is want of reverence for God. The oath or vow-breaker carries it to the point of positive contempt. He openly defies that august and terrible majesty before which angels bow and the archangel veils his face. It is a sin, the enormity of which the imagination cannot conceive, because no thought can compass the infinite excellence of him whose prerogative it is to be, who sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are his grasshoppers, who stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. that a puny creature of the dust, born today and gone tomorrow, should have the audacity to pour contempt upon that glorious name which seraphs adore with rapture is enough to astonish the heavens and convulse the earth. Yea, still more astonishing is that miracle of patience which endures the monsters when one word would arm all nature against them, make the ground treacherous beneath them, heaven terrible above them, and hell ready to meet them at their coming. The magnitude of the sin cannot be exaggerated. And yet the principle to which it is indebted for its preeminence in guilt is constantly exemplified in the speech and intercourse of those who would be shocked at the imputation of anything that approximates to perjury. Profane swearing, light and frivolous appeals to the Almighty, the indiscriminate use of the lot, all these are only different forms of expressing irreverence for God. They contain the ingredients of the same poison with perjury and vow breach. It is a startling reflection that the very circumstance which distinguishes these from an ordinary falsehood, and has armed the sentiments of mankind against them, brands the speech of the profane swearer with the same species of crime. It is not, I admit, the same in degree, but it is the same in kind. The thoughtlessness which is often pleaded in extenuation of the guilt is a confession of the fact. It is a proof how little veneration the name of God inspires when we can pronounce it in reiterated blasphemies without even being conscious that a word is escaping from our lips which fills all heaven with awe. It is a proof of how near we come to despising it, when we can use it in the mere wantonness of sport as a convenient expletive to fill up the chasms of discourse. It is a proof that all respect for it is gone, when we can use it to point a jest, to season obscenity, and to garnish a tale. It is enough to make the blood curdle, to think of the name of God bandied about as a bauble and plaything of fools. This offense cannot go unpunished. If there be a God, He must vindicate His own majesty and glory. There must be a period when all shall tremble before Him, when every knee shall bow and every heart shall do reverence. The sword of justice cannot always be sheathed, nor the arm of vengeance slumber. Engrave it upon your minds, fix it in the very depths of your souls, that it is a fearful thing to make light of God. It is the very spirit and essence of all evil. the very core of iniquity. There is no language of earnestness in which I would not warn you against, no language of expostulation or entreaty in which I would not implore you against it. If you could see it as the angels see it, or as the spirits of just men made perfect see it, if you could see it as you yourselves will see it in that day when God shall arise to shake terribly the earth, when Jesus shall Sit upon the throne of His glory and the tribes of earth shall be gathered before Him. If you could see it as it is, in the naked enormity of its guilt, you would flee from it as from the very pestilence of death. You may sport with the whirlwind and trifle with the storm. You may lay your hand upon the lion's mane and play with the leopard's spots. You may go to the very crater of a burning volcano and laugh at the lava which it belches out in thunder. You may trifle with any and everything, but trifle not with God. Let there be one holy thing upon which you dare not lay a profane hand, and let that be the name of God. Above all things, let his throne be sacred and his praise be glorious. Who would not fear thee, O thou King of saints? There are reflections suggested by this subject which, at the risk of being tedious, I cannot repress. In treating of the benefit of vows, I had occasion to allude to the comfort and strength imparted to the true believer by the consciousness that he belongs to God. This thought is an anchor to the soul amid the storms of temptation and adversity. It carries assurance of divine care and of divine protection, but it has its counterpart. And though the everlasting covenant is so ordered that the Lord will never depart from His children to do them good, yet this very kindness towards them aggravates the crime of their unfaithfulness to Him. It is mournful to reflect to what a fearful extent spiritual perjury obtains. The vows of God are upon us, we profess to be devoted to Him, and yet our pledges are unredeemed, our promises forgotten, our faith broken. He has taken us into a covenant which keeps us, and yet we live for the world. We forget His glory in our pleasures and our gains. The mark cannot be discerned upon our foreheads, and through us His precious name is profaned. The most faithful have occasion to blush. The daughter of Zion may well bow her head in the dust. If God tenderly forgives us, surely we can never forgive ourselves for the ingratitude, the meanness, the baseness of not keeping faith with Him who is the very fountain and source of truth. But you congratulate yourselves, perhaps, that you are exempt from the temptation to spiritual perjury. The vows of God are not upon you. You have entered into no engagements to serve Him, and consequently, whatever other crimes you may commit, you are free from the charge of breaking faith with your Maker. There is in this condition no cause of exultation. The exemption from one specific sin is purchased at a dreadful price. You are, according to the statement, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. You are without Christ, and consequently without God and without hope in the world. There is something overwhelming in the thought of having no God to go to, and yet, This is the condition, and the only condition, upon which you can plead immunity from the possibility of breaking vows. But is it certain that the vows of God are not on you? It may be that your parents at your birth solemnly devoted you to Him. This act of theirs, sanctioned by His authority, you are bound to respect. And all the engagements in regard to you which consistently with parental rights they have made, you are bound to observe. They were your guardians before you were conscious of the need of a protector, and if they have devoted you to God, you are not at liberty to regard yourselves as your own. You cannot without sacrilege prostitute your talents, faculties, and members to a profane purpose. Holiness to the Lord must be written upon your foreheads, and when you forget the obligations it implies and walk in the light of your own eyes and after the imaginations of your own hearts, you as much despise the covenanted claims of God as if you had given yourselves to his service by your own free act. You have been made a vessel of the sanctuary, and in surrendering your being to secular ends you are guilty of the same species of sin which he commits who defiles the temple of the Lord. Think not, therefore, to escape the guilt of profaneness by pleading the absence of vows. It was Solomon who built and consecrated the august edifice on Moriah, but being consecrated, it was sacred to all generations. I am afraid that the sanctity of the relation which the piety of the parents has constituted between their children and God is very inadequately understood. The young do not recognize and feel the right which it gives him to them. They do not appreciate their state of external holiness, and consequently fail to comprehend the malignity of guilt which is involved in the absence of inward purity. It is a great blessing to be thus in covenant with God, it is an equal curse to despise it. I beseech you therefore to bethink yourselves, and while you are boasting that you are free from perjury, take care that you are not tainted with sacrilege. It is the same sin, profaneness in a different dress. But is it so that you are free from vows which you have voluntarily assumed? Do you not remember the time when your days were consumed like smoke, and your bones burned as an hearth, when your souls abhorred all manner of meat and you drew near to the gates of death? Do you not remember your anxious thoughts, your solemn reflections, your agonizing fears? Then you cried unto the Lord in your trouble, and in the depths of your distress bound yourselves to His service. Have you forgotten the promise you made when you trembled at the mouth of the grave? Have you forgotten the vows which you uttered when you shrunk in terror from the prospect of eternity? When He slew them, then they sought Him, and they returned and inquired early after God, and they remembered that God was their Rock, and the High God, their Redeemer." Psalm 78, 34-35. These vows, be assured, are recorded in heaven. They impose a solemn obligation on your souls from which no power on earth can release you. And if unredeemed, they will confront and haunt you in the day of retribution and throughout eternity as the ghosts of the murdered. Such flattering with the mouth, such lying with the tongue when the heart is not right with God nor steadfast in His covenant, such promises made to procure favors and forgotten as soon as the favors are enjoyed, are a mixture of ingratitude, perfidy, and profaneness which cannot escape vengeance. Talk not of your exemption from perjury when such witnesses are prepared to testify against you. Wipe not your mouths and carelessly protest that you have done nothing wrong, when you have lied unto God and proved recreant to the most solemn engagements that it is possible for man to make. You are perjured, your souls are blackened with guilt, and unless they are purged and washed through the blood of the everlasting covenant, it will be like a millstone around your necks to sink you to the lowest hell. God is not to be mocked. The conduct which in relation to a fellow man would doom you to infamy. Think you it loses any of its atrocity when directed to him who is the very center and perfection of right? The greatest and best of beings. Is he alone to be degraded so low in the scale of personal existence that faith and honor lose their significance when applied to our intercourse with him? Tell it not in Gath. Publish it not in the streets of Escalon. There are other occasions on which you have remembered God and solemnly plighted your faith that you would serve Him. When the pestilence was walking in darkness, and destruction wasting in noonday, when a thousand were falling at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, when you were afraid of the terror by night and the arrow that flyeth by day, then you sought the protection of the Almighty with promises and vows, with strong crying and tears. You are a father, and have you forgotten the resolutions which you bound upon your soul as you hung over the form of a dying child or consigned its dead body to the grave? You are a husband, and do you not remember the agony of your prayers when you implored the Almighty to spare the wife of your bosom? Have you forgotten the promises, thrice repeated, by which you hoped to redeem your beloved one from the jaws of death? She still lives, but where are those vows? You are thoughtless and impenitent. There was a time when you trembled at the Word of God, when the sense of guilt was fastened upon your consciences and your bones waxed old through your roaring all the day long. You felt that you were a sinner and must be born again, but you were not yet ready for the change. Did you not, in the conflicts of your spirit, solemnly pledge yourselves to God, that at a given time, when a given scheme was accomplished, you would turn to Him and live? That time has come and gone. That scheme has been realized. But where are you? It is vain for any man who has a conscience and who believes in providence and law. It is vain for any man who has ever reflected upon his nature and his prospects to allege that he is under no vows to God. We have all made them and alas, we have all broken them. Their wrecks may be seen along the whole course of our history. Perfidy and ingratitude have marked our career. Our lives have been a vast unbroken lie and our true posture is with our hands on our mouths and our faces in the dust. When I reflect upon the magnitude of human guilt in this single aspect of it, I am amazed and confounded at the long-suffering forbearance of God. Antecedently to experience, no creature could have dreamed that infinite holiness could have endured for a day or an hour such monsters of ingratitude, treachery, and fraud as we have shown ourselves to be in the whole course of our dealings with the Father of Lights. I am ashamed of myself. I am ashamed of my species when I recollect how false and faithless we have been. Who can boast of His honor? Who can scorn the imputation of a lie when there are promises in heaven unredeemed, vows that are forgotten or despised? Who dares glory in His righteousness when the first principles of justice are openly transgressed? No, no! We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, but in His amazing goodness there is a remedy. All guilty as we are, we can be pardoned and accepted. All polluted as we are, we can be purified and cleansed. There is a fountain opened in the house of David for sin and uncleanness. Let us wash in that fountain, and we shall come forth new men, men of real truth, honor, and integrity. The laws of God will be put into our minds and written upon our hearts, and the Spirit of all grace will effectually train us for glory, honor, and immortality, and crown us with eternal life. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men. Thank you for listening to this message from Antioch Presbyterian Church. For more information about Antioch, visit us at our website at antiochpca.com.