is an unceasing and fearful provocation of his Maker, and a terrible preparation for a future life of eternal blasphemy. All the ruin of futurity, and all the guilt and wretchedness of this life, he voluntarily brings upon himself by the indulgence of this odious, senseless, causeless sin; and thus quietly, and coolly, prepares himself to be destroyed for ever. In sinning against God, in this manner, he eminently wrongs his own soul; and loves, invites, and solicits, everlasting death.

SERMON CIV.

THE LAW OF GOD.-THE DECALOGUE.-THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. THE DANGER OF PROFANENESS.

EXODUS IX. 7.-Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that taketh his name in vain.

IN the two preceding discourses, I considered, at length, the Nature, and the Guilt, of Profaneness. I shall now proceed, according to the plan originally proposed, to examine with some attention the Danger of this sin.

All sin is dangerous. But there are different kinds, and degrees, of danger in different sins. On those, which especially attend this sin, or which, though common to other sinful habits, are connected with profaneness in a remarkable manner, I mean to insist in the following discourse.

1st. Profaneness is eminently the Source of Corruption to the whole Character.

That there is an intimate connection between the thoughts, and the tongue, is perfectly well known to all men of consideration. The nature of this connection is, however, misapprehended, if I mistake not, by most men. All persons perceive, that their thoughts give birth to their words: while few seem to be aware, that their words, to a vast extent, originate, and modify, their thoughts. Almost all moral attributes, and employments, operate mutually as causes and effects. Thus irreverence of thought generates profaneness of expression; and profaneness of expression, in its turn, generates and enhances irreverence of thoughts. Thus, universally, the mind moves the tongue; and the tongue again, in its turn, moves the mind.

The person, who speaks evil, will always think evil. By this I do not mean, that evil thoughts must precede evil speaking: and that the man must, therefore, have been the subject of evil thoughts, in order to have spoken evil. I mean, that evil speaking, although an effect of evil thoughts, is, in its turn, a cause of new, and other, evil thoughts. He, who thinks ill, will undoubtedly speak, and act, ill. This all men readily acknowledge. It is equally certain, although not equally well understood, that evil speech, and evil actions, directly corrupt the mind; and render it more sinful, than it would ever become, if it were not to speak, and act, in this

manner.

A familiar example, or two, will advantageously illustrate this subject. An angry man becomes at once more violent and wrathful, when he begins to vent his passion by words. What before was anger, soon becomes fury. Before, he was able to retain his spirit within some bounds of decency; but as soon as his tongue is let loose, his countenance will be distorted, his eyes flash, and his sentiments be the mere effusions of frenzy. A revengeful man kindles, like a furnace, from the moment, in which he begins to execute his revenge. What before was the revenge of a human heart, is speedily changed into the fell malignity of a fiend.

ture.

St. James has exhibited this tendency of the tongue to corrupt the mind, in language remarkable, exact, and forcible. He styles it an unruly member; a fire; a world of iniquity; and declares, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of naIts influence on the mind itself, as well as on the affairs of mankind, he describes in this strong exclamation: Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! That the eye of St. James was directed to the profaneness of the tongue is obvious from what he says in the two succeeding verses. Therewith bless we God; and therewith curse we men. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. Cursing, one dreadful kind of profaneness, was, according to his own account, in the eye of the Apostle, a kind of profaneness, mingled always with every other, and inseparable from every other. In this very sense, then, the tongue is full of deadly poison; a fire that kindles the whole course of nature, in the soul; and defiles the whole body, and the whole mind.

Of the correctness of these Apostolic declarations, experience furnishes ample proof. Among all the multitude of persons, who have borne the character of profaneness, not one was ever be lieved, on account of his other conduct, by any competent judge, acquainted with him, to be a virtuous man. Many persons have begun to be profane from mere inconsideration; and, at the commencement of their career, were no more depraved, than such of their companions as abstained from this sin. In their progress, however, they became corrupted much more extensively within the same period; increased generally in wickedness, and particularly in hardness of heart; and lost every serious and even sober thought all that course of thought, whence moral good might be derived, or whence might spring any hopeful efforts towards salvation. This is a case, which must, I think, have frequently met the eye of every man, who is seriously attentive to the moral conduct of his fellow-men; and strongly shows, that the practice has, itself, deplorably corrupted them in other respects, and set on fire the whole course of nature in their minds and lives. Hence, instead of being accounted virtuous on account of any thing in their other conduct, persons, addicted to this sin, have been regarded by common sense as gross sinners of course. "A profane person," is,

:

therefore, as you well know, proverbial language, used regularly to denote a wicked vicious wretch.

The truth plainly is, and all men discern it to be truth, that in reverence to God is a general source of wickedness. As I remarked in a former discourse, Religious Reverence is the direct, and peculiar, source of reformation. Irreverence, its opposite, is in the same manner the direct source of degeneracy. This is indeed true of most sins, when habitually and allowedly practised. He, who practises one sin in this manner, will almost necessarily relish other sins more. As the body when corrupted, and weakened, by sickness, is more prepared for the admission of any disease which may arrest it; so the soul, corrupted by sin of any kind, becomes more fitted for the admission of every kind of wickedness, which seeks admission. The conscience becomes less tender, less awake, less alarmed at the apprehension of guilt. The motives also, which should induce us to abstain from iniquity, gradually lose their power. The love of sinning, the evil passions and appetites, gain strength by indulgence; and temptation, having repeatedly vanquished us, more easily vanquishes us again.

But irreverence, more than almost any other evil, brings us into this danger. Whenever God becomes an object of little importance, or estimation, in our view; the evil of sinning vanishes of course. The danger, also, speedily recedes from our view. The only great and solemn Object in the universe, the only Being, who is of ultimate importance to us, loses all his awfulness and sanctity. The great and commanding motive is, therefore, gone; and there is nothing left, to restrain us, but reputation or convenience. In this situation, the mind is prepared for future perpetrations, not only by an increased love to sinning, but by a strong and habitual feeling, operating with much more power than mere conviction, that sin is neither guilty nor dangerous; or at the worst as a thing of small moment. The soul is thus left free to the indulgence of its evil propensities; and the restraints. which once operated with no small efficacy, lose their hold on the mind.

An affecting exemplification of this doctrine is seen in the tendency of one exercise of profaneness to produce another. Persons addicted to profane swearing are, I apprehend, much more prone than most others, to the commission of perjury. An oath is an eminently solemn act of religious worship. The person, who takes an oath, calls God to witness the manner, in which he shall speak, or act, under the obligation which it imposes. If he shall speak truth, and nothing else; if he shall act faithfully in the office, or trust, which he is then assuming; he implores God, to bless him here and hereafter. If he shall speak falsely, or act unfaithfully; he in the same solemn manner invokes on his head the divine vengeance through time and eternity

Now it is plain beyond a doubt, that the solemn and awful character of God constitutes all the solemnity of an oath. If he is considered by the person, who takes it, as holy and sin-hating, as the unchangeable Enemy of faithlessness and falsehood; if he is realized as a present and awful Witness both of the oath and the subsequent conduct; if he is believed to be the future and dreadful Avenger of perjury and unfaithfulness; then we cannot but suppose, that the person, who has thus sworn, will deeply feel his obligation to be sincere, and faithful; will with deep anxiety speak the truth exactly, or discharge the duties of the assumed office in the fear of God.

But if, on the contrary, the juror, whether in evidence or in office, regards God as an object of little importance; as being either too weak, or too regardless of rectitude, to take any serious concern in the moral conduct of his creatures; as destitute of sacredness of character, and hatred of sin; as indifferent to truth and falsehood, faithfulness and treachery; as willing to be mocked with impunity, and abused without resentment; as existing, only to be a mere caterer to the wants and wishes of his creatures, and a mere object of profanation and contempt: then, plainly, the oath, in which he is invoked, can have little solemnity in the eyes, little influence on the heart, and little efficacy upon the conduct of the juror. To every such person it will become a thing of course; a mere wind-and-weather incident, an empty mockery of solemn sounds on a thoughtless tongue. Its obligation he will neither feel, nor see. The duties, which it requires, he will not perform. "There will, therefore, be no difference of conduct, in this case, between him that sweareth, and him that sweareth not.

But how evident is it, that persons, who swear profanely, speedily lose all sense of the awful character of the Creator. From trifling with him in this wonderful manner, they soon learn to consider him as a mere trifler. From insulting him daily, they soon regard him as a proper object of insult. From mocking him with such impious effrontery, they speedily think of him in scarcely any other character, than that of a mere butt of mockery. Thus God is first degraded, in the view of the mind, by its own profaneness, and then intruded upon by perjury. He, who swears profanely, will, in ordinary cases, soon swear falsely. Accordingly, customhouse oaths, proverbially false, are usually taken by profane men. Nay, such men have by their own perjuries rendered these oaths proverbially false. Oaths in evidence, also, taken by such men, are justly regarded as lying under a general imputation; as contributing not a little to unhinge the confidence of mankind in this their last reliance for truth and safety.

What is true of profane cursing and swearing, as to its corrupting power, is true of irreverence in every form. Disregard to God is the flood-gate to all moral evil. He, who enters upon this conduct, ought to consider himself as then entering upon an univer