shall on this evening preach to you on the third and fourth.

The third commandment is: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that is, will surely punish him, that taketh his name in vain." God most strictly forbade the Israelites to have any other Gods but him. He most strictly forbade them also to worship him, under any form or image. How can you make any thing like one whom you have not seen, nor can see-who is a spirit, not a body. And he now strictly forbids them to make light of his holy name by profane swearing. God Almighty knows, that, when we make too free with the names of those, whom we ought to respect, we shall not respect them as we ought to do. And if men treat the name of the great God of heaven and earth in this way, they will soon cease to look up to him with the honour and reverence which are his due.

You see then, my friends, that God himself forbids us to swear by his name. And yet how often do men dare to disobey him in this instance! O merciful God! how often is thy name profaned by various people! How many oaths in one day provoke thee to be angry with sinful man! My friends and hearers! who has given you speech-who has made you able to do what the beasts cannot, tell each other your wants, and your thoughts by means of the tongue? Has not God done this? Has not God made you capable of so great a blessing? And will you use the tongue to blaspheme him who made it? Will you take his own work, and with it wrong and offend the maker of it? I have read of a very good and of a great man who once lived in England, and who had such a serious fear of God about him, that he never made use of the word-Godwithout stopping for a short time, in order to feel the sublime meaning of the word. And did you all think as you ought to do

of the greatness and majesty of Almighty God, you would certainly feel too great a fear of him to use his name on every slight and trifling occasion. To swear by him is to dishonour him. It is to treat him with disrespect. It is to shew, that you have not a proper sense of religion about you. I could say a great deal to you to make you leave off so shameful a practice. But can I say more, than the commandment does? Has not God said, I will punish him who takes my name in vain? Is not that enough? Can you want any thing more to shew you, how great danger you fall into, whenever you swear by his sacred and holy name? Think for a moment, what must be the case when God determines to punish any one of us. Is there not a hell, in which he can make us miserable for ever? And though we know that, shall we still do the thing, which God forbids-which God himself says that he will punish us for doing. I am sure, that if people thought of these things,

they would not provoke the anger of God Almighty by taking his name in vain. They would set a guard upon their tongues, they would watch the door of their lips, and never suffer a word to escape them, by which God might be dishonoured and their souls endangered.

I now proceed to the fourth commandment. Remember, &c. You may recollect, that I told you some time back, that God made the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and all that you see on the earth in six days. On the seventh day he rested: not that God wanted rest, but he ceased on that day, and he expects that man should remember his Creator in keeping that seventh day holy. Accordingly, all good and religious people have observed one day in seven from the beginning of the world. They have observed it in remembrance, that it was the Lord who made them, and not they themselvesthat it was God who created the heavens

and the earth. The Jews keep one day in seven holy. They keep Saturday so. Christians have changed the day to Sunday, because they remember this day, not only that God made them, but that Jesus Christ redeemed them. For it was on a Sunday, that the Lord Jesus rose from the dead: it was on a Sunday that your ever blessed Saviour burst from the bands of death, and rose from the grave, in order that he might give us the power of rising from the grave ourselves. So that Christians have two great reasons for paying the highest respect to a Sunday. On the seventh day their Creator ceased from all the beautiful and noble work which he had made: on a Sunday, their Redeemer finished his work, made perfect the sacrifice of himself for the sins of the world, and rose from the dead, in order to shew, that God had accepted what he had done for gaining the pardon of sinful man.

The way in which this day is to be kept