[Footnote 12:  Christian Father’s Present.]

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“In many persons, a seriousness and sense of awe overspread the imagination, whenever the idea of the Supreme Being is presented to their thoughts.  This effect, which forms a considerable security against vice, is the consequence not so much of reflection as of habit; which habit being generated by the external expressions of reverence which we use ourselves, or observe in others, may be destroyed by causes opposite to these, and especially by that familiar levity with which some learn to speak of the Deity, of his attributes, providence, revelations or worship.

“God hath been pleased (no matter for what reason, although probably for this,) to forbid the vain mention of his name:—­’Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’  Now the mention is vain when it is useless; and it is useless when it is neither likely nor intended to serve any good purpose; as when it flows from the lips idle and unmeaning, or is applied, on occasions inconsistent with any consideration of religion and devotion, to express our anger, our earnestness, our courage, or our mirth; or indeed when it is used at all, except in acts of religion, or in serious and seasonable discourse upon religious subjects.

“The prohibition of the third commandment is recognized by Christ in his sermon upon the mount; which sermon adverts to none but the moral parts of the Jewish law:  ’I say unto you, swear not at all:  but let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay:  for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.’  The Jews probably interpreted the prohibition as restrained to the name JEHOVAH, the name which the Deity had appointed and appropriated to himself; Exod. vi. 3.  The words of Christ extend the prohibition beyond the name of God, to everything associated with the idea:—­’Swear not, neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is God’s footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.’  Matt. v. 35.

“The offence of profane swearing is aggravated by the consideration, that in it duty and decency are sacrificed to the slenderest of temptations.  Suppose the habit, either from affectation, or by negligence and inadvertency, to be already formed, it must always remain within the power of the most ordinary resolution to correct it:  and it cannot, one would think, cost a great deal to relinquish the pleasure and honor which it confers.  A concern for duty is in fact never strong, when the exertion requisite to vanquish a habit founded in no antecedent propensity is thought too much or too painful.

“A contempt of positive duties, or rather of those duties for which the reason is not so plain as the command, indicates a disposition upon which the authority of revelation has obtained little influence.  This remark is applicable to the offence of profane swearing, and describes, perhaps pretty exactly, the general character of those who are most addicted to it.