not come so glibly from their mouths, even in a But let me ask any of you, who may

passion. be so ready to excuse swearing, by your being in a passion, suppose you were before any person whom you greatly respected; or, suppose any person should offer you a sum of money for avoiding swearing; or, should punish you severely for every oath you swore in your passion; would you not, think you, avoid swearing, even when provoked to the highest? I verily believe you would. There is some other reason, then, that prevents your avoiding swearing, besides your being in a passion. Shall I tell it you? It is plain you do not reverence God so much as man; nor value his favour so much as you do a sum of money; nor fear his wrath so much as you do worldly punishment. Do not say, then, you cannot avoid swearing when you are in a passion; but tell the truth plainly, that you think it not worth while to be at any pains to avoid it.

Let me endeavour then, if possible, to prevail with you to leave off this abominable vice. It sits ill upon every person. In general, indeed, it is a vice that seldom goes alone: it is commonly

K 2

monly the vice of profligate people- such as have no fear of God before their eyes; noisy, brawling, hardened fellows, who terrify those beneath them, and are despised by every body else. You hardly, I suppose, know any of these cursing and swearing people, who are not bad men in other respects: they are drunkards, or they are given up to a loose, disorderly life, or are, in some way, a nuisance to their neighbourhood. And if ever this vice is found in better people, where there is some good, it is always thought a great injury and blemish to them; and their neighbours cry out, how sorry they are to see so many virtues clouded by such a vice. And when you give the character of a good man, you commonly say, as a high praise, he was never heard to swear an oath in his life. Swearing therefore, I say, sits ill upon all people; but if there are any that should particularly avoid this shocking vice, it is those who are at the head of families-who have children and servants to instruct, and keep in order. What a shocking thing is it to breed up your own children in vice! to train them up in wickedness by your own example!-to be the devil's worst agents in

fitting

fitting your own offspring for destruction! If you teach them no good, for God's sake teach them no ill. Is it not enough, think you, to leave them to pick up vice as they can, but must you instruct them in it?-Must you teach their infant tongues, by your example, till their lips begin glibly to form an oath ?-The case is the same with regard to the servants: it is the duty of masters to have an eye upon their behaviour -to keep them to their duty, and make them go regularly to church; but instead of that, if they teach them to sin by their example, I much fear that such masters will not only have their own sins, but, in a degree, the sins of others to answer for.

THUS, I have endeavoured to deter you from the abominable practice of common swearing.You will observe, I am not calling you to any heights of religion-I am not calling you, in our Saviour's language, to pluck out an eye or cut off a hand; I am calling upon you only for one of the first steps of a Christian life—that of not dishonouring your Maker's name. Let me then hope that all who are addicted to this

wicked practice, or are in the way of it, will consider, and think upon what I have said against it; and for your own sakes, and for the sake of others, leave off a practice which can do you no good, and will most undoubtedly, if you repent not, nor leave it off, in the end lead you

to ruin.

SERMON

IN the parable from which this verse is taken,

our Saviour intended to shew the Jews that the Gentiles (represented by the prodigal son) should be taken, on their repentance, into God's favour equally with themselves.

But though this was the chief intention of the parable, yet, like many of our Saviour's parables, it had two views; and the former part at least is capable of a much more general interpretation. In this light I propose to consider it, and shall point out the several pieces of instruction that arise from it.