"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.

"Mockery and ridicule, when exercised upon the Scriptures, or even
upon the places, persons, and forms set apart for the ministration
of religion, fall within the meaning of the law which forbids the
profanation of God's name; especially as that law is extended by
Christ's interpretation. They are moreover inconsistent with a
religious frame of mind: for as no one ever either feels himself
disposed to pleasantry, or capable of being diverted with the
pleasantry of others, upon matters in which he is deeply interested;
so a mind intent upon the acquisition of heaven rejects with
indignation every attempt to entertain it with jests, calculated to
degrade or deride subjects which it never recollects but with
seriousness and anxiety.