nd therefore it is well observed of St.
Austin, 'We ought to forbear swearing that which is truth; for, by the
custom of swearing, men oftentimes fall into perjury, and are always in
danger of it.'"

Take a few considerations, with a view to show the evil of swearing, and
to deter from the practice of it.

1. _Consider that Name by which the Swearer generally commits his sin._
"The name of God," says Jeremy Taylor, "is so sacred, so mighty, that it
rends mountains, it opens the bowels of the deepest rocks, it casts out
devils, and makes hell to tremble, and fills all the regions of heaven
with joy; the name of God is our strength and confidence, the object of
our worshippings, and the security of all our hopes; and when God hath
given Himself a name, and immured it with dread and reverence, like the
garden of Eden with the swords of cherubim, and none durst speak it but
he whose lips were hallowed, and that at holy and solemn times, in a
most holy and solemn place; I mean the high priest of the Jews at the
solemnities when he entered into the sanctuary,--then He taught all the
world the majesty and veneration of His name; and therefore it was that
God made restraints upon our conceptions and expressions of Him; and,
as He was infinitely curious, that, from all appearances He made to
them, they should not depict or engrave any image of Him; so He took
care that even the tongue should be restrained, and not be too free in
forming images and representments of His name; and therefore as God drew
their eyes from vanity, by putting His name amongst them, and
representing no shape; so even when He had put His name amongst them, He
took it off from the tongue, and placed it before the eye; for Jehovah
was so written on the priest's mitre, that all might see and read, but
none speak it but the priest. But besides all this, there is one great
thing concerning the name of God, beyond all that can be spoken or
imagined else; and that is, that when God the Father was pleased to pour
forth all His glories, and imprint them upon His Holy Son, in His
exaltation, it was by giving Him His holy name, the Tetragrammaton, or
Jehovah made articulate, to signify 'God manifested in the flesh;' and
so He wore the character of God, and became the bright image of His
person.

"Now all these great things concerning the name of God are infinite
reproofs of common and vain swearing by it. God's name is left us here
to pray by, to hope in, to be t