you, my brethren, to take him for your model, and to walk in his footsteps! O that I could effectually excite you to an imitation of his virtues, particularly his ardent love for God and for his neighbour! Thrice happy they who follow his example herein, since by this means they may confidently hope to partake hereafter of the glorious reward which he now enjoys; for it is in an unfeigned charity in both its branches that true sanctity consists, and it is on it, and not on extraordinary practices or observances, that the felicity of a Christian, both in time and eternity depends.

O God of charity, teach us to know and practice this divine virtue. Give us grace to testify our love for thee, by an inviolable fidelity and constant perseverance in thy service, and our love for our neighbour by the performance of every social and fraternal duty. Purify our hearts, we beseech thee, from the dross of all earthly affections, and replenish them with true Christian charity. Grant that we may begin, at least from this instant, to love thee above all things, and repair, by the ardour of our love the time we have hitherto lost in not loving thee, O Beauty, ever ancient and ever new. O may all our desires be fixed on thee, and all our works and actions be directed to thy honour and glory, that when the day of eternity shall appear our souls may be admitted, through the merits of our Blessed Redeemer, to a participation of thy heavenly joys; which is the happiness that I heartily wish you all, my dear brethren, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

1

A DISCOURSE,

On the Scandalous Vice of Profane Swearing, Cursing and Blaspheming.

Vir multùm jurans implebitur iniquitate, et non decedet a domo illius plaga. Ecclesiastic. c. xxiii. v. 12.

The man who swears much shall be filled with iniquity, and the scourge of God shall not depart from his house. Eccles. c. xxiii. v. 12.

AMONGST the many scandalous sins which reign at present in the world, there is not any one that calls more loudly for a remedy than the vice of profane swearing, cursing and blaspheming. It is, alas! become now so common in this nation, heretofore distinguished by the glorious title of the Island of

Saints, that we can hardly pass along the public streets without being almost deafened with the loud thunder of tremendous oaths, horrid imprecations and blasphemies, resounding from every corner. Scarce any business is transacted without being sealed with some dreadful curse or false and rash oath ; scarce any thing is bought or sold without pouring out a torrent of blasphemous expressions, that are enough to make the hair of the head stand upright, as the Scripture speaks, Eccles. c. xxvii. v. 15. Some people are so unhappily addicted to this vice, that they seem to look upon swearing as an ornament to set off and embellish their discourse, as they almost conclude every sentence with it; nay, they double and treble their oaths in the same phrase and with the same breath, and are ready for another fresh oath before the sound of the first is well out of our ears. They are not content with the atrocious injuries which they commit against their neighbour. Their impiety is not satisfied to stop here; it mounts still higher, till it reaches the very throne of God himself, and immediately attacks and directly strikes at his Divine Majesty. No sooner are their passions opposed or their inclinations thwarted by the least contradiction, but they begin to open their sacrilegious mouths against Heaven, as the Royal Prophet speaks, Ps. lxxii. and vent their anger, like so many infernal furies, blaspheming the name of the Holy Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and treating the precious blood and wounds of their blessed Redeemer with as much irreverence and disrespect as if they were really contemptible in themselves. Great God! what will be the end of this deluge of impiety and wickedness, which, instead of decreasing seems to be gaining ground every day? Whilst the nine choirs of Angels are incessantly singing thy immortal praises, shall men and devils unite in abusing and profaning thy adorable name? The infernal spirits, indeed, may be supposed to rave and blaspheme in the midst of their torments, as they know that their flames are never to be extinguished, and their pains never to be at an end; but that Christians should thus insult their most bountiful and merciful Creator and Redeemer, at the very time that he is showering down his favours and blessings on them, and visiting them every moment with fresh presents of his love, is so outrageous a treatment, and so monstrous an excess of impiety and ingratitude, that it cannot be matched even in hell itself, nor can all the malice of the infernal furies come up to it. Listen, therefore, O unhappy swearers, cursers and blasphemers, and let a serious consideration of the enormity of this scandalous vice, and a timely and sincere repentance, prevent the eternal vengeance, which otherwise must inevitably overtake you one day or other. Be no longer deceived with false notions, for though custom has rendered this vice so common, not only amongst notorious

profligates and professed libertines, but likewise among people of fashion, even the very sex whom modesty should charac terise, yet it is highly offensive and injurious to the majesty of God, and extremely pernicious and fatal to the soul of man, as I will briefly shew you in the following discourse, after having previously invoked the divine aid through the intercession of the blessed Virgin, &c. Ave Maria.

To swear, as St. John Chrysostom observes, in his Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles, is to call God, either expressly or tacitly, directly or indirectly to witness the truth of things past, present or to come, and to punish the swearer if he tells a lie or fails in the performance of his promise. Oaths are only allowable when they are attended with those three circumstances or conditions, mentioned by the Prophet Jeremy, c. iv. v. 2. Truth, judgment and justice. If truth be wanting, the oath is called perjury; if judgment, or discretion be wanting, that is, if an oath be taken without an urgent necessity, reasonable cause, and mature deliberation, it is called a rash oath; and if justice be wanting, that is, if a person swears that he will do an unlawful and sinful action, it is called an unjust oath. To have recourse to an oath with truth, judgment and justice, is so far from being forbid, as the Pelagians and some other sectaries, condemned by the General Council of Constance, have erroneously imagined, that it is an act of religious worship, whereby we honour God, acknowledge his omniscience, and testify the great reverence and veneration we have for his supreme Majesty, as being the infallible truth and the just avenger of all falsehood and lies. Were it not lawful, under these circumstances, to call God to witness the truth of what we assert or promise, there would be an end to human commerce and society; for, as mankind are so given to lies and deceit, especially when their own interest or selfish views are concerned, one man would not give credit to the simple word of another, nor rely with any kind of certainty on his promise. For this reason, oaths have been always held sacred, both in the Law of nature and in the written Law, and are tendered in all nations and in all courts of judicature, in order to acquire a certainty and conviction of the truth, and to put an end to all trials and differences that arise among men, as the Apostle speaks, Heb. c. vi. it being presumed that no one would be so wicked as to dare to dishonour God's holy name by swearing in a known lie, and offering him as a voucher for an untruth.

However there is no affirmative precept for swearing, as there is for praying, offering sacrifice and performing other acts of religion; because, as St. Thomas of Aquin remarks, oaths are remedies against incredulity and the depravity of the heart of man. They are not to be sported with, but to be used occasionally, with great precaution, prudence and

discretion, and only in case of pressing necessity, when a just and lawful cause requires it; like unto corporal medicines, are only applied in case of sickness or some urging necessity, as otherwise, instead of being beneficial and salutary they would rather prove pernicious and destructive to the health of the body.

Perjury is a crime of the blackest die, and so outrageously offensive and injurious to the infinite veracity and holiness of God, and the Prophet Zachary says, c. v. that the malediction of God will fall on the house of a perjurer. It would be almost an affront to reason to endeavour to set forth the glaring enormity and crying malice of this sin. It is a crime of high treason, levelled directly and immediately against God himself in person; it implies a formal contempt of his Divine Majesty, and supposes him to be either ignorant of the truth, or capable of bearing false witness, patronizing a lie, and putting his seal to an untruth. The smallness of the matter, which the perjurer thus audaciously brings down God to attest in a lie, does not diminish; but rather aggravates the heinousness of this crime in itself, because it implies a baser disrespect and a more shameful dishonour of God's infi. nite sanctity; for which reason the Church has declared by Innocent X. that to call God to witness even a small or a trivial lie, which does no damage to our neighbour, is a most heinous mortal sin, that deserves the everlasting flames of hell-fire.

It is evident, also that an unjust oath, by which a person calls God to witness that he will do an unlawful and sinful action, like that of the forty Jews, who swore they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed St. Paul, Acts, c. xxiii. v. 12, implies a great contempt of God, because the swearer, as far as in him lies, makes God thereby the author and abettor of sin, and insolently brings him down as a witness that he is resolved to offend him and to violate his holy Law, which must be highly provoking to his sanctity, though the action that a person swears he will do should happen otherwise to be only a venial sin in itself. As for rash oaths, which are taken in common conversation and discourse, without any necessity, it is plain that they are an open transgression of the divine command, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for God's holy name, which ought never to be mentioned but with due respect, is thereby made too free with, and treated with dishonour: it is undervalued, profaned and abused by being brought down upon slight, trivial, and frivolous occasions, and constantly made the subject of every senseless exclamation, and impertinent outcry. To prevent and correct this abuse and profanation of a name which we are not worthy to mention even in our prayers, Christ our Lord gave his followers a negative or condi

tional precept, never to swear, even in the truth, without a just and necessary cause: Swear not at all, but let your speech be yes, yes; no, no; Mat. c. v. v. 34. The same precept is repeated by St. James, saying, Above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by the Heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath; but let your speech be yea, yea; no, no, that you fall not under judgment, c. v. v. 12. The wise man cautions us, likewise, against the practice of taking God's name in vain, and swearing rash oaths in common conversation. Let not thy mouth, says he, be accustomed to swear, because there are many hazards in it, Ecclesiastic. c. xxiii. v. 10. In the first place, those who are accustomed to swear often, are constantly exposed to the danger of perjury, and are frequently guilty of it, particularly when they swear without proper attention, or swear to a jocose lie, or in a matter great or small that is false in itself or in some of its circumstances; for which reason St. Augustine says, Vis longe esse a perjurio, noli jurare: Are you willing to remove yourself at a great distance from the horrid crime of perjury, swear not at all.

Moreover, customary swearing leads the sinner on insensibly to imprecations, maledictions and the most shocking blasphemies. Alas! what a vast heap of such crimes lies at every common swearer's door? It is not with this sin as it is with many other sins; for it is a very unfortunate circumstance of the vice of profane, customary swearing, that, notwithstanding its baseness and enormity, its returns are more frequent, and it may be repeated several times in a minute. In many other grievous sins this cannot be the case: if a man be intoxicated with liquor, there must be some space of time before he can be so again; if he breaks the Sabbath, he cannot do it every day; but profane swearers are ready for a fresh oath at every sentence they pronounce. What a multitude of perjuries are those sinners guilty of, who repeatedly swear against drinking spirituous liquors for a year or some certain limited time, and nevertheless plate their oaths in the interim several times perhaps in the course of a single day? What a

number of rash and unjust oaths have they to account for, who, upon the slightest occasion, run to the prayer-book, and, in open violation of the law of God and the law of the land, tender and take so many destructive combination oaths, which, being only bonds of iniquity, they afterwards find themselves under the necessity of breaking? It would be enough to sink them almost to despair to count the number of their crimes, to behold their enormity in their proper colours, and to consider attentively, that every false, unjust, and rash oath, execration and blasphemy which they have uttered during the whole course of their life, is recorded in the great book of accounts, which shall be produced against them on the terrible day of judgment. O with what shame and con