Vows may be distinguished into civil and religious vows. In the former, somewhat is promised to man; and, in the latter, to God. It is with religious vows that we have at present to do; and these may be described as solemn promises made to God, and, inasmuch as in such promises there is an acknowledgment of His claims and an appeal to His omniscience and justice, the making of them is an act of worship. Religious vows may be distinguished into lawful and unlawful. That a vow may be lawful what is promised in it must be agreeable to the will of God, either as being expressly commanded by Him, or as being of such a nature that, though He does not lay upon us an express injunction respecting it, it is consistent with our duty and fitted to promote His glory. Thus, a man may vow to dedicate a certain portion or proportion of his property or income to the service of God; and, though such a disposal of this precise proportion of the one or the other is not expressly commanded, yet, if he can make it without injustice to those who have claims upon him, inasmuch as such an application of property is fitted to promote the glory of God, the vow is lawful. A vow may be unlawful in several respects. A frivolous vow - a vow respecting a trifling and altogether unimportant matter, is unlawful. A vow which binds those who make it to do what is sinful is itself sinful. Such was the vow made by those who conspired to kill Paul. A vow of this kind, that is, a promise to do what is sinful, made to God who hates and forbids all sin, is in the highest degree contradictory, daring, and impious. Profane swearing consists in many instances of such vows. And, when the profane swearer does not promise God to do what is sinful, he prays God to become the agent of his malice or vindictiveness, and thus to do for him what would be sinful if he did it for himself. The Lord will not hold guiltless those who thus take His name in vain. And, as vows, in which things wholly unimportant or things sinful are promised, are sinful in respect of the matter to which they refer, rash vows are sinful in respect of the manner in which they are made. They are made without due consideration. Before a vow is made, care should be taken to ascertain that what is promised is, in itself, and in the circumstances of him who vows, agreeable to the will of God. In rash vows this care is not taken. It was not taken by Jephthah when he made his very rash vow. He did not know what he vowed. Vows that entangle the conscience, rendering obligatory what, as being in itself indifferent, God has left to be determined by each individual for himself from time to time according to circumstances, are rash, unwarrantable, and sinful. Popery furnishes several illustrations of such vows.

Lawful vows are either ordinary or extraordinary. Extraordinary vows are such as are made on special occasions. Such was Jacob's vows, Gen. xxviii., 20-22. - "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." Ordinary religious vows are such as are made in the course of our ordinary religious services, and form, indeed, an essential part of those services.

We now request attention to vows of both kinds; and we shall first inquire what vows of either kind we have made. The earliest vows in which we are concerned are those implied in baptism. In our baptism our parents sought for us an interest in the blessings of that covenant of which baptism is a seal, - that is, of the covenant of grace, or, in other words, in the blessings of salvation; and, at the same time, as having by God's institution and appointment a light to act for us, they brought us under engagement to act as becomes those who are interested in those blessings. In other words, they sought for us the unspeakable advantage of having God as our God, and, at the same time, they brought us under a vow to be God's people. Thus all baptized persons are under a vow to be the Lord's. Those who were baptized after they grew up came under this vow by their own act, and those who were baptized in their infancy came under if by the act of their parents as their representatives appointed to be such by God. These latter are thus under it as really and fully, as if they came under it by their own act. What their parents did in bringing them under it was done by the appointment of God, and was, therefore, valid and had fully the effect of bringing them under it. Thus all of us who have been baptized are under a vow to be the Lord's, that is to love him with all our heart and to live to him wholly, and, seeing we are sinners, to repent of our sins, to believe in Christ, that the atonement he has made for sin and the righteousness he has fulfilled may be available for us, so that our sins shall be pardoned and our persons accepted, and to live by the faith of him the life that we live in the flesh, that we may be strong in Him and in the power of His might, and thus able to all things, and that we may be accepted for His sake in what we do in His strength; or, in one word, we are under a vow to live godly in Christ Jesus. All of us, from the youngest to the oldest are under a vow to this effect. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." - Rom. vi. 3-4.

Our baptismal vows, however, are not the only vows we have made. We have made and we daily make vows in our prayers. Vows are sometimes explicitly made in prayer. Thus when David says "teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end." - Ps. cxix. 33.), he makes an explicit vow in the prayer which he addresses to God. Having prayed "teach me the way of thy statutes," he vows, on condition of an answer to this prayer, or perhaps we should rather say in dependence on an answer to it, "I shall keep it unto the end." In the next verse we have a vow suspended in like manner on a petition, "Give me understanding and I shall keep thy laws." But though no vows be explicitly made in our prayers, vows are always implied in them. Every petition, indeed, implies a vow. When we pray to God to bestow upon us any blessing, the petition implies a vow that we shall diligently wait upon Him for the blessing for which we thus pray, and shall strenuously and perseveringly use all proper means to obtain it. Accordingly, when Christ says "Ask and you shall receive," he adds "seek and you shall find." Ordinarily blessings are both "received" and "found," - "asked" and "received," "sought" and "found." They are not "received" only or "found" only, but both "received" and "found," and, therefore, when we "ask," if we do not expect to separate what God has joined together, namely, "receiving" and "finding," we purpose to "seek;" and, in our "asking" there is an implied vow that we shall do so. When we pray for any blessing, we virtually say, Lord, we need this blessing, but we cannot procure it for ourselves; it is our duty to use all means to obtain it, and this duty we solemnly engage to discharge, but all the means we use or can use will be unavailing if Thou do not vouchsafe thy blessing, be pleased, therefore, to impart it. There is thus in every petition an implied vow that we shall wait upon God in the use of all proper means for the blessing for which we pray.

But, further, there is in every petition an implied vow that, if God grant us the blessing for which we pray, we shall avail ourselves gratefully and diligently of all the advantage it will afford us for serving and glorifying Him.

Further, any of us who have partaken of the Lord's Supper made solemn vows by and in partaking of it. Those who partake of the Lord's Supper do this in remembrance of Him, - that is, in order to the remembrance of Him by themselves and others. They profess that it is their earnest desire to promote the remembrance of Him, the remembrance of Him with adoring love and the most ardent gratitude, on their own part and on that of others; and they solemnly vow that they shall do what in them lies to secure the accomplishment of this desire; that is, that they shall diligently cultivate the character and act the part of true and devoted disciples.

The vows we have hitherto considered are ordinary vows; but we have all of us probably, and certainly most of us have, made extraordinary vows. We may have been in danger and we vowed that, if God would deliver us, we should testify our gratitude by greater devotedness to Him, or by some special act or form of devotedness. Or, as we embarked in some undertaking, we vowed that, if God would conduct it to a successful issue, we should testify our gratitude by availing ourselves of the increased means or other advantages we should thus have to advance His cause.

Extraordinary vows are to be included among the explicit vows made in our prayers.

Some vows are particular, and others general. Vows of the former kind refer only to a certain act or mode of acting, but vows of the latter kind refer to the whole life. Now the vows under which we came in our baptism are general vows; the vows made in the Lord's Supper are also of that character. The vows implied in our prayers are also for the most part general; so also are many of our extraordinary vows. Of these however some are particular, as are some also of the vows made in our prayers. The very solemn vows made by ministers on the occasion of their ordination are partly general and partly particular.