PCEA

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.

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IN a former paper we were occupied chiefly in shewing that the fact, which the Psalmist here recognises obtained in his own case, obtains also in ours; that each of us may say, as he did "Thy vows are upon me." In prosecuting this design we referred first to our baptismal vows. When we were baptised our parents brought us under a vow to be the Lords. We next adverted to the vows sometimes expressed and always implied in our prayers, and, indeed, in every petition of our prayers. In the two respects now mentioned all of us have vowed, and thus the vows of God are upon all of us. It was further pointed out that such of us as at any time sat at the Lord's table took upon us then the vows of God. It is the design of the ordinance of the Supper to promote the remembrance of Christ, and we professed to concur in this design, and to desire the accomplishment of it in our own case and in that of others. But that there may be a due remembrance of Christ there must be trust in Him, and that diligent use of means apart from which trust would be presumptuous and vain. We accordingly undertook and engaged to use the appointed means. We dedicated ourselves to God. We vowed we should be His.

We now observe further that the exercise of faith implies the making of a vow to God. When sinners believe in Christ they accept Christ to be their Saviour, and God in Christ to be their God; and they give themselves to God to be His. This giving of themselves to God is of the nature of a vow. and solemn engagement to be His. That such a vow is implied in the exercise of faith is not perhaps sufficiently recognised. When we address ourselves to the exercise of faith, we deal with God respecting restoration to His favour and a return to our allegiance to Him. It is our desire and object to return to our allegiance to Him, and not merely to be restored to His favour. We associate the former inseparably with the latter. Nay, in dependence on divine grace, we solemnly engage and vow that we shall return to our allegiance, and shall continue loyal and devoted.

Even though our faith be not saving, but only historical or temporary, it still implies such a vow, and, though, from its defective character, it is not effectual to appropriate the blessings of salvation, still, this implied vow is binding. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, - believeth so as to be interested in Christ and his salvation; but, though the exercise of faith in a given case falls short of believing with the heart, it implies a vow of allegiance to God, and imposes the obligation of that vow.

The vow implied in faith is often formally expressed by believers in a personal covenant with God into which they explicitly enter, accepting of His offer of Himself to them to be their God in Christ, and acknowledging His right and claim to them by solemnly engaging to be His. A vow, we apprehend, is implied even in hearing the Gospel.

It thus appears that God's vows, under which we have come in various ways, are upon us all. Some of us, there is little doubt, have made express vows to God, ordinary, and extraordinary vows; some of us have vowed to Him by entering into a personal covenant with Him either expressly, or implicitly, such a covenant being implied in the exercise of saving faith; and some of us have vowed to Him at His table. And then all of us came under vows to Him in our baptism, in our prayers, and by the exercise of faith even though we may have exercised only an historical or a temporary faith. Thus we are all under vows to God, having come under them not in virtue of one fact only of our history, or some one step we have taken, but in a great variety of ways. We, indeed, come under them anew continually. This is a solemn position to occupy. We are bound by thousands of vows, by vows under which we came in our early infancy, by vows which we have been iterating and reiterating daily and, in a manner, incessantly, for years, and which we are thus reiterating still, which we have been reiterating this very day, and, we apprehend, are reiterating this very moment.

How then have we been dealing with our vows? Have we been performing them? It is thus we ought to be dealing with them. Let us mark, then, what it is to deal thus with them, and the obligations under which we lie to do so. God's vows which are upon us may all be summed up in this, that we shall be His, ourselves and all ours, our persons, our means, our influence, our all. Accordingly, to perform our vows is just to live to God, to dispose of ourselves and all that is ours for Him, to say to Him, each one of us, "I am Thine, and all mine is Thine," and to follow up this surrender of ourselves and all ours to Him by a corresponding actual disposal of ourselves and all ours. Let us descend a little to particulars here. If we would live to God, and thus perform our vows to him, we must in all things have it as our chief end to glorify Him, and we must actually glorify Him in our bodies and our spirits. "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Observing this rule, we shall abstain from and decline all that cannot be made subservient to His glory. That we may thus glorify Him, the state of our hearts must be glorifying to Him. That it may be so the predominant element in it must be adoring love to Him - a love which forms the appropriate acknowledgment of His infinite glory, excellency, and beauty. By such love to Him we must exalt Him high above all creatures, above all objects whatsoever that are or can be presented to our souls. This supreme adoring love to God must be expressed (1) by our doing under its influence all that we do; (2) by our doing all that in our circumstances is necessary to express it; (3) by our duly acknowledging God in all His dealings with us and in all His ways; and (4) by our choosing and seeking the enjoyment of Him as our blessedness. We must thus love God and live to Him that we may perform our vows.

Our obligations to perform them are partly irrespective of them, and partly consequent on them.

Irrespectively of our vows it is our duty to live to God - (1) because we are his creatures, and He created us for himself, that we might be to the praise of His glory; (2) because of the obligations under which He has laid us by His dealings with us, (a) particularly by so ordering it that we were born, and brought up, and that we reside in the midst of gospel light and privileges, and (b) also by bestowing on us various favours, and (3) because it is only by living to Him that we can attain to life.

Consequently on our vows it is our duty to live to him. Vows are of the nature of a promissory oath. Hence to all the binding force of a promise they add the sanction of an oath. God deals with us in giving His law to us, and prescribes to us our duty; and in vowing we deal with God, and voluntarily enter into a solemn engagement to discharge the duty which He prescribes to us, accepting all the consequences attached to the non-discharge of them. If, therefore, we do not discharge them, we (1) violate our solemn engagement, (2) we treat God with great irreverence, and (3) we convert our vows into so many imprecations of evil upon ourselves. Some claim for themselves a sort of license, because, as they say, they do not make a profession of religion; but, how can they have the license claimed, when the vows of God are upon them, and those vows are exceeding broad, binding them to all that it is their duty to do, and, among other things, to make a profession of religion. We speak of taking pledges, but all of us have pledged ourselves to the great God to live to Him, and this includes the renunciation of all sin and the performance of all duty.