Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/57

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and truth united; also, all doctrine in the church derived from the Word: and in general, all sacred and holy things are his name. To profane God's name, then, or to take his name in vain, is to ridicule or treat with contempt or with levity sacred and holy things, as the things of religion and of the Church.


There now remains to be considered the celestial sense of this Commandment. "By taking the name of God in vain, in the celestial sense, is meant that which the Lord said to the Pharisees, 'I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.'"[1]

By blasphemy against the Spirit is meant blasphemy against the Divinity of the Lord's Humanity, and against the holiness of the Word. That, in the celestial or highest sense, by the name of God is meant the Divine Humanity of the Lord, is evident from these words; "Jesus said, Father, glorify thy name: then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again."[2] Here, by the Father's name, or God's name, is plainly signified the Humanity or Human Nature of the Lord Jesus Christ; for it was that which was glorified. To "glorify" means to make Divine. The Human Nature which Jehovah God assumed in the world, and by which he appeared to men in the form of Jesus Christ, He was continually glorifying or making Divine more and more,—just as the good man becomes

  1. Matt, xii 31.
  2. T. C. R., n. 299.