is
therefore enjoined, but show, that given circumstances may be
unfavourable to some species of the exercise. Even as the other
religious observances are not obligatory at every season, vowing should
not be engaged in to the exclusion of any incumbent duty. Circumstances
might occur, in which there would be no warrant from Scripture or
providence for making a given vow. If it be impossible to make
performance, the engagement is not required; and hence, if made, it
would not be valid, but involve the party to it in sin. The first of the
passages referred to, is the following--"If thou shalt forbear to vow,
it shall be no sin in thee."[201] The statement does not give scope to a
disregard of the vow, but implies that the law of God does not enforce
it where it would prove oppressive, or otherwise injurious. It does not
in the smallest abate the claim of the law enjoining an engagement by
vow to perform every definite duty; but teaches that it is not sinful to
abstain from vowing in some circumstances vows that ought to be vowed in
others. Some duties are so definite and so constantly obligatory that
they ought to be vowed by all; others, obligatory only on some in
certain circumstances, ought by such, in these circumstances alone, to
be engaged to. Thus, in all times and conditions, it is dutiful for all
to vow to keep the sabbath. It is dutiful for some to give themselves to
the work of the ministry, and to vow to do its duties; but not dutiful
for all. It is dutiful for the parties entering into the marriage
covenant to vow to fulfil the obligations of that relation; but it is
not incumbent on those who are not called in providence to enter into
that relation, to vow to perform its duties. Under the law, some things
were, by His express appointment, holy to the Lord. As he had an
explicit claim upon them, these might not be devoted to him in the same
manner as some other things were, but they behoved to be offered. Those
other things depended on the peculiar circumstances of the people, and
accordingly were of a changing amount, and had a great variety of
character; but not less than the things that might be vowed according to
circumstances, were those that were denominated, "holy to the Lord,"
vowed to him. Israel, at Sinai, vowed to present the first-born of their
males and their first-fruits to the Lord; and that vow they homologated
when they Covenanted again. On such occasions they could not vow
specific offerings