_Direct._ II. Be sure that you make no vow or covenant which God hath forbidden you to keep. It is rash vowing and swearing which is the common cause of perjury. You should, at the making of your vow, have seen into the bottom of it, and foreseen all the evils that might follow it, and the temptations which were like to draw you into perjury. He is virtually perjured as soon as he hath sworn, who sweareth to do that which he must not do; the preventive means are here the best. _Direct._ III. Be sure you take no oath or vow which you are not sincerely resolved to perform.[61] They that swear or vow with a secret reserve, that rather than they will be ruined by keeping it, they will break it, are habitually and reputatively perjured persons, even before they break it; besides that, they show a base, hypocritical, profligate conscience, that can deliberately commit so great a sin. _Direct._ IV. See that all fleshly, worldly interest be fully subdued to the interest of your souls, and to the will of God. He that at the heart sets more by his body than his soul, and loveth his worldly prosperity above God, will lie, or swear, or forswear, or do any thing to save that carnal interest which he most valueth. He that is carnal and worldly at the heart, is false at the heart; the religion of such a hypocrite will give place to his temporal safety or commodity, and will carry him no further than the way is fair. It is no wonder that a proud man, or a worldling, will renounce both God and his true felicity for the world, seeing indeed he taketh it for his god and his felicity; even as a believer will renounce the world for God.[62] _Direct._ V. Beware of inordinate fear of man, and of a distrustful withdrawing of your heart from God. Else you will be carried to comply with the will of man before the will of God, and to avoid the wrath of man before the wrath of God. Read and fear that heavy curse, Jer. xvii. 5, 6. God is unchangeable, and hath commanded you so far to imitate him, as "If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth," Numb. xxx. 2. But man is mutable, and so is his interest and his affairs; and therefore if you are the servants of men, you must swear one year, and forswear it, or swear the contrary, the next: when their interest requireth it, you must not be thought worthy to live among men, if you will not promise or swear as they command you; and when their interest altereth and requireth the contrary, you must hold all those bonds to be but straws, and break them for their ends.