Below are most of the Questions on Vows from Fisher's Catechism.
Under the Second Commandment:
Q. 29. To whom are vows to be made?
A. To God alone, as the only party and witness in the making and performing of them, Psalm 76:11 — “Vow and pay unto the LORD your GOD.”
Q. 30. What should be the subject matter of our vows to God?
A. Nothing except what may tend either to promote the practice of commanded duty, Psalm 119:57, or prevent the commission of any sin to which we are more ordinarily inclined and addicted, verse 106.
Under the Third Commandment:
Q. 55. What is a vow?
A. It is a voluntary and deliberate engagement to God only as party, and that respecting matters of a sacred or religious character, Psalm 132:2-6.
Q. 56. What is the difference between an oath and a vow?
A. In an oath, man is generally the party, and God is brought in as the witness: but in a vow, God himself is always the sole party, besides his being a witness, Psalm 50:14. Isaiah 19:21.
Q. 57. What is the subject matter of vows?
A. Only things religious; or such as relate immediately to the glory of God, and the salvation of our souls.
Q. 58. How ought vows to be entered into?
A. In the exercise of faith; or, in the strength of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, John 15:5; without which there can be no performance, Phil. 4:13.
Q. 59. How many kinds of vows are there?
A. Two; personal and social.
Q. 60. What is a personal vow?
A. It is the act of an individual, or single person, taking hold of God’s covenant of grace, or acquiescing in it as made with Christ, who is the all of it and thus engaging to be the Lord’s, and to essay the practice of all duty in his strength. Is. 44:5 —“One shall say, I am the Lord’s,” Psalm 119:106 — “I have sworn, and will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.”72
Q. 61. What is a social vow?
A. It is the joint concurrence of several individuals in the same exercise as in a personal one, openly avouching the Lord to be their God, Deut. 26:17; where Moses, speaking of all Israel, says, “Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, to walk in his ways,” &c.
Q. 62. When doth such a social vow commonly get the name of a NATIONAL COVENANT?
A. When the representatives of a nation, or the better part of them, concur in a covenant of duties, as ingrafted upon the covenant of grace, Jer. 50:4, 5 — “The children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, — saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.” See also Neh. 9:33, and 10:1, 30.
Q. 63. How do you prove that national covenanting is a warrantable duty under the New Testament?
A. From its being promised in the Old Testament that this shall be a duty performed under the New, Isaiah 19:21 — “The Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and — they shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and shall perform it.” Besides, if it was a moral duty upon special occasions, under the Old Testament (as appears from 2 Chron 15:12, and 34:31, 32; Neh. 9:38), it must remain to be the same, upon the like occasions, still; because Christ came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil them, Matt 5:17.
Q. 64. Is our obligation to moral duties increased, by our vowing or engaging to perform them?
A. Although it is impossible that our obligation to moral duty can he increased by any deed of ours, beyond what it is already by the law of God, which is of the highest authority; yet by reason of our own voluntary and superadded engagement, this obligation from the law may make a deeper impression than before, Psalm 44:17, 18, and our sins receive a higher aggravation, if we either omit the duty engaged to, or commit the evil opposite to it, Deut. 23:21, 22.
Q. 23. How is the name of God profaned by sinful vows?
A. Either when we solemnly enter into a resolution to do what is absolutely unlawful as Jezebel did, 1 Kings 19:2; or when we come under engagements to duty, and against sin, in our own strength, without a due dependence on the grace of God, as the greater part of the Israelites did, Deut. 5:27, 29; or, when we vow, and are not resolved to perform, as Johanan and his confederates did, Jer. 42:5, compared with verse 20.
