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ter; and it is highly dangerous to deal fafly with 'God, in pretending to covenant with him, when the heart is not right with God.

Anf. You have juft caufe to fufpect your own hearts, and therefore should be at all pains to fearch and try yourselves; and, for your help, I, fhall give fome characters of thefe who aim fincerely to tranfact and renew covenant with God.

1. They are fuch who are throughly convinced of their mifery under the first covenant, as being whol. ly unable to fulfil its condition, or pay its penalty; and therefore fee they cannot abide in this cafe, with out being undone to all eternity.

2. They are heartily grieved for their natural efrangement, and long living at a diftance from God; and are made to fay, Oh how long have I dwelt in Mefech, far from the fountain of my happines!

3. They are troubled for their long flighting of Christ's gracious calls and offers of mercy in the go. fpel, and for the backwardness of their hearts to leave fin and Satan, and come and enter into cove nant with God. Oh how long have I preferred Satan's drudgery and fervice, to God's friendthip and fa vour; lived in league with my foul's enemy, and at war with my best friend?

4. They have fomething of a foul affecting view. of the new covenant, and the new way and method of falvation contained therein. They fee there is no righteousness of man or angel that can justify them, none but the righteousness of Chrift alone, no. thing but an infinite fatisfaction can do their turn; and it is their cry, None but Christ.

5. They are fully refolved on a rupture and breach with all the enemies of God, and to break all leagues and covenants with fin, Satan and the world; and that they will never be flaves to them as formerly: they heartily join with the Pfalmift, Pfal. cxix. 115. Depart from me, ye evil doers, for I will keep the com mandments of my God.

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6. They are fenfible of, and humbled for, the former treachery and false dealing of their hearts with God. Are there not many who have formerly entred into covenant with God, have fworn allegiance to him as their fovereign, and that not only at Baptism, but have renewed this deed at the Lord's Supper? But, may not the Lord take up the fame complaint against them, as against Ifrael? Pfal. Ixxviii. 36, 37. They lied to him with their tongues; for their heart was not right with him, neither were they fedfaft in his covenant. Well, if you be deeply affected on this account, the Lord will not reject you.

7 They fincerely accept of Chrift as their furety and cautioner before God; they esteem him altoge. ther lovely and infinitely precious. They renounce their own righteousness in justification, and their own Strength in fanctification, and look to Chrift for both, faying, as thefe, Ifa. xlv. 24. In the Lord have I righteousness and frength. I have not fufficiency of myself either to make or keep covenant with God, but my confidence is entirely in Chrift my all-fufficient furety.

8. They are content to give themselves to the Lord, and all they are and have. Faith hath two hands; by the one it receives Jefus Chrift, and by the other it gives the foul to him. Now, if your faith want either of thefe, it is lame.

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9. They feel indwelling fin as a grievous clog; they defire heart-holinefs more than any earthly thing, and refolve, thro' grace, upon more care and watchfulness against fin than formerly.

Now, try your fincerity in covenanting with God by these marks; and if you can lay claim to one or more of them, then you are not hypocrites, nor of the number of thefe who give God the hand, without the heart; who pretend to make a covenant with God, and yet keep a fecret league with the devil, the world, and the flesh; who profefs a great outward refpect to God and his ways, and yet keep a fecret

a fecret antipathy to Godlinefs, as, alas, many de who come to the Lord's table.

And, if you would manage this weighty transaction aright, you must be very deliberate in it: take many a view of the nature and frame of the covenant of grace, and confider what God offers and promifes therein, and what he doth require of us; and endeavour to get your hearts wrought up to a chearful compliance therewith. Your fouls are at the ftake, and a mistake here ruins you eternally; but, if once it be well done, it is done for ever. This bargain is not for a fhort term, but for life, nay, for eternity; and therefore you should count the cost of it, and confider it duly; and be refolved, whatever trouble or perfecution fhall arise, or whatever temptation you may meet with to leave Christ, to fay to them, like Ruth to Naomi, when the was ftedfastly refolved to go with her, Ruth i. 16. Intreat me not to leave Chrift; for where he goes, I will follow him, tho' it were into banishment: where he lodges, I will lodge, tho' it were in a prifon; for neither death nor life fhall part Chrift and me.

And again, beware of delays in making or entering into covenant with God. It is work for eternity, and therefore requires prefent difpatch. The time of youth is a rare feafon for this work, and ought carefully to be improven, and no time loft. And here I fhall addrefs myself to the young.

young people, and ye that never communicated before, fet about this work of perfonal covenanting before ye approach to the Lord's table. Do not delay or put off to another year, or till old age or fickness come on: for, what do you know but God may be provoked to harden your hearts fo in old age (tho' ye fhould live till that time) that ye shall have no liking to religion and the ways of God? Muft it not be highly difpleafing to God, to reserve for him the refufe and dregs of your strength and time? Will you give your Creator and Redeemer only

only fo much of your time and, ftrength as the devil and the world have left? O what is this, but to offer the blind and lame of the flock in facrifice to God, Mal. i. 7. which is an abomination!

O young folk, can you difpofe of yourfelves better in the days of your youth, than give up yourfelves to the Lord? When you are ready to chufe callings and fettlement's in the world, can ye take a wifer courfe, than firft chufe a fettlement in Chrift's fa mily, which would make all other conditions and circumftances of life the more comfortable to you? Now, the way to be made a member of this family, is by covenanting with God; without this, you have no right to the childrens bread, nor the feals of the covenant. It is not enough that you were baptized, and are Christians by your parents dedication, unle's you be Chriftians by your own free choice and confent. Remember, you are now to enter into the state of adult church-membership, and to be admitted to fhare of the childrens privileges fealed to you in baptifm; and therefore now ye mult act as rational men and women, and make a choice for yourselves you ought perfonally and explicitely to renew your baptifmal covenant, and ratify your pa rents deed, now when you are of age; otherwife your baptifin and parents dedication will not profit you. I call you to engage to no more here, than what you are already obliged to by your baptism; for it is juft the fame covenant you are to enter into now, that ye have already confented to by your baptilm only, by your perfonal refignation, voluntary confent, and taking the fecond feal of the covenant, you are to bind yourselves the fafter to it; the which you neglect to do, your baptifin will be fo far from profiting you, that it will be a witness against you, and cry for vengeance on you, and you will be in no better condition than the heathen that never were baptized.

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Oyoung communicants, take heed to your first com. municating; for very much doth depend upon it.

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You are now, as it were, to lay the foundation-ftone of your falvation work, and this ought to be done with much fpiritual skill and knowledge, if you would have a fure building. O then dig deep, and found your house, your falvation, your hopes of heaven upon the rock Chrift, by perfonal covenanting, and exprefs clofing with him upon the terms of grace for if you do it not, but approach to the Lord's table in ignorance, unbelief, or hardness of heart, you may provoke God to finite you with judicial blindnefs and obduration, and give you up to fuch heart-hardnefs and formality in duty, as may cleave to you all your lives long, and fo you are ruined for ever. The time of your firft communi. cating is a moft critical juncture for your fouls; for according to the ftate, frame and difpofition of people's fouls at their firft communicating, fo it ve. ry often fares with them in fome measure at all the reft of the communions they partake of. Many have found this, fome to their fweet, others to their fad experience. Some by their carelefs approach at first, and neglecting exprefly to covenant with God, have drawn down the plagues of heart-hardness and formality upon themselves, and provoked God to leave them to wander in the dark all their days, without any folid affurance, or comfortable view of their intereft in Chrift and the covenant of grace. But others, by means of their fincere preparation and covenanting with God at this time, have got a feal of their converfion, and a view of their intereft in Chrift, which hath proven very useful and comfortable to them all the rest of their lives, and especially in the time of distress, and when on a death-bed. Then they have remembred, how that at fuch a time and place they joined themselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, and then and there God fpake with them, intimated their pardon, and owned them as his covenanted children. As their fouls were helped to fay to the Lord, Thou art my God; fo God

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