(obstinately and impenitently) guilty_. A _second_ consideration that makes the work of covenanting with God to appear a hard and difficult work, was taken from the nature of the work itself, which is to serve the Lord in a covenant way, and in the capacity of covenanted children, this covenant relation involving in it a walk and conversation in all things like the chosen of the Lord; and 'tis no small matter, so to walk, and so to behave as to be accounted worthy of a covenanted union with the Lord and interest in him, this covenant relation being confirmed with such awful sanctions, as in scripture we find, Neh. x. 29. "They------entered into a curse and into an oath, to walk in God's law," &c. This consideration, that covenanting work is weighty in its own nature, was further illustrated and amplified from the difficulty both of the things to be engaged against, and of the things to be engaged unto. As for the former, the things to be engaged against, which is sin in all its kinds and degrees, and in all the inducements to it, both with reference to ourselves, and also as to participation in the sins of others. This must first be put away, if one would be a right covenanter. Well did old Jacob understand the necessity of this, who being resolved to go up to Bethel, to renew his covenant with God, that answered him in the day of his strait, advises his family first "to put away the strange gods that were amongst them, and to be clean." Gen. xxxv. 2. So David assures us, Psal. xxxiv. 14, that departing from evil must precede doing of good. A man that would lift up his face without spot in renewing covenant with God, must first "put iniquity far away, and not suffer wickedness to dwell in his tabernacles," as Zophar advises Job, chap. xi. 14, 15. They that would take on with a new master must be fairly parted from the old, there is no way of pleasing both Christ and mammon, and therefore no possibility of serving both; whence the nature of covenanting work requires, that there be an upright putting away of all sin; for if the soul have any secret reserves in favor of a beloved sin, it has no ground to think that Christ will accept it, as his covenanted spouse and bride. Nor is this all, but 2dly, it must be mourned over and truly bewailed, especially upon the account of the offence done to a gracious God thereby; which sorrow must not be of an ordinary sort, but an extraordinary and most intense sorrow, for it cannot be an ordinary kind of sorrow, provided it be in any suitable measure proportioned to the offence. And 3dly, which follows upon the former, there must be a "loathing of the person's self because of these its ways and doings that have not been good in his sight," Ezek. vi. 9, even to that degree as to fill the soul with wonder and astonishment, that ever it should have an occasion of renewing covenant with God again. 4thly, There must be a sincere and hearty resolving against all sins, consequent upon this