The Covenants And The Covenanters: Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation
Religion
The Covenants And The Covenanters: Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation
Covenanters -- Scotland -- History -- Sources; Presbyterian Church -- Scotland -- History -- Sources
God will be steady to us; why should not we resolve to be so to Him? and
this covenant will be stedfast and uniform unto us, why should not we
resolve to be so too, and in this covenant? The covenant will not be our
friend to-day, and our enemy to-morrow, do us good to-day, and hurt
to-morrow, it will not be the fruitful this year, and barren the next;
but it is our friend to do us good to-day, and ever. It is fruitful and
will be so for ever. We need not let it lie fallow, we cannot take out
the heart of it, tho' we should have occasion to plough it, and sow it
every year. Much less will this covenant be so unstedfast to its own
principles, as to yield us wheat to-day, and cockle to-morrow, an egg
to-day, and to-morrow a scorpion; now bread, and anon a stone; now give
us an embrace, and anon a wound; now help on our peace, and anon embroil
us; now prosper our reformation, and anon oppose, or hinder it;
strengthen us this year, and weaken us the next. No, as it will never be
barren, so it will ever bring forth the same fruit, and that good fruit;
and the more and the longer we use it, the better fruit. Like the
faithful wife, "It will do us good, and not evil, all the days of its
life." It is therefore, not only sinful, but most unsuitable and
uningenuous, for us to be up and down, forward and backward, liking and
disliking, like that double minded man, "Unstable in all our ways,"
respecting the duties of this covenant.
3. Walk believingly, live much in the exercise of faith. As we have no
more good out of the covenant of God, than we have faith in it; so no
more good out of our own, than (in a due sense) we have faith in it.
There is as much need of faith, to improve this covenant, as there is of
faithfulness. We live no more in the sphere of a covenant, than we
believe. And we can make no living out of it but by believing. All our
earnings come in here also, more by our faith, than by our works. Let
not the heart of God be straitened, and His hand shortened by our
unbelief. Where Christ marvelled at the unbelief of a people, consider
what a marvel followed: Omnipotence was as one weak. "He could do no
mighty works among them." Works less than mighty will not reach our
deliverances or procure our mercies. The ancient worthies made more use
of their faith, than to be saved, and get to heaven by it. "By faith the
walls of Jericho fell down. By faith they subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, (or exercised justice) stopped the mouths of lions. By
faith they quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,
out of weakness they were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to
flight the armies of the aliens." We have Jerichos to reduce, and
kingdoms to subdue, under the sceptre and government of Jesus Christ: we
have justice to execute, and the mouths of lions to stop: we have a
violent fire to quench, a sharp edged sword to escape, Popish alien
armies to fight with; and we (comparatively to these mighty works) are
but weak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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