Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

1. That he might bind us the faster to himself: a covenant binds on both parts: the Lord doth not bind himself to us, and leave us free; No, I will bring you (saith God) into the bond of the Covenant. ¹The Lord sees how slippery and unstable our hearts are, how apt we are to start aside from our duty towards him, we love to wander; and therefore to prevent this inconstancy and unsettledness in us,² and to keep our hearts more stable in our obedient walking before him, it pleased the Lord to bind us in the bond of Covenant, that as we look for a blessing from God, so we look to it to keep Covenant with God: you may say a command binds as well as a Covenant; it is true, but a Covenant doth as it were twist the cords of the Law, and double the precept upon the soul; when it is only a precept, then God alone commands it, but when I have made a promise to it, then I command it and bind it upon my self.

1. That he might bind us the faster to himself: a covenant binds on both parts: the Lord doth not bind himself to us, and leave us free; No, I will bring you (saith God) into the bond of the Covenant. ¹The Lord sees how slippery and unstable our hearts are, how apt we are to start aside from our duty towards him, we love to wander; and therefore to prevent this inconstancy and unsetledness in us,² and to keep our hearts more stable in our obedient walking before him, it pleased the Lord to bind us in the bond of Covenant, that as we look for a blessing from God, so we look to it to keep Covenant with God: you may say a command binds as well as a Covenant; it is true, but a Covenant doth as it were twist the cords of the Law, and double the precept upon the soul; when it is only a precept, then God alone commands it, but when I have made a promise to it, then I command it and bind it upon my self.

1. 1•. 20.37.
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