Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shown the connection…Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shewn the connexion…

3. Degeneracy, Apostasy, and Covenant breaking ⟨p. 85⟩is an evil into which God's visible Covenant-People are very apt to decline. It is as it were the hereditary disease of the visible Church. It is a Malady Epidemical they very often fall into it. It hath been so from the beginning, besides the particular discovery of false Professors, in the best Times and Ages, and Churches, it is also observable, that there can scarcely any Authority be produced, that ever the Church preserved a general integrity in Faith and Manners, above an Age at once at the most. Yea, we find that Israel in the Wilderness, though under many peculiar advantages to keep close with God, who was so near them, so ready to help them, so wonderfully discovered Himself to them, did yet fall into universal Idolatry before Joshua, and the Elders which out-lived him were cold in their graves: that people that had just before Joshua's death, solemnly renewed Covenant, went after strange Gods: Religion scarcely well settled in David's time, yet wanes before Solomon's death; and soon after ten tribes go away to direct idolatry, and the two that remained but little better. Josiah's reformation was buried with him in one Grave. Since Christ came in the flesh, the Apostles had scarce settled the Christian Churches, but they lived (some of them) to see the mystery of iniquity begin to work: John who was the longest lived, of the Apostles, saw five of the seven Churches of Asia manifestly degenerating▪ Now the consideration of these things should put an awe upon our spirits, and make us the more watchful, remembering that we have no more security for our standing than they had,: It is the concluding argument which the Apostle draws from such premises, 1 Cor. 10.12. Let him that thinks he standeth, take heed lest he fall. They stood upon the same ground that we do, neither have we any greater security of our standing, then they had of theirs.

3. Degeneracy, Apostasie, and Covenant breaking ⟨p. 85⟩is an evil into which God's visible Covenant-People are very apt to decline. It is as it were the hereditary disease of the visible Church. It is a Malady Epidemical they very often fall into it. It hath been so from the beginning, besides the particular discovery of false Professors, in the best Times and Ages, and Churches, it is also observable, that there can scarcely any Authority be produced, that ever the Church preserved a general integrity in Faith and Manners, above an Age at once at the most. Yea, we find that Israel in the Wilderness, though under many peculiar advantages to keep close with God, who was so near them, so ready to help them, so wonderfully discovered Himself to them, did yet fall into universal Idolatry before Joshua, and the Elders which out-lived him were cold in their graves: that people that had just before Joshua's death, solemnly renewed Covenant, went after strange Gods: Religion scarcely well setled in David's time, yet waines before Solomon's death; and soon after ten tribes go away to direct idolatry, and the two that remained but little better. Josiah's reformation was buried with him in one Grave. Since Christ came in the flesh, the Apostles had scarce setled the Christian Churches, but they lived (some of them) to see the mystery of iniquity begin to worke: John who was the longest lived, of the Apostles, saw five of the seven Churches of Asia manifestly degenerating Now the consideration of these things should put an aw upon our spirits, and make us the more watchfull, remembring that we have no more security for our standing than they had,: It is the concluding argument which the Apostle drawes from such premises,