N00263:300
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…
Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shown the connection which there is between the promise, on God's part; and duty, on our part, in the covenant of grace: as it was delivered in several sermons, preached in order to solemn renewing of covenant. / By Samuel Willard teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Seven lines from Deuteronomy]Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shewn the connexion which there is between the promise, on God's part; and duty, on our part, in the covenant of grace: as it was delivered in several sermons, preached in order to solemn renewing of covenant. / By Samuel Willard teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Seven lines from Deuteronomy]
printed by James Glen, 1682
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. Beware of misapplying your Covenant-interest to the strengthening of your carnal security. It is not the Covenant that will secure you, except you be keepers of it. The Promise in our Text, is not to them that are in it, but to them that keep it. There is in this Temptation no little danger that the Children of the Faithful are exposed to, by being deluded by Satan: There are many that have acknowledged it, and bitterly complained of it when God hath awakened them: They are ready to lean the weight of their Hope upon the Covenant. The Jews in Jeremiah's time deceived themselves with this pretence, Jer. 7. And in our Saviours time, Joh. 8. We are Abraham's Children: Nay, we have one Father which is God. Many carry with them a strong confidence that they must needs do well, they have strong hopes of salvation, & their plea for it is, their Parents were godly, they themselves of the visible Church, owned and acknowledged as the Children of the Covenant, and hence they think the Gospel-Promises are theirs, Christ is theirs by Covenant: But this will not hold: Remember there is a Jew that is so outwardly, & there are, that are so inwardly, there is a Circumcision of the flesh, and of the heart, a ⟨p. 122⟩Baptism of Water and of the Holy Ghost. The one External, the other Internal, and that will never stead a Man without this. Covenant-privileges are to be improved, not to be boldly relied upon: The Name of the Lord our God is a great and a fearful Name. God is Holy, and expects all should be so that will prove themselves His People. Hence, that counsel, 2 Tim. 2.19, Let every one that names the Name of the Lord depart from iniquity.
2. Beware of misapplying your Covenant-interest to the strengthening of your carnal security. It is not the Covenant that will secure you, except you be keepers of it. The Promise in our Text, is not to them that are in it, but to them that keep it. There is in this Temptation no little danger that the Children of the Faithful are exposed to, by being deluded by Satan: There are many that have acknowledged it, and bitterly complained of it when God hath awakened them: They are ready to lean the weight of their Hope upon the Covenant. The Jews in Jeremiah's time deceived themselves with this pretence,