Promise-keeping a great duty. As it was delivered in a sermon / by Samuel…

USE I.

This Doctrine then may serve to reprove the too great neglect of this Duty, among those that make a profession of Piety. How it is upon this account, is best known to every mans Conscience; But I am sure there is a great deal of complaint made, and so little reproach cast upon the ways and people of God in this matter; and too many, who have made the highest profession of Christianity, and entered into solemn explicit Covenants with God, are ill represented upon this account: Promise-breaking […] an aspersion that is cast into many a […] dish: and if the thing be true, let all such know, that they are guilty of a great and scandalous sin, and beware that you do not think slightly of it, and go about to evade it, and suppress the conviction of it in your own consciences, ⟨p. 22⟩by any trivial excuses: and if there be any of such persons, whose hearts do condemn them before God for this sin, let it help to bring them to deep Humiliation, and soaking Repentance: think how much dishonour you have brought to Gods precious Name by this, how woefully you have opened the mouths of ungodly men, and given them occasion to speak evil of you, and your profession; how much you have wounded the Charity of them that fear God, and laid your selves under their just suspicion of your sincerity; how dangerously you have exposed your Profession to contempt; and made holy and conscientious Christians to suffer for your sakes. But I shall turn my Reprehension into Exhortation; and therefore,

This Doctrine then may serve to reprove the too great neglect of this Duty, among those that make a profession of Piety. How it is upon this account, is best known to every mans Conscience; But I am sure there is a great deal of complaint made, and so little reproach cast upon the ways and people of God in this matter; and too many, who have made the highest profession of Christianity, and entred into solemn explicit Covenants with God, are ill represented upon this account: Promise-breaking an aspersion that is cast into many a dish: and if the thing be true, let all such know, that they are guilty of a great and scandalous sin, and beware that you do not think slightly of it, and go about to evade it, and suppress the conviction of it in your own consciences,