The saints everlasting rest

5. To this end doth the sinner now enter into a cordial covenant with Christ. But he was never strictly, nor comfortably in covenant with Christ till now. He is sure Christ doth consent, and now doth he cordially consent himself; and so the agreement is fully made.

6. With this covenant concurs, a mutual delivery; Christ delivereth himself in all comfortable relations to the sinner, and the sinner delivereth up himself to be saved and ruled by Christ. Now doth the soul resolvedly conclude, I have been blindly led by the flesh, the world, and the devil, too long, almost to my destruction: I will now be wholly at the disposal of my LORD, who hath bought me with his blood, and will bring me to his glory. And thus the complete work of saving faith consisteth in this covenanting, or mystical marriage of the sinner to Christ.

Thus you have a naked enumeration of the essentials of this people of GOD: not a full portraiture of them in all their excellencies, nor all the notes whereby they be discerned. And though it will be part of the following application, to put you upon trial: yet because the description is now before your eyes, and these evidencing works are fresh in your memory, it will not be unseasonable, to take an account of your own estates, and to view yourselves exactly in this glass, before you pass. And I beseech thee, reader, as thou hast the hope of a christian, yea, or the reason of a man, to deal throughly, and search carefully, and judge thyself as one that must shortly be judged by the righteous GOD: and faithfully answer to these few questions.