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2. When fome lufts are maintained in Chrift's room, as when an adulterous woman takes another man instead of her husband. There are fome lufts from which the heart is never loofed, right eyes they cannot part with; this is fecret apoftacy from the Lord: Heb. iii. 12. " Take heed, brethren, left there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." When the Lord offers himself to finners, he fays, If you will take me, let these go their way. Some enter into a marriage-covenant with the Lord, but they give their hearts to other lovers, Pfal. xiv. 4. (quoted before). This is hypocritical dealing with God, which is a difeafe in the vitals of religion, Pfal. Ixxviii. 37. (quoted above).- Another evidence is,

3. Perfons making their covenant with the Lord, a cover to their floth, and a pander to their lufts. It is fad work which persons make of covenanting, when it ferves only to conjure their confciences, who hence can fleep more fecurely in their fins. Many are never more light, vain, and frothy, than after fuch a work; a moft fhrewd fign of a whorish difpofition: Prov. vii. 14. "I have peaceofferings with me. This day have I paid my VOWS. Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to feek thy face." The covenant of God is a covenant of peace and war, which inclines the finner to be at peace with the Lord's friends, and at war with his enemies. It makes the foul to say to former lufts, I have learned from the gofpel, to "deny ungodlinefs and worldly lufts, and to live foberly, righteously, and godly, in this prefent world," Titus, ii. 12. Hence, Chrift no fooner enters the heart, but he comes as Captain of the Lord's hoft; and the perfon's heart thus becomes the feat of war: Gal. v. 17." For the flesh lufteth

against

against the fpirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these two are contrary the one to the other." And thefe lufts which were formerly gold chains, are now turned into heavy iron fetters: Rom. vii. 24. "O wretched man that I am, who fhall deliver me from the body of this death ?”—Another evidence is,

4. The barrennefs of the lives of profeffors, nothing of the fruits of holiness appearing in their lives. We are, Rachel like, barren, having no more but the leaves of a profeffion, the performance of external duties, to give us the name of Christians. Alas! fire from heaven feems to have blasted many of us, and the curfe of the Lord is as a worm at our root. Married to the Lord, and yet barren, is a contradiction, Rom. vii. 4. For the very end of this marriage is, that we may bring forth fruit unto God. Where the foul is joined to the Lord, it is made the habitation of the Spirit; and this is that which produces the fruits of holiness: Eph. v. 9. " For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodnefs, and righteoufnefs, and truth."

Here fome may fay, Alas! this speaks death to me, for do what I will, the weeds in the curfed foil of my heart fuffers no fruit to appear there. To fuch I anfwer.-There is no fruit which grows in the heart of a believer in the world, but it has a weed of corruption by the fide of it; their faith is marked with unbelief, their hope with diffidence, their very fincerity with hypocrify. But are you at pains to pluck up thefe ? If you should look into a garden, and faw nothing but weeds in it, yet if you faw the gardener weeding it, you would conclude there must be something else there; fo in this cafe. Will you fee if there be any thriving of undergrowth in your hearts, if you be growing downwards in humility, felf-loathing, felf-denial, depending and

cleaving

cleaving more from a fenfe cf need to the Lord? Eph. iv. 15. 16. Barren trees use not to have their branches hanging down to falute the ground, unlefs they be broken off by a violent wind.--Another evidence is,

5. The having no communication of the life of grace from Chrift to the foul: John, xiv. 19. "Because I live, ye fhall live alfo." Food and raiment are what every foul married to the Lord get from him. If the foul be truly united to Chrift, it will partake of the root and fap of the vine: John, vi. 57. "He that eateth me, faith Jesus, even he fhall live by me." True faith' opens a way for a ftream of blood to run through the heart, by which the foul is purged and quickened. The blood of Jefus "purges the confcience from dead works, to serve the living God," Heb. ix. 14. But, alas! the faith of many is like a pipe laid fhort of the fountain, and fo brings none of the water of life into the foul. Many covenant with the Lord as the seven women, Ifa. iv. 1. who take hold of one man, as it is there faid, they will be called by his name; for fo is Chrift's spouse, in token of her marriage-relation, fhe lofeth her name, and takes her husband's, Ifa. xliv. 5. "One fhall fay, I am the Lord's and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob." This will take away their reproach before the world, and it will do much to filence the bluftering tongue of an ill-natured confcience. Yea, but after all this, they will eat their own bread, Ifa. iv. 1. They will live upon their own stock of natural and acquired abilities, for they are not, as in Matth. iii. 5. " poor in fpirit." They come not, as true believers, with a weak foul to a flrong God, an empty veffel to a full fountain. Thus does the true believer, who fays, Gal. ii. 20. "I am crucified with Chrift:

:

nevertheless

nevertheless I live; yet not? I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." But the other will live on their own lufts; Christ gives rest to their confciences, and their lufts give reft to their hearts; he shall bear up their hopes, and their lufts fhall fatisfy their defires.. They will wear

their own apparel: Rom. x. 3. "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not fubmitted themselves to the righteousness of God." Their duties make a great figure in their own eyes, and therefore are cyphers in God's account. Hence, the more they do and the better they do, the more are they in conceit with themselves, and the further from Chrift. It is quite contrary with true covenanters : Phil. iii. 3. They rejoice in Christ Jefus, and have no confidence in the flesh :" Rev. vii. 14. "They wath their robes, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb."--We fhall only add as an evidence,

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Laftly, The having no contentment in Christ alone. Where the foul heartily closes with Christ, he is to the foul a covering to the eyes : Pfal. xxiii. 25. "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I defire befide thee." Hence the triumph of faith, even when all external things fail: Hab. iii. 17. "I will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my falvation." But, alas! how many of us have no comfort, but when the cifterns of creature-comforts are running full! how few arrive at the height of rejoicing in the Lord, when these cifterns are dried up! Mat. xiii. 45. 46. Every perfon's houfe stands upon two props, Chrift and the creature, but the weight lies only upon one of them. Take away the world from the be

liever,

liever, he ftands firm on the rock Chrift; take away the world from the hypocrite, and all falls down together. A perfon may bear to have fome branch of his comforts cut off; but when God ftrikes at the root of creature-comforts, then may the hypocrite fay, Thou haft taken away my gods, and what have I more? Some can endure any thing but poverty, for covetoufnefs reigns in them; others any thing but difrespect, for pride is their idol.

Here again fome may fay, If this be an evidence, we know not who will make fure work, for many time gracious perfons are as much, if not more, caft down with the lofs of creature-comforts, than others! To this I answer, No doubt gracious fouls will sometimes be more joyful on the receipt of a temporal mercy, and more caft down on the lofs of them, than others; for the chief thing which affects him is the face of God appearing in it, either as favourable or frowning; fo that they will be ready to say on fuch an occafion, as in Gen. xxxiii. 10. “For therefore I have seen thy face, as though I had feen the face of God, and thou waft pleased with me." And this will make a mole-hill mercy or crofs appear like a mountain. The godly in this cafe fetch their comfort from the Lord, others fetch theirs from fomething else in the world; when one stream runs dry, they go to another, like the prodigal before he came home. The drying up of the ftreams fends the gracious foul to the fountain.

WE now proceed,

II. To fhew when covenanting is not heart-work, but a trifling bufinefs.-It is fo,

1. When the foul is not divorced from fin. The heart is naturally glewed to fin, and it is impoffible

VOL. III.

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