Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A92701
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A covenant to walk with God in an holy stedfastness to maintain the peace of our spirits with God in Christ. Solemnly entred into by certain persons resolving to live according to, and in the power of the life of Christ in them.
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W. S.
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1646
(1646)
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Wing S190; Thomason E1200_2; ESTC R2148
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5,208
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57
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A COVENANT To walk with GOD IN An holy stedfastness to maintain the peace of our Spirits with God in CHRIST Solemnly entred into By certain Persons resolving to live according to and in the power of the life of Christ in them 8 ber 9th LONDON Printed by John Field for Philemon Stephens 1646. To my worthy FRIEND Mrs A.D. THe occasion of this solemn engaging our selvs in Covenant with our God you well remember the framing of this Model as you know was at first for your stay in an holy stedfastnes in the way and life of Christ to which you had in some measure already attained and for my own recovery after a long and bitter declining God in mercy gave an answerable success Those expressions of the way of life I have oft received from you as the fruits of your own blessed Experience gave me the more confidence often to powr out my soul to you a singular mercy to be interested in a faithful friend in this I gained both ease and refeshing to a troubled spirit and some consolation in so sad a condition I am cast into in sympathizing with me in these saving experimental passages which I once enjoyed though now in bitternesse have nothing to stay my Spirit but it was once otherwise I have now only one suit to beseech you to accept this your own as it was first composed for our particulars and to improve these sweet and spiritual experiences of the love of Christ shed into your heart God shall communicate unto you by his spirit daily in your close walking with him to establish your spirit in assurance and immutable cleaving to him in all faithful stedfastnesse according to this our Covenant This is the daily prayers of him who will be ever found Your faithful Friend And Servant W. S. A COVENANT made with GOD and our own Souls and to be renewed daily to maintain a constant peace in a Spiritual walking with our God SECT 1. The occasion ground of this Covenant VVEe seriously and in the sight of God observing that glorious and blessed condition we have been called into 1 Thess 1.5 in the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon our Spirits in the power of the Gospel and therein seeing 1. Rom. 5.1 2. The singular and infinite love of God in revealing to us effectually the great mysteries of Christ through the Spirit and thereby speaking peace to our Spirits through the promise in his Son 2. Rom. 8.6 And thence evidential union communion with Christ resulting We have truly found bestowed upon us A Spirit of life Gal. 5.25 to live the life of Christ A mysterious mercy we must needs acknowledge Eph. 3.17 18. and beyond imagination much more possibility of requital especially in as much as we have found from thence by blessed happy experience communicated freely unto us that which may fit us in some proportion and comfortable measure to enjoy communion with our God as 1. 2 Pet. 1.4 An holy frame of Spirit answering to the holy nature of God in Christ in some happy measure 2. Rom. 5.5 Sensiblenesse of infinite love in God to us through Christ in that respect And from these two principles have had experience in our hearts of 1. 2 Cor. 5.14 An holy tendernes towards God in the Lord Jesus Christ Spiritual joy in God 1 Pet. 1.8 as our portion now in Christ reconciled to us 3. 1 Ioh. 4.8 Love to and sincere delight in him All which wee have found have been accompanyed with three special prevailing fruits 1. Col. 3.1 The alienating of our Spirits from things here below to favour minde and taste spirituals 2. Rom. 7.15 The disapprobation disalowance of lust and sin dwelling in us 3. Rom. 8.10 The subjugating of the power and strength of corruption that it raigned not nor prevailed in our spirits nor wayes From all which blessed works of Christ in us through the strength of this Spirit of life cast into us by his inhabitation in us followed Power in some measure to walk acceptably to God in peace Acts 9.31 Frō these grounds and principles besides the internal light of Faith and the witness and seal of the Spirit warranted by Scripture to be the lot and only portion of the Elect of God called to be Saints We have concluded We are now actually in the state of grace and partakers of the new Covenant in the Lord Jesus Therefore having these evidential grounds that this is the true grace of Christ wherein we now stand we cannot but finde our Spirits 1. Psal 63.5 Very sensible of singular love in God towards us in Christ 2. Psa 116.12 13. Widely enlarged answerably in love and thankfulnesse to God again for so much goodnesse Eph. 1.13 Therefore knowing our selves hereby sealed up unto our full Redemption in the great day of Christ and that the time of our abiding here is but short Conclude it our duty That we live the rest of our pilgrimage wholly unto God Rom. 6.4 in the power of that grace and spiritual life thus communicated to us from GOD in Christ Eph. 4.17 And forasmuch as we carry still about with us a body of Death and live in the world although we are not of the world that hauls back unto deadnesse and dulnesse in the way of Christ to the corruptions of our own natures causing in us by woful experience to finde the bitternesse of our own folly in neglects coolings carelesnesse and unsteddiness of Spirit often procuring irregularities and unevennesse in our wayes sad events upon our Spirits We finde our selves therefore bounden in all Spiritual wisdom to tye our selves up To keep a strict and close watch over our hearts and wayes 1 Cor. 1◠14 SECT 2. The COVENANT in general VVHereupon knowing the fickle and inconstant temper of our own variable Spirits which through our corrupt nature are very false to us and unlesse by strong hand kept under and with a steddy eye watched and observed grow perfidious and basely treacherous leading us to Apostacy to our own unrest and great dishonor to our God We conceive it our duty to make a COVENANT with God and our Souls in this respect and therefore do hereby in the sight of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ and in the sincerity of our own thoughts Enter into a Solemn Neh. 9.38 Peremptory and faithful Covenant with our God in Christ Iob 31.1 Psa 11◠106 through his strength promised in the Covenant to live to God for ever hereafter and to walk with him in all things And because all our strength herein to walk in communion with him is derived from our Union and Fellowship with Christ our head we therefore resolve as our duty To maintain the strength and sence of our union and communion with Christ and the increase daily of it upon us And therefore our
resolutions are in the sight of our God so far as we know our hearts to labor daily to finde The power of Christ 1 Pet. 5.10 and the sense of Spiritual life in us more and more Eph. 3.16 17. conveyed to us strengthned in us and working by us And because all our strength herein is derived from that principle of fulness in Christ and this subordinately by a knowing believing in him and close compliance to him Our Covenant is extended to these particulars SECT 3. General Engagements as means to walk with GOD. FOrasmuch therefore as our intention is our daily growing up in the power and life of Christ our Lord our care shall be exercised in these particulars 1. To see and observe more clearly daily in the Scripture Col. 3.16 that infinite fulness that is in the Lord Jesus Christ and the intent of God in him to communicate the same to us according to the Covenant 2. Therefore to actuate our Faith in that Covenant and the Promises we finde we have obtained interest in and peculiarly in such special Truths as are revealed to that purpose believing we shall be possessors of the same 3. To observe what quickening we receive from any passage in the Word of Promise concerning Christ and herein To gain establishment of heart in Gods love through Christ to us 4. In all Divine intercourses 'twixt God and our Spirits to proceed in every Ordinance so as 1. We get neerer communion with God and experience of the power of Christ in us 2. To stir up the grace of Christ in us not resting in the work onely done And to this purpose our diligent care shall be used to improve the means of Salvation in their Spiritual power Knowing well that all we did before our calling was but polluted and no way acceptable but rather provoking So all done by us when we were in Christ and not by the strength of his Spirit in us is no wayes acceptable For 1. In him alone is our strength 2. Mat. 3. ult In him alone are we acceptable 5. To observe diligently how every promise is made good and accomplished upon us especially if we begd it in prayer and thence to see 1. Gods faithfulnesse in making good his promise no small refreshing to our Spirit and Establishment to our Faith when we sensibly set to our Seal that God is true not only in the thing promised Ioh. 3.33 but a Spiritual rellish of mercy in the same 2. To reflect upon our own Spirits in the possession of the same and love in Christ in its communication 6. To observe every glance of Gods love in Christ cast into our Spirits and thence 1. To gather up a Catalogue of experiments of Gods love in Christ 2. To take a strict observation of the graces of Christ dwelling in us 1. How they proceed from Christ 2. How thence they give assurance of Gods love in Christ These things observed diligently by us in the constant course of our ways our care shall be extended 1. To bee daily more Spiritual in every holy duty to God 2. To finde our Spirits more universally determined unto Christ SECT 4. Special daily walking with GOD. §. 1. ANd forasmuch as our daily walking close with GOD is a special means to maintain a constant peace in our hearts in a sweet and Spiritual fellowship with our God shining out upon us in the face of Christ Our Covenant with God shall be thus daily 1. Heb. 12.15 To keep a constant watch against every root of bitternesse or lust that may creep into our hearts or be nourished that may sad the Spirit or damp that vigorous heat of the life of Christ that may disturb that peace God hath brought our Spirits unto 2. Psa 51.5 Rom. 7.24 To keep a sensible tendernesse of our corrupt nature and to bewail it before God to be humbled that we carry about with us such a body of death yet so as that we see 1. Mal. 4.2 Zac. 14.1 Healing hereof in Christ 2. That we quickē our faith and love to the Lord Jesus Christ who hath delivered us 3. 2 Cor. 7.9 10. Rev. 2.5 To renew our repentance daily for sins and failings begging for assurance of pardon in the Lord Christ 4. Acts 2.38 39. To believe the pardon of our sins when ever we beg it and that in full assurance waiting with a vigorous longing expectation of soul until God shine out in peace sealing a pardon by the Spirit 5. 1 Cor. 13 16. To watch against every temptation knowing we are accompanied with snares so to shun all appearance of evil 6. 1 Thess 5 6. To observe the falsness treachery of our hearts 1. Suggesting to us the firmnesse of our standing when we do not know our own hearts 2. Engaging us in temptation that they may ensnare us 7. To resolve and binde our selves up to prevent occasion of sin that may steal upon us 8. That we labor daily to redeem our time Col. 4.5 and keep an accompt how we spend every day §. 2. AND therefore we covenant our daily care shall be to spend the day in these particulars in a 1. Constant course of prayer reading meditation in the power of Christ with expectation of a blessing and laboring for communion with Christ therein 2. Diligence and constancy in our lawful callings 1. With heavenly mindes and in obedience to Christ 2. Waiting by faith upon God for a blessing upon our subsistency 3. Improving every opportunity of doing good to others especially in Spirituall things ministring grace to the hearers 4. Holding a constant endeared and loving correspondence with the Saints Heb. 10.24 25. and communicating with experimental christians in their experiences of Christ working and dwelling in them 5. Every morning to work our hearts to an holy frame and sensible activeness towards God that we may taste of it all the day after 6. Above all every morning to labor our hearts to a sensiblenesse of Gods love to us in Christ and an enflamed love to him again 7. Hab. 2.4 Heb. 10.37 To live that glorious life of faith in an holy dependance upon him in all conditions 8. Every night to review the whole day with observation of 1. Our own wants and sins and to be humbled for them 2. Gods care and provision for and of us and to be enlarged in a loving and tender thankfulnesse to him 9. In all things to maintain a sensible communion betwixt God and our Spirits This is the Covenant of our constant daily walking with God Yet in all we make this Conclusion 1. THis Covenant to be enlarged daily as our experience shall administer occasiō and the manifold intercourses betwixt God and our own souls present themselves to us 2. Every Saturday at night we conceive it our duty as very convenient 1. To examine this Covenant with our hearts to observe our proceedings Herein how 1. Our resolutions are more unreserved 2. Our Spirits more thoroughly brought over to Christ 3. And therein to be 1. Humbled for decayes 2. Thankful for improvement 2. To renew the Covenant with God with more deep solemn and peremptory Vows observing the great peace we gain daily herein Wherein we conceive it our duty to be very observant of two things which we shall take as cautions Cautions 1. TO look for more opposition wayward disturbances in our hearts then wee founds before we set upon this course to hinder us therein Yet herein notwithstanding opposition we resolve 1. Not to be discouraged 2. But to seek strength and sufficiency in Christ 2. To be very tender lest constancy herein make us customary and formal So our care shall bee ever to maintain our hearts active and warm in all things This Covenant in the presence and sight of our God for our steddy and constant walking with him we make write and seal to it W. S. FINIS Ian. 5. 1646. Jmprimatur JOHN DOWNAMI