for their Pattern worth our looking at it It was of the new Samaritans that were placed in the Room of the Captivated Israelites The Lyons had taught them to be very godly and so they got them a Priest and of him they learned how they should fear the Lord 2 Reg. 17. 18. This was very well was it not Arrant Assirians of a sudden to become so very holy And how then So they feared the Lord sayes that Text ver 32. That is They used the right worship of the true God But how though did they it Here comes in the point Not without tricks enough of their own with it First They themselves became Priest-makers And next 'T was no matter Who the meanest among them would serve and was set up to do the Sacrifice Well Yet once again the Text there strikes upon the former string and tells us that They worshipped the Lord ver 33. Did they so And what would we more Nothing Did it not tells us withal that there was more For they served their own Gods too Oh is that it T is plain therefore the Holy Ghost hath set it down this but by way of an Irony as an Holy Scoffe upon them Excellent worshippers of God these That worship Him How they list and whom they list with Him So for a Conclusion in the verse following the Holy Spirit deals plain and down right with them They feared not the Lord ver 34. But is not this strange Twice afore They feared the Lord and now flatly They feared not the Lord. How must this be unriddled T is done to our hands The Reason follows there Because they did it not According to the Statutes and Ordinances and Law that God had commanded at first But besides the Right Covenant ver 38 they had thrust in what pleased them into the new Model of their Religion And you see how well God likes of that And that 's the first Exception here A Covenant for the Religion loudly cried up but yet sufficiently powdered with Additionals of Hypocrisie Perjury Violence Treason Rebellion And yet still must go for the Covenant of God Find they any such medlies in Scripture but of their good Brethren the Samaritans The sway of this Point therefore still lies in Tuo For Tuum it cannot it will not be none of Gods Covenant lift they their hands ne're so high unless the Contents of it be taken out of His will alone He the onely Author and Dictator of it and no Compeers with Him North or South in it to mingle their good pleasures with it The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also implies as much Other words there are that do indifferently signifie Agreements and Compacts Leagues also and Conspiracies But Berith is never construed by these To tell us That Gods Covenant with us must still be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The New Testament and the Old Testament bear no other Name but that And therefore it is not Tuum unless it may stand for Testamentum also 'T is none of that which is rightly called Gods Covenant Psal. 105. 9. unless it may be added that 't is His Law and His Everlasting Testament vers 10 that is His own known Will and Testament devised and established by Himself alone and no sprinklings in it cogg'd by others and foisted in for His Much less ever borrowed you wot where and then obtruded and forced upon Him that it shall be His whether he will or no. 2. No Covenant without Gods Deputy YEt there 's a second Exception worse then the first Because but by means of the second the first could never be And the ground of that is this In S. Scripture there 's not one of those Covenants to which they pretend but was of Gods onely making and moving As he had begun it in Horeb there by Himself first with his own Voice from Heaven He gave them the Ten Commandements And then for all the other parts of his covenant and of the Religion to which He bound Them He sent it all to them by His Deputy Moses 'T was He Gods Vicegerent and in place of King to them Deut. 33. 5. that ordered all their Covenanting with God And so it held on in all â—ges No Covenant then ever heard of but what the King who stood above them all as in Gods place or who by Reason of His Absence or Age was appointed by the Law of God to stand in the Kings place prescribed it unto them or imposed it upon them Howe're the people then had a part in the Covenant because it was for them and with them yet it was but the Obeying part meaning the Duty required of Them as one told them Vobis obsequii gloria relicta est That was all that the people had to do with it Upon them it was laid to see it performed But as for the Legislative part the Authority in calling them to a Covenant and in designing what the Tenor of that Covenant this or that part of the Law then should be Mandata mea mihi was Gods Rule ever All the thousands of Israel had nothing to do in that part nor were ever to meddle with it It was Holy to the Lord that and wholly appertained to the Supreme under Him To hear therefore now of a Covenant for Religion without Gods Deputy to lead it How much more to have it hammer'd of purpose not onely against his Leading or Medling in it but also by a Hellish Device yet because of their Use allowed to be Holy and very Divine to frame such a blessed Distinction in it as safely thereby to commit an Horrible Rape in the presence of God and by force to snatch from Him His Royal Authority and to Arm His Subjects with it against His Person and so They to lead Him to what they list and at last to the very block and yet must this be countenanced out of Gods Word And must it go for His Covenant that is so flatly against Him Gods Covenant point blank against Gods Anointed Blessed Lord What Logick call they This I must deal plainly It can grow no where but where this Covenant it self grew There indeed it has ever been found what Reason soe're and proof to the contrary yet all the Reason when they are at a pinch that they regard to go by is It is so Because it is so And therefore they must and will have it so If a Bible in Hand with Powder and Shot will do it But you shall not trust me alone in this point Use your own Eyes I beseech you while I shall bestow so much Time upon them as to point a finger to all their Examples The first I can meet with was in Moab more then 40. years after that in Horeb when all the first Breed was dead Deut. 31. 9. and then Moses in stead of God there you have the Doer of it He manages the business and engages the Children as at first he had done their Fathers
the Text. And now of these That I may be able to speak and you to hear to the Discharge of our Duties and to the Instruction of our Souls and all to the Glory of Almighty God I am to beseech and require you all to joyn with me in Humble prayer to Him to the Glorious and Blessed Trinity God the Father Son and Holy Ghost for the Assistance of the Holy Spirit unto us and for the gift of all Divine Graces upon us And that not upon us alone but upon his Holy Catholick Church c. We have not behaved our selves frowardly in thy Covenant THe Persons are now the first Branch of our Discourse We and Thee say they We have not and Not in Thy Covenant In the Name of God then Who are these who are They that speak this And who is He to whom they speak it We. FOr the Speakers whosoever they prove to be this you shall find of them They are the same all the Psalm through They very first word is We have heard vers 1. And so it goes on We overthrow our Enemies vers 6. and Thou savest Us vers 8. and We make our boast vers 9. And there ends the first part of the Psalm And that 's all Eucharistical an oblation of thanks and praise for all Blessings Old and New Then begins the second part of the Psalm and that 's a Solemn Lamentation Humbling themselves lowly under the rod. And still it holds on in the same Persons Thou makest Us to be a by-word ver 15. and Yet We do not forget Thee ver 18. and Thou hast covered Us with the shaow of Death ver 20. and We are counted as sheep to be slain ver 22. And there comes in the last part of the Psalm A holy Letany or Supplication that all of them make for favour and mercy Be not absent from Us for ever ver 23. and Why forgettest Thou Our misery ver 24. and Our soul is brought low ver 25. and Arise and help Us ver 26. But all the way you see singing their Praises or making their Submission or sending up their Petitions still it is We and Us and Our They are all the same still Very well then But yet How shall we find it Who they are Surely the Psalm it self though they be no where named there yet has enough in it unless I be deceived to tell us the name of them For will you be pleased but to mark it that howe're the Persons be still the same yet now and then the Number is changed for a touch or two and then they fall in again as before T is Thou art My King O God ver 5. Not Our King but My King as if it were of One in the Singular And t is I will not trust in My Bow it is not My Sword that shall save Me ver 7. These are in the Thanksgiving part And so 't is again in the Humiliation part We and We and Our and Us a great while and then on a sudden My confusion is daily before Me and the shame of My Face hath covered Me ver 16. Perceive you nothing then Oh t is plain by this that the Church of God is the Speaker in all this Psalm and so it comes to be We and I First We in the name of all particular Persons as so many Saints and Servants of God and yet I in the name of the whole Corporation the Holy Church As One and All one Catholick Body by the band of the Holy Spirit comprehending them all And wondrous wisely dealt they in it They knew they should be the welcomer to God for this In such a multitude and yet in such an Unity Ecce quam bonum Psal. 133. to be sure God would never fail them No says David For there the Lord had promised his Blessing ver 4. But what talk we of promise Though that be enough for us yet God counts it too little for Him the word therefore indeed is Ibi praecepit Dominus God hath commanded his Blessings all the Blessings of Life and Goodness to attend i th' end upon such sacred Assemblies This for the Speakers Thy Covenant THere 's no stop at all then to be made neither about the t'other Person In pacto Tuo who it is that is spoken to For the whole address we see is unto God He is named at the very first We have heard with our Ears O God ver 1. and afterward He is spoken to as God ver 5. and as our God ver 21. and as Lord ver 23. And had He not been named at all yet it could be no other For to whom the Church makes her Prayers to whom she sends up praises to whom she ascribes the guidance of the world under whose Hand she humbles her self upon whose mercy she relies for help and deliverance It can be none but God God all in all So now 't is the Church of God that sayes this And 't is God to whom she saith it And t is the Covenant of God of which she saith it Neither have we behaved our selves frowardly in Thy Covenant If there be any thing then to be stood upon here it must be but to find which of Gods Covenants they mean For God we shall find had more Covenants then one In several Respects several Covenants Pactum Providentiae IN respect of his Providence and the Government of the whole world This very natural course of Day and Night God himself calls it His Covenant of the day and His Covenant of the night Jerem. 33. 20 We may remember also he calls it His Covenant the saving of Noah in the Ark Gen. 6. 18. and That the Earth should never be destroyed with a Floud any more Gen. 9. 9. From these Generals come we down to these in the Text To the seed of Abraham And very that we shall find is the Covenant of God First That Abraham should have such a seed Five several times God terms it His Covenant Gen. 17. 2 4. His everlasting Covenant ver 7. 19 21. Secondly That this seed should inherit the Land of Canaan that 's His Covenant too Gen. 15. 18. And not to stay there These are the Covenants which He renewed with Isaac Lev. 26. 45. and appointed the same to Jacob for a Law and to Israel for an everlasting Covenant Psal. 105. 10. But now if we weigh it well none of all these could be the Covenant of our Text for they were not liable to the Lies and distortions of Perverse men 'T was not in them in no mans power to run counter therein were they never so froward no body could set themselves against those Covenants Leaving therefore His Covenants of this sort which concerned God's Power alone and His free conveyance of secular Blessings upon Men we must look at that sort of these Covenants that concerned God's Worship also and so had a respect to the Duties which God required His Church should perform to Him It was
with you alway unto the end of the world are the last words He sayes to them Math. 28. 20. But loe By your leave you shall not Sir have the brave Baal Berithans your new Covenanters sworn if men will but rightly conster them For to be with Them to the end of the world Christ could not mean it not with the Apostles themselves That was impossible but in their Successors And the Successors of the Apostles were those whom the Apostles themselves called Bishops with whom the Apostles left the Power of Ego mitto Vos of continuing that Order or of Subordaining any New And concerning the Bishops you know what the Covenanters have sworn and in very that have forsworn sufficiently But I make no stay at this though I thought it not unfit to cast it in onely by the way because of their word Covenant that you might have a taste of all the Covenants of God and of these mens Counter-Covenanting But I have another-gates Covenant now to conclude all with Full well therefore may this Covenant in the Text be said to concern the King Gods Secular Minister and the Priest Gods Spiritual Minister when as Christ himself the Son of God He the King of Kings and Lord of Lords the Author of all our Religion our great High Priest and the Bishop or our Souls the very root therefore of all Episcopacy which they shall never be able to root out howe're they may sometimes lopp of His Branches He that is the Maker of all that are His to be Kings and Priests unto God his Father Apoc. 1. 6. is Himself the very Covenant for all those that belong unto God Think not strange of this I can shew you the very Charter of it and 't is worthy your looking on It begins in a most Solemn and Divine Form Thus saith God the Lord He that created the Heavens and stretched them out that spreadeth forth the Earth and all that comes out of it That giveth Breath to all People upon it and Spirit to all that walk therein I the Lord have called Thee in Righteousness and I will take Thee by thy Hand and will preserve Thee and will give Thee for a Covenant to the People for a Light to the Gentiles Esay 42. 5 6. And lest that should not stick with them again he is at it In an acceptable time and in the day of Salvation will I give Thee for a Covenant of the People Esay 49. 8. Now we have S. Pauls warrant That time was then when Christ was given 2 Cor. 6 2. There are of the succeeding Prophets also express in it By Jeremy the Record of it is at large set down under the Title of a New Covenant Jer 31. 31. And that he means it all of the New Covenant Christ is clear by the Apostles recital of it Heb. 8. 8. Then it was a New one But ever it was to be New because to last Eternally never no other Covenant to be after It after Christ. And so likewise Ezekiel after many Heavenly Amplifications of it and exclusive all to the old Covenant Ezek. 16. 61 He reduces it all into this Personal Aphorisme I will be their God and they shall be my People Ezek 37. 27. And that this also is all meant of Christ himself the same Apostle informs us 2 Cor. 6. 16. For the Love of God then I beseech you all have some care of your Souls and be not thus fooled out of them Away with all other Devices All these Baal Beriths these Idol new-fangled Covenants Avant All but the Covenant of Grace in Christ. And in the Ministration of It what alterations at any Time are needful doubt it not but God is more mindful then You and when He sees Time that God that when need was did put it into that way that so long you had then forgotten into the Heart of His Deputy the King and of his Bishops at the Reformation to do it is the same God still the God of his Church And needs no Aerian Presbyters now to lift up a lying Hand because God is asleep to waken Him No God is awake in His Holy Temple and howe're he seems to wink a while yet they will find that He sees through all Et palpebrae ejus interrogant Psal. 11. 5. His very Eye-lids try the Children of Men. Hold we onely therefore to this sure Covenant of God that in it self we are sure is Christ and as to us 't is with Christ in Christ and for Christ and Christ to be sure will see well enough to it without any of these new bold and blind Seers Be we therefore All in All alone for Christ for our Anointed Lord and for the Lords Anointed Taking Care for nothing else but not to behave our selves perversely in this Covenant no way to be froward and untoward to Him Of all the rest not to put such foul scorns upon Him as if He needed our Lying and could not well be God any longer without our abominable Dissembling which was the Badge that Christ put upon the old Pharisaisme and is the very Soul of that new Scotish Covenant Now God be merciful unto them all that lie but within the Shadow of it Amen FINIS