70 SECOND SERMON of doctrine, but holding fast the form of sound words, knowing whom we believe, and having certainty of the things wherein we have been instructed, Eph. iv. 14. 2 Tim. i. 12, 13. Luke i. 4. or else morally and practically, for stedfastness of heart in the faithful discharge of those promises which we have made unto God, (for so faithfulness is compared to a girdle, Isa. xi. 5.) whereby we are preserved from shrinking and tergiversation, in times of trial, and in our spiritual warfare. And this faithfulness, the more it is in solemn covenants renewed, the stronger it must needs be, and the better able to bind all our other arms upon us. Christ's enemies will enter into covenants, and combinations against him and his church, Psa. ii. 2. lxiv. 5, 6. lxxxiii. 5. 8. Acts xxiii. 12. Jer. xi. 9. And our own lusts within us, will many times draw from us oaths and obligations to the fulfilling of them, and make them chains of sin contrary to the nature of an oath, 1 Kings xix. 2. Mark vi. 23. How much more careful should we be to bind ourselves unto God, that our resolutions may be the stronger, and more united against so many and confederate enemies ! 1. This point serveth for a just reproof of those who are so far from entering into covenant with God, that indeed they make covenants with Satan his greatest enemy, and. do in their conversations, as it were, abuse those promises, and blot out that subscrip- tion, and tear off that seal of solemn profession, which they had so often set unto the covenant of obedience. Such as those, in the prophet's time, who were " at an agreement with hell and the grave," Isa. xxviii. 15. Every stubborn and presumptuous sinner holds a kind of spiritual compact with the devil. We read of the " serpent and his seed," Gen. iii. 15. of
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