and strayings, into heavenly heights and stations, the only remedy, and pre∣ventive
against relapses & Apostasies; and those vertues and operations the Saints
have ever found in Covenants: for such resolutions of soul, are but the finer cordage,
which the Spirit spins out, and twists from the substance of its own essence; and
now God and his Angels have something to hold our souls by, even the operations
and effluxes of our own spirits: and though God need none of those, but is able to
keep us up by the immediate and indistant workings of his holy Spirit, yet he is a
God that is pleased to take us at our own rebound, and to admit us into that holy
consociation, Wee as workers together with him.
He that covenants with God, by that very act doth carry up himself unto Gods
Throne, and cites his soul to his Tribunall, and then the Majesty of God looks on
him with a fuller gleam; and so long as that glorious interview continues, or any
sparkling or raying of it, man is awed from sinning, and stands trembling like the
people of Israel, while God appear'd upon the Mount.
And thus Divine Covenants, as they exalt and situate a soul in more glory then
before, even in the glorious face of God, so they are the spirituall stayes and sup∣ports
and strengthnings of a soule.
God himself first drew forth his own essence into this course of Covenants to
Abraham and Moses, and Joshua, and his people; and from that Covenant he went
higher, to one of grace, besides the particular obligations of his, to Noah and other
Saints, not as if he received any consolidation or conformation by it, or any such
act of covenanting that he had not before; not as if he begun to react upon himself
in any new operation (far be it from his immutable essence) he was as firm and un∣changeable
in the eternall immanencie of his own before ever hee passed himself
abroad into any such act of paction: and therefore he could not shew himself to
man in the likenesse of any other notion, than, I am.
Only hee was pleased to light us by a beam of his own nature, into this duty of
holy confederation, and to shew us a new way of spirituall advancement and esta∣blishment:
How sacred then? and how inviolable ought these to be? which are
made with a most high God; when even pactions and promises, and Covenants in
friendships and lower confederations, are reputed holy.
Thus far of the power of the Covenant upon the soul in that grand and heavenly in∣gagement;
now there is a power reflexive, and that is a return it makes from Heaven,
and in that return it brings with it something of God; for the soul going up thither by a
spirituall might and holy violence, brings away from thence graces and blessings, and the
resort of many temporall mercies, as when Moses had been looking God in the face, he
brought a divine lustre upon his own, home with him.
We see Nehemiah's Covenant had excellent concomitances, the dedication was kept
with gladnesse, and singing and Psalteries, and the people offered themselves willingly,
and the businesse at Jerusalem, and all the affairs of Gods House went better on in all
the particulars, Nehem. 11. 3. 12. 27.
The Covenant of Judah drew along with it the like blessings; the Lord was found of
them and gave them rest; and one more superlative blessing, not inconsistent with our
calamity, Maachah was removed from being Queen, because she had made an Idoll in
a Grove, 2 Chron. 5. 25, 26.