this covenant a daily muniment
and armour of defence, to beat back all the fiery darts of the devil:
when any one tempts thee by promise of preferment to do contrary to thy
covenant, or threatens to ruin thee for the hearty pursuing of thy
covenant, here is a ready answer, "I am sworn to do what I do, and, if I
do otherwise, I am a perjured wretch." This is a wall of brass, to
resist any dart that shall be shot against thee for well-doing,
according to thy covenant. Famous is the story of Hannibal, which he
told king Antiochus, when he required aid of him against the Romans,
"When I was nine years old (saith he) my father carried me to the altar,
and made me take an oath to be an irreconcilable foe to the Romans. In
pursuance of this oath, I have waged war against them thirty-six years.
To keep this oath, I have left my country, and am come to seek aid at
your hands, which, if you deny, I will travel all over the world, to
find out some enemies to the Roman state." If an oath did so mightily
operate in Hannibal; let the oath you are to take this day work as
powerfully upon you; and make your oath an argument to oppose
personal-sins and family sins, and to oppose heresy, schism, and all
profaneness; and to endeavour to bring the church of God in the three
kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity. And let this oath be
armour-proof against all temptations to the contrary. And know this one
thing, that if the covenant be not a daily argument and muniment against
sin, it will become, upon your breaking of it, a daily witness against
you, as the book of the law was, and an "everlasting shame and
reproach" unto you and yours. 2. Let us have high thoughts of the
covenant. Actions and affections follow our apprehensions. If thy
judgment be belepered with a corrupt opinion about the covenant, thy
affections and actions will quickly be belepered also: and therefore you
ought to endeavour, according to your places, that nothing be spoken or
written that may tend to the prejudice of the covenant. 3. You must take
heed of the cursed sin of self-love, which is placed in the forefront,
as the cause of all the catalogue of sins here named; "Because men are
lovers of themselves, therefore they are covetous," etc., and therefore
they are covenant-breakers. A self-seeker cannot but be a
covenant-breaker: this is a sin you must hate as the very gates of hell.

And this is the second sin I promised in the beginning of my sermon to