ing from it: and in regard that there
has been so much ignominy and contempt cast upon these sacred covenants,
not only by breaking them openly, but also avowedly disowning and
disdaining their obligation, and making the adherence to them criminal;
and, which is above all, burning them by the hand of the hangman, and
burying them so long in forgetfulness. This guiltiness he applied not to
great persons only, but also to professors, to ministers, and
particularly to ourselves, who are called dissenters from the present
establishment; pressing upon us no less than others, the absolute and
indispensable necessity of being convinced of, and mourning over these,
not as the sins of others only, but also as our own--we having a chief
hand in the trespass; pressing upon all present concerned in the work
the duty of self-examination, and putting themselves to the trial,
concerning their knowledge of the covenant obligations, both as to their
nature and extent, as well as their sense of the breaches of these
obligations.

In the second head of doctrine, viz., _That it is the duty of a people
who have broken covenant with God, to engage themselves again to him by
renovation of their covenant_; after proving the proposition by several
heads of arguments deduced--1st, From the lawfulness of entering into
covenant with God, whether personal, as Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 20, 21, or
economical, as Joshua and his family, Josh. xxiv. 15, or national, as
God brought his people Israel under a covenant with himself, Exod. xix
5. The consequence holding undeniably, that if it be lawful and
necessary, in any of these respects, to enter into covenant with God, it
must needs be also lawful and a duty to renew the same after the breach
thereof. 2dly, From Scripture precedents of the people of God, who,
after breaking off and declining from God's covenant, renewed the same.
As for instance, the covenant made with Israel at Horeb, was renewed at
the plains of Moab, Deut. xxxix;--by Joshua, chap, xxiv.;--by Asa, 2
Chron. xv. 13, 14;--by Jehoiada, 2 Kings xi. 17;--by Hezekiah, 2 Chron.
xxix. 10;--by Josiah, 2 Kings, xxiii. 2;--by Ezra and Nehemiah, Ezra, x.
3;--Neh. ix ult. and x. 28, 29. 3dly, From Scripture precepts, Deut.
xxix. 1--"These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded
Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside
the covenant which he made with them in Horeb." Psalm, lxxvi. 11--"Vow,
and pay unto the Lord