Now, brethren, I would desire you to consider this, in the second place, that church-society is the peculiar way that God hath chosen and ordained whereby we may express covenant-obedience, unto the glory of God and the furtherance of our own salvation. I say, that church-society is a peculiar way God hath appointed whereby we may express our covenant-obedience, unto the glory of God and unto the furtherance of our own salvation. And if any man ask us a reason of this way, and a reason of the ordinances of this way. we can give him neither better nor other answer than this, It is the way God hath appointed whereby we may express our covenant- obedience unto his glory.
Hence these two things follow : —
First, That no man can walk as he ought, and please God in church-society, that doth not walk as he ought in the covenant of grace. The reason is plain, for this our church-society is nothing but the way God hath appointed to express that obedience ; as all institutions from the beginning of the world were nothing but ways God had appointed to express covenant-obedience in.
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There is no man, therefore, let him by any way or means come into a church, and be made partaker of the privileges of the church, can walk so as to please God (as the text saith) in that church, un less he walk antecedently and fundamentally in the covenant-obe dience that God requireth of him.
Secondly, It follows from hence that no man can walk as he ought to the glory of God in covenant-obedience, that doth not join himself to some church -society wherein to walk ; and the reason is, because it is the way God hath chosen and appointed whereby that obedience may be expressed, in one church-society or other that is sound in the faith, walking in the truth. A man cannot walk orderly else in covenant-obedience, because he knows not how to express it to the glory of God.
Now, the first of these, how we should walk in general with re spect unto the covenant of grace, I shall not speak unto. It is a long work, a great work; it is not that which I design. In brief, the principle of it is the Spirit of God, whence we are said to "walk in the Spirit;"— the rule of it is the word of God, whence we are said to walk according to the rule, " As many as walk by this rule, peace be on them/' etc. ; — the life, way, power of it, is Jesus Christ, in the third place, "I arn the way, the truth, and the life;" — the object and end of it is God himself ; we walk before God, and so come to the enjoyment of him; — the bounds of it are the covenant; nothing be yond what God requires in his covenant belongs to this walk, nothing that falls beneath the grace of the covenant doth belong unto it, nothing that is contrary to the precepts of the covenant. It is the covenant that gives bounds unto our walking. And the design of this walk is the resignation of ourselves to God, conformity to him, and enjoyment of him. But these are not the things I intend.
That which I intend to speak unto (not now, but hereafter), is our walk with God in that especial church-relation wherein we stand. And I shall endeavour, if God will, to show you how we ^ ought to walk so as to please God, by plain, evident, familiar instructions from the Scripture, accommodated to our state and condition in all things: and, secondly, press it upon your consciences and my own, as the necessity, and condition, and temptations befalling churches, in the days wherein we live, do require; and especially with respect unto that woful conformity to the world which seems to have overtaken the generality of professors in these days.
What I spoke unto you the last day hath occasioned me to go thus back, to lay this foundation ; for that will give but one particular of what will be found necessary to press upon you, that you may so walk as to please God, and abound in it more and more.
Yet that is such a weighty particular,— namely, how we may
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every one of us, in our places and conditions, and under our oppor tunities, promote holiness in one another, and be awakened to a diligent watchfulness unto that duty, — that I would beg of you that that might not fall off from our consideration with the experience of other things. And that you might know how to put it in practice more among us was referred to your consideration as well as mine.
SERMON VII.
PERILOUS TIMES.
PREACHED MAY 21, 1675.
** This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, dis obedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce- breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." — 2 TIM. iii. 1-5.