3. This duty of covenant-renewing requires, as a qualification towards the right performing of it, that there be a due consideration, and some suitable impression of the solemnity and weightiness of the work: which ariseth, partly from the object or party covenanted with, the holy and jealous God, Joshua xxiv. 19—"He is a holy God, he is a jealous God, he will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins," and partly from the subject matter covenanted, or engaged to. The articles of the covenant of grace, which we have professedly, at last, yielded to in our baptism, are weighty; for therein, as God engages to give us himself, his Son Christ Jesus, and in him all temporal and eternal blessings; so we engaged to be obedient children, and faithful subjects to him all the days of our lives. And the articles of these national covenants are weighty, for therein we engage to great things relating to the glory of God, and the good of our own and other's souls. And, partly, this weightiness ariseth from the great danger and dreadful punishment of breaking the covenant; which is threatened in many places of Scripture. The same is also intimated to us in the customs both of the Jews and Heathens, in entering into covenant; particularly, we find that the Jews used to cut a calf, or some other clean beast, in twain, and pass between the parts of it—using this, or the like form of speech, as the Jewish doctors relate—"So God divide or separate me, if I keep not this covenant." Jer. xxxiv. 18, compared with verse 20—"I will give the men into the hands of their enemies who have transgressed my covenant, which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof." Nehemiah also, chap. v. 12, 13, when he took an oath of the priests, shook his lap and said—"So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise," &c. And all the covenanters said—"Amen."
4. Much tenderness and heart-melting is requisite to the right performing of this duty. So it was with covenant-renewing Israel and Judah, who were "weeping as they went to seek the Lord their God, and to make a covenant never to be forgotten." This brokenness of heart, and tender-melting frame may arise, both from the consideration of the many sins and iniquities whereby persons have provoked the Lord their God to anger, whence they come "to be like doves of the valley, every one mourning for his iniquity:" and likewise from the consideration of the grace and mercy of God, manifested in Christ Jesus, his condescension to enter into a covenant with sinful men, and readiness, upon his people's repentance, to pardon their former breaches; from the consideration of this transcendently free grace, an humble and sincere covenanter will be transported into an ecstacy of wonder and admiration; as the church is, Mic. vii. 18, 19, 20—"Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?" &c.
5. Dependency and recumbency upon the Lord by faith, for strength to perform covenant engagements, is requisite to right covenanting, Isa. xxvii. 5—"Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me." This is to "take hold of" God's covenant, Isa. lvi. 4.
6. Affection to God and the duties whereunto we engage, is requisite to right covenanting, and that in its flower and vigour, height and supremacy. Thus, 2 Chron. xv. 12, 15, Asa and the people "entered into a covenant, to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart, and with all their soul:—And all Judah rejoiced at the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire." They had an affection to the work, and did it with complacency, not in dissimulation, so as not to design to perform it: nor through compulsion, with an eye to secular profit or preferment, as many in these lands did.
7. It is necessary, in order to right covenanting, that the work be gone about with a firm purpose and resolution (through grace enabling us) to adhere to our covenant engagements, notwithstanding whatever opposition and persecution we may meet with from the world for so doing, and whatever difficulties and discouragements may arise from the multitude of those, who prove unsteadfast in, or foully forsake their covenant. We must stand to our covenant, as it is said of Josiah, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 32, that "he caused all that were present in Judah and Benjamin, to stand to" the covenant, which implies as well a firm resolution to perform, as consent to engage, as in the latter part of the verse, it is remarked, that "the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers;" where doing according to the covenant is exegetical of standing to it. David also joins the resolution of performance with swearing; Psal. cxix. 106. "I have sworn, and I will perform, that I will keep thy righteous judgments."
From the doctrine thus confirmed and explained, he drew this inference, by way of information, that seeing it is a people's duty, who have broken covenant with the Lord, to engage themselves again to him, by renewing their covenant, that it is not arbitrary for us (as many are apt to think) to renew, or not to renew our covenant; but that there is a plain and positive necessity for our repenting and returning again to the Lord, by entering anew into covenant with him, whether personal made in baptism, or at the Lord's table, or under affliction and trouble, or national vows and covenants entered into by ourselves or our fathers. And in a use of lamentation, he bewailed the backwardness of these lands, and particularly of this nation, to this duty; in that, now after sixty years and upwards of great defections from, and grievous breaches of our covenants by people of all ranks; yet there appears so little sense of either the obligations or breaches of them, and of a disposition to reviving them, even amongst those who not only profess some love to the reformation of religion, but even some belief of their perpetual binding obligation; and that notwithstanding, as the Prophet Isaiah saith, concerning Judah, chap. xxiv. 5, "The earth (or the land) is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant;" our land having been denied with Popery and Prelacy, and with a flood of abomination and profanity, the natural consequent of perfidy, the ordinances having been changed, perverted and corrupted, and the covenant not only broken, but burnt ignominiously, and the adherence to it made criminal; yet, for all this, there has not been a time found for renewing them these twenty-three years; and that ministers, at whose door it chiefly lay to stir up the land to this work, have many of them been as careless as others, waiving and putting off a stumbled and offended people, expressing some concernedness for this duty, with these and the like pretexts, that it was not a fit time, nor the land in a case for it (too sad a truth), but not laboring to get the land brought to be in a case and disposition for it, by pressing the obligation, and plainly discovering the violations thereof; so that, instead of being brought to a fitter condition for this duty, the covenants are almost forgotten and quite out of mind, so that the succeeding generation is scarce like to know that ever there was a covenant sworn in Scotland. And more particularly, that the godly, who are dissatisfied with, and dissent from the defections and corruptions of the times, have discovered so little concern about the work of reformation, and cause of God, which the covenants oblige us to own, defend, and promote. All which laxness and remissness is for a lamentation, and ought to be lamented and mourned over by the people of God.
In the exhortation, he pressed upon us who are embodied together to renew our covenant-engagements, by giving an open and public testimony of our adherence to the covenants, national and solemn league, that we should labor to attain a suitable frame, and serious consideration of the weightiness, solemnity, and awfulness of the work we were then undertaking: enforcing the same by several cogent motives, as namely, because in renewing these covenants we are called to remember our baptismal and personal vows, whereby we had renounced the devil, the world and the flesh, and devoted ourselves to the Lord to be his people; which if they were slighted and forgotten, there could be no right, acceptable, and comfortable entering into national covenants. And likewise because of the weightiness of the duties engaged to in our national covenant, and in the solemn league and covenant, which he proved to be a covenant that ought to be renewed by us in this nation no less than our national covenant, in regard it was a religious, just, and holy covenant made betwixt God and the three kingdoms, though it cannot now be taken in the same consideration and extent, as at the first framing it was, viz.: As a league betwixt us and the representative body of the kingdoms of England and Ireland: where he took occasion to go over the several articles of the covenant, showing the nature and weightiness of the duties.
Beside these two more general doctrines which were chiefly insisted upon, he observed several others pertinently deducible from the words, as first, That unfaithful dealing in God's covenant will breed distance and estrangement from God. This is implied in the children of Israel and Judah seeking the Lord, asking the way to Zion, &c.; their asking the way to Zion, importing that they had forgotten the right way of worshipping God, and that their sins had made a sad separation between them and their God. Secondly, That it is necessary that persons become sensible of their sin against God, and of his anger against them, and lay these things to heart, that they may be concerned about reconciliation with God, and reform their lives. Thirdly, That the kindly exercise of repentance in a backsliding people lamenting after the Lord, and setting about to renew their covenant with him, hath an effectual influence to unite and cement the divided people of God: thus in the text the children of Israel and Judah, whom their iniquities had long and sadly divided, are uniting together in this desirable frame of weeping and seeking the Lord their God, and making a perpetual covenant with him. This doctrine he proved and applied briefly as the time would permit, both because of its native result from the text, and because of his own, and our sincere desire to see a holy union and communion, in the way of truth and duty effected by returning to the Lord, and renewing the covenant with him, as among all the godly, so especially among those that profess their dissent from, and dislike of the corrupt courses of the times.
Sermon being ended, after prayer, the covenants were first read according to the Directory for renewing the solemn league and covenant, prescribed by the Act of the General Assembly at Edinburgh, 6th October, 1648, post meridiem, entitled, Act for renewing of the Solemn League and Covenant; and, thereafter, the following Acknowledgment of Sins was also read: after which, prayer was made, containing a comprehensive confession of the more general heads of the foresaid Acknowledgement of Sins; and a part of the 78th Psalm, beginning at the 36th verse, was sung; and the minister dismissed the congregation with a short reprehension and advice, reproving them for their unconcerned carriage and behaviour during the reading of the acknowledgment of the breaches of these covenants, which had been first entered into at the expense of so much blood and treasure, and confirmed and sealed with the blood of many honourable martyrs of all ranks in the land; withal, exhorting all present to labour after a heart-melting frame for the right performance of the work in hand.
Upon Thursday, July 24th, after singing a part of the 105th Psalm, from the 6th to the 12th verse, and prayer—Mr. John M'Millan preached upon Isaiah, xliv. 5—"One shall say I am the Lord's: and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob: and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and sirname himself by the name of Israel." Whereupon, after the unfolding of the context, and explication of the words, showing that they clearly contain an intimation of a covenant relation betwixt God and a people, and their avouching of the same upon their part; the words seeming to have a reference to the state of the New Testament Church, and conversion of the Gentiles, who, being allured by the great gospel blessings and mercies bestowed by God upon the Jews, to join themselves to the church, should avouch their interest in the Messiah and covenant of grace, by taking the Lord for their God, and owning themselves to be his people. So that the words may be taken up as an answer to such a presupposed question as this, Whose are you? and what is your name? To which question, one shall answer, I am the Lord's; another, I am one of old Jacob's family and offspring; another, if you desiderate my name, look the covenant subscriptions and you will find it there; another shall say, whatever my name was before, my sirname now is an Israelite. So sweetly should a shower of gospel grace engage the hearts of the New Testament converts to avow their covenant relation to the Lord, and glory in their union with his church and covenanted people. Having taking up the sense of the words to this effect, he deduced from them these two observations: