ice because of the oath: and God may be
established, and His kingdom settled; that His presence may dwell among
men, and His protection among the sons of men; that He may be near in
our covenanting, found in our prayers, and give us rest; and that we
being engaged, may live to Him, and not to others, henceforth and for
ever.

THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT:

SERMON AT WESTMINSTER.

_BY JOSEPH CARYL.[12]_

"And because of all this, we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our
princes, Levites, and priests, seal unto it."

--_Nehemiah_ ix. 38.

The general subject of this verse, is the special business of this day.
A solemn engagement to the Lord, and among ourselves, in a sure
covenant. Wherein we may consider these five things.

_First_, The nature of a covenant, from the whole.

_Secondly_, The grounds of a covenant, from those words, "because of all
this."

_Thirdly_, The property of a covenant, in that epithet, Sure--"we make a
sure covenant."

_Fourthly_, The parties entering into, and engaging themselves in a
covenant, expressed by their several degrees and functions, Princes,
Levites, priests. And were these all? All whom this verse specifies, and
enow to bring in all the rest? Where the governors and the teachers go
before in an holy example, what honest heart will not follow? And the
next chapter shews us, all who were honest hearted, following this holy
example, verse 28: "And the rest of the people, the priests, the
Levites, the porters, the singers, the Nethinims, and all they that had
separated themselves from the people of the lands, unto the law of God,
their wives, their sons, and their daughters, every one having
knowledge, and having understanding: They clave unto their brethren,
their nobles, and entered into," &c.

_Fifthly_, The outward acts by which they testified their inward sincere
consent, and engaged themselves to continue faithful in that covenant:
First, writing it. Second, sealing to it. Third, (in the tenth chapter,
ver. 29.) "They entered into a curse." Fourth, "Into an oath, to walk in
God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe
to do all the commandments of the Lord their God, with the statutes and
judgments. And that they would not give their daughters to the people of
the land," &c: with divers many articles of that covenant, tending both
to their ecclesiastical and civil reformation.

I begin with the first point, the nature of a co