is taken." And, "Come let us join ourselves in covenant." As if
there were no more in it but this, take the covenant, and ye take
Babylon. Or, as if the taking of a covenant were the ready way, the
readiest way to take Babylon. Surely at the report of the taking of this
sure covenant, we in our prayer-visions (as the prophet Habakkuk), "May
see the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of
Midian tremble." Or, as Moses in his triumphant song, "The people shall
hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold of the inhabitants of
Palestina. The dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab,
trembling shall take hold upon them; the inhabitants of Canaan (who are
now the inhabitants of Babylon) shall melt away. The towers of Babylon
shall quake, and her seven hills will move. The great mountain before
our Zerubbabel, will become a plain, and we shall bring forth the
head-stone (of our reformation) with shouting, crying, grace, grace unto
it." Why may we not promise to ourselves such glorious effects (and not
build these castles in the air) when we have laid so promising a
foundation, this sure covenant, and have made a perpetual covenant,
never to be forgotten?

The three things I shall propose, which this covenant will bring in, as
facilitating contributions to so great a work:

1. This covenant will distinguish men, and separate the precious from
the vile. In the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, the Lord promiseth His
people, after this manner, "I will cause you to pass under the rod, and
I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." The phrase of causing
to pass under the rod, is an allusion to shepherds, or the keepers of
cattle, who when they would take special notice of their sheep or
cattle, either in their number to tithe them, or in their goodness to
try them, they brought them into a fold, or some other inclosed place,
when letting them pass out at a narrow door, one by one, they held a rod
over them, to count or consider more distinctly of them. This action was
called a "passing of them under the rod," as Moses teaches us, "And
concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever
passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord." The
learned Junius expounds that text in Ezekiel by this in Leviticus,
giving the sense thus, "As if the Lord had said, I will prove and try
the whole people of Israel, as a shepherd doeth his flock, that I may
take the good and sou