xt insist upon.
As it doth separate those who are heterogeneal, so likewise it will
congregate and embody those who are homogeneal. And therefore it cannot
but add strength unto a people; for whatsoever unites, strengthens. A
few united, are stronger than a scattered multitude. Tho' they who
subscribe this covenant should be, comparatively, so few, as the prophet
speaks, "That a child may write them;" yet this few thus united are
stronger than so many scattered ones, as exceed all arithmetic, whom (as
John speaks,) "No man can number." Cloven tongues were sent, to publish
the gospel, but not divided tongues, much less divided hearts: the
former hindered the building of Babel, and the latter, tho' tongues
should agree, will hinder the building of Jerusalem. Then a work goes on
amain, when the undertakers, whether they be few or many, all speak and
think the same thing. A people are more considerable in any work,
because they are one, than because they are many. But when many and one
meet, nothing can stand before them. So the Lord God observed, when "He
came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men
builded." And the Lord said, "Behold, the people is one, and they have
all one language: and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be
restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." Men may do as
much as they can think, while they all think and do as one; and not only
can such do great things, if let alone; but none can let them in doing
what they intend; so saith the Lord, "They have begun to do, and nothing
will be restrained from them, which they have imagined." Nothing could
restrain, or let them from their work, but His power, who "will work,
and none can let it." Thus it is apparent that union is our strength.
And it is as apparent that this covenant, through the blessing of God
upon it, will be our union. To unite, is the very nature of a covenant.
Hence it is called "the bond of the covenant, I will bring you into the
bond of the covenant," saith the Lord. Junius and some others render it,
I will bring you _(ad exhibitionem foederis)_ to the giving or tendering
of the covenant: deriving the word from _Masar_, signifying, to exhibit
or deliver. Whence (to note that in passage) the traditionary doctrine
among the Jews is called _Masora_, or _Masoreth_. Others (whom our
translators fellow, and put the former sense, delivering, in the margin)
others, I say, deriving the word from _Asar_ to b