erformance is folly); pay that which
thou hast vowed." Speedy paying (like speedy giving) is double payment;
whereas slow payment is no payment or as bad as none, for it is foolish
payment. A bond, if I mistake not, is presently due in law, if no day be
specified in the bond. It is so I am sure in this covenant; here is no
day set down, and therefore all is due the same day you take it. God and
man may sue this bond presently for non-payment: the covenant gives no
day, and therefore requires the next day, every day. It is not safe to
take day for payment, when the obligation is _in terminis de praesenti_,
and none is given.

3. Take heed of dallying with this covenant. It is more than serious, a
sacred covenant. It is very dangerous jesting with edged tools. This
covenant is as keen as it is strong. Do not play fast and loose with it,
be not in and out with it; God is an avenger of all such: He is a
jealous God, and will not hold them guiltless, who thus take His name in
vain. They who swear by, or to the Lord, and swear by Malcham, are
threatened to be cut off. To be on both sides, and to be on no side;
neutrality and indifferency differ little, either in their sin or
danger.

4. Above all, take heed of apostatizing from, or an utter desertion of,
this covenant. To be deserted of God, is the greatest punishment, and to
desert God, is the greatest sin. When you have set your hands to the
plough, do not look back: remember Lot's wife. Besides the sin, this is,
_First_, Extremely base and dishonourable. It is one of the brands set
upon those Gentiles whom "God had given up to a reprobate mind, and to
vile affections," that they were covenant breakers. And how base is that
issue which is begotten between, and born from vile affections, and a
reprobate mind? where the parents are such, it is easy to judge what the
child must be. _Second_, Besides the sin and the dishonour, this is
extremely dangerous and destructive. We are said in the native speaking,
to cut a covenant, or to strike a covenant, when we make it; and if we
break the covenant when we have made it, it will both strike and cut us,
it will kill and slay us. If the cords of this covenant do not bind us,
the cords of this covenant will whip us; and whip us, not as with cords,
but as with scorpions. The covenant will have a quarrel with, and sends
out a challenge unto such breakers of it, for reparation. And (if I may
so speak) the great God will be its second. As