ext door to falling. A total neglect
is little better than total apostasy.

We have made a perpetual covenant, never to be forgotten, as was shewed
out of the prophet. It is a rule, that words in scripture, which express
only an act of memory, include action and endeavours. When the young man
is warned to "remember his Creator in the days of his youth," he is also
charged to love, and to obey Him. And while we say, this covenant is
never to be forgotten; we mean, the duties of it are ever to be pursued,
and, to the utmost of our power, fulfilled. As soon as it is said that
Josiah made all the people stand to the covenant; the very next words
are, "and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of
God, the God of their fathers." They stood to it, but they did not, like
those, "stand all the day idle;" they fell to work presently. And so let
us. Having laid this foundation, a sure covenant, now let us arise and
build, and let our hands be strong. Do not think that all is done, when
this solemnity is done, It is a sad thing to observe how some, when they
have lifted up their hands, and written down their names, think
presently their work is over. They think, now surely they have satisfied
God and man for they have subscribed the covenant.

I tell you, nay, for when you have done taking the covenant, then your
work begins. When you have done taking the covenant, then you must
proceed to acting the covenant. When an apprentice has subscribed his
name, and sealed his indentures, doth he then think his service is
ended? No, then he knows his service doth begin. It is so here. We are
all sealing the indentures of a sacred and noble apprenticeship to God,
to these churches and commonwealths; let us then go to our work, as
bound, yet free. Free to our work, not from it; free in our work,
working from a principle of holy ingenuity, not of servility, or
constraint. The Lord threatens them with bondage and captivity, who will
not be servants in their covenant, with readiness and activity. "I,
saith the Lord, will give the men that have transgressed My covenant,
which have not performed the words of the covenant, which they had made
before Me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts
thereof; the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the
eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed
between the parts of the calf, I will even give them into the hand of
their enem