the _Fourth_ place, be often renewing your resolutions. It was the
exhortation of that good man to the new converts at Antioch, where they
were first called Christians, "that they should cleave unto the Lord
with full purpose of heart." This covenant, I have shewed you, is the
ordinance whereby you cleave unto the Lord, the joining ordinance. Oh!
do it with full purpose of heart, and be often putting on fresh and
frequent resolutions, not to suffer every base temptation of Satan,
every deceitful, or malignant solicitation of the world, every foolish
and carnal suggestion of the flesh, to bribe and seduce you from that
fidelity which you swear this day to Jesus Christ and the kingdoms. A
well grounded resolution is half the work, and the better half too; for
he that hath well resolved, hath conquered his will; and he that hath
conquered his will, hath overcome the greatest difficulty: no such
difficulty in spiritual things, as to prevail with one's own heart. With
these cords, therefore, of well bottomed resolutions, be oft binding
yourselves to your covenant, as once Ulysses did himself to his mast,
that you may not be bewitched by any Syrenian song of the flesh, world,
or the devil, to violate your holy covenant, and drown yourselves in a
sea of perdition. And to that end, it would not be altogether useless,
to fix your covenant in some place of your houses, or bed-chamber, where
it may be oftenest in your eyes, to admonish you of your religious and
solemn engagements, under which you have brought your own souls. The
Jews had their "phylacteries, or borders upon their garments," which
they did wear also upon their heads, and upon their arms; which, tho'
they abused afterward, not only to pride, making them broader than their
first size or pattern, in ostentation and boasting of their holiness,
our Saviour condemns in the scribes and pharisees. And to superstition,
for they used them as superstitious helps in prayer, which they coloured
under a false derivation of the word in the Hebrew, yet God indulged
them in this ceremony, as an help for their memories, to put them in
remembrance to keep the law of the Lord. And God Himself seems to use
this art of memory, as it were, when, comforting His people, He tells
them, "behold I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands, thy walls
are continually before Me."

I must confess, the nature of man is very prone to abuse and pervert
such natural helps to idolatry and superstiti