vice:
and therefore, they that in this sense are anti-covenanters are sons of
Belial, that refuse the yoke of the Lord, that say, "Let us break His
bands asunder, and cast away His cords, from us;" such as _oderunt
vincula pietatis_, which is a soul-destroying, and a land-destroying
sin. 3. Because that the union of England, Scotland and Ireland, into
one covenant, is the chief, if not the only preservative of them at this
time. You find in our English chronicles, that England was never
destroyed, but when divided within itself. Our civil divisions brought
in the Romans, the Saxons, Danes and Normans; but now the
anti-covenanters divide the parliament within itself, and the city
within itself, and England against itself; they are as stones separated
from the building, which are of no use to itself, and threaten the ruin
of the building. Jesus Christ is called in Scripture, the
"Corner-stone," which is a stone that unites the two ends of the
building together. Jesus Christ is a stone of union: and therefore they
that sow division, and study unjust separation, have little of Jesus
Christ in them. When the ten tribes began to divide from the other two
tribes, they presently began to war one against another, and to ruin one
another: the anti-covenanter, he divides and separates and disunites.
And therefore he makes perilous times.

My chief aim is at the second doctrine,

Doctrine 2. That for a covenant-taker to be a covenant-breaker, is a sin
that makes the times perilous. For the opening of this point, I must
distinguish again of covenants. There are civil, and there are religious
covenants; a civil covenant is a covenant between man and man; and of
this the text is primarily, though not only, to be understood. Now, for
a man to break promise and covenant with his brother, is a
land-destroying, and a soul-destroying abomination. We read, 2 Sam.
xxi., that because Saul had broken the covenant that Joshua made with
the Gibeonites, God sent a famine in David's time, of three years'
continuance, to teach us that, if we falsify our word and oath, God will
avenge covenant-breaking, though it be forty years after. Famous is that
text in Jeremiah. Because the princes and the people brake the covenant
which they had made with their servants, though but their servants, God
tells them, "Because ye have not hearkened unto Me, in proclaiming
liberty every one to his brother.... Behold, I proclaim liberty for you,
saith the Lord, to