forgotten and quite out of mind, so that the succeeding generation is
scarce like to know that ever there was a covenant sworn in Scotland.
And more particularly, that the godly, who are dissatisfied with, and
dissent from the defections and corruptions of the times, have
discovered so little concern about the work of reformation, and cause of
God, which the covenants oblige us to own, defend, and promote. All
which laxness and remissness is for a lamentation, and ought to be
lamented and mourned over by the people of God.

In the exhortation, he pressed upon us who are embodied together to
renew our _covenant-engagements_, by giving an open and public testimony
of our adherence to the _covenants, national_ and _solemn league_, that
we should labor to attain a suitable frame, and serious consideration of
the weightiness, solemnity, and awfulness of the work we were then
undertaking: enforcing the same by several cogent motives, as namely,
because in renewing these covenants we are called to remember our
baptismal and personal vows, whereby we had renounced the devil, the
world and the flesh, and devoted ourselves to the Lord to be his people;
which if they were slighted and forgotten, there could be no right,
acceptable, and comfortable entering into _national covenants._ And
likewise because of the weightiness of the duties engaged to in our
_national covenant_, and in the _solemn league_ and _covenant_, which
he proved to be a covenant that ought to be renewed by us in this nation
no less than our _national covenant_, in regard it was a religious,
just, and holy covenant made betwixt God and the three kingdoms, though
it cannot now be taken in the same consideration and extent, as at the
first framing it was, viz.: As a league betwixt us and the
representative body of the kingdoms of England and Ireland: where he
took occasion to go over the several articles of the covenant, showing
the nature and weightiness of the duties.