first sight they apprehended; "That they could not serve the Lord, in
regard he is an holy God, he is a jealous God, and would not forgive
their transgressions nor their sins; and that if they should forsake the
Lord, and serve strange gods, then he would turn and do them hurt and
consume them, after he had done them good," Josh. xxiv. 19, 20. 'Tis a
part of his name, Exod. xxxiv. 7. _That he will by no means clear the
(obstinately and impenitently) guilty_.

A _second_ consideration that makes the work of covenanting with God to
appear a hard and difficult work, was taken from the nature of the work
itself, which is to serve the Lord in a covenant way, and in the
capacity of covenanted children, this covenant relation involving in it
a walk and conversation in all things like the chosen of the Lord; and
'tis no small matter, so to walk, and so to behave as to be accounted
worthy of a covenanted union with the Lord and interest in him, this
covenant relation being confirmed with such awful sanctions, as in
scripture we find, Neh. x. 29. "They------entered into a curse and into
an oath, to walk in God's law," &c. This consideration, that covenanting
work is weighty in its own nature, was further illustrated and amplified
from the difficulty both of the things to be engaged against, and of the
things to be engaged unto. As for the former, the things to be engaged
against, which is sin in all its kinds and degrees, and in all the
inducements to it, both with reference to ourselves, and also as to
participation in the sins of others. This must first be put away, if one
would be a right covenanter. Well did old Jacob understand the necessity
of this, who being resolved to go up to Bethel, to renew his covenant
with God, that answered him in the day of his strait, advises his family
first "to put away the strange gods that were amongst them, and to be
clean." Gen. xxxv. 2. So David assures us, Psal. xxxiv. 14, that
departing from evil must precede doing of good. A man that would lift up