Let us remember too, that the covenant of salvation, of which we are called to be partakers, has its peculiar and appointed signs. It is accompanied by solemn sacraments, which form the special tokens of God's favour, and the pledges of those mercies which should hold the first place in our thoughts and desires. It is from covenanted promises, and from covenanted succours and supplies, that we must derive our confidence in all our course. These should be the chief topics of our careful study, through all periods of our transitory life: and then short and uncertain as that life is, it will become the happy earnest of eternal blessings.
Let it not be counted a small thing that God should vouchsafe to bind himself to vows and covenants. It is our best source of comfort and assurance that he doth so. Not because an oath is requisite to confirm the truth of God, but because the covenant, and the oath, furnish that ground of trust to us, which the sole knowledge of God, and ourselves, of his infinite perfections and our frailty and demerits, could not have afforded. Let him who makes light of the covenant of grace and mercy, for salvation, come forward with his own plea, and see to what his claims and his pretensions will amount. Will he say with the Pharisee, "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are", and will he then proceed to challenge his reward? Let him remember that the Pharisee departed self-satisfied indeed, but not accepted of the Lord. Will he plead with the boastful young man in the Gospel? "All these things have I kept from my youth up." Let him be prepared to hear, that there is some thing wherein he is deficient; something which, when it is required, will prove too hard a trial for his strength. Will he put in his claim only for the general mercies of the Lord, and rest there for the pardon of his sins?
... Let us learn to cultivate and cherish in our hearts, a just sense of those blessings of which the patriarchs of old time had but distant views, but which are openly displayed and offered for our acceptance. Let us store them in our breasts, and make known our belief in them, and our care of them, by our lives and conduct; for if we do not so dispose the heart to seek its treasure in them, and so frame the life to seek them, we shall lose our part in the proffered benefit, and the word of promise will not stand in our behalf.
(The illustration is from the 11th century Codex Aureus of Echternach, an illuminated Gospel book, showing the parable of the vineyard owners and labourers. The parable is the Gospel reading for Septuagesima, preparing us to "Go ye also into the vineyard": that is, to enter into the discipline of Lent.)
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