The Communicant's Companion
4. We must do it cheerfully: for here, in a special manner God loves a cheerful giver, and is pleased with that which is done, not of constraint, but willingly. In our covenanting with God, we must not be actuated by a spirit of fear, but by a spirit of adoption, a spirit of power and love, and a sound mind. We must join ourselves to the Lord, not only because it is our duty, and that which we are bound to, but because it is our interest, and that by which we shall be unspeakably gainers,—not with reluctance and regret, and with a half consent extorted from us, but with an entire satisfaction, and the full consent of a free spirit. Let it be a pleasure to us to think of our interest in God as ours, and our engagement to him as his; a pleasure to us to think of the bonds of the covenant, as well as of the blessings of the covenant. Much of our communion with God (which is so much the delight of all that are sanctified) is kept up by the frequent recognition of our covenant with him, which we should make as those that like their choice too well to change; and as the men of Judah did, when "they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting and with trumpets, and all Judah rejoiced at the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire." Christ's soldiers must be volunteers, not pressed men; and we must repeat our consent to him with such joy and triumph as appears in that of the spouse, "This is my beloved, and this is my friend."
5. We must do it in sincerity.—This is the chief thing required in every thing wherein we have to do with God: "Behold, he desires truth in the inward parts." When God took Abraham into covenant with himself, this was the charge he gave him, "Walk before me and be thou perfect," that is, upright; for uprightness is our gospel perfection. Writing the covenant, and subscribing it, signing and sealing it, may be proper expressions of seriousness and resolution in the transaction, and of use to us in the review;