the breaches thereof; which is after vows to make inquiry. (3.) By despising the bond of it; Ezek. xvi. 59.  “Which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.” (4.) By defection to the iniquities which are sworn and engaged against in the covenant, Jer. xi. 10.  “They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant, which I made with their fathers.” (5.) By changing the government, laws, and ordinances sworn to be maintained in the covenant; either the government of the state, without consulting divine direction, and due inspection into the qualification of the persons set up, Hos. viii., compare the 1st and 4th verses.  “They have transgressed my covenant, &c.  They have set up kings, but not by me, princes and I knew it not;” that is, without consulting me to know my will, and without my approbation and consent; or the government of the church, without regard to the revealed will of God.  Thus, Abijah justly chargeth Jeroboam that he had “cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites,” and that he had “made priests after the manner of the nations of other lands;” but encourages himself that he and Judah had the Lord for their God, because they had not forsaken him; “and the priests which ministered unto the Lord were the sons of Aaron.” 2 Chron. xiii. 6, 10. (6.) By an entire forsaking and disowning the obligation of the covenant, Dan. xi. 30.  “He------shall have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.” (7.) By a stated opposition to the covenant, and persecuting of these who adhere thereunto.  Thus Elijah justly charges Israel, 1 Kings xix. 10, that they had forsaken God’s covenant, because they had thrown down his altars, slain his prophets, and sought after Elijah’s life.  And in a use of lamentation deduced from the foresaid doctrine, he showed, that all ranks in the land had reason to mourn over their breach of covenant, in regard that some of all ranks, from the throne to the dunghill, in church and state, are, or have been guilty of dealing falsely in God’s covenant, in all and every one of these diverse ways, and of declining from it:  and in regard that there has been so much ignominy and contempt cast upon these sacred covenants, not only by breaking them openly, but also avowedly disowning and disdaining their obligation, and making the adherence to them criminal; and, which is above all, burning them by the hand of the hangman, and burying them so long in forgetfulness.  This guiltiness he applied not to great persons only, but also to professors, to ministers, and particularly to ourselves, who are called dissenters from the present establishment; pressing upon us no less than others, the absolute and indispensable necessity of being convinced of, and mourning over these, not as the sins of others only, but also as our own—­we having a chief hand in the trespass; pressing upon all present concerned in the work the duty of self-examination, and putting themselves to the trial, concerning their knowledge of the covenant obligations, both as to their nature and extent, as well as their sense of the breaches of these obligations.