Religious Converfation recommended. 407 that . God hath fuch pity for them that SERm. fear him, and remember his command- XV. ments to do them with a filial affection, as a father hath for his children; and their fincerity, though not without finful defers, renders them the objeEts of his care, fo that they are preferved from many fnares and calamities to which they are liable, and kept by his power through faith unto fal- vation. But, upon the whole, let every one of us for ourfelves ferioufly confider, whether all that the prophet hath here thrown to- gether, moft agreeably to our natural no- tions of the Deity and his providence, and to the current of the fcriptural declarations, concerning God's hearkening and hearing, his obferving with approbation the pious thoughts and the words of them that fear him, who feparate theinfelves from prevail- ing irreligion, his keeping an exa& record of their fingular good works in order to diftinguifh them by his parental care in this world, and reward them openly in the next; whether all this, I fay, be not a fufficient encouragement for us to take part with the pious few, in oppofition to profane multi - tudes ;
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