SECTION T. 307 V. " Watch against every temptation to apostacy from the christian faith, and endeavour to guard and fortify your children and friends against seducers." Perhaps, in this dangerous age, you may have met with some allurements to infidelity, or your younger friends may meet with them. Satan has many busy emissaries, many subtle agents, whowith fair words entice the souls of men away from the gospel of Christ. Or perhaps, you may have been attackedby the scoffs of wanton companions, and it may be, some of their impious cavils have hung about your 'imaginations, made too deep an impression upon your spirits, and entangled your thoughts with some of the artifices of infidelity. Oh ! take heed of these dangerous snares, as you love your own souls and let young christians be warned against them betimes ! "Hearken to the exhortation of your friends who love you tenderly, who have met with the same temptations, and have answered them all, by the just principles of reasoning, and by the strength of a holy faith. With utmost seal and affection for your souls, we exhort and testify, this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand ; 1 Pet. v. 12. We have found it so, and desire from our hearts, that you may find it so too. Hear the blessed apostle Peter expressing himself thus, to the christians to whom he wrote, who in those primitive days, were continually in danger of being drawn away from their steadfastness by the subtilty, or by the reproaches of the unbelievers of that age ; 2 Pet. iii. 17. And may the following directions or advices by the divine bles- sing become effectual preservatives to your souls, against the danger and mischief of infidelity, which is a growing evil, and a spreading plague of the age wherein we live. SECT. V.=Preservatives against Apostacy from the Faith of the Gospel. Advice I. " Acquaint yourselves with the evidences of the truth of christianity, as far as your time, your capacity, and your circumstances of life will admit." Enquire into the true grounds and reasons of the christian religion. Endeavour to furnish your minds with such arguments as will justify your own conscience in the belief of the gospel, and will firmly support your profession and practice of it as rational creatures. God requires that a creature of reason should,be a reasonable worshipper, Though it is an invaluable privilege to have enjoyed acuria. tian education, and to be trained up in the principles and practices of the true religion, yet donot content yourselves to take up your religion only upon trust, and under the mere influence of the authority of your fathers. Dare not build all your faith and hopemerely upon your education, in a land which professes the gospel of Christ. It is a very dishonourable thing, to have no more reason to givewhy you are a Christian, than a young Turk has why he believes in Mahomet : for then if you had been bore If
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=