AMP MO A CAVEAT AGAINST INFIDELITY. truth, and hi the words ofa divineheacher, even the Mody Spirit. There you learn the precepts and rules of piety and virtue, pure and unmingled with human traditions. Let thus book be your constant counsellor, for it is an infallible guide. Learn your re- ligion from this book, and see that you receive nothing, as an article of your faith or practice, but what is contained therein. Converse much with those parts of scripture, wherein the most important doctrines of christianity are written, and the greatest and mosvnecessary duties of it are plainly prescribed and taught. Particularly acquaint yourselves with the history of the life and death of Christ and his divine instructions, as they are recorded in the four gospels. Read the epistles of St. Paul to the Ro- mans, and to the Ephesians, and value most those discourses and writings of men, which come nearest to those divine stand- ards. Treasure up in your memory such passages of scripture as are best suited to teach and confirm the chief articles of your faith and practice, and let tlletn be Written upon your heart. The More instruction you get from theword of God in his holy reli- gion, the more you will love it, and be established in it : And you will not be so soon shaken, with every wind o fdoctrine, as if you borrowed all your knowledge of christianity, merely from the forms and the lessons men have taught you. Remember that Christ Jesus is your only Master and Lord, and he is the same yesterday,' to-doy, andfor ever ; lieb. xiii. S. In all the momentous enquiries and-concerns of your rpli- gion, whether they be points of faith or practice; run continually to this sacred touch -stone, the word' of God, and try every thing. by this unerring rule. Frameyour belief and your conversation according to this divine model. All builders, whether they la- bour in wood or stone, take care to have their rule, their square, their plumb-line always athand to direct their work, and to prove the truthof it. We are also builders of our heavenly hope upon Christ the -- divine foundation. Let all our belief and profession, all our laboursand advances in this sacred work, be regulatedby a perpetual recourse to the sacred rule that God has bestowed upon us, that our faith may stand the trial of men in a clay of temptation, and that our work may stand the test, and approve itself to God at the last day, in the face of men and angels. Sr Perhaps, it may be necessary, in this place, to insert a caution, lest any +should imagine I would here exclude catechisms, larger'or smaller, and turn but systems of divinity from the used the schools, churches or families. This it very farfrommy thoughts : f am constant friend of, and advocate for these eampendium's or systematical writings : Their use and advantage is asì great, that I think it hardly possible to teach any religion well, and particularly the Chris- tian without them. Al that I advise here feu that children and youth should be led with all due speed, as their understandings admit, to see the articles of their catechisms contained in their bibles, and,proved plainly by the word of ,God And that they should be led by degrees to drive hrir knowledge and faith more immediately from the bible, and build their religion upon it.
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