PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN. "965 .l serious Address to Children and Youth, relating to the Great and Necessary Duty of Prayer. Dear Children, GIVE: me leave to propose to you a few serious considera- tions, to awaken your desires to seek after God, and to pray to him in your early years, and if you are convinced that this is your necessary duty, you will then more readily hearken to the advices that follow. I. " Consider who and what God is." I-Iave you not been told that he is an Almighty Being, who made the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them ? that he is a Spirit, and that he is everywhere pre- sent, though you cannot see him ? that he knows all things that you do, and that he can do all that you desire of him ? that he is holy, and hates sin, and yet that he is very good and full of mercy, even to his sinful creatures ? that he is the greatest, the wisest, and the best of beings? and does he not expect you should love and honour him, who is so great and so good ? does he not require that you should praisehim for his glorious nature, and for his wonderful works, or have you learned to know' him in vain ? And is he not your heavenly. Fa- ther who gave you a being ?' Did he not make you love and serve, and worship him ? And how can you pretend to serve and -love him, if you never pray to him ? Could you but see him, children, you would think him the most lovely and most excellent of all beings ; and should you not thenbe exceeding desirous to be more acquainted with him, and seek to obtain his love? II. " Consider who and what you are." Are you not young creatures, that a few years ago had no being at all, and you cannot preserve your own lives ? And is k not of high concern to you to be acquainted with that God, and to pray to him upon whom your very being depends ? He that made you; can destroy you'. And besides, are you not sinful creatures, and have deserved the anger of God? Do not your own hearts and consciences tell you that you have done many things amiss, and that you have, provoked that God who made you, to be angry with you, and to take away all your comforts ? And are you willing to continue under his anger for ever ? Do you know how terrible is the anger of God, who can make you miserable in this world, and in that which is to come ? And is he not very gracious, to call upon such sinners as you arey to pray to him ? Is it not necessary therefore that you should tomehumbly before him, and fall down on your knees ,and con- fess your sins, and entreat lien to lay his anger aside, and ttr n a 3
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