Puslapio vaizdai
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PARTICULAR ADDRESS

TO YOUNG PERSONS

Who are affifted by Charitable Contributions, and likewise to OTHERS, when they are placed out Apprentice.

My good Lad,

1. Inftruction.

BE your own friend, and attend to these in structions; they are well confidered, and I hope well contrived for your good. The wifeft of men, even Solomon himself, tells us that

"Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth "instruction, but he who regardeth reproof shall "be honored."

This is as true now, as it was two thoufand years ago; and if you mind it, you will acknowledge that it is fo, as all men in all ages of the world have done; for it is impoffible we can know any thing without learning, and it is not easy to teach ourselves without fome affiftance.

2. Belief in God,

The foundation of all religion is belief in God.

Ever carry in your mind the conftant remembrance of your Belief, not as a thing of course, but as you act agreeable to fuch belief.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jefus Chrift his only Son our Lord;who was conceived by the Holy Ghoft,-born -of the Virgin Mary ;-Suffered under Pontius Pilate ; -Was crucified, dead, and buried ;-He defcended into hell:-The third day he rose again from the dead-He afcended into heaven,-and fitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;From thence he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghoft ;-the holy Catholic Church;-The communion of faints:-The forgiveness of fins ;-The refurrection of the body,and the life everlasting. Amen.

Merely to say you believe, whether in this form, or by any other declaration, is not believing. To believe is to live, fo as to fatisfy your own reafon. that you think and act agreeably to your words. If you fay you will do what you ought, and afterwards neglect it; or that you will not do what you

ought

ought not, and yet do it, you are false to your own

heart.

Belief in this inftance is faith.-If you believe any thing which ever happened, that you have not feen, you may for the fame reafon be perfuaded in your mind of the important truths here delivered. You fee God by the eye of faith as he appears in his works. You fee his works with your naked eye. Fall down and adore him, who is not to be feen till you fhall behold him face to face; this can only be after death, when your mortal body fhall put on immortality.

In regard to the great truths of the Chriftian Religion as declared above, you have the highest authority, and the utmost reafon for giving your affent, from the moft credible hiftories now extant, confirmed by a conftant tradition, and maintained by such a series of wonderful circumstances of providence, as hardly ever concurred to any matter of fact before.

"Good temper and humanity may be, and often is, the cause of many virtuous actions; which, wherever they are found, ought never to go without their just commendation. But the fteady courfe of a virtuous and religious life, uniform in all its parts and upon all occafions, refifting all the temptations of the world, overcoming all difficulties, and

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perfevering to the end under all discouragements; this is a fuperftructure which cannot be built on a lefs ftrong foundation than a belief of a future flate, and an expectation of the righteous judgments of God in the life to come."

3. Commandments.

I.

God fpake these words, and faid-I am the Lord thy God: Thou fhalt have none other gods but

me.

II.

Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them: for I the Lord thy God am ajealous God, and vifit the fins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and fhew mercy unto thoufands in them that love me, and keep my command

ments.

III.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltlefs that taketh his name in vain.

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