duty is concerned, all other confiderations, be their weight greater or lefs, ought to be poftponed to it. We christians ought to be thankful that we have nothing more difficult to encounter. What should we have done in the day of adverfity, if we cannot bear profperity? And it ought not to be forgotten that none will be diftinguished by our great mafter as his worthy difciples and followers, but those who shall be ready to risk and even to abandon every thing in the world, and even to take up their cross for the fake of his gofpel. Every fituation and circumstance of things, has its peculiar difficulties, which wife and confcientious men will lay their account with meeting, and be prepared to bear. This, in fact, muft be done by every person who does not adopt the principle of univerfal conformity to the world, and who will not make his religion fubfervient to it. But what will fuch religion do for a man, when the world and all the follies and vanities of it, shall be no more*?

It is your profeffed faith as chriftians, that affuredly as the great author of our religion, the ambaffador of truth and grace, has already appeared in the world, he will be revealed from heaven, to raise his fincere difciples to glory and immortality. How will all the great and fplendid things of life difappear before the brightness, of his coming! Is there need of more than one moment's calm reflection to convince you, that then the only thing of confequence will be the appro

Preface to Forms of prayer, &c.
E

bation

bation of his Father and our Father, of his God and our God? And can we really entertain the serious and rational hope of it, merely because we have profeffed his religion, whilft we have joined with the many to countenance, and with the great to fupport the corruptions of it? Will it be then a valid plea, that fashion and interest suffered us to depart from his laws, to act inconfiftently with our own convictions, and obey men rather than GOD? Conceive how your minds would be affected, were the awful appearance of the judge, an event which you had grounds to look for, within a few days; were the heavens to open, and you to fee him coming in the clouds, in whom you believe as the guide to eternal life-him who declared that the "true worshippers will worship "the FATHER in fpirit and in truth"-him who was himself "the faithful and true witnefs," and died leaving us an example to follow his fteps"— him who hath warned us, that "whofoever loveth father or mother more than him, is not worthy of him"-him who hath laid it down as a certain principle, that his true difciples are not of the world ! It is left to your own minds to imagine, how a conduct formed from a deference to the example and authority of worldly men, or from the views of profit and greatnefs, will appear to fuch a judge, and to your own hearts, when fummoned to his tribunal, and to receive according to your works.

You believe the christian religion to be true. Believing it to be true, can you doubt the propriety of

my

my laying these confiderations befɔre you, or refift the force of them? You cannot but believe that the great founder of your faith will verify all his declarations and then what will be the ftate of those who have regarded the world and what it can offer, more than his word and promifes? Can you look forward to their fituation without fear, without folicitude to escape the fhame and difgrace of it? Thefe expectations are fufficient to expofe the weakness and folly of being captivated by the pomps and emoluments, enflaved by the authority, or enfnared by the fashion, of any religious eftablishment whatfoever. These are things which will all vanish away as airy phantoms. But truth, fidelity to GOD, and integrity of character, are things of lafting excellence and worth, of effential importance on that day which will try all things everlasting honours await them; they will draw after them, in the final iffue, ftability, glory, and life for evermore.

It is but a fhort time before we fhall find the truth of these things: they should therefore affect our minds, and influence our conduct, as if they were to be immediately revealed. "It is but a short time that we "have, any of us, to abide here; and therefore we "fhould lose no opportunity of bearing our tefti<c mony to the truth of God."

Whatever be your circumftances, dread joining, with your enlightened and informed minds, in unfcriptural, infincere, and idolatrous worship, remembering

the words of the lord Jefus, that the FATHER feek

eth fuch to worship him, as

worship him in fpirit

" and in truth:" and "thou fhalt love the LORD 66 THY GOD, and him ONLY fhalt thou ferve."

Dread alfo that awful voice from heaven, respecting all antichriftian corruptions of the gospel in figurative Babylon: "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her fins, that ye receive not "of her plagues."

That you may be daily growing in grace; that you may act with the firmnefs of men, with the ferioufness and confiftency of chriftians, is the fincere prayer of

Your affectionate friend,

Dec. 12, 1789.

and brother in the lord Jefus,

TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATED.

It is the opinion of many learned men, that in the following paffages, among others, the tranflators of our prefent English bible have made confiderable mistakes.

Isaiah ix. 6. is rendered by ancient and many modern interpreters, "His name fhall be called wonderful, counsellor, the ftrong, the mighty, the father of the age." An examination of Mr. Robinfon's plea, p. 39. See alfo Mr. Coulthurft's blunders expofed, by W. Friend, M. A. No. 1.

Acts vii, 59.

original.

The word God is not in the

Acts xx. 28. In the best and most ancient manufcript copies of the new Teftament, it is "feed the church of the lord, which he hath purchafed with his blood," not God. See Frend, No. 5.

Rom. ix. 5. might be tranflated "whofe (i. e. the Ifraelites) are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Chrift came: God who is over all be bleffed for ever, Amen." See Frend, No. 2, or Clarke's Scripture doctrine.

I Cor. i, 2. fhould be tranflated (fay fome learned critics) with all that, in every place, are called by the name of Jefus Chrift our lord." Two differtations, by T. Lindsey, M.A. p. 95, &c.