Page:The rock of wisdom.djvu/128

 17. The word was flesh and dwelt among us, and of his fullness have we all received grace for grace, for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Rom. 14: 17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink: but righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost, for he that in these things serveth Christ, is acceptable and approved of men. Heb. 6: 4. Now sinners read these texts; take reason and justice within your hearts and think well for yourselves; first remember that the great day of judgment is nigh, and this will we do, if God permit, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.—Isa. 9: 6; John 4 10. And another answer to these texts. Ye cannot deny Second Gen. Epistle Peter. See c. 2: 1 9, For I say unto you all escape from those who live in error, while they promise liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage, for if after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. Now these few lines I leave with you to consider on my ignorance and my dullness of comprehension, and with all this I still desire, with a great desire, to learn to be the true man of God, that when my approaching end is come, that I may be found a wise and true babe in Christ.

I now call on all the true ministers in Christ. We as brothers, preachers of one Christ, to which we are the distinguishing characteristics, are universal benevolence and unbounded charity, we cannot therefore, but be fond of our order and jealous for the great interests of free ministers in Christ, which in the strongest manner, inculcates the same charity and benevolence, and which, like that religion, encourages every moral and social virtue among ministers, to which introduces peace and good will to those who otherwise might have remained at a perpetual