The infidelity of the age has forced me to dwell often on the great articles and mysteries of our faith, and to explain them largely but I call God to witness, that I never proposed any explication of these points, never recommended any thing of this kind to your belief, but what I firmly, and from the bottom of my heart, believed myself. The faith 1 have delivered to you, the faith of the church of England, into which we were all baptized, is, I am entirely satisfied, the same that was once delivered to the saints: I hope, none of you will be ever invited, by the specious arts and insinuations of heresy, to depart from it. I am sure, the profession of it, in all its branches and members, is what, by the grace of God, I intend to live and die in. The church you are of, is, without doubt, the purest and soundest, the most reasonable and moderate church upon earth; the nearest to the primitive pattern of any, and the most serviceable to our improvement in virtue and godliness reverence her, I beseech you, in proportion to her worth; quit not her communion for any boasts to more pure and spiritual worship; nor for the amusements of a more glorious and splendid one; for the pretences of those men who make reason their God, without taking in revelation for their guide; or for the extravagant follies and freaks of enthusiasm. As a sign of your unfeigned respect for her constitution, resort often to her service, and let your outward behaviour there speak your inward devotion: frequent her sacraments; listen to her instructions from the pulpit; breed up your children in the knowledge of her articles of religion; season them early with a due value for her doctrine and discipline; and satisfy yourselves, that this is one of the best legacies you can leave them. This is what I have always inculcated to you; and, had the providence of God continued me longer among you, should have gone on to inculcate still. I can only hereafter wish it, and pray for it, which I shall not fail to perform. Indeed my particular employment here now ceases, but my relation to you, I trust, never shall; I shall always cherish the inemory of it, and reflect gratefully upon it, reckoning myself yours, in some measure, even after my ministerial office here is at an end, and being ready to serve any, even the meanest of you, in all the christian duties and services of which I am capable. And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified, Acts xx. 32. And may the God of peace, (that peace, to the practice of which I have now been exhorting and persuading you), may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will; working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Heb. xiii. 21. |