Wherefore, O ye young men and women! look to the rock of your fathers:
there is no other God but him, no other light but his, no other grace but
his, nor spirit but his, to convince you, quicken, and comfort you; to
lead, guide, and preserve you to God's everlasting kingdom. So will you
be possessors as well as professors of the truth, embracing it, not only
by education, but judgment and conviction; from a sense begotten in your
souls, through the operation of the eternal Spirit and power of God; by
which you may come to be the seed of Abraham, through faith, and the
circumcision not made with hands; and so heirs of the promise made to the
fathers, of an incorruptible crown. That, as I said before, a generation
you may be to God, holding up the profession of the blessed truth in the
life and power of it. For formality in religion is nauseous to God and
good men; and the more so, where any form or appearance has been new and
peculiar, and begun and practised, upon a principle, with an uncommon
zeal and strictness. Therefore I say, for you to fall flat and formal,
and continue the profession, without that salt and savour by which it is
come to obtain a good report among men, is not to answer God's love, or
your parents' care, or the mind of truth in yourselves, or in those that
are without: who, though they will not obey the truth, have sight and
sense enough to see if they do that make a profession of it.
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