I Had A Manual In My Pocket,
That Had King David's Picture In It, In One Of His Private Retirements.
The Indian Ask'd Me, Who That Figure Represented?
I told him,
It was the Picture of a good King, that liv'd according to
the Rules of Morality,
Doing to all as he would be done by,
ordering all his Life to the Service of the Creator of all things;
and being now above us all, in Heaven, with God Almighty,
who had rewarded him with all the delightful Pleasures imaginable
in the other World, for his Obedience to him in this; I concluded,
with telling them, that we received nothing here below,
as Food, Raiment, &c. but what came from that Omnipotent Being.
They listened to my Discourse with a profound Silence, assuring me,
that they believ'd what I said to be true. No Man living will ever be able
to make these Heathens sensible of the Happiness of a future State,
except he now and then mentions some lively carnal Representation,
which may quicken their Apprehensions, and make them thirst
after such a gainful Exchange; for, were the best Lecture
that ever was preach'd by Man, given to an ignorant sort of People,
in a more learned Style, than their mean Capacities are able to understand,
the Intent would prove ineffectual, and the Hearers would be left
in a greater Labyrinth than their Teacher found them in.
But dispense the Precepts of our Faith according to the Pupil's Capacity,
and there is nothing in our Religion, but what an indifferent Reason is,
in some measure, able to comprehend; tho' a New-England Minister
blames the French Jesuits for this way of Proceeding, as being
quite contrary to a true Christian Practice, and affirms it to be no ready,
or true Method, to establish a lively Representation of our Christian Belief
amongst these Infidels.
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