we look into the Old Testament we find that Circumcision to the Faithful then the same with Baptism now did not release Abraham's three hundred and eighteen Slaves nor those afterwards belonging to his Posterity any more than their partaking of the Passover Exod. 12. did of which yet no hired Servant was to eat And the Gibeonites were perpetual Bondmen and Vassals notwithstanding their admittance to the Temple and to Religion And then to come to Christianity and the New Testament Onesimus who is stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Slave to Philemon as that word importing no less is generally agreed was not made a Freeman by his being Baptized which S. Paul's returning him to his Master a Christian also and his interceeding for him doth manifest Whom tho he bespeaks as a Convert yet lets him know that his Obligation to his Master was still the same And tho he professeth that he might be much bold in Christ to enjoyn Philemon that which was convenient yet that he chose rather to entreat him by Love And what was that Not that he might be set at liberty as being now a Christian and even a Brother but that forgetting wherein he had offended being now a Penitent and a Convert he would receive him again Nor against this do we find Onesimus urging his Privilege nor refusing to carry the Letter with his own hand A manifest sign that there was then no such understood or heard of And in 1 Cor. 7. 21 22. where the same St. Paul asserts the privilege of Christian Servants he withal tells them their Duty giving them to know that they were to abide in the same Calling wherein they were when first converted or called not but that if they could procure their liberty they should rather use it And if any shall demand what then is that liberty of a Christian which St. Paul elsewhere asserts and urgeth I answer That I know no more by it than a liberty from the yoke of Judaism from Sabbaths Circumcision and such like Ordinances and Levitical Ceremonies As also a release from our former slavery to our Lusts which is the greatest liberty and happiness if considered and understood And lastly An admission to serve Christ our most perfect Freedom and to partake of the Privileges and Promises of the Gospel and thereby to obtain an Adoption to the glorious liberty of the Sons of God in Heaven Which certainly are far greater Immunities than a bare release from temporal Servitude can possibly amount to For Christ's Kingdom being not of this World his Religion was never designed to deprive any Man of his civil Rights but rather did confirm them all to us And to shew that Bondage is not inconsistent with Christianity we see it practised by other Christian Nations in these parts without the least prejudice to them Even as not one hundred Years since in England Villanage a kind of Slavery was in force and still is in other Countries and some do say in our own too 13. And whereas 't is further Objected That certain Canons and Imperial Edicts neither of them admitted here and the Municipal Laws of some Countries 't is possible of England it self heretofore enacted or decreed for the honour of Christianity or to strengthen its Party against the Heathen do oppose this continuation of our Slaves in Bondage I answer First That these Laws being designed for the good of Servants and the promoting of Christianity there is now no reason they should be continued when experimentally found through the hardness of Mens Heats so great impediments thereto and even to be turned against them for the benefit of whose Bodies and Souls they were intended But Secondly I add that this tho true doth not trouble my Assertion because we do not find that these Laws do flow from any necessity thereof concluded in the Principles of Christianity as being meerly voluntary and the effects only of the good Nature and Piety of their first Christian Contrivers and to which a Christian as such is no more bound than to sell all his Goods and give them to the Poor Which yet may be a good work and very commendable in those that shall aspire after such perfection 14. But yet further if any shall make it a matter of Conscience to continue Christians in Servitude it would concern those that entertain that scruple which I fear few do to remember how much more against a good Conscience it is either through Sloth or for a petty Profit to keep Men that have Souls to be saved destitute of the means thereto and consequently to occasion their Damnation than simply to retain them under Servitude abstracted from that other Irreligion Which tho perhaps less commendable in Christians is far short of the Impiety of keeping them Slaves to Hell and to our selves too And here also supposing the worst it ought by Christians to be considered how much the loss of a Servant is less than of a Soul yea of many for whom Christ died no less than for their Masters and who cannot expect to be saved if the other through their occasion perishes But letting this scruple pass to salve which there never will be here any occasion I think it clear enough that Christianity doth not lessen any obligations of Servants to their lawful Masters And therefore that if any positive Laws to the contrary do as yet stand in their way I should be apt to recommend the Bermudian caution of Indentures for 99 years Service to our Peoples imitation in the interim till those Laws I say if any such there be might by Authority be fairly removed § III. 1. And thus our dangers from the Privileges being cleared I proceed to do the like by the Prohibitions viz. Of their Polygamy their Sunday-Labour frequent repudiating and changing their Wives usual amongst most Heathens As also their Idolatrous Dances and Revels permitted and practised by them so often as they can steal any time from their Work even upon that Day whose Morality to the danger of straining it to the height of a Jewish Sabbath hath been so much for these many Years insisted on amongst the English with other such Recreations and Customs by them brought out of Africa and here connived at because either gainful to their Owners such as the first or grateful to the poor Slave such as the latter without prejudice to their Masters Business None of which yet are heard of amongst the Virginia Negro's tho alike Gentiles with these And there not laid aside or forbidden but forgotten by disuse 2. Now might not this cause one to stand still and to admire how such things should come to be I do not say justified but even permitted or endured by Christians Who as before they were not ashamed to begrudge the poor Wretches thus spending their strength and days in their Service even a miserable Subsistence for they expect no more So here they alledge things palpably wicked as a pretence for a worse and
may give Seed to the sower and Bread to the eater So shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my Mouth it shall not return unto me void but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it Ezek. 8. 9. And he said unto me Go in and behold the wicked Abominations that they do here CHAP. I. That the Negro's both Slaves and others have naturally an equal Right with other Men to the Exercise and Privileges of Religion of which 't is most unjust in any part to deprive them § 1. ANd thus our Negro's and Indian's case as to Religion being sum'd up and truly stated and our People's temper and inclination towards the Conversion of them being represented I betake my self to my first general Assertion which I shall divide into these three Propositions 1. First That naturally there is in every Man an equal Right to Religion 2. Secondly That Negro's are Men and therefore are invested with the same Right 3. Thirdly That being thus qualified and invested to deprive them of this Right is the highest injustice 1. For the first of these viz. That naturally there is in every Man such a Right There are none can easily doubt who do understand either what Religion is or the true end for which Man was made namely to glorifie and serve God which is no other than to be Religious Now this being the certain End for which Man was made a Right to perform that End cannot be denied him 2. Which Right was not superinduced as an additional supply of any imaginary defects of his Creation but was at first planted and formed in him Nor doth he injoy it in common with other Animals but claims it as his special Privilege peculiar to him as Man and in a distinct manner from the rest of the Creation Nothing here besides being indued with a Capacity suitable and therefore not pretending thereunto 3. And as Man alone lays claim to this high Privilege so it is most certainly every Man's there being none so despicable or base but hath as unquestionable a Right thereto as the most illustrious and wise Virtuoso holding the same equally and in common with all others of the like species with himself The reason whereof is because he claims it upon the account of his being Man and only as such hath that Right Now Quatenus de omni reciprocantur As also A quatenus ad omne valet consequentia say the Logicians That is whatsoever is avouchable of any Creature as such must be equally true of every individual Branch and Member of the whole kind or species all being equal sharers in those common gifts of Nature 4. As for Instance The sensitive Faculties as Seeing Hearing Smelling c. As also the natural appetite to Food desire of Sleep and Rest with other the like affections are common to all Animals but not to Plants or Vegetables because peculiar only to the other These they do claim as such and therefore may not be denied to any the most inconsiderable Animal of the whole Creation For being thereof once deprived they instantly cease to be or to be reputed such 5. Even so Ex tot generibus nullum est Animal c. said the Roman Orator Of all Creatures here below Man only hath the notion of a Deity and a propriety in Religion Which Right and Propriety doth belong unto him only upon the account of his being Man that is because he is endued with a reasonable and immortal Soul which alone constitutes him a Man and capacitates him for Religion For without this he were not a Man could neither be subject to Laws or Discipline nor capable of Rewards or Punishments after this Life Nor in a word could be any longer separated à grege brutorum as the Poet speaks Above whom he is only advanced by that Prerogative of Reason implanted in his Soul the only proper and apt seat for Religion 6. For that the Soul of Man is that alone which qualifies and enables him to be Religious and that Man's grosser and heavier parts do contribute nothing thereunto is manifest For that Religion being an exercise wherein the Mind and Understanding only are concerned the Body abstracted from these by whom it is to be led and directed can supply no other part in this Work than of a secondary Agent therein and as subservient to the other For otherwise Atheists and resolved wicked Men might serve God and be Religious whilst like Engines compelled thereto their Bodies shewed some little compliance with the present Action so far as outward Gestures would go tho they believed nothing of the work they were about and even a Beast might be taught to do the like but could never be governed by Laws be reduced under Discicipline and Government of which Man by his understanding is alone capable or be subject to the impressions of Conscience have a prospect of Happiness or be apprehensive of future Dangers and Contingencies much less be able to provide against them All these Faculties being peculiar to the Rational Being or Soul seated in Man only Of whose Species if our Negro's can be truly said to partake then will it of necessity follow that they are Originally stated in the like Natural Right to the Privileges of Religion The thing that I am next to prove § II. 1. I must confess the Antecedent is by our Anti-Religionists as was at first remembred and even by some others who would be thought less Enemies to Piety with no small resolution opposed tho not always expressly yet in words equivalent and withal most fully explained by their subsequent daily Practice Which Practice because their words may be capable of a milder construction tho in this case not in the least deserving it I intend for the sole at least chief Rule or Measure to judge of and to understand the other And here let no one account it incredible that Interest should seduce Men into such a monstrous opinion which divers even in England have been heard to defend and as prejudging the cause and matter conclude it time mispent in labouring to refute it But remember how much stranger opinions a much greater part of the World upon the like Motive have elsewhere tho in another kind embraced And as to this there wanting not Irrational Creatures such as the Ape and Drill that do carry with them some resemblances of Men. The too frequent unnatural conjunctions as Taverneir discourseth in his Voyages of some Africans with those Creatures tho not so as to Unpeople that great Continent giving occasion for such surmises as to some few there tho never of any that were brought hither our Factors being too worldly wise to commit such gross oversights in their Civil Affairs whatever greater may escape them in their Spiritual And the Spaniards question which the same Taverneir also mentions touching the Brutality of the Americans and which I have heard was held
Man when he was King of Israel and so he was too when pursued by Saul Nor did Job become a Beast upon his great Losses any more than he could be supposed more than a Man upon his Restauration Now Slavery is but a lower degree of Poverty and Misery but not the lowest for there are conditions more Calamitous As to be deprived of all the Comforts of Life by a perpetual Confinement and Necessity with a continual dread and expectation of a miserable Death So also to be vexed with loathsome Ulcers and sharp tormenting Diseases all hopes of Relief and Respite being cut off are conditions to which Slavery simply and alone is to be preferred Yet none of these do unman the Party tho they may much humble and debase him Such evils altering only the outward state of things but making no impression upon the inner Man further than as our selves shall give way thereto which froward and impatient Minds can as well do without it An adverse Fortune may deprive us of our Goods and Liberty but not of our Souls and Reason Of which whilst we are possessed and do quietly enjoy 't is neither the Ambition nor Covetousness much less the Frowns and Menaces of any Imperious or Tyrannic Lord can bereave us of that Right which we naturally have to be ranked within the Degree and Species of Men. 22. And to manifest this I will suppose what I would be loth should happen that some one of this Island going for England should chance to be snapt by an Algerine or Consaire of Barbary and there to be set on Shore and Sold Doth he thereupon become a Brute If not why should an African suppose of that or any other remote part suffer a greater alteration than one of us This certainly must either not be or must proceed from some secret power peculiar to that Soil and Air where Slaves are gendred and made and then what Spell have we against such powerful and strange Brute-Anthropies 23. If Slavery had that force or power so as to unsoul Men it must needs follow that every great Conqueror might at his pleasure make and unmake Souls and a Servant running away or buying his Freedom would make himself one As on the contrary he that suffered his Ears to be boared at his Master's Door-post Exod. 21. 6. must in that act annihilate and destroy his Soul his Body nevertheless surviving And the having or not having of a Soul would signifie but the bare enjoyment or want of Liberty of which a Horse is no less capable than a Man 24. But that Conquest and Subjection can make no impression upon the Soul is plain even from this that it cannot effect a less thing not subdue the Will which yet is under the command of the Soul but not within the Adversaries power A Victory being rarely heard of which makes the Affections to yield and reduceth the Will of the conquered Party as the Poet long since sang Victoria nulla est Quam quae confessos animo quoque subjugat hostes Now Religion being according to Lactantius of all things most Voluntary cannot be expelled its hold at another's pleasure nay it is not under the power of the Owner for a Man cannot believe or not believe whatever he pleaseth Now all that can be said to abate the power of Conquest over the Will or Mind doth conclude more strongly against our Plagiaries who are invested with a less full and compleat Authority over their Captives and Slaves then Conquerors are 25. And here withall it might be considered how monstrous and inhumanly cruel they are who do both buy and retain in this Soul-murthering and Brutifying-state of Bondage those whom they might so easily restore to their pristine Homoneity and of meer Beasts with one little blast of their Mouths even but a word or two convert into Men and be at the same time the happy Authors of life to Souls as well as freedom to Bodies A Privilege too great and glorious for the rest of the World to enjoy and yet not regarded here 26. Again If Slavery hath such a faculty or power as to transmute Men into Beasts or if all Negro's be naturally such may we not be bold to demand what will become of those Debauches that so frequently do make use of them for their unnatural Pleasures and Lusts Or of such of our People who have Intermarried with them Sure they would be loth to be endited of Sodomy as for lying with a Beast It would be therefore convenient for them to renounce that Beastly opinion or else that the Law may have its free Course and be let loose upon them Of which they would have no cause to complain but of that first wicked Principle 27. Lastly If a Slave setting foot upon the Soil of some Countries as of France be thereby at the very instant made a Freeman or else as in the same Kingdom is also customary by receiving Baptism It must needs follow that these several Actions have the faculty to transubstantiate Things and Persons because by setting Slaves at Liberty they furnish them with Souls and of certain Creatures of a different Species for that will necessarily follow if they were not such before do create them Men. But if this be false then being become free they either must still be without Souls or else were indued therewith in their very Slavery the latter of which must needs be true the first being not in the least suspected 28. And here also it may be demanded and considered why Liberty and Freedom should effect more upon Men than upon other Creatures who according to this Supposition the wilder they are because thereby the more at Liberty would so much the nearer approach to Humanity and be endued with Souls too But which of all the rest is most Monstrous with such Souls as must in all things agree with an Animal or Brutish not a Rational being the transformed into Men. And so all Subiects and subordinate Governors would be Men but in part but yet by so much the more by how much they approached nearer to Absoluteness And in all the Grand Seignior's spacious Dominions where there are none but Slaves there would not be so much as one Man besides himself not excepting the very Christians The evil consequences of which Belief the Authors thereof may sooner feel than they are willing to understand or see 29. There were no Men in the World so likely as the ancient Greeks and Romans to have entertained this base esteem of Slaves because void of all impediments to their Sensuality and free from those ties of Conscience unto which Christianity is subject had they had any colour of Reason for it and being such from whom are transmitted to us the greatest presidents of Severity towards their Slaves as having no Restraints besides the goodness of their Disposition and Genius which were not always very operative in divers of them yet Reason prevailed so far with them as
a Dynast of great Authority with his Prince travelled so long a Journey only to worship God at Jerusalem Judg all the World whether this African notwithstanding the blackness of his Face had not a whiter Soul than most of our European refined Christians But this is not all behold him sparing no time from his Devotions but As he sate in his Chariot he read the Prophet Isaiah And then see him attentively listening to the Heavenly Doctrine of St. Philip earnestly thirsting after the Baptismal Waters Which having obtained he goes on rejoycing and hasting to make known the glad tidings of his Saviour to his Country-men It was this Noble-man's commendation that he did not think himself too great to be God's Servant and that amidst his Pomp he could attend Religion And to give him his due praise I do not see but that this black Prince may be a Copy for the best of us to write after a Pattern worthy the brightest Professor's Imitation and of whom to use our Saviour's words I may say Verily I have not found so great Faith no not in Israel c. By which words of this Sermon the Preacher doth evidently confute this malicious suggestion touching the Negro's pretended natural aversion to Religion And in truth some of our People do in part confess no less when in England to prevent Obloquy not regarded by others of them for the Credit of their Island and no less to make a fair shew they procure at least give way to the Baptizing of their Attendants as I have before mentioned Like those in England who to save their Places and Credits at once do dare to be guilty of that superstition at twenty miles distance which they will not adventure upon nearer Home It were to be wished upon their return that laying aside that suspicion of Averseness which they thereby grant to be but a Fiction they would remember to compleat here what they there began It being to be presumed that the many thousands remaining have the like precious Souls tho not blessed with setting foot upon English Soil But this would go near too much to affront the Principle here of which Mr. Ligon whom I but now mentioned gives an Account in the Reply that one made to him upon a Motion of the like nature and scandalize their weak Brethren Who might be apt to suspect them for Christians indeed and Apostates to the Cause should they openly persist to commit a thing so contradictory to their long continued Irreligion 5. Howbeit notwithstanding these so pregnant Instances and their own knowledg and experience to the contrary to make out this Averseness they relate a story of a thing called a Chappel belonging to a private Family wherein a Preachment for Sermon I shall not call it the Speaker wanting his Orders together with divers other very requisite Qualifications was made each Sunday in the Afternoon the Holder-forth notwithstanding his said Infirmity as to Orders c. being usually taken up in a Parochial charge in the Morning With this Person it was customary for him to Baptize in the Neighbouring Parishes and that at under-rates which was enough to spoil the Trade He would also joyn Couples in Marriage and do any Offices where Mony was to be got the Ministers being not able to prevent nor hinder him The Vesteries who are our Supreme Church-Governours not favouring their Complaints as being themselves not willing to be confin'd Nor have the Ministers even those in Orders much cause to be displeased themselves especially the more popular usually taking the liberty of their Neighbours Parishes and Pulpits upon all occasions both without and against the Proprietors consent Now unto this our stupid Africans being admitted for which Supererrogation the good Man the Master was heartily laught at tho without cause as I shall shew were not in the least edified Nor did they at all seek after Baptism the necessity and benefit whereof they were never taught Nor could they so much as repeat the Lord's Prayer Creed or Decalogue because the Speaker attending higher Doctrines and Speculations tho I take him for no Fanatic did never acquaint them therewith This and Catechizing being with the generality whom he was to please or all was gone quite out of Fashion Nor did these silly Negro's so much as understand wherefore they were brought thither it being never told them The profound Doctor believing his Reputation might be diminished if in his Zeal of which he was not at all suspected he had condescended to apply any part of his Discourse to them so much as in private but much more in publique which indeed is the mighty dread of some others besides him Whereby under these great means the Negro's who were quartered in the most distant part of their Meeting-place remained still as brutish as even the more learned English unto whose wiser Capacities the lofty Harang was solely fitted and directed without the least application to the other Who poor Wretches apprehended and I believe truely enough their being brought thither to be no other than a specious pretence only to cheat them of their Dance and Musick and to abridg their Liberty their other work being over like those who by their zeal for the Sabbath do reap this great spiritual advantage of having their Servants thereby always in their eye They in the mean time esteeming the Church for their Prison Which is no wonder our whiter People as we distinguish being much of the same Faith touching going to Church and Religion For otherwise our few and narrow Churches could not upon Sundays even in the Mornings for in the Afternoons we seldom Assemble as contrary to the more laudable custom of our Colonies amongst such multitudes of People be so thin and empty But notwithstanding from this single Instance not to be parallel'd in all the Plantations except in new-New-England decrepit and simple as it is they very roundly infer this general conclusion viz. of the strange Antipathy of Negro's to Christianity Which admitting it in any part for true cannot certainly be greater than to Work and Labour and yet their Taskmasters have notwithstanding a Faculty to make them willing And might no question bring about the other with equal facility would they apply themselves to it with but half the industry and affection they shew towards these Nor is it likely that their prejudices to Religion not as I have often said in the least discernable in any of them should make them unwilling to part with an hour from the heat of the Field to be spent in no harder Service than learning their Prayers with other necessary parts of Religion at rest and under the cool shade A priviledg never like to be obtained for them whilst the World is so rivetted in our Peoples Hearts who would they but be less good natur'd to themselves might find as great Instances it may be much greater of untractableness and stupidity even at Home and amongst Englishmen who yet
here where most of their subsistance is imported from Foraign parts would be enough to prevent all such Attempts 4. But were our security against such fears greater and the danger less yet I must confess I am not for forcing but persuading our People thereto by good Sermons and Pious Books preached and wrote upon that Subject And no less by encouragements from the Government where it ought to begin to both Ministers and People who should be most forward and industrious therein 'T is I know out of Fashion with the English to prefer Men for Religion but only for Craft and Wealth which is the cause that things do so happily succeed with us Whereas the holy Scripture as also the practice of the wiser Heathen will teach us that the Magistrates properest qualifications are Piety and Temperance such only as feared God Men of Truth and that hated Covetousness being to be advanced to that Dignity Now if this course were taken besides that it would cut off all pretences for Stirs and Commotions this design could not fail of making a considerable progress in a very short time Especiall knowing how grateful a thing Power and Honour is to our thriving Planters and how Ambitious they are to catch at every shadow of Title or Preferment 5. But next thereto will be the procuring that this Impiety be taken notice of and decried at Home especially in London where they have an extraordinary Ambition to be thought well of This alone if well understood and for some time carefully kept up and managed would operate and strike deeper into them than even St. Paul's 14 Epistles together with the Sermons and Comments thereupon of a thousand Years past and to come 6. Yet since that this last must in all likelihood be difficult to be brought about to any great purpose our old English Zeal being so much abated I shall go a nearer way to work and propose some few things which shall concern 1. The Ministers 2. The People 7. Concerning the Ministers and here my Brethren will I hope take no offence their Infirmity and Failure herein being so long since proclaimed by the Pen of that Quaker I shall propose first That each Minister invested with the cure of Souls be in his particular Station strictly obliged once at least each Month to press this Duty from a suitable Text unto his charge not omitting the same at other times But Secondly That above all things they be especially Exemplary therein in their own Families by Instructing and Catechizing their Slaves and in due time admitting them to the Sacrament of Baptism 8. Concerning the People I shall propose only That each Owner possessed of a baptized Slave be obliged to allow him the free and full Exercise of Religion without compelling or suffering him to practise his former Gentilism And that to hinder a Slave from being Baptized or to molest any Minister for doing that charitable Office or after this to deny him the Exercise of Religion should be a present and absolute release to the said Slave for ever 9. But then in order hereto it would be convenient and even highly necessary that the Ministers I speak not this for my self as having no such Charge and being resolved so to continue till they be freed from their Vestry dependences by a sufficient Maintenance for which the alone restitution of their Glebes would in some places suffice and settled in their Benefices for Life For otherwise they shall pass their time in perpetual fear of offending and to be afterwards Checkt and Starved for conscienciously discharging their Duty For what Encouragement is it for Men to put themselves into the Public Service and venture their Lives and endure Misery when they shall but thereby deprive themselves of those Opportunities which others at Home shall seize of which perchance they were certain had they been present And after this to be lookt upon but as Vagabonds at their return And that there be some Regard had and provision made for them of at least a Subsistence upon their return after some convenient time into England The Missionaries into Mary-land being as I have heard always sent for after 4 Years continuance there their Superiours thinking it too unreasonable to oblige them to a longer abode There being not the simplest Curate there whose hopes without any hazard are not greater than they can possibly be supposed here And it being against reason that any innocent Man should as if for some great Villany be condemned to perpetual Exile amongst a People utter Enemies to his Profession and even worse than Strangers And lastly That some one Person or more be constituted as Agents for each Colony to represent the grievances of the Church and Ministers to the Government in England it having been hitherto found to very little purpose to make Complaints here I speak not this as reflecting so much on the Place as the usage For as the Poet wisht Neque enim miser esse recuso Sed precor ut possim tutius esse miser Witness that Scoff of some Members of the c. in reply to the Ministers Petition bidding them for shame to put it up in their Pockets least the Quakers whose abuses they complained of should see it and laugh at them which was all the Redress they then did or are since like to get Besides all this it would be but just that all Scoffs at Religion should be prohibited upon severest Penalties That our Slaves Polygamy with their Sunday-work be restrained no less to those that remain Heathens than to such as shall become Christians That so that filthy Lucre which is indeed the same with Theft or Sacriledg may be no longer a temptation for continuing them Heathens nor their being Heathens be made a pretence for that Irreligion Which preparations being once made and without them all will be nothing the work afterwards will go on smooth and easie and even in a short time prosper into a Perfection As ere this it might have done had not the opposition of such who believe that Labour may well enough be performed without Religion stood in the way 10. Nor will the generality of the People be disatisfied therewith when they shall understand it to be not more their Duty than their Interest Some few of them having been discoursed already into this acknowledgment That in regard Religion would be apt to create a Conscience in their Slaves it might be convenient in order to make them the truer Servants If this were frequently inculcated unto the many with the hopes of other advantages together inspired into them no doubt the Majority would soon be wrought into a Compliance and even the rest observing the blessed Fruits thereof would become less sturdy in their Opposition Nor can the Government be other than pleased thereat considering the great security it will above all other Interest assuredly reap thereby § II. n. 1. Wherefore Be strong O Zerubbabel saith the Lord and be strong
Rebellion represented in a Letter to Sir W. B. then Governour thereof THat I have made bold to present unto your Excellency this * Then intended to be made public but for other reasons here omitted mean Discourse exposed to public view more of Necessity and to vindicate my self than of choice is because it may no less need your Patronage than the Author himself did during his abode in that your Province of Virginia A Colony that may be said wholly to owe it self to your Excellency made happy by your Prudent Government as being the Prime if not the only Raiser of her to her present Greatness having first rescued her from most imminent and apparent Destruction whilst by your noble and wise Conduct you not only broke the force of the Common Enemy but so utterly subdued as to extinguish in them all hopes and to destroy the very Seeds of any future Disturbance which might arise through their Occasion And having like a tender Father nourished and preserved that Colony in her Infancy and Non-age you carefully guarded her ever since having scarce set Foot off that Soil for well near these forty Years Under whose Tutelage she is now almost grown Adult needing no assistance from but rather able to afford some to her Mother Country So that we may without Assentation affirm that your Excellency hath been no less a Sanctuary to Virginia in her distress than Virginia hath been unto others Which tho she hath happily since outgrown yet your Excellency doth not cease still to make evident proof of your Innate Affection to her yearly expending your proper Income and Revenue for the good of her paying her much more Credit and Support than you receive thereby demonstrating that the only reward you desire and wish is that she may thrive and prosper But as our Blessed Saviour once said to the young Man in the Gospel Yet lackest thou one thing to be perfect so may we and I fear too truly say of Virginia that there is one thing the Propagation and Establishing of Religâ—â—n in her wanting which if by your Excellencies Piety added would make your Name great and your Memory glorious no less than that place which hath so long been the Seat of your Government Happy For there is no pious Eye nor Heart can consider the great Neglect shall I say or rather contempt of Religion there without resolving it self into Sighs and Tears It is most certain that there are many Families who have never been present at any public Exercise of Religion since their Importation into that Colony The Ministers also are most miserably handled by their Plebeian Junto's the Vesteries To whom the Hiring that is the usual word there and Admission of Ministers is solely left And there being no Law obliging them to any more than to procure a Lay-Reader to be obtained at a very moderate rate They either resolve to have none at all or reduce them to their own Terms that is to use them how they please pay them what they list and to discard them whensoever they have a mind to it And this is the recompence of their leaving their hopes in England far more considerable to the meanest Curate than whatever can possibly be apprehended there together with their Friends and Relations and their Native Soil to venture their Lives into those parts amongst Strangers and Enemies to their Profession who look upon them as a Burden as being with their Families where they have any to be supported out of their Labour So that I dare boldly aver that our Discouragements there are much greater than ever they were here in England under the Vsurpers I shall to avoid tediousness and multiplicity of Examples Instance only in their being hired from Year to Year and made to accept of Parishes at under Rates which I think was never practised in those Times especially upon such as were approved by their own Laws and conformable to their Government which those Ministers now in Virginia in all things are to the Government there Sir I would not be thought to speak this out of any design to disparage the Place It being a Country so Fruitful and withal so Pleasant especially towards the Southern parts as Carolina c. that I do prefer it before England in many things but may justly equal it thereto in all Those only excepted which Time and multitudes of People must produce Only I cannot but think it great pity that a Region so richly furnished with Blessings of the Left should so much want those more necessary ones of the Right-Hand Much less would I herein be thought to reflect upon your Excellency who have always professed a great tenderness for Church-Men For alas these things are kept from your Ears nor dare the Ministers had they opportunity acquaint you with them for fear of being used worse And there being no Superiour Clergyman neither in Council nor in any place of Authority for them to address their Complaints to and by his means have their Grievances brought to your Excellencie's knowledg they are left without Remedy Besides their Adversaries have that usual craft of underhand blasting their Fame and charging them with Litigiousness which is nothing else but a suing for their own or prepossessing your Excellency with forged Stories either by themselves invented or known to be as False as the best Evidence can make them But yet when thereby a secret Prejudice is conceived against them and the cause unknown they find it impossible to redeem their Reputations with your Excellency But Dat veniam Corvis vexat censura Columbas For where any thing is truly Chargeable as is frequent amongst their leaden Lay-Priests of the Vesteries ordination * How true this is may be gathered from the Story of a certain Writing-Master who came into Virginia first as Bishop thereof but that not taking he professed himself Doctor of Divinity and wore a Scarlet Hood in the Pulpit going by the name of Dr. Dacres and shewing Orders under that Name But being discovered hath since changed that Name to Acworth yet to this hour continues his Preaching and Doctorship if alive which lately he was which make up near two thirds of the Preachers and is both the shame and grief of the rightly Ordained Clergie there Nothing of this ever reaches your Excellencie's Ear Those hungry Patrons knowing better how to make benefit by their Vices than by the Vertues of the other The Laws also which are transmitted hither to invite the Subjects into those Parts are many of them so intricate and obscure not to say contradictory and â—â—llacious that they seem rather to be Traps and Pit-fals than Laws I shall instance in two The first is That wherein Servitude for four Years is made the penalty of accepting of anothers Kindness if I may so term it that is for permitting ones self to be Transported gratis when with much seeming Curtesie and Importunity offered unto them For thereby the Party whether