faithful Israelites with which it will be replenished thro the numerous and large access unto it from these Nations The happy fruit and benefit whereof will redound as well to the Sower as to the Reaper For God is not unrighteous that he should forget our Work and Labour that proceedeth of Love which we have or shall shew for his Name and his Gospel's Sake Nor can any one lay out his Endeavours to greater Advantages either of the increase of God's Kingdom the glory of Christianity or the good of Mens Souls If we consider the vast multitudes of these Nations the greatness of their danger and their both aptness and readiness to embrace Christianity if duly applyed to them For as Acosta hath proclaimed it to the World long since Indorum Aethiopum certè copiosissimam paratissimam segetem cernimus neque aliud quam falcem Evangelicam expectantem Alacritate admirabili sese Coelorum regno aptissimam proclamantem invidorum segnium calumnias facile propulsantem operarios ipsos laetissime allicientem multitudine ubertate oculos omnium ad sese atque animos convertentem c. Which is no less true of them in every particular even at this very day could we be persuaded to use the means and to set about it But Oh! as the same Author doth most passionately lament tho with infinite less cause than we have here When will it come to pass that Men will cease to be Men When c. This will be the true removal of the Accursed thing the putting away those Baalims and Ashtaroths the false Gods and the false Religions that are amongst us The dismission of the captivated Ark The true Brazen Serpent to our Israel deriving Health to our Bodies and Prosperity to our Nation and the alone means both to secure and promote our Interest in those parts This will be the means to rid our Country of those Vermin and Diseases the Mice and Emerods that do so vex our Persons and mar our Land This the repairing of the Breaches and the rebuilding the shattered Walls of our Jerusalem And we no longer deferring to give to the God of Israel the Glory due unto his Name he will lighten his hands from off us and from off our Gods and from off our Land Lastly This will be to comply with our daily Prayers viz. That God's Name may be hallowed and his ways made known unto all Nations and Conditions of Men therein and that all Jews Turks Hereticks and Infidels may be converted to the Faith and saved among the remnant of the true Israelites And without which our Prayers are but a very Mockery and an Affront to the Diety unto whom they are presented Which whosoever utters cannot but at the same time be inwardly convinced of that Pharisaical Hypocricy which our blessed Lord so severely rebuked of drawing nigh unto God with his Mouth and honouring him with his Lips whilst his Heart is far from him and for which Exore tuo will be his Judgment and Condemnation Out of thine own-mouth will I judg thee thou wicked and slothful Servant To conclude It is the nature of God to do the good as saith St. Dionysius the Areopagite Every one then that will be like unto him must first fall to the Imitation of him One of the Fathers hath this Note That the Salvation of Man was Opus dignum Deo an Imployment not unbecoming God himself It cannot then be beneath even the best of us And there is a saying of S. Chrysostom to this purpose That for a Man to know the Art of Alms was more than to be crowned with the Diadem of Kings but to convert one Soul unto God was more than to pour out ten thousand Talents into the Baskets of the poor And if the Conversion of a very few unto Christ be worth the labour of many all their days what must it then be to be the Instruments and Means of converting so many Solomon ascribes the Epithet of Wise to those that win Souls And saith the Prophet Daniel They that be wise 't is Teachers in the Margent shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and they that turn many to Righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever And S. James makes it almost meritorious Let him know saith he that he that converteth a Sinner from the Error of his way shall save a Soul from Death and shall hide a multitude of Sins I shall end all with that devout Prayer of Syracides for the Conversion of the Heathen Ecclus. 36. 1 c. Have Mercy upon us O Lord God of all and behold us And send thy fear upon all the Nations that seek not after thee Lift up thy hand against the strange Nations and let them see thy power As thou wasty sanctified in us before them so be thou magnified among them before us And let them know thee as we have known thee that there is no God but only thou O Lord. Shew new Signs and make other strange Wonders glorify thy Hand and thy right Arm that they may set forth thy wonderous Works Raise up Indignation and pour out Wrath take away the Adversary and destroy the Enemies of thy Truth Make the time short remember the Covenant and let them declare thy wondrous Works Smite in sunder the Heads of those that say There is none other but we and let them perish that oppress thy People O be merciful to Jerusalem thy holy City the place of thy Rest Fill Sion that it magnify thine Oracles and thy People that they may set forth thy Glory Give Testimony to those whom thou hast possessed from the beginning and raise up Prophets that may speak in thy Name and let thy Prophets be found faithful O Lord hear the Prayer of thy Servants according to the Blessing of Aaron over thy People that all they which dwell upon the Earth may know that thou art the Lord the Eternal God Amen FINIS Rom. 14. 15 20. Esther 4. 14. Howell's Fam. Letters Vol. 1. §. 3. Lett. 33. * Acts 13. 6 7 c. Bar-Jesus or Elymas did oppose Christianity as not believing it but these whilst they profess it do yet oppose it Prov. 31. 8. * Alienus ab ira alienus à justitia Psal 39. 3. Job 13. 13. Mic. 3. 8. Isa 62. 6 7. St. Mat. 21. 28. St. Luke 18. 5. * Viz. In the Negro's and Indian's Advocate p. 111. * See Mr. Ricaut's Maxims of the Turkish Policy wherein he often mentions the Turks Zeal to promote their Faith Also Pet. Daniel in his History of Barbary tells us That the Turks will shew you kindness to make you embrace their Religion Pag. 308 309 310. 311. Quest By what Authority or Law he could do this to that or any other Person * In his Temple If the Negro knew his Priviledg he need not to desire Baptism for the obtaining of his freedom *
occasion to magnify that King 's spacious Dominions He in answer thereto was pleased to reply That 't was true God had entrusted him with divers Nations and Countries but that his Advantage thereby was to have opportunity to propagate Christian Religion It is to be presumed that as Your Majesty's Dominions in the Parts we speak of are in extent not much short of perhaps a great deal larger than that Princes So your Majesty's Piety will not suffer You to be wanting to Your Self and People in reaping the like blessed and glorious Advantage thereby So prayeth The most unworthy and meanest of Your Majesty's Subjects MORGAN GODWYN The PREFACE I Cannot but foresee that I shall fall under no small danger of Censure as well for my first preaching as now publishing this Discourse For besides the sinister Surmises of divers here at home such who like the Curr in the Manger will neither eat Oats themselves nor suffer those that would I must also look to undergo as far as is possible the utmost Effects of the Rage and Malice of those incensed MAMMONISTS from abroad who I am to expect will not fail by their Agents and Partizans to dispense to me the sharpest Revenge and Mischief that such Enemies of Christianity can contrive against a Promoter of it And when they thus see me upon taking away their Gods it will be but a very sensless and unreasonable Question to demand What aileth them But as there was no temptation from the thing it self as being likely to prove so invidious and costly an Undertaking what I have but too much already felt and it being on the behalf of such who are never like to make me any amends and I am sure that no body else will So I hope that others better disposed will in charity which thinketh not the worst rather believe that what I have herein attempted doth proceed from no worse Motive than from a sense of my Duty as not knowing otherwise what I yet knew was most necessary how to reprove the BARJESVITISM and base Mammonism so openly practised in our Plantations and even at Home too of which I shall presently give some Instances At least certainly I can deserve no blame for thus opening my Mouth for the Dumb and becoming their Advocate who are appointed to Eternal Destruction For that I have as it were put my Life in my hand to oppose those Elymas's who do not cease to pervert the right Ways of the Lord and to obstruct Christianity when no body else either durst or would And since the more Learned and Prudent who never use to lay out themselves but to some purpose and this 't is too well known known is but a barren Theme had hitherto been silent therein that I thought it no disparagement to become a Fool for Christ's sake and conceived that it might better be done by me than not at all These in truth were my Reasons in general for this Undertaking but there was withal a more particular And that was hereby if possible to put some stop to and to abate the arrogant and proud vauntings of that new Sect of American Anti-Religionists the Barjesuits and Elymases before mentioned for their Victory over Christianity by LVCYfer and his fellow Agents here sometime since obtain'd which very triumphantly like pure uncircumcised Pagans pardon the Expression for in this Case Difficile est Satyram non scribere and not to be angry had been to sin they have not forborn to publish in the Houses of their Idols if I may so speak and by insulting Letters to set forth in their Assemblies therein proclaiming how they have worsted Christianity and for ever quash'd all future hopes of advancing its Crest and of further entrance into those Parts A most glorious Victory doubtless it was and which none besides the Devil and themselves but would have been ashamed to have boasted of A Victory where there was no Adversary to contend with and of which as the case stood if they could but talk considently and affirm lustily without blushing they could not easily fail Upon this I could no longer be silent but as the Holy Psalmist expresseth himself My heart grew hot within me and the fire was kindled and at the last I spake with my Tongue declaring from the Pulpit as oft as I had opportunity what I have now delivered from the Press I considered the thing as a Duty indispensible and having before put my hand to the Plow I determined not to look back Yet I must confess I attended a while to see whether any abler Advocate would appear in the Cause and happily have saved me both the trouble and the envy of it But when I had thus waited and could see no appearance of any no not at the greatest distance for they were all amazed they answered no more they left off speaking or rather we may say did never begin it was not in my power to refrain but I resolved that I would answer for my part I would speak on God's behalf I would open my mouth and answer let come on it what would But he that ploweth should plow in hope as saith the Apostle Now to what purpose is it to speak further hereof since so slender Advances have been hitherto made therein by what has been before spoken will some be apt to demand And indeed it was the Advice of one when I first adventured upon this Work never to trouble my self about it for said he Tho your Design be never so Christian and good yet the least grain of Interest lying in the way shall quite ruin and overthrow it And I wish his words had proved less true But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord to tell Jacob of his Transgression and Israel of his Sin as saith the Prophet Micah And Isaiah tells us That the Watchmen upon the Walls of Jerusalem were not to hold their peace notwithstanding the greatest discouragements day nor night nor to give even the Almighty himself any rest until he had established and made Jerusalem a praise in the whole Earth Rather the deafer Men are the louder we are to cry For Truth however opprest will have some Followers The sturdy Youth in the Gospel that at first did so peremptorily refuse to go and work in his Father's Vineyard afterwards repented and went And even the unjust Judg by much importunity and for his own quiet was we read at length wrought upon to hearken to the Widow's complaint and to do her right And tho these we speak of have had this untoward Character viz. of being such who will do no right nor take any wrong fixed upon them yet who knows how far our Assiduity may in like manner prevail At least 't is certain we have no Dispensation for our silence For truly unto this most unchristian Silence must in a great measure be ascribed the large spreading of this Leprosy of
Irreligion and Gentilism hither Now if the cause of this their so great spite against Christianity and cruelty to the Souls of Men even of their own Slaves who wear out their days in perpetual toil and labour for them should be enquired into it would not be easy to give a suddain Resolution Some indeed here at home have been ready to form Excuses for them and to urge the danger of loosing their Slave by his admittance to Baptism But this certainly cannot be the true Cause at least as to those parts I my self was accidentally present at the signing of an Act of Assembly by the Governor of Virginia for the Security of this Interest The like Laws I have been assured were enacted in the rest of the Plantations And Sir Robert Southwell upon some discourse about this very thing some five Years since was pleased to inform me That he had heard the late Lord Chancellor Finch declare that he did not know of any Law now in force in England or words to that effect whereby a Slave was released from Servitude by Baptism And certainly he if any Man must have known it Others will tell us that Christianity will make them more crafty and cunning and withal more tumultuous and rebellious But this Argument equally fights against Christianity in all other places and renders it intollerable to all Conditions and Degrees alike as well to Freemen as Slaves and at Home as well as Abroad and at this rate it must be banished out of the World Others again are ready to suggest the Factors of Jackatra's Reason But what have Slaves to do with buying and selling who have nothing of their own to dispose of So that if the Reason were good and of force against other freer Gentiles not to mention that Christians ought not upon any account whatsoever to put themselves into a condition or course of Life which carries with it an inevitable necessity of perpetual sinning against God yet it makes nothing against our Negro-Slaves admittance to Christianity So that for my part I can deduce this cursed aversion in our Planters from no other cause than from their brutish and Atheistical temper which they are willing to shift off and to excuse with such Pretences as knowing how easily they will be here swallowed To this I might add that filthy Principle which I think is almost universally received and currant amongst them That whatever conduceth to the getting of Mony and carrying on of Trade must certainly be lawful As to instance in their trapanning and spiriting Men out of England with sugar Promises of large kindness to be exhibited to them at their arrival in those Parts whilst at the very instant they intend nothing else but to expose them to sale and to make Slaves of them at least for some term of Years This with other the like practices I have heard justified and defended and that by Persons who appeared very honest Men for those Places and that withal would seem to have at least some little sense of Religion above their Neighbours for a great deal would quite undo them who yet because they never hear them contradicted may possibly be perswaded of their lawfulness And by the same Principle I suspect it may be that even those do permit Polygamy to their Slaves and also put them upon a necessity of labouring upon Sundays to prevent their starving all the Week after Now all this must in a very great measure be ascribed to their want of being at first better instructed and their not having the contrary Doctrines often inculcated to them as well from the Pulpit as elsewhere These Tares were sown whilst the Watchmen slept or possibly when there were none at all Then they grew up and got strength and took deep root and now it is thought too late to weed them up Which notwithstanding I must affirm to be beyond all peradventure their strickest Duty And the total omission whereof for I never heard it mentioned will one day prove a sharper Thorn in their Sides than that innocent Paper which some have by Letters to England so fiercely complained of Thereby as it were strengthening the hands of those wicked Men as the Prophet speaks and hardening them in their evil way Who instead of encouraging do talk of nothing but the difficulty of the thing when not one has as I could ever hear of so much as tried or endeavoured it no not in their own Families For this had been to invite a heavy Persecution not of Fire and Faggot but which is much worse of being sleighted and neglected in their ordinary Treats and Invitations To have been look'd upon askew by their Patrons and Grandees of the Vestries to have had some Affronts put upon them and to be a little wondered at by the World All of them very worthy Pretences for those should glory in such Sufferings and rejoice that they were accounted worthy thereof that by their exemplary patience under the greatest Pressures should instil Resolution and Courage into others and not only be contented to suffer but to die for the Cause of Christ Which this certainly is if ever there were any such It is indeed difficult as some have made it but surely not so difficult as it was when Christianity was every where spoken against and the whole World was set to oppose it being not befriended by Authority nor having so much as one single Person to countenance or stand by the Promoters of it It is indeed more difficult than could be wished at least to be gone thorow with at present But yet methinks something might be endeavoured if but for the good it has done and to shew our good will towards it And something also might as certainly be effected were it but set about and suitable means used for its carrying on Nothing of which besides the besprinkling of it with a few good Words the precious holy Water of the Times that I know of was ever yet attempted or offered at Some indeed have bespoke it as a very Apostolick Work and a worthy Design Whom I should believe to have been serious and in earnest could they but have kept their Countenances whilst they spoke So that to use the Prophet's Language I may say When I looked there was none to help and I wondered that there was none to uphold And whilst divers do in plain down-right terms determine it to be wholly needless or if at all needful yet no way to concern us those Elimases in the mean time are not wanting with their utmost industry to oppose it as a most wicked Work But it was St. Paul's case at whose first Answer he complaineth that no Man stood with him but that all forsook him for whom yet he prayeth God that that Sin might not be laid to their charge What Advantages our Adversaries do reap hereby and how they make this Neglect as a Shoeing-horn to draw on their Proselytes is not
in the Law These having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the works of the Law written in their Hearts their Conscience also bearing witness and their Thoughts between themselves accusing or excusing one another And now this being considered what right can we have thus fiercely to declaim against these Mahometans concerning whom were St. Paul alive to determine the matter if but for their Zeal for their Religion even false as it is in respect of our selves he no doubt would pronounce them Saints So that to bring down this Text to Christianity and our own times we are the Jerusalem therein charged and in our Skirts also is this Blood most eminently discernable And when God shall arise to make Inquisition for it as most certainly he will at our Hands it must be required For we are the Watchmen which should have warned those wicked Men from their evil ways the Sword came and we have not blown the Trumpet nor warned the People and therefore their Blood must be upon our Heads And then it must needs go hard with us and that chiefly upon the score of that abundant Light and Knowledg and that Purity of Religion we so much boast in For Atrocius sub sanctinomine peccamus saith one and that Servant which knew his Masters will but did it not shall be beaten with many Stripes saith our Blessed Lord. And you only have I known of all the Families of the Earth therefore will I punish you for all your Iniquities saith God by his Prophet And who knoweth but that our prophane Silence and unchristian connivance thus long together at those Spiritual Murthers and Soul-depredations are the very accursed thing which hath caused us hitherto not to prosper And that for this our supine and shameful neglect of Religion and that when those Elymas's abroad and their wicked Agents here Those Enemies I say of Righteousness that do not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord those Soul-Merchants that in the very Letter of the Text do tread under Foot the Son of God and as it were crucify him afresh and put him to an open shame and that account his Blood an unholy thing and do each hour do dispite unto the Spirit of Grace I say when these like Eli's lewd Sons have made themselves vile by the Blood of so many Innocent Souls and we restrained them not no not by Word or Writing and so far at least to have vindicated God's Honour and Truth against them Who I say knows but for this Our God hath hitherto put us to Silence and given us Water of Gaul to drink and that when we looked for Peace no good came and for a time of Health and behold Trouble And that he hath sent those Serpents and Cockatrices among us which will not be charmed and that he hath hedged up our way with Thorns and caused all our Mirth to cease That he hath set us against each other every one against his Brother and against his Neighbour yea City against City and even these against themselves And that our Spirit doth fail in the midst of us That God hath destroyed our Counsels and mingled a perverse Spirit in the midst of us and hath caused us to err in every work and that we are afraid even in our selves And then might it not to be demanded of us as our Prophet here doth of Jerusalem Hast thou not procured this unto thy self in that thou hast forsaken the Lord when he led thee by the way and had done such great things for thee I shall not here stand to enquire how agreeable to Christianity which commands us First to seek the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and then afterwards to look after other less necessary things a Precept very idle and ridiculous amongst this sort of Christians Nor how suitable the pretence of Trade and Commerce is to that undergoing of the Cross and self-denial and to that condition of forsaking all by our Lord prescribed to all his Followers but shall only observe that if St. Peter was by the same meekest Lord termed a Devil for his too carnal respecting not his own but the same blessed Masters outward Ease and Tranquility to the prejudice of the World's Salvation he will certainly for ever disclaim those Mammonists who prefer their Trade and their Merchandise before him as unworthy of him And if Job's Inference be good that to make Gold our Hope is to deny the God that is above doubtless their Christianity must be very desperate who do the same by their Trade Christ will one day deny all such denyers of him before his Father and the Holy Angels Wherefore since God hath signed this eternal Precept of Blood for Blood and hath as it were sworn That he will require the Blood of our Lives at the Hand of every Man's Brother yea and of the very Beasts too and hath also in several places no less positively declared That no satisfaction shall be accepted for the Life of a Murtherer and that a Land defiled with Blood cannot be cleansed of it but by the Blood of him that did shed it all which is to be referred only to the Body What Punishment can we suppose answerable to this so much more horrid Crime of murthering of Souls If Blood for Blood and Life for Life must go for the one certainly then Soul for Soul here is the least that can be required How long Lord God holy and true dost thou not judg and avenge our Blood upon them that dwell upon the Earth was the incessant cry of the Souls under the Altar And Abel's Blood is said to have pursued Cain to his very Grave 't is certain it cryed for vengeance against him And yet 't was but Abel's Body not his Soul that was murthered Had Cain been guilty of this Lamech's revengeful hand had made but a very defective and sorry expiation The Brimstone-lake must then have been his Portion as undoubtedly it will be of all impenitent Murtherers of Souls And then How will those Mammonists remain in the gaul of Bitterness and in the bond of Iniquity And our Apostats and Hypocrites be confounded and tremble when they shall most sensibly feel themselves perishing together with their impious Money which was the price of Souls And then they shall be admirably convinc'd that they were but Fools indeed for thus determining their Hopes and fixing their whole expectation upon the things of this Life for the getting whereof they sinned against their own and murthered their Peoples Souls And finally they shall be pronounced Children of the Devil because Enemies of Righteousness that is of the Gospel And Christ himself whom they thereby have so Impudently affronted and denied not ignorantly and as the Jews who knew not what they did shall speak them into an Hell as black as that