never Show themselves more Devils than when they push men on to Drunkenness To Assist and Excite Others unto such a Sin truly it looks very Diabolical If you plead That you don't compel the Indians to Drink 't is answer enough unto the plea That you Permit them you Invite them and you know that if you Sell your Drink to them they will be Drunk with it and they Buy it with that Intention You must therefore know That there is An having Fellowship with the Sins of other men Eph 5. 11. And 1 Tim. 5. 22 A being partaker of other mens Sins by which you may contract an infinite Guilt unto your selves When you supply the Indians with the Drink wherewith you are sensible they will immediately Debauch themselves You have a criminal Fellowship with the Sins of their Drunkenness you are criminal partakers of the Sins whereinto they will be betray'd by their Drunkenness The Gospel of God commands you Tit. 2. 12. To Live Soberly And that commandment requires you to promote Sobriety among your Neighbours the Indians as well as others The Gospel of God Instructs you Gal 5. 23. The Fruit of the Spirit is Temperance And that Instruction directs you to help your Neighbours to be Temperate the Indians as well as others The Gospel cautions you Eph. 5. 18. Be not Drunk and the Caution Forbids your being an Instrument of Drunkenness unto others even unto the Indians Drunkenness is indeed a Complicated Sin If one should Enquire which of the Ten Precepts in the Law of God are violated by Drunkenness we may say All the Ten as well as the Third And indeed it not only unfits men to keep all the Laws of God but also Inclines men to Break them all If the Indians Transgress all the Laws of God by being Drunk Then You O unhappy Drink sellers are also Transgressors of all those Laws in the Drunkenness of the Indians whereto you have so directly contributed And for the English to do thus unto the Indians is a Fault that has its peculiar Aggravations Our Christian Profession obliges us yea and it has been our most Explicit Profession in these our American Settlements To Civilize and Christianize the Salvages And is this the Christianity that you Teach them Syrs Even the Drunkenness which they never Learn't or Saw till you pretended Christians Taught it unto them They were Salvages before some few Rational men among them do bitterly complain of it that by the Drunkenness got in among them they are made yet more Salvages A Drunken Indian what is he but a very Centaur I pray What are you then that make them so If our Lord Jesus Christ could say Wo to you that make a man twofold more the Child of Hell Think of it Syrs The Indians were the Children of Hell before but by their Drunkenness they are twofold more so for we are expresly told Drunkards shall not Inherit the Kingdom of God Now what a dreadful symptom of your own Exclusion from that Kingdom do you procure unto your selves and whose Children will you declare your selves at last by the Assistance that you give unto the Drunkenness of those that are thereby confirmed in their having the Devil for their Father Wo to you that make Indians twofold more the Children of Hell Satan had a Strong Hold of these doleful Tawnies before but by the Drunkenness wherein you by your Strong Drink support them there is no small Strength added thereunto he holds them in the faster Chains of Darkness Truly Syrs I will deal Freely with you and you are a sort of Offenders with whom the Sharpest Rebukes can't be said to deal Harshly no Freedome is to be counted Harshness One well says To Complement Vice is next to Worshipping of the Devil This miscarriage of yours must not be Complemented The best that can be said of it is That you do no little Service for the Devil in what you do There are Numberless Mischiefs that unavoidably follow upon the Drunkenness wherein the Indians by your means confound themselves Even all the Woes of Drunkenness There is what is as bad as Rats bane in the Drink that you Sell unto them There 's Death in the pot They are Spoilt for all Employment and Business and they that would not work before now cannot work their Drunkenness has made them Good for nothing Their Health is Lost and they often perish by other Disasters in their Drunkenness confuting the Lying Proverb A Drunken man gets no harm Especially when they are Drowned in Strong Drink their Drink very frequently proves the occasion of their Drowning in the Water Yea some of them have been Tragically Burnt to Death going from the Tortures of one Fire to another And more than all This 'T is an usual thing for their Drunkenness to put them upon Bloody Quarrels and those have sometimes issued in Bloody Murders There may be a fearful Cry of Blood against you beyond what you are aware for the Drink that you have Sold. The paltry bit of Money that you have taken for a bottel of Rum or a pot of Cyder may be the price of Blood Fearful to be spoken All these Mischiefs Ly at your Door Ye Miserables who Sell unto them the Drink that will certainly Open the Door to these Mischiefs You are Accessary to them All. Can you think of it without some Astonishment But there is what is yet more Astonishing The Glorious Gospel of God is made wofully Unsuccessful among the Indians especially by this Vice of Drunkenness getting in so much among them The Gospel which forbids Drunkenness under the dreadfullest penalties imaginable how can it be welcome unto a Generation of Drunkards There have been and yet are Churches among our Indians and Peantamapaug as they call themselves or men professing Religion and if I mistake not there are at this Time above Thirty Assemblies of Indians tho' small ones in one of our Provinces that meet for the Worship of the Lord Jesus Christ But it is the Lamentation of all Vertuous men who behold it and even of the Indians themselves That the Evangelical Work is in extream Danger of coming to nothing The Good Order in their Churches is Languishing The Christian Religion it self is like to be lost among them That Great Work which has been the Glory of New England and which already too much comes too Little is like e're long utterly to Expire and Vanish and indeed the Decayes that have already prevailed upon it are Deplorable Yea I tremble to write what I have lately Read That some Old men among the Indians affirm that when they were Heathens many of them were not such great Villians as they are since they were Christians Now You Sellers of Drink to these Indians are the cause of all this Wretchedness 'T is the concurrent sense of all who have any knowledge of the Indian Affayrs That except a stop can be given unto your Ungodly Trade of Selling Drink unto
A Monitory and Hortatory LETTER To those ENGLISH who debauch the Indians By Selling Strong Drink unto them Written at the Desire of some CHRISTIANS to whom the Mischiefs arising from that Wise Trade are matters of much Apprehension and Lamentation Inter omnes Barbarorum morbos quibus Levandis atâ—e tollendis invigilare debet Christiani Rectoris Proviâ—ntia nullus out communior aut Perniciosior autam ad Curandum Difficilior Ebrietate Hornbeck de convers Indor Ex Acosta De industria pernicies tanta conceditur imo vero atetitur propter privatas nescio quas Commoditates Alij â—â—dorum operas Larga Ebrietate concessa sibi conciliantâ— Alij non Solum bibere sinunt verum ipsi quoque temuâ—â—iam propinant Neque tam turpis infamisque quaestus â—â—â—et gladium ultro porrigentes insano Atque baeo â—â—ri factitant Lucrumque ex animarum interitu Captant Acosta L. 3. C. 22 Boston N. E. Printed in the Year 1700. To E. B. Esq SIR YOUR Zeal to Suppress Vice and particularly the growing and grievents Vice of Drunkenness is very Laudable God who so Accepted Rewarded the Zealous Phinehas will not let it go without Reward But while as a Minister of God You Employ the Sword of Justice to punish Drunkenness both in the English and the Indians You do with Holy Sorrow complain of it that You cannot Reform the English of their Impiety in feeding the Lust of Drunkenness among the Indians You had an Hope it seems that some Offenders whom the Sword of Justice cannot reach may be reach'd by the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God Your Desire to one who would approve himself a Minister of God in another Order that he would write therefore a Letter to those Offenders is here answered The Writing of Episiles is indeed an Ancient and an Usesu way to Do Good continued even to this Day in the Churches of the Faithful And for the Rulers to ask the Help of the Pastors thus to Do Good is an Example that has many charms in it If You judge This may Do Good among those who in deed are a sort of Sinners that cannot be too Coarsely or too Warmly address'd it is entirely Left unto Your Wisdom to Disperse it How and Where you please among them TO THE ENGLISH Who Ruine the INDIANS by Selling Strong Drink unto them HOW unaccountably O Unadvised neighbours And how much to our Sorrow and our Horror is that Observation of the Sacred Scripture verified The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil When to get so Little Money as is to be got by it so Much Evil is committed as we hear see that some of you commit upon the Miserable INDIANS 'T is well known that the Indians which yet remain in the Land now to better purpose possessed and occupied by the English in the room of the Twenty Nations of the Indians that once covered it were utterly destitute of all Intoxicating Liquors before the Arrival of the English hither The Soveraign God who hath provided for our Support in our Frailty Liquid Cordials and Refreshments of all sorts besides Wines on the Lees well refined furnished Them with nothing but Water out of the Brook and this to be handed unto their mouths not in Glasses but in Clam Shells But as Drunkenness is most rare in some Countreys that most abound with a variety of the Richest Wines wherewith men are easily Drunk so on the other side there are none that Rave more after Strong Drink than the people of those Countreys that have it from far brought unto them and perhaps the Ravingest after it of any Wretches under the cope of Heaven are our American Salvages They will Sell and Pawn all they have in the world for Strong Drink they never can tell when they have enough but keep guzling until they have Drunk themselves down and when they Awake whatever it have cost them they say I will seek it yet again That which now gives inexpressible pain to all Good Men among us is That there are some Ill Men among the English in all corners of the Land who to obtain a little bit of Money do fit this vicious drunken sottish Humour of the Indians and Sell them the Drink by which they cannot but think the Salvages will make themselves Drunk and sometimes they take Advantage of the Humour which the Salvages are in to Scrue them into Bargains full of cruel Oppression and Extortion which afterwards throw them into the extreamest Inconveniencies I dare not Relate how many Tuns of Strong Drink I am credibly informed have been brought and spent among the Indians within a few months even in One Little Island It seems none of the wholesome Laws Enacted in the several Provinces Colonies against this Wickekness are enough to Restrain from the frequent perpetration of it some that have the Fear neither of God nor wan The Wicked-Hunger after a Little Silver makes many break thro all Restraints Who can think of this Impiety without falling down in some Anguish before the Lord and crying out Oh! This people have Sinned a great Sin But it is possible that when the Sinful People who Consider not what they do in this Great Sin have some Considerations livelily Laid before them the Good Spirit of God accompanying thereof may cause them to say I have done Iniquity I will do no more and may keep others from falling into the like Iniquity Now Syrs Let these Expostulations find some Entertainment with you Oh Hearken to me that God may Hearken to you It is the Endeavour of every Godly man and it is a Quality inseparable from real Godliness To do what may be done for the Hindring of Sin in other men And then to Lament and Bewayl the Sin that can't be Hindred The man who does not Labour to Suppress and Prevent Sin in those that are about him and who does not Bewayl the Sin that he can't prevent is most certainly an Unconverted and an Unsanctified Man and an Enemy of God I pray then what will you judge of your selves O ye Authors of the Indian Drunkenness The Drunkenness whereby those forlorn Creatures do stumble into such horrible Pits of Sin so far is it from its being your Grief that you make it your Gain and you are so far from doing all you can to Save them from their Sin that you do what you can to Snare them in it Monstrous Impiety It is plain That if you dare go on in this Impiety you are yet in the Gall of Bitterness and the Bond of Iniquity if you Dy in this Unregenerate State it had been Good for you that you had never been Born The man who does make himself Drunk does make himself a Beast yea worse than a Beast for a Beast ordinarily will not be Drunk But when a man will pass on to make others Drunk he does the part of a very Devil The Devils that are never Drunk themselves
the Indians a Flood of Drunkenness is like to Swallow up all that is good among them And those Ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ who are carrying unto the Indians the Tidings of that Great Saviour are Sighing That they Labour in vain and spend their strength for nought because let them do what they can Strong Drink does undo it all again and there are But whose Ministers are those think you those that by Selling Drink unto these wild Creatures do so deprave them and stupify them and bruitify them 't is impossible so much as to bestow a little Cicuration upon them and reduce them from any part of their Barbarous Wildnesi Now if the Blessed Apostle when he saw a Sorcerer withstand the passage and progress of the Word of God could Set his Eyes on him and say Act. 13. 10. O full of all mischief thou Child of the Devil thou Enemy of all Righteousness wilt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord Certainly the Servants of the Lord Jesus Christ obstructed by your means in their Service to Him and the Success of His Word may say to such a Drink-Seller O thou doer of unknown mischief by bewitching the poor Indians against all Good by the Word of God Why dost thou so much gratify the Devil and show thy Enmity to all Righteousness by making it impossible for the Indians to leave their old Indian Tracks or to learn the right ways of the Lord Even the French Missionaries cry Shame upon you as Acosta long since did also upon his own Country-men and they who Teach Idolatry to the Indians are Scandalized at it that you Teach them Drunkenness Both of them indeed are Damnable but your part is far more inexcusable than Theirs They Think that they Save the Souls of the Pagans you know that you Damn them Can you now without some consternation Reflect upon the Scandal that you give For a man to have the Blood of Souls to answer for truly 't is a Tremendous Thing Has that man himself any Interest in a CHRIST or can he hope for it who does what he can to keep others Without Christ and Without Hope Did that man ever consent that the Lord should Reign over himself who does what he can that the Lord may not Reign over others Or will not the Lord in His just Vengeance Destroy those Enemies who thus would not have him to Reign Is any one Sin yet pardoned unto that man who does what he can to keep others from seeking after the pardon of their Sin and plunge them into more Sin Is not that man yet under the formidable Wrath of God who does what he can to keep others with that Wrath abiding on them and from seeking to be delivered from the Wrath to come Can that man preserve his own Soul from the Hands of Satan who does what he can to betray the Souls of others into the Hands of the fierce Destroyer Shall he go to Heaven himself who does what he can to keep others out of Heaven To make Indians Drunk is to do all of This to Sell them Drink as they are known to be disposed is to make them Drunk The Souls of these Drunken Indians will go down into the place of Torment but whither will they go think ye and how horribly shall they be Tormented that have brought them thither That there is indeed a place of Torment in Hades or the Invisible World for Ungodly men is a thing visible even to the Natural Conscience of every man We see Ill men unjustly inflict most intolerable Torments on Good men and if there be a just God as we are sure there is Reason Conscience will say there are as insufferable Torments to be suffered by those Ill men in another world The Indians do by Drunkenness prepare themselves for a worse portion of those Torments than would otherwise have been Dispensed unto them from the infinite Vengeance of God And you by helping them to the Fuel of their Drunkenness do but make your selves a Fuel for those very Fires of the Divine Indignation in Hell wherein They shall be ever making Satisfaction unto the Justice of Heaven Will you then throw your selves into those Everlasting Torments where the Roaring Indians being made your Companions will upbraid you 'T is you English men that have brought us hither But what Gains do you propose unto your selves by this Desperate Action A few Pennies or Shillings The Souls the Immortal Souls of the Indians and your own Souls into the Bargain may then Cry out upon you A Goodly price are we valued at of them I beseech you Sirs Don't set such a contemptible Price upon a Precious and Immortal SOUL Which if a man do lose he is a sad Looser though he have gained the whole World And yet I must also tell you That even those little Gains which you make by this vile Trade will have a secret but a speedy Blast upon them You 'l suddenly find That you have gain'd nothing at all but put all into a Bag with Holes If it be and that man is more an Atheist than the very Devil that Articled against Job of old who will not grant that it is The Blessing of God on the work of mens Hands by which their substance is increased you must Expect little Increase from the Trade of Selling Drink to the Indians for you cannot expect the Blessing of God on the work of your Hands It would be a Blasphemy for you to Ask or Look for His Blessing It may be you take Advantage froi the Insatiable Thirst of the Indians after Strong Drink to Squeeze Rich Penn'oths out of them This does but add unto your Iniquity For that man is an Oppressor in his Dealings who does not conform to these two Golden Rules of Charity in them First To Deal by others as I would have them Deal by me And Next To aim at the Good of those with whom I Deal as well as at my own Wherefore you do but Cheat the Indians when you find the Madness of their Lust layes them open unto your Tricks upon them and then play upon them with such Tricks as cause them when they come unto themselves even to Tear their own Hair for Madness Go write then at the Foot of your unlawful Gains those two Texts for the Summ Total of them 1 Thes 6. Let no man go beyond and defraud his Brother in â—â—y matter for God is the Avenger of all such And Jer. 7. 11. He that gets Riches and not by Right shall â—ave them in the midst of his Days and at his End shall â—e a Fool. Inexcusable is your Blindness if you don 't â—ee or your Hardness if Seeing it you are not Mov'd with That a wonderful Blast and Curse from God ha's been upon the Estates that have been advanced by Indian Drunkeness While the Preachers of Truth unto the Indians have been Remarkably Blessed in their Estates the Sellers of Drink unto them have been as Remarkably Blasted A strange Punishment ha's been upon those Workers of Iniquity and the Treasures which they have gotten by their Iniquity have been meer Treasures of Snow very strangely Melted under the Burning Anger of God And if the Holy God should be provoked which who fears not again to let the Indians be Intoxicated â—nto the Fury of making another War upon us as the â—niquity of your Coveteousness will doubtless be one of the â—â—incipal Provocations that procure so dire a Calamity so you will be sure of no little Share in that Calamity Be sure your Sin will find you out as that of your Brethren in the East has done Them and their Trading Houses the Objects on whom you have Sinn'd may be the Agents by whom you shall be Plagued and God may give you Blood to Drink in Revenge of the Drink with which you have poisoned and ruined the Souls of them that He will now Commission to be the Executioners of His Wrath upon you even a Wrath unto the uttermost These are some of the Faithful Admonitions which in the Name and Fear of God were to be set before you And for the Conclusion of them I Admonish you to meditate on that awful Word of God in Hab. 2. 15. Wo to him that gives his Neighbour Drink that puttest thy Bottle to him and makeâ— him Drunken Being then at length terrified by the terribâ—â— Wo which you have incurred by Selling the Indians Drink and putting your Bottle unto them to make them Drunk that you may get their Money or their Pelny or perhaps their Corn from them I hope you will even mingle your Tears with you Drink for what you have done I hope you will Fly to the Mercy of God in the Blood oâ— the Lord Jesus Christ that your Bloody Sin maâ— be forgiven I hope you will Resolve to For bear the Detestable Trade for the Time to come and believe that there will be nothing Lost by Despising Detesting the Gains of such a Trade The little that a Righteous man enjoys with the peace of his own Conscience will be far better than all the Riches of all the wicked man that have gone to Enrich themselves by Debauching the Thirsty Salvages who are never better pleased than in adding Drunkenness unto their Thirst May the God of all Grace now give a Gracious Effect unto this Advice from one who is A Mourner for your Sin and a wisher of your Salvation