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 *
is divers times used in Holy Scripture particularly by Solomon Prov. 28. 17. if we consult the Original In several places also of Ezekiel and in the Acts by St. Paul which I shall have further occasion to mention And for the Translation of this Text it exactly agrees with the Letter of the Hebrew and that I doubt not in its most primitive signification both the Septuagint and Latin Versions as in the former answering thereunto And therefore should our Prophet's intention herein happen to be other which there is no convincing Argument or reason to prove yet I shall not in the least scruple to follow the Letter both of the Original and the rest of the Translations especially our own But from the Words as I here find them shall conclude that there may be and is at least in some sense or other such a Sin as this reprehended in the Text viz. of shedding the Blood and murthering of Souls And upon this Foundation it is that I intend to raise my ensuing Discourse and therein shall observe this Method and shew I. What this Sin is and wherein it consists II. The several ways by which it is committed III. What are the common Inducements thereto IV. The most horrid Nature thereof and how infinitely displeasing to Almighty God V. The Place and Persons here especially charged VI. I shall enquire what Relation this Text may have unto us and how far this Church and Nation may be chargeable with this Sin VII Which being dispatch'd and having discovered some and those no small spots and stains of this Blood upon our own no less than upon Jerusalems Skirts and Garments viz. by our neglecting the Souls of the poor Heathen in our Plantations and even here at home I shall from the hainousness of the Sin and from the Prophet's severe reprehension of it in Jerusalem in the seventh and last place infer the most indispensible and absolute necessity of our speedy redressing this abuse and neglect of our duty to God and to our own no less than to our Peoples Souls I. FOR the first of these I have before shewed that in Scripture Language there is a Blood of Souls but then what that Blood is and wherein the Crime of shedding it doth consist will need some further Explication As for the Phrase it must be supposed to be an Hebrew Idiotism or a Metaphor taken from the Function and Imployment which the Blood sustains and exerciseth in the Body which Moses saith is the Life thereof So that to shed the Blood the Crime here charged is to take away the Life whether of Soul or Body Now God Almighty being the sole Life of Man's Soul the very Fountain of living Waters and in whose light only she can see Light the miserable deprivation of his Favour can be no less than the shedding of her Blood and the taking away the Life thereof It is to subject her to God's Eternal Wrath and Curse the true second Death spoken of by St. John in the Revelations the same also which St. Paul terms to be accursed from Christ and even to be blotted out of God's Book which Moses Exod. 32. in that mighty Zeal for his Nation sued for In short it is the sum total of whatsoever is deplorable and wretched and to be deprecated and avoided by all Mankind Which loss of God's Favour with the dismal Consequences thereof is solely occasioned by an ungodly course of Life and by Infidelity Piety and Vertue being the same to the Soul which good Blood is to the Body and what the mischievous effusion thereof is to the latter the same must the profusion of evil manners be to the former So that this shedding of the Soul's Blood is nothing else but a spiteful captivation and detaining of Men under God's Wrath and Displeasure a permitting or forcibly compelling them to persist in Infidelity and a wicked Life the most natural effect thereof and which is therefore the first Root or Spring of Misery and Death to the Soul of Man From whence it is that when Almighty God in the 3d 18th and 33d Chapters of Ezekiel threatens to require the witless Offender's Blood at the Watchman's Hand 't is plain that thereby was meant such Sins and Enormities which he through the want of timely notice from the Watchman had run into And when Job Chap. 16. forbad the Earth to cover or conceal his Blood 't is understood that he then made his Purgation as to the foul suggestions of his Enemies wishing therein that his most secret and concealed Sins there stiled his Blood might be laid open to the view of the whole World so plainly would his innocence then appear at least as to the Crimes by his back-Friends so unjustly charged upon him So also St. Paul's attestation of himself as to his being pure from the Blood of all Men is to be understood of his being no way chargeable with their Ignorance and Infidelity nor with the Consequences thereof viz. their other grosser Impieties as having even day and night with Tears warned them thereof at no time shunning to declare unto them the whole Counsel of God nor keeping back any thing that was profitable for them And so much for the Nature of this Sin and wherein it consists I proceed unto the next Particular II. WHICH is to shew the several ways by which this Sin is committed and this I intend for a Light or Sea-Mark by the help whereof Men may avoid the danger of running upon it And they are especially two Whereof The first is by publishing of false Doctrine which by debauching of Mens Minds and Judgments with evil Principles doth necessarily lead them into Immorality and a wicked Life which as I have shewed is the most certain ruine of the Soul For if as our blessed Saviour testifies the Truth doth make Men free then must Falshood be the occasion of their Bondage and if right Principles be the only sure Guides and Conducters to Happiness the contrary must needs lead us to Misery and Ruin For he that believes amiss will consequently act so it being most natural for Men to act according as they are inwardly persuaded False Doctrine then must be confessed to be the Bane and Poyson of the Soul The Publishers and Promoters whereof can therefore be no other than its most perfect Betrayers and Murtherers For which reason doubtless it was that our Lord Christ in his Gospel commands us to take heed both how and what we hear confirming Solomon's advice thus warning us Cease my Son to hear the Iustruction that causeth to err from the words of Knowledg as being so destructive to the Soul And no less in the second place may this guilt be contracted by prohibiting and concealing the Truth this being a sacrilegious robbing the Soul of her necessary Sustenance and is not so much a stabbing or a poysoning as a starving of her
The knowledg and practice of the Truth being that alone which can reconcile her unto God and entitle her to his Favour which is the Life thereof For as Syracides saith The Bread of the Needy as well the Spiritual as the Temporal is their Life and he that defraudeth him of it is a Man of Blood And he that taketh away his Neighbours Living slayeth him and he that defraudeth him of his Hire is a Blood-shedder So likewise That the Soul should be without Knowledg it is not good saith the wise Solomon Indeed it is no other but to murther her And therefore he saith again That the Lips of the Wise disperse Knowledg the most proper and necessary Food for Men's Souls This was it which Almighty God complained of by his Prophet Hosea That his People were destroyed for lack of Knowledg Instruction the means thereof being withholden from them And likewise in Isaiah where it is lamented That they were gone into Captivity and their honourable Men were famished and their Multitude dried up with Thirst because they had no Knowledg This also was the sad condition of the poor Flock in Zechariah They fell into distress because there was no Shepherd or such only as did not regard nor pity them no not when they were sold and slain For those that were cut off they did not visit they neither sought out the young nor healed the broken nor fed that which was still But that that dieth let it die was all they cared so they might but eat the flesh of the fat retain the Oppressors Favour and so thrive and grow rich Wherefore to obviate this sore evil for the future Almighty God in the Chapter ensuing the Text promiseth to give them Pastours after his own Heart which should feed them with Knowledg and Vnderstanding the only sure Preservatives of the Soul Nor let any one here think to shift off this Guilt by lessening this Sin into an Omission only even where it so happens which is seldom It being our very great Crime to but omit what is our strictest duty to perform as most certainly it is to persuade others to both believe and practise whatsoever we hold our selves obliged to The forbearance whereof was in Moses's Esteem no less than a hating of our Brother who therefore thus directs us Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy Neighbour and not suffer Sin to rest upon him or as 't is in the Margent that thou bear not Sin for him intimating therein the danger of that Omission That all connivance at Wickedness is an encouragement to it especially in such who both can and ought to prevent it was the opinion of a virtuous Heathen Agreeable to that of St. James To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it in Sin Solomon did not hold him excused who had only forborn to deliver those that were drawn unto Death and that were ready to be slain no not tho he pleaded Ignorance and should say that he knew it not For as it follows Doth not be that pondereth the Heart consider it and he that keepeth the Soul doth not he know it And shall not he render to every Man according to his works The Piety of the great Artaxcrxes would not allow that any should remain ignorant of the Laws of the God of Heaven And therefore in his Commission to Ezra he gives an especial charge for the careful instruction of those who knew them not It was not enough in our blessed Saviour's esteem for St. Peter to be converted himself but that being accomplished he was to employ the like charitable endeavours for his Brethren also And upon that so prevalent motive of Charity our Blessed Lord urgeth to all in general a seasonable Reproof and Admonition of our Brother For if he hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother and thereby saved his Soul This is that perfect love of God and of our Brother or Neighbour which cannot be separated and which whosoever wanteth is at once an Enemy both to God and to his Brother For he is a Lyar and a Murtherer saith St. John He walketh in Darkness and not in Light He abides in Death and can have no hopes of Eternal Life withal adding that such a Person is not of God and cannot love him that hates or doth not love his Brother confirming his Assertion with a most substantial Reason demanding How he can love God whom he hath not seen who hateth his Brother whom he hath seen For whom he ought to lay down his Life but much more to extend his Charity and to open his bowels of Compassion to him being in need whether of Spiritual or Temporal Assistance So that this Omission as they term it which of a charitable pious Christian renders a Man a Lyar a Murtherer and an Apostate c. is but a bad Plea and very far from an extenuation of our Crime But then if this love of our Brother by admonishing and reproving him be thus every Man's duty much more must it be of such who are peculiarly ordained and appointed to that work as we read the Watchman in Ezekiel was against whom it was determined That he should surely die if he did not speak to warn the wicked from his way Wherein it is observable that nothing of any Crime actually committed by the Watchman is therein mentioned but only an Omission of his Duty nor was this Penalty to be inflicted for any treacherous correspondence with the Enemy or for betraying his Cause or Party but only for holding his peace in a time of danger From hence alone could St. Paul acquit his Innocence as to the Blood of all Men because he had not omitted to declare to the Souls under his charge the whole counsel of God nor any thing that was profitable unto them Of which yet his partiality or silence must have impleaded him deeply Guilty For it had been a concealing of the Truth and therefore confessedly a shedding of their Blood and a murthering of them This was that Fruit which our Lord Christ acquaints his Disciples that they were to go and bring forth and that their Fruit might remain and which alone could qualify them for that honourable Title of his Friends viz. by an industrious and active conformity to all his Commands of which this we are speaking of was none of the least And how far those shifts and excuses which upon this occasion are usually produced will avail us at the last day the sad doom both of the slothful Servant and of the sleepy Virgins may serve to inform us And so much for my second Observable I proceed now unto III. THE Third which is to represent the most usual and common Inducements to this Sin And they are four Whereof The first is that root of Bitterness or spirit of Unbelief attended with a most violent Spite or Enmity to
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