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
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
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
let us do it better Only let us not under that pretence be said never to do it at all If any Man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his saith the Apostle Now Christ's Spirit was to promote the Salvation of Mankind But of what Spirit must those then be that do neglect and hinder it And if any Man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema that is utterly accursed from him But what love can there be in endeavouring to rob him of that which he so dearly purchased with his Blood All Knowledg all understanding of Mysteries and all Faith without this Charity is nothing Yea the bestowing of all our Goods to the relieving of the Poor and even the giving our Bodies to be burnt withoat it will profit us nothing This is a thing which all Sects and Parties do most generally agree in No Scruples to tender Consciences will from hence arise it being impossible that any should oppose it but such only who have lost all Conscience And certainly if Christianity and the Souls of Men be worth our care it cannot be but that something in order thereto will speedily be endeavoured the thing in its self being most easy and there wanting nothing but some resolute and wise Agent to push it forward As for the impotent railing of those Barjesuses and Elymases for God be thanked that is the worst they can do it is to be pitied and contemned rather than dreaded or regarded by us Or at the worst a vigorous pursuit would in a short time both disarm and silence them There being no Strumpet so impudent and void of shame as to assert and practice her lewdness in the presence of more vertuous People Nor has it been heard that any Thief has been so confident as to defend his Rapines and Slaughters before an upright Judg. And it being a thing so utterly incongruous and contradictory in it self for Men to call themselves Christians yea and of the most refined sort too and yet at the same time to oppose Christianity that it is impossible but at the first manful onset they must needs be baffled and shamed out of it For Wickedness as the wise Man saith condemned by her own Witness is very timerous and being pressed with Conscience always forecasteth grievous things So that there seemeth nothing more to be needful but the Watch-word from our vigilant and prudent Leaders to the faithful Souldiers of Christ boldly to fall on and to attaque them The Victory cannot but be easy over those that fight against God And pitty yea infinite pitty it would be that so Holy and Righteous a Cause should be so slightly lost and that a Matter of such Eternal Consequence so much tending to our Redeemer's Honour and to the good of those many Myriads of Souls viz. of our Negro's and Indians Slaves and Tributaries all of them the Subjects of this Kingdom and should be also of our care should be suffered to miscarry only through the want of a few words speaking a little endeavour and of so much courage as but to look the Enemies of Christ in the face and where the Act it self doth carry its Recompence and makes us full Amends For whilst we become Eyes to the Blind as holy Job speaks and Feet to the Lame delivering the Poor that crieth and those that have none to help them Whilst we put on Righteousness and it cloaths us and Judgment as a Robe and a Diadem Whilst we break the Jaws of the Wicked and do search out the Cause that we know not Whilst we become valiant for the Truth and do rebuke these Blasphemers to the face Then the Ear that hears us shall bless us and the Eye that sees us shall give witness to us our Glory shall be fresh in us and our Root shall spread out by the Waters The blessing of those that are ready to perish shall fall upon us neither shall we be afraid of destruction when it cometh For we shall be in league with the Stones of the Field and the very Beasts of the Field shall be at peace with us In Famine we shall be redeemed from Death and in this REBELLION from the Power of the Sword All which will be consummated and made up in that Repute Honour and Stability to our Church and Nation which will hereby be undoubtedly procured Amen 1 St. John 3. 18. Let us not love in Word neither in Tongue but in Deed and in Truth ERRATA IN the Title Page line 4. read reprehended P. 3. l. 7. for assert r. set off l. 8. r. Arguments P. 9. l. 17. f. Disciples r. Apostles l. 37. r. in bef snob P. 27. l. 20. r. extant P. 29. l. 11. f. it s r. his P. 31. l. 2. dele be l. 9. dele the. P. 32. l. 15. r. Industry P. 33. l. 19. r. Hypocrisy Add P. 28. ad finem Wickedness burneth as the Fire it shall devour the Briars and Thorns c. Isa 9. 18. Errata in the Margent P. 4. insert Acts 18. 6. bef Acts 20. Likewise the same again p. 6. P. 16. r. Cupiunt P. 24. after Miracles add c. 6. n. 1. P. 25. f. answer r. refute also insert p. 573. disc 3. c. 19. P. 26. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Likewise add this of E. W's Protestants that never did nor shall hereafter do good to either Christian or Heathen Trade preferr'd before Religion AND Christ made to give place to Mammon Represented in a SERMON relating to the PLANTATIONS JER Chap. 2. Part of the 34th Verse Also in thy Skirts is found the Blood of Souls c. The whole Verse runs thus Also in thy Skirts is found the Blood of the Souls of the poor Innocents I have not found it by secret search but upon all these THis Particle Also standing at our first entrance into the Text requires us to raise our Eye to the foregoing Words both of this and of the former Chapter In the first of which we find our Prophet as it were opening his Commission asserting his Authority as derived to him from God himself Before I formed thee in the Belly I knew thee and before thou camest forth out of the Womb I sanctified thee and ordained thee a Prophet unto the Nations Therefore thou shalt go unto all that I shall send thee and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak And the better to qualify and enable him for this great Work it is added Behold I have put my words into thy Mouth And then to create a Resolution and Courage in him suitable thereto and that he might go on with a steady boldness and assurance in this so hazardous and thankless an Imployment it is promised that he should be an Iron Pillar and a brazen Wall yea a defenced City against them And that therefore he was not to be afraid or dismayed at their Looks that being the worst they should be able to do against
him for that God himself would most certainly be with him to preserve and deliver him In confidence whereof we find him in the next Chapter betaking himself to his Function and in charity to his own ungodly Nation beginning with them first unto whom indeed he was especially sent Where after a brief rehearsal of the many benefits conferred upon them by God himself as that he had broken their Yoke and burst their Bonds had brought them into a plentiful Countrey which he had designed for them to eat the fruits thereof and the goodness thereof That he had there planted them a noble Vine wholly a right Seed instructed them in the best and purest Religion with abundance of the like Privileges and Immunities which by his especial Favour and Munificence they enjoyed above all other People I say after this the Prophet at last bespeaks the Almighty as falling thus to expostulate with them What Iniquity have your Fathers found in Me that they are gone away far from me And Hath a Nation changed their Gods which are yet no Gods but my People have changed their glory for that which doth not profit Charging them that they had turned their Backs to him had spoken and done evil things with their utmost might and as far as they could Adding that they were become cruel and unthankful and which was worst of all incorrigible and in a word worse than the very Heathen That by their customary and long Practice in that cursed Trade of Sinning they had attained a notable aptness and dexterity therein even beyond the proficiency of the most wicked whom it seems they were able to teach In fine they are told that they were wholly turned into a degenerate Plant of a strange Vine had defiled the Land which he had brought them into and made God's Heritage an Abomination And now after this so large and foul a Catalogue of their Impieties one would have thought that the Prophet must have been at a stand and could have proceeded no further when to compleat the charge and to render them for ever both inexcusable and infamous he adds to it a certain new and before unheard-of Villany viz. of exercising those their Hellish Cruelties not only upon the Bodies but extending them to the very Souls and that of poor Innocent Men Which as bad as it is is yet exceedingly aggravated by their Impudence in the perpetration shewing that it was grown into a Fashion and become costomary amongst them not committed in private or in the dark as if ashamed of it nor yet detected by any laborious Search or Scrutiny but acted openly and in the Face of the Sun like Absalom upon the House top and even owned and justified by them to the whole World They did as the Prophet speaks TRIMM that is by false reasonings and Sophistry and probably sometimes by the loudest Lies defend and assert their Impiety nor could by any Argument be persuaded to acknowledg it to be so But on the contrary boasted themselves Innocent proclaimed that they were not polluted and that they had not sinned notwithstanding that their way in the Valley as the Prophet speaks was so notorious They might perchance have an Eye unto their MAMMON and belike deemed that the necessity and benefit arising to them from their Trade and Commerce with Forreign Nations would not barely excuse but even consecrate the Villany This then in short was their case God had most mercifully and wonderfully delivered them out of Egypt and not only so but had likewise brought them into a Land which as the Prophet Ezekiel expresseth it he had espied for them and which was indeed the Glory of all Lands the entire and full possession whereof was given them upon this sole Consideration and these only Terms viz. That they should cast away all their Abominations and become Trumpets of God's Praise and declare his Glory among the Heathen Psal 69. no doubt for the Salvation of their precious Souls But instead thereof even from the very time of their first entrance into that Land they practised all their former Abominations and that with both Hands earnestly and instead of declaring they stifled and concealed his Eternal Counsel forbidding the preaching of it to the Heathen that they might not be saved and so they pleased not God and became the murtherers of Souls Which very thing in this Charge doth seem to have been their singular and grand Crime viz. Their acting in and connivance at the most open and prophane effusion of the Blood of Men's Souls and that too in that very Land which God had given them to a contrary end and purpose And the not decrying nor discountenancing of which Wickedness by such other of them who possibly might be less active in the perpetration bringing them also in as Associates and Partizans with the rest and rendring them thereof equally guilty But here methinks I perceive my self ready to be interrupted and told that this is a forced Interpretation and cannot be the proper meaning of the Text which say they was intended only to reprove those bloody Immolations of Children offered without the Gates in the Valley of Hinnom and so as it were in the Skirts or Suburbs of Jerusalem unto Moloch the Words Innocents and Poor manifestly implying no less Further adding that there can be no such Sin as shedding the Blood of Souls properly so taken They being as the Poet speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 destitute of Blood and Immortal Unto the first of which I answer That the Words in the Hebrew here rendred by Poor and Innocents do not necessarily import the same signification with the English where Time and Custom have made Innocents and Infants or little Children to be almost synonimous and convertible and the Adjunct Poor to represent one afflicted in Mind or Body as well as Estate or Fortune one that groans under Oppression or Sickness or some other such like Calamity and not under bare Poverty only which is the most natural import of that Adjunct and under which Children or Infants cannot so well be said to fall who as they are not capable either to gather or use Riches so neither can they properly be said to be either rich or poor These Sufferers therefore were not Children but Men possibly as poor in Fortune as miserable in Condition They were Pauperes Egentes as the Vulgar Latin and Tremelius do render the Word which is wholly omitted in the Greek where they are only called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any mention of their other condition signifying insontes Indemnes damni expertes plagis intactas as well as Innocentes All which can hardly be understood of little Children And therefore I cannot so readily assent that our Prophet here intended these And then to the second part of the Objection I likewise answer That this expression of Blood with relation to the Soul
to affect the Judgment and infuse a Sense and Tincture of the like hainousness into the whole Accusation Thirdly By considering the Vehemency here used by our Prophet or rather by the Holy Ghost both in and preparatory to this grand Charge Whereas at the 12th Verse he breaks forth into this mighty Exclamation Be astonished O Heavens and be horribly afraid yea be very desolate as it were at the consideration of this new and strange Impiety And at the 22d Verse it is resolved that tho they should wash themselves with Nitre and take to them much Soap yet that it should not avail them as to any expiation For that their Iniquity was marked before the Lord. The Conjunctive Also carrying with it a fearful Aggravation Fourthly from the clamorous and revengeful nature of Blood above all other things and from the high detestation wherewith the Holy-Spirit of God in Scripture hath declared against that Sin when committed simply against the Body alone without any respect or relation to the Soul As when in the Levitical Law we read of an especial Service and Sacrifice appointed for the expiation of but an uncertain murther And of Abel's Blood crying from the Earth for vengeance against Cain and so of the Souls under the Altar crying aloud unto God to judg and avenge their Blood upon those that dwelt upon the Earth And of the Gibeonites and Naboth's Blood pursuing Saul's and Ahab's Families when themselves were extinguish'd even to the utter extermination of the latter And lastly of God's determining to avenge even that Blood viz. The Blood of Jezreel upon the House of Jehu tho commanded to do it From all which Instances we may easily conclude the horridness of this Sin Of which nevertheless I shall yet say something more in another place But The fifth Circumstance will yet more abundantly make appear the horridness of this Sin above all other from the consideration of the nature and excellency of the Soul of Man which as much exceeds his Body as a living Creature is preferrable to so much inanimate Clay The vast distance between which Solomon the ablest Judg will best inform us when he pronounceth A living Dog to be better than a dead Lion And surely then a living and immortal Soul capable of Eternal things and destined to the highest Happiness must be allowed a proportionable share of preeminence above a perishing and dying Carcase Hence it is that our Blessed Saviour doth so much postpone the danger of the Body to that of the Soul preferring this last above the World Now Offences do usually receive much of their aggravation from the worth and quality of the parties injured as our Laws for Treason and defaming of Noble-Men do manifestly prove I conclude therefore that all Injuries and Wrongs done against the Soul must from the supereminent and transcendent excellency of her Nature take their truest estimate and value as to the Actors both Guilt and Punishment for the same whether inflicted in this or in the Life to come And as upon a just ballancing of the merits of each such Offences will be found infinitely to outweigh all other so they do seem to require an equal proportion of Evil for them And to speak in the Scripture Language if the one deserves to be avenged seven-fold truly the other not so little as seventy and seven fold V. NOW for the Place and Persons here charged which is the fifth particular to be considered the Place is Jerusalem and the Persons her Elders and Rulers or else together with them the Body of her People also These by their Ignorance and grosser Stupidity or by wicked Principles instilled into them and the other by their Connivance and Example or by their Precepts to the contrary such as we read were afterward decreed by Antiochus and other Heathen Princes But be the fault where it will whether in Jerusalem's Rulers and Elders or in her People or in both 't is certain from our Prophet's Charge that this at this time was most eminently the Sin of Jerusalem A place where Knowledg did so abound that was so thorowly acquainted with the Will of God at least in this particular that had had so many Prophets to instruct her and for a long time had lived under so much excellent Preaching had had Precept upon Precept and Line upon Line were God's peculiar People and did glory so much in her alone profession of the Truth and her being which was but true the best Reformed Church in the whole World And lastly that had been gratified and obliged by so many Blessings such a Train of Deliverances and no less admonish'd by as many severe Judgments from Heaven That she should become guilty of the stifling and suppression of Religion at least by her connivance and permission and thereby of the murthering of Souls and that with that daring Impudence till her Sins this especially became so conspicuous that there was no need of search and yet at the same time with such a stiff Forehead could so boldly affirm that she was Innocent and had not sinned These I say were Sins of such a Sanguine Complexion and such a Scarlet Dye that the Almighty begins to look upon himself as concerned to vindicate his Honour by a severe castigation of her lest otherwise the very Heathen should assume the boldness to demand Where was now their God and the Reformation they so much boasted of And hereupon he resolves to be unto them as a Lion and to observe them as a Leopard in the Way To meet them as a Bear bereaved and to rent the very Caul of their Heart and to devour them And he purposeth to destroy the sinful Kingdom and to deliver up the City and to cause wailing to be in every Street and they shall go into Captivity with the first that go Captive and he determines to lay waste the Sanctuaries of Israel and to make desolate the high places of Isaac To smite the greater Houses with Breaches and the little with Clefts so that if ten Men should remain in them they should die This was the Place and these the Persons upon whom this Blood was charged and these the Plagues allotted for it as to their cost they afterwards felt VI. BUT here in the sixth place methinks I espy some one ready to stand up and to demand of me To what purpose is all this stirr this fierce declaiming against the Murtherers of Souls Where are the guilty Parties amongst us If the Jews in Jeremiah's time or since have defiled their Skirts with this precious Blood what is that to us who never were concerned with them therein Let them look to it we for our Parts are clear But Nos utinam vani would to God my complaint were groundless and that this Guilt had for ever stuck to those first Skirts only of the Jewish Church and Nation For whether we take these
Skirts as a Metonymie of a part for the whole which some do seem to favour and so to imply them all-over and even throughout polluted Or if with the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we refer them to the Hands which amounts to almost the same with the former Or if in the third place we take them in a more restrained Sense and thereby shall understand the out-borders only and Confines of their Government the Skirts being the utmost and extreamest parts of a Garment In all these Sences the Text will be applicable and the Crime chargeable upon us also no less than upon Jerusalem For to understand the Word in the first Sense it were easy to expatiate into too many Instances which will make good that Sense against us As in the many large Parishes and the slender or no provision found in the greatest part The small care that is taken for the instructing of Youth and the more ignorant both at home and abroad The grand License allowed to the dispersers of whatsoever false doctrines the Enemy of Goodness shall inspire his Apostles and Disciples with And lastly in the open venting and defending of Blasphemy and Atheism without any hazard to the Blasphemer's Person or Reputation All which as they are in some sort near universal so they have a most direct and immediate tendency to the murthering of Souls And yet not so much to insist upon these I shall instance in another more suitable to my purpose and to the Subject in hand and which the wholly unknown to the former Ages of Christianity is now become frequent in this City and Kingdom And that is the compelling of Persons imported out of Africa and other remoter Heathen Regions but residing in our Families and Vassals to us to remain in their native Gentilism without any regard to the honour of our Religion and Nation any more than to the good of their or our own Souls An Impiety that even here some fifty or sixty years since and at this day in other Countries would render the Authors obnoxious not only to the publick Censure but to the Peoples Fury But with us even amidst this mighty Zeal and stirr for Religion an evident sign that we indeed have none is suffered to pass on without contradiction No one once daring to open his Mouth against it or so much as to look the Impiety in the Face They are not so valiant for the truth Whilst its Enemies have the confidence and courage openly to bid desiance to it by this their hindring and opposing of it But I rather choose to take the Word in the more contracted Sense and so to understand by these Skirts the remoter parts only some out-Provinces of the Hebrew Government And then this Text will seem not only an History or Narrative of this Jewish Impiety but also a Prophecy of our times too plainly and eminently by our People acted and fulfilled in our Plantations Where you shall see this Blood of poor Innocent Souls wasted and poured out like so much Water spilt upon the Ground and that Sin which at home seems to be as it were lock'd up under the darkest Cyphers and here attains only the notice of a few is there legible in Capital Letters made evident to the most incurious Observer and entred into their very Laws and Records Thereby striving to out-do the Jewish Impudence I have not found it by secret search as being so publick and notorious to the whole World They are not ashamed at the committing these Abominations nay they are not ashamed neither can they blush Again there you shall see Myriads of poor hungry Souls imploring the Bread of Life but no compassionate Christian affording it to them Whole Multitudes of St. Paul's Macedonians calling for our help but finding none Not so much as that Hypocritical Charity of Be ye warmed and filled being once extended to their distressed and starved Souls It falls not within the compass of their thoughts or wishes the very naming of it being grievous to their cruel Ears And thus whilst like the Man in the Gospel fallen amongst Thieves they there lie weltering in their Blood they meet with no tender-hearted Samaritan to bind up their Wounds and to relieve them No compassionate Angel inviting them to live No Messenger nor Interpreter not even one of a thousand yea I may say not of ten thousands as Elihu in Job speaks to shew unto them his uprightness nor to direct them in the way to deliver their Souls from going down into the Pit nor to make known unto them that God hath accepted a ransom for them and this even whilst they are drawing nigh unto Hell and their Life unto the Destroyers For as our Prophet laments of hi◠People They are all grievous Revolters Apostates and Corrupters From the least of them to the greatest of them every one is given to Covetousness They overpass the deeds of the most wicked of other Sects and Religions They judg not the cause of the Fatherless and the right of these needy Souls do they not judg Yet they are become great and waxen rich they are waxen fat they shine and prosper And O where is the God of Judgment Nor is this the case of the remoter Natives of those places such as with whom they have little intercourse nor yet of their Borderers and Tributaries only both which might justly claim a share in our Spirituals whilst we enjoy so much of their Temporals but of their very Domesticks and Vassals those poor captive Slaves out of whose Labours they live and do thrive into vast Estates Nor may this be said to be occasioned through any want of Language at least in some thousands of them nor any Stupidity greater than is found amongst our own People Nor any irreconcileable aversion to Christianity as is most falsly alledged the contrary thereof being most true but through their Owners enmity and disaffection thereto Thereby testifying themselves as wretched Christians as they are unconscionable and unjust Masters And tho our Blessed Lord has positively declared that No man cometh to the Father but by himself and his Apostle also hath renounced all other ways or means of Salvation but by Christ only yet as if in Contempt and Defiance thereof they purposely conceal from them this so absolutely necessary Knowledg of Christ and for the general do even forbid the mention thereof amongst them that so they might not be saved And thus in one and the same Act they contrive their own and their Slaves Damnation Who so that their Portion may be fat and their Meat plenteous and that Trading may flourish the advancement whereof doth it seems justify the grossest Villanies they are not ashamed to debase Men made in the Image of God no less than themselves and whose Flesh is as their own even to the Fishes of the Sea and to the creeping things which have no Ruler over
them Being frequently heard to confess and to glory that they came not thither to promote Religion nor to save Souls but to get Money and Estates That is like to the Beasts of the Field only to devour and as the Prophet speaks Looking every Man for his gain from his quarter And yet whilst like Sodom they stick not to declare their Sin nor do dread to triumph and boast of their so detestible Abominations shall neverthelss presume themselves Innocent and not doubt to affirm that therein they have not sinned nor will be persuaded that they are at all therefore to be reputed the worse Christians And here to omit all enquiry into the Equity and Right of the first purchase where Parents do sell their Children Husbands their Wives Brothers their Sisters and so on the contrary A most blessed Trade for the best Reformed Christians to be conversant and imployed in and in a Word where every Man's strength is the Law of Justice I say to omit all this they hold all their other Cruelties and Oppressions for nothing unless to the enslaving of their Bodies and wasting them with unmerciful Labour and wretched Vsage they bring into final Destruction and Bondage their very Souls also And here before I can proceed a step further I must be so bold as to demand of whomsever shall please to resolve me whether the Jews offering up a few Children to Moloch which some will have this Text to reprove the Papists Superstitions against which so many Volumns have been wrote the old Gentiles Idolatry or even the Turks worshipping Mahomet all Circumstances considered be comparable to this Sin among us viz. of continually sacrificing so many Bodies to Mammon and Souls to the Devil against which no one hath hardly ever yet opened his Mouth And thus I think it doth but too plainly appear that these Skirts are not so much spotted or stained only as thorowly wrenched and dyed in this precious Blood of Souls And those our out-Provinces are most evidently chargeable with this most foul and horrid Guilt far I dare affirm beyond whatever hath by Fame been storied to have been practised or but permitted by any besides yea hardly by the most openly avowed Enemies of Christianity And which is yet more astonishing All this and much more we find to be tolerated and acted under Magistrates and by persons outwardly professors of it and that in the most refined and purest way So strange a mockery and abuse as by no Hypocrisy to be parallel'd but by the Jews crying Hail King unto Christ when they were going to crucify him or by those who murthered their Sovereign to make him more glorious and renowned They might doubtless more innocently give license and freedom for the erecting publick Stews and Brothel Houses or make Proclamation against Justice and common Honesty than thus to encourage or but permit such Sacriledg and Prophaneness to pass without Controul And whilst those abroad are thus acting and carrying on their Butcheries upon the Souls of Men there how quietly and unconcernedly in the mean time do we sit down here and take our ease not once in our thoughts reflecting upon this Calamity Perinde quasi cum membra nostra putrescant nihil grave acciderat as a certain Father speaks As tho like Cain we esteemed all regard of our Brethren to be needless or like the vile Oppressors in Nathan's Parable we had no Bowels nor Compassion or that we believed the rotting and perishing of our Fellow-Members to be a most desirable and pleasant Object Yea we act as tho the Prophet had mistook and talked impertinently when he demanded Have we not all one father and did not one God create us And also Job when he asked Did not he that made me in the Womb make them and did not one fashion us both in the Womb And even Solomon too as wise as he was or whoever was the Author of that Book declaring that no King had other beginning of Birth than what these have all Men having but one entrance into Life and the like going out And lastly as if St. Paul had uttered an untruth when he bespeaks us all as Members one of another And tho in the Captives of Algier's case as in the late Brief it is represented this cruelty to the Souls of Men is termed Tyranny and accursed and made to exceed all other the most Turkish Barbarities and is therein declared a Calamity never sufficiently to be bewailed yet the very same or worse is allowed in our own People that is by Protestants and English-men Our profound Silence being no better than a constructive approbation and our Connivance a consenting thereunto As if such Tyranny over the Souls of Men were Accursed and never sufficiently to be bewailed only in Turks and professed Infidels or that the same Action were Vertue in us but accursed Tyranny in the other Notwithstanding that those do therein act most agreeable to their Belief and for the promoting of their Faith which if true as they suppose it is is a pious deed and but what they were bound to do And they are therefore beyond all peradventure more justifiable before God than such who whilst owning I dare not say believing the Truth do yet upon pretence of Interest which those do therein renounce not only conceal but most industriously decry and oppose the advancement of it Yea and than such other too who tho they do not oppose it yet have never entered their Protests against those that do And of both which I cannot so much as doubt notwithstanding our accursing the other but that these shall receive the greater Damnation And certainly all being impartially weighed these Mahumetans as bad as they are for any thing we can find do herein at least appear more vertuous than our selves and must in the last day rise in judgment and condemn us and that from no other than our own Mouths For if they be accursed for promoting what they think is the Truth what must those be that do oppose or at best neglect what most undoubtedly is so as themselves confess For tho they live in an unpardonable Errour yet because they do it Ignorantly thro unbelief not knowing it to be either Sin or Errour but perswaded of the contrary they are certainly the more excusable And it were an unreasonable incongruity to imagine that the God of Mercy and Justice should be more ready to punish Errours of Understanding than wilful Impieties But that if those that have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law much more those that have sinned in the Law that is against their Profession shall be judged by it as St. Paul argues And as the Wiseman speaks that the most mighty Sinners should be mightily tormented whilst Mercy may sooner acquit the other For as St. Paul go's on When the Gentiles which have not the Law do by Nature the things contained
dark Mist which fell upon Elymas's Eyes only for an infinite longer continuance Where they shall know and see to use our Prophet's Expression That it was an evil thing and a bitter that they forsook the Lord and that his fear was not in them And they shall too late come to understand that it is A fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God and that no condition is more insupportable than To dwell in everlasting Burnings with Hypocrites and Vnbelievers where there is no rest for them Night nor Day and the smoak of their Torments ascendeth for ever and ever And from whence they shall enviously behold many of those poor Lazars those oppressed innocent Souls who by God's especial Providence may have escaped their merciless and bloody Talons resting and rejoycing in Abraham's Bosom and singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb for their wonderful Deliverance whilst themselves are tormented in that Flame It must needs be said our Blessed Saviour that Offences that is whereby Men are made or induced to Sin do come but wo unto that Man by whom the Offence cometh It were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his Neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the Sea And thus I have made good my first six Points and here in this last have shewed the Relation that this Text hath unto us and how far our selves are chargeable with this Guilt of shedding the Blood of Souls Whereby I am at liberty to proceed unto VII THE seventh and last part of my Discourse wherein I am to prove from our Prophet's severe Reprehension of Jerusalem no less than from the reasonableness of the thing the absolute and most indispensible necessity of our speedy Reformation and redressing of this Abuse this being the true end of all Reprehensions and that especially upon these three following Considerations First In respect of the great Impiety thereof Secondly In respect of the Dishonour from thence redounding to this Church and Nation and to the whole Reformation Thirdly In respect of God's Judgments which most undoubtedly must be the inevitable Consequences of our longer persisting in this so prophane and scandalous practice and permission of such an horrid Impiety and open contempt of Christianity I shall begin with The First which is the Impiety thereof It being an Injury against God himself who is a lover of Souls and that to that degree that he above all things desires their Happiness and Salvation But whos 's gracious design of bringing those Souls unto that state of Bliss and Happiness by Christ we as much as in us lieth do hereby make void and frustrate and do even defeat that his blessed purpose for which as must be piously supposed he was pleased to discover unto us and possess us of those many rich and fruitful Countries viz. The publishing and spreading abroad of the Gospel amongst the first Inhabitants and Natives there with other like Gentiles who might arrive thither from other parts It is a most vile Affront to Christianity as implying the no esteem we have for it as if not worth the troubling the World therewith which disesteem must first arise from a Principle of Infidelity and Atheism first lodged in the Heart as is before shewed It was the Barbarians of Japan's Argument in behalf of our trading Neighbours whose Zeal also to Religion doth not much out-strip ours that according to their Word they took them to be no Christians because they perceived not in them any endeavours for the promoting of that Faith An Indifferency they observed not usual with other sorts of Christians and it being no way probable they thought that Men should so much neglect and slight a Religion which themselves believed It makes Christianity inferiour to all other Sects whose Zealots especially are known even to compass Sea and Land to make Proselites to their Opinions It makes it a Religion only for Trade and Commerce and even Heaven and Salvation to be of less moment than the getting of Money It makes it a Patroness of the grossest Immanities for filthy Lucre and no less implies an Imposture in the first publishers of it or at best some mistake of their Errand if whilst they persuaded Men to forsake the World for the attaining of Heaven they only designed the heaping up of Riches as of the greater Importance It also destroys Charity which is the true mark of a Child of God and the badge of a Christian whose proper nature and quality is tho to begin at home yet to enlarge it self to others even our very Enemies And in a word it is no other than an absolute deposing and rejecting of Christ for the Exaltation of Mammon Lastly It is a reproach to Humanity it self and a Sin of the blackest quality against our Neighbour whom we herein are so far from loving as our selves that it rather seems the utmost effort of our Malice against him and which no Revenge could satisfy but such only as should terminate in the destruction of his Soul And so much for the first But then Secondly This ought to be reformed in respect of the Dishonour from thence redounding to our Church and Nation and even to the whole Reformation First to the Church For it occasions her Enenemies to blaspheme Hence a certain Romanist demands of us Where are the indefatigable Missioners sent by you to the remotest parts of the World for the conversion of Heathens A noble Function wherein the Catholick that is their Roman Church only and most justly glories whilst you like lazy Drones sit at home not daring to wet a Foot c. And by another it is objected against both our selves and our equally zealous Neighbours That never any thing for the propagation of Christianity in foreign parts hath by either Nation been at any time attempted And from thence a third Person very roundly infers the Nullity of our Church and Religion viz. Because we have no Zeal therefore no Faith and therefore no Church nor Religion among us Again when the great Industry of our People in New-England shall be rehearsed their converting of Nations turning the whole Bible into the Indian Tongue their Colledg built and endowed for the Education of Indian Youth Their Missioners sent forth and Lands purchased for their Maintenance and all this out of a barren Soil some sixty years since no better than a rocky Wilderness whilst ours out of better Conveniencies and more happy Opportunities such are our grateful returns have not produced the least Grain of Harvest to God's Glory in those Parts But upon all occasions shifting it off with the unfitness of the Season and pretending that the time is not come proclaiming it unpracticable and impossible tho effected by others of smaller Abilities Or like Solomon's Sluggard setting up Lions and Tigres in the way raising Obstructions and creating Difficulties when upon experience there
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 *