Epitom of the four Worlds Intellectual Rational Elemental and Sensitive 'T is true we are not so ready at Words nor so nimble to express our Conceptions but we can more than guess at what is Just and Fit and Honest and Seemly and know what is agreeable to the dignity of humane Nature and what not though the Christians despise us by the Name of Heathens we must acknowledge that we are not so well acquainted with the wordy and notional matters of Religion nor do talk so much of it nor keep so much ado about it as many of the Christians do for we do not Wrangle nor Fight nor Backbite or Hate one another for or touching the Worship of God Nor do we Kill Burn or Imprison any for not agreeing with us or being of our Intellectual Complexions because God in his Wisdom has made all things to differ many there are whose Eyes are open see into the truth of these things As for our Faith touching God and Eternity we have not much to say neither do we ever use many Words For we have only one Book viz. Our selves in which is contained the true Nature and Property of all things both Internally and Externally and happy is he that can read but the Christ-Cross-Row in his own Book it is more profitable to him than a multitude of Books cry'd up and admired by the World And this we do know and acknowledge that there is a good and an evil Spirit or Principle within us one which prompts and invites and leads us to Good and the other drawing us to Evil and by the light of the good Principle we distinguish between what is Right and the contrary and whensoever we do Evil we are convinced and reproved for it by this good Genius whereby we are sensible that Lying Swearing Adultery Idleness Disobedience to our Masters Burning of Houses Murther and the like are Sins against God and when at any time we commit any such things we are accused and condemned for the same in our Hearts though our Masters nor any Creature else know thereof In short the main Differences between the Christians and us seem to be no more than these that they are White and we Black because they are born in one Climate and we in another they have Learning as Reading Writing speaking of various Languages and we have none of those Ornamental Advantages but they may please to remember that the more Paint Glass has upon it the more it keeps out the Light They are educated under certain Rights and Forms and taught divers Notions of Religion which we are not skill'd in But the grand point of Religion To do as we would be done by we understand as well as they and are sure they practise it less than we What then do they talk so much of the Leaves when we can see no Fruits let us feel their Christianity and see it as well as hear of it and no doubt then we shall be more in love with it These I say are the chief Differences for as to the natural â—roperties of the Body and Soul there is but very little setting aside Custom and Education For as I said before as to the Members of the Body and inward Faculties we are alike in all particulars neither is there any difference as to the Soul and Spirit they are as much subject to Passions Lusts and irregular Affections as we as also to Sicknesses Mortality and all other Misfortunes And as your Prophet hath said God whose wonderful Works we both equally are is no Respecter of Persons but every one tâ—at feareth his Name and worketh Righteousness according to the Measure and Gift he has endued every one with whether Bond or Free Jew or Gentile is accepted of him And it is not the Name that will justifie but a living in the Nature and Power of well-doing according as the Creator has dispensed his Gifts to each Person And let Christians know this as a certain truth that neither before nor at the great Day of Reckoning and when Accounts must be given good Words nor long formal Prayers will stand them in stead except they have lived in the Nature Power and Operation of the good Spirit which we pray and wish they would do and that they would Act what they Talk and then both they and we should find the Benefit to the Praise and Glory of God and our own Comfort For this is without dispute that since Christians do know more of God and of the heavenly Mysteries than we do then there is the more required of them and how they discharge themselves in their Practice we cannot see for surely they do very little or not at all live in and under the Christian Spirit for that leads all that are guided by it to love even their Enemies to take Compassion and do unto all as they would be done unto and also endues it Followers with the Virtues of Meekness Humility Self-denyal Temperance and Purity and to deny all Ungodliness and worldly Lusts. But instead of these dictates of thy most holy Religion O thou great Preserver of men they enslave and oppress thy poor unworthy Servants and are drunk with our Blood and Sweat We rise early and lie down late and labour beyond our strength whilst our luxurious Masters stretch themselves on their soft Beds and Couches they drink Wine in overflowing Bowls and set their Brains a-float without either Rudder or Compass in an Ocean of other strong and various Drinks even till they are Drunk and vomit up their Shame and Filthiness whilst we are allow'd nothing but Water and now and then a little Cowou They feast themselves with the fattest Lambs and variety of rich costly Foods and live in all Uncleanness and Gluttony They have their Men-Servants and their Maids their Coaches and Horses to wait on them whilst we groan under the over-grievous Burthens and excessive Labour which they impose upon us They wantonly consume the Encrease and Product of our heavy Pains in Riot and Voluptousness in Superfluity and all kind of extravagant Vitiousness their chief Study and Philosophy being to gratifie their liqourish Palates and insatiate Paunches and to enslave us with many intollerable Burthens so that their Lamps are ready to be extinguished by their Superfluity and Excess of Oyl whilst they make frequent and solemn Feasts that is offer Sacrifices and celebrate Festivals to their Idol Belly-God-Paunch the Divinity which they chiefly adore and invite our rich Masters and Dames and there they sit Eating and Drinking whether they have any Appetites or no in a formal way perhaps two or three Hours inticing each other to Gormandize and Guzzle down great Quantities and variety of rich Food and strong Cordial-Drinks not only beyond the Necessities but even the power of Nature and yet not therewith content when they have thus already exceeded all bounds of Temperance they yet proceed to gorge themselves with Wine various sorts of brave noble Fruits
Heart and Life which you call your selves in customary Words or that are serious in the Religion which you your selves say You hope to be saved by Call us Heathens as long as you will I am confident Christ hath not more bitter Enemies in the World than some of you that wear his Livery We Blacks are more gentle to you than you Christians are to one another and I have been assured that all the Heathens in the World have shed less Christian Blood than what Hypocrite Christians themselves have greedily let out or occasioned to be destroyed Thus you honour dead Saints and abhor the Living and would gladly make more Martyrs whilst you keep Days in Commemoration of those that others made Can any thing be more preposterously absurd more foolishly wicked than these interferring Contradictions Were it not better to be what you call your selves or to call your selves what you are If you approve of these Christian Doctrines why do not you square your Conversations accordingly If you think them needless Notions why do not you disown them Or why do you so much cry up and magnifie them Be either Christians indeed or cease to upbraid us for being Heathens for such shuffling Hypocrisie is more abominable to God and Man than the most ignorant Paganism Mast. I have given you Sambo a large liberty of Prating and you have used it very confidently How come you so wonderous Wise How dare you upbraid us that have the Light of the Gospel Or indeed why should we mind any thing such Heathens as you can say or talk of Negr. We boast not of Wisdom what I have said arises from plain matter of Fact which no Person whom our Creator hath endued with a rational Soul can be ignorant of if he do not wilfully quench and extinguish in himself that Light which enlightneth every man that cometh into the World and which one of your own Prophets calls The Candle of the Lord. Nor are we altogether such ignorant dark Heathens as you call and suppose us for many of the Christians do not esteem nor look on us any otherwise or better than Dogs for tell me I pray boon Master what difference has our Creator made between you and us Hath he endued you with any particular Quality or Property more then we are furnisht with The Members of our Bodies the Faculties of our Minds our Senses and all the Furniture of Nature are equal and the same in us as in you We are not Beasts as you count and use us but rational Souls and in us is contained the true Nature and Properties of all Elements and created things Nor do we contemn or flight the Light of the Gospel as you call it but we wonder at you that so much talk of it and so little practise the good Rules of Life contained therein Besides since you are pleased to grant us the Liberty to plead our own Cause we might tell you that we have the same Gospel that you so much talk of written in our Hearts and doing by Nature the things that are written in the Law being without the Law are a Law unto our selves as one of your illuminated Prophets speaks And if we do the things that are right in the sight of God and walk in his innocencent Law in Nature according to our measure and understanding we have so far discharged our Duty and we doubt not but the goodness of our Creator will accept thereof and pardon our involuntary Misprisions and Failings and if you have a larger Manifestation of the eternal Light and Love of God which we have no reason to doubt then the more is required of you and therefore the greater and more sore will your Condemnation be Mast. And do you black Heathenish Negroes then dane compare your selves with us brave white Christians Does not your very Hue that sooty Skin of yours serve for an Emblem of the darkness of your Minds You eat all unclean Foods Carrion and Vermine without scruple you have no Order nor decent Ceremonies at your Marriages you go naked and have not wherewithal to cover your Shame in a Word you are in most particulars the very next Door to Beasts and therefore we have hardly so much care and esteem for you as we have for our Horses or other Cattel Are you not altogether unlearned and can neither spue Latine nor sputter Greek nor understand the Hebrew Rabbins and the Talmud your Discourses are not trim'd with Flowers of Rhetorick nor can you chop Logick nor make Syllogisms and run down both Truth and Sense with Mood and Figure and the Magick of a concluding Ergo What Divines or Clergy-men what cunning Lawyers have you to boast of Though you pretend to do Cures yet you never read Galen nor Paracelsus nor have any Apothecaries to make a Trade of the Materia Medica nor Chymists to tell you the Medicinal Vertues of Minerals you have very few Persons of Honour amongst you except your Kings and but a few Misses and no Theaters or Play-houses for the Education of your Youth your Women are not so nobly arrayed nor have those charming Arts to invite men to love and dote upon them as ours daily study neither do you drink Wine in Bowls nor understand the genteel mystery of quaffing of Healths with an Huzza or to Swear Modishly with a boon Courage All these things We enjoy and make sumptuous Feasts where we spend as much in a few Hours as two or three Hundred of such Wretches as you can earn in some dayes We have all forts or War like Weapons and murthering Engines to use at our pleasure We eat and drink of the fattest Foods and richest Liquors and take our ease and clothe us in costly Attire and study new Fashions for our Garments to render us more honourable and admired and many other great Priviledges we have which you are destitute of Negr. These Sir are brave things indeed to vapour with Is it possible that rational men much less such illuminated Christians as you account your selves should thus be taken with things that are so much below the Dignity of humane Nature to boast of your Evils and glory in your Shame As for our Complexion 't is the Livery of our Creator the property of the Climate and Soil wherein his good Providence disposed of us to be born and bred we made not our selves Black nor do you make your selves White wherein then have you any thing to brag of above us If for this cause you despise us you at the same time despise that adorable Power which is the Maker both of us and you And thought White be an Emblem of Innocence yet there are whited Walls filled within with Filth and Rottenness what is only outward will stand you in no stead it is the inward Candor that our Creator is well-pleased with and not the outward have a care therefore that you be not found as black within as we are externally You upbraid us with
so that then Nature is not so well able to perform her Kitchin-work in the Stomach by a perfect Concoction or Separation of the Meats and Drinks and so all the Senses are dulled and the Intellect stupified and not a few seeds of diseases are thereby sown throughout the Body Besides the long Mornings Work or Exercise has by that time pretty much wearied dulled or evaporated the brisk lively Spirits which are alwayes the main supports of Concoction and Digestion and so Nature is still rendred the more uncapable of doing her work with ease But in the Morning after Nocturnal Repose has recovered the wasted Spirits and made them Brisk Airy and full of Life the digestive faculty is fortified and rendred able to digest the same quantity of Food with much more ease and safety The same is to be understood in the Afternoon or towards Night for then the heat of the day being over and the Body becomes Cool Airy and full of Life and being a sufficient time before sleep as at Four or Five a Clock such Suppers will not Incommode Nature nor hinder Rest as late eating is apt to do especially in hot Countries and still the more in maturer Age or such as begin to be striken in years to whom such Meals are most injurious 5. Such as have due regard to their Health and Strength ought for the reasons aforesaid to Rest from Eleaven a Clock till Two in the Afternoon which will wonderfully recover their Spirits and render them much better able to go through with their Labour with a lively Vigour and to do more preparation of each of them together with the Nature and Operation of various drinks as most sorts of Wine Ale Beer Syder each spoken to distinctly by themselves c. 8. They ought to avoid the frequent eating and drinking of all Foods or Liquors in which the Sweet Quality is too highly predominant for sweet Foods are of far more dangerous consequence as to Health than most People imagin for all Sweet things when fermented in the Stomach do turn to the highest Sowerness viz. into a keen sharpness which does not only spoil the digestive faculty but infects the Blood with a Mangie Scorbutick Humour causing stoppages in all the external parts whence proceed Indispositions and akeing Loyns and feeble Joynts For the same cause it is that such as eat much Sugar or sweet food are extreamly troubled with rotten decay'd Teeth and Gumes for those dullified foods cause such a sour acid Quality as generates putrifaction which centers on the Teeth and between the Gumes and so destroys them And it were far better and more healthy for People if they would accustom themseves to Foods and Drinks in which the Bitter and Sower Qualities were more predominant especially in hot Climates where most sorts of Fruits are sweetish for the Root of all Motion Opening and Cleansing consists in the Bitter Quality for which reason the Sophys or Wise-men both of the Southern and Eastern Countries have taught the People to moderate all or most of their foods with Herbs and Fruits that are of a Bitterish Quality which does wonderfully support Nature and preserve Health whereby they attain to very great Ages as we noted before of those in Guinea and the same may be observed elsewhere for those Patriarchs whose Longevity we find Recorded did all of them live in very hot Countries But their Temperance supported Nature and so it will in a proportionable degree all that practice it And therefore if these Rules of Health be seriously regarded and followed those causeless scandals on the Climate the Heat c. of these happy Western Southern and Eastern Regions not inferior for Health or Pleasantness if rightly understood to any in the World will cease and the English Traders or Inhabitants may there extend their lives in Comfort to as good an old Age as they would have promised themselves in their Native Country But without Discretion and Temperance in Diet Drinks Exercises and Affections of the mind Diseases will certainly attend us wherever we reside and an immature Death be apt to seize us There is no Region so happy no Elevation of the Pole so temperate no Air so salubrious as to keep People in Health whether they will or no and those that obstinately violate Nature and wilfully persue courses absolutely destructive may justly be rank't amongst the number of Self-Murtherers for it matters not much whether a man kill himself all at once or by repeated Acts and degrees only the latter seems less excuseable since it has not the pretext of a sudden Temptation or Passion but seems a more deliberate design of destroying both his Body and Soul against all Cautions and Arguments from time to time offered to him both by Reason and Experience to the contrary Those therefore that would avoid the Brand of being Felo's-de-se let them before it be too late abandon Riot and Excess and embrace Temperance and Sobriety so shall they have Health of Body and Strength of mind and length of dayes here and a blissful Eternity hereafter A Caution LEt no sober well minded men nor any that profess the honourable name of Christianity be so frequent in those places of Debauchery viz Taverns and Ale-houses the first whereof being the only places of all manner of wickedness where all the high lofty state of Superfluity is practised being the haunts of evil Spirits and where their chief work is done Women are defloured and Estates spent the Soul made uncapable of Salvation the Health destroyed in a word the whole Macrocosmical man ruined and is â—he very Radix of devilish Fewds and cruel Murders Therefore let no good Christians dare to be seen in any such places for tell me I pray what pleasure or delight can a sober well-minded man take in being amongst such a devilish Croud where there is all kinds of wicked lewd Behaviour as Swearing Lying baudy Songs drunken Healths and roaring Huzza's where a man can hardly hear himself spake like the fiery unequal operations of the Elements or Sea-Tempests and Storms Now if Christian men scruple the wearing of needless O naments and Garments with other things of Gallantry and State wherefore should they not shun and avoid the greater Evils And although it be lawful to drink Wine in a Tavern and Ale in an Ale-house in cases of necessity as Travelling or the like yeâ— they ought in Cities and Towns to avoid drinking or frequenting such places whereby you will discountenance the Evils thereof and preserve your selves Harmless and Innocent 2. All sober People ought to refrain drinking between Meals especially all Gentlemen Merchants Shop-keepers c. who are the men that drink the brave noble exhilerating Liquors in Superfluity which a little custom would make most pleasant and easie besides it would free the Passages and disburthen the Stomach from all superfluous matter by which the Blood would become fine and cause it to circulate freely whence will proceed pure
murder the other at their pleasure and as for those that they save alive 't is not out of pity or kindness but to gratifie their own Covetousness by making Merchandize of them and exposing them to Slavery far worse than Death For then we are hurried from our nearest and dearest Relations the kind Husband from his loving Wife the tender Mother from her helpless Babes and Youths the comfort and joy of Age snatcht from their mourning Parents and that without any hopes of ever seeing one another again Thus are we sometimes driven many Miles by Land over partching Deserts and through howling Wildernesses down to the Sea-Coasts and and Factories being all the way miserably abus'd by our unmerciful Drivers and wearied and spent with Over-Travel Hunger Drought and excessive Heat which puts a period to many of our sweet Lives but the same when it happens is reckoned an happiness for thereby that greater and long lasting Misery is prevented which those that survive must endure for no sooner are they arrived at the Sea-side but they are sold like Beasts to the Merchant who glad of the booty puts us aboard the Ship claps us under Deck and binds us in Chains and Fetters and thrusts us into the dark noisom Hold so many and so close together that we can hardly breathe there are we in the hottest of Summer and under that scorching Climate without any of the sweet Influences of the Air or briezing Gale to refresh us suffocated stewed and parboyled altogether in a Crowd till we almost rot each other and our selves Nay many times not only our profest Enemies but our Treacherous Friends betray us to these intollerable Miseries for so far is the Root of bitterness irritated and such an Ascendent it hath got over us that for vain trifles our paltry Parents shall sell their Children and Husbands their Wives into perpetual Slavery Nor let any Christian Tyrants for this upbraid us for if it be as in truth it is a most unnatural wickedness in our People to sell them is it not upon the matter almost as bad in the Christians to buy them Nay rather is not the chiefest Crime in them since they are the Tempters and Occasioners of it for they allure our â—eople to it by offering them several sorts of Goods which they find they have most mind to And is not this a fine imployment think you for Christians to run to remotest Regions to get their innocent Fellow Creatures and make Slaves of them Whilst we are thus mew'd up in the Ship besides the inconveniencies of heat and danger of suffocation and the Torture of our Chains we also run the hazard of being half starved for the Ship-Masters out of Covetousness and for their own Lucre will not allow us fit or competent Meats or Drinks but just enough to keep Life and Soul together and that corrupt decayed stinking and unwholsome by which all our Healths and Lives are destroyed or impaired for oft times half or more of our wretched Number dye in the Voyage and others of us of more sturdy Spirits and Tempers when they see themselves thus Captiv'd scorning to preserve a Life that thenceforth would be only advantagious to others and burthensome to them by refusing all Sustenance have shortened their dayes As for the rest we are so generally wounded in our Healths by the ill â—sage we receive on Ship-board that we seldom recover our strength and when we come on Shore we find no â—etter fare nor Treatment from our â—ew Christian Masters most of them proving as sharp and Tyrannical as our â—wn Heathen Fathers and Brethren as â—hey call them for when we by the Ship-Master and Seamen have suffered so many violent Miseries and sore Opâ—ressions that we are thereby as poor weak and feeble as Death so that we â—an hardly either stand or go which â—endring us not capable to answer â—he Covetous ends of our new Masters our Afflictions are thereby doubled for when our strength fails us the inconsiderate and unmerciful Overseers make nothing to Whip and Beat us â—nd the best words they can afford us â—re Damn'd Doggs Black ugly Devils â—dle Sons of Ethiopean Whores and the â—ike Alas we expected another sort of Treatment from the Christians who boast themselves the Sons and Favourites of the God of Love and Goodness and who we have been informed are or ought to be endued with the Spirit of Meekness Innocency and doin unto all as they would be done unto We understand that to be a Christian is to live under the Government of the Divine Principle of Benignity and Well-doing from whence all good Vertues are deriv'd as streams from a Fountain But verily we find little very little or scarce any sign at all of this excellent Spirit to reign in the hearts of our Masters or Overseers but on the contrary find them over-ruled and filled with Devilishness Cruelty and Oppression which are so extream that we can as hardly bear them as the Israelites of Old could the grievous and unreasonable Burthens of Egyptian Pharoah and his Task-masters which did force them to cry unto the Lord for ease and deliverance from those cruel Bonds and Slaveries even as we do at this day To enumerate the miseries we endure by a particular Bill of 〈◊〉 would be too tedious we shall Instance in some few of the most Insufferances that all knowing Power to whom our Cries are directed knows all the several aggravations of them and the Consciences of our Masters cannot but witness to the Truth and Justice of our Complaints 1. Though we acknowledge man is born to Labour and had not hands only given him to put Victuals into his Mouth but first to use them in tilling the Earth and getting Food and all other things requisite for humane Life yet certainly the merciful God never intended that any of his Creatures should be forced to Labour beyond their natural strength nor have burthens imposed on their weary Shoulders greater than they are able to bear Labour was undoubtedly enjoyned as an exercise to preserve Health and Strength and prevent Sloth and Idleness not as a perpetual Plague to destroy Nature and make Life a Torment and Death a Courtesy yet our Flint-hearted Tyrants not content with diligent Industry and pains force us to unreasonable Labours both for toil and continuance beyond the power of Nature and whereas a good man is merciful even to his Beast they extend no Compassion to us who are of the same Species with themselves but slave us on in continual drudgery till our Heart-strings crack and our Nerves are enfeebled and our Marrow is exhausted and our Bones fall under their Burthens and our Spirits are consumed and our Souls in Weariness and Anguish wish for Death rather than Life The end of all Natures Motions is Rest nor can she perform any of her Operations without Refreshment Ground alwayes plow'd yields little encrease but must lie fallow now and then if you expect a
unwholsom putrified Flesh and glad if they can get it for in truth they allow them little or nothing more than at other times and but two or three dayes Rest and then they must out again into the Field with their young and tender Babes and leave them sprauling on the Ground which is their only Nurse and Cradle nor can they expect any Rocking unless God to punish our Masters Inhumanity should send an Earthquake Nay when they cry for want of the presence and tendence of their Mothers and for lack of Sustenance our rough and churlish Overseers will hardly allow time to give them Suck If our Women be disordered by the natural Infirmities attending their Sex or by the frowardness and crying of their Children which have broken their and our short Hours of Sleep No body comes and asks Forsooth how have you rested to Night Nor cries Pray keep no Noise she has not slept well to Night No no let the case be how it will as soon as the Gray-ey'd Morning draws the Curtains of the Day and the Light begins to peep from behind the Mountains of the East the blustering Overseer blows his Horn or Sheal and then presently all Excuses set apart we and our Wives must turn out with our tender Children whether we or they be well or sick disposed or indisposed it matters not to Work we must go under the Whip and the Spur and the Sun's scorching Beams all the day long and none comes and desires them to eat a bit and drink before they go out to prevent the Wind but on the contrary if our Wives never so truly plead their Inability to labour thus they find no Ears open to hear them with pity but severe Hands and lusty Whips ready to lay on cruel Stripes upon their tender and fainting Backs and so they are forced to carry their Children with them into the Work-field and suckle them there when they can get an opportunity all day and so lug them home again at Night and have no refreshing Drinks nor proper Foods to supply them with dry or moist Nourishment These things though our hard hearted Masters regard not yet methinks our Mistrisses if not out of Christianity or good Nature yet out of respect to Woman-hood and their own Sex and by a Compassion raised from their own experience of the diffiulties of Child-bearing might be induced to prevail with their Husbands to be more tender in such cases but so far are even these counted of the softer Sex from any such â—ommiseration that where they alone have the sole command as when they are left Widdows or the like many of them are more fierce dogged pinching oppressing and severe than the men themselves But we are not only with unreasonable Beating made to labour beyond our strength and abilities of Nature but many of our Masters will not allow us Food that 's sufficient either in quantity or quality to support and maintain Health Strength and Vigour so that being pined with want as well as worn out with excessive Drudgery we oft times perish or at least become poor lean feeble and hardly able to go For as when they do allow us Ground to plant for our Nourishment the same is so little as not to be half sufficient for that purpose and so much the worse because they afford us no time to Till and Improve it So when they pretend to buy us any Food more than our Plantation-Provisions viz. either Fish or Flesh they will go to all the Merchants in the Town and diligently inquire out and buy the worst they can lay their Hands on viz. stinking decayed Flesh and rotten Fish and cry It is good enough for Negro's they care not how bad it is so they can buy it cheap Some of them indeed are so free that they will allow us one salt Mackarel or two a Week but others will afford us none which lays us under a necessity either to Starve or Steal for we are reduced to such Extremity that if a Horse dye and is buried several dayes if some of our People come to know it they will dig up the putrified stinking Carrion and make good Chear of it others will eat all the Cats Dogs Rats and Mice they can lay their Hands on So that through Necessity and the depravedness of our Minds with evil Customs we are immers'd into all the Beastiality and Uncleanness which the Christians have never endeavoured to regulate or prevent but rather the contrary By these and variety of other the like Miseries and Oppressions many of us have been brought to dispair and chuse a miserable sinful Death rather than such a wretched Life whence some have Hang'd others Drown'd themselves some cut their own Throats and procured to themselves the like violent Deaths but our Blood is of no value in the sight of our Masters which yet we doubt not but will cry unto thee O thou most just Creator and Governour of men for Revenge upon those that have been the prime occasions of all these Evils For these hard Usages and Cruelties do terribly awaken the central Wrath and sleeping Poysons of the Original Nature by which means and provocations we become sullen dogged malicious envious angry and revengeful all which devilish Dispositions are occasioned or much increased in us by the harsh Tyranny of our Masters Hence many times we neglect our Labour run away spoil our Business in the anguish of our souls continually curse our Masters and their Posterity And thence on the other side our Masters take occasion to redouble their Cruel Usages towards us and be-labour themselves to Beat and Whip us and hang us up by the Hands Feet and the like and so Bastinado us till our Bodies become like a piece of raw Flesh and we are just ready to give up the Ghost For though we are O Great Creator the Work of thy Hands and were made in thine Image and endued with rational and immortal Souls yet we are nothing more in many of our Masters esteem than their Money and if some of them could find out a way to torment and plague us ten fold more they would do it provided we might still be but able to perform our Drudgery to maintain them in Superfluity and Gluttony For our precious Lives are reckoned no more than those of so many Dogs though they cannot gratifie their Pallates and Paunches nor maintain themselves in their Luxuries and sinful Vanities but meerly by our Labours yet on any irregular Passion or devilish Humor some of them will sacrifice our Lives to their Fury and neither count it Murther nor any Sin neither did we ever hear that their Law in such Cases made Inquisition for Blood or punished those that committed such Murders otherwise than by a Fine or ordering them to pay so much Sugar for the business as if there were any Equality Proportion or Adequateness between such a Crying Crime and such a triffling Punishment Do not your
Tarts Sweet-Meats and a thousand Novelties brought from forreign Regions of themselves more than sufficient for a sober and temperate Meal not considering the Injuries they thereby do both to their Bodies and Minds nor regarding in the mean time the starving condition of us their poor Slaves that would be glad of the Crums that fall from their over-spread Tables and yet 't is from our sore Labour and grievous Sweat and pinched Bellies that what they thus wickedly waste upon their pampered Lusts is extracted Alas how few of our Christian Masters do ever consider or endeavour to put into practice either Abstinence or Sobriety though their own Prophets and Apostles commend those Virtues as the surest Bulwarks and Fortifications against Temptations and Viciousness and such as render the Body pleasant and healthful fit to discharge all its Functions and prepares the Mind to be the Temple of the Lord. But these are things too sublim for our gorbellied Christians to consider of when a number of them gather themselves together to the Burial of a Swine which they will Roast or burn it whole and then bury it in their ungodly Paunches and make them swim in their foolish Hogshead accompanied with drunken Healths and roaring Huzza's where one or two of these Epicurean swearing roaring Christians will destroy in Superfluity as much as an hundred of us poor Vassals can get with our hand and sore Labour But why O ye Christians do you thus violate the Commands of our Creator and withstand and walk contrary to the pure innocent Laws of Nature and by your Intemperances and Oppressions contemn the great Law of Love and doing unto all their fellow Creatures as they would be done unto Consider these things impartially and count us no longer Dogs nor hide the Pearl any longer in your ungodly Earth and be as studious and careful to look for it and find it as you have carelesly lost it and you shall see and know the Errors of your wayes and above all know this that every Master must give an Account of his Stewardship to the grand Master of Heaven and Earth and that there must be Retaliation made either in this World or the World to come But alas what likelihood or hopes are there of our Relief Ease or Refreshment from those Oppressions and Burthens under which we languish when these we complain of are become so unnatural that they deal as hardly and cruelly with their own Seed even the Fruit of their own Loins as with us For do not our Masters to gratifie their raging Lusts sometimes take our Women and make them their Concubines viz. either our Wives or our Daughters which best pleaseth them For Adultery is accounted no greater a Crime amongst many of them than Fornication both of them but Venial Sins Tricks of Youth or Modish Gallantries upon whom they beget mungril Children that are neither White nor Black but between both which therefore are called Molatto's and when these poor Women in compliance with such their brutish Heats have conceived by them and brought forth yet the Fathers being without natural Affection though they are their own Seed do expose them and make them perpetual Slaves both they and their Posterity Now what can be more hellish Cruelty or greater Baseness then for men to afflict their own Seed to beget Children in their Drunkenness and Paroxisms of Lust and then not to care what becomes of them nay to make themselves Authors of their Miseries as well as of their Beeing and instead of providing for and well Educating them to enslave and tyrannize over them and leave them in that wretched condition to all Generations There cannot sure be a greater Sin against Gods pure Law in Nature Do not the whole Hosts of the four Worlds condemn this and will not the very Beasts of the Earth rise in Judgment against such vile hard hearted Wretches and Nature disown and spue them out as abominable For as the Cruelties and Oppressions of our Masters are our Plagues at present so they will certainly draw down Judgments on themselves in time if not prevented by Repentance and Reformation for their Violence awakens the center of dark Wrath both in the internal and external Nature and by a secret and sympathetical Power these awakened poysonous Properties do strongly excite the malignant Influences of the Coelestials and attract their Male Configurations for every particular Quality in Nature has a Key in it self to open the Gate of its own Principle whence proceed many Calamities according to the degree of the Sin or Evil committed there being a certain Secret by powerful sympathy between the Coelestial and Terrestrial Bodies by and through whose evil Influences mutually working on each other Plagues and Vengeance and Calamities are engendred as on the other side by their benigne Influences sweetly clasping and embracing each other in Harmony Peace and Plenty Health and Security do proceed For this cause it is in point of Self-Interest a thing of dangerous Consequence for our Christian Masters to be so severe towards us for the groaning of him that suffereth Pain and Torment is the beginning of Trouble and Misery to him that is the cause thereof And it would be well for them and happy for us poor Vassals if our Masters would but be so sober as to consider and be sensible of this Truth that their fierce Wrath Violence and Oppressions to us do clearly demonstrate that the poysonous Wrath is awakened does predominate in them so that let them call themselves by what name or title they please His Servants they are whom they obey the dark fierce Spirit has overcome the good Genius in their Soul and all the pure Virtues as Temperance Compassion Fellow-feeling Courtesie Humanity Iustice and Charity are clapt under Hatches just as we were when we were brought Captive out of Guinnea into the Land of Bondage And then this irritated Wrath or poysonous Spirit does powerfully penetrate all Elements and Bodies and where-ever it finds matter capable or disposed to receive its malignant Rayes they incorporate For the All wise Creator has endued every thing in all the four Worlds with an attractive and influential Virtue and therefore the Sons of men by their Vncleanness Violence and Oppressions do first awaken and stir up the wrathful Spirit in themselves which kindles the Wrath in the Coelestial Bodies and attracts their ill Influences and if whole Nations or Countries live in the irritated Wrath then there are showered down Epidemical Diseases as Pestilence War Famine and the like all according to the nature of the Evils committed or Properties of Nature that were awakned The same is to be understood when any particular Person or Family has awakned the poysonous Wrath it doth powerfully attract the male Influences whence Sickness waste of Estate and many other great Troubles Miseries both to the Body and Mind follow the truth of this daily Experience doth testifie how many of our great Masters have
by their Vitiousness Vncleanness Intemperance Violence and Oppressions both to Man and Beast whom they have had the Government over fallen into great Disorders Distempers Losses Crosses Troubles and Vexations so that their Children that were kept so fine and choice that they would hardly suffer the Air to blow on them or their Legs to carry them whilst they lived in Prosperity are many of them come to nothing some forced to work hard for their Bread others have taken worse Courses and have been immaturely cut off 'T is true the Evils both private and publick are sometimes more tollerable also the good Life and Prayers of some sober People that live in a Town or Country do interpose and in some degree withstand or mittigate the poysonous kindled Wrath so that the Judgment is sometimes deferred and with-holden as for two or three Ages according to the degrees of the awakned Evils and the intermingled Virtues Therefore since we have obtained the favour to plead our own Cause we will be bold to tell our Masters that these things cannot be otherwise it being the eternal Law of God in Nature that whatever Evil Violence or Oppression is committed either by Superior or Inferior if not repented of there must be a time of Retaliation either in this World or that to come according to the Nature of the Evil for as there is such an Affinity between man and man that they can move each other either to Love or Hate so there is a proportionate Similitude between him and the Coelestial Bodies and Elements Man being not only the Image and Likeness of God and Nature but the Horizon of both Worlds in whom the superior and inferior Natures are conjoyned and have their Intercourse for he is the Off-spring of the Stars as well as the Sun of the Earth Therefore let us praise and magnifie the Lord Creator of this wonderful Nature which is surpassing humane Understanding and Number For there is no Religion or form of Worship in the World so noble and well-pleasing to him as for mankind to imitate him by living in and under the power of the eternal Principle of his Light and Love which will lead all that hearken to the Voice of Wisdom into all Innocency and Well-doing and thereby as naturally attract or draw down the sweet and pleasant Virtues out of all things as the Loadstone doth Iron But on the contrary our Masters have built their Babel and fortified themselve with the Poysons of Saturn and Fierceness of Mars and made Gluttony their Trade and Violence their Study whence proceed all our Miseries and Oppressions which at long-run recoyl back upon themselves with Interest destroying all their peace of Mind health of Body and outward Estates For are not most of those that thus violate our Creator's Law in Nature miserably afflicted with many cruel Diseases as the Stone Collick windy Distempers Palsies Cramp Leprosies Kings-Evils Gout dry Belly-Aches Dropsies Consumptions and an hundred other Evils of this Nature which they also intail on their Prosterity so also are they plauged with Vexations and Discords between Man and Wife and with disobedient and rebellious Children Rot and Murrain amongst their Cattel their Crops blasted or spoiled by unseasonable Weather Losses and Disappointments in their Trading even to the consumption of their Estates All which are the Iudgments of God and just Rewards that follow Oppression Violence and Cruelty and of spending the Blood and Sweat of their poor Slaves in superfluous Wantonness for they make nothing to squander away Talents in Courtly Vanities and value not Money in the way of Gluttony then it shall go by whole Sale But if a poor Slave breaks but a Glass or miscarries in any little inconsiderable thing then presently the livid Poyson of Saturn is raised and the flaming Thunder-bolts of Mars are let fly in the greatest Fury and Fierceness imaginable and the best word that comes out of their Mouth is Dog Devil damn'd Dog Bitch and the like hellish Expressions not to mention their horrid Oathes Curses and Execrations which lewd Words are followed by inhumane Blows for they fall upon us with Whip and Spur till the Blood come and we are almost killed with their Cruelty And though they boast and speak excellent things of the Christian-Religion and contemn us for being ignorant of it yet 't is plain they never design that we should know and embrace it for why else do they make it loathsom in our Eyes by acting so contrary to its Genuine Nature and Principles Why do they dress up that which is the greatest Beauty and the most amiable thing in the World in the shape of a frightful deformed Hag or terrible Fury that seems good for nothing but to Bite and Scratch and Prog for its Paunch and wallow in Uncleanness like a Swine Were they in earnest or desirous to make us Christians and save our immortal Souls they would remove out of our way all Stumbling-Blocks of Scandal draw us with the Cords of Love and Meekness they would set us Examples by their blameless Lives and holy Conversations they would be at pains and charge to teach us the Foundation Principles of Christian Religion and to read the Bible and would in those and other Exercises of Virtue and Piety bring up our little Ones But so far are they from any of this that they act the direct contrary and desire and endeavour to keep us Heathens that we may continue their Slaves and thereby are Guilty not only of oppressing our Bodies but as much as in them lies of damning our Souls But our God is more merciful and expects a Return but proportionable to the Talent he hath intrusted his Ways are the Paths of Love and all his Out-goings are Compassion he hath not left us without a guide even a Light shining in a dark place to the conduct whereof if we give heed we shall do well Nor do we in this Complaint intend to tax all our Christian Masters for we must acknowledge that there are some few of them more Just and Merciful unto us for though under them we labour hard yet we have our Food in some order both as to Quantity and Quality and have tolerable Rest which gives us Life and Vigour in our occasions neither do they lay upon us Burthens greater than we can bear besides they often speak kindly to us which chears and comforts our Hearts and Spirits they call us no evil Names which is well liking unto us They allow us the usual time each day to rest in and eat our Food They treat our Women more kindly and allow them better Accomodations when they bring forth their young Ones And though sometimes some of this better sort will command our young Women to be their Concubines yet then in such cases if they prove with-Child they will have some regard to their own Seed and respect to the Women And it is also observable that all such as deal any thing