religious impressions, nor fit objects for the redeeming grace of God to
operate upon. That under this persuasion, and from a disposition of
cruelty, they treated them with far less humanity than they did their
cattle; for, says he, they do not starve their horses, which they expect
should both carry and credit them on the road; nor pinch the cow, by
whose milk they are sustained; which yet, to their eternal shame, is too
frequently the lot and condition of those poor people, from whose labour
their wealth and livelihood doth wholly arise; not only in their diet,
but in their cloathing, and overworking some of them even to death
(which is particularly the calamity of the most innocent and laborious)
but also in tormenting and whipping them almost, and sometimes quite, to
death, upon even small miscarriages. He apprehends it was from this
prejudice against the Negroes, that arose those supercilious checks and
frowns he frequently met with, when using innocent arguments and
persuasions, in the way of his duty as a minister of the gospel, to
labour for the convincement and conversion of the Negroes; being
repeatedly told, with spiteful scoffings, (even by some esteemed
religious) that the Negroes were no more susceptible of receiving
benefit, by becoming members of the church, than their dogs and bitches.
The usual answer he received, when exhorting their masters to do their
duty in that respect, being, _What! these black dogs be made christians!
what! they be made like us! with abundance more of the same_.
Nevertheless, he remarks that the Negroes were capable, not only of
being taught to read and write, &c. but divers of them eminent in the
management of business. He declares them to have an equal right with us
to the merits of Christ; of which if through neglect or avarice they are
deprived, that judgment which was denounced against wicked Ahab, must
befal us: _Our life shall go for theirs_. The loss of their souls will
be required at our hands, to whom God hath given so blessed an
opportunity of being instrumental to their salvation."