eemed
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."

[Footnote A: "There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human
mind, which in different places or ages hath had different names; it is,
however, pure, and proceeds from God.--It is deep and inward, confined
to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands
in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what
nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression.
Using ourselves to take ways which appear most easy to us, when
inconsistent with that purity which is without beginning, we thereby set
up a government of our own, and deny obedience to Him whose service is
true liberty. He that has a servant, made so wrongfully, and knows it to
be so, when he treats him otherwise than a free man, when he reaps the
benefit of his labour, without paying him such wages as are reasonably
due to free men for the like service; these things, though done in
calmness, without any shew of disorder, do yet deprave the mind, in like
manner, and with as great certainty, as prevailing cold congeals water.
These steps taken by masters, and their conduct striking the minds of
their children, whilst young, leave less room for that which is good to
work upon them. The customs of their parents, their neighbours, and the
people with whom they converse, working upon their minds, and they from
thence conceiving wrong ideas of things, and modes of conduct, the
entrance into their hearts becomes in a great measure shut up against
the gentle movings of uncreated purity.

"From one age to another the gloom grows