A39228:4
Indian dialogues for their instruction in that great service of Christ, in calling home…
Indian dialogues for their instruction in that great service of Christ, in calling home their country-men to the knowledge of God, and of themselves, and of Jesus Christ.Indian dialogues for their instruction in that great service of Christ, in calling home their country-men to the knowledge of God, and of themselves, and of Iesus Christ.
Printed at Cambridge : s.n., 1671
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
To the Right Worshipful, THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE United Colonies in N.E.
To the Right Worshipful, THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE Vnited Colonies in N.E.
Gentlemen,
AS I have sometime said unto you, so I now write, That there be none on Earth that have so great and eminent a Calling from man to take care of the Indians, that they be instructed in the ways of life by Christ Jesus, as your selves have. For, besides the Right Honourable Corporation in London, His Majesty our Sovereign hath ordered a Trust to be committed to such as shall be in your Order, namely, Commissioners of the United Colonies in New-England, to take care of this matter. I find few English Students willing to engage into so dim a Work as this is. God hath in mercy raised up sundry among themselves to a competent ability to teach their Countrymen. Many have been sent forth by the Church this Winter to divers places, and not without good success, through the grace of Christ: of which I shall (if God will, and that I live) give you an account at your next ⟨image 3⟩Sitting. I find it necessary for me to instruct them (as in Principles of Art, so) in the way of communicating the good knowledge of God, which I conceive is most familiarly done by way of Dialogues; an Essay whereunto I do here present unto you: purposing, if the Lord will, and that I live, to do more of the like kind hereafter. My earnest Request unto your selves, is, That in all your respective Colonies you would take care that due Accommodation of Lands and Waters may be allowed them, whereon Townships and Churches may be (in after-Ages) able to subsist; and suffer not the English to strip them of all their Lands, in places fit for the Sustenance of the life of man. Thus commending you to the Lord, I rest,