The Negro Christianized An essay to excite and assist the good work, the instruction…

On the other side, Fourthly: Oh! That our Neighbours would consider the incomparable Benefits that would follow upon your Endeavours to Christianize your Negroes, and bring them to a share with your selves in the Benefits of the Heavenly Inheritance. If your care and cost about the cultivation of your Negroes, be laid out upon such a Stony and Barren Soil, that you can […] no Fruit of it, yet it is not all thrown away. The blessed God will approve ⟨p. 19⟩and reward what you have done; Think, Tho' my Negroes will not prove a part of the Israel of God, an will not be gathered unto the Lord, yet my work is with my God, and what I do is glorious in the Eyes of the Lord. But it is very probable, You may see some good Success of your Travail. And then! Oh! the Consolations that will belong unto you! Christianity does Marvellously befriend and enrich and advance Mankind. The greatest Kindness that can be done to any Man is to make a Christian of him. You Negroes are immediately Raised unto an astonishing Felicity, when you have Christianized them. They are become amiable spectacles, & such as the Angels of God would gladly repair unto the Windows of Heaven to look upon. Tho' they remain your Servants, yet they are become the Children of God. Tho' they are to enjoy no Earthly Goods, but the small Allowance that your Justice and Bounty shall see proper for them, yet they are become Heirs of God, and Joint-Heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. Tho' they are yo•• Vassals, and must with a profound subjection ⟨p. 20⟩wait upon you, yet the Angels of God now take them under their Guardianship, and vouchsafe to tend upon them. Oh! what have you done for them! Happy Masters, who are Instrumental to raise their Servants thus from the Dust, and make them objects for the Nobles of Heaven to take Notice of! But it will not be long before you and they come at length to be together in the Heavenly City. Lazarus there lies down at the same Feast, with his Master Abraham. There was Joy in Heaven, when your Servants first came to taste that the Lord is Gracious: and it cannot but be a vast Accession unto your Joy in Heaven, to meet your Servants there, and hear them forever blessing the gracious God, for the Day when He first made them your Servants. If these Consolations of God be small unto a Man, truly, he has very Bad Symptoms upon him.