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

It has been cavilled, by some, that it is questionable Whether the Negroes have Rational Souls, or no. But let that Brutish insinuation be never Whispered any more. Certainly, their Discourse, will abundantly prove, that they have Reason. Reason shows it self in the Design which they daily act upon. The vast improvement that Education has made upon some of them, argues that there is a Reasonable Soul in all of them. An old Roman, and Pagan, would call upon the Owner of such Servants, Homines tamen esse memento. They are Men, and not Beasts that you have bought, and they must be used accordingly. 'Tis true; They are Barbarous. But so were our own Ancestors. The Britons were in many things as Barbarous, but a little before our Saviours Nativity, as the Negroes are at this […] ⟨p. 24⟩if there be any Credit in Caesars Commentaries. Christianity will be the best cure for this Barbarity. Their Complexion sometimes is made an Argument, why nothing should be done for them. A Gay sort of argument! As if the great God went by the Complexion of Men, in His Favours to them! As if none but Whites might hope to be Favoured and Accepted with God! Whereas it is well known, That the Whites, are the least part of Mankind. The biggest part of Mankind, perhaps, are Copper-Coloured; a sort of Tawnies. And our English that inhabit some Climates, do seem growing apace to be not much unlike unto them. As if, because a people, from the long force of the African Sun & Soil upon them, (improved perhaps, to further Degrees by maternal imaginations, and other accidents,) are come at length to have the small Fibres of their Veins, and the Blood in them, a little more Interspersed through their Skin than other People, this must render them left valuable to Heaven then the rest of Mankind? Away with such Trifles. The God who looks on the Heart, is not ⟨p. 25⟩moved by the colour of the Skin; is not more propitious to one Colour than […]. Say rather, with the Apostle; Acts 10.34, 35. Of a truth I perceive, that God is no respectre of persons; but in every Nation, he that feareth Him and worketh Righteousness, is accepted with Him. Indeed their Stupidity is a Discouragement. It may seem, unto as little purpose, to Teach, as to wash an Ethiopian. But the greater their Stupidity, the greater must be our Application. If we can't learn them so much as we Would, let us learn them as much as we Can.