on having addrest you so long in a stile and manner somewhat unusual in discourses from this place. Let the peculiarity, as well as the importance of the subject plead my excuse. But if the manner in which I have treated it, should not be thought improper; if it should only be thought well intended, let me have reason to hope that what I have said may, when this great question comes before the Parliament, induce my present audience to join in the public prayer of our Church with peculiar fervour, that Almighty God" would be pleased to direct "and prosper all their consultations to the advancement "of his glory, the good of his Church, the safety, honour, "and welfare of our Sovereign and his kingdoms:" for what can be more for the advancement of God's glory than the emancipation of whole nations from the worst of slavery? What more for the good of his Church, than the almost certain introduction of innumerable tribes of free-men, then only capable of becoming good and practical Christians, into its sacred pale? * What more for * To prove this assertion fully would require a separate discourse. So far as civilization is concerned in the question, it has been well discussed by the masterly pen of a Warburton, in a sermon delivered to the Society for propagating the Gospel in foreign parts, 1766. See his Works published by the Bishop of Worcester. -I wish however to refer my readers to a very curious letter from the Indians in the back settlements of America, printed by the Society in the account of their proceedings that same year. In that letter the Savages, in their rude yet energetic manner, request English working tools as well as English missionaries to be sent to them; whence the learned Bishop very sagely infers, the safety, honour, and welfare of our Sovereign and his kingdoms, than the utter abolition of that execrable commerce, which has been so long the disgrace of every king, of every nation that have permitted it? A commerce, which, if longer persisted in, may draw down the vengeance of an offended God to visit, not only Great Britain, but all Europe, with every calamity which they justly deserve who even connive at the destruction, or permit the captivity, of HIS OFFSpring. that civilization should always either precede or accompany conversion. How much the benevolent intention of the Society abovementioned has been impeded, if not absolutely prevented, not only by the Slave-seller but the Slave-buyer, may be gathered from a most judicious discourse of the present Bishop of Bangor, preached before that Society in the year 1787, which I earnestly recommend to the reader, as he will there find arguments against the Slave-Trade, that will make him ample amends for ciency of them in these few and hastily-written pages. any defi |