With regard to these pleas, it is to be observed, that every man hath a right to judge concerning his own happiness, and to choose the means of obtaining or promoting it; and to deprive him of this right is the very injury of which we complain; it is to enslave him. Because we judge, that the negroes are more happy in this country, in a state of slavery, than in the enjoyment of liberty in Africa, we have no more right to enslave them and bring them into this country, than we have to enslave any of our neighbors, who we judge would be more happy under our control, than they are at present under their own. Let us make the case our own. Should we believe, that we were justly treated, if the Africans should carry us into perpetual slavery in Africa, on the ground that they judged, that we should be more happy in that state, than in our present situation?

As to the opportunity which the negroes in this country are said to have, to become acquainted with Christianity; this with respect to many is granted; but what follows from it? It would be ridiculous to pretend, that this is the motive on which they act who import them, or they who buy and hold them in slavery. Or if this were the motive, it would not sanctify either the trade or the slavery. We are not at liberty to do evil, that good may come; to commit a crime more aggravated than theft or robbery, that we may make a proselyte to Christianity. Neither our Lord Jesus Christ, nor any of his apostles, has taught us this mode of propagating the faith.

2. It is said that the doctrine of the preceding sermon imputes that as a crime to individuals, which is owing to the state of society. This is granted; and what follows? It is owing to the state of society, that our neighbors, the Indians, roast their captives; and does it hence follow, that such conduct is not to be imputed to the individual agents as a crime? It is owing to the state of society in Popish countries, that thousands worship the beast and his image; and is that worship therefore not to be imputed as a crime to those, who render it? Read the Revelation of St. John. The state of society is such, that drunkenness and adultery are very common in some countries; but will it follow, that those vices are innocent in those countries?

3. If I be ever so willing to manumit my slave, I cannot do it without being holden to maintain him, when he shall be sick or shall be old and decrepit. Therefore I have a right to hold him as a slave. The same argument will prove, that you have a right to enslave your children or your parents; as you are equally holden to maintain them in sickness and in decrepit old age. The argument implies, that in order to secure the money, which

you are afraid the laws of your country will some time or other oblige you to pay; it is right for you to rob a free man of his liberty or be guilty of man-stealing. On the ground of this argument every town or parish obligated by law, to maintain its helpless poor, has a right to sell into perpetual slavery all the people, who may probably or even possibly occasion a public expense.

4. After all, it is not safe to manumit the negroes; they would cut our throats; they would endanger the peace and government of the state. Or at least they would be so idle, that they would not provide themselves with necessaries; of course they must live by thievery and plundering.

it respects the As it respects

This objection requires a different answer, as northern, and as it respects the southern states. the northern, in which slaves are so few, there is not the least foundation to imagine, that they would combine or make insurrection against the government; or that they would attempt to murder their masters. They are much more likely to kill their masters, in order to obtain their liberty, or to revenge the abuse they receive, while it is still continued, than to do it after the abuse hath ceased, and they are restored to their liberty. In this case, they would from a sense of gratitude, or at least from a conviction of the justice of their masters, feel a strong attachment, instead of a murderous disposition.

Nor is there the least danger, but that by a proper vigilance of the selectmen, and by a strict execution of the laws now existing, the negroes might in a tolerable degree be kept from idleness and pilfering.

All this hath been verified by experiment. In Massachusetts, all the negroes in the commonwealth were by their new constitution liberated in a day; and none of the ill consequences objected followed either to the commonwealth or to individuals.

With regard to the southern states, the case is different. The negroes in some parts of those states are a great majority of the whole, and therefore the evils objected would, in case of a general manumission at once, be more likely to take place. But in the first place there is no prospect, that the conviction of the truth exhibited in the preceding discourse, will at once, take place in the minds of all the holders of slaves. The utmost that can be expected, is that it will take place gradually in one after another, and that of course the slaves will be gradually manumitted. Therefore the evils of a general manumission at once, are dreaded without reason.

If in any state the slaves should be manumitted in considerable

numbers at once, or so that the number of free negroes should become large; various measures might be concerted to prevent the evils feared. One I beg leave to propose: That overseers of the free negroes be appointed from among themselves, who shall be empowered to inspect the morals and management of the rest, and report to proper authority those who are vicious, idle or incapable of managing their own affairs, and that such authority dispose of them under proper masters for a year or other term, as is done, perhaps in all the states, with regard to the poor white people in like manner vicious, idle or incapable of management. Such black overseers would naturally be ambitious to discharge the duties of their office; they would in many respects have much more influence than white men with their countrymen ; and other negroes looking forward to the same honorable distinction, would endeavor to deserve it by their improvement and good conduct.

But after all, this whole objection, if it were ever so entirely founded on truth; if the freed negroes would probably rise against their masters, or combine against government; rests on the same ground, as the apology of the robber, who murders the man whom he has robbed. Says the robber to himself, I have robbed this man, and now if I let him go he will kill me, or he will complain to authority and I shall be apprehended and hung. I must therefore kill him. There is no other way of safety for me. The coincidence between this reasoning and that of the objection under consideration, must be manifest to all. And if this reasoning of the robber be inconclusive; if the robber have no right on that ground to kill the man whom he hath robbed; neither have the slave holders any more right to continue to hold their slaves. If the robber ought to spare the life of the man robbed, take his own chance and esteem himself happy if he can escape justice; so the slave holders ought immediately to let their slaves go free, treat them with the utmost kindness, by such treatment endeavor to pacify them with respect to past injuries, and esteem themselves happy, if they can compromise the matter in this manner.

In all countries in which the slaves are a majority of the inhabitants, the masters lie in a great measure at the mercy of the slaves, and may most rationally expect sooner or later, to be cut off, or driven out by the slaves, or to be reduced to the same level and to be mingled with them into one common mass. This I think is by ancient and modern events demonstrated to be the natural and necessary course of human affairs. The hewers of wood and drawers of water among the Israelites, the Helots among the Lacedemonians, the slaves among the Romans, the

villains and vassals in most of the kingdoms of Europe under the feudal system, have long since mixed with the common mass of the people, and shared the common privileges and honors of their respective countries. And in the French West-Indies the Mulattoes and free negroes are already become so numerous and powerful a body, as to be allowed by the National Assembly to enjoy the common rights and honors of free men. These facts plainly show, what the whites in the West-Indies and the Southern States are to expect concerning their posterity, that in time it will infallibly be amalgamated with the slave population, or else they must quit the country to the Africans whom they have hitherto holden in bondage.

9*

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SERMON VI.

ALL DIVINE TRUTH PROFITABLE.*

ACTS 20: 20.-And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you.

THESE words are a part of the farewell discourse of Paul, to the elders of the church at Ephesus. In his journey to Jerusalem, he sent for them to Miletus. When they met him there, he appealed to them as to the manner in which he had executed the ministry among them; that he had been with them at all times, serving the Lord with all humility, and with many temptations; that in his preaching he had kept back nothing which was profitable to them, but had declared to them all the counsel of God. Thus by comparing one part of the context with another, we learn that all the counsel of God is profitable and may be preached profitably to the hearers. The counsel of God is the revealed will or truth of God. Therefore our text taken with the context, affords this doctrine :

That all divine truth may be profitably preached to mankind in general.

Doubtless the church at Ephesus was made up chiefly of common men, men of common abilities, and of no more than common literary improvement; and if Paul preached all the counsel of God profitably to them, without doubt the same may be done with like profit to mankind in general, provided they be in like manner disposed to make a profitable use of it. I shall consider this doctrine with regard to several particular divine truths, especially those, which some imagine cannot be profitably preached to people in general.

1. The divine existence and character and the mode of the divine subsistence, so far as it is revealed in scripture. That it is profitable to preach the existence of the one only living and true God, and to preach his attributes of infinite power, knowledge, wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness and truth, it is presu

* Preached at Hamden, Jan. 11, 1792, at the ordination of the Rev. Dan Bradley, to the pastoral charge of the first church in Whitestown, N. Y. Published at New Haven.