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An Attestation by The United Ministers of Boston
- University of Massachusetts Press
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indian converts 85 [xiv] AN ATTESTATION BY The United Ministers of Boston SO rich, so vast, so inexpressibly glorious are the Benefits arising to Mankind from the true Religion of CHRIST, where it is well understood and embraced, that the want of Zeal for the Propagation of it, in very many of them that profess it, is a Thing most unnacountable and inexcusable. It is what more particularly calls for our Lamentation, that the Churches of the Reformation have done so little for the Propagation of a Faith, which emancipates Mankind from the worst of Slaveries and Miseries, and has a fair and sure Tendency to make us happy in both Worlds. While the Missionaries of Antichrist are more than can be numbred, and the Bigots are at prodigious Pains to propagate the Romish Idolatries. However, something has been done for the best of Purposes, among those who are under peculiar Obligations to approve themselves the best of Christians; wherein the Men of GOD now at Work for him among the Malabarians ,4 as far as we understand, have done excellent Things. Indeed the Romanists5 have their singular Advantages in the Circumstances of their Clergy, to go to and fro in the Earth, and walk up and down in it,6 every where seeking whom they may seduce, and bring under their strong Delusions. But something has been done by the Protestants, to make the joyful Sound of the Silver Trumpets7 heard in a GOSPEL preach’d unto every Creature. And, in the Prosecution of this noble [xv] Intention, America has been a Field of some Actions, not altogether unworthy to have some Notice taken of them. We can by no means imagine, that the Apostles, or Apostolical Men,8 carried the Gospel into the American World, or beyond the Bounds of the Roman Empire, which was then called, All the World. The Extent of Christianity celebrated by several of the Ancients, is most certainly to be taken with proper Limitations. What the Spaniards have done since the famous Columbus or Colonus9 opened a Passage for their Colonies hither, has afforded but a very sad Story, which a Bishop of their own10 has given us with a Pen dipt in 4 Indians. 5 Catholics. 6 Job 1:7. Satan claims this is what he does. 7 Numbers 10. 8 An uninterrupted succession of spiritual authority that descended from the Apostles down to the Bishops (OED). 9 The Latin version of Columbus’s name used by Pedro Mártir de Anglería. 10 Most likely Bartolomé de las Casas, the Bishop of Chiapas, author of Devastation of the Indies (1542). –xv] 86 indian converts Blood. Their boasted Conversions of the Pagans, wherein one poor Friar has brag’d of his having baptized some hundreds of thousands, what will they be found when they are enquired into? It may after all be truly affirm’d, that the first Planters of New-England are the first Preachers of what may be justly esteemed the Gospel to the Americans, that we certainly know of; and that good Work which was done in gospelizing the uncultivated Souls which were found in this hideous and howling Wilderness, most certainly deserves to be had in Remembrance. And tho there were some who did in the Time of it reproach the first Planters of this Country as most negligent of this good Work, a pious, candid, and learned Person, of the Scots Nation, whose Name is Millar,11 in his late History of the Propagation of Christianity, has done the Justice to represent the good Work done here, as worthy, not only of a perpetual Commemoration, but also of an universal Imitation. Most certainly, to humanize the Miserable, which our first English Planters found surviving the wasting Plagues which had so swept away the Indians, as to make room for a better People;12 to cicurate13 and civilize them was a Task of no little Difficulty. But then, to raise them up into the Knowledge and Practice of the Christian Religion, and bring them unto an Acquaintance of the Mystery of CHRIST, yea, to bring them into Experience of living to GOD, and by the Faith of the SON of GOD, how much more difficult is the Enterprize? But it has been done. [xvi] Twice seven Years had not passed away, after the Beginning of the Massachusets Colony, before the renown’d ELIOT, a good Man, full of the Holy SPIRIT and mov’d...