Of Men in Society 

Of the Religion

Toussaint L'Ouverture

Music is invaluable where a person has an ear. Where they have not, it should not be attempted.

I need say nothing of household economy, in which the mothers of our country are generally skilled, and generally careful to instruct their daughters.

Music is invaluable where a person has an ear. Where they have not, it should not be attempted.

It is an innocent and engaging amusement

that no lady dances after marriage.

very attractive

In the subjoined catalogue, therefore, I have placed the books of both languages indifferently, according as the one or the other offers what is best.

much poetry should not be indulged.

The result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life. This mass of trash, however, is not without some distinction; some few modelling their narratives, although fictitious, on the incidents of real life, have been able to make them interesting and useful vehicles of sound morality.

This mass of trash, however, is not without some distinction; some few modelling their narratives, although fictitious, on the incidents of real life, have been able to make them interesting and useful vehicles of sound morality.

and even to direct the course for sons, should their fathers be lost, or incapable, or inattentive.

What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

The man, in whose favour no laws of property exist, probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favour of others.

But they were of the race of whites.

The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life.

Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry

Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry

But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.

so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation.

Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race?

Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.

We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed.

They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.

They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning.

Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us.

they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniusses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of houshold and of the handicraft arts, feeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independant people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength

hence to construct the best evidence of the derivation of this part of the human race.

It is to be lamented then, very much to be lamented, that we have suffered so many of the Indian tribes already to extinguish, without our having previously collected and deposited in the records of literature, the general rudiments at least of the languages they spoke.

produce and raise as many children as the white women.

The women are submitted to unjust drudgery. This I believe is the case with every barbarous people.

who he knows will treat him well

reduced to the same diet and exercise

…Indian women, when married to white traders, who feed them and their children plentifully and regularly, who exempt them from excessive drudgery, who keep them stationary and unexposed to accident, produce and raise as many children as the white women. Instances are known, under these circumstances, of their rearing a dozen children. An inhuman practice once prevailed in this country of making slaves of the Indians…

but more from the information of others better acquainted with him, and on whose truth and judgment I can rely.

he meets death with more deliberation,

The Indian of North America being more within our reach, I can speak of him somewhat from my own knowledge

It has been the scheme of the Christian church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights.

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity.

A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given.

in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground..

The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons.

and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals.

which hath stirred up the Indians and Negroes to destroy us

Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do; ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government.

But where, says some, is the King of America? I’ll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.

that in America THE LAW IS KING.

Securing freedom and property to all men, and above all things, the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; with such other matter as is necessary for a charter to contain.

A committee of twenty-six members of Congress, viz. two for each colony.

In the next Congress, let a colony be taken by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony from which the president was taken in the former Congress, and so proceeding on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation.

If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it is because no plan is yet laid down.

But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but independence, i.e. a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars.

Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country whose form of government hangs but by a thread, and who is every day tottering on the brink of commotion and disturbance

England consults the good of THIS country, no farther than it answers her OWN purpose.

Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us?

We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England.

America to itself.

but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.

There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.

The business of it will soon be too weighty, and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience, by a power so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us.

Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God’s sake, let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child.

It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by DELAY and TIMIDITY.

sycophant

posterity

as we are running the next generation into debt

Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one, over the other, was never the design of Heaven

It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependence on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics.

Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.

therefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.

and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our enemies as AMERICANS, but as our being the subjects of GREAT BRITAIN.

that her motive was INTEREST not ATTACHMENT; that she did not protect us from OUR ENEMIES on OUR ACCOUNT, but from HER ENEMIES on HER OWN ACCOUNT, from those who had no quarrel with us on any OTHER ACCOUNT, and who will always be our enemies on the SAME ACCOUNT

and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive

The commerce, by which she hath enriched herself, are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.

We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty.

the commencement of hostilities

but of a continent

and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the last resource, decide this contest;

My soul acquiesced fully in the will of God,

It was a pure delight, which fed and satisfied the soul. It was peasure

sweet

was worth more than all the outward comfort and pleasure, which I had enjoyed in my whole life put together.

so that there seemed to be a constant flowing and reflowing of heavenly and divine love, from Christ’s heart to mine

But all night I continued in a constant, clear and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ’s excellent and transcendent love, of his nearness to me, and of my dearness to him; with an inexpressibly sweet calmness of soul in an entire rest in him.

I had a variety of concerns and exercises about my soul from my childhood;

sweet,

express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone; to love him with a holy and pure love; to trust in him; to live upon him; to serve and follow him; and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a divine and heavenly purity

panted

opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun’s glory

ejaculatory prayer,

longings

sweet, and gentle

sweetly to represent the loveliness and beauty of Jesus Christ

self­righteous pleasure;

awakening

after my first conversion

The very thought of any joy arising in me, on any consideration of my own amiableness, performances, or experiences, or any goodness of heart or life, is nauseous and detestable to me.

I cannot bear the thoughts of being no more humble than other Christians.

that my repentance was nothing to my sin.

than by heaping infinite upon infinite, and multiplying infinite by infinite

and that I should have by far the lowest place in hell.

very frequently to such a degree as to hold me in a kind of loud weeping, sometimes for a considerable time together; so that I have often been forced to shut myself up.

The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception … which continued as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud.

I love to think of coming to Christ, to receive salvation of him, poor in spirit, and quite empty of self, humbly exalting him alone; cut off entirely from my own root, in order to grow into, and out of Christ; to have God in Christ to be all in all; and to live by faith in the Son of God, a life of humble, unfeigned confidence in him.

I felt a harmony between something in my heart, and those sweet and powerful words. I seemed often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading; often dwelling long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders…

The soul of a true Christian

God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in every thing; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds, and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind.

that I know not how to express

an inward sweetness, that would carry me away, in my contemplations.

And my mind was greatly engaged to spend my time in reading and meditating on Christ, on the beauty and excellency of his person, and the lovely way of salvation by free grace in him.

As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before Never any words of scripture seemed to me as these words did.

I was thus convinced, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God’s Spirit in it; but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it. However, my mind rested in it; and it put an end to all those cavils and objections.

my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, in choosing whom he would to eternal life, and rejecting whom he pleased; leaving them eternally to perish, and be everlastingly tormented in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me.

I felt a spirit to part with all things in the world, for an interest in Christ.

I was brought wholly to break off all former wicked ways, and all ways of known outward sin; and to apply myself to seek salvation, and practice many religious duties; but without that kind of affection and delight which I had formerly experienced.

in which he brought me nigh to the grave, and shook me over the pit of hell.

a pleurisy

and returned like a dog to his vomit

and had much self­righteous pleasure; and it was my delight to abound in religious duties.

I used to pray five times a day in secret

nothing that you can do

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you

bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow

nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back,

were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you

were made for men to serve God with

he earth would not bear you one moment

APPLICATION The use may be of awakening to unconverted persons in this congregation.

God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death,

God’s appointed time is not come

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire

’tis nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.

but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are continually rising, and waxing more and more mighty

the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun don’t willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth don’t willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air don’t willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies.

unconverted persons

they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold ’em up one moment;

tis plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction.

God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise, to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death

Almost every natural man that hears of hell flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security, he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do; every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters [Pg 84]himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his schemes won’t fail.

They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion.

God is not altogether such a one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so.

with many that are now in this congregation

So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place

The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and ’tis nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God’s mere will, that holds it back.

Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God’s enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces: they are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames.

There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.

God won’t hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall to destruction;

hat they are liable to fall of themselves, without being thrown down by the hand of another; as he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.

arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God’s mere will had in the least degree or in any respect whatsoever any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment.

void of counsel, having no understanding in them; and that, under all the cultivations of heaven, brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit;

the Wic­can com­mu­nity is thriv­ing, and witchcraft-related attrac­tions con­tinue to draw the great­est crowds in Salem

“facts” are cre­ated by the inter­ac­tion between site, viewer, and a neb­u­lous char­ac­ter called “the past.”

he arrived safe with them all

that the prisoner was the undoing of her, and her Children, by enticing them into the snare of the Devi

which without any known cause quickly fell down and dy’d.

and put him to very great Misery:

Queen of Heb

This Rampant Hag

Unaccountably ty’d together with a Wheel-band, so fast that without cutting, it could not be loosed: It was done by a Spectre; and the Sufferer affirm’d, it was the Prisoners.

that the prisoner was the undoing of her, and her Children, by enticing them into the snare of the Devil.

Witch-meetings

she should within two or three days be poisoned

Phebe Chandler

strangely bewitched

lost his Cattle, by strange Deaths

he could thrust a knitting Needle into his wound,

and put him to very great Misery

a Swelling in his[Pg 156] Foot, and then with a Pain in his Side, and exceedingly tormented. It bred into a Sore, which was launced by Doctor Prescot,

She would hold his Nose as close to the Grindstone as ever it was held since his Name was Abbot.

this Carrier

This Confession they made with great Shews of Repentance, and with much Demonstration of Truth

Its no matter though their Necks had been twisted quite off.

the Poor People

or her Shape

pleading Not Guilty

nless written in the Liquor wherewith Witches use to write their Covenants

I want no Defence; for the Historical part of it, I have a Very Great One; the Lieutenant-Governour of New-England having perused it, has done me the Honour of giving me a Shield, under the Umbrage whereof I now dare to walk abroad.

Dogmatical

unvaried Thoughts

Good Men in another Country

I have indeed set myself to countermine the whole PLOT of the Devil, against New-England, in every Branch of it,[Pg 5] as far as one of my darkness, can comprehend such a Work of Darkness.

No, I hope the Body of this People, are yet in such a Temper, as to be capable of applying their Thoughts, to make a Right Use of the stupendous and prodigious Things that are happening among us

fenced with Iron, and the Staff of a Spear

Cotton Mather

Oh the roaring, and singing and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell. And as miserable was the waste that was there made of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, calves, lambs, roasting pigs, and fowl (which they had plundered in the town), some roasting, some lying and burning, and some boiling to feed our merciless enemies

That they are the vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit, that they are but a shadow, a blast, a bubble, and things of no continuance. That we must rely on God Himself, and our whole dependance must be upon Him.

squaw

My sister’s son was redeemed for four pounds

The twenty pounds, the price of my redemption, was raised by some Boston gentlemen

but desired to wait God’s time, that I might go home quietly, and without fear.

They would eat horse’s guts, and ears, and all sorts of wild birds which they could catch; also bear, venison, beaver, tortoise, frogs, squirrels, dogs, skunks, rattlesnakes; yea, the very bark of trees; besides all sorts of creatures, and provision which they plundered from the English.

I cannot but remember how the Indians derided the slowness, and dullness of the English army, in its setting out

forgetting where I was, and what my condition was;