Tit. 2. Directions to those Masters in foreign Plantations who have Negroes and other Slaves; being a solution of several cases about them.
Direct. I. Understand well how far your power over your slaves extendeth, and what limits God hath set thereto.
As, 1. Sufficiently difference between men and brutes. Remember that they are of as good a kind as you; that is, they are reasonable creatures as well as you, and born to as much natural liberty. If their sin have enslaved them to you, yet nature made them your equals. Remember that they have immortal souls, and are equally capable of salvation with yourselves. And therefore you have no power to do any thing which shall hinder their salvation. No pretence of your business, necessity, commodity, or power, can warrant you to hold them so hard to work, as not to allow them due time and seasons for that which God hath made their duty.
2. Remember that God is their absolute Owner, and that you have none but a derived and limited propriety in them. They can be no further yours, than you have God's consent, who is the Lord of them and you; and therefore God's interest in them and by them must be served first.
3. Remember that they and you are equally under the government and laws of God. And therefore all God's laws must be first obeyed by them, and you have no power to command them to omit any duty which God commandeth them, nor to commit any sin which God forbiddeth them; nor can you, without rebellion or impiety, expect that your work or commands should be preferred before God's.
4. Remember that God is their reconciled, tender Father, and if they be as good, doth love them as well as you. And therefore you must use the meanest of them no otherwise, than beseemeth the beloved of God to be used; and no otherwise than may stand with the due signification of your love to God, by loving those that are his.
5. Remember that they are the redeemed ones of Christ, and that he hath not sold you his title to them. As he bought their souls at a price invaluable, so he hath not given the purchase of his blood to be absolutely at your disposal. Therefore so use them, as to preserve Christ's right and interest in them.
Direct. II. Remember that you are Christ's trustees, or the guardians of their souls; and that the greater your power is over them, the greater your charge is of them, and your duty for them. As you owe more to a child than to a day-labourer, or a hired servant, because, being more your own, he is more intrusted to your care; so also by the same reason, you owe more to a slave, because he is more your own; and power and obligation go together. As Abraham was to circumcise all his servants that were bought with money, and the fourth commandment requireth masters to see that all within their gates observe the sabbath day; so must you exercise both your power and love to bring them to the knowledge and faith of Christ, and to the just obedience of God's commands.
Those therefore that keep their negroes and slaves from hearing God's word, and from becoming christians, because by the law they shall then be either made free, or they shall lose part of their service, do openly profess rebellion against God, and contempt of Christ the Redeemer of souls, and a contempt of the souls of men; and indeed they declare, that their worldly profit is their treasure and their god.
If this come to the hands of any of our natives in Barbadoes, or other islands or plantations, who are said to be commonly guilty of this most heinous sin, yea, and to live upon it, I entreat them further to consider as followeth: 1. How cursed a crime is it to equal men and beasts! Is not this your practice? Do you not buy them and use them merely to the same end, as you do your horses? to labour for your commodity, as if they were baser than you, and made to serve you?