Judge Sewall was warmly attached to that system of faith, and to those forms of worship and government in the church, which were embraced and practised by the Puritan settlers of New England. Occasionally he employed his pen in their illustration and defence. And he was strongly opposed to any innovations in doctrine, as well as jealous of any ceremonies or usages in divine service, that savored of human invention. Still he abhorred persecution, and exercised candor towards those who differed from him in their modes of worship or discipline.
He possessed an ardent desire for the universal spread and obedient reception of the gospel among mankind. He became particularly interested in the spiritual condition of the aboriginal natives, whom he believed, with the apostle Eliot, to be descendants of the ten captive tribes of Israel. To encourage the praying Indians at Natick, he occasionally met with them in their worship, and frequently gave them pecuniary assistance. To those at Sandwich, he contributed largely for building a meeting-house. And from Mather's Magnalia it would seem, that for some Indian congregation he erected a house of worship entirely at his own expense. Hence those Indians "prayed for him under this character, 'He loveth our nation for he hath built us a synagogue.'"
His zeal on behalf of the Indian natives being known, he was chosen in 1699 one of the Commissioners of the Society in England for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and parts adjacent; and shortly after, their Secretary and Treasurer.
His sympathy for the enslaved Africans was very great. In 1700 he published a tract, entitled "The Selling of Joseph," in which he advocated their rights. In writing to Judge Addington Davenport, just before he sat on the trial of Samuel Smith of Sandwich, for killing his negro, he uses the following language: "The poorest boys and girls in this Province, such as are of the lowest condition, whether they be English, or Indians, or Ethiopians; they have the same right to religion and life, that the richest heirs have. And they who go about to deprive them of this right attempt the bombarding of Heaven; and the shells they throw will fall down on their own heads."
John Saffin, a judge of the same court with Judge Sewall, and a slave-holder, printed an answer to "The Selling of Joseph," to which Judge Sewall alludes in a letter to Rev. John Higginson of Salem, then the oldest minister in the Province, and one of the most venerated men in New England. The letter is dated April 13, 1706, and the allusion is, "Amidst the frowns and hard words I have met with for this undertaking, it is no small refreshment to me, that I have the learned, reverend and aged Mr. Higginson for my abettor. By the interposition of this breast work, I hope to carry on and manage this enterprise with safety and success." In a letter to Henry Newman at London, afterwards agent for the Province of New Hampshire, which accompanied a copy of "The Selling of Joseph," he desires him to do something "towards taking away this wicked practice of Slavery," expressing the opinion that there would "be no progress in gospelling" until slavery was abolished.
Judge Sewall was a proficient in classical learning, and a friend of learning and learned men. Such was the confidence in his wisdom and discernment by the founders and Trustees of Yale College, that he was employed by them in 1701, together with Hon. Isaac Addington, to draw up statutes for the regulation of their infant seminary. And of Harvard College, of which he was sometimes a Resident Fellow, and afterwards, as a member of the Council, one of the Board of Overseers for many years, he was a warm and steady friend and liberal benefactor.
In his judicial capacity, he was a person of distinguished integrity and uprightness; administering the laws of the land with justice and impartiality, mingled with clemency; a terror to evil doers, and a praise to such as did well.
He was also a person of eminent humility and meekness, benevolence and charity. His house was a seat of hospitality, ever open to all good men. The learned found him an intelligent companion; the ministers of the gospel a liberal patron and friend. He visited the fatherless and widow in their affliction, and gave much alms to the needy, especially to indigent ministers or their bereaved families. He distributed in the course of the last year of his life four hundred copies of such publications as Mitchel on the Glory of Heaven, Walter on the Holiness of Heaven, Lee's Triumph of Mercy, Mather's Mighty Saviour, Mather's Glory of Christ, Higginson's Legacy of Peace, Loring on the New Birth, The Strait Gate, Faith and Fervency in Prayer, Gibbs's Sermon to Little Children, as is particularly noted in his Almanac for that year. His last illness was of about a month's continuance. He died in a triumphant hope of immortal life and glory, on the morning of Jan. 1, 1729-30, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
Judge Sewall was thrice married; 1. to Hannah Hull, daughter of Hon. John Hull; 2. to widow Abigail Tilley; and 3. to widow Mary Gibbs, who survived him. He had children by his first wife only; namely, seven sons and seven daughters. Of these fourteen children only six lived to mature age, and only three survived him. We purposely omit in this article a further account of the family, as we intend to give in some future No. of this work, a full Genealogical Memoir of the Sewall Family.
Judge Sewall left numerous volumes of manuscripts, indicative of his industry and attentive observation. Among them, beside several small volumes of a miscellaneous character, are,