Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

the common supper of Christ they eat, but a supper of their own. They have destroyed its community; they forbid it to be common; and though the master hath left it open, for all his servants to come and eat at; they have inclosed and fenced it in by terms of their own devising; so that it is not enough, that a man be a true servant of Christ, to entitle him to this bread of his house; he must be a servant also, and pay subjection to some authority besides Christ's, to qualify him for this supper.-Does not every one see that this is plainly schismatical; that thus to come together is not to eat the Lord's supper, but a supper of their own; and that those who do thus, do hereby cut themselves off from the communion of saints?

We therefore beg leave to add, that the things in which we differ from our brethren of the establishment, are those, and only those, in which they differ (themselves being judges) from Christ and the Apostles. If they will please to lay aside, or to leave indifferent, those rites in God's wor ship which themselves perfectly know neither Christ, nor his apostles, nor the first christians ever used, and which they freely confess to be but commandments of men, the dissenters will be no more,--the difference betwixt us will immediately cease.

But if we cannot be so happy as to eat with our brethren, and be owned by them as such, according to our Lord's appointment at his common table on earth, it is our pleasure to be assured we shall shortly meet them in regions of greater calmness and light; and shall eat and drink with them at his table in his kingdom, without such unkind and unbrotherly restraints. There, we are sure, they will treat us with greater candour; applaud what now they censure;

and receive us with so much the warmer friendship and esteem, for the shyness and severity with which they have cast us out. Till these times of refreshing shall come from Christ's presence, we will, by his grace, bear patiently the unrighteous censures of rash men; not rendering railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing, knowing that thereunto we are called; being the followers of an insulted JESUS, who also, when upon earth, was, by bigotry and blind zeal, called a Samaritan and a sinner!

AND

INJUSTICE:

A

JUSTIFIABLE PLEA

FOR A

VIGOROUS WAR

WITH SPAIN;

AND A

RATIONAL GROUND FOR HOPES OF SUCCESS:

BEING A COLLECTION FROM AUTHENTIC AUTHORS, OF THEIR INHUMAN BARBARITIES EXERCISED UPON PAGANS, JEWS, MAHOMETANS,

AND CHRISTIANS.

I cannot but extremely pity Spain, my native country, because 1 am greatly afraid God will utterly destroy it, for the enormous crimes committed by the Spaniards in the Indies.-The outrages and cruelties these innocent people (the Indians) have felt, are so horrid and notorious, that their tears, and groans, and blood, the cry of which have reached the throne of God, will undoubtedly draw down vengeance, and God will make all Spain feel the effects of his wrath.

Spanish Bishop of Chiapa.

[FIRST PRINTED 1741.]

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »