LETTER DCCCLXXXVII.
To Mr. B.
Bristol, March 22, 1751.
Reverend and very dear Sir,
I Lately received your last kind letter, and am glad to find that you are enabled to joy in tribulation, and to say, "Father, not my will, but thine be done." May the Lord increase your faith, and if you should be called to give up your Isaac, your dear yoke-fellow, may you, Aaron like, hold your peace, and by an undissembled resignation to the divine will, glorify your God! My wife has been in pitiable circumstances for some time. The Lord only knows what will be the issue of them. This is my comfort, "all things work together for good to those that love God." He is the father of mercies, and the God of all consolation. He can bring light out of darkness, and cause the barren wilderness to smile. This I trust will be verified in Georgia. Thanks be to God, that the time for favouring that Colony seems to be come. I think now is the season for us to exert our utmost for the good of the poor Ethiopians. We are told, that even they are soon to stretch out their hands unto God. And who knows but their being settled in Georgia, may be over-ruled for this great end? As for the lawfulness of keeping slaves, I have no doubt, since I hear of some that were bought with Abraham's money, and some that were born in his house.—And I cannot help thinking, that some of those servants mentioned by the Apostles in their epistles were or had been slaves. It is plain, that the Gibeonites were doomed to perpetual slavery, though liberty is a sweet thing to such as are born free, yet to those who never new the sweets of it, slavery perhaps may not be so irksome. However this be, it is plain to a demonstration, that hot countries cannot be cultivated without negroes. What a flourishing country might Georgia have been, had the use of them been permitted years ago? How many white people have been destroyed for want of them, and how many thousands of pounds spent to no purpose at all? Had Mr. Henry been in America, I believe he would have seen the lawfulness and necessity of having negroes there. And thoughi t is true, that they are brought in a wrong way from
