One of the king's instructions to our
governors recommends the investigation of means for the conversion of
negroes and Indians. An attention to both, especially the latter, has
been too little regarded. If the missionaries of the English Society for
propagating the Gospel instead of being seated in opulent christianized
towns had been sent out to preach among the savages, unspeakable
political advantages would have flowed from such a salutary measure.
* * * * *
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.
=_John Winthrop, 1587-1649._= (Manual, p. 490.)
From his "Life and Letters."
=_10._= TRUE LIBERTY DEFINED.
For the other point concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the
country about that. There is a twofold liberty,--natural (I mean as our
nature is now corrupt) and civil, or federal. The first is common to man
with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation
to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists: it is a liberty to evil
as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with
authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just
authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow
more evil, and, in time, to be worse than brute beasts.
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