[ 33 ]
sense of the importance of Liberty; but is this a true character, whilst that barbarous, savage Slave-Trade, with all its attendant horrors, receives countenance and protection from the Legislature, whereby so many thousand lives are yearly sacrificed. Do we indeed believe the truths declared in the gospel? Are we persuaded that the threatnings, as well as the promises therein contained, will have their accomplishment? If indeed we do, must we not tremble to think what a load of guilt lies upon our Nation generally and individually, so far as we in any degree abet or countenance this aggravated iniquity.
We have a memorable instance in history, which may be fruitful of instruction, if timely and properly applied; it is a quotation made by Sir John Temple, in his history of the Irish rebellion, being an observation out of Giraldus Cambrensis, a noted author, who lived about six hundred years ago, concerning the causes of the prosperity of the English undertakeings in Ireland, when they conquered that Island, he saith,
'That a synod, or council of the Clergy, being then assembled at Armagh, and that point fully debated, it was unanimously agreed, that the sins of the people were the occasion of that heavy judgment then fallen upon their nation; and that especially their buying of Englishmen from merchants and pirates, and detaining them under a most miserable hard bondage, had caused the Lord, by way of just retaliation, to leave them to be reduced, by the English, to the same state of slavery. Whereupon they made a public act in that council, that all the English, held in captivity throughout the whole land, should be presently restored to their former Liberty.'
