Slavery and the ConstitutionBowditch, William I. (William Ingersoll)
Religion
Slavery and the Constitution
Bowditch, William I. (William Ingersoll)
Enslaved persons -- United States -- Social conditions; Slavery -- United States
The Rev. Alexander Glennie, Rector of All-Saints Parish, Waccamaw, S.C.
has for several years been in the habit of preaching expressly for
slaves. In 1844, he published in Charleston a selection of these
sermons, under the title of "Sermons preached on Plantations to
Congregations of Negroes." This book[G] contains twenty-six sermons; and
in twenty-two of them there is either a more or less extended account or
a reference to eternal misery in hell as a motive to duty. He thus
describes the day of judgment (Serm. 15, Matt. xxv. 31, p. 90):--
"When all people shall be gathered before him, 'he shall separate
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the
goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats
on the left.' That, my brethren, will be an awful time, when this
separation shall be going on; when the holy angels, at the command
of the great Judge, shall be gathering together all the obedient
followers of Christ, and be setting them on the right hand side of
the judgment-seat, and shall place all the remainder on the left.
Remember that each of you must be present; remember that the great
Judge can make no mistake; and that you shall be placed on one side
or on the other, according as in this world you have believed in and
obeyed him or not. How full of joy and thanksgiving will you be, if
you shall find yourselves placed on the right hand! but how full of
misery and despair, if the left shall be appointed as your
portion!"...
"But what shall he say to the wicked on the left hand? To them he
shall say, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels.' He will tell them to depart:
they did not while here seek him by repentance and faith; they did
not obey him; and he will drive them from him. He will call them
cursed."
Page 42 (Sermon 7, Rom. vi. 28): "The death, which is the wages of
sin, is this everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels. It is a fire which shall last for ever; and the devil and
his angels, and all people who will not love and serve God, shall
there be punished for ever. The Bible says, 'The smoke of their
torment ascendeth up for ever and ever:' the fire is not quenched;
it never goes out: 'their worm dieth not:' their punishment is
spoken of as a worm, always feeding upon them, but never consuming
them: it never can stop."
Mr. Jones orally catechizes[H] the slaves in the same manner:--
Page 83: "Q. Are there two places only spoken of in the Bible to
which the souls of men go after death?--A. Only two.
Q. Which are they?--A. Heaven and hell.
Pp. 91, 92: Q. After the Judgment is over, into what place do the
righteous go?--A. Into heaven.
Q. What kind of a place is heaven?--A. A most glorious and happy
place.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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