Indian Dialogues, Dedication – Preface
INDIAN Dialogues, FOR Their Instruction in that great Service of Christ, in calling home their Country-men to the Knowledge of GOD, And of THEMSELVES, AND OF IESUS CHRIST.
Mal. 1.11.
For from the rising of the Sun, even unto the going down of the same, my Name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my Name, and a pure offering: for my Name shall be great among the Heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts.
Printed at Cambridge. 1671.
To the Right Worshipful, THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE Vnited Colonies in N.E.
Gentlemen,
AS I have sometime said unto you, so I now write, That there be none on Earth that have so great and eminent a Calling from man to take care of the Indians, that they be instructed in the wayes of life by Christ Iesus, as your selves have. For, besides the Right Honourable Corporation in London, His Majesty our Soveraign hath ordered a Trust to be committed to such as shall be in your Order, namely, Commissioners of the United Colonies in New-England, to take care of this matter. I finde few English Students willing to engage into so dim a Work as this is. God hath in mercy raised up sundry among themselves to a competent ability to teach their Countrymen. Many have been sent forth by the Church this Winter to divers places, and not without good success, through the grace of Christ: of which I shall (if God will, and that I live) give you an account at your next Sitting. I finde it necessary for me to instruct them (as in Principles of Art, so) in the way of communicating the good knowledge of God, which I conceive is most familiarly done by way of Dialogues; an Essay whereunto I do here present unto you: purposing, if the Lord will, and that I live, to do more of the like kinde hereafter. My earnest Request unto your selves, is, That in all your respective Colonies you would take care that due Accommodation of Lands and Waters may be allowed them, whereon Townships and Churches may be (in after-Ages) able to subsist; and suffer not the English to strip them of all their Lands, in places fit for the Sustenance of the life of man. Thus commending you to the Lord, I rest,
Your Worships to serve you in the Service of our Lord Jesus, I. E.
The Preface.
THese Dialogues are partly Historical, of some things that were done and said; and partly Instructive, to shew what might or should have been said, or that may be (by the Lords assistance) hereafter done and said, upon the like occasion. It is like to be one work incumbent upon our Indian Churches and Teachers, for some Ages, to send forth Instruments to call in others from Paganry to pray unto God: Instructions therefore of that nature are requisite; and what way more familiar, then by way of Dialogues? For sundry weighty Reasons I desire and endeavour, that our Learned Indians should learn at least the English Tongue; our Indian Churches holding Communion with the English Churches, must perform that Service in the English Tongue. If the Lord give life, and length of dayes, I may hereafter put forth these or the like Dialogues in the Indian Tongue; but what I shall live to do, is known to God. While I live, I desire to follow this Work, and serve the Lord with all my might, according to my poor measure of Ability, and wait upon the Lord for his Blessing, by the concurrent prayers of the faithfull.
J. E.
Indian Dialogues.
THe Church did send forth sundry of the Brethren to several parts of the Country among their Friends and Relations, to instruct, exhort and perswade them to pray unto God, to turn from their lewd and lazy life to the Living God, and to come forth from the dark dungeon of their lost and ruined condition, into the light of the Lord Jesus, whose glory in the Gospel, like the rising Sun, beginneth to be displayed among their dead Countrymen; who begin to be clothed with sinews, flesh and skin upon their dried bones, by the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, in the Preaching of the Gospel unto them.
Piumbuhhou was sent to Nashauwog among his Kindred and Friends these inhabiting: whose entertainment, discourse and success, was, or is desired that it might be as followeth.
Near the Town a Kinsman of his met him; whose discourse was to such purpose as this.