Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe With His Vision of the Angelick World

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

Two of these wretches travelled a little journey with me some years ago, and in their return, sometime after I was gone from them, they met with a very different adventure, and telling me the story, they expressed themselves thus: They were riding from Huntingdon towards London, and in some lanes betwixt Huntingdon and Caxton, one happened, by a slip of his horse’s foot, which lamed him a little, to stay about half a mile behind the other, was set upon by some highwaymen, who robbed him, and abused him very much; the other went on to Caxton, not taking care of his companion, thinking he had stayed on some particular occasion, and escaped the thieves, they making off across the country towards Cambridge.

“Well,” says I to the first, “how came you to escape?” — “I don’t know, not I,” says he; “I happened not to look behind me when his horse stumbled, and I went forward, and by good luck,” adds he again, “I heard nothing of the matter.” Here was, “ it happened,” and “ by good luck,” but not the least sense of the government of Providence in this affair, or its disposition for his good, but an empty idol of air, or rather an imaginary, nonsensical nothing, an image more inconsistent than those I mentioned among the Chinese; not a monster, indeed, of a frightful shape and ugly figure, loathsome and frightful, but a mere phantasm, an idea, a nonentity — a name without being, a miscalled, unborn, nothing, hap, luck, chance; that is to say, a name put upon the medium, which they set up in their imagination for want of a will to acknowledge their Maker, and recognise the goodness which had particularly preserved him. This was the most ungrateful piece of folly, or, to speak

261

DANIEL DEFOE

more properly, the maddest and most foolish piece of ingratitude, that ever I met with.

Well, if this was foolish and preposterous, the other was as wicked and detestable; for when the first had told his tale I turned to the other, and asked him what was the matter. “Why, how came this to pass? “ said I; “ why has this disaster fallen all upon you? How was it?” — “Nay,” says he,” I do not know; I was a little behind, and my

horse chanced to slip and lame himself, and he went forward and left me; and as the devil would have it, these fellows came across the country and chopped upon me,”&c.

Here was first chance, the same mock goddess as before, lamed his horse, and next, the devil ordered the highwaymen to chop upon him that moment. Now, though it may be true that the highwaymen were, even by their employment, doing the devil’s office of going to and fro, seeking whom they may plunder, yet ‘twas a higher Hand than Satan’s that delivered this poor blind fellow into their power.

We have a plain guide for this in Scripture language, in the law of manslaughter, or death, as we call it foolishly enough, by misadventure; it is in Exod. xxi. 13, in the case of casual killing a man; it is expressed thus: “ If a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand.” This was not to be accounted murder, but the slayer was to fly to the city of refuge.

Here it is evident that God takes all these misadventures into His own hand; and a man killed by accident is a man

262

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

whom God has delivered up, for what end in His providence is known only to Himself, to be killed in that manner, perhaps vindictively, perhaps not.

With what face can any man say, this was as the devil would have it, or as bad luck would have it, or it happened, or chanced, or fell out? all which are our simple and empty ways of talking of things that are ordered by the immediate hand or direction of God’s providence.

The words last quoted from the Scripture, of God’s delivering a man into another man’s hand to be killed unwillingly, are fully explained in another place, Deut. “As when a man goeth into the wood with his neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slippeth from the helve, and lighteth upon his neighbour, that he die, he shall flee unto one of these cities and live.”

The wicked thoughtless creature I have just mentioned, whose horse fell lame, and stopped his travelling till he might come just in the way of those thieves, who, it seems, were crossing the country, perhaps upon some other exploit, ought to have reflected that Providence, to chastise him, and bring him to a sense of his dependence upon and being subjected to His power, had directed him to be separated from his companion, that he might fall into the hands that robbed and abused him; and the other had no less obligation to give thanks for his de-

263

DANIEL DEFOE

liverance; but how contrary they acted in both cases you have heard.

We have had abundance of collections, in my remembrance, of remarkable providences, as they are called, and many people are forward to call them so, but this does not come up to the case in hand.

Though contemning Providence, and giving the homage due to it, as above, to the devil, or to chance, fate, and I know not what embryos of the fancy, are impious; yet every one that avoids this evil does not come up to the particular point I am speaking of, for there is a manifest difference between acknowledging the being and operations of Providence and listening to its voice, as many people acknowledge a God that obey none of His commands, and concern themselves in nothing of their duty to Him.

To listen to the voice of Providence, is to take strict notice of all the remarkable steps of Providence which relate to us in particular, to observe if there is nothing in them instructing to our conduct, no warning to us for avoiding some danger, no direction for the taking some particular steps for our safety or advantage, no hint to remind us of such and such things omitted, no conviction of something committed, no vindictive step, by way of retaliation, marking out the crime in the punishment. You may easily observe the differences between the directions and warnings of Providence, when duly listened to, and the notices of spirits from an invisible world, viz., that these are dark hints of evil, with very little direction to avoid

264

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

it; but those notices, which are to be taken from the proceedings of Providence, though the voice be a kind of silent or soft whisper, yet ‘tis generally attended with an offer of the means for escaping the evil, nay, very often leads by the hand to the very proper steps to be taken, and even obliges us, by a strong conviction of the reason of it, to take those steps.

It is in vain for me to run into a collection of stories; for example, where the variety is infinite, and things vary as every particular man’s circumstances vary; but as every event in the world is managed by the superintendency of Providence, so every providence has in it something instructing, something that calls upon us to look up, or look out, or look in.

Every one of those heads is big with particular explanations, but my business is not preaching, I am making observations and reflections, let those make enlargements who read it; in a word, there is scarce any particular providence attends our lives, but we shall find, if we give due weight to it, that it calls upon us, either —

To look up, and acknowledge the goodness of God in sparing us, the bounty of God in providing for us, the power of God in delivering and protecting us; not forgetting to look up, and acknowledge, and be humble under the justice of God in being angry with and afflicting us.

Or to look out, and take the needful caution and warning given of evil approaching, and prepare either to meet or avoid it.

265

DANIEL DEFOE

Or to look in, and reflect upon what we find Heaven animadverting upon, and afflicting us for taking notice of the summons to repent and reform.

And this is, in a word, what I mean by listening to the voice of Providence.

266

CHAPTER SIX

OF THE PROPORTION BETWEEN THE CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN WORLD

I HAVE said something of this already in my inquiry after the state of religion in the world, but upon some reflections which fell in my way since, I think it may offer further thoughts, very improving, as well as diverting. When we view the world geographically, take the plane of the globe, and measure it by line, and cut it out into latitude and longitude, degrees, leagues, and miles, we may see, indeed, that a pretty large spot of the whole is at present under the government of Christian powers and princes, or under the influence of their power and commerce, by arms, navies, colonies, and plantations, or their factories, missionaries, residences, &c.

But I am loath to say we should take this for a fulfilling the promise made to the Messiah, that His kingdom should be exalted above all nations, and the Gospel be heard to the end of the earth; I was going to say, and yet without any profaneness, that we hope God will not put us off so. I must acknowledge I expect, in the fulfilling of these promises, that the time will

267

DANIEL DEFOE

come when the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, that the Church of God shall be set open to the four winds, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be exalted above the tops of the mountains, and all the nations shall flow into it (Isaiah ii. 2); that is to say, that the Christian religion, or the profession of the doctrine of the Messiah, shall be made national over the whole globe, according to those words (Matt. xxiv. 14; Mark xiii. 13; Luke xxiv. 17). But this may be a little too apocalyptical or visionary for the times; and it is no business of mine to enter upon the interpretation of Scripture difficulties, whatever I may understand or believe myself about them, but rather to make my observations, as I have begun, upon things which now are, and which we have seen and know; let what is to come be as He pleases who has ordered things past, and knows what is to follow.

The present case is to speak of the mathematical proportion that there is now to be observed upon the plane of the globe, and observe how small a part of the world it is where the Christian religion has really prevailed and is nationally professed — I speak of the Christian religion where it is, as I call it, national, that is, in its utmost latitude; and I do so that I may give the utmost advantage, even against myself, in what I am going to say; and therefore, when I come to make deductions for the mixtures of barbarous nations, I shall do it fairly also.

I have nothing to do with the distinctions of Christians: I hope none will object against calling the Roman Church a Christian Church in this respect, and the professors of the Pop-

268

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

ish Church Christians; neither do I scruple to call the Greek Church Christian, though in some places so blended with superstition and barbarous customs, as in Georgia, Armenia, and the borders of Persia and Tartary, likewise in many parts of the Czar of Muscovy’s dominions, that, as before, the name of Christ is little more than just spoken of, and literally known, without any material knowledge of His person, nature, and dignity, or of the homage due to Him as the Redeemer of the world.

The nations of the world, then, where Christ is acknowledged, and the Christian religion is professed nationally, be it Romish Church or Greek Church, or even the Protestant Church, including all the several subdivisions and denominations of Protestants, take them all as Christians, I say, these nations are as follow: —

1.In Europe: Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Muscovy, Poland, Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.

2.In Asia: Georgia and Armenia.

3.In Africa: no place at all, the few factories of European merchants only excepted.

4.In America: The colonies of Europeans only, as follow: —

1.The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru, the coasts of Chili,

Carthagena, and St. Martha, and a small colony at Buenos Ayres on the Rio de la Plata.

2. The Portuguese in the Brazils.

269

DANIEL DEFOE

3.The British on the coast of America, from the Gulf of Florida to Cape Breton, on the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or the great river of Canada, also a little in Newfoundland and Hudson’s Bay.

4.The’ French in the river of Canada and the great river of Mississippi.

5.The English, French, and Dutch on the islands called the Caribbees, &c.

The chief seat of the Christian religion is at present in Europe. But if we measure the quarter of the world we call Europe upon the plan of the globe, and cast up the northern, frozen, and indeed uninhabitable part of it, such as Laponia, Petzora, Candora, Obdora, and the Samoiedes, with part of Siberia, they are all pagans, with the eastern unpeopled deserts bordering on Asia, on the way to China, and the vast extent of land on that side, which, though nominally under the dominion of Muscovy, is yet all pagan, even nationally so under no real government, but of their own pagan customs.

If we go from thence to the south, and take out of it the European Tartars, viz., of Circassia, the Crimea, and Budziack — if you go on, and draw a line from the Crim

Tartary to the Danube, and from thence to the Adriatic Gulf, and cut off all the Grand Seignior’s European dominions — I say, take this extent of land out of Europe, and the remainder does not measure full two-thirds of land in Europe under the Christian government, much of which is also desert

270