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

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

cup of their abominations was not jet full. But I may venture to say there would be much more ground for such Christian princes to hope and expect the concurrence of Heaven in such an undertaking, than in sheathing their swords in the bowels of their brethren, and making an effusion of Christian blood upon every slight pretence, as we see has been the case in Europe for above thirty years past.

I had intended to remark here that, as the country possessed by Christians is but a spot of the globe compared to the heathen, pagan, and Mahometan world, so the number of real Christians among the nations professing the Christian name is yet a more disproportioned part, a mere trifle, and hardly to be compared with the infinite numbers of those who, though they call themselves Christians, yet know as little of God and religion as can be imagined to be known where the word Christian is spoken of, and neither seek or desire to know more; in a word, who know but little of God or Jesus Christ, heaven or hell, and regard none of them.

This is a large field, and being thoroughly searched into, would, I doubt not, reduce the real faithful subjects of the kingdom of Jesus Christ to a much fewer number than those of Mahomet; nay, than those of the monarch of Germany, and make our Lord appear a weaker prince, speaking in the sense of kingdoms, than many of the kings of the earth. And if it be true that the old king of France should say, that he had more loyal subjects than King Jesus, I do not know but, in the sense

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his most Christian majesty meant it, the thing might be very true.

But this observation is something out of my present road, and merits to be spoken of by itself.

The number of true Christians will never be known on this side the great bar, where they shall be critically separated. No political arithmetic can make a calculation of the number of true Christians while they live blended with the false ones, since it is not only hard, but impossible, to know them one from another in this world.

We shall perhaps be surprised at the last day to see some people at the right hand of the righteous Judge whom we have condemned with the utmost zeal in our opinions, while we were contemporary with them in life; for charity, as it is generally practised in this world, and mixed with our human infirmities, such as pride, selfopinion, and personal prejudice, is strangely misguided, and makes us entertain notions of things and people quite different from what they really deserve; and there is hardly any rule to prescribe ourselves, except it be of the text — “ In meekness, every one esteeming others better than themselves,” which, by the way, is difficult to do.

But though we shall thus see at the great audit a transposition of persons from the station they held in our charity, we shall only thereby see that our judgment was wrong; that God

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judgeth not as man judgeth, and that we too rashly condemn whom He has thought fit to justify and accept.

Let, then, the number of Christians be more or less, as He that makes them Christians determines, this is not for us to enter into; and this brings me back to what I said before, that though we cannot make Christians, we both can and may, and indeed ought, to open the door to Christianity, that the preaching of God^s word, which is the ordinary means of bringing mankind to the knowledge of religion, may be spread over the whole world.

With what vigour do we consult, and how do the labouring heads of the world club together, to form projects, and to raise subscriptions to extend the general commerce of nations into every corner of the world! But? t would pass for a bubble of all bubbles, and a whimsey that none would engage in, if ten millions should be asked to be subscribed for sending a strong fleet and army to conquer heathenism and idolatry, and protect a mission of Christians, to be employed in preaching the Gospel to the poor heathens, say it were on the coast of Coromandel, the island of Ceylon, and country of Malabar, or any of the dominions of the Great Mogul; and yet such an attempt would not only be just, but infinitely advantageous to the people who should undertake it, and to the people of the country on whom the operation should be wrought.

In the occasional discourses I had on this subject, in conversation with men of good judgment and principles, I have been

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often asked in what manner I would propose to carry on such a conquest as I speak of, and how it should answer the end; and that I may not be supposed to suggest a thing impracticable in itself, or for which no rational scheme might be proposed, I shall make a brief essay, at the manner, in which the conquest I speak of should be, or ought to be, carried on; and if it be considered seriously, the difficulties and perhaps all the reasonable objections might vanish in an instant. I will therefore, first, for the purpose only, suppose that an attempt was made by a Christian nation to conquer and subdue some heathen or Mahometan people at a distance from them, place the conquest where and among whom we will; for example, suppose it was the great island of Madagascar, or that of Ceylon, Borneo in the Indies, or those of Japan, or any other where you please.

I would first suppose the place to be infinitely populous, as any of those countries, though they are islands, are said to be; and because the Japanese are said to be a most sensible, sagacious people, under excellent forms of government, and capable more than ordinarily of receiving impressions, supported by the argument and example of a virtuous and religious conqueror.

For this purpose you must grant me, that the island or islands of Japan were in a situation proper for the undertaking, and that a powerful European army, being landed upon them, had in a great battle, or in divers battles, overthrown all their military force, and had entirely reduced the whole nation to their power; as, to go back to examples, the Venetians had done

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by the Turks in the Morea in a former war, or as the Turks did in the isles in Candia, Cyprus, and the like. The short scheme for establishing the government in those countries should be this: —

First, as the war is pointed chiefly against the kingdom of the devil in behalf of the Christian worship, so no quarter should be given to Satan’s administration; and as nothing else should willingly be treated with violence, so, indeed, no part of the devil’s economy should have any favour, but all the idols should be immediately destroyed and publicly burnt, all the pagodas and temples burnt, and the very face and form of paganism, and the worship attending it, be utterly defaced and destroyed.

Secondly, the priests and dedicated persons of every kind, by whatsoever names or titles known or distinguished, should be at least removed, if not destroyed.

Thirdly, all the exercise of profane and idolatrous rites, ceremonies, worship, festivals, and customs should be abolished entirely, so as by time to be forgotten, and clean wiped out of the minds as well as out of the practice of the people.

This is all the coercion I propose, and less than this cannot be proposed; because, though we may not by arms and force compel men to be religious — because if we do we cannot make them sincere, and so by persecution we only create hypocrites — yet I insist that we may by force, and that with

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the greatest justice possible, suppress paganism, and the worship of God’s enemy the devil, and banish it out of the world; nay, that we ought to do it to the utmost of our power. But I return to the conquest.

The country being thus entirely reduced under Christian government, the inhabitants, if they submit quietly, ought to be used with humanity and justice, no cruelty, no rigour. They should suffer no oppression, injury, or injustice, that they may not receive evil impressions of the people that are come among them; lest, entertaining an abhorrence of Christians from their evil conduct, cruelty, and injustice, they should entertain an abhorrence of the Christian religion for their sakes; as the poor wretches the Indians in America, who, when they were talked to of the future state, the resurrection of the dead, eternal felicity in heaven, and the like, inquired where the Spaniards went after death, and if any of them went to heaven; and being answered in the affirmative, shook their heads, and desired they might go to hell then, for that they were afraid to think of being in heaven if the Spaniards were there.

A just and generous behaviour to the natives, or at least to such of them as should show themselves willing to submit, would certainly engage them in their interest, and accordingly would in a little while bring them to embrace that truth which dictated such just principles to those who espoused it.

Thus prejudices being removed, the way to instruction would be made the more plain, and then would be the time for Gospel labourers to enter upon the harvest; ministers

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should be instructed to teach them our language, to exhort them to seek the blessings of religion and of the true God, and so gradually to introduce right principles among them at their own request.

From hence they should proceed to teach all the young children the language spoken by them, who would then be their benefactors rather than conquerors; and a few years wearing the old generation out, the posterity of them and of their conquerors would be all one nation.

In case any rejected the instruction of religious men and adhered obstinately to his idolatry, and would not be reclaimed by gentle and Christian usage, suitable methods are to be taken with such, that they might not make a religious faction in the country and gain others to side with them in order to recover their liberty, as they might call it, to serve their own gods, that is to say, idols; for it must be for ever as just not to permit them to go back to idolatry by force as it was to pull them from it by force.

By this kind of conquest the Christian religion would be most effectually propagated among innumerable nations of savages and idolaters, and as many people be brought to worship the true God as may be said to do it at this time in the whole Christian world.

This is my crusado; and it would be a war as justifiable on many accounts as any that was ever undertaken in the world,

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a war that would bring eternal honour to the conquerors and an eternal blessing to the people conquered.

It were easy now to cut out enterprises of this nature for other of the princes of the world than the Czar of Muscovy; and I could lay very rational schemes for such undertakings, and the schemes that could, if thoroughly pursued, never fail of success. For example, an expedition against the Moors of Africa by the French, Spanish, and Italian princes, who daily suffer so much by them, and the last of whom are at perpetual war with them; how easy would it be to those powers to join in a Christian confederacy to plant the Christian religion again in the Numidian and Mauritanian kingdoms — where was once the famous church of Carthage, and from whence thousands of Christians have gone to heaven — the harvest of the primitive labours of St. Cyprian, Tertullian, and many more, whose posterity now bow their knees to that latest and worst of all impostors, Mahomet.

But unchristian strife was always a bar against the propagation of the Christian religion, and unnatural wars, carried on among the nations I speak of, are made so much the business of the Christian world, that I do not expect in our time to see the advantages taken hold of that the nature of the thing offers. But I am persuaded, and leave it upon record as my settled opinion, that one time or other the Christian powers of Europe shall be inspired from Heaven for such a work, and then the easiness of subduing the kingdom of Africa to the Christian

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power shall shame the generations past, who had the opportunity so often in their hands, but made no use of it.

Note. — In this part of the subject I am upon, I must acknowledge there is a double argument for a war: (1.) In point of the interfering interests, Europe ought to take possession of those shores, without which it is manifest her commerce is not secured; and indeed, while that part of Africa bor dering on the sea is in the hands of robbers, pirates cannot be secured. Now, this is a point of undisputed right, for a war-trade claims the protection of the powers to whom it belongs, and we make no scruple to make war upon one another for the protection of our trade, and it is allowed to be a good reason why we should do so. Why, then, is it not a good reason to make war upon thieves and robbers? If one nation take the ships belonging to another, we immediately reclaim the prize from the captors, and require of the prince that justice be done against the aggressor, who is a breaker of the peace; and if this is refused we make war.

But shall we do thus to Christians, and scruple to make an universal war for the rooting out a race of pirates and rovers, who live by rapine, and are continually employed, like the lions and tigers of their own Lybia, in devouring their neighbours? This, I say, makes such a war not only just on a religious account, but both just and necessary upon a civil account.

The war, then, being thus proved to be just on other accounts, why should not (2.) the extirpation of idolatry, paganism, and devil-worship be the consequence of the victory? If

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God be allowed to be the giver of victory, how can it be answered to Him that the victory should not be made use of for the interest and glory of the God of war, from whom it proceeds? But these things are not to be offered to the world till higher principles work in the minds of men in their making war and peace than yet seems to take up their minds.

I was tempted upon this occasion to make an excursion here upon the subject of the very light occasions princes and powers, states and statesmen, make use of for the engaging in war and blood one against another; one for being ill satisfied with the other, and another for preserving the balance of power; this for nothing at all, and that for something next to nothing; and how little concern the blood that is necessarily spilt in these wars produces among them. But this is not a case that will so well bear to be entered upon in a public manner at this time.

All I can add is, I doubt no such zeal for the Christian religion will be found in our days, or perhaps in any age of the world, till Heaven beats the drums itself, and the glorious legions from above come down on purpose to propagate the work, and to reduce the whole world to the obedience of King Jesus — a time which some tell us is not far off, but of which I heard nothing in all my travels and illuminations, no, not one word.

A Vision of the Angelick World

THEY must be much taken up with the satisfaction of what they are already, that never spare their thoughts upon the subject of what they shall be.

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