I was strangely surprised at his question; and, after all, though I was now an old man, yet I was but a young doctor, and ill enough qualified for a casuist, or a solver of difficulties; and, at first, I could not tell what to say; so I pretended not to hear him, and asked him what he said? But he was too earnest for an answer to forget his question, so that he repeated it in the very same broken words as above. By this time I had recovered myself a little, and I said, “God will at last punish him severely; he is reserved for the judgment, and is to be cast into the bottomless pit to dwell with everlasting fire.” This did not satisfy Friday; but he returns upon me, repeating my words, “Reserve at last! me no understand; but why not kill the devil now, not kill great ago?” “You may as well ask me,” said I, “why God does not kill you and me, when we do wicked things here that offend him; we are preserved to repent and be pardoned.” He muses a while at this. “Well, well,” says he, mighty affectionately, “that well; so you, I, devil, all wicked, all preserve, repent, God pardon all.” Here I was run down again by him to the last degree, and it was a testimony to me, how the mere notions of nature, though they will guide reasonable creatures to the knowledge of a God, and of a worship or homage due to the supreme being of God, as the consequence of our nature, yet nothing but divine revelation can form the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of a redemption purchased for us; of a Mediator; of a new covenant; and of an Intercessor at the footstool of God’s throne—I say, nothing but a revelation from Heaven can form these in the soul; and that therefore the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I mean the Word of God, and the Spirit of God, promised for the guide and sanctifier of his people, are the absolutely necessary instructors of the souls of men in the saving knowledge of God, and the means of salvation.
I therefore diverted the present discourse between me and my man, rising up hastily, as upon some sudden occasion of going out; then sending him for something a great way off, I seriously prayed to God that he would enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage, assisting, by his Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant creature to receive the light of the knowledge of God in Christ, reconciling him to himself, and would guide me to speak so to him from the word of God, as his conscience might be convinced, his eyes opened, and his soul saved. When he came again to me, I entered into a long discourse with him upon the subject of the redemption of man by the Saviour of the world, and of the doctrine of the Gospel preached from heaven, namely, of repentance towards God, and faith in our blessed Lord Jesus; I then explained to him, as well as I could, why our blessed Redeemer took not on him the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham, and how, for that reason, the fallen angels had no share in the redemption; that he came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the like.
I had, God knows, more sincerity than knowledge in all the methods I took for this poor creature’s instruction; and must acknowledge, what I believe all that act upon the same principle will find, that in laying things open to him, I really informed and instructed myself in many things that either I did not know, or had not fully considered before, but which occurred naturally to my mind upon my searching into them for the information of this poor savage; and I had more affection in my inquiry after things upon this occasion than ever I felt before; so that, whether this poor wild wretch was the better for me or no, I had great reason to be thankful that ever he came to me. My grief sat lighter upon me, my habitation grew comfortable to me beyond measure; and when I reflected that in this solitary life, which I had been confined to, I had not only been moved myself to look up to Heaven, and to seek to the hand that brought me thither, but was now to be made an instrument, under Providence, to save the life, and, for aught I knew, the soul, of a poor savage, and bring him to the true knowledge of religion and of the Christian doctrine, that he might know Christ Jesus, to know whom is life eternal—I say, when I reflected upon all these things, a secret joy ran through every part of my soul, and I frequently rejoiced that ever I was brought to this place, which I had often thought the most dreadful of all afflictions that could possibly have befallen me.