Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman (SRSC 12)

Chapter 7: Discerning the Way Forward (1769–1770)

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and sometimes in the renewings of gospel love I have been helped to minister to others. That which has so closely engaged my mind, in seeking to the Lord for instruction, is whether, after the full information I have had of the oppression which the slaves lie under who raise the West India produce, which I have gained by reading a caution and warning to Great Britain and her colonies, written by Anthony Benezet, it is right for me to take passage in a vessel employed in the West India trade. To trade freely with oppressors without laboring to dissuade them from such unkind treatment, and to seek for gain by such traffic, tends, I believe, to make them more easy* respecting their conduct than they would be, if the cause of universal righteousness was humbly and firmly attended to by those in general with whom they have commerce; and that complaint of the Lord by his prophet, “You have encouraged the wicked” (Ezek 13:22), has very often revived in my mind. I may here add some circumstances which occurred to me before I had any prospect of a visit there. David longed for some water in a well beyond an army of Philistines who were at war with Israel, and some of his men, to please him, ventured their lives in passing through this army, and brought that water ( 2 Sam 23:14–17 ). It does not appear that the Israelites were then scarce of water, but rather that David gave way to delicacy of taste; and having reflected on the danger to which these men had been exposed, he considered this water as their blood, and his heart smote him that he could not drink it, but he poured it out to the Lord. The