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One of the earliest to articulate a more doctrinal understanding of the Scripture was the slave and father of African-American literature, Jupiter Hammon (1711–1806?). In 1760, Hammon became the first African-American to publish a work of literature. He expressed his belief in the Bible and exhorted his audience to read it in his famous Address to the Negroes in the State of New York: [T]he Bible is the word of God and tells you what you must do to please God; it tells you how you may escape misery and be happy forever. If you see most people neglect the Bible, and many that can read never look into it, let it not harden you and make you think lightly of it and that it is a book of no worth. All those who are really good love the Bible and meditate on it day and night. In the Bible, God has told us everything it is necessary we should know in order to be happy here and hereafter. The Bible is the mind and will of God to men.5
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Thabiti M. Anyabwile (Reviving the Black Church)