SLAVEKY, 
 
 AS RECOGNIZED IN THE 
 
 MOSAIC CIVIL LAW, 
 
 RECOGNIZED ALSO, AND ALLOWED, IN THE 
 
 Jtojmmic, Iteit, &nfc CImstiait 
 
 - . 
 
 BEING ONE OF A SERIES OF SABBATH EVENING DISCOURSES 
 ON THE LAWS OF MOSES. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. STUART ROBINSON. 
 
 WITH NOTES FROM ORTHODOX BRITISH, AND CON TINEA fAL 
 BIBLICAL CRITICS AND COMMENTATORS. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 ROLLO & ADAM 
 
 1866. 
 

 ENTERED, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 
 JOHN F. TROW, 
 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 JOHN F. TEOW, 
 
 PRINTER, STEREOTYPZR, AWD EUECTROTTTZJI, 
 60 Greene Street, New York. 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 THE reason for the present publication may, perhaps, 
 best be given in the following extracts from letters 
 addressed to the author the day after the delivery of the 
 discourse in the regular course of his pulpit ministrations, 
 by a large number of intelligent Canadian gentlemen : 
 
 TORONTO, Feb. 27, 1865. 
 REV. STUART ROBINSON: 
 
 DEAB SIE : The interests of religion and truth require that, 
 in all matters affecting our faith in Divine Revelation, our opin 
 ions should be clear and definite. The subject of Human Slavery 
 comes under this category. It is a subject which in former times 
 very much agitated the public mind in Great Britain, and, since 
 the commencement of the American war, has been revived with 
 great vigor, both in England and Canada. * * * 
 
 On a subject of so much importance a subject involving the 
 interests of millions of our fellow-beings it would seem necessary 
 and right that we should have something more substantial than 
 vague generalities, as an anchor to our faith. 
 
 In common with the bulk of the English people, we hold, 
 and hold thoroughly, as you are aware, anti-slavery opinions ; 
 but while so doing, we believe it to be in the interests of truth 
 that the subject should be laid open to full, free, and fair dis 
 cussion. 
 
 The extraordinary research and ability displayed in the Lec 
 tures on Genesis and Exodus, delivered by you in this city during 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 the past two years, entitle your opinions to a careful considera 
 tion ; and it is only in accordance with British justice that you 
 should have a fair hearing. For these reasons we, whose names 
 are here annexed, request that you will permit your views, em 
 bodied in the recent lecture on slavery, to be published. 
 Very respectfully yours. 
 
 TORONTO, Feb. 27, 1865. 
 REV. STUABT ROBINSON : 
 
 DEAK SIR : Conjointly with many others who heard the admi 
 rable discourse on slavery as recognized by the Bible, preached by 
 you last evening, and who, with myself, would be pleased to see it 
 in a form that would reach the mass of the people in the province 
 and abroad, who must be interested in a just and exhaustive ex 
 position of this subject, I take the liberty of inquiring whether 
 you will permit its publication, and would be disposed to place 
 the manuscript in our hands for that purpose ? 
 I am, Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 Very faithfully yours, &c. 
 
 Not having before thought of such a publication, the 
 preparation for the press, in accordance with the foregoing 
 requests, has, of course, been made somewhat hastily under 
 the pressure usual in such cases of public call for a dis 
 course. The views and opinions uttered, however, have 
 long been entertained ; and the expositions of the Scrip 
 tures are in general accordance w T ith the steadfast faith 
 of the people of God, as uttered through their pious and 
 learned men, in all ages up to the present. This will be 
 apparent by a comparison of the statements of the dis 
 course with the foot-notes which have been appended for 
 the benefit of plain readers, who have not access to many 
 commentators, that they may knoAV what is the voice of 
 the Church s interpreters. For some of these authorities, 
 that were not within his reach, the author is indebted to 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 the laborious compilation of the learned and excellent 
 Bishop Hopkins in his late work. 
 
 Though not thus coming before the public by any 
 design or forethought of his own, it seems to the author 
 to be somewhat providential, that he should have been 
 called upon, just at this time, to show the people " what 
 saith the Scriptures " concerning the relation of master and 
 slave. The reaction from the extremes to which a plausi 
 ble but fierce and reckless fanaticism had carried both the 
 American and British people, but especially the former, 
 seems about to set in. The sober second thought of 
 Christian people is beginning to suspect the dogmas of 
 the noisy, canting, infidel philanthropism whose prophets 
 have seduced them temporarily to follow the pretended 
 revelations of natural reason, " spiritual insight," and 
 " universal love," instead of Jehovah s prophets whom 
 their fathers followed. 
 
 The recent very remarkable utterances of this fanatical 
 philanthropism from the very highest official of the Ameri 
 can nation, since this discourse was delivered, utterances, 
 which, as will appear from the argument of this discourse, 
 can hardly be characterized as less than impiously presump 
 tuous perversions of the Word and Providence of God, 
 must arrest the attention of thoughtful Christian men, 
 and lead to the inquiry whether the lights which the 
 Churches of that country have been following to such an 
 extreme, can possibly have been kindled at the altar-fires 
 of inspiration. To such inquiries, it is believed, this brief 
 yet compact and somewhat exhaustive view will be of 
 service ; especially to such as have no time or opportunity 
 for more extended reading. 
 
 STUAKT ROBINSON. 
 
 TORONTO, March 6th, 1865. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. Reasons for this present discussion. The au 
 thorities in biblical criticism upon which the argument 
 relies are not partisan. Difference between the New Eng 
 land and the British Anti-Slavery sentiment, . . . 2-7 
 
 SECTION I. Slavery in the Church, anterior to the civil code 
 of Moses, recognized in the covenants which form the 
 fundamental charter of the Church visible. The deliver 
 ance from Egypt was the deliverance of a nation of slave 
 holders from political bondage, 8-14 
 
 SECTION II. Rationale of the Mosaic civil law respecting the 
 bond-service of Hebrews. That service was not slavery, in 
 the proper sense, at all. The prohibition against reducing 
 a Hebrew to slavery was not on the ground of natural right, 
 but of special religious faith, 15-21 
 
 SECTION III. A system of perpetual slavery was recognized 
 and regulated by the Mosaic civil code, substantially the 
 same with the system in the American Southern States ; nor 
 was such slaveholding deemed inconsistent with the strict 
 holiness symbolized in the ritual law, .... 22-29 
 
 SECTION IV. This system of perpetual slavery continued to exist 
 in the Mosaic Church till the close of the Old Testament 
 inspiration ; and, during the interval between the close of 
 the Old and the opening of the New Testament, vast num 
 bers of Jews, as well as of other peoples, had been sold into 
 slavery in all parts of the Roman Empire, .... 29-32 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SECTION V. During the personal ministry of Jesus Christ, 
 though slavery, in fact, as part of the social order and the 
 question of slavery, in thcsi, in the exposition of Moses, 
 must have been forced upon his attention, Christ did not re 
 peal Moses permission of slavery, as He repealed the per 
 mission of divorce and polygamy, nor claim to teach a purer 
 ethics than Moses. When actual cases came before him, 
 not only did he not rebuke the relation of master and slave 
 as sinful, but blessed both master and slave, and, in his 
 preaching, referred without rebuke to the relation of master 
 and slave, 32-43 
 
 SECTION VI. In the final reorganization of the visible Church, 
 through the Apostles, under the dispensation of the Spirit, 
 the ethical propriety of slavery, especially of enslaving 
 Jews, must have been forced upon their attention. Yet the 
 Apostles not only admitted slaveholders and their slaves 
 together into the Church, but enjoined the Christian duties 
 of master and slave precisely in the same manner as the 
 duties of ruler and subject, husband and wife, parents and 
 children, . 44-66 
 
 SECTION VII. The Apostles not only recognized negatively the 
 ethical propriety of the relation of master and slave, but ex 
 pressly denounced those who " teach otherwise," as heretics 
 from whom true ministers of the Church must withdraw 
 fellowship, 67-62 
 
 SECTION VIII. The imminent danger to religion from the tend 
 encies of the anti-slavery philanthropism to subvert the faith 
 of the people in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Fallacious 
 judgments of the greatest and wisest men under the mental 
 and moral epidemics that seize upon society, as compared 
 with the infallible word of God, 62-78 
 
 CONCLUDING NOTE. Application of the foregoing argument to the 
 great secular issues now pending between the slaveholding 
 States and British and New England philanthropism. The 
 trilemma. Neither of its horns consistent with scriptural 
 ethics nor with facts. The slavery tolerated in the New Testa 
 ment demonstrated to be the same in principle with that in 
 the American States. Why these views have not been press 
 ed upon the attention of the world before by Southern writers. 78-89 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 Now these are THE JUDGMENTS which thou shalt set before 
 them. If tliou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve 
 thee, &c. Ex. 21 : 1-6. 
 
 And if a man smite his servant with a rod and he die under 
 his hand : he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding if he 
 continue a day or two he shall not be punished : FOR HE is ins 
 MONEY, Ex. 21 : 20. And if a man smite the eye of his servant, 
 or the eye of his maid, that it perish, he shall let him go free for 
 his eye s sake, &c. Ex. 21 : 26, 27. 
 
 If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant ; he shall 
 give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall bo 
 stoned. Ex. 21 : 28-32. 
 
 And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and 
 be sold unto thee ; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a. 
 bond-servant ; but as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he 
 be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee ; and 
 then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, 
 and shall return unto his ow)i family, and unto the possession OF 
 HIS FATHERS shall he return. FOR THEY ARE MY SERVANTS, WHICH 
 I BROUGHT OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT : they shall not be sold as 
 bondmen, &c. 
 
 Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, 
 shall be of the heathen that are round about thee ; of them 
 
 SHALL YE BUY BONDMEN AND BONDMAIDS ; IHOrCOVer, of the 
 
 children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them 
 shall ye buy, &c. 
 
 And they shall be YOUR POSSESSION. And ye shall take them 
 AS AN INHERITANCE for your children after you, TO INHERIT THEM 
 FOE A POSSESSION ; they shall be your BONDMEN FOREVEE ; but 
 1 
 
2 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 over your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule over 
 one another with rigor. Lev. 25 : 39-55. 
 
 And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Take the sum of the 
 prey that was taken both of man and of beast. And levy a tribute 
 unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle ; one 
 soul of five hundred both of THE PERSONS and of the beeves, &c. 
 
 And the persons were sixteen thousand : of which THE LORD S 
 
 TRIBUTE WAS THIRTY AND TWO PERSONS. And Moses gEV6 the 
 
 tribute which was the Lord s heave offering, unto Eleazer, the 
 priest, as the Lord commanded Moses. Numbers 31 : 25, 26, 28, 40, 41. 
 
 Then shall no stranger eat of the holy thing ; a sojourner of 
 the priest or a hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing. But 
 if the priest buy any soul icith his money, he shall eat of it, and 
 HE THAT is BORN IN HIS HOUSE ; they shall eat of his meat. 
 Leviticus 22 : 10, 11. 
 
 And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found 
 in his hand, shall surely be put to death. Ex. 21 : 16 and Deut. 24 : 7. 
 
 Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is 
 escaped from his master unto thee. Deut. 23 : 15. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Reasons for this present discussion : the authorities in Biblical criticism 
 upon which the argument relies are not partisan. Difference 
 between the New England and the British anti slavery sentiment. 
 
 HAVING considered, according to our proposed plan, 
 The Moral Law, The Constitutional Law, The Criminal 
 Code, we come next to the consideration of the Civil Law 
 of Moses, relating to persons and things. And here among 
 the very first of its enactments stand the laws relating to 
 servitude. 
 
 It is obviously impossible to present any adequate view 
 of this code without entering upon some discussion of a 
 feature of Moses laws, which of late has been so much 
 
ON SLAVERY. 8 
 
 talked about, and so little understood, viz : these slavery 
 enactments. It would certainly be sufficient reason for 
 desiring to instruct the Christian people fully on this 
 subject, were there no other reason, that modern un 
 believers of the Colenso school, cite the fact of the 
 recognition of slavery by Moses as indisputable proof 
 that his writings could not have been " given by inspiration 
 of God." * 
 
 You will remember that while expounding the Abra- 
 hamic Covenant (Gen. 17th), I took occasion to denne 
 my position, as a preacher of the word, in regard to this 
 vexed question of slavery ; that, except as the subject 
 comes in my way in the exposition of the Scriptures, I feel 
 that I have little to do with it, here in a country where no 
 
 * " The wife and her children shall be his master s " (Ex. 21 : 
 4). "For he is his money " (v. 21). "I shall never forget the 
 revulsion of feeling with which a very intelligent Christian native, 
 with whose help I was translating these words into the Zulu 
 tongue, first heard them, as words said to be uttered by the same 
 great and gracious Being, whom I was teaching him to trust in 
 and adore. His whole soul revolted against the notion that the 
 great and blessed God, the merciful Father of all mankind, would 
 speak of a servant or maid as mere money, and allow a horrible 
 crime to go unpunished, because the victim of the brutal usage 
 had survived a few hours. My own heart and conscience at the 
 time fully sympathised with his. But I then clung to the notion 
 that the main substance of the narrative was historically true. 
 And I relieved his difficulty and my own for the present by telling 
 him, that I supposed that such words as these were written down 
 by Moses, and believed by him to have been divinely given to 
 him, because the thought of them arose in his heart as he con 
 ceived by the inspiration of God, and that hence to all such laws 
 he prefixed the formula Jehovah said unto Moses without it 
 being on that account necessary for us to suppose that they were 
 actually spoken by the Almighty. This was, however, a very 
 great strain upon the cord which bound me to the ordinary belief 
 in the historical veracity of the Pentateuch ; and since then that 
 cord has snapped in twain altogether." Colenso on The Penta 
 teuch, part 1, page 50. 
 
4 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 such institution exists : for, having little confidence in, I 
 do not wish to give countenance, by my example, to that 
 sort of religion which exercises itself about the sins of 
 other people rather than its own ; and whose repentance, 
 like the Pharisee s, having no sins of its own to mourn 
 over, wastes its sighs over those of the publican " standing 
 afar off." But, on the other hand, having undertaken to 
 expound to you this Great Book, I dare not allow the 
 fear of having sectional prejudices imputed to me, or the 
 consideration that I must here run counter to the almost 
 universal popular prejudices of the country so to restrain 
 me that I should " shun to declare the whole counsel of 
 God." (Acts 20: IT.) 
 
 Not to tax your time and patience with the too com 
 mon critical disquisitions concerning the import of the 
 Hebrew term ebed, and the Greek doulos, which our 
 translators rendered " servant" because, in their day, the 
 word " servant " still retained its primary and proper 
 signification of " bondman," or " slave," from its Latin 
 original, " servus" * allow me to premise that, in regard 
 
 * The fact that the Latin senus means slave, is no mere 
 modern deduction from etymology and classic usage, but rests 
 upon the precise legal definition of the Justinian Code. Thus : 
 
 " Servi antom exeo appellati sunt quod imperatores captives 
 vender e et per hoc servare, nee occidi solent ; qui etiam mancipia 
 dicti sunt quod ab hostibus manu capiebantur," &c. 
 
 " Slaves (servi) are so called from the fact that commanders 
 are used to sell their captives, and by this means to preserve 
 (servare) rather than kill them. They are also said to be man 
 cipia, because they were taken ly hand (manu capta) from the 
 enemy." Justinian Institutes, Lib. 1. Tit. 3. 
 
 Thus also Augustine : 
 
 " Itaque primes servos, quibus hoc nomen in Latina lingua 
 inditum est, bella feceruiit. Qui enim homo ab homine superatus 
 jure belli possit occidi, quia servatus est, servus est appelatus : inde 
 et mancipia quia manu capta sunt." 
 
 u Thus, as is indicated by the name appropriated to them m 
 
OX SLAVERY. 5 
 
 to these terms in particular, as well as the exegesis, in 
 general, of the scripture texts relating to slavery, I but 
 follow not only the ancient critics, but also the best and 
 most generally accepted British and Continental biblical 
 scholars of the new anti-slavery era, who cannot be sus 
 pected of partiality to my theories. For, somewhat to my 
 surprise, I find that, unlike the New England anti-slavery 
 sentiment which is obviously the natural result of the 
 trifling with, and perversion of, the plainest language of 
 Scripture by their partisan commentators and preachers, 
 who have a foregone conclusion to support, the British 
 anti-slavery sentiment seems to exist rather in spite of the 
 judgment of the latest and highest results of British and 
 Continental biblical scholarship as to the exegesis of the 
 texts of Scripture relating to the subject of slavery.* 
 
 the Latin language, wars made the first slaves. For the man 
 conquered by a man according to the law of war might be slain ; 
 but because he was preserved (servatus est) he was called servus 
 a slave. Hence also they were called mancipia, because (tnanu 
 capta sunt) they were taken ly hand." 
 
 Manifestly the logic of Mr. Barnes and that school of critics 
 who argue that eled (Hebrew), doulos (Greek), and servus (Latin), 
 do not properly mean slave, because sometimes applied figuratively 
 to free persons, would prove with equal force that the word slave 
 in Virginia does not properly denote a bondman, because some 
 times Virginians speak of freemen as " slaves to strong drink," 
 " slaves to habit ; " and of free ladies of the highest position as 
 " slaves to fashion." 
 
 Says the lenrned McKnight : 
 
 " The word doulos properly signifies a slave. Our English trans 
 lators, in all places where the duties of slaves are inculcated, have 
 justly translated it servant, because, anciently, the Greeks and 
 Romans had scarce any servants but slaves, and because the duties 
 of the hired servant, during the time of his service, are the same 
 with those of the slave. So that what the Apostle said to the slave 
 was in effect said to the hired servant." McKnight. on Ep. Col. 3 : 22. 
 
 * Those who have searched the Scriptures under no other 
 guidance than the exegetical platitudes, and critical tliiinble- 
 rigging of that American politico-evangelical school propheti- 
 
6 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 Finding myself thus brought face to face with the 
 subject, in the regular course of these Sabbath even 
 ing expositions, I propose to develope the principles of 
 the Mosaic Civil Code in regard to it, and, as I did 
 
 cally described, to the very life, by the Apostle (1 Tim. 6 : 4) as 
 " proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes 
 oficords, whereof cometh. . . perverse disputings of men of corrupt 
 rainds and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness," 
 (and therefore manufacturing interpretations to suit the popular 
 market,) will be surprised at finding such statements as follow, 
 from cotemporary British and German scholars, all directly in 
 the teeth of the charlatans who quibble about cbed and doulos as 
 not signifying a bond-slave. 
 
 In the article u Laws of Moses," in the new cyclopaedia of Dr. 
 Wm. Smith, embodying the last and highest results of biblical 
 scholarship in England, Rev. Alfred Barry presents this synopsis, 
 under the head of " Laws Civil." 
 
 " (c) MASTER AND SLAVE. Power of the master so far limited, 
 that death under actual chastisement was punishable (Ex. 21 : 20), 
 and maiming was to give liberty ipso facto (ver. 26, 27). The 
 Hebrew slave to be freed at sabbatical year. 
 
 " foreign slaves to be held and inherited as property for ever 
 (Lev. 25 : 45, 46) and fugitive slaves from foreign nations not to 
 be given up. (Dent. 23 : 15)." 
 
 In the Art. SLAVE, from the pen of Eev. William Latham 
 Bevan, Vicar of Hay, occur these statements : 
 
 "The institution of slavery was recognised, though not estab 
 lished, by the Mosaic Law, with a view to mitigate its hardships, 
 and to secure to every man his ordinary rights. 
 
 " Repugnant as the notion of slavery is to our minds, it is 
 difficult to see how it can be dispensed with in certain phases of 
 society without, at all events, entailing severer evils than those 
 which it produces. 
 
 " The Hebrew designation of the slave shows that service was 
 the salient feature of his condition ; for the term cbed usually 
 applied to him is derived from a word signifying " to work," and 
 the very same term is used in reference to offices of high trust 
 held by free men. In short, service and slavery would have been 
 to the ear of the Hebrew equivalent terms, though he fully recog 
 nized grades of servitude according as the servant was a Hebrew 
 or a non-Hebrew, and of the latter according as he was " bought 
 with money," " or born in the house." 
 
 The slave is described as " the possession " of his master, 
 
ON SLAVERY. 7 
 
 in the case of the Moral and Constitutional Code given 
 by Moses, to point oat the relation of these principles 
 to the preceding and succeeding teachings of the Scrip 
 tures. 
 
 We have, just at present, nothing to do with the 
 ethical justice of slavery as a question of natural law, 
 nor with the question whether it exists by law of nations 
 according to the Justinian Code, or merely by " local 
 law * according to certain American jurists ; nor with 
 the inhumanity of slavery, nor with the thousand abuses 
 to which, in common with every other human institution, 
 it is liable ; but simply with the Bible teaching concerning 
 slavery as a. relation consistent or inconsistent with the 
 holiness enjoined in God s word, and therefore, as affect 
 ing our faith in the Scriptures as " the inspiration of 
 God." 
 
 apparently with special reference to the power which the latter 
 had of disposing of him to his heirs, as he would any oilier article 
 of personal property (Lev. 25 : 45, 46) ; the slave is also described 
 as his master s " money " (Ex, 21 : 21), i. e., as representing a 
 certain money value. Such expressions show that he was regard 
 ed very much in the light of a maneipiwn or CHATTEL. But 
 on the other hand provision was made for the protection of his 
 person." 
 
 So the German commentator, Otto Von Gerlach, on Ex. 21 : 
 
 u The first division treats of laws which concern slaves and 
 Israelites. Slavery was, in all ancient nations, a common acknow 
 ledged right, as we find the ease with Abraham (Gen. 12: 5). 
 The Mosaic law found this relation of master and slave existing 
 among the Israelites" &c. 
 
 So the learned Dr. Wordsworth, Canon of Westminster, on the 
 epistle to Philemon (1859), says of the New Testament : 
 
 * Wherever the word l servants occurs in the New Testament, 
 we must understand slaves slaves purchased with money, or 
 taken in war, or reared from slaves in the house of their master. 
 Phrygia, in which Colosse was situated, was the land of slaves. 
 A Phrygian was another word for slave." 
 
 Shall we take the authority of New England partisans against 
 all these ? 
 
BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Slavery in the Church anterior to Moses ; recognized in the covenant 
 which forms the fundamental charter of the Church visible ; the 
 deliverance from Egypt was the deliverance of a nation of slave- 
 hclders from political bondage. 
 
 IN the exposition of the prophecy of Noah, we have 
 seen that it was a purpose of God, revealed at the very 
 origin of the present race of men, that one portion of 
 the race should be doomed to servitude. I did not then 
 argue, nor do I now, that this revelation through Noah 
 of itself justifies a man in holding slaves ; any more than 
 that the prophecy declaring that Messiah should be 
 betrayed by one of his own household, justified Judas in 
 betraying him. Nor will I argue now, as I might with 
 great force, that, on the same principle that a degraded 
 race was, in the purpose of God, doomed to servitude 
 under its superior then, as obviously the best condition, 
 spiritually, in which it could continue on earth, so it is 
 easy to conceive that the providence of God now ordains 
 even servitude under a superior race as an amelioration of 
 the state of a people, two thirds of which are already under 
 the crudest bondage to the other third, and all under the 
 bondage of a ferocious Devil-worship. All that is claimed 
 in this argument from Noah s prophecy is that this purpose 
 of God, revealed at the very origin of the present human 
 race, furnishes a clue to the interpretation of the subsequent 
 revelations of His will both in His word and in the history 
 of His providence to this day. 
 
 Accordingly, in the subsequent expositions of that 
 great covenant with Abraham, which constitutes the 
 
ON SLAVERY. 9 
 
 divine charter organizing, as a separate society, the Church 
 visible, toward the close of Patriarchy, which had hitherto 
 comprised both State and Church in the family, we have 
 seen that the choice of Jehovah for a head of that new 
 society, the Church, was a man, the inspired inventory of 
 whose property (Gen. 12 : 16) included slaves as well as 
 money and cattle ; who received slaves as well as money, 
 by w r ay of present, from Abimelech, king of Egypt (Gen. 
 20 : 14) ; whose slaves were so numerous that he could raise 
 an army of 318 home-born slave warriors (Gen. 14 : 14) ; 
 whose agent urged it as an argument to gain the consent 
 of Rebeccah s family to her marriage with Isaac, that he 
 was heir to immense wealth in " flocks and herds, and 
 silver and gold, and man-servants and maid-servants and 
 camels " (Gen. 24 : 35) ; and whose wife s bondwoman 
 (Gen. 16 : 9), by direct order of Jehovah, recognizing her 
 as a slave, " returned to her mistress." 
 
 And in the exposition of the book of Job, as belonging 
 to the patriarchal era, we have seen that, among his losses 
 of property, were slaves (Job 1 : 16), which in the lan 
 guage of that early era were distinguished from the 
 " hireling that looketh for the reward of his work " 
 (Job 3: 19 and 7: 2); that while Job recognized, as 
 distinctly as the Justinian Code, or as Thomas Jefferson 
 himself, that God " created all men equal," yet he made 
 that the reason to himself for dealing justly and kindly with 
 his slaves, not for setting them free (Job 31 : 13, 17). 
 
 Now what is still more important than the existence 
 of slavery, merely, in that era, is the remarkable fact that, 
 in the actual organization of the Church, as a separate 
 visible society, this slaveholder Abraham and his slaves 
 were made the constituent members of it, by direct 
 ordinance of Jehovah. " He that is born in thy house, or 
 bought with thy money of any stranger, must need be 
 1* 
 
10 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 circumcised. (Gen. 17: 13.) And accordingly (Gen. 17: 
 23), Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were 
 born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, 
 and circumcised them in the selfsame day, as God had said 
 unto him." * We have seen also in the course of these 
 
 * " Query, whether the servants bought with money could be 
 compelled to circumcision ? Many affirm it from this place. For, 
 1. The slave is the property of his master. 2. It is a command, 
 let him be circumcised, which you nullify if you understand 
 that it depends on the will of the slave. 3. Otherwise there 
 would be no distinction between the hired servant and the slave, 
 for circumcision is permitted but not commanded to a hired ser 
 vant, Ex. 12: 44. Others deny. They suppose that no adult 
 slave was obliged," &c. Poli Synopsis, Gen. 17 : 12. 
 
 " He that is born in thy house or bought with money, must 
 needs be circumcised." Not whether they would or no, for men 
 were not compelled to religion, which had been a profanation of 
 this covenant. But Abraham was to persuade them to it ; and, 
 if they consented not, to keep them no longer in his house, but 
 to sell them to some other people. So Maimonides expounds it, 
 in his book of circumcision, chap. 1, which is true both of ser 
 vants born in the house, and bought with money; but as for the 
 children of these slaves, they were to be circumcised whether the 
 parents would or no ; because they were THE POSSESSION OF THEIR 
 MASTERS, NOT OF THEIR PARENTS." Bp. Patrick on Gen. 17: 13. 
 
 It may be remarked in general, as a guide to inquiries into the 
 teachings of commentators and critics concerning the meaning of 
 the passages in the Bible relating to slavery, that they will find 
 the following rule hold good, almost without exception. 
 
 That all the orthodox ancient commentators, up to the era of 
 the British and American anti-slavery movement, almost without 
 exception, expound these passages as this discourse expounds them, 
 and as they are expounded generally in the Southern Church. 
 
 That the more orthodox and learned commentators and critics, 
 since the anti-slavery movement, expound these texts in the same 
 way, with two exceptions. First of the class of Dr. Scott and 
 Dr. Adam Clarke, who, while they concur with the foregoing in 
 their reading of most of the passages relating to slavery, yet in a 
 few cases evidently strain the text, for the sake of introducing an 
 outside homiletic remark against slavery and the slave-trade. 
 Secondly of the class of Dr. Jamieson, who observes a most 
 significant silence on the whole subject. 
 
 It may, therefore, be asserted with truth that, aside from the few 
 
OX SLAVERY. 11 
 
 expositions, that when the fulness of time is come, and, 
 by the divine legation of Moses, this family of Abraham 
 is to be organized fully as a visible Church, and also 
 as a nation to whom has been assigned in the Abrahamic 
 covenant the land of Canaan, as an inheritance ; another 
 covenant of redemption, with its sacramental seal, as the 
 former even the passover ordinance is entered into with 
 a Church composed of masters and their slaves in the land 
 of Egypt. (Ex. 12 : 43, 45.) That such were the con 
 stituent elements of the Church at this time is manifest 
 from the very terms of the law. " This is the ordinance 
 of the passover. There shall no stranger eat thereof. A 
 foreigner and a hired servant (notice the distinction) 
 shall not eat thereof. But every man s servant, that is 
 bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, shall 
 eat thereof." Observe that this holy ordinance is given to 
 the Church as Church, through its recognized leaders 
 " the elders " the same who examined into Moses call 
 as a prophet, and accepted him (Ex. 4 : 29-31) ; and not 
 through " the officers," who directed their temporal con 
 cerns, and who quarrelled with him (Ex. 5: 10, 14, 19, 
 20, 12), as a troubler of Israel." 
 
 That the relation of master and slave was thus sanc 
 tioned in the Church of God, as such and not as a civil 
 institution merely, even before the law given by Moses, is 
 certainly a strong presumption to begin with, against all 
 theories of the intrinsic sinfulness of slavery ; or of its 
 sanction only in darker and more impure ages, as a sin 
 temporarily to be borne with, and afterward to be rejected 
 
 exceptions of orthodox men who have been tempted by partisan 
 feeling to wrest scripture in support of a foregone conclusion, the 
 whole orthodox biblical learning of the Church expounds the 
 Scriptures on this subject in one way and that in the \var it is 
 understood in the Southern Church. 
 
12 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 with horror. And by the way, it is a curious fact for those 
 to explain who find, in the deliverance from Egypt, the 
 parallel of the modern anti-slavery successes, that this 
 deliverance from Egypt was simply the deliverance from 
 political bondage of a nation of slaveholders, who came 
 forth bringing their slaves with them. The true parallel 
 to the redemption from the bondage of Egypt would 
 then have been found, should God, in His providence, give 
 deliverance to a slave-holding nation of people from 
 political subjugation, and attempted extirpation, in face of 
 the prejudices of the whole world. It but tends to confuse 
 and darken the minds of the people touching this entire sec 
 tion of the inspired history, thus absurdly to find its parallel 
 in the personal emancipation of even thousands of slaves.* 
 
 * Besides the obvious facts in the whole history of Israel in 
 Egypt, from which ihe ordinary reader must infer, on a little 
 reflection, that they lived there as a nation; that the bondage 
 was not a personal bondage, in which the individual Israelites were 
 slaves to individual Egyptians, but a political bondage, in which 
 the Egyptian power operated on the body politic through the 
 " officers " or political representatives of the Israelites, and there 
 fore the Hebrew institution of slavery might still exist. I may 
 cite in support of this view, the following passage from perhaps 
 the ablest of all cotemporary writers on the Bible history. 
 
 " It is a gross mistake to suppose that the two millions were 
 all the direct descendants of Jacob. When Jacob and his sons 
 went down to Egypt, they must certainly have taken with them 
 all their men-servants and maid-servants as well as all their cattle. 
 We know that Abraham had 318 servants, fit for war, and trained 
 to arms ; his nomadic household must have contained, therefore, 
 more than a thousand souls. Jacob again, who inherited all these, 
 brought with him from Syria so many men-servants and maid-ser 
 vants, and so much cattle, that when he was afraid of an attack 
 from Esau, he divided them into two armies. With such data as 
 these, then, we are justified in assuming that the number of those 
 who went down with Jacob into Egypt was not limited to his sixty- 
 six children and grandchildren, but consisted of several thousand 
 men-servants and maid-servants." Kurtz s Sac. His. vol. 2, p. 149. 
 
 Even the " New American Cyclopedia " suggests : 
 
 " The Jews had some form of slavery from the time of Abra- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 13 
 
 It has been shown also in these expositions how, fifty 
 days after this first Passover, when this Church, prepared 
 for the great solemnity by a synod or council of its elders, 
 stood before Mount Sinai to hear directly the very voice 
 of her Lord and Head utter the great covenant of the Law, 
 two of the precepts of that Law recognized the pro 
 priety of the relation of master and slave within the 
 Church itself. In the fourth commandment masters are 
 required to see to it that their slaves shall keep holy the 
 Sabbath as well as themselves and their children. In the 
 tenth commandment, forbidding even unlawful desires of 
 another s property, slaves are enumerated among the repre 
 sentative articles of property which men shall not covet 
 " nor his man-servant nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor 
 his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour s." * 
 
 The conclusion is thus reached, beyond all possibility 
 
 ham, with whom their historical existence commenced. Their own 
 long enslavement hi Egypt was of & political and personal (?) nation. 
 and probably did not prevent them from holding slaves." 
 
 * That this is no novel construction of the law, will be seen from 
 the following citation from old commentators : 
 
 " Nor thy man-servant, ec." Thou shalt neither enjoin labor 
 upon them nor permit them to labor. This is to be understood 
 of those who are not Jews, for all who were Jews were forbidden 
 in the preceding clauses. Poll Synopsis. Ex. 20 : 10. 
 
 " Thou (shalt not covet his man-servant nor his maid-servant" 
 In these words of the law the lordship and property of the things 
 which it is not lawful to covet are specially established, as also 
 SLAVERY AND THE POWER OF THE MASTER. Poll Synopsis, Ex. 
 20: IT. 
 
 " Nor thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant." This is to be 
 understood, according to the Jews, not of hired servants, concern 
 ing whose rest from labour a man was not bound, but of such as 
 were horn in the house, and bought with their money, and of such 
 man-servants as were circumcised and in all things professed to be 
 proselytes to the Jewish religion. Dr. Gill, Com. Ex. 20: 10. 
 
 " Thou shalt not covet nor his man-servant nor his maid-ser 
 vant " WHICH ARE HIS PRINCIPAL GOODS. Bishop Patrick, Com. 
 on Ex. 10 : 13. 
 
14 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 of doubt that anterior to the civil code of Moses the rela 
 tion of master and slave was recognized in the Church of 
 God as such. If it seem to you that unnecessary pains 
 have been taken to establish this conclusion, you have only 
 to reflect a little on the important bearing which it must 
 have on the interpretation of this civil code of Moses, and 
 its no less important bearing upon the interpretation of the 
 New Testament teaching concerning slavery. In fact, noth 
 ing has tended to obscure and confuse the views of Chris 
 tians on this whole subject more than the current fashion 
 of partial examinations of the Scriptures the Old Testa 
 ment without reference to the New, or the New Testa 
 ment without reference to the Old ; and of ignoring the 
 distinction between what was ordained in the Church, as 
 Church, and what was temporarily ordained in the Hebrew 
 State that peculiar civil organization of a nation for the 
 sake of preserving and perpetuating the Church, under the 
 Divine Legation of Moses. Out of this common blunder 
 springs the current very fatal heresy that, somehow, the 
 Old Testament is not " gospel " to us, nor binding on us 
 in the same sense that the Evangelists and Apostles are ; 
 that the religion taught in the Old is not as pure and 
 benevolent as that taught in the New Testament ; from 
 which will follow inevitably, in the popular mind, the im 
 pression that pure and true Christianity began only with 
 the New Testament ; and then, that somehow the God of 
 the Old Testament Church is not the same as the God of 
 the New at least not of the same ethical attributes, or 
 else that " all Scripture (if that term includes Moses and 
 the prophets) is " not " given by inspiration of God." 
 
ON SLAVERY. 15 
 
 SECTION II 
 
 Rationale of the Mosaic civil law. The bond-service of Hebrews not 
 slavery in the proper sense at all. The prohibition against reducing 
 Hebrews to slavery not founded on the ground of natural right, 
 but of a special religious faith. 
 
 IT has been shown further in the course of our exposi 
 tions, that, besides mediating a church covenant of re 
 demption, whose seal was the Passover, and the ethical 
 covenant of the moral law, as the Church s rule of life, and 
 also delivering an elaborate ritual of worship whereby to 
 teach atonement for sin by blood as the means of deliver 
 ance from the penalties of the ethical law, it was the mis 
 sion of Moses to organize the Hebrew patriarchy into a 
 free, constitutional commonwealth. Hence the system of 
 constitutional law, the general principles of which were 
 illustrated in the discourse of last Sabbath evening ; and 
 the civil law respecting persons and things, now to be ex 
 pounded. It has been shown that the civil constitution 
 given by Moses, like every other national constitution, con- 
 lains certain germinal principles, according to which its 
 several provisions are developed ; that the fundamental 
 principle of this constitution is that Jehovah is not only 
 the God of their religious worship, but, at the same time, 
 the Theocratic King of the nation His palace the Tab 
 ernacle or Temple His throne the Ark of the Cove 
 nant overshadowed by the Cherubim His courtiers the 
 Priests, His vicegerent the Judge or King ; and that He 
 is really the proprietor of the soil of the nation, which 
 He has directly interfered, by supernatural power, to ob 
 tain for the people, as an inheritance, according to the 
 covenant with Abraham. And not only is He the owner 
 
16 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 of the soil, but also of the persons upon it, by virtue of 
 having delivered them from the bondage of Egypt. That, 
 while this is the general theory of the constitution, it has 
 also a fundamental aim and end qf expediency ; even to 
 keep alive among the several families of the nation the 
 hope of being in the line of the descent of Messiah, who is 
 to come, and so to preserve these families distinct that in 
 subsequent ages the line of Messiah can be traced back 
 through all the centuries, as Matthew and Luke have done, 
 in order to demonstrate that His descent is exactly accord 
 ing to the prophets. 
 
 Hence, as we have seen, the reason of that peculiar land- 
 law forbidding the alienation of land from the family to 
 whom it was originally given, by sale of it in fee simple ; 
 permitting only the alienation of the leasehold till the semi- 
 centenary Jubilee, when all lands must revert to the fami 
 lies originally holding them ; by which arrangement the 
 records through which the land-titles are traced become at 
 the same time official records of the family genealogies, 
 generation after generation. 
 
 Hence also that peculiar Levirate law directly con 
 trary to the general law (Lev. 18 : 16) forbidding mar 
 riage between near relatives requiring a man to marry his 
 childless brother s widow, under penalty of disgrace, that 
 the family-name and land-titles may not become extinct. 
 (Dent. 25 : 5-10.) 
 
 Hence also the law, which stands here at the very head 
 of the civil code the first " of the judgments which thou 
 shalt set before them." " If thou buy an Hebrew servant, 
 six years shall he serve, and in the seventh shall he go out 
 free for nothing " (Ex. 21 : 1, 2) ; or, as repeated, more in de 
 tail, in Lev. 25 : 41, " shall depart from thee, both he and his 
 children with him, and shall return unto his own family, 
 and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return" 
 
OX SLAVERY. 17 
 
 Thus It appears that, precisely for the same reason of 
 expediency that a Hebrew could not alienate the fee simple 
 of his land, but only the leasehold till the semi-centenary 
 Jubilee, he could not alienate himself beyond the septennial 
 Jubilee. There must be a reconnection between the fami 
 lies and their lands. And, what is conclusive on this point, 
 is the further fact that precisely the same reason of ight is 
 assigned in the law itself for both these provisions of the 
 law. As to the first, the reason assigned is : " The land 
 shall not be sold forever (i. &, in fee simple). For THE 
 LAXD is MIXE, for ye are strangers and sojourners with 
 me " (and being mere tenants can pass no title to the fee 
 simple). (Lev. 25 : 23.) As to the second, the reason as 
 signed is : " Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond 
 servant, but as a hired servant ; FOR THEY ARE MY SER 
 VANTS, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt ; 
 they shall not be sold as bondsmen " (Lev. 25 : 39, 42, and 
 also v. 55). No Israelite could alienate his title to him 
 self, then, for the same reason that he could not alienate 
 his title to his land. Neither are his own, but Jehovah s ; 
 and, however poor he may be, he is yet one of a singular 
 spiritual aristocracy, or rather of a royal line, from which 
 Messiah the King is to descend, and, therefore, shall not, 
 by reason of poverty and oppression, be allowed to have 
 his name and household become extinct. Therefore, after 
 temporary servitude he shall " return unto his family and 
 the possession of his fathers " not merely be free. 
 
 It is evidence of the confusion of ideas that is current 
 touching the simplest principles and plainest provisions of 
 the Mosaic law, that, in the minds of so many, the practical 
 end and design of the septennial and semi-centenary Ju 
 bilees are confounded together. The common sense of 
 practical life, aided by a little reflection, would suggest 
 that, on the one hand, a septennial restoration of lands to 
 
18 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 the families would operate practically an abolition of all 
 debts, or at least of all real estate guarantee for debt : 
 while, on the other hand, a personal servitude that might 
 continue forty-nine years, and then be terminated, without 
 consent of either master or servant, would operate the 
 grossest cruelty in turning off servants, as old age ap 
 proached, to poverty and starvation. Hence the singular 
 absurdity of the notion, devised to bolster up a foregone 
 anti-slavery conclusion, that all slavery must terminate 
 every semi-centenary Jubilee. And aside from the ab 
 surdity of the thing from the nature of the case, the very 
 language of the Jubilee law itself limits the right of going 
 free at the Jubilee to those who have " the families and 
 possessions of their fathers " given in the original distribu 
 tion of the lands, to which they may " return." Hence this 
 provision could not apply to slaves bought from foreign 
 nations and their descendants. 
 
 It is this peculiar feature of the Mosaic code in refer 
 ence to Hebrew servitude which the modern partisan ex 
 pounders have seized upon as a proof that this law did not 
 tolerate perpetual bondage. Any and every such construc 
 tion of the law utterly ignores not only the fundamental 
 design of the Hebrew constitution, but also the expressly- 
 assigned reasons for the provision itself; " For they are MY 
 servants" Plainly there was no such thing as slavery in 
 our modern sense of it at all, in the servitude of a Hebrew, 
 and could not be without utter apostasy from the Hebrew 
 faith in the Messiah. Hence the indignant rebuke and 
 threatening of the prophets in subsequent ages against the 
 people for allowing the Jubilee law to become obsolete, as 
 indicating utter apostasy from the faith, and endangering 
 the very argument for establishing that faith. The anti- 
 slavery pulpi orators are used to seize upon these denun 
 ciations of the prophets, such as Jeremiah 34 : 8-20, as 
 
ON SLAVERY. 19 
 
 denunciations of the principle of slavery, and requiring the 
 proclaiming of a general emancipation : whereas the very 
 language of the prophet shows conclusively that he is not 
 denouncing slavery, in the strict sense, at all, but " the, men 
 that have transgressed My covenant" specifically ; and 
 though using the expression, " proclaiming liberty every 
 man unto his neighbor," the prophet defines, with eyen 
 legal precision, the limit within which the indictment is to 
 be understood " That every man should let his man 
 servant, and every man his maid-servant, being a Hebrew 
 or a Hebrewess, go free ; that none should serve himself 
 of them, to wit, of a Jew, his brother" (Jerem. 34: 9); 
 thus referring directly to the peculiar provision of Moses 
 law, now under consideration, and threatening the wrath 
 of God, as Moses also did, upon the nation for the specific 
 breach of that law. And if the language of the prophet 
 left any room for doubt concerning the specific offence 
 charged by Jeremiah, as the reason for subjecting the 
 whole nation to bondage, the recorded history of the fulfil 
 ment of this very prophecy sets the matter at rest, that it 
 was the violation of the specific Jubilee law. 
 
 "And them that escaped from the sword carried he 
 away captive to Babylon ; where they icere servants to him 
 and his sons, until the reign of the kingdom of Persia : 
 To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah 
 until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths ; for as long as 
 she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and 
 ten years." (2 Chron. 36 : 20, 21).* 
 
 * It was, probably, the hazy vision suggested to his imagina 
 tion by some reckless abolition pulpit performer, har&nguing from 
 this passage in Jeremiah, or that in Isaiah 58 : 0, and still floating 
 before him, that led President Lincoln, in his Inaugural, March 4, 
 1865, to utter that blasphemous sentence, "Yet if God wills that 
 it (the war) continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman s 
 two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and 
 
20 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 Nothing can be plainer, therefore, than that these de 
 nunciations and threatenings of Jeremiah were not levelled 
 at all at the principle of slavery, but at a specific trans 
 gression of a specific law of Moses civil and ecclesiastical 
 
 until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall he paid with 
 another drawn by the sword: as icas said three thousand years 
 ago; so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true 
 and righteous altogether." 
 
 Now, to say nothing of the fact that President Lincoln has 
 already drawn with the sword, at least a pint of blood for every 
 " drop " drawn with the lash since slavery existed in the Southern 
 States, and spent of the nation s wealth, at least threefold the 
 amount that any intelligent jury would ever award as back pay 
 for all the Negro labor "unrequited" by food, clothing, and pro 
 tection that has been done in the Southern States of which this 
 is not the place to speak if Mr. Lincoln will insist in expound 
 ing the purposes, prophecies, and providences of God, in his pub 
 lic utterances, he should, at least, examine so profound a matter 
 with a little more care than Abolition orators usually bestow on 
 any teachings of the Bible. 
 
 Without troubling himself with profound research among the 
 biblical critics, Mr. Lincoln could have found in any one of ten 
 thousand cabins in the country, Scott s, or Clarke s, or Henry s, 
 or Jenk s Comprehensive Commentaries both of the former 
 earnest British Abolitionists, who would have assured him that 
 these prophecies, "three thousand years ago," had no reference 
 to slavery in the sense of the permanent bondage legalized by 
 Moses, at all, nor to the blood drawn by the slave-lash; but to the 
 violation of the jubilee rights of Jehovah s own servants, the free- 
 born Israelites, as shown in the discourse above. 
 
 Dr. Adam Clarke would have told him, that the proper para 
 phrase of Jeremiah 34: 8, is u They had agreed to manurnit 
 them at the end of the seventh year, but recalled the engagement." 
 Therefore, " You promised to give liberty to your enslaved 
 brethren. I was pleased and bound the sword in its sheath. You 
 broke your promise and brought them again into bondage. I gave 
 liberty to the sword," &c. 
 
 Scott would have told him, in Jer. 34 : 8, " The law of liberat 
 ing Hebrew slaves at the end of seven years was an express condi 
 tion of the National Covenant. The seventh vear was the year of 
 release." (Dent. 15: 9.) 
 
 Even Dr. Jenk s (Boston) Comprehensive Commentary would 
 have told him on the same place : 
 
 4i The law of God was very express that those of their own 
 
ON SLAVERY. 21 
 
 code. And with just as much propriety might these 
 preachers found upon Ezekiel s denunciations (Ezek. 18: 
 12), against those who "did not restore the pledge," arid 
 who " have given forth upon usury and taken increase " 
 in violation of specific laws of Moses arguments and de 
 nunciations against the current practice of holding " col 
 laterals," or other pledge for the payment of debts ; or the 
 current usage among all commercial peoples of requiring a 
 percentage of interest on money loaned. 
 
 The evident conclusion from this review of the whole 
 subject is, that the temporary servitude of the Hebrew un 
 der a master has, properly speaking, no relation to the 
 question of slavery at all ; nor did the prohibition of sla 
 very to a Hebrew rest upon the ground of its violation of 
 natural right, but upon the ground of its inconsistency 
 with a specific peculiarity of the Plebrew faith. It is 
 plainly in reference to this religious faith also, and not 
 to foreign slaves, that the enactment is made of death 
 to him that stealeth a man, etc. (Deut. 24 : 7 ; and Ex. 
 21 : 16).* 
 
 nation should not be held in servitude above seven years. Whereas 
 those of other nations, taken in war or bought with money, might 
 be held in perpetual slavery, they and theirs. 1 
 
 Matthew Henry would have told him that Isaiah 58 : 6, refers 
 to this same breach of the covenant, concerning temporary Hebrew 
 servants that it means, "Ye exact all your labors from your 
 servants, and will neither release them according to law," &c. 
 (Jer. 84 : 8-.9.) 
 
 No right-minded man can refrain from shuddering at the thought 
 of such ethics, and such notions of God s Word and Providence, 
 in such a position, at such a time. 
 
 * "He that stealeth a man," &c. A land so completely a 
 thoroughfare for merchants as Canaan and Arabia Petrea was, 
 must have offered peculiar facilities for this crime. He who in 
 this u manner not only deprived AX ISRAELITE of his liberty, but 
 also sold Mm to a heathen people, was certainly a criminal worthy 
 of death." (Otto Von Gerlach, on Ex. 20 : 16.) 
 
 " This was a very heinous offence ; for, first, it was robbing 
 
22 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 A system of perpetual slavery was recognized and regulated by the Mosaic 
 civil code substantially the same with the system in the American 
 Southern States : nor was such slavery deemed inconsistent with the 
 holiness symbolized in the Ritual law of Moses. 
 
 ALTOGETIIEK, aside from the law of temporary servitude 
 to the Hebrew, there was in the civil code of Moses the 
 recognition of a system of perpetual servitude, just as 
 clearly and distinctly, though in less detail, as in the laws 
 of Virginia, or Kentucky, or South Carolina. And by 
 precisely the same logical and critical process by which it is 
 proved that the civil laws of Moses did not recognize and 
 regulate perpetual servitude, any one may undertake to 
 prove, just as clearly, that slavery never existed by law in 
 Virginia or South Carolina. 
 
 For, in addition to all that has been shown to the effect 
 that Moses found perpetual slavery already established 
 among the Hebrews, just as certainly as the statesmen who 
 made the State constitutions of Virginia and South Caro 
 lina after the American Revolution found slavery already 
 established among the people of those States, it is scarcely 
 conceivable how language could more explicitly set forth 
 the idea of permanent servitude, as a part of the social 
 system in the Hebrew commonwealth. " Both thy bond- 
 
 the public of one of its members ; second, it was taking away a 
 man s liberty, the liberty of a free-lorn Israelite; third, it was 
 driving a man out from the inheritance of the land, and bidding 
 him go serve other gods. (Henry, Com., Deut. 24 : 7.) 
 
 " To steal away a free man or an Hebrew, and to reduce him to 
 the state of servitude, was death. The Jews do not think that the 
 stealing of a man of any other nation deserves death, hut only the 
 theft of a free Hebrew." (Cruden, Con. on " Steal.") 
 
ON SLAVERY. 23 
 
 men and thy bondmaids shall be of the heathen which are 
 round about you : of them shall ye BUY BONDMEN and 
 bondmaids. And they shall be your POSSESSION (property), 
 and ye shall take them as AN INHERITANCE for your children 
 after you to INHERIT THEM FOR A POSSESSION ; they shall 
 be your bondmen forever." 
 
 " For he (the slave) is his money." And his appointed 
 valuation is fixed : " If the ox shall push a man-servant : 
 he (the owner) shall give their master thirty shekels of 
 silver" " If his master have given him a wife, and she 
 have borne him sons and daughters : the, wife and her chil 
 dren shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself." 
 
 Can any language be found in the slave code of Vir 
 ginia or South Carolina more clearly and distinctly setting 
 forth the right of a master in his slave as property than 
 this ? or language setting forth more clearly the principle 
 that the children shall follow the condition of the mother 
 than this ? or that the rights of the master may, in cer 
 tain cases, contravene and supersede the slaves family 
 rights, and cause separation of families ? * 
 
 It will be found, furthermore, in studying the prin 
 ciples of this slave-code, that almost all its fundamental 
 
 * That the interpretation put upon these passages in the dis 
 course is the almost universal interpretation of accredited com 
 mentators, might readily be shown by actual citations from all 
 commentaries of established repute in the Church. But the very 
 brief space that can be allotted here to such citations, permits only 
 representative specimens, thus : 
 
 HENRY " But the Jews might purchase bondmen of the 
 heathen nations that were round about them, and might claim a 
 dominion over them, and entail them upon their families as an 
 inheritance ; for the year of jubilee should give no discharge to 
 them." (Hen., Com., Levit. 25 : 39.) 
 
 BP. PATRICK " Thou sTialt not compel him to serve as a bond 
 servant." u As a slave which they bought of other nations or took 
 in wars ; over whom they had an absolute dominion (as they had 
 over their goods nnd cattle), and might bequeath them and their 
 
24 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 points are precisely the same with the slave-codes of the 
 American Southern States, however the latter may, in the 
 detailed application of these principles, be found differing 
 from the former ; and however much ignorance and false- 
 children to their sons and posterity forever (v. 45-6) ; or sell 
 them and bond their children at pleasure." Pat., Com., Levit. 
 25: 39.) 
 
 " // a man smite his servant." "A slave who was not an 
 Israelite but a Gentile." 
 
 "For his smiting with a rod, not with a sword, was a sign that 
 he intended only to correct him, but not to kill him. And, besides, 
 no man could be thought to be willing to lose his own goods, as such 
 servants were." (Pat., Com., Ex. 21 : 20.) 
 
 " He is his money" His death was a loss to his master, who, 
 therefore, might well be judged not to have any intention to kill 
 him, and was sufficiently punished by losing the benefit of his ser 
 vices. Pat., Com., Ex. 21 : 21.) 
 
 COMP. COM.- " The Israelites might purchase bondmen of the 
 heathen nations around them (except of the seven nations who were 
 to he destroyed), and might cLiim a dominion over them, and entail 
 them on their families as an inheritance, for the year of Jubilee 
 should give no discharge to them. Thus negroes only are used as 
 slaves, how much to the credit of Christianity I shall not say. 
 (Com. on Lev. 25 : 39-55.) 
 
 GILL " And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your 
 children," &c. Which they might leave them at their death to in 
 herit, as they did their estates and lands. " To inherit them for a 
 possession" as their property, as anything else that was bequeathed 
 to them, as NEGEOES NOW ARE in our plantations abroad. "They 
 shall be your bondmen forever." And not be released at the Year of 
 Jubilee, nor before, nor after," &c. (GilPs Com., Lev. 25 : 45-G.) 
 
 And with Gill s definition of " possession " here agrees exactly 
 Bishop Patrick s "They shall he your possession" "Become 
 your proper goods, and continue with you as your lands do." 
 
 " They might have the same power and dominion over them 
 that they had oxer their lands, goods, or cattle" 
 
 " Bondmen forever. Not have benefit of the Year of Jubilee, 
 but be your slaves as long as they live." 
 
 "An inheritance for your children after you" To whom 
 they might bequeath the very bodies of them and their children. 
 (Pat. on Lev. 25 : 46.) 
 
 Even the Encyclopedia Britannica says, in discussing Hebrew 
 slavery : 
 
 " It is, indeed, evident, from numberless passages of Scripture, 
 
ON SLAVERY. 25 
 
 hood have caricatured them. And indeed, in some ma 
 terial points the slave-code of the American Southern 
 States is even more restrictive of the principles of slavery 
 and the power of the master than either the Mosaic code 
 or the Roman code of Justinian, which develops the law 
 of slavery as it existed in the time of the Apostles and 
 subsequently. 
 
 1. The Mosaic laws involve the principle that beside 
 being a person, the slave is also a chattel, property " pos 
 session" "inheritance" "money." Thus, " for he (the 
 slave) is his c money, " is assigned as the reason why the 
 master, unintentionally, by lawful chastisement, causing 
 his death, shall not suffer punishment (Ex. 21 : 21). In the 
 enumeration of the tenth commandment, as Bishop Patrick 
 suggests, the slave seems to be represented as the master s 
 " principal goods " next to his realty. The value of the 
 slave is fixed at " thirty shekels of silver," in determining 
 the compensation for his loss by the carelessness of a neigh 
 bor (Ex. 21 : 32). The slave passed as a part of the in 
 heritance to a man s children (Lev. 25 : 45), and became 
 the children s property, " possession." In no code of the 
 American Southern States can stronger and clearer lan- 
 
 that the domestics, which our translators call servants, were, in 
 their day, universally considered as the most valuable part of their 
 master s property, and classed with his flocks and herds." 
 
 " That the practice of buying and selling servants, thus early 
 begun amongst the Patriarchs, descended to their posterity, is 
 known to every attentive reader of the Bible. It was expressly 
 authorized by the Jewish law, in which are many directions how 
 such servants were to be treated." 
 
 If these facts are, as they are presumed to be, well known to 
 " every attentive reader of the Bible," how long will professed 
 ministers of the Gospel retain the public confidence for themselves 
 and religion, who, u doting about strifes of words," attempt the 
 charlatanry of persuading the masses of the people that the lan 
 guage of the Bible does not mean what the most trusted scholar 
 ship and the common sense of men unite in saying it does mean ? 
 
 2 
 
26 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 guage he found setting forth the notion that slaves are at 
 the same time persons and property. Nor is it easy to con 
 ceive how language could more clearly convey that idea. 
 
 2. The Mosaic law recognized the rights of the master 
 as paramount, even when coming in conflict with the 
 rights of the husband and father of a slave-wife and chil 
 dren. " He shall go out by himself, the wife and her chil 
 dren shall be her master s." And the children of the slave- 
 mother followed the condition of the mother. Thus Solo 
 mon, describing his efforts after happiness from the acqui 
 sition of vast possessions, says, " I got me servants and 
 maidens, and had servants born in ray house : also I 
 had great possessions of great and small cattle " (Eccl. 
 2: 7). 
 
 3. On the other hand, the Mosaic code protected the 
 slave as a person, just as the codes of all Southern States 
 do. The wilful murder of a slave, under both the ancient 
 and the modern codes, was punished just as any other 
 murder (Lev. 24 : 17). "He that killeth any man shall 
 surely be put to death. So (Ex. 21 : 20), " If he die under 
 his hand he shall surely be punished " (even when smitten 
 with a rod in the ordinary mode of chastisement). In the 
 code of Moses is to be found, indeed, an incidental provi 
 sion which is found neither in the Justinian nor the Ameri 
 can code. In order to protect the slave against cruel usage, 
 Moses law enacted that, in case of any cruelty to a slave, 
 betokening more than ordinary chastisement with the rod 
 as the loss of an eye or a tooth the slave shall go free. 
 In the American, as in the Justinian code, the provision is 
 that in such case the slave shall be taken from the cruel 
 master and sold to one who is more merciful. Cruelty to 
 his slaves by a master is, in the American code, an indict 
 able offence. 
 
 4. In accordance with the general provisions of the 
 
ON SLAVEKY. . 27 
 
 Mosaic code for the kind treatment of strangers (Ex. 22 : 
 21, and Lev. 19 : 33, 34) the law of Moses forbade the de 
 livering up of a foreign slave to his master (Dent. 23 : 15, 
 16) ; both the general and the specific provision, being 
 founded upon the principle that the foreigner, free or 
 slave, should be encouraged to take refuge among the wor 
 shippers of the true God in order to redeem him from 
 heathenism. The use which the modern partisan ex 
 pounders of God s Word make of this and similar texts as 
 authority for their refusal to deliver up a fugitive slave to 
 his Southern master fails in two essential particulars : first, 
 in assuming that the religion of the Northern States is the 
 direct revelation of Jehovah ; and secondly, in assuming 
 that the religion of the Southern States is undoubtedly 
 heathenism. Any honest student of Scripture must per 
 ceive at once the ethical inconsistency of applying this 
 enactment of the Mosaic code to the case of a slave escap 
 ing from one tribe (or State) of the commonwealth of 
 Israel to the other.* 
 
 * "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which 
 is escaped." The Hebrew doctors understand this of a servant of 
 another nation who was become a Jew ; while they understand it 
 also of a servant that fled from his master out of any of the coun 
 tries of the Gentiles into the land of Israel, which was to be a safe 
 refuge to him. Pat,, Com. Deut. 23 : 15. 
 
 " The land of Israel is here made a sanctuary or city of refuge 
 for servants that were wronged by their masters, and fled thither 
 for shelter from the neighboring nations." 
 
 u Supposing him willing to embrace their religion, they must 
 give him all the encouragement that might be to settle among 
 them. Thus would he soon find a comfortable difference between 
 the land of Israel and all other lands, and would choose it to be 
 his rest forever." Henry, Com. Deut. 23 : 15. 
 
 " The Jewish writers generally understand it of the servants 
 of idolaters fleeing for the sake of religion." Gill, Com. Deut. 
 23 : 15. 
 
 " That is, the servant, not of a Hebrew, but of an alien and for 
 eigner Bishop Kidder. 
 
28 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 5. That this holding of slaves under the civil law was 
 not deemed inconsistent with the highest obligations of 
 religion and the holiness symbolized in the ritual law, is 
 manifest from the fact, that when thirty-two thousand cap 
 tive slaves were taken with other spoils from Midian 
 (Num. 31 : 28), Moses, by special command of Jehovah, 
 took three hundred and fifty-two of the " persons," and 
 turned them over to Eliezer, the High Priest, as the 
 " Lord s tribute ; " * and from the further fact that the 
 priests were assumed to be slaveholders, as appears from 
 Lev. 22 : 10, 11, where it is said of the priests^ portion of 
 the sacrificial victim. " No stranger shall eat of the holy 
 thing : a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall 
 not eat of the holy thing. But if the priest buy any soul 
 with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his 
 house : they shall eat of his meat." 
 
 6. It may be added, as a proof of the distinction kept 
 up between the personal rights of the freeborn and the 
 slave, that while a violation of the seventh commandment 
 with "a betrothed damsel that is a virgin" was punishable 
 with death by stoning (Deut. 22 : 23-27), yet in oase 
 
 * "How is it possible " Colenso asks, Pent, part 1, page 210 
 " How is it possible to quote the Bible as in any way condemn 
 ing slavery when we read here (Num. 31 : 40) of Jehovah s trib 
 ute of slaves, thirty-two persons? " 
 
 The question has a tremendous significancy to that whele class 
 of thinkers who have made up their minds, under the teachings 
 of a political and philanthropistic naturalism, that the Bible must 
 come to them rather than they come to the Bible to settle ques 
 tions of ethics. Under the same sort of training in religion that 
 Colenso s " very intelligent native African "had received before 
 hand, it is not surprising that lie and all such should have been 
 shocked at reading, "He is his money." But should not "intelli 
 gent " Britons and Americans excel the " intelligent " native enough 
 in sense, to perceive whither they are tending, at hearing such a 
 question by way of proving the want of inspiration in Moses, 
 shouted back to them from a British bishop who has travelled 
 along the same road and simply got in advance of them ? 
 
ON SLAVERY. 29 
 
 of a like crime with " a woman that is a bondmaid, be- 
 trothted to an husband, and, not at all redeemed, nor free 
 dom given to her : she shall be scourged. They shall not 
 be put to death because she was not free" (Levit. 19: 
 20, 21). 
 
 Those who have any acquaintance with the slave-laws 
 of the American Southern States, from practical observation 
 rather than from the singular caricatures of them in the 
 credulous or wilful falsehoods of cotemporary fanaticism, 
 will at once recognize in these provisions of the Mosaic 
 law the same fundamental provisions which characterize 
 the slave-codes of the Southern States. 
 
 SECTION IY. 
 
 This system of perpetual slavery continued to exist in the Mosaic Church, 
 under the Mosaic civil law, till the close of the Old Testament inspira 
 tion ; and during the interval between the close of the Old and the 
 opening .of the New Testament, vast numbers of Jews as well as of 
 other peoples had been sold into slavery in all parts of the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 IN the subsequent history of the outworking of the 
 Mosaic civil law and constitutional system, there are few 
 allusions to the existence of slavery ; just as, in like man 
 ner, there are few allusions to the law of the Sabbath, and 
 few even to the ritual of the tabernacle, or of the sacred 
 festivals. Still there are allusions sufficient to show that 
 slavery continued to exist among them, and that the pro 
 visions of the slave-code continued in use. Thus we have 
 the illustration of the popular contempt for runaway 
 
30 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 slaves in the insult of the churlish Nabal offered to David s 
 guerilla scouts, when they applied in David s name for a 
 contribution to his commissary stores (1 Sam. 25 : 10), 
 " Who is David ? And who is the son of Jesse ? There be 
 many servants (slaves) now-a- days, that break away, every 
 man from his master" So we find David saying to the 
 Egyptian (1 Sam. 30 : 13, 15), To whom belongest thou ? and 
 swearing that he will " neither kill him, nor deliver him 
 into the hands of his master," as he might lawfully swear in 
 accordance with the law of Moses. In 1 Kings 2 : 39, 40, 
 we have the instance of Shimei, who had cursed David, 
 paroled within the limits of the city by Solomon, but 
 breaking his parole, and losing his life in consequence of 
 hearing that his runaway slaves Atere at Gath, and in 
 thoughtless eagerness hasting off to recover his property. 
 
 So from Solomon s account of himself, getting servants 
 and maidens, and having servants (slaves) born in the 
 "house" (Ecclesiastes 2: 7), we trace the existence of 
 slavery in Israel to the later times of the commonwealth. 
 From the prophecy of Ezekiel against Tyre, in the imme 
 diate vicinity of Israel, we gather that the trade in slaves 
 was actively carried on till his age ; for, in his splendid 
 recital of the universal commerce of Tyre, he describes the 
 trade " with Javan Tubal and Mesheck, who traded the 
 persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market" (Ezek. 
 27 : 13) ; and this mentioned in the same matter-of-course 
 manner in which he alludes to all other commerce. 
 
 During the captivity of the Jews in Babylon and As 
 syria, as before during their bondage in Egypt, we know 
 that they were still slaveholders ; for, as we see from the 
 rolls of those who returned to rebuild Jerusalem and the 
 temple under Ezra, the slaves among the returned captives 
 were in the proportion of one to six of the free population 
 (Ezra 2 : 64, 65, and Nehem. 7 : 66). " The whole congre- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 31 
 
 gation was forty-two thousand, and three hundred and 
 threescore, besides their servants (slaves) and their maids, 
 of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and 
 thirty and seven." And, by the way, it is interesting to 
 observe, from this record in Ezra, how the fundamental 
 purpose of the Mosaic constitution had been accomplished, 
 in preserving the family genealogies distinct for near one 
 thousand years (Ez. 2 : 58, 59 and 61-63) ; it is in confirma 
 tion of the correctness of the reason already assigned why 
 a Hebrew, after seven years servitude, must go back " to 
 the possession of his fathers." 
 
 Having thus traced the existence of slavery under the 
 Mosaic constitution down to the era of the restoration and 
 the close of the Old Testament history, it may be well, be 
 fore proceeding to the New Testament history, to refer to 
 the important fact, predicted by Joel and other prophets, 
 and verified as history by the Maccabees and Josephus, 
 that vast numbers of Jews, anterior to the advent of Christ, 
 had been sold as slaves throughout the Grecian and Roman 
 Empires. For, unlike the Babylonish and Assyrian con 
 querors of Israel, who deported the entire people of coun 
 tries conquered by them, freemen and slaves alike, and 
 filled their places by people of other countries, the Gre 
 cian, and especially the Roman commanders, took captive 
 and sold into personal slavery the peoples whose countries 
 they overran. Thus, for instance, we find Joel charging it 
 against Tyre and Sidon prophetically. " The children also 
 of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto 
 the Grecians, that ye might remove them from their bor 
 der " (Joel 3 : 6). Accordingly, we have the account, in 
 the history of the Maccabees, of the boastful style of the 
 Grecian warfare, that when Antiochus sent his mighty 
 army into Judea, " The merchants of the country hearing 
 the fame of them, took silver and gold very much, with 
 
32 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 servants, and canie into the camp to buy the children of 
 Israel for slaves" (1 Mace. 3 : 41). And how " Nicanor 
 undertook to make so much money of the captive Jews as 
 should pay the tribute of two thousand talents, which the 
 king was to pay to the Romans. Wherefore immediately 
 he sent to the cities upon the sea-coast (Tyre, the great 
 slave-trader, being of course one), proclaiming a sale of 
 the captive Jews, and promising that they should have 
 fourscore and ten bodies for one talent" (2 Mace. 8 : 10, 
 11). But especially, as appears from Josephus " Jewish 
 War," B. 6, chap. 9, 3, were vast multitudes of Jews 
 sold into slavery throughout the empire by the Ro 
 mans. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 During the personal ministry of Christ, though slavery in fact, as part of 
 the social order, and the question of slavery, in thesi, in the interpre 
 tation of the law of Moses, must have been forced upon His attention ; 
 yet He did not repeal the permission of slavery as He repealed the 
 permission of divorce and polygamy. Nor did He claim to teach a 
 purer ethics than Moses. When actual cases of slaveholding came 
 before Him, He not only did not rebuke the relation, but blessed both 
 master and slave ; and in His preaching referred without rebuke to 
 the relation of master and slave. 
 
 THERE cannot be the least doubt, therefore, that at the 
 appearance of Jesus Christ as a minister of the Church, 
 slavery existed throughout the civilized world. Indeed, 
 classical scholars compute the number of slaves then in the 
 Roman Empire at sixty millions. The historian Gibbon, 
 after describing the condition and character of slaves in 
 
ON SLAVERY. 33 
 
 the empire, thus sums up the conclusion as to their num 
 bers : " After weighing with attention every circumstance 
 which could influence the balance, it seems probable that 
 there existed in the time of the Emperor Claudius, about 
 one hundred and twenty millions of persons. The slaves 
 were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of 
 Rome." (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall," vol. i. p. 53.) It 
 should be borne in mind, too, that, w r hile generally they 
 were degraded barbarians, many of the slaves were Jews, 
 as well as of other civilized nations ; many of them, there 
 fore, men of culture and great skill in the higher arts. For, 
 according to Gibbon, " almost every profession, either lib 
 eral or mechanical, could be found in the house of an opu 
 lent senator." It must be borne in mind, moreover, that 
 among the communities in which Jesus and His Apostles 
 preached the gospel, the civil law of Moses had been super 
 seded by the slavery laws of the Roman Empire, which, 
 though at that era modified and mollified in a great degree, 
 were still less restrictive of the rights of the master than 
 either the Mosaic code or the modern American code.* 
 And bearing in mind how fanatically the Jews, in their 
 subjection, still clung to the Mosaic code, turning even its 
 
 * It may assist materially the ordinary reader of the Bible, and 
 give definiteness to his views of the teachings of Prophets and 
 Apostles concerning slavery, as a practical question, to present, in 
 one summary view, the parallels and the contrasts between the three 
 codes of Moses, which exhibit the law of slavery in the Old Tes 
 tament Era ; of Justinian, which exhibit the slavery law under 
 which the Saviour and his Apostles preached; and of the Ameri 
 can Southern States, under which the question is, at this day, dis 
 cussed. * Nothing more can be attempted here than a comparison 
 of the three codes, in reference to three germinal points viz., the 
 principle of the code, its theory of its own ethical right, and its 
 limitations of the master s rights ; both in their agreements and 
 differences. The foolish clamors and falsehoods concerning the 
 details and abuses of the American code will be noticed elsewhere. 
 Kot having at hand the laws of any of the Southern States, I can- 
 
34 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 civil enactments into ethical laws, and regarding it as 
 apostasy from the faith that one should, by paying tribute, 
 recognize Caesar s rule, over the kingdom of which Jehovah 
 was Theocratic King, it is utterly inconceivable that the 
 
 not refer specifically to the statute, but state the principles of the 
 American codes, simply as current notorious fact. 
 
 POINTS OF AGKEEMENT. 
 
 1. All three of these codes contemplate the slave as both a 
 person and & properly. (Ex. 20: 20 Just. Inst. Lib. 1 : Tit. 3.) 
 
 2. All three recognize the property rights of the master, as 
 superseding and contravening the personal right of the slave to a 
 permanent marriage relation, and the control of his children, by 
 permitting, in certain cases, the separation of the slave from his 
 wife, and ordaining, in all cases, the children of a slave woman to 
 be her master s property. (Ex. 20 : 4 Just. Inst. Lib. 1 : Tit. 3.) 
 
 3. All three recognize the personal rights of the slave, to the 
 extent of protecting him agninst maiming or loss of life, by the 
 cruelty of the master. (Ex. 21 : 26-V Just. Inst, Lib. 1 : Tit. 4.) 
 
 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE. 
 
 The Mosaic code granted the right to enslave men of all nations 
 except Hebrew fellow-citizens who could be held only tempo 
 rarily. (Lev. 25.) 
 
 The Justinian code recognized the right to enslave people of all 
 nations, according to ancient Roman law (but was amended after 
 wards by Leo. so as to forbid the enslaving, even by his own con 
 sent, a free citizen of the empire) (Just. Inst. Lib. 1 : Tit. 3.) 
 
 The American code forbids the enslaving of any people, except 
 of the African race only. 
 
 2. In the theory of the Mosaic code the ethical right of enslav 
 ing, as against the admitted natural equality of men before God, 
 rests for its sanction upon the will of Jehovah, directly revealed 
 through Noah and Abraham and Moses. 
 
 In the theory of the Justinian code heathen in its origin the 
 ethical right of enslaving which is expressly declared to \>Q con 
 trary to the law of nature rests for its sanction upon the " Law of 
 Nations," as deduced from the usages of war. (Just. Inst. Lib. 1 : 
 Tit. 3.) 
 
 In the theory of the American code Christian in its origin 
 the ethical right of enslaving admitted, in the sense of the Justi 
 nian code to be contrary to natural right rests upon the sanction 
 of the will of God, as revealed in his^Vord and Providence, con- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 35 
 
 question of slavery should not have become a matter of 
 earnest discussion. Certain it is that, precisely for the 
 same reason that they raised the question of tribute to 
 Csesar in a country of which Jehovah had said " The land 
 is Mine," and, therefore, cannot be alienated by My tenants, 
 they must also raise the question at least of the lawful 
 ness of enslaving Jews, of whom Jehovah had said, " They 
 shall not be sold as bondsmen. For they are MY servants " 
 (slaves). 
 
 N^ow, during the brief era of Christ s personal ministry, 
 confined to the " lost sheep of the House of Israel," with 
 the Mosaic moral and ritual codes still in full force as their 
 ethical and ritual rule of faith, but with the authority of 
 his civil and political code set aside by the Roman law 
 how did He treat this question ? We have but a few inci- 
 
 cerning a degraded race, and also upon the "local law" of the 
 country. 
 
 3. The Mosaic law protected the personal rights of the slave 
 by ordaining the freedom of the slave, as the penalty to the master, 
 for maiming, by cruel usage ; and treated the murder of a slave as 
 any other murder. (Ex. 21 : 20 ; and Lev. 24: 17.) 
 
 The Justinian code, though the original Roman law, gave no 
 protection, even of life, against the master; yet, by the amend 
 ment of Antonine, punished the murder of one s slave as the mur 
 der of another man s slave, and, in case of cruelty, ordered the 
 slave to be sold to another master. (Just. Tnst. Lib. 1 : Tit. 5.) 
 
 The American code agrees with the Mosaic in protecting the 
 personal right of a slave to life, by punishing the murder of a 
 slave as any other murder ; and, with the Justinian code, in mak 
 ing cruelty to a slave an indictable offence, and providing for the 
 sale of the slave, cruelly used, to another master. 
 
 It may be added to this last statement, however, that a still 
 more powerful protection of the slave than formal enactments of 
 law, in the Southern States, is the great unwritten law of public 
 opinion. Notoriously, the surest provocative of " Lynch law " 
 against a master, is cruel usage of his slaves ; and it is equally no 
 torious, that the slave suing for his freedom, with a reasonably fair 
 case, can always command the highest legal counsel of the locality. 
 Under all codes, the interest of the master is the best protection. 
 
36 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 dental facts recorded relating to the subject ; but these are 
 very significant.* 
 
 A case of slavery came before Him in one of the first 
 recorded of his miracles. A Roman centurion appeals to 
 Him to save the life of a highly-valued slave (Matt. 8 : 6, 
 and Luke 7 : 2). There can be no doubt that he was a 
 slave in the fullest sense, for his master calls him "pais 
 mou" " my boy," precisely the term applied to full-grown 
 slave men in the Southern States at this day, so greatly to 
 the horror of anti-slavery sentimentalism ; while, on the 
 other hand, Luke terms him " doulos" " his slave." So 
 far from rebuking the master as a " manstealer," " thief," 
 or by any other epithet of the anti-slavery vocabulary, and 
 demanding his instant emancipation, Jesus heals the slave, 
 and at the same time pronounces his master a hero of the 
 faith beyond any yet met with in Israel, f 
 
 In the Saviour s teachings He manifestly uses the lan 
 guage of a slaveholding people, alluding to the existence 
 of such a relation as master and slave as a fact familiar to 
 his hearers. And, more particularly, in His parables does 
 
 * As the subject and structure of the discourse admits of a 
 discussion of slavery in the New Testament only incidentally, and, 
 therefore, briefly, the author feels the more free to fill up the out 
 line of the argument of the text by means of fuller citations of 
 authorities in the notes, and additional suggestions in the form of 
 notes, in order to present, as completely as the space will admit, 
 the whole of the Bible argument. 
 
 t That the reference to, and argument from the case of the 
 centurion, is not overstrained in aid of the author s view, will be 
 apparent from its accordance with the latest, and, perhaps, highest 
 authorities in Biblical criticism, Thus, Lange, on this place (v. 6) : 
 
 " My servant," o pals mou. The SLAVE, or domestic ser 
 vant, as distinguished from the common soldier, who was only 
 officially subject to him and not a son. From the more detailed 
 narrative in Luke, we learn that he was held in special esteem by 
 his master, which, indeed, may be gathered from this passage 
 also." (Lamre, Com. Matt. 8 : 6. 
 
ON SLAVERY. 37 
 
 He borrow for the illustration of divine truth, as a thing 
 perfectly familiar to the people, the doings and sayings of 
 masters and slaves. Take, for instance for time would 
 fail to refer to more the parable of the talents (Matt. 25 : 
 14-30), in which some of the peculiar features of Roman 
 slavery are brought into view.* And yet in connection 
 with no one of all these allusions is a single word uttered 
 indicative of a condemnation of the system. 
 
 Here, however, we are met with some of those vague 
 generalities in which modern philanthropism so commonly 
 indulges. It is said that though Jesus Christ pronounced 
 no specific rebuke of the relation of master and slave, yet 
 He uttered the great law of Love " Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, etc., and thy neighbor as 
 thyself" It is a singular instance of how the people, with 
 the Bible in their hands, may yet know nothing of the 
 Bible, that this passage is continually quoted as if an 
 original saying of Jesus, and intended to supersede the 
 ancient ethical law of the church by a " higher law " of the 
 gospel. Whereas it must be obvious to any reader, with 
 a reference Bible in his hand, that Jesus is here but quot- 
 
 * It is presumed that the following authorities for this view 
 \vill hardly be disputed: 
 
 " The foolish virgins failed for thinking their part too easy ; here 
 the wicked servant fails from thinking his too hard. The Parable 
 is still concerned with Christians ( tons idious doulous 1 }, and not 
 the world at large. We must remember the relation of master and 
 slave, in order to understand his delivering to them his property 
 and punishing them for not fructifying with it." (Alford, as cited 
 by Dr. Schaff, in Lange s Com. on Matt. 25 : 15-30.) 
 
 " Who called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods" 
 " Between MASTERS AXD SLAVES this was not uncommon in ancient 
 times. Christ s servants here, mean all AV!IO, by their Christian 
 profession, stand in the relation to him of entire subjection. As 
 all that slaves have belong to their master, so Christ has a claim to 
 everything that belongs to his people. (Rev. David Brown, D.D., 
 Prof, of Theol. at Aberdeen, Scotland, Com. on Matt. 25 : 15.) 
 
38 
 
 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 ing, against hypocritical formalists, the sum of duty to 
 God thrice repeated in the law of Moses (Deut. 6 : 5 and 
 10 : 12 and 30 : 6) ; and the sum of duty to man precisely 
 as laid down in the law of Moses (Lev. 19 : 18). Nay, 
 Jesus expressly tells them that the law and the prophets 
 teach this great truth. And, what is more, it appears that 
 even the lawyers themselves were in the habit of repeating 
 that summary as the substance of Moses law. For the 
 lawyer in Luke 10 : 25, when asked by Jesus, " What is 
 written in the law ? How readest thou ? " answered, 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, etc., and thy neighbor 
 as thyself" So also of the other form of this same precept, 
 called the " Saviour s Golden Rule " " All things whatso 
 ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
 them " so far from giving that as a new law of the gospel 
 purer and higher than the ancient law he expressly adds, 
 
 " FOR THIS IS THE LAW A1STD THE PROPHETS." But it has 
 
 been shown that, notwithstanding these precepts of love 
 to man, in Moses, by his law slavery was distinctly recog 
 nized and allowed, not only in the civil law but in the 
 moral and ritual law ; not only in the state, but in the 
 church, both anterior and subsequent to the organization 
 of the state. And can any sane man conceive how, when 
 the original utterance of this great law of Love did not 
 preclude such a relation between man and man as that of 
 master and slave, the simple citation of this law by Christ 
 should preclude any such relation ? If Moses, or rather 
 Jehovah spealdng through Moses, saw no incongruity be 
 tween his summary utterance of the law of love and his 
 enactments " ye shall buy them of the strangers, and have 
 them for a possession and an inheritance " " he is his 
 money " " even thirty shekels of silver " how dare any 
 Christian man say that Jesus, in quoting Moses, intended 
 to denounce as sinful what Moses had allowed in the church 
 
ON SLAVERY. 39 
 
 of God ? If the " law of love " in its original utterance, 
 did not exclude slavery from the list of allowable human 
 relations in the church of God, how can the mere citation 
 of that law of love, possibly be taken to exclude such rela 
 tion ? * 
 
 * The argumentative use of the golden rule and the "law of 
 love," in discussing the ethical propriety of slavery, as it figures in 
 the sentimental rhetoric of anti-slaveryitm, is so utterly intangible 
 and ethereal a "name " without a local habitation as to be un 
 answerable. In the thought and language of simple-minded 
 people and children, this nebulous universe of the platform and 
 pulpit orators condenses into the solid practical question " How 
 would you like to be a slave ? " And its fallacy, as an argument, is 
 at once evinced by the retort " How would you like to he that 
 hod-carrier, that toils up and down the ladder in the broiling sun, 
 risking his neck and wasting his strength in your service, for a 
 pittance less in value, perhaps, than the crumbs that fall from your 
 sumptuous table ? Or that housemaid, that welters in filthy suds, as 
 she sands and scrubs and rubs for the pittance, compared with which, 
 the trinkets on your fingers are a fortune ?" Is she not a woman and 
 a sister? Shall not the law of love, with its golden rule, abolish 
 this hod-carrying and scrubbing, by sharing the sumptuous fare and 
 gaudy dress between emplo} r er and employee ? Or explain why 
 the restrictions and limitations must so carefully apply the brake to 
 check its impetuous impulse, as you travel toward Ireland or Ger 
 many, while it is sinful to apply the brake as others travel toward 
 Africa ? 
 
 If, on the other hand, it is held that the law of love and the 
 golden rule means Do unto others not what they desire, or what 
 you in their places might selfishly desire but what you in their 
 places might rightly and justly desire to be done unto you ; then 
 it becomes simply a question of what is light and just a practical 
 problem which the sentimental rhetoric has done little toward 
 solving. These masters who reverence, they think, as much as 
 you do, the golden rule, conceive that they do what is just and 
 right to their slaves under the circumstances. Nay, they hold 
 that, as a general rule, not counting many exceptional abuses, they 
 do nearer to right and justice to their laboring population than 
 you to the laboring population of like class. That the master and 
 mistress evince more of real love and affection for the slave, and 
 the slave of more loyalty and affection for his master and mistress, 
 ?han you to your hired servants, or they toward you. You differ 
 from them in opinion on that subject. But unless you modestly 
 claim as yonr right to judge both for them and you, the question 
 
40 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 It is sometimes affirmed, however, that the permission 
 of slavery in the Mosaic law stood upon the same footing 
 with the permission of divorce and polygamy, which " for 
 the hardness of their hearts " Moses tolerated, but which 
 Christ, teaching a purer code of ethics, repealed. Now, 
 on the contrary, perhaps no place in all the Scriptures more 
 clearly teaches that the New Testament dispensation made 
 no change in the law of slavery than this passage touching 
 divorce and polygamy (Matt. 19 : 4). 
 
 In the first place, observe, Jesus did not repeal the per 
 mission of divorce and polygamy on the ground, as this 
 theory insinuates, that His gospel has come with a new law 
 of ethics, higher and purer, to supersede Moses ; but, on 
 the contrary, refers directly to the records of Moses as au 
 thority for his judgment : " Have ye not read (Moses in 
 Genesis 1 : 27 and 24), They twain shall be one flesh? 
 Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh. What, 
 therefore, God hath joined together let not man put asun 
 der." And the apostl* Paul on the same subject refers 
 first to Moses (1 Cor. 6 : 16), and then to this deliverance 
 of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 7 : 10), as settling the question. 
 This is not the place for an inquiry into the reason why 
 polygamy and divorce were tolerated during the patriarchy 
 in contravention of the original law of marriage ; or 
 whether this like the levirate law, requiring a man to 
 marry his childless brother s widow, directly contrary to 
 the general Levitical law of marriage was, for reasons 
 
 remains just as unsettled as ever, even under the golden rule. 
 They appeal to the Scriptures, as the standard of ethical judg 
 ment, whereby to test the issue. You seem willing to appeal to 
 the Scriptures, only on condition that your philanthropic theories 
 of what ought to be the teaching of Scripture shall be first admit 
 ted. S;>, Rome is willing enough to appeal to the Scriptures, on 
 condition that they shall be allowed to teach only what the infal 
 lible interpreter permits them to teach. 
 
ON SLAVERY. 41 
 
 unknown to us, made an exceptional case. Nor does it 
 matter to the present argument. The single point here 
 made is that Jesus did not repeal the permission of divorce 
 and polygamy in the civil code of Moses, on the ground 
 of having a higher law of ethics for the New Testament 
 church, but simply as interpreting Moses, and thereby rec 
 ognizing his ethical teaching as continuing to be authorita 
 tive, even after the civilism organized by Moses had passed 
 away. 
 
 In the second place, the permission of polygamy and 
 divorce did not stand upon the same footing with slavery 
 at all, in the Mosaic code. They were not recognized as 
 properly existing, by Divine approval, in either of the three 
 great covenants of the church of circumcision, the Pass 
 over, and the moral law as slavery was, but only in the 
 civil code of the nation ; and there, only in the way of 
 amelioration, and in restraint upon the previous common 
 law rights of patriarchy, just as the provision of the cities 
 of refuge was made in amelioration and limitation upon 
 the patriarchal common law of Goel, or blood revenge. 
 And, therefore, we cannot, by parity of reasoning, infer 
 the repeal of the toleration of slavery from the repeal of 
 toleration of divorce and polygamy. 
 
 But in the third place, and still more conclusive on this 
 subject : Even granting, for the sake of argument, what 
 has just been proved to be untrue, that the permission of 
 slavery stands upon the same footing in the Mosaic law 
 with divorce and polygamy ; yet while Jesus Christ ex 
 pressly and specifically repealed the toleration of divorce 
 and polygamy, He did not anywhere, in like manner, ex 
 pressly and specifically repeal the toleration of slavery. 
 What is the inference ? Inevitably this, that slavery is 
 left in the New Testament precisely as it stood in the Old, 
 This, one would suppose, ought to settle the question with 
 
42 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 every man who can reason intelligently. If the sinfulness 
 of divorce and polygamy under the New Testament, though 
 they were tolerated in the Old Testament, rests upon the 
 fact that Jesus personally first, and subsequently through 
 Paul, expressly repealed the toleration, then plainly the 
 ethical propriety of slavery under the New Testament rests 
 with equal certainty upon the fact that Jesus Christ did not 
 repeal the toleration of slavery in the Mosaic code. And 
 the Great Head of the church " the same yesterday, to 
 day and forever " having not only allowed the relation of 
 master and slave to exist in that ancient church to which 
 He gave the law of love as the rule of life between man and 
 man, but also having allowed it to continue without repeal 
 or rebuke in the New Testament church, what Christian 
 man, with any intelligent reverence for His holy law, dares 
 gainsay it ? For remember that while the rationalizing 
 apostates and infidels may consistently enough set up their 
 humanitarian philosophisms, and " inner light," and " spiri 
 tual instincts," as the standard to which God s Word must 
 conform, it is the part of a sincere and truly rational Chris 
 tian man to bow reverently to the plain teaching of God s 
 holy word. And even though these judgments given by 
 Moses and Jesus seem to him " past finding out," and occa 
 sionally repugnant to the teachings of his natural heart, he 
 but applies to Moses and Jesus the admired maxim of 
 Coleridge concerning Plato, " When I cannot understand 
 his ignorance I confess myself ignorant of his under 
 standing." 
 
 Your attention is the more earnestly requested to the 
 brief argument of this section, because it will be found 
 that, under the hazy verbiage of this popular declamation 
 about the " law of love " and the teachings of Jesus 
 " purer and milder " than the teachings of Moses lurk 
 ever the germs of that fatal heresy which begins with sep- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 43 
 
 arating, in idea, Jesus and John and Paul and Peter from 
 Moses and David and Isaiah, in framing the ethical law of 
 the Christian church. This once done, Moses and David 
 and Isaiah no longer are " gospel " in the sense that Jesus 
 and Paul and Peter are ; then, by the inevitable laws of logical 
 gravitation, that Moses and David and Isaiah did not in 
 like sense with Jesus and Paul and Peter " speak as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost," nor are " all Scriptures," 
 in like sense, " given by inspiration of God." Then begins 
 the transition to a hypocritical infidelity in the chaffer 
 about the inspired and uninspired shreds of the Scripture 
 history and teaching ; then, finally, the conclusion that 
 Jesus and Paul were mistaken in supposing Moses inspired ; 
 and therefore cannot themselves be inspired of God. 
 
 Many good men indeed indulge in this sort of declama 
 tion about the " purer and higher " ethical law of the gos 
 pel, and the darker and more imperfect ethical ideas of 
 Moses, who are far from meaning to be either rationalists 
 or infidels themselves ; but they seem to forget that the 
 effect on less sincere or intelligent minds is, practically, a 
 preparation of the soil for receiving the germinal seeds of 
 infidelity from the first plausible apostate who may rise up, 
 ambitious of a distinction in destroying the church, which 
 he cannot obtain by faithful toil in edifying it.* 
 
 * The author of this discourse has been held to speak unchari 
 tably and unkindly in terming the current philanthropism " in 
 fidel," and the acceptance of it by the church " apostasy." He 
 may be allowed to say that while he would be far from applying 
 the term " infidel " personally to any one who may have unwit 
 tingly fallt-n into the snare by the pressure of popular fanaticism ; 
 nor the term "apostate" to every man in the church who has 
 been betrayed into the slighter forms of this rationalistic reason 
 ing concerning the Scriptures; still, on the ground of the highest 
 Christian expediency, he denominates these heresies from their 
 tendencies and final results rather than from their present degree 
 of development. The masses of the people will understand and 
 
44 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 In the final reorganization of the visible church, through the Apostles, un 
 der the dispensation of the Spirit, the ethical propriety of slavery, es 
 pecially of the enslaving of Jews, must have been forced upon their 
 attention. Yet the Apostles not only admitted slaveholders and their 
 slaves together into the church, but enjoined the Christian duties of 
 masters and slaves, precisely in the same manner as the duties of 
 ruler and subject, husband and wife, parent and child. 
 
 THIS argument, which has been cumulative at every 
 step, cumulates still more rapidly when we come now to 
 examine the history of the reorganization of the Jewish 
 church, as the church of all nations, through Christ s Apos 
 tles under the dispensation of the Spirit. Notoriously, in 
 every community of the world-wide Roman Empire, as 
 they went preaching the gospel and planting Christian 
 churches, they found slavery existing by that Roman code 
 already described as subsequently reduced into form by the 
 lawyers of Justinian. To say the least of it, this code was 
 equally as rigid and not more restrictive of the rights of 
 masters than the modern American code. Now into this 
 New Testament church, just as into the Abrahamic and 
 Mosaic church, slaveholders and their slaves were admitted 
 as its constituent elements. While great care is taken to 
 
 take the alarm from the brief language describing final results, 
 far more readily than from circumlocutions descriptive of each 
 precise stage of the inevitable progress. To denounce that as im 
 pious which has been tolerated in the church of God by inspired 
 authority simply because a popular philanthropism demands it, 
 or to put the language of Scripture to torture in order to appease 
 popular philanthropism and secure its patronage for religion, is 
 not infidelity or apostasy, but is not such, chiefly for the same 
 reason that a pig is not a hog or a calf not an ox. 
 
ON SLAVERY. 45 
 
 instruct both in their relative duties, and at the same time 
 to instruct them that the Mosaic civil and ceremonial laws 
 have expired by limitation, not a word is said anywhere of 
 a repeal of the ancient ethical rule of life, to the church, or 
 of dissent from the toleration of slavery in it. 
 
 But a still more positive proof to the contrary is found 
 in the fact that even in the case of Jewish slaves who 
 would naturally argue, from the prohibition of the old law 
 against enslaving a Hebrew, that their conversion and the 
 conversion of their masters should operate a dissolution of 
 their relation as master and slave the Apostles uniformly 
 urged upon them the principle that it was not the mission 
 of the gospel to break up the social and civil relations of 
 men. The fact that the Apostles read and expounded 
 Moses in their preaching to many Jewish slaves, perma 
 nently reduced to bondage, would naturally suggest to 
 them the notion of the sin fulness of such a bondage to those 
 of whom Jehovah had said, " They are My servants they 
 shall not be sold as bondmen." This fact furnishes the 
 explanation of the peculiar motive urged by the Apostles 
 upon slaves to remain content in their estate " that the 
 name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed." These 
 slaves themselves, and their Judaizing friends, would insist 
 upon it, as a religious question, that for a Jew to be a per. 
 petual bondslave was an insult to Jehovah, who claimed 
 him as His servant under the Abrahamic covenant ; just as 
 " tribute to Caesar " was, if voluntary, an insult to Jeho 
 vah, the King and proprietor of the soil of Canaan. It 
 was therefore impossible but that, in the apostolic churches, 
 the question of slavery, as against Jewish masters, must 
 be met ; and also as to the relation of Jewish slaves to 
 their heathen masters : even to say nothing of the innumer 
 able cases of converted heathen slaves and their masters. 
 
 On turning now to the apostolic instruction on the 
 
46 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 whole subject, nothing can be plainer than that they meant 
 to tolerate the relation of master and slave just as it existed 
 under the laws of the empire. Nay, more, that they meant 
 to teach distinctly the right of masters to the service of 
 their slaves, and the duty of their slaves to serve them 
 faithfully and conscientiously. 
 
 Thus in 1 Cor. 7: 20, 21, "Let every man abide in 
 the same calling wherein he was called " (i. e., your calling 
 as Christ s elect has made no change whatever in your civil 
 relations). " Art thou called being a slave ? Care not for 
 it ; but if thou mayst be made free, use it rather." As 
 Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, suggests though unfortunately 
 himself smitten of late with the prevailing anti-slavery 
 epidemic the almost universal judgment of the ancient 
 commentators is that both the Greek text and the connec 
 tion of this passage require it to be read, not as our trans 
 lation is commonly understood to read it, u If thou canst 
 honestly be made free, then use the opportunity prefer 
 freedom ; " but " Even though thou canst be made free use 
 rather your present condition remain a bondman." This 
 is not only the reading of the ancient commentators, but of 
 the most learned and authoritative of all the modern Ger 
 man and English critics. Alford, among the latest and 
 highest, insists upon this as the only proper reading. If 
 we accept this as the meaning of Paul s instruction, it at 
 once settles the question. But not being disposed to rest 
 this argument on disputed interpretations, where there is 
 even any show of reason for doubt, let us accept even the 
 present popular interpretation of this injunction ; still, as 
 the most candid of modern anti-slavery critics admit, the 
 whole argument of the Apostle proceeds upon the assump 
 tion of the lawfulness of the relation, and borrows from it, 
 after the manner of Jesus in His teaching, His illustration 
 of the relation of all Christians to Christ as his slaves 
 
ON SLAVERY. 47 
 
 " bought with a price." Besides, the indisputable meaning 
 of the whole passage is, that in becoming a Christian, neither 
 does the slave acquire a right to civil freedom, nor the 
 master lose his right of service.* 
 
 * Perhaps no other instance more fully than the commentaries 
 on this text (1 Cor. 7: 21) illustrates the marvellous untruthful- 
 ness wilful or ignorant of the partisan homiletics which declare 
 or insinuate that such views as those in this discourse are confined 
 to persons whose slavery prejudices lead them to pervert the Scrip 
 tures from their generally accepted sense. By way of illustrating 
 this, the citations of commentators on this passage are here ar 
 ranged in three classes : first, generally received older commenta 
 tors of the modern anti-slavery era ; second, commentators prior 
 to that era ; third, the most learned and generally accepted of the 
 more recent living commentators. It will be perceived that while 
 they take opposite views of the phrase " use it rather " all agree 
 in the general construction of the passage followed in this discourse. 
 
 Of the first may be taken as specimens : Macknight, Dr. Clarke 
 and the Comprehensive Commentary. Thus Macknight: "Art 
 thou called being a servant?" "Since the gospel makes no alter 
 ation in men s political state, let every Christian remain in the 
 same political state in which he was called. Agreeably to this 
 rule, wast thou called being a bondman ? Be not thou solicitous to 
 bo made free, fancying that a bondman is less the object of God s 
 favor than a free man. Yet if thou canst be even made free by any 
 lawful method, rather obtain thy freedom. 
 
 V. 24. "Brethren, let every man," &c. (notes). " This exhorta 
 tion, which is three times given in the compass of the discourse, 
 was intended to correct the disorder among the Christian SLAVES 
 at Corinth, who, agreeably to the doctrine of the false teachers, 
 claimed their liberty, on pretence that as brethren in Christ, they 
 were on an equality with their Christian masters." Mack, on Epis 
 tles, 1 Cor. 7 : 2024. 
 
 Thus Dr. Adam Clarke : 
 
 " Art thou called being a servant f Care not for it" Art thou 
 converted to Christ while thou art a slave the property of another 
 person and bought with his money ? Care not for it; this will not 
 injure thy Christian condition ; but if thou canst obtain thy liberty, 
 use it rather ; prefer this state for the sake of freedom and the 
 temporal advantages connected \vith it. 
 
 "For he that is called, &c. The man who, being a slave, is 
 converted to the Christian faith, is the Lord s freeman ; on the other 
 hand, all freemen who receive the grace of Christ must consider 
 themselves the slaves of the Lord, i. e., his real property," &c. 
 
 V. 23. " Ye are bought with a price." As truly as your bodies 
 
BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 In the very remarkable case of Onesimus, the runaway 
 slave of Philemon, the whole style of speech and the argu 
 ment of the Apostle s letter, sending back the slave, after 
 his conversion, to his master, are utterly incompatible with 
 
 have become the property of your master in consequence of his 
 paying doicn a price for you, so surely are you now the Lord s 
 property, in consequence of your being purchased by the blood of 
 Christ." Clarke, Com. on 1 Cor. 7: 21-23. 
 
 So Dr. Jenks addition to Scott and Henry in the " Compre 
 hensive Commentary " on 1 Cor. 7 : 21-23 : 
 
 " The sense is not clear : Chrysostom and all the commen 
 tators understand, 4 You need care so little that, even if you can 
 gain your freedom, prefer your servitude as a greater trial of 
 Christian patience. So a religion of despotism counsels, con 
 trary to the precept, Do not evil that good may come. By what 
 right can any man imtoute God s image, which Christ atoned fur, to 
 a mindless, will-less, soul-less, right-less chattel ? [The reader 
 must remember this is the logic of a Boston abolitionist, w T ho, as 
 usual, must make God s word conform, first, to some extraneous 
 standard of right, and second, to his false facts concerning 
 slavery.] So Gamer, Schmidt, &c., and the Syriac (read it.) It 
 is also ably defended by De Dieu and Wolf. 
 
 "But there is a certain harshness cibout it, to which necessity 
 alone would reconcile me. What is detrimental to human happi 
 ness cannot he promotive of virtue. [Genuine New England her- 
 meneutics.] The true intent seems that of Beza, Grotius, Ham 
 mond, and most recent commentators. "Do not feel too great a 
 trouble on that account," &c. GROTIUS adds, "And ABOVE ALL, 
 
 LET IT NOT DRIVE YOU TO SEEK FREEDOM BY UNLAWFUL MEANS," 
 
 &c. Compreh. Com. 1 Cor. 7: 21-23. 
 
 Such then are the views taken of this scripture even by com 
 mentators, who are strongly anti-slavery in sentiment, as many 
 of their obiter dicta, interpolated among their critical interpreta 
 tions, evince. With all their zeal against slavery, however, they 
 had not attained yet to the more recent recklessness of conscience, 
 that scruples not to thrum the very language of God, as though it 
 were the strings of an old fiddle, and draw forth therefrom such 
 utterances as the fancy of the player or the occasion and exigencies 
 of his case may require. 
 
 Of our second class may be cited Pool, Henry, and Gill. 
 
 Thus Pool s synopsis : 
 
 " But if thou mayst le free, use it rather " use servitude 
 rather : serve rather for the sake of the greater good, namely, 
 
ON SLAVERY. 49 
 
 the notion that Paul did not fully recognize Philemon s 
 rights over him as a master. Thus, for instance, even 
 though he would gladly have retained Onesimus to min 
 ister to him in the bonds of the gospel, yet saith the Apos- 
 
 to thine own discipline and the salvation of thy master. 
 But even though thou mayst be able to become free (that 
 is, by thine own trick and fraud), prefer rather to continue in 
 slavery. This sense best conforms to the following consolatory 
 argument for he that is called being a ^lave is tho Lord s 
 ftvedman. He does not mean, however, that they should prefer 
 slavery to freedom voluntarily offered by the master, but to 
 an illegitimate freedom by flight or fraud. 1 1 Poll Synop. 1 
 Cur. 7: 21. 
 
 Note here, that neither Pool here, nor Grotius above quoted 
 on this place though the former had some knowledge of the 
 ethical judgments of the Reformed Churches, and the latter at 
 least a smattering knowledge of the ethics of the " law of nature 
 and of nations " had yet been disenthralled from popular pre 
 judice touching the ethics of property, nor attained to the sublime 
 heights of the ethical higher law " of our day, which teaches as 
 a duty, and practises as a virtue the stealing of his freedom, and 
 with it any of his master s property, by a slave, or the aiding and 
 abe ting such theft. llo\v paradoxical TO Pool or Grotius the 
 gospel according to " might makes right," that, having the POWER 
 to steal his froedom and his master s property, either of his own 
 accord or by the instigation, the ingenious thievery, or the open 
 robbery by violence of his friends, the slave has a right to steal 
 himself and his master s goods! since, according to this same 
 gospel of u might makes right," the master, having the power to 
 hold fast to the slave, must obviously have the right to do it. Not 
 much unlike this is the odd logic of the " woman s rights " and 
 " free love " section of the anti-slavery school, which bewails the 
 bitter bondage of white men and women under the Anglo-Saxon 
 marriage laws, and yet goes into ecstasies of horror that the rights 
 and privileges of the Anglo-Saxon marriage law are not extended 
 to negro men and women also ! 
 
 Thus Matthew Henry : 
 
 "Art thou called being a servant?" &c. It was common in 
 that age of the world for many to be in a state of slavery, bought 
 and sold for money, and so the property of those who bought them. 
 Now says the Apostle, " Art thou called being a servant ? Be 
 not over solicitous about it," &c. 
 
 " He who is a slave may yet be a Christian freeman ; ho who is 
 3 
 
50 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 tie, " I would not do it without thy mind, that thy benefit 
 should not be, as it were, a necessity, but willingly " (Ep. 
 Phil. 14). Plainly, the entire scope of* the letter is in the 
 spirit of one who relies upon the gospel as the means of 
 
 a freeman may yet be Christ s servant. He is bought with a price, 
 and should not therefore be the servant of man. Not that he 
 must quit the service of his master, or not take all proper mea 
 sures to please him (this were to contradict the whole scope of 
 the Apostle s discourse)." &c. 
 
 " No man should make his faith or religion an argument to 
 break through any natural or civil obligation," &c. Henry, Com. 
 1 Cor. 7: 21. 
 
 Thus the great Baptist, Dr. Gill : 
 
 " Art thou called ? " &c. The Syriac version renders the last 
 clause choose for thyself rather to serve; perfectly agreeable to 
 the sense given by several great critics and excellent interpreters, 
 who take the Apostle s meaning to be, that should a Christian 
 servant have an opportunity of making his escape from his master, 
 or could he by any art, trick, or fraudulent method obtain his 
 liberty, it would be much better to continue a servant than to 
 become free by any such means. Yea, some carry the sense so 
 far that even if the servant could be made free in a lawful way 
 yet servitude was the most eligible," &c. 
 
 " But one should rather think that the more obvious sense is, 
 that when a Christian servant has his freedom offered to him by 
 his master, or can obtain it in a lawful and honorable way, he 
 ought to make use of it," &c. Gill s Com. 1 Cor. 7 : 21. 
 
 Of the third class of commentators the most learned and 
 generally accepted cotemporary critical scholars Dr. Alford, 
 Dean of Canterbury, will furnish a fair specimen : 
 
 "1 Cor. 7: 21-24. Second example SLAVERY Wert thou 
 called (i. e. converted) a slave ? Let it not be a trouble to thee, 
 but if thou art even able to become free, use it (i. e. remain in 
 slavery) rather. This rendering, which is that of Chrysostom, 
 Theodoret, Theophylact, Wolf, Bengel, &c., &c., is required by 
 the usage of the particles ei Xm, &c. It is also required by the 
 context ; for the burden of the whole passage is, Let each man 
 remain in the state in which lie w r as called. Beza, Calvin, Gro- 
 tius, and almost all the moderns understand, freedom after 
 use. The objections to this are : (1.) The position of the Tcai. 
 (2.) The clause would hardly have begun with alia ei. but with ei 
 de go the alternative propositions in v. 9, 11, 15, 28, 36. (3.) 
 The absence of a demonstrative pronoun after use, by which 
 
ON SLAVERY. 51 
 
 the amelioration, not the emancipation of the slave. And 
 nothing can be more directly contradictory than the Apos 
 tle s whole actions and words on this occasion, as contrasted 
 with the actions and words of many in these days, claim 
 ing to be honest and Christian men, who, in like case, 
 would not only erfcourage the slave to steal his freedom, 
 
 we are thrown back, not on the secondary subject, freedom, but 
 on the primary slavery. (4.) Its utter inconsistency with the 
 general context. The Apostle would thus be giving two examples 
 of the precept, one of which would convey a recommendation of 
 the contrary course. See this followed out in Chrysostom. (5.) 
 Its entire contradiction to verse 22. (6.) It would be quite incon 
 sistent with the teaching of the Apostle, that in Christ freemen 
 and slave are all one (Gal. 3 : 28) and with his remarks on the 
 urgency and shortness of the time in this chapter (v. 29) to turn 
 out of his way to give a precept of mere worldly wisdom, that a 
 slave should become free if he could. (7.) The import of Chraomai, 
 (to use) in such a connection, which suits belter the remaining in, 
 enduring, laboring under, giving one s self up to an already exist 
 ing state, than the adopting or taking advantage of a new one," &c. 
 
 " V. 22. Ground of the above precept. For the SLAVE who was 
 called in the Lord, is the Lord s freedman ; similarly he that was 
 called being free is the SLAVE of Christ. The (actual) slave is 
 (spiritually) free : the (actual) free is a (spiritual) slave." Alford, 
 Com. 1 Cor. 7 : 21-22. 
 
 This elaborate criticism is here cited so fully, and in a form to 
 be comprehensible to the English reader, rather than brief cita 
 tions from several authors, for the purpose of exhibiting how 
 clearly and sharply true scholarship can u give a reason" for its 
 faith, in contrast with the loose dogmatism that simply declares 
 a passage must mean so and so in order to conform to its foregone 
 conclusion. 
 
 And this extended note exhibits remarkably the fact that, 
 however commentators differ about the construction of " use it 
 rather," they universally sustain and more than sustain the argu 
 ment of the discourse, and flatly contradict the partisan quibblers 
 who pretend to deny that slavery existed in the Apostolic Church ; 
 even the honest and conscientious anti-slavery commentators 
 admitting more than the argument of the discourse claims. And 
 yet these partisans have the brazen assurance to tell the people 
 that these views are held only by Southern men, in consequence 
 of their sectional theories and prejudices ! 
 
52 BIBLICAL DISCOUESE 
 
 with anything else he could lay his hands on, but write 
 to the master, in terms of bitter denunciation, concerning 
 his awful sin in holding his fellow man in bondage.* 
 
 It is impossible to put any fair construction upon the 
 
 * The marvellous effrontery of the zealots for the anti-slavery 
 theory of the New Testament, in telling the people that the inter 
 pretation of the Epistle to Philemon which makes Onesimus a run 
 away slave is a pro-slavery interpretation, may be seen not only 
 from the citation of learned critics, but of popular commentaries 
 which the people have in their hands. Surely these zealots seem 
 to think they are handled rather than read. 
 
 Thus says Dr. Scott, notwithstanding his hostility to slavery, 
 in his preface to the Ep. to Philemon : 
 
 " Onesimus was Philemon s legal property, and St. Paul had re 
 quired and prevailed with Onesimus to return to him," &c. 
 
 " He knew that Philemon would no longer consider Onesimus as 
 merely a slave, but view him as above a slave, even as a brother be 
 loved," &c. 
 
 Even in the recent " Portable Commentary " emphatically a 
 book for the people the Eev. A. R. Fausset, in his preface to the 
 Epistle to Philemon, says : 
 
 " Onesimus of Colosse ( k one of you, Colossians 4 : 9), a SLAVE 
 of Philemon, had fled from his master to Rome, after having proba 
 bly defrauded him." 
 
 So on verse 16. " ISTo longer a mer,e servant, or SLAVE (though 
 still he is that), but above a servant, so that thou shalt derive from 
 him not merely the services of a SLAVE, but higher benefits." Port 
 able Commentary, Ep. Phil. v. 16. 
 
 So again the,popular Methodist commentator. Dr. Clarke : 
 
 " The Christian religion never cancels any civil obligation: a 
 SLAVE, on being converted and becoming a freeman of Christ, has 
 no right to claim, on that ground, emancipation from the service 
 of his master. Justice therefore required Paul to send Onesimus 
 laclc to his master, and conscience obliged Onesimus to agree in the 
 propriety of the measure." Dr. Clarke s Com. Ep. Phil. v. 12. 
 
 Precisely to the same effect are the more critical commen 
 tators. In Pool s preface to the Epistle to Philemon are found 
 these suggestions : 
 
 "It admonishes us, 1. That no one, even of the lowest position, 
 is to be despised. 2. That the faculties of a slave are not to bo 
 despaired of. 3. That slaves becoming oelievers in Christ do not 
 thereby become free, nor are to le talcen away from their masters 
 without their coment. 4. What is the dnty of a bishop both 
 
ON SLAVERY. 53 
 
 instructions addressed to masters and slaves in the apos 
 tolic letters that does not imply a recognition of the eth 
 ical propriety of that relation even between members of 
 the same Church. It is inconceivable that in an epistle 
 addressed " to the saints which are at Ephesus and the 
 faithful in Christ Jesus," an inspired Apostle, after specific 
 directions to husbands and wives, parents and children, 
 should, precisely in the same manner, address specific 
 directions to masters and servants, without a word to 
 
 toward the lowly and the exalted. The object in writing this let 
 ter was, tliat the slave should be reconciled to his master." Poll 
 Synopsis, Ep. ;id Philemon. 
 
 " Onesiinus, a SLATE, in some disgust having run away from 
 his master, Philemon, came to Rome," &c. 
 
 " But being sensible of his fault in running away from his mas 
 ter, he wished to repair that injury by returning to him," &c. 
 
 " Having a number of slaves, on whom the pardoning of Onesi- 
 mns too easily might have a bad effect, he might judge some pun 
 ishment necessary," &c. 
 
 u What the Apostle wrote to Philemon on this occasion is high 
 ly worthy our notice ; namely : that though he had need of an 
 affectionate, honest servant, &c. yet the Apostle would by no 
 means detain Onesirnns without Philemon s leave, because it be 
 longed to him to dispose of Ms oicn SLAVE in the way he thought 
 proper. SUCH WAS THE APOSTLE S regard to JUSTICE and the 
 rights of mankind." Macknight on Ep. Phil. 
 
 But as a specimen of the more recent and tiie highest results 
 of criticism, take the following from Dr. Wordsworth s New Testa 
 ment : 
 
 "That short letter, dictated from the hired house of the 
 aged Apostle, a prisoner at Rome, may be called a divine act of 
 emancipation, &c. ; an act which, while it thus ameliorated the con 
 dition of the slave, not only did not impair the just rights of the 
 master, but greatly improved them, by dignifying service, and by 
 securing obedience to man as a duty done to Christ," &c. 
 
 " St. Paul did not constrain Philemon to emancipate his slave, 
 but he inculcated such principles as divested slavery of its evils," 
 &c. This whole passage of the learned Canon of Westminster 
 seems precisely in harmony with the views of the u Appeal 
 to the Christian World," by the Southern ministers, touching 
 slavery. 
 
54 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 distinguish this relation as ethically less proper than 
 the other, on the theory that the writer deemed it unlaw 
 ful for one man to have a permanent right of property in 
 another man s labor. It is equally inconceivable that, on 
 the supposition of the unlawfulness of such relation as 
 defined in the Justinian Code, an inspired Apostle should 
 say, " Slaves, be obedient to your masters in singleness 
 of heart as unto Christ not as men-pleasers with good 
 will doing service as to the Lord, and not to men," or 
 that he should say to their masters, without a hint at 
 emancipation though at the same time, like Job, arguing 
 the duty of masters, from the equality of all men before 
 God simply, "Do the same thing unto them, forbearing 
 threatening." * (See Ephesians 6 : 4-9.) 
 
 * ~Noi only for the sake of abundant testimony to the accord 
 ance of the constructions of the word of God here given with tho 
 general voice of the Church of God, but also for the purpose of 
 letting the people know how they have heen led away from the 
 accepted interpretations of every age of the church since the Re 
 formation, the following interpretations of this passage are here 
 given. It will be remembered that Pool s Synopsis represents the 
 whole criticism of the Protestant church up to 1650 : 
 
 " Servants, oley your masters. 1 1 The Apostle did not over 
 throw the general custom of working slaves, for it has its advan 
 tages, and it is lawful to use it rightly. lie teaches that the Chris 
 tian religion consorts with political slavery, and that the political 
 status is neither overthrown nor changed by Christ." Poll Synop 
 sis, Epis. Eph. : 5. 
 
 " Them that are your masters. 1 " They were apt to be impa 
 tient and wenry of the yoke, and scandal w r ns likely to arise from 
 servants in the first ages of Christianity through some libertines, 
 and the licentiousness of the fahe teachers who insinuated that 
 servitude was inconsistent with Christian freedom," Gill, Com. 
 Eph. 6 : 5. 
 
 Even Drs. Scott and Clarke, whose judicious expositions of the 
 meaning of the language are interpolated sometimes apparently 
 with shreds of the Litest philanthropist!! of Exeter Hall, in pal 
 pable contradiction of their own interpretations, do not pretend to 
 deny that the Apostles addressed as saints both masters and slaves, 
 and enjoined upon them their relative duties under a system which, 
 
ON SLAVERY. 55 
 
 In the epistle to the Colossians, again, addressed to 
 the " saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at 
 Colosse " in Phrygia, " the land of slaves," as it was 
 called, and the residence of Philemon the same instruc 
 tions are given to slaves, and similar instructions to 
 masters to " do that which is just and equal" enforcing 
 it by the same argument of the natural equality of all 
 men before God (Coloss. 3 : 22-4 : 1.) But not the 
 remotest hint that justice and equality required them to 
 free their slaves. 
 
 Again, in the Pastoral epistles instructing young minis 
 ters in their duties in which, if the relation of master and 
 slave were wrong, it is unaccountable that allusion should 
 be made to the subject without so pronouncing it these 
 ministers have it enjoined upon them specifically, to teach 
 slaves to be faithful and obedient. Thus, in the instruc 
 tions to Titus (ch. 2 : 8-10), it is an illustration of the 
 " sound speech not to be condemned " to " exhort slaves 
 to be obedient to their own masters, and to please them 
 well in all things " that they may " adorn the doctrine of 
 God our Saviour." That such a conception of the mode 
 in which men should " adorn the doctrine of our God and 
 
 as Dr. Clarke contends, is an " enormity and a crime." It would 
 be rather odd to find the Apostle addressing directions how to dis 
 charge their relative duties to gamblers or highway robbers, with 
 out a word of rebuke of " the enormity and crime " of the system 
 by which they live. Yet says Dr. Scott : 
 
 u In general the servants at that time were slaves, the property 
 of their masters," &c. "But the Apostles icere ministers of religion, 
 not politicians." Scott s Com. Eph. 6 : 5. 
 
 And says Dr. Clnrke : 
 
 "Even a slave, if a Christian, was bound to serve him faithfully 
 by whose money he was bought ; however illegal the traffic may 
 be considered." Clarke s Com. Eph. 6 : 5. 
 
 Says z\lford Eph. 6 : 5 of masters and slaves: "There is no 
 reason bo render douloi servants, as in the Eng. version, for by 
 this much of th-e Apostle s exhortation is deprived of point." 
 
56 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 Saviour," now would be received with incredulous derision 
 and disdain, in a large part of the Protestant Church, is 
 only a sad evidence of the distance to which the Churches 
 have drifted away from Apostolic notions of Christian 
 faith and practice, under the blasts of the .stormy humani- 
 tarianism before which the Churches have given way. 
 Similar instructions to servants, enforced by similar 
 motives, are given by the Apostle Peter to the " strangers 
 scattered throughout Pontus," &c.* (1 Peter 2 : 18.) 
 
 * The exhortation in Colossians being the same as that in 
 Ephesians, its interpretation is supported by the same proofs. It 
 may be worth while, however, by way of giving the reader some 
 conception of the "great crowd of witnesses " who testify in favor 
 of the correctness of the interpretations on which the argument 
 of this discourse rests, to add the following : 
 
 " Servants, obey in all things your masters. The occasion of 
 this precept seems to spring from the circumstance that servants 
 converted to Christianity thought themselves to be exempt from 
 the yoke of servitude. Wmcri OPINION full of error, the DEVIL, 
 without doubt, INSTILLED INTO THE MINDS OF MEN. that thence he 
 might render the Christian religion odious among the heathen as 
 a disturber of order." Bishop Davenant on Col. 3 : 22. 
 
 "St. Paul (Col. 4: 1) commands masters to give to their slaves 
 what is just and equal, but he also teaches slaves this lesson : If 
 a man have food and raiment, let him therewith be content." Rev. 
 Canon Wordsworth, 1859. 
 
 " Col. 3 : 24. The reward of the inheritance. Knowing that 
 it is from the Lord (the ultimate source of reward) ye shall re 
 ceive the compensation (or recompense which will make ample 
 amends for having no earthly possession as slaves now) consisting 
 of the inheritance (a term excluding the notion of meriting it by 
 works; it is all of grace, Rom. 4: 14)." Rev. A. R. Fausset, Port 
 able Commentary, on Col. 3 : 24. 
 
 u V. 25. This verse seems best to be taken as addressed to the 
 dares, by way of encouragement to regard Christ as their master 
 nnd serve him, seeing that all their wrongs, if they leave them in 
 his hands, will be in due time righted by him, the just judge, with 
 wh >m there is no respect of person." Alford, Com. Col. 3: 25. 
 
 The following expositions of 1 Pet. 2 : 18, may be cited as 
 specimens: 
 
 " The case of servants wanted an apostolic determination as 
 
ON SLAVEBT. 57 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 The Apostles not only recognized negatively the ethical propriety of the 
 relation of master and slave, but expressly denounced those "who 
 teach otherwise " than that slaves shall obey their masters, as here 
 tics, from whom true ministers of the Church must withdraw 
 fellowship. 
 
 BUT perhaps the most conclusive evidence that the fore 
 going argument contains the true teachings of the Scrip 
 tures on this subject, will be found in the special instruc 
 tions of Paul to Timothy, in reference to such as, from 
 either Judaizing or humanitarian tendencies of mind, 
 deny the obligation of slaves to give their masters all 
 honor and due service. For such instructions imply that 
 precisely such questions on the subject were raised then as 
 are raised now : and that an Apostolic decision has been 
 had on actual cases made. In the instructions to Timothy 
 (1 Tim. 6 : 1-5) the Apostle directs, " Let as many slaves as 
 are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all 
 honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not 
 
 well as that of subjects, for they imagined that their Christian lib 
 erty set them free from their unbelieving and cruel masters. To 
 this the Apostle answers : Servants, be subject." Henry, Com. 
 1 Pet, 2 : 18. 
 
 "This was another notion of the Je\vs, that because they were 
 the seed of Abraham they ought not to be the servants of any. 
 Hence the Apostle Peter here, as the Apostle Paul frequently 
 elsewhere, inculcates the duty of servants to their master." Gill. 
 Com. 1 Pet. 2 : 18. 
 
 " In the time when the gospel was first preached, servants for 
 the most part were slaves, and as many of them were converted to 
 Christianity with or without their masters, it was feared lest they 
 should take too much upon them and tliiuk too well of themselves," 
 &c. Dr. Jortin on 1 Pet. 2: 18. 
 
 3 * 
 
68 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let 
 them not despise them, because they are brethren ; but 
 rather do them service, because they are faithful and 
 beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach 
 and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, ... he is proud, 
 knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes 
 of words, whereof cometh envy perverse disputing of 
 men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, sup 
 posing that gain is godliness. FEOM sucu WITHDRAW 
 thyself." 
 
 It appears, therefore, that, just as has been presumed 
 in this argument, from the peculiar law of Moses prohibit 
 ing the enslaving of a Hebrew permanently, which law 
 was still read in the Churches and made the foundation 
 of Apostolic sermons, controversies arose touching this 
 question of the relation of master and slave. And 
 men taught that converted slaves should not any longer 
 submit to the yoke ; and especially that masters pretend 
 ing to be Christians, and still claiming rights over their 
 slaves as masters, must be insincere and hypocrites. Be 
 yond all doubt too, the selfish passions of the human heart, 
 even partially sanctified, would make this a very accept 
 able doctrine to other than Jewish slaves. Clearly this 
 tendency to make religion a plea for subverting the rights 
 of masters, was somewhat general, and the heresy regarded 
 as a dangerous one from the prominence given the matter 
 in this brief letter of Pastoral instructions. As before he 
 had taught didactically the contrary doctrine concerning 
 master and slave, so now here he not only reasserts his 
 former opinion of the duties of slaves and the rights of 
 masters, and in connection therewith takes occasion to 
 portray the character of these noisy philanthropists in no 
 very gentle terms ; but also ordains that the ministers of 
 
ON SLAVERY. 59 
 
 the Church shall give them no countenance. " From such 
 withdraw thyself." * 
 
 It is upon the ground of this authoritative instruction 
 to all ministers of the Church, through Timothy, that I 
 
 * In order that this argument from this important passage may 
 be thoroughly justified, numerous but brief citations are here made, 
 to establish, beyond all possibility of doubt, that the construction 
 here put upon the place, is in precise accordance with that of the 
 wisest and most learned men of God, in the Protestant Church, 
 from the Reformation Era down to the present: 
 
 " In the beginning of the sixth chapter he gives a command to 
 slaves, where the young should remember that the common rule is 
 confirmed which is so often repeated that THE GOSPEL DOES NOT 
 
 ABOLISH ESTABLISHED OHDEE So W6 S66 here THAT 
 
 SLAVEEY IS APPEOVED, SUCH AS WAS THEN LAID DOWN IX THE LAWS." 
 
 (Melancthon on 1 Tim. 6: 1.) 
 
 " As every man is disposed, with a false estimate, to arrogate 
 superiority to himself, there is no one that bears with equanimity 
 
 that others should rule over him All of this sort 
 
 of disputations, however, the Apostle cuts off with one word, 
 when he exacts a willing subjection from all who are under the 
 yoke. For he signifies that the inquiry is not whether they are 
 worthy of such a lot ; because it is enough that they are held fast 
 in this condition." (Calvin, Com. 1 Tim. 6:1.) 
 
 " If Christianity finds servants under the yoke, IT CONTINUES 
 THEM UNDER IT, for the Gospel does not cancel any obligations any 
 lie under, either by law of nature or by mutual consent." (Henry, 
 Com. 1 Tim. 6 : 1.) 
 
 " Civil rights are never abolished by any communication of 
 God s Spirit. The civil state in which any man was before his 
 conversion is not altered by that conversion, nor does the Grace 
 of God absolve him from any claims which either the state or his 
 neighbor may have upon him." (Clarke. Com. 1 Tim. 6 : 1.) 
 
 " For, though all Christians are equal as to religious privileges, 
 slaves are inferior to their masters in station. Therefore, let them 
 serve their masters more diligently, because they who enjoy the 
 benefit of their services are believers and beloved of God. 
 
 " If any one teach differently, by affirming that, under the 
 
 Gospel, slaves are not bound to serve their masters, 
 
 he is puffed up with pride, and knoweth nothing, either of the 
 Jewish or the Christian revelation, although he pretends to have 
 great knowledge of both. FKOM SUCH IMPIOUS TEACHERS WITH- 
 
60 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 have denounced the present general departure of the 
 Churches from these teachings of the word of God, and 
 the ideas of the Church of God during all the ages of 
 inspiration, under the lead of a mere humanitarian philan- 
 
 DRAW THYSELF and DO NOT DISPUTE WITH THEM." (McKnigllt, 
 
 Com. 1 Ep. Tim. 6 : 1.) 
 
 " THE DUTY or SLATES IN OPPOSITION TO THE FALSE TEACHERS. 
 Let as many under the yoke as are (slaves). The exhortation is 
 natural, as there was a danger of the Christian slaves inwardly 
 feeling that they were ahove their heathen masters," &c. 
 
 " Blasphemed" " Heathen masters would say What kind 
 of God must be the God of Christians, when such are the fruits 
 of His worship? But the opposition is between those Christian 
 slaves, under the yoke of the heathen, and those that have believ 
 ing masters." (Fausset, Port. Com. 1 Tim. 6: 1.) 
 
 "Similar exhortations are found in Epist. 6:5; Col. 3 : 22 ; 
 and Tit. 2:9; Com. 1 Cor. 7 : 21 ; all apparently directed against 
 the very plausible misconception that Christianity was to be under 
 stood as putting master and bond-servant upon an equality, or as 
 interfering with existing relations, &c. 
 
 " Believing, i. e. Christian masters ; slightly emphatic, as the 
 order of the words suggests. The slaves who were under heathen 
 masters were positively to regard their masters as deserving of 
 honor, the slaves under Christian masters were negatively not to 
 evince any want of respect. (Dr. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester 
 and Bristol, Critical and Grammatical Commentary 1 Tim. 6 : 1 
 New work, 1865.) 
 
 " l And first to the duties of Christian slaves. Let as many as 
 are slaves tinder the yoke? This verse obviously applies only to 
 those slaves who had unbelieving masters. This is brought out 
 by the reason given, and by the contrast in the next verse," &c. 
 (Alford, Com. 1 Tim. 6 : 1.) 
 
 " St. Paul here combats and condemns the false teaching, which, 
 under the color of preaching the doctrine of UNIVERSAL LIBERTY, 
 EQUALITY and FRATERNITY in Christ, enlisted the passions of slaves 
 against their masters, and subjects against their rulers; and thus 
 exposed the name of God and the doctrine of the Gospel to re 
 proach and blasphemy from the heathen, as if it were a religion 
 of annrchy and sedition, and ministered to man s evil appetites 
 and love of lucre, under the name of piety and goodness, &c. 
 
 " The great Apostle had, therefore, a difficult task to perform, 
 in vindicating and maintaining, on the one side, Christian liberty 
 against some of the Judaizers ; and in asserting and upholding the 
 
ON SLAVERY. 61 
 
 thropism from without, as apostasy from the faith. What 
 I have shown to have been the faith of the Church on this 
 subject during the two thousand years of the Church s 
 history, from the covenant with Abraham to the closing 
 labors of Paul the Apostle, you will find, from the elaborate 
 and conclusive argument and evidences of the venerable 
 Bishop Hopkins, continued to be the steadfast faith of 
 God s people, almost without exception, for near another 
 two thousand years between the death of the Apostle and 
 the opening of the nineteenth century. If the views of the 
 Scriptures presented in this argument are the true views 
 and remember, I have made no new and original interpre 
 tations, but presented in every case simply the results of 
 the best biblical learning, and the judgment of the wisest 
 and most orthodox commentators then very plainly the 
 current popular opinion without and the current sentiment 
 within the Church, is amazingly aside from the spirit and 
 teaching of our great Protestant standard of all religion 
 the Bible. If therefore this argument, laying its founda 
 tions in the great covenant of God, which organized a 
 Church visible as a separate society on earth, and woven 
 out of the successive revelations made to that Church, 
 age after age, through Moses and the Prophets, Jesus and 
 
 duty of Christian subjection, on the other hand, against those of 
 the same class who abused the sacred name of liberty into a plea 
 for licentiousness. 
 
 " The false teachers ingratiated themselves with slaves and other 
 dependents by flattering them, that because all men are equal, and 
 brethren in Christ, therefore they necdnot be subject to their masters" 
 &c. (Rev. Canon Wordsworth, Com. 1 Tim. 6: 1.) 
 
 It is to be presumed that such a catena as this, extending through 
 the learned and pious men of the church from the Reformation to 
 1860, will surely silence, once for all, the miserable slang about 
 " pro-slavery interpretations." It makes it very difficult to see how 
 those who interpret differently can sincerely hold to the inspira 
 tion of the Scriptures. 
 
62 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 the Apostles, cumulating at every step and crowned at 
 last by the solemn denunciations of an inspired Apostle, 
 against all who pretend to find a contrary argument and 
 doctrine in the Scriptures, as unworthy the fellowship of 
 Christ s true ministers ; then it is my bounden duty a 
 duty laid upon me by the solemn responsibilities of my 
 office, to warn the people of God against approaching 
 unbelief and apostasy in the Church. 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 The imminent danger to the Church from the tendencies of the anti- 
 siavery philanthropism to subvert the faith of the people in the 
 inspiration of the Scriptures. Fallacious judgments of even the 
 greatest and wisest men under the influence of the mental and 
 moral epidemics that seize upon society, as contrasted with the 
 infallible judgments of God s word. 
 
 AND now permit me to add, that it is simply in this 
 aspect of the question of slavery as involving questions of 
 the ethical and doctrinal perfection of the Scriptures, that I 
 feel at liberty to discuss it while in the solemn ordinances 
 of worship standing to speak, in the name of Christ, to the 
 people. Whatever may be my opinions of the social, civil, 
 and political expediencies of the institution of slavery ; 
 whatever my sectional prejudices in favor of or against it ; 
 or whatever, as a man and citizen, I may think of the good 
 or bad political economy of the system, on the one hand, 
 or the meddlesomeness, on the other, of those who may 
 wish merely to force their better political economy on 
 states and peoples, who are too stupid to appreciate and 
 desire it, all that is aside from the purposes of this argu- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 63 
 
 ment. If it is simply a question of a certain political or 
 social evil ; of the abuses of an institution right and proper 
 in itself, such as the innumerable abuses that, by reason 
 of man s selfishness, cruelty, and general wickedness, all 
 human institutions are subject to, let the reformers bang 
 away till the abuses properly within their control and 
 responsibility are all battered down ; or until, for med 
 dling with abuses out of their sphere, they get battered well 
 themselves. The world is full of such abuses and hard 
 ships, and always will be, so long as it continues to be 
 a fallen and depraved world. And its only hope of 
 deliverance is in this great book of God, and not at all in 
 the bustling humanitarian philanthropisms : that is surely 
 reform in a wrong direction that sets the Bible aside to 
 give the philanthropisms full play. The relation of land 
 lord and tenant of the lords of the soil to its peasantry 
 leads to great hardships and abuses in England, if we are 
 to credit very eminent investigations.* Must we therefore 
 
 * How readily this argument from abuses may be applied to 
 any system regulating the relations between wealth and poverty, 
 property and labor, has no more striking illustration than in the 
 case of the English system of land-law, and the results attributed 
 to it by such English philanthropists as Joseph Kay, Esq., in his 
 reports on the social condition of the English people. If half 
 these results are truly charged, then the denunciatory philanthropy 
 now in vogue with a large class of Britons, would do well to bear 
 in mind the caution of our Saviour Judge not," &c., and this 
 significant query " Why beholdest thou the mote ? " &c. Espe 
 cially should this philanthropy be cautious about drawing hasty 
 conclusions concerning " the abominable system " of labor in the 
 Southern States, from stories of travellers, flying in search of some 
 thing to gratify the morbid passions of the public for shocking 
 events ; from the inventions of lionizing runaway negroes, under 
 every conceivable temptation to indulge the natural propensity of 
 their class for lying; and from the figments of Mrs. Stowe s crea 
 tive imagination, disporting itself with all the unlimited license 
 of a Beecher; all the while treating with utter contempt the 
 plain, intelligent testimony of the hundreds of laborious practical 
 
64 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 organize societies to destroy the land-laws and make a 
 division of lands between the lords and the peasants? 
 The relation of capital and labor is confessedly greatly 
 abused shall we therefore demand of the capitalists 
 
 philanthropists; of the thousand ministers of religion ; of the hun 
 dreds of thousands of Southern Christian men and women, and of 
 the formal official assurances of councils and synods, solemnly given 
 hy eye-witnesses, of the practical working of the Southern labor- 
 system. 
 
 The limits of a note forbid extensive citations ; but a sum 
 mary view of the chief points may be presented, with reference 
 to the pages of " The Social Condition and Education of the 
 People of England. By JOSEPH KAY^ Esq., of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge ; Barrister-at-Law, and late Travelling Bachelor of 
 the University of Cambridge. Harper & Brothers, New York. 
 1863." How entirely reliable are the statements to be made, ap 
 pears from Mr. Kay s first sentence : " I shall endeavor to show, 
 from reports published by the Government, and by individuals 
 of the highest authority on such questions, what is the present 
 social condition of the poorer classes in our towns, and in our 
 country districts," &c. 
 
 The general statement of Mr. Kay is, that the British laboring 
 and poor classes are extremely ignorant, helpless, demoralized and 
 pauperized, u owing to the depressing social system to which we 
 have subjected them / mean the system of laws re 
 gulating the descent, entailing conveyance, purchase and settle 
 ment of landed property." (Pp. 14, 15.) 
 
 Now, obviously it matters little as to the practical result, 
 whether labor is kept in a degraded position by a system of direct 
 ownership of the laborer himself, or, indirectly, by ownership of 
 the soil he treads, and the air he breathes, so long as he is too poor 
 and helpless to leave it. And it may well be doubted whether 
 even anti-slavery romance has painted abuses of the slave-labor 
 system that can compare with the sad details of Mr. Kay, under 
 the following heads of abuses of the English land-law system. 
 He shows, in substance : 
 
 1. That the laboring man in England and Wales can, by scarce 
 a possibility, become a landholder, and with difficulty even a ten 
 ant of a farm. That the smaller farms have been absorbed in the 
 large estates ; cottages destroyed to prevent their occupancy, and 
 thereby to avoid poor-rates; and thus laborers are driven^to herd 
 like cattle in the crowded hovels in the rural districts, as in towns 
 and cities labor is driven to shelter in cellars and filthy dens. Thus 
 
OX SLAVERY. 65 
 
 a general division with their laborers ? The relation of 
 parent and child, itself, is terribly abused, as we are tuld, 
 
 the laborer s hope of rising in the world is a forlorn one. " Once 
 a peasant, always a peasant." So that in this fundamental point 
 of view it would seem that the advantage of the laborer in Eng 
 land over the laborer under the Southern system is rather 
 theoretical than practical. (Kay, pp. 10, 41, 51, 119, 125, 126, 
 165.) 
 
 2. That, as a consequence of the system, labor in most cases 
 fails to secure food and clothing, and comfortable lodging (pp. 26, 
 27, 51, 153, 163, 164.) And worse still, that, on an average, year 
 by year, one and a half to two millions of the people are depend- 
 ent for bread upon public and private charities (pp. 29, 31.) That 
 is, the number of paupers under the English labor-system is equal to 
 one-half the whole number of slave population ; while no one 
 worthy of credit even has charged upon the Southern system that 
 it fails to secure food, clothing, and lodging, save in a few excep 
 tional cases. 
 
 3. That, as to the secular education of the laboring classes, eight 
 millions of the population cannot read and write (p. 252.) Even 
 suppose this estimate exaggerated to doubling, it yet exhibits a 
 number of the grossly ignorant equal to the whole number of 
 slaves in the Southern States, over whose inability to read the 
 Word of God as if that were the only method of communicating 
 the Gospel so many tearful Jeremiads have been uttered. The 
 fact is, however, that probably as large a proportion of the slaves 
 do read as of the English poor, and nothing prevents their masters 
 from teaching them to read. 
 
 4. That as to the moral condition of the laboring classes under 
 the English land-system, it is reported from all quarters to be shock 
 ingly degraded. Of whole counties ministers report " There ap 
 pears to be a want of decency the immorality of the young women 
 is horrible." Of Wsiles, " That the moral principles of the 
 Welch people are totally corrupt and abandoned. While the sexes 
 herd like beasts, it is idle to expect they can be restrained by reli 
 gion and conscience. Fornication is not regarded as a vice 
 scarcely a frailty." (Pp. 168-213.) All that has been "said or 
 sung " of the immorality and licentiousness of the slave.labor cys- 
 tem, is nothing to these fifty pages of Mr. Kay s book. 
 
 5. That as to the spiritual condition of the laboring and poor 
 classes under the English system regulating the relation between 
 landholder and peasant, capital and labor, it is affirmed: "One-half 
 our poor have never been in any school, know little, or jx)sitively 
 nothing of the Christian religion or moral duties never read the 
 
66 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 among the degraded poor of Britain * shall we, therefore, 
 like Lycurgus, give over the children to the care of the 
 State ? Nay, even among yourselves as I am sorry to 
 observe from the reports in the journals of numerous wife- 
 
 Scriptures : scarcely any of them enter a place of public worship, 
 or ever come in contact with a religious minister. They live like 
 brutes, then die to go they never thought, or cared, or under 
 stood, where." (p. 215.) Yet, with nil the hardships and abuses 
 charged upon the slave-labor system, the Protestant Churches of 
 the Southern States report half a million of the slaves as members 
 in full communion with them. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this note to taunt the British people 
 with the hardships and sorrows that oppress their poor, nor to 
 bring a railing accusation against their social institutions, nor to 
 deny that these reports may be exaggerated, as all such reports are 
 likely to be ; but simply to show, in a way that may come home 
 to them, how fallacious may be the argument from hardships and 
 abuses against any general social system. And how absurd to con 
 demn a social system which God has recognized in His word, and 
 denounce, as unrighteous and wicked in itself on mere idle and 
 exaggerated reports of the hardships and abuses of it an argu 
 ment that, in a fallen and depraved world such as ours, may be ap 
 plied to condemn even the best and wisest institutions ever devised 
 for the comfort of society. 
 
 * As an extreme case of this unnatural abuse of the parental 
 relation, and at the same time an additional illustration of the 
 argument of the preceding note, it is sufficient to refer to the 
 horrible details of Mr. Kay s book from the reports of Mr. Chad- 
 wick, Mr. Gardiner of Manchester, Rev. Mr. "Wilkins, vicar of 
 "Wickesand others, of the murder of their own infant children by 
 fathers and mothers, in order to get money from "the burial 
 clubs," just as men sometimes burn their property to get the 
 insurance money. It is shown that for the sake of the three or 
 five pounds sterling assured to them, for a small annual payment from 
 the birth of their child, these unnatural parents will murder their 
 children by poison, or starvation, or cruel usage ; that some make 
 a business of it, entering the child in ten or twenty different clubs ; 
 that in one instance, in Manchester, a man murdered seven of his 
 children successively at the age of from nine to eighteen months. 
 Another, Mary May, thus murdered fourteen of her children succes 
 sively, and then her little brother ; that the very language of the 
 poorer people is permeated with this horrible idea. The reply, on 
 hearing of the dangerous sickness or death of a poor friend s child 
 
ON SLAVERY. 67 
 
 beatings the relation of husband and wife is abused ; 
 shall we therefore give ear to the manifold stories of the 
 free-love reformers concerning the wife-slavery of the 
 Anglo-Saxon laws, and abolish marriage in favor of 
 wo. n an s rights ? 
 
 That the relation of master and slave is abused, yea, 
 even peculiarly liable to abuse, all Christian men where it 
 exists have been ready enough to admit. And more, they 
 have labored earnestly in amelioration and reform of 
 abuses, and very successfully, save as they have been ham 
 pered in their efforts by a philanthropism which seems to 
 care little for the Apostle s caution lest through the turbu 
 lence and unfaithfulness of slaves " the name and doctrines 
 of God be blasphemed." * 
 
 is commonly : " It is no matter," or, " It is good luck for her 
 that child is in two three five burial clubs. 1 
 
 In a town of sixty-one thousand inhabitants, there existed 
 eleven burial clubs, with an aggregate of fifty-two thousand mem 
 bers. (See Kay s Soci. Cond. p. 8491.) What more melancholy 
 illustration could be offered of the propensity of depraved human 
 nature to abuse any and every institution and relation of life? yet 
 who thinks of arguing that the children of all the poor should 
 therefore be taken from them and reared by the state ? Why then 
 argue that because in a few cases masters also may act an unnatural 
 and cruel part, the whole system must be abolished, society up 
 turned, and four millions of negroes be turned loose among six or 
 right millions of white men, to sink at once, by indolence, below 
 the condition of the " degraded, demoralized, and pauperized " 
 labor so graphically described by Mr. Kay ? 
 
 The sturdy honesty of Southern people is evinced by the fact 
 that though they might secure the applause and sympathy of the 
 world instead of its curses, by playing the hypocrite a little, and 
 turning their slave system into a system of peonage, by seeming 
 to emancipate, still they will not do it. Will not the world at 
 least, learn to respect their honesty and their contempt for all 
 hypocrisy in an age of shams and deceits? 
 
 * That Christian men at the South have labored earnestly, and, 
 all things considered, successfully, for the amelioration of their 
 system, is a fact that would be too notorious to need mention, but 
 for the fact that party philanthropism at the North, which has the 
 
68 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 But when it comes to denying the ethical right of the 
 relation itself, and the right of any man to property, per 
 manently, in the labor of another, it censes to be a question 
 of the reform of abuses, and becomes a fundamental ques- 
 
 ear of the world, has found it necessary for its purposes to sup 
 press the fact and to circulate the contrary i alsehood. Thus, for 
 instance, the Christians of South Carolina and Georgia, for twenty 
 years before the war, expended perhaps as much money and the 
 time and talents of as many educated men, in carrying the gospel* 
 to the slaves of those states, as all that the Anti-Slavery Churches 
 of Britain and the North together expended for the evangelization 
 of the African race. And the reports of Churches from all the 
 slave-holding states, show the conversion and admission to full 
 communion in Protestant Churches, of probably ten times as 
 many of these slaves as the numbers of these gathered into the 
 Church of Christ by all the missions of Britain and America 
 from the heathen world. 
 
 Thus, too, in spite of the obstacles from the fierce jealousy 
 and prejudices of the people in the South, constantly stirred and 
 influenced by the arrogant, compact-despising and faithless prop- 
 agandism of the North, which sought not to ameliorate, but, 
 through their common relation to the general government, and in 
 contempt of the political rights of the several states, to abolish 
 the system of slave labor the enlightened and philanthropic 
 citizens had made such progress in the amelioration of the slave 
 system, as to put the Southern greatly in advance of any ancient 
 system in many particulars. In Louisiana, and probably in Georgia, 
 the family rights of the slave were so far regarded by the civil law 
 as to prohibit the separation of young children from their parents ; 
 and in 1858 there was a bill before the Legislature of Mississippi, 
 supported by many leading men of the State, which proposed, 
 in effect, to protect all the family rights of the slave by requiring 
 a registry of the slaves on every plantation by families, and pro 
 hibiting the separation of husband and wife, and of young children 
 from their parents. 
 
 What might have been done but for the political interference, 
 and faithlessness to the covenant between the states by a reckless 
 fanaticism, is apparent from the fact that immediately upon the 
 separation of the Southern Churches from the Northern, the 
 Church courts, of all denominations, began to call upon the people 
 for such modifications of the civil laws, as would protect by civil 
 authority, as well as the sanctions of religion, the marriage cove 
 nant between slaves. 
 
 Like the hue and cry concerning the inability of slaves to read the 
 
ON SLAVERY. 69 
 
 tion of religion. When it comes to denouncing as " an 
 abominable system " and as " the sum of all villanies " a 
 relation that at the very beginning of the race was an 
 nounced of God, as one of the forms which human society 
 should take ; which was recognized as allowable in the 
 very first organization of the Church ; which was again 
 recognized in the second great covenant to redeem from 
 bondage a slave-holding nation, and in the very moral law 
 given of God, as the Church s ethical rule of life ; which 
 
 word of God though all masters may, and Christian masters and 
 mistresses do generally, teach their slaves to read, when they will 
 receive the instruction, and though in other ways than by reading 
 the slaves in common with the laboring masses of the civilized 
 world receive that " faith that cometh by hearing " so the hue 
 and cry concerning the heathenism of denying to the slaves the 
 protection of civil law to their marriage contract lies with any 
 force only against the theoretic principle, rather than the actual 
 practice of the Southern slave labor system. Of course, no Chris 
 tian man denies that, viewing the slave as a person, as well as a 
 property, the effort should be always to secure to him all the 
 personal rights consistent with his civil status by the civil law. 
 And every Christian master not only admits, but practises upon, 
 the principle that the marriage covenant has all the sanctions of 
 religion to enforce respect to it, independent of the civil contract. 
 The real issue in the case is simply whether the slave shall have, 
 equally with the free, the civil right to contract marriage, and be 
 protected in that right against the master. And, as to that issue, 
 however it may be determined theoretically, Southern Chris 
 tianity, if unimpeded by political fanaticism, would before this 
 probably have secured a decision by the Southern people to pro 
 tect the marriage relation between slaves by civil authority. But 
 even aside from all this, it must be borne in mind tnat the Southern 
 system is, even in this respect, as far, if not farther, in advance, in 
 conferring civil privileges upon slaves, as either of the ancient codes 
 recognized in the Bible. And further, that if all masters were but 
 to become Christians, the marriage law of Christ would be recog 
 nized in their households as extending alike to bond and free. 
 
 In such cases the question of marriage as a civil right would 
 become an ethical question analogous to the Sabbath question 
 raised by the Pharisees, and the proper answer to the question <;f 
 a slave s civil right to marriage would be, " ihe marriage law 
 was made for man, not man for the marriage law." 
 
70 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 was recognized in the civil code, given by Jehovah himself, 
 and according to which he administered a civil government 
 as theocratic King, so long as the kingdom continued an 
 independent nation ; which went with the Church and 
 nation into their captivity, and was restored with their 
 restoration ; which, in an empire of sixty millions of 
 slaves, held under a heathen code, when Jesus Christ came, 
 received from him no word of rebuke, but clearly his 
 acquiescence in its ethical propriety ; which began with the 
 very beginning, again, of the Church reorganized as the 
 Christian Church, as a relation recognized and its duties 
 pointed out by Apostles ; and finally whose denouncers 
 were themselves denounced by an inspired Apostle, as 
 unworthy the fellowship of true ministers of Christ : 
 when an institution thus ethically interwoven with the 
 texture of every part of God s word is assailed with every 
 epithet that can express vileness, loathsomeness, and 
 depravity then it becomes the infinitely solemn question 
 whether, we have a revelation from God or not, and 
 whether if so, those who hold such opinions of slavery can 
 possibly hold the inspiration of " all Scripture." 
 
 I am free to say that as to practical consequences, 
 ultimately, it is difficult to make much distinction between 
 the open and avowed denial of plenary inspiration, the 
 partial acceptance of the Scriptures, and the apparent full 
 acceptance of them, which yet tortures the word of God upon 
 any and every Procrustean bed which the humanly devised 
 theories of natural right and ethical justice may prepare 
 for them. Apostates like Colenso and his co-laborers in 
 " Essays and Reviews " and the " Westminster Review," 
 claiming still to hold a portion of the Bible inspired while 
 they reject Moses, are pleased to caution those of us who 
 will admit no distinction between the inspiration of Jesus 
 and his Apostles, and that of Moses and the Prophets, and 
 
ON SLAVERY. 71 
 
 warn us " not to carry the ark of God into the field of 
 battle." To which I have only to say, if there is no longer 
 any book of the law in the ark, and blossoming rod, and 
 pot of manna nor any mercy seat on its golden cover, 
 nor Jehovah, as the ineffable brightness dwelling between 
 the Cherubim upon it, then it is a bogus ark ; let the 
 Philistines take it ! If Moses is not inspired, then how can 
 Jesus and his Apostles be inspired, when mistaken in 
 founding their whole system of doctrine upon Moses as 
 inspired ? If the ethics of Moses are impure, how shall we 
 trust the ethics of Jesus expressly founded upon the teach 
 ings of Moses, first divested of the human accretions with 
 which human ignorance and fanaticism had invested them ? 
 If " all " this Scripture is not " the inspiration of God," but 
 only a part of it, and if we are left to the guesses of such 
 learned critics as these in ascertaining which is the in 
 spired part, " profitable for doctrine, reproof, and instruc 
 tion in righteousnesss " then where is the infallibility of our 
 guide ? If the bread that professes to come down from 
 heaven is a loaf with poisoned parts in it, which none but 
 these spiritual chemists can distinguish, then we had better 
 throw away the loaf, and, in hunger, sorrow and despair, 
 turn to " the husks the swine did eat? 
 
 " We believe," says the Apostle, " therefore we speak." 
 Brethren, I believe, therefore I speak earnestly on this 
 subject, and not in the spirit of a miserable logomachy 
 concerning a controverted civil and social question. I 
 believe that all Scripture Moses just as much as Jesus 
 David just as much as John Isaiah just as much as Paul 
 is the inspiration of God. I believe, too, on the other 
 hand, that, by the very mental law that controls the convic 
 tion of humanity at large, this tampering with the language 
 and teachings of God on one subject, to conform them to 
 a mere human theory, must inevitably lead the multitude, 
 
72 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 first to tamper with, and then to contemn, the word and 
 teachings of God concerning any other subject, and finally 
 on all subjects. For, however individual eccentricity of 
 mind may enable one man to hold, persistently, con 
 tradictory propositions and use contradictory methods of 
 interpretation, yet the great mass of humanity, as a whole, 
 though less enlightened than the individual, is ever logi 
 cal in its judgments. Just as surely as water will seek and 
 attain its own level when the obstructions are removed, so 
 surely will the multitude, left to its own mental action, 
 settle down to the general logical conclusions which are 
 consistent with the premises which error has taught it to 
 reason from, and the methods by which error has taught it 
 to reason. 
 
 I believe that it was the tampering with the teachings 
 of God s word, to make them conform to the theories of a 
 hazy philanthropism in England, on this very subject of 
 slavery, that prepared the soil for the sowing of that crop 
 of tares by the Francis William Xewmans, the Williams, 
 the Baden-Powels, the Colensos of Britain, and the blas 
 pheming. Theodore Parkers and lisping Emersons of Amer 
 ica ; which is now ripening into the harvest of apostasy in 
 the Church of England. And the same process is now 
 carried on in the Churches of Scotland by even holy men 
 who know not what they do, preparing the soil for any 
 Presbyterian Colenso to rise and lead off the masses into 
 apostasy from the faith of their fathers. So the ministers 
 of the American Evangelical Churches slept while the 
 enemy sowed tares ; until now, when the harvest of judg 
 ment is come, only here and there a head of_ the true grain 
 can be discovered among the rank growth of the ostenta 
 tious counterfeit. 
 
 Only here and there a solitary voice appeals to the 
 fanatical mob in the plaintive tone of Elijah " I, even I 
 
ON SLAVERY. 73 
 
 only, remain a prophet of the Lord, but Baal s prophets 
 are four hundred and fifty men." And, with the propensity 
 of the multitude to decide truth by the majority, no wonder 
 the opinion of the four hundred and fifty Baal priests seems 
 to make it hardly worth while to listen to the singular 
 old man, but to say with a sneer " Doth he not speak 
 parables ? " 
 
 But need I remind you that God s truth has always 
 been in the minority in this fallen world, and therefore no 
 argument in confirmation of faith can be drawn from the 
 mere popular opinion of any age ? Need I remind you ? 
 moreover, how often this philanthropy-frenzied world has 
 gone mad ? As with these physical epidemics, that, rising 
 in some obscure corner amid filth and disease, become as the 
 cholera, the pestilence that walketh in darkness, stalking 
 around the globe and feeding upon its millions of victims, 
 so these mental and moral epidemics that sometimes sweep 
 over the earth s high civilizations. Thus, in former ages, 
 the world was so filled with a mad passion for worshipping 
 God as a local god, through stocks and stones, that the very 
 Church of God gave way before it. All the world was on 
 one side, and Elijah alone openly on the other, yet it 
 turned out Elijah was right. Thus, in the middle ages, the 
 epidemic of romantic zeal for the holy sepulchre pre 
 cipitated all Europe upon the plains of Asia and hills of 
 Canaan. Thus, too, at a later period, the epidemic that 
 seized upon British society, filling men of all classes with 
 stupid credulity and fear of witchcraft. Even in regard to 
 their worldly affairs, how often have partial epidemics of 
 this sort run even the commercial world mad as witness 
 the " tulip mania " in Holland, the South Sea and Mis 
 sissippi stock madness in England and France, and a score 
 of like cases. It is no new thing, therefore, that the world 
 should be mad, nor very singular that the madness now 
 4 
 
74 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 should take the form of a philanthropy too sublimated and 
 vast in its conceptions to be satisfied with the homely God- 
 taught philanthropy of the Bible. Profound students of 
 the history of redemption have noticed the fact that in all 
 ages it has been the method of the Devil to counterfeit so 
 skilfully the peculiar features of each dispensation of God, 
 as to " deceive the very elect." In the era of the Theo- 
 phanies, his trick was to devise counterfeit Theophanies, 
 the record of which heathenism preserves in its mytholo 
 gies. In the Theocratic era, when Jehovah dwelt as king 
 on earth, and was the oracle to be consulted by his chosen 
 people, Satan set up his oracles throughout heathenism 
 and seduced off the people of God. When the Son of God 
 became incarnate, again the imitation was practised in pos 
 sessions of the Devil. So, under the dispensation of the 
 Spirit, he set up revelations through " lying spirits " to 
 destroy the faith of the Church. For half a century past 
 the Church of God has been distinguished for new zeal 
 as a working Church, with ever-expanding schemes of 
 philanthropy to elevate the sunken masses and give the 
 gospel to all nations. It is only in accordance therefore 
 with the history of all the past, that in this age the Devil 
 should come, counterfeiting the philanthropist, and seeking 
 to destroy the faith of mankind in so popular a doctrine 
 of the gospel, by urging upon them a garish, flashy, mob- 
 delighting philanthropy, and especially so cheap a philan 
 thropy as one that demands no sacrifice of one s own 
 property and comfort, as the gospel philanthropy does, 
 but only a noisy clamor against the property and comfort 
 of other people. Giving men thus a code of ethics, not to 
 be practised by themselves, but on their neighbors, it is 
 not strange that this code should set up a stricter standard 
 of right than the gospel ; nor that Christian men, capti 
 vated by its flashy generalities, should find it necessary to 
 
ON SLAVERY. 75 
 
 strain and trim the language and teachings of this old rule, 
 to force it into harmony with the new. 
 
 The honest servant of God, clear in his convictions of 
 the teachings of God s truth, can afford to stand by such 
 convictions, though all the Church cry out, " Art thou he 
 that troubleth Israel ? " With such convictions there is 
 neither temerity nor real want of modesty in standing 
 forth against a world in arms, because with his eyes opened 
 by the Spirit of God he sees that " they that be with us 
 are more than they that be with them." 
 
 It is therefore an argument of little real weight with 
 me, that mighty statesmen in Britain and America de 
 nounce that which I have shown to be recognized by the 
 ethics of the Bible, as the " abominable system " and the 
 " sum of all villanies." For I remember that a mightier 
 statesman and jurist than any of them endowed of God 
 with intellectual capacities beyond any of his tribe even 
 Lord Bacon himself, catching the singular infection of his 
 age, justified as a judge the murder of poor helpless old 
 women as witches, and as a philosopher studied the 
 rationale of witchcraft. Why need it stagger one s faith 
 in his own plain deductions from God s word, that great 
 names in the British and American Churches in the interest 
 of political power denounce them, when he remembers how 
 Robert South, great as any of them, either intellectually 
 or as a theologian, played the sycophantic courtier to the 
 most faithless tyrant Stuart of them all ; advocating with 
 all his rare logical power the doctrine of passive obedience, 
 and defending the divine right of kings ? Why should I 
 tremble before the elaborate show of learned critical skill, 
 by a partisan Biblical critic, in devising some other read 
 ing of the sacred oracles to suit a theory, when I remember 
 how the " learned Selden," profounder in Biblical learning 
 than any of them, perverted all the vast stores of his learn- 
 
6 BIBLICAL JDISCOUKSE 
 
 ing and critical skill to root out of the Scriptures the idea 
 of Christ s free, distinct, and independent commonwealth, 
 and to subject the Church of our fathers under the iron 
 heel of a coarse, fanatical despotism ? 
 
 And yet one may claim to feel as real a reverence for 
 the men of profound Biblical learning, and be as true a 
 hero-worshipper, within the proper limits of hero-worship, 
 as any of them, for all that. For the heroes, especially the 
 heroes of learning, give way before the dominant ideas of 
 their age as readily as common men. Hence, however a 
 man in the enthusiasm of youth may be disposed to accept, 
 as infallible, the dicta of the heroes of the schools within, 
 or the general opinion of society without, he finds from 
 experience that his mind outgrows these supposed infallible 
 dicta, or discovers mistakes in the facts or fallacies in the 
 argument on which they rest. He finds often to his sur 
 prise, no doubt that his infallible guides are " men of like 
 passions," and subject, in like manner as other men, to the 
 mental and moral epidemic that raged in their day. And 
 the more experience of this sort the more he will be 
 disposed to value and cling fast to any guide upon which 
 he may depend with certainty. 
 
 Now, in the discharge of my office, I have been, for 
 more than twenty years, working at this Great Book to 
 find out the mind of the Spirit, as a foundation on which to 
 rest my own and the judgment of the people. Often, 
 indeed, have I found its "judgments" seeming to me un 
 searchable and its ways past finding out ; but never a 
 wrong judgment. And, generally, if in the spirit of Cole 
 ridge s admired rule concerning Plato " When I cannot 
 understand his ignorance I confess myself ignorant of his 
 understanding " I have waited patiently, looked further, 
 and grown a little, mentally and spiritually, I have not 
 failed to find that it was my ignorance, and the errors of 
 
ON SLAVERY. 77 
 
 my human guides, that had obscured the truth from my 
 view. With what little acquaintance I have been able to 
 make with the philosophers and their reasonings, I have 
 found them often mistaken just as common men ; or if, 
 at first, their opinions were accepted, they would not stand 
 the test of a maturer judgment. But this Book I have 
 never found mistaken ; and, as again and again I review 
 it in these lectures now for the fourth time I find the 
 Book grows upon me with my growth nay, outgrows me ; 
 and the mistakes of my earlier expositions are simply my 
 failures to reach the spiritual depths of the writers. And 
 the characteristic impression of my study of the Bible in 
 the present course is the consciousness of still leaving the 
 vast mines of thought unexplored that lie under all these 
 utterances of Moses. 
 
 So I have found the philanthropists often terribly mis 
 taken. However garish and attractive to the youthful eye 
 their " glittering generalities of argument," and to the 
 youthful heart their gospel of universal brotherhood and 
 their prophecies of an Arcadian dignity of human nature, 
 rising above all selfishness, pride, and passion, to inaugurate 
 a general reign of " liberty, equality, and fraternity " over 
 the whole race, I have found at last that the fitful glare of 
 their light was but leading me a fruitless chase through 
 bog and swamp and jungle. But I have never found 
 these " holy men of old " mistaken ; nor the plain, homely 
 benevolence taught in this Book fail, as a true guide both 
 of the mind and heart in laboring for the amelioration of 
 the sorrows of our fallen humanity. Thus every lesson of 
 sober experience combines with every dictate of my under 
 standing and my heart to constrain me to stand by this 
 Book, as my guide in ethics and philanthropy ; going 
 wherever it goes ; stopping just where it stops. And 
 having by earnest search found " what saith the Scrip 
 
79 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 tares " touching this question of slavery though that 
 utterance is directly in face of the current popular opinion, 
 and the general judgment of the popular leaders I must 
 be content to let the populace clamor the philanthropists 
 shudder and denounce and the humanitarian scoffers sneer 
 and mock and calmly take an appeal onward to a soberer 
 age. Meanwhile I stand fast by the old guide the guide 
 of our fathers, as it was understood by the fathers of 
 every age ; the guide that never failed me either in the 
 waywardness of youth or in the trials of manhood the 
 eternal word of God. 
 
 CONCLUDING NOTE. 
 
 Application of the foregoing argument to the great secular issues now 
 pending between the slaveholding States and British and New England 
 philanthropism. The trilemma. Neither of its horns consistent with 
 Scriptural ethics nor with facts. The slavery tolerated in the New 
 Testament demonstrated to be the same in principle with that ir. the 
 American States. Why these views have not been pressed upon the 
 attention of the world before by Southern writers. 
 
 THE author s view of the nature and functions of his office, as 
 a preacher of the gospel, did not permit him, while speaking in 
 the name of Christ from the pulpit, to make an application of the 
 foregoing argument to the great secular i-sues now pending 
 between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States ; nor even 
 to the issues of the last thirty years between slave-holders and the 
 organized or unorganized private movements for depriving them 
 of their property. Nor indeed was it properly within the scope 
 of an argument, not so much in deftnce of slavery, as offensive 
 against the tampering with the Divine word, in justification of 
 hostility to slavery, to discuss the general movements of the 
 current secular philanthropism. Yet as a writer communicating 
 his thoughts to the public, he has felt at liberty to suggest the ap- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 79 
 
 plications of the argument, as in the foregoing notes ; so also here 
 in a concluding note, by way of appendix to his published dis 
 course. The earnest attention of conscientious men and logical 
 thinkers is requested to the brief suggestions which follow. 
 
 Leaving out of view here the popular illogical argument from 
 abuses, which commonly, in this case, is merely a rhetorical farrago 
 of false reasoning from still " falser facts," as unworthy of any 
 further notice than has been already taken of it in the discourse 
 and notes, there are but three conceivable grounds upon which an 
 honest Christian man can, logically, give a reason for his faith and 
 practice in joining the popular crusade for the extermination of 
 slavery, either by means of the pious thieveries of private philan- 
 thropism, or the open violence of public robbery, under the ethical 
 theory that u might makes right." Either 
 
 First. That the holding of slaves i. e., of persons who are also 
 the owner s " possession " " inheritance " " money " " proper 
 ty " u chattel " is, intrinsically, contrary to ethical right, and so 
 clearly a sin per se against God and man as to be without the pale 
 of protection by law : or, 
 
 Secondly. That though it may be, abstractly, not contrary to 
 ethical right, it is yet practically a bad social and political economy, 
 BO hostile to the interests of society at large as to be incapable of 
 protection by law as other rights of property: or, 
 
 Thirdly. That, though the Scriptures recognize and tolerate a 
 system of slavery, as ethically proper, yet this particular American 
 system of slavery is, in principle, different from, and ethically 
 contrary to, the system tolerated, in the Bible. 
 
 As to the first of these three propositions : That the holding 
 of slave?, i. e., persons who are also at the same time the owner s 
 "possession," " inheritance," money," "property," or "chattels," 
 is a thing recognized and tolerated in the Scriptures, has been 
 shown beyond dispute in the foregoing exposition of Scripture 
 language and history. For, if human language and forms of 
 thought can be relied upon at all for expressing the mind of God 
 (and if not, where is the use of a Bible), then it is certain that the 
 utterances of the Scripture, expounded in accordance with the 
 Church s interpreters, and with the steadfast faith of God s people 
 in all ages, do convey to us the notion that such a slavery did 
 exist, and was tolerated in the Church, as ethically proper, during 
 all the eras of inspiration. To pretend to hold, therefore, both the 
 theory of the ethical wrong of slavery, and at the same time the 
 inspiration and divine authority of the Scriptures, in the proper 
 and natural sense of their language, is just as inconsistent and im 
 possible to a logical mind, as to hold at the same time both the 
 Ptolemaic theory and the Copernican theory of our physical 
 universe. And to deny the plain sense of the words of Scripture, 
 and devise interpretations of them consistent with the denunciation 
 
80 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 of slavery as a sin, is simply to furnish a critical machinery to any 
 and every tritler with the divine word whereby to make it support 
 any heresy. Nay, by the same critical process whereby it is 
 proved that ebed and doulos do not mean slaic, in the sense a 
 "person" who is yet another s property, it may be proved, with 
 equal certainty, that " Abraham " does not mean a person, but a 
 myth, symbolizing a "high estate with a large family; 1 1 that 
 " Israel" means no actual personage at all, but only a mythical, 
 abstract, " gymnastic superiority, 1 1 and that Moses is merely an 
 allegorical condensation " drawn out " of the nebulous myths of 
 the Nile. Practically, therefore, the theory of the sinfulness of 
 slavery is a denial of the perfection and purity of the Scripture 
 ethics, as the consistent abolitionists. admit in demanding "an anti- 
 slavery Bible and an anti-slavery God." How can Christian men 
 reconcile it to their conscience to ally themselves thus with men 
 whose open and direct declarations or indirect insinuations all 
 alike go to undermine the foundations of the popular faith in the 
 Scriptures ? 
 
 As to the second of these three propositions: That, though 
 recognized in Scripture, and, abstractly, not contrary to ethical 
 right, slavery is yet, practically, a bad social and political economy, 
 so hostile to the interests of society at large as to be out of the 
 pale of the legal protection given to other rights of property ; 
 however that might be a valid reason for the faith and practice 
 hostile to slavery by the citizens of slaveholding States, indis 
 putably it cannot save citizens of other States and countries, who 
 labor to extirpate slavery and deprive masters of their property, 
 from the Scriptural denunciation against the " truce-breakers," 
 "covenant-breakers," and N " busy-bodies in other men s matters." 
 By what principle of gospel ethics are British and Northern anti- 
 slavery men responsible for the bad social and political economy 
 of other States and countries, and constituted judges and guardians, 
 not only of their own, but of other people s social and political 
 system? By what ethical principle will they justify against the 
 charge of organized theft and robbery the movements for depriv 
 ing other men of that property which has been originally pur 
 chased from their own British and Northern fathers, recognized 
 as their lawful property by written and unwritten British cove 
 nants for three hundred years, and by the express stipulation of the 
 National covenant between the States ? Even granting that this 
 property has not been justly acquired, does that authorize stealing 
 it from those that hold it ? Unnumbered millions of property in 
 London, Boston, and New York, have been acquired by unfair and 
 unjust means. Is it any the less stealing or robbery to take it 
 from the present holders, by fraud or violence ? No thoughtful 
 man need wonder at the proofs of the alarming increase of crimes 
 against property, and the diminution of reverence for the sacred- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 81 
 
 ness of property rights, which every day s account hrings to his ears 
 from Britain and America, who is familiar with the teaching and 
 practice of anti-slavery philanthropy, "falsely so called," for thirty 
 years past ; and who reflects for a moment on its inevitable tend 
 encies to subvert, in the popular mind, that reverence for the 
 rights of property, which God has made of importance enough to 
 be inculcated by the solemn sanctions of His law. The contempt 
 for rights of property by known knaves and sharpers, has com 
 paratively little evil influence on the popular mind. But contempt 
 for -property rights under the guise of relitnon and philanthropy 
 pious thievery and robbery who shall estimate its power of 
 evil ? 
 
 It is, manifestly, too late now, in the 19th century, after three 
 hundred years of solemn covenant guarantees, in every form, to 
 property rights in slaves, to raise the issue of right of possession 
 on the score of bad social economy, or on any other plea of want 
 of just title. It is barred by a statute of limitation, even in a 
 court of conscience. If not, it would be well for those who 
 have found the flaw in the title to the slave property, that they look 
 well into their own land titles. For it may well be doubted whether 
 any land title in Britain, or, more especially, in America, can af 
 ford to trace its pedigree, under the law of entail, by which the 
 new ethics tries the slave titles. It would surely be a curious out 
 working of a system of ethical heraldry that would doom men to 
 be virtually denounced as " Knan-stealers," by the children of " slave 
 pirates" and "land pirates." If the title to slaves, derived by 
 purchase from lawful slave-traders of Boston and Liverpool, one 
 hundred years ago, or from "the Royal Sovereign Queen Anne," 
 and her lawfully organized co-partners in the slave trade, one 
 hundred and sixty years ago, is not as good a title to slaves, as 
 most people have to their lands ; then, certainly, the grandchildren 
 of neither the British nor New England vendors are the parties 
 to raise the question of title, or, indeed, to have much to say of 
 the bad social economy that the purchase of the slaves brought 
 with it. But the whole argument, when sifted, will be found to 
 be a mere " refuge of lies," behind which those would give their 
 conscience shelter who shudder to stand out boldly with such aa 
 directly impeach the ethical perfection of the Scriptures. 
 
 It is probably the difficulty of maintaining either of these two 
 propositions the first, because of too much conscience ; the second, 
 for wantoflogical solidity that has driven Christian men, who?e 
 reverence for the Scriptures is yet unimpaired, to adopt the third 
 proposition, and assert that the slavery recognized in the Bible 
 was in principle different, and, ethically, contrary to the present 
 system in the Southern States that, therefore, they may con 
 sistently enough admit the ethical propriety of the former, while 
 denouncing the latter as wicked. 
 4* 
 
32 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 Now, in regard to the Mosaic, as compared with the American 
 code, since that may be tested by the ordinary reader of the Bible 
 for himself, after what has been already said in the foregoing dis 
 course and notes, nothing more need be said here. But in regard 
 to the system of slavery, under which our Saviour and His 
 Apostles preached the gospel, and which they tolerated in their 
 Church, it may be important to give the ordinary reader a more 
 distinct impression than can be gathered directly from the New 
 Testament records. Besides, as this is the last refuge of defence 
 to that small section of anti-slaveryism which reverences the Scrip 
 tures, and therefore is a point upon which the people are assidu 
 ously led astray, the author has made some examination of this 
 point with a view to ascertain, if possible, not only the general 
 principles of the Roman slave code, as gathered into the revised 
 code of the empire, from the enactments of the previous one thou 
 sand years, by the lawyers of Justinian, A. D. 580, but also the 
 actual current slavery enactments cotemporary with the preach 
 ing of Jesus and His Apostles. Fortunately, he has been enabled 
 to consult the recent very remarkable work of the German jurist, 
 Haenel, entitled, " Corpus Legnm ab Imperatoribus Romanis lata- 
 rum." In this work are collected, with amazing labor from 
 jurists, historians, philosophers, poets, critics, Greek and Latin all 
 that is extant concerning the legal enactments and decisions, on all 
 subjects, of the emperors, from Augustus Caesar forward. Here, 
 arranged according to the year, are legal enactments and decisions 
 on all sorts of subjects, by the emperors and senators cotemporary 
 with Jesus and the Apostles ; and from the same pages which re 
 cord the legal enactments referred to in the New Testament as 
 the taxing and census of the empire, by "decree of Caesar 
 Augustus ; " the arrangements of the provinces under Archelaus 
 and Herod ; the re-arrangement under Pilate, Agrippa, Felix ; the 
 proscriptions and restorations to favor of the Jewish religion, &c., 
 & c>? one i s enabled to gather constantly recurring enactments 
 modifying, limiting, interpreting the slave code of the empire. So 
 that here the author had the living spirit of the slave system 
 under which Christ and the Apostles preached, to compare with 
 the living spirit of the slave code under which he has. during all 
 his ministry, preached the gospel. 
 
 For the information of plain English readers of the New Testa 
 ment, the following summary is presented of the slave code, arid 
 its spirit, under which the Saviour and his Apostles lived and 
 preached, gathered, first, from the general summary views of the 
 ancient laws of the Roman empire in the code of Justinian, and 
 secondly, from Haenel, the actual enactments on the subject during 
 the first sixty-eight years of the Christian era. 
 
 It is necessary to premise, however, in order to enable the 
 reader to understand the citations, that the following were among 
 
OX SLAVERY. 83 
 
 the very peculiar features of the Roman political and civil law. 
 First, that until an age subsequent to the Apostles, and indeed un 
 til the privileges of Roman citizenship ceased to be regarded as 
 of any value, the Roman citizenship was a membership in a curi 
 ous political close corporation, guarded as jealously as modern 
 privileges of nobility, and its privileges conferred only by some 
 form of public act. Secondly, that the citizen s children were 
 held as his property, becoming free citizens only by Irs death or 
 by formal act of emancipation-- his wife bearing legally the same 
 sta .us as his daughter. Thirdly, that theoretically every citizen 
 at his death must by his testament leave some one as his " heir" 
 to represent his "persona " in the civil society. Hence he usually 
 named several persons to be his " heir," each following one to be 
 come such, in case of the refusal of his predecessor, and naming at 
 last one of his slaves to be what was called his " haeres neces- 
 sarius," or necessary heir, who, in case the heirship was refused, 
 by reason of his insolvency or other cause, should sell out the es 
 tate for the benefit of creditors in his own name, to save disgrace 
 to the name of his master. Hence this frequent allusion to slaves 
 as "heir" in the clas>ics. Fourthly, that the spirit of the Roman 
 law was utterly averse to the acting of one freeman as attorney 
 for anothei. Hence the son or the slave of the citizen usually 
 acted for him in every business transaction to which he could not 
 give personal attention. 
 
 Some of the general principles of the slave code as it existed 
 for a thousand years previously are thus set forth in the Justinian 
 code : 
 
 "Slavery is an institution of the law of nations, by which one 
 roan is made the property of another, contrary to natural right 
 (natural law having before been defined as l that law which na 
 ture teaches to all animals such as matrimonial union, the rear 
 ing of children, &c.). 
 
 " Slaves are called servi because commanders used, rather than 
 kill their captives, 1 o sell them, and thereby (servare) to preserve them. 
 
 "Slaves are either born or become such. Born such from 
 mothers which are our bond-maids. They become such by cap 
 tivity, or by the civil law. (Just. lust. Lib. 1, Tit. 3 : 2, 3, 4.) 
 
 "It is not the privilege of every master to manumit as he 
 pleases, for a manumission in defraud of creditors is void. 
 
 "A master who is insolvent, however, may by his last will and 
 testament, ins itute a slave to be heir, with his liberty, so that, as a 
 freeman, he may become his only and necessary heir, in case there 
 is no oilier heir appointed in his will, or because the person ap 
 pointed from any cause does not become his heir that he may 
 satisfy the creditors, or if not, that the creditors might sell the 
 goods of the estate in the name of the slave, so as to prevent the de 
 ceased suffering disgrace. (Just. Inst. Lib. 1, Tit. 6:1.) 
 
84 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 " Slaves are in the po\ver of masters, wjiich power is derived 
 from the law of nations ; for, among all nations, we mar observe 
 how power of life and death over slaves has been vested in masters ; 
 and everything acquired by the slave is acquired for his master. 
 
 " But, at the present day, none of our subjects may use unre 
 stricted violence toward their slaves, &c. (Just. Inst. Lib. 1 Tit. 
 8: 1-2.) 
 
 "A slave derives from the persona of his master the power of 
 making a stipulation. 
 
 " Whether a slave stipulate for his master, or for himself, or for 
 his fellow slave, or without naming any person, he always acquires 
 for Ms master. It is the same with children in the power of their 
 father, in all cases in which they acquire for him. (Just. Inst. 
 Lib. 3, Tit. 17.) 
 
 "For the slave who is in the power of any one, cannot, of him 
 self, have anything as of bis own. (Inst. Just. Lib. 2, Tit. 9: 3.) 
 
 " The power which we have over our children is peculiar to 
 Roman citizens. 
 
 " The child born to you and your wife is in your power ; and 
 so likewise, the child born of your son, &c. (Just. Inst. Lib. 1, 
 Tit. 9.) 
 
 " Children cease to be under the power of their parent by eman 
 cipation. Formerly, this was done by imaginary sales, &c. (Just. 
 Inst. Lib. 1, Tit. 12.) 
 
 Such, then, were some of the points in the theory of the Ro 
 man slave code. Turning now to the collections of Haenel, we 
 find the following enactments and decisions, under that system, 
 as part of the living laic, cotemporary with Christ and his 
 apostles. 
 
 In the fourth year after the birth of Christ, the senate enacted 
 the Lex Aelia Sentia, which contained the following provisions: 
 
 1. "That no citizen should emancipate slaves in fraud of cred 
 itors, and the emancipation of an insolvent is void, except in the 
 case of his necessary heir. 
 
 2. " That no master under twenty years of age should eman 
 cipate, except by judgment of the Concilium (composed of five 
 senators and as many knights at Rome, or twenty rccvperatorcs in 
 the provinces) that he had legitimate reason for emancipating as, 
 that the slave w r as his former tutor, nurse, &c., or a maid-servant 
 to be married within six months. 
 
 3. "Nor should any slave under thirty years of nge be eman 
 cipated by any one, except upon the judgment of the Confiilium. 
 
 4. " That a slave who, by reason of crimes, had been put in 
 chains by his master, or branded with any disgraceful mark, should, 
 if afterward emancipated, be put upon the lowest grade of freed- 
 men, having merely personal freedom from the master till death, 
 when the property of this freed man should revert to his master. 
 
OST SLAVERY. 85 
 
 111 the year A. D. 8, the Lex Furia Caninia was enacted, " re 
 stricting the power of emancipating:, by last will and testament, to 
 one half of his slaves, if a man had from two to ten ; one third, if 
 from ten to thirty; one fourth, if from thirty to one hundred; and 
 one fifth, if from one hundred to live hundred; but in no case to 
 emancipate more than one hundred." 
 
 In the year A. D. 9 was enacted the Lex Papia Poppaa, 
 " sanctioning the marriage of any one below senatorial rank with 
 a freedwoman." 
 
 In the year A. D. 18 was enacted the Lex Lunia Norland, u en 
 larging the privileges of the lower class of the emancipated, allow 
 ing them to trade and marry with Romans or Latins ; but leaving 
 them still incompetent to devise property, and still securing their 
 property to their master, at their death." 
 
 In the 34th year of Christ, the year before Paul s conver 
 sion, Tiberius Caesar decided the celebrated case in equity, which 
 affirmed the principle that when a testator, by mistake, thought 
 a slave free, and instituted him his heir, naming another slave as 
 his ; nec3ssary heir," and the masters of both slaves claimed the 
 estate, it should be divided between them. 
 
 In A. D. 40, the year of the conversion of Cornelius the centu 
 rion, under the Emperor Caligula, it was enacted that slaves privy to 
 high crime on the part of their masters, might become informants 
 against them. 
 
 In A. D. 42, it was enacted ; that the children of a manumit- 
 tor, not expressly disinherited, should tnke the estate of an eman 
 cipated slave of the class of l Latins, in preference to any stranger 
 whom the manumittor may have made his heir." 
 
 In A. D. 46, the year of Paul s preaching at Antioch and Lys- 
 tra, it was enacted that u a patron who had manumitted a slave, 
 may assign the right to inherit the slave s property to any one 
 of the manumittor s children, thereby really substituting his child 
 as patron of the freedman, and recognizing the fact that the con 
 tingent interest in an emancipated slave s property was a property 
 that could be devised." 
 
 In A. D. 47 was enacted the edict of Claudius that "sick 
 slaves, neglected by their masters, should become free, in case of 
 recovery from sickness." 
 
 Also, kl that the Roman frceborn woman, cohabiting with a 
 slave, should, on prosecution of the slave s master, be reduced also 
 to the condition of his slave." 
 
 In A. D. 57, the year in which Paul resolved on a journey to 
 Rome, it was enacted that, " in case of the murder of a master by 
 his slaves, even those slaves who were found to have been manu 
 mitted by his will, should be held liable to suffer with his other 
 slaves." 
 
 Also, " that, in case a slave, after purchase, became liable to 
 
86 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 punishment for crime, the vendor should pay back his price to the 
 purchaser, that the senate may not seem to have done wrong to 
 the purchaser." 
 
 In A. D. 68, among the Emperor Galba s reforms of the abuses 
 under Nero, was the edict that u slaves who, in Nero s time, had 
 treated their masters injuriously, should be delivered up to their 
 masters for punishment." 
 
 This review covers the whole period from the birth of our Sa 
 viour to the death of the Apostle Paul. It is presumed that in 
 view of all these citations, no one will dare assert that the system 
 of slavery which, it has been shown, was tolerated by the Sa 
 viour, and in the Apostolic Church, was essentially different from, 
 and especially more in accordance with, ethical right, than the 
 modern system of the Southern States. It was after tlie era of 
 the Apostles, under the Emperors Hadrian (A, D. 138), Antoninus 
 Pius (A. D. 155), and Justinian (A. D. 525), that those ameliorations 
 of the code and restrictions of the rights of masters occurred, which 
 have been borrowed from the Justinian code by the modern slave 
 codes. And what is remarkable and most significant to the American 
 statesman of this day is, that cotemporaneously with the general ad 
 mission of emancipated slaves, of all grades, to the privileges of 
 Roman citizenship, was the general indifference and contempt for 
 that privilege, which for a thousand years had been held precious, 
 and which, even so late as the Apostle Paul s day, was deemed an 
 inestimable boon. u They have beaten us openly, being Eomans," 
 was the significant statement which caused these persecutors to 
 tremble. 
 
 In the comparative view of the three codes, in a previous brief 
 note, the author could speak only from general personal knowl 
 edge of the American slave codes. That statement, however. was 
 subsequently submitted, first, to one of the most eminent lawyers 
 of a slave-holding State, who affirmed that it was far within the 
 true limits in stating the " personal " rights of the slave, which, 
 saving the right of the master to restrain him, are the same as a 
 freeman ; and afterward was submitted to a Judge of the Supreme 
 Court of a slave-holding State, from whose answer the author 
 takes the liberty of making the following extract : 
 
 , March llth, 1865. 
 
 " In regard to the American Code respecting the personal rights of 
 slaves in the Southern States, your note says it agrees with the Mosaic in 
 treating the murder of a slave the same as any other murder, and with the 
 Justinian, in causing the slave of a cruel master to be sold to another mas 
 ter, and in making cruelty to slaves an indictable offence. 
 
 " The law of Kentucky is accurately stated, except in reference to the 
 sale of a slave because of "cruelty by the owner. In such cases, the slave 
 
ON SLAVERY. 87 
 
 is taken from the cruel master, by order of some court of competent juris 
 diction, and hired to another person in the same county ; and such person 
 is required to give bond, not only for the value of the service, but also for 
 the humane treatment of the slave, and that he will not permit the owner 
 to have him, without leave of the court. This inaccuracy is, however, too 
 slight to deserve notice, for, in point of law, the slave during the term of 
 hire, is the property of the hirer, who is, for the period, a purchaser. 
 What is said in your note in regard to the appointment of counsel for 
 slaves suing for freedom in our courts, is every word true. And you might 
 have added that the same protection is extended to them in felonies and 
 other offences, that the highest citizen receives. This rule is universal 
 throughout the South. Indeed it has been said by eminent Judges in the 
 South, and by the profession elsewhere, that slaves stand far better 
 chance for exemption from punishment for crime, in the slave States, than 
 white men. 
 
 " A slave who had poisoned her mistress, a few years ago, received 
 three new trials in the Supreme Court of Kentucky, because of technical 
 errors committed by the Judge. The prosecution said it was impossible to 
 hang her, unless the circuit judge would die or resign, or the law giving a 
 right of appeal in such cases was abolished. 
 
 " The cases from Alabama, and the Caroliuas, Georgia, &c., show the 
 most remarkable indulgence to slaves charged with killing their masters ; 
 and establishing the principle that a slave has a right to slay his own 
 master to protect his life. All these cases are to be found in Wharton s 
 Criminal Law of America, a book published in Philadelphia, by an eminent 
 lawyer, and equally prominent as a fanatic in politics." 
 
 With, his statement of facts, illustrative of the general prin 
 ciples and spirit of the modern as compared with that Roman 
 slave code tolerated in the New Testament Church, the author is 
 content to leave this subterfuge of admitting the ethical propriety 
 of the New Testament slavery, and yet denouncing as the "sum 
 of all villanies " the American slavery, to the candid judgment 
 of conscientious men. That the system now denounced is even 
 more humane in spirit, more protective of the "personal" rights 
 of the slave, more restrictive of the power of the master, less 
 liable to abuse, and actually far less abused, than that which 
 Apostles bore with ami enjoined cheerful submission to, no man 
 but an ignorant and reckless charlatan, or an intentional deceiver 
 of the people, will venture to deny. How, then, is it possible to 
 indorse the teachings and practices of the anti-slavery philanthro- 
 pism, and maintain long an humble reverence for the Divine 
 authority of the Scriptures, which teach us an ethics diametrically 
 the contrary, and enjoin directly the contrary practice ? 
 
 It may be asked now, why have not these views of Scripture 
 and these arguments been more pressed upon public attention 
 before while the public opinion was forming to mould it pro- 
 perly ar/1 mrr no->v, wlr.- the general j udgment is made up ? TI> 
 
88 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 answer is very easy. These views and arguments were urged ; 
 and the inevitable consequences of the anti-slavery movement, in 
 bringing the church to the verge of utter apostasy, as well as the 
 state to the verge of utter ruin, were* pressed long ago. But then 
 the force of them could not be appreciated by the people, because 
 the reasonings must be so purely abstract and the consequences de 
 duced from them seemingly such mere conjectural forebodings of 
 evil, that the people would not accept them as practical truths. 
 What is actual, in the way of danger, alone can impress the mul 
 titude. The fatal errors cannot be appreciated till their terrible 
 results are worked out. " Truth seen too late " has ever been the 
 curse of the church and the world. Just as the naturalists tell 
 us of the formation of those coral reefs in the depths of the ocean 
 by the countless myriads of insect creatures, whose work is going 
 on silently and far out of sight beneath the surface, as mighty 
 vessels sail over and over the accustomed highway ; but slowly 
 and surely the submerged wall rises toward the surface, unob 
 served and uncared for by the navigators, till some noble vessel, 
 richly freighted, dashing through stormy billows, strikes, and 
 perishes upon its rugged top. So error works, once its founda 
 tions are laid in the depths of society. Slowly but surely the 
 millions of infected minds work far below the surface ; nor can 
 the world be made to comprehend its nature and its danger by 
 mere abstract reasoning about it, till reaching near the surface, 
 when, in some social and political tempest, the church, social in 
 stitutions, political systems are dashed upon it, to be stranded or 
 wrecked. The people have felt the shocks, and are beginning to 
 awake to the actual dangers, from the anti-slavery error. The 
 " abstractionists " are now perceived to have been the most prac 
 tical of men. The people now can comprehend the danger, and 
 may now listen to the calm counsels of the Divine word. Perad- 
 venture, they may yet be saved from the impending ruin. Now, 
 therefore, is the time for good men to pray that God give us not 
 over in His anger; now too. while good men pray, let those who 
 have mnde the oracles of God their guide and their study, instead 
 of the "glittering generalities" of modern " illuminati," speak to 
 the people the word of truth and soberness, and with God s bless 
 ing they may return from their backsliding, and be healed.* 
 
 * Since this concluding note was written, the author has met with the elabo 
 rate volume of Thomas R. R. Cobb, Esq., of Georgia, "On the Law of Negro 
 Slavery in the United States," which, as a carefully prepared law volume, is, be 
 yond all question, thoroughly reliable as to its statements of what the Southern 
 slave code actually now is in fact. From this volume, as confirmatory of what he 
 has said of tho principles of the Southern codes on this subject, and as principles 
 to compare with the Mosaic and the Roman codes, the following views and state 
 ments are submitted for the information of candid readers : 
 
 " The law of nature, denying the power over life and limb, being part of the 
 law of every civilized state, such power never existed in any of the Uuited States, 
 
ON SLAVERY. 89 
 
 although it required municipal law to prescribe the punishment for such 
 offence*. 
 
 " In the Roman law a slave was a mere chattel. He was not recognized as a 
 person. But the negro slave in America, protected, as above stated, by munici pal 
 law, occupies the double character of a person and a property. Having now as 
 certained who are, and may be, slaves in America, a natural conclusion of our 
 subject suggests itself in considering the subject, first, AS A PERSON, and then AS 
 
 A PROPERTY. 
 
 " Of the three great absolute rights guaranteed to every citizen by the com 
 mon law viz., the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the 
 fht of private property the slave, in a state of pure, absolute slavery (to which 
 stem of pure and absolute slavery in Africa we have traced the origin of negro 
 
 right of private property the slave, in a state of pure, absolute slavery (to which 
 system of pure and absolute slavery in Africa we have traced the origin of ne 
 slavery), is wholly deprived, being, as to life, liberty and property, under 
 
 absolute, uncontrolled dominion of the master AH before remarked, 
 
 however, no such state of slavery exists in these States. And so modified is the 
 slavery here, partly by natural law, partly by express enactment, and more effectu 
 ally by the influence of civilization and Christian enlightenment, that it is fre 
 quently difficult to trace to any purely legal source many of those protecting bar 
 riers, the denial of whose existence would shock an enlightened public sense. 
 
 " Statute law has done much to relieve the slave from the absolute dominion, 
 and the master from the perilous power, more especially as regards the first great 
 right of personal security. In all the slave-holding States, the homicide of a slave is 
 held to be murder, and in most of them h:is been so expressly declared by law. (See 
 Rev. Code N. Car. 192. Statutes at Large S. Car. vol. 6, p. 158, New Digest 
 (Cobb) Geo. 785, 792. Laws of Alabama (1823), p. 639. Hutchinson s Code of 
 Mississippi, 519. Civil Code ol Louisiana, Art. 192. Rev. Code of Missouri, 
 chap. 47, sec. 8. Laws of Tennessee (Caruthers & Nicholas), 676. Laws of Texas, 
 (Hartley), 76. Statutes of Arkansas (1848), 48.) 
 
 " In Georgia, Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas, the provisions for the protec 
 tion of the person of the slave are inserted in their respective conxtitution*, thus 
 making it a part of the fundamental law, and beyond the reach of ordinary legis 
 lation. 
 
 " The law will not sanction any wanton violation of the person of the slave. 
 
 " If the life and limb of the slave is endangered, he may use sufficient force to 
 protect and defend himself, even if in so doing he kills tne aggressor. 
 
 "If the passions of the slave be excited into unlawful violence by the inhu 
 manity of his master or others, it will extenuate the oifence ; and if a homicide is 
 committed, the court will hold those circumstances as a rebuttal of the presump 
 tion of malice. 
 
 "When a slave is killed, the presumption of the law ie the same as in other 
 cases, that it was done maliciously." Cobb on the Law of Slavery, chap. 4, 84- 
 102. 
 
 " On account of the perfectly helpless condition of the slave when tho master 
 is placed in opposition to him, the courts should, and lo feel them 
 selves to be his guardian and protector, and will provide for the defence of his 
 rights as for a ward of the court. Hence, in some of the States, by statute the 
 court is required to assign him counsel learned in the law (sef Const. Arkansas, 
 Art. 4, 26 ; Missouri, Art. 3, 27 ; Rev. Stat. N. Car. 683 ; Rev. Code Va. 787) ; 
 and in others the very penalty affixed for cruel treatment by the master is the 
 emancipation of the slave (Civ. Code Louisiana, 192). In others the penalty is, in 
 part, the sale of the slave." Cobb, Law of Slavery, chap. 6, 104-105. 
 
 "A fair trial by jury is, in all grave cases, granted by the statutes of every 
 state. 
 
 "So also that principle of law which protects the citizen from being charged 
 twice criminally with the same offence throws its shield over the slave. 311. 
 
 " Capital offences are in most of the states tried before the highest county court, 
 and every guard thrown around the citizen, to protect his innocence, is thrown 
 around the slave." 310. 
 
 These citations from tho elaborate work of a Southern lawyer, who made 
 this brancli of law a special study, evince, abundantly, the principles and spirit of 
 the American slave code. The reader need only compare these principles with t ho-c 
 above cited from the Mosaic and Roman codes, to see how absurd the subterfuge 
 of pretending to admit the ethical rectitude of the toleration by inspired men of 
 the Mosaic and the Roman system of slavery, and at the same time to denounce 
 the ethical unrighteousness of the American system. It is manifest that the whole 
 epirit of the latter is favorable to any and every enlargement of tho slave s pt 
 
90 BIBLICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 Bonal rights, and restriction of the master s rights of property, that is at all consist 
 ent with the existence of the system itself. In common with the Mosaic and the 
 Roman code, it constitutes the slave the property of his master, and in that view 
 a chattel; while in advance of both the Mosaic and the Roman code in recognizing 
 the slave s personal rights as a man, it restricts the power of the master with 
 in the narrowest limits possible to any relation as master and slave at all. 
 
 It is plain, therefore, that to denounce the toleration of the slavery system of 
 the Southern States as an ethical unrighteousness, is to denounce the toleration of 
 slavery under the Mosaic and Roman systems as an ethical unrighteousness, and 
 thereby to deny the ethical perfection, and consequently the inspiration, of the 
 Scriptures.