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Page 38
Prior to the Mosaic dispensation, we read that Abraham held servants,
and that when Sarai treated her maid-servant unkindly, and she fled
from her face, the angel of the Lord said unto her, "Return to thy
mistress, and subject thyself under her hands." It is a notable fact,
that when the law was delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, he received
from the hands of God Almighty the following words: "In it," (the
Sabbath,) "thou shalt not do any work; thou, nor thy son, nor thy
daughter, thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant." It appears that the
Hebrews under peculiar circumstances became servants; and they were
released, or went free on the seventh year. If, however, they
preferred to remain with their masters, they then became servants
forever. The Hebrews were not suffered to enslave each other, except
for a limited time; their servants were taken from the heathen nations
around them. See Leviticus, 25th Chapter, from the 39th to the 55th
verses inclusive. Mention is frequently made of servants throughout
the Old Testament. Men women and children were held in bondage by
patriarchs, prophets, kings, and others. Moses delivered various laws
to the children of Israel, for the guidance and regulation of both
masters and servants. The holding of slaves is nowhere denounced as
sinful in the Old Testament; on the contrary, the Hebrews were
_permitted_ to buy slaves from the surrounding heathen nations.
Masters were commanded in the Old as well as in the New Testament, to
treat servants with kindness and humanity. Inhumanity, cruelty, and
oppression being every where forbidden in the Bible.
Having briefly alluded to the revealed will of God tinder the old
dispensation, we will now hastily glance at the position occupied by
Christ and his apostles in relation to this institution, and at their
instructions and admonitions to masters and servants.
It is clearly and indisputably true that their course with reference
to masters and servants, and the doctrine which they taught, give no
countenance to the wild and visionary views of the faction, known in
the United States by the name of abolitionists. I cannot, however,
stop here to draw fully the contrast, but it will be found in other
parts of this work.
Christ came to preach the gospel, and not abolitionism. Christ came to
preach peace, and not to foment strife. He and his apostles taught
servants to love and obey their masters, to serve them freely and
cheerfully, and not to run away from them. No! No! They never incited
servants to murder their masters, nor to murmur at their service; nor
yet to steal all they could get, and then leave then. But there are
those among us who have been guilty of all these things; and yet,
notwithstanding, they have the audacity to tell us, at least those who
have not embraced the views of Tom Paine, that they are Christians.
The more consistent ones, I believe, are open infidels.
Our Saviour said nothing that could be construed into a condemnation
of the institution of slavery; nor yet did he invest his apostles with
any authority to interfere with it. It was no part of their
commission. Our Saviour preached the gospel of peace and glad tidings
to the bond and the free, to masters and servants, to the poor, the
maimed, the halt and the blind. He intermeddled not with the civil
institutions of the day. On the contrary, he inculcated, both by
precept and example, submission to the ruling authorities. His
apostles followed in his footsteps, for they likewise enjoined on
their followers, to be subject to the higher powers--to those in
authority. They too, preached the gospel to the bond and the free,
masters and servants; and gathered them together in the same fold, as
brethren beloved--the sheep of one common shepherd, the servants of
one common master--members of the same church--partakers of the same
joys. But they did not in a solitary instance denounce the holding of
slaves as sinful; nor yet enjoin it on masters to release their
slaves. They carefully instructed both masters and servants in their
relative duties, as masters and servants; and otherwise left the
institution of slavery as they found it. How unlike the great apostles
of modern reform! Many will no doubt be ready to ask, if slavery is an
evil, why did not Christ and his apostles strike directly at its root,
and eradicate it from the face of the earth? Others may impiously ask
if it is an evil, why did the Almighty permit it, or why does he
tolerate it? The latter interrogatory is fully considered in the
preceding Chapter; but I will for obvious reasons make a few
additional remarks in reply. I again beg such persons to recollect
that we are but finite beings, and cannot, therefore, fully comprehend
the Infinite Mind; and that God is moreover the Supreme Ruler of the
universe, and that to Him belongs the right to govern and dispose of
the work of his own hands, as he, in his infinite wisdom, sees fit and
proper. We may observe His dealings with man, but we cannot in all
cases say why he acts thus; nor have we any right to ask him, why hast
them done thus? Slavery is a consequence of sin, and God, in his
providence, suffered it to fall on the posterity of Ham as a just and
righteous judgment--as a punishment suitable and proper--as a
punishment proportioned to the magnitude of the crime. The Divine
Being, no doubt, intended that the signal punishment inflicted on
Ham's posterity, should be a warning to all future generations, in all
future time, to warn them of the danger of violating his commands, and
deter them from the commission of crime. God, no doubt, willed that it
should continue until the crime was adequately punished, and future
generations warned of the danger of violating his laws; and his own
honor vindicated. We have reason to believe that God moreover willed,
that in his own good time, this evil, as well as all other evils
should be eradicated; and that the sons and daughters of Adam should
enjoy universal freedom; and that "righteousness should cover the
earth, as the waters cover the great deep." But God willed to bring
about this result, not only in his own time, but in his own way. By
his own appointed means as revealed in his Holy Word; and that we as
co-workers with him, in the accomplishment of his designs, should be
guided by his revealed will. So far as we deviate from the revealed
will of God in the use of means, we sin against him, and are destined
to disappointment. The Holy Scriptures justify the conclusion, that in
the process of time, the Almighty disposer of events, will root out
all evil from the face of the earth. "Every plant," (says Jesus
Christ,) "that my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted
up." But there are many evils so interwoven with the institutions of
society, that they can only be rooted out by the general spread of the
benign and purifying influences of the Gospel.
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