THE CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. GEO. D. ARMSTRONG, D.D., PASTOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CriURCH OF NORFOLK, VA. " Wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness." — 1 TiM. VI. 3. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER, 377 & 379 IJROxVDWAY. NORFOLK, VA. :— J. D. GHISELIN, Jr. 1857. Kntbukd according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S57, by CHARLES SCRIBNER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. B5 W. H. TINSON, KTKUKOTYPKR, 43 CKNTKii ST. »• CKAIGHiJ.vp, rUI.NTEK. P K E F A C E. With the hope of doing something toward bringing God's people, North and South, to " see eye to eye " on the much vexed question of Slavery, this little book has been written, and is now given to the public. Throughout, the author has kept these two ends in view : — 1. A faithful exhibition of the doctrine respecting Slavery/ taught br/ Christ and his Apostles. Nothing which they taught, has been inten- tionally omitted. No topic which they omitted — however essential to a full discussion of Slavery as a civil and political question, it may be — has been introduced. As the simplest method of exhibting the true meaning of the text, the author has given a paraphrase of each passage of Scripture particularly examined, and in connection with his own, the paraphrases of Whitby, McKnight, and Doddridge, ex- positors of established reputation both for piety and learning, that the reader may have at hand the means of determining whether or not he is putting forth novelties in the interpretation of God's Word : to- gether with such notes as seemed needful to illustrate and establish the paraphrase. 2. An examination of the ^^ false glosses,^^ as the author thinks them. IV PREFACE. which Dr. Barnes has put upon these passages hi his "iVb^es." Dr. Barnes' Notes are the only exposition of Scripture, in common circu- lation in our country, in which the attempt has been made, systema- tically, to "wrest the Scriptures" respecting Slavery; and on this account, they are thus singled out for examination. Occasionally, quotations are made from Dr. B.'s " Scriptural Views of Slavery," and his " Church and Slavery," for the purpose of showing how he him- self would develop the doctrine laid down in his Notes. "God's word is truth," and, as truth, will ere long govern the world. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PRESOMPTIVE EVIDENCB, § 1. Preliminary Statements. — Slave-holding not in any Catalogue of Sins or " Offences " given us in the New Testament, § 2. These Catalogues full and minute, § 8. New Testament written in Slave-holding States, § 4. Nature of Slavery in Christ's day, § 5. Often referred to by Christ and his Apostles, CHAPTER II, APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 6. DOULOS, . c , 18 7. Slave-holders received and retained in the Church. — Eph. VI. 9 ; Col. IV. 1 ; 1 Tim. VI. 2 ; Phil. I. 2., 21 8. Case of Onesimus.— Phil. 10-19, . 88 CHAPTER III. APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 9. Duties of Masters and Slaves taught as Christian Duties. — Eph. VI. 5-9 Col. III. 22-25, IV. 1 ; 1 Tim. VI. 1, 2 ; Titus II. 9, 10; 1 Pet. II. 18, 19, 10. The Doctrine of Christ. —1 Tim. VI. 3, 11. Slavery a Matter of Little Moment.— Gal. III. 28 ; 1 Cor. XII. 18 ; Col, III. 11; 1 Cor. VII. 20, 21, ........ C5 VI CONTENTS. qHAPTER IV. APOSTOLIC INJUNCTIOH. PAfJB 12. Doctrine to be taught in the Church.— 1 Tim. YI. 4, 5 ; Titus II. 9, 10, 15, 75 13. "Blasphemies," 82 114. "Logomachies." — 1. " Mere Property." 2. "A Chattel, a Thing." 3. " Unrequited Labor." 4. " Theft." 5. " Exclusion from the Pulpit." 86 CHAPTER V. NATURK AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. § 15. Paul's Definition of Slavery 102 § 16. Bible Theory of the Origin of Slavery, 110 § IT. Counter-arguments, 114 CHAPTER VL RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. § IS. The Discipline of the Church, < . . IIT § 19. The Teaching of the Church, , . 122 § 20. Church and State, 124 CONCLUSION. God's Work in God's Way, 181 THE enmsTiAN doctrine of slavery. GHAPTEE I. PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. § 1. Preliminary Statements. ''The Church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its officers are his servants, bound to exe- cute his will. Its doctrines are his teachings, which he as a prophet has given from God. Its discipline is his law, which he as a king has ordained." "The power of the Church accordingly, is only ministerial and declarative. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is her rule of faith and practice. She can announce what it teaches ; enjoin what it com- mands ; prohibit what it condemns ; and enforce her testimonies by spiritual sanctions. Beyond the Bible she can never rightfully go, and apart from the Bible 8 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. she can never rightfully speak. ' To the law and to the testimony,' and to them alone, she must always appeal ; and when they are silent, it is her duty to put her hand upon her lips." — Synod of South Caro- lina, 1848. "What do Christ and his Aposties — commissioned by him to complete the sacred canon, and perfect the organization of his Church — teach respecting slavery, and the relation in which the Church stands to that institution ? We reply — They teach that slave-holding is not a sin in the sight of God, and is not to be accounted an ''offence^'' by his Church. Having a regard to the distinction between slavery and the incidental evils which may attach to it in any particular country or age, as fundamental to their doctrine ; and carefully defining slavery itself; they direct that the Church, both by her teaching and her discipline, shall labor to remove the incidental evil ; and this in a way which they distinctly point out : — And, that, beyond this, the whole subject shall be left to be regulated by the State, as other civil institutions are, under the wholesome influence of God's f)rovidence, and his gospel truth faithfully exhibited by the Church. The evidence that this answer is according to the Word of God, we now proceed to set before the reader. PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE, 9 Presumptive Evidence. Slave-holding does not appear in any Catalogue OF Slns or Disciplinable Offences given us in THE Kew TeSTAjVIENT. This fact, which none will call in question, is pre- sumptive proof that neither Christ nor his Apostles regarded slave-holding as a sin or an " offence." That we may give to this presumption its proper weight, we must take account of such facts as the following : § 2. First. — The Cciialogues of Siiis and Discip- linable Offences^ given us m the New Testa- ment^ are numerous^ and i?i soine instances., extended and mimde. In illustration of this statement, let the reader take such as these : — " Being filled with all unrighteous- ness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malicious- ness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malig- nity ; wdiisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despite- ful ; proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobe- dient to parents, withont understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, un- merciful."— Eom. I. 29-31. "Now tlie works of 1* 10 THE CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. the flesli are manifest, which are these ; adultery, for- nication, uncleanness, lascivioiisness, idolatry, witch- craft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedi- tions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, re- vellings, and such like." — Gal. Y. 19-21. See also Matt. XY. 19 ; Mark. YII. 21, 22 ; 1 Cor. Y. 11, YI. 9, 10 ; Eph. Y. 5 ; Col. III. 8, 9 ; J Tim. I. 9, 10 ; 2 Tim. III. 2, 3, 4 ; Eev. XXI. 8 XXII. 15. § 3. Second. All the looks of the New Testament were written in slave-holding states^ and were originally addressed to jpersons and churches in slaveholding states : One of them — the epis- tle to Philemon — is addressed to a, slave- holder. Christ and his Apostles lived, and labored, and founded the Christian Church, in the midst of slave- holding communities. This, the New Testament itself, as well as the concurrent testimony of all his- tory, places beyond reasonable question. Slavery was expressly authorized by Moses' Law. " Both thy hond-men and thy lond-maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you ; of them shall ye buy hond-men and hond- maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and pkp:sumptive evidence. 11 of their families tnat are with you, which they begat in your Land : and they shall be your possessions^'' (i. e., your property.) "And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you^ to inherit them for a possession, they shall he your hondmen for- ever.'''' — Lev. XXY. 44-46. The number of slaves in Judea, in the days of Clirist and his Apostles, we have no means of determining with certainty. In Greece. — " When Demetrius the Phalerian was governor of Attica, the number of citizens in that state was 21 thousand ; the number of foreigners, 10 thousand ; and the number of slaves, 400 thousand."— Potter'^s Gr. Ant. I. 9. And Gibbon estimates the number of slaves in the Roman Empire, in the days of Claudius — the emperor contemporary with our Lord — at no less than 60 million. — Gibhonh Rome^ Yol. I., p. 26. § 4. Thikd. The condition of slaves i7i Judea, in our Lord's day, was no hetter than it now is in our Southern states, whilst in all other countries it was greatly worse. In J'udea. — " Both the food and clothing of slaves were of the poorest description. All their earnings went to their masters. The maid-servants were em- ployed in domestic concerns, though not unfrequently 12 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF 6LAVERY. tliey were compelled to engage in those duties which, from their nature, were more befitting the other sex." "They commonly had the consent of their masters to marry, or rather, to connect themselves with a woman in that way which is denominated by a Latin law term, contuljernium/^ The children -that pro- ceeded from this sort of marriages, w^ere the property not of the parents, but of their owners." — JahtyJs ArchcBology^ pp. ISO, 181. In Home.- — " For slaves, the lash was the common punishment ; but for certain crimes they used to be branded in the forehead, and sometimes were forced to carry a piece of wood round their necks, wherever they went. When slaves were beaten, they used to be suspended with a weight tied to their feet, that they might not move them. When punished capi- tally, they were commonly crucified. If a master of a family was slain in his own house, and the murderer not discovered, all his domestic slaves were liable to be put to death." " There was a continual market for slaves at Rome. The seller was bound to promise for the soundness of his slaves, and not to conceal their faults. Hence * " Contubernium was the matrimony of slaves, a permitted cohabi- tation; not partaking of lawful marriage, which they could not con- tract." — Cooper's Justinian^ p. 420. PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 13 they were commonly exposed to sale naked; and they carried a scroll hanging at their necks, on which their good and bad qualities were specified." — Adam^s Bom. Ant, pp. 48, 51. In Greece. — "The condition of slaves in Greece appears to have been much the same as at Rome." — Potter's Gr. Ant, I. 10.''^ § 5. Fourth. Slavery, and the relations which it establishes are freqitently spoken of, and yet more frequently referred to hy Christ and his Apostles. The passages in which they expressly treat of slavery will be examined hereafter. As instances of the incidental reference to it, on the part of Christ, * As Rome, in our Lord's day, had extended her dominion over the then known world, her law was the supreme law in every country in which the Apostles preached and planted a Christian church. Under the Roman civil law, "slaves were held j'^ro nullis: ino mor- tuis : pro quadrupedihus ; nay, were in a much worse state than any cattle whatsoever. They had no head in the state, no name, title, or register ; they were not capable of being injured : nor could they take by purchase or descent ; they had no heirs, and therefore could make no will ; they were not entitled to the rights and considerations of matrimony, and therefore had no relief in case of adultery : nor were they proper objects of cognation or affinity, but of quasi-cogna- tion only ; they could be sold, ti'ansferred, or pawned, as goods or 14: thp: christian doctkine of slavery. we may cite — Luke XVII. 7-1 0, the parable of the unprofitable servant {doulos, see § 6) ; Luke XX. 9-18, the parable of the wicked husbandmen, who maltreat, first their lord's servant {doulos) and then his son ; Jno. YIIL 3i, 35, " Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin, and the servant {doulos) abideth not in the house for ever, but the son abideth ever;"'^ Jno. XY. 15, "Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant {doidos) knoweth not what his lord doeth, but I have called you friends." Evident reference to slavery on the part of the Apostles we have in 1 Cor. YI. 20, YII. 22. " St. Paul, in reference to the custom of purchasing slaves, on whose head a price was then fixed, just as upon any other commodity, and who, when bought, were personal estate, for goods they were, and as such they were esteemed ; they might be tortured for evidence, punished at the discretion of their lord, and even put to death by his authority ; together with many other civilincapacities which I have not room to enumerate." — Taylor'' s Mm. of Civil Law, quoted in Cooper's Justinian, p. 411. * " Here we have an illustration drawn from what is usual in com- mon hfe. The slave has no claim to remain continually in the same family ; but may, at the pleasure of his owner, be sold unto another. Not so the son ; he cannot be alienated from the f^imily. Thus it is with the servants of sin, who may, at any time, be excluded from God's house and favor, into outer darkness : whereas, those who have the liberty of sons of God will abide in it for ever." — Bloomfield's N. T, PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 15 the property of the purchaser, by a very beautiful and expressive similitude, rej)resents Christians as the servants {doidoi) of Christ. And in Gal. YI. 17, alluding to the signatures with which slaves in those days w^ere branded, writes : — ' From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.' " — Home's Introduction. With the Apostles the word servant (doidos) is a favorite word for setting forth the relation whicli they sus- tained to Christ, as persons entirely and for life devoted to his service, and bound to implicit obedi- ence. (See Eom. I. 1 ; 2 Pet. I. 1 ; Jude, 1.) But the most significant alhision to slavery — signi- ficant in so far as the point now^ under examination is concerned — is that contained in 1 Tim. I. 9, 10 : — '' Knowing this, that the law is not made for a " righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, " for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and " profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of " mothers, for man-slayers, for whoremongers, for '' them that defile themselves with mankind, for men- " STEALERS {andrapodlstais)^ for Hars, for perjured " persons, and if there be any other thing that is con- " trary to sound doctrine." On the w^ord andra^jodistais Bloomfield remarks : " Expositors are agreed that the word means kidnap- ping free persons to be sold as slaves, a crime uni- 16 THE CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. versally regarded as of tlie deepest dye, and always punished with death," — BloomfielcVs iT. T. And in the countries adjacent to that in which Timothy was when Paul wrote this epistle to him we have express testimony that kidnapping prevailed.* The distinction between slave-holding and kid- napping is one always made, in so far as we know, in the laws of slave-holding states. Under Moses' law slave-holding was expressly authorized, (Lev. XXY. 44-46, quoted in § 3,) whilst kidnapping was made a capital crime. "And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, (i. e. ' though he had not actually sold him ' — Bp. Patrick^ he shall surely be put to death."— Ex. XXI. 16. See also Deut. XXIY. T! Timothy, who "from a child had known the Holy Scriptures," — the Old Testament Scriptures, of course, for the New Testa- ment was not written in Timothy's childhood — must have been familiar with this distinction ; and when Paul writes to him, and, in giving a catalogue of sins to be condemned, mentions " man-stealing " among crimes of the deepest dye, whilst in the same * "The Thcssalians, according to Aristophanes, were notorious for stealing persons of ingenuous birth and education, and selling them as slaves. But if any person was convicted of having betrayed a freeman, he was severely punished by Solon's laws." — Pottefs Gr. Ant. /. 10. PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 17 epistle he requires him to teach slaves to obey their masters, and this the more heartily when the masters are Christian men, and to withdraw himself from any who should teach a different doctrine, (see 1 Tim. YI. 1-5,) the idea would be suggested inevit- ably that the distinction made in Moses' law con- tinued under the Gospel dispensation. CHAPTER II. APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. "Brethren, be followers together of me, and " mark them which walk so as you have us for an " example."— Phil. III. 17. § 6. DouLos. There are several Greek words used by the sacred writers which, in onr English version of the E"ew Testament, are alike translated servant. One of them, the word Doulos, it will be necessary to examine, as preparatory to an intelligent decision of the question, What do Christ and his Apostles teach respecting slavery ? " Doulos — A hondman^ slave^ servant, pr. by birth. In a family, the doulos was one bound to serve — a slave — and was the property of his master, ' a living possession,' as Aristotle calls him. The doulos, there- fore, was never a hh'ed servant, the latter being 18 APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 19 called misthios and mistJiotos^ q. v. See Potter's Gr. Ant. Adam's Rom. Ant., Dictionary of Ant, art. servus.^^ — RoMnsori's N'. T. Lexicon. " Doulos^ from deo^ to bind, means a 'bondman or slave^ as distinguished from a liired servant, who was called misthios and misthotos.^'' — Hodge on Ejyh. VI. 5. And Dr. Hodge adds : — " It is evident, both from the meaning of the terms here used and from the known historical fact that slavery prevailed throughout the Roman empire during the apostolic age, that this (i. e. Eph. YI. 5-9) and other passages of the IS'ew Testament refer to that institution." " The word doidos^ contracted for deolos^ was pro- perly an adjective, signifying hound; but, used substantively, denotes a hondrservant, usually for \iiQ:'—Bloo7nfield's JS'. T., Rom. I. 1. For the distinction between the word doulos and several other words, also translated servant in our English version, the reader can consult " Trenches Synonyms of the New Testament.^'' His definition of doulos is " one in a 'permanent relation of servitude to another P Dr. Barnes is one among the few writers who have called this definition of doulos in question ; with how little reason an examination of his own authority will show. The case, as stated by himself in his " Notes," is : — " The word {doulos) is that which is commonly 20 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. applied to a slave^ but it is so extensive in its signifi- cation as to be applicable to any species of servitude, whether voluntary or involuntary. There is nothing in the word itself which essentially limits it to slavery. Examine Matt. XIII. 27, XX. 27 ; Mark, X. 44 ; Luke, II. 29 ; Jno. XY. 15 ; Acts, II. 18, lY. 29, XYL 17 ; Kom. 1. 1 ; 2 Cor. lY. 6 ; Jude, 1 ; Eev. I. 1, II. 20, YII. Zy— Barnes' Notes, 1 Tim. VI. 1. Of these fourteen instances thus quoted by Barnes, six— viz.. Acts, lY. 29, XYl. 17 ; Rom. 1. 1 ; 2 Cor. lY. 5 ; Jude, 1 ; Rev. 1. 1 — are instances in which it is used figuratively, and applied to the Apostles, either by themselves or others, for the purpose of setting forth the fact that they were entirely and for life devoted to God's service, (see § 5,) and the chief beauty of the figure is destroyed if we give the word doulos any other than what Dr. P>. admits to be its '*' common" meaning. Four are instances in which it is applied in the same way to God's people — viz., Luke, IL 29 ; Acts, II. 18 ; Rev. 11. 20, YII. 3. Matt. XIII. 27, in the parable of the tares, the mean- ing of the word doulos is positively determined to be slave^ by the use of the corresponding term despotas in the same sentence. For Jno. XY. 15, see § 5. On Matt. XX. 27 :— " But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister (diahonos) ; APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 21 and whosoever will be chief among yon, let him be yonr servant" {doidos). — And Mark, X. 44, is the parallel record of the same words. — Bloomfield remarks : — " Diakonos — doulos. There is properly a difference between these terms; the former signify- ing a servant like om^ footman or valet, and nsnally a freeman ; the latter, a servant for all work, and also a slaveP For an illnstration of this difference in the meaning of the two words, as beautifully illustrated in the parable of the marriage-supper, the reader can consult '' Trench's Syn, of JST. TP All these in- stances cited by Dr. Barnes, when examined, instead of setting aside, do but establish the meaning assigned to the word doulos by all our lexicographers and commentators of reputation. § 7. II. The Apostles Received Slave-Holdees into THE CheISTIAN ChUECH, AND CONTINUED THEM THEEEIN, without giving any intimation EITHER AT THE TIME OF THEIE RECEPTION, OR AfTEE- WAEDS, THAT SlAVE-HoLDING WAS A SiN BEFOEE God, OR TO be accounted an offence by the Church. Proof.— ^A. VL 9, Col. IV. 1, 1 Tun. VI. 2, Philemon I. 2. 22 the chkistian doctrine of slavery. Eph. YI. 9. " And jQ masters, do the same things imto them, " forbearing threatening ; knowing that your master " also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of persons " with him." Paraphrase. — And ye masters, who are saints and fait /if id in Christ Jesus, (') {See I. 1.,) treat your slaves {douloi, Y. 5) in the same Christian spirit in which I have enjoined it upon them that they treat you, forbearing threatening : knowing that your mas- ter also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of per- sons with him.''^ E'oTEs.(') — Masters who are saints and faithful in Christ Jesus. The titles, Agioi, saints, and JPistoi, faithfuls or believers, are the titles by which the mem- bers of the Christian Church were commonly desig- nated in the Apostle's days. The name Christian, so generally used in later times, had not then become a common designation : it is used but three times in the l^ew Testament. Some of the epistles are addressed * To avoid distracting the I'cader's attention, we shall give a para- phrase of the passages of Scripture quoted in proof, in so far only as tbey bear upon the point under examination at the time they are quoted. APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 23 to " the clmrches^'' e. g. Gal. and 1 and 2 Thess. ; others to ''Hlie saints ^'^ or ^Hhe saints and faithful^ or 'believers^'' e. g. Kom. 1 and 2 Cor., and this epistle to the Ephesians. The propriety of the para- phrase will appear, (1) From the address of the epistle: — "Panl, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, by tlie will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus,^^ I. 1 — (2) From the motive with which. Panl enforces obedience to his injunction : — " knowing that ye also have a master in heaven ; neither is there respect of persons with him ;" a motive which might be urged with great effect in addressing a Christian master ; but which it would be folly to present to a heathen. Col. IY. 1. " Masters, give unto your servants that which is "just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master " in heaven." Paraphrase. — Ye masters (who are saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colosse, I. 2), give unto your slaves (douloi) that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a master in heaven. 1. Tm. YI. 2. "And they that have believing masters, let them 24 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. " not despise them, because tliey are brethren ; but " rather do them service, because they are faithful and " beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach " and exhort." Paraphrase. — And they (i. e. such slaves, doulo% V. 1) that have believing {pistons) masters, let them not despise them, because they are their hrethren (^) \adelj)hoi) in Christ, but the rather do them service, because they who are partakers in the benefits of their labor, are faithful {pistoi) and beloved (') {agapatoi) of God. These things teach in the Church, and exhort Christian slaves to observe them, as " whole- some words, even the words of the Lord Jesus Christ," V. 3.* ITotes.Q — "The titles, hrethren, saints, elect, he- loved, sons of God, etc., have ever been applied as * " And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are advanced to be brethren, and so, equal to them in Christ ; but rather, let them do them sem'ice, because they are faithful (i. e., of the household of faith) and beloved of God, par- takers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort." — Whitby. " And those Christian slaves who have believing masters, let them not despise them, fancying that they are their equals, because they are their brethren in Christ ; for though all Christians are equal as to religious privileges, slaves are inferior to their masters in station. Wherefore, let them serve their masters more diligently, because they APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 25 the special prerogative of believers, or professing Christians." — Coleman^ s Ancient Christianity ^ p. 110. Philemon, I. 2. " Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our "brother, unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and " fellow-laborer ; and to our beloved Apphia, and " Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the Church in "thy house." Paeaphkase. — Paul, a prisoner for the cause of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto our dearly beloved Philemon, our fellow-minister {suner- gos) in the Church; (') and to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the Church who enjoy the benefit of their service, are believers, and beloved of God. These things teach ; and exhort the brethren to practise them." — McKnight. " And as for those servants who are so happy as to have believing masters, let them not presume upon that account to despise them because they are brethren, and with respect to sacred privileges equal in Christ their common Lord ; but let them rather serve them with so much the greater care, tenderness, and respect, because they are faithful and beloved, and partakers with them of the great and glorious benefit which the Gospel brings to all its faithful professors, of whatever rank or profession in life. These things which I have been mentioning, take care, Timothy, to teach and exhort thine hearers always to maintain a due regard to them." — Doddridge, 9 26 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF SLAVERY. which statedly assembles for GocVs worshvp in thy house. (') * Notes. (*) — Our fellow-minister {sunergos) in the Church. ^^ Sunergos. A co-worker, fellow-laborer, helper. In IST. T. spoken only of a co-worker, helper in the Christian work, i. e. of Christian teachers." — Robinson^ N. T. Lexicon. " Literally, helper, (in the cause of the Gospel,) whether as a Deacon, or Preacher to the congregation assembling in his house, is uncertain." — BloomfielcPs JV. T. "Archippus, * " Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, write unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow-laborer ; and to our beloved Apphia, and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in thy house." — Whitby. *'Paul, confined with a chain for preaching Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, and Timothy, our brother-minister, to Philemon the beloved of us both, and our fellow-laborer in the Gospel, and to Apphia, the beloved of all who know her, and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to that part of the Church at Colosse which is in thy house." — McKniglit. " Paul, a well-known prisoner in the cause of Christ Jesus, and Tim- othy, a brother, not unknown, join in their salutations to Philemon our beloved friend, and pious fellow-laborer in the work of the Gos- pel of our blessed Redeemer, and one of the Pastors of the Colossian Church ; and we also address them to Apphia, his pious consort, and to his associate in the ministry, Archippus, our fellow-soldier in that holy warfare in which we are engaged ; and the little ciiurch of Christians that is in thine house." — Doddridge. APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 27 appears from Col. lY. IT, to have been a Pastor of the Church of Colosse. The title of fellow-lab oi'ter, given Philemon, makes it probable that he was his colleague in the ministry. He seems from several hints given in the Epistle, to have been a person of distinction : particularly from the mention made of the Church in his house, (ver. 2,) and his liberal con- tribution to the relief of the saints, (ver. 5, 7 ;) and the general strain of the letter shows, that the Apostle held him in very high esteem, and looked upon him as one of the great supports of religion in that society." — Doddridge^ Int. to Pliil. Q — The ChivTch which statedly assembles for God^s worship in thy house. On a similar phrase in Kom. XYI. 5, Dr. Hodge remarks : — " These words, ' the church that is in their house,'' are understood by many of the Greek and modern commentators, to mean their Christian family / so Calvin, Flatt, Koppe, Tholuck, &q. The most common and natu- ral interpretation is, ' the church which is accustomed to assemble in their house.' " — Hodge on Romans. Remaeks. First. — In these several passages we find an inspired Apostle, giving to slave-holders the titles, ^' Saints., Faithful in Christ Je-w^s, Believers, Breth- 28 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE OP SLAVERY. ren^ Beloved^ Dearly Beloved^''' all the titles by which members of the Chm-ch were* commonly designated iu the Apostles' day ; and enjoining npon them their duties as masters by Christian motives — motives which it would have been folly to have addressed to heathen men. And in the case of Philemon, addres- sino^ a slave-holder as a Deacon or Pastor in the Christian Church, and along with his salutation to him, sending like salvation "to the Church in his house." Could we have clearer evidence than this that the Apostles received slave-holders into the Church, and continued them therein, seeing in their slave-holding notlvng inconsistent with " having a good conscience before God" and " good standing" in the Church ? Second. In his Notes on 1 Tim. VI. 2, Dr. Barnes writes : — " Nor is it fairly to be inferred from this passage that he (Paul) meant to teach that they (masters) might continue this (i. e. slave-holding) and yet be entitled to all the respect and confidence due to the Christian name, or be regarded as maintaining a good standing in the Church. Whatever may be true on these points, the passage before us only proves that Paul considered that a man who was a slave-holder might be converted, and be spoken of as a ' believer,' or a Christian. Many have been con- verted in similar circumstances, as many have in the APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 29 practice of all other kinds of iniquity. What was their duty after their conversion was another ques- tion." And in the summary of the truth taught in the whole passage, (ver. 1-5,) he adds : — " It does not teach that a man can be a Christian and continue to hold others in bondage, whatever may be true on that point. It does not teach that he ought to be considered as maintaining a 'good standing' in the Church if he continues to be a slave-holder." The italics in these quotations are Dr. B.'s own. The insinuation, or rather the clear implication contained in these paragraphs is that the " believing masters," here spoken of, were slave-holders only at the time of their conversion, and were required to free their slaves before they could be permitfed " to maintain a good standing in the Church." What are the facts in this case, and those of the passages similar in import in the epistles to the Ephe- sians, Colossians, and to Philemon, Dr. Barnes him- self being our witness-in-chief? 1. In the case of 1 Tim. VI. 2. — Paul founds a church at Ephesus, a.d. 55, (see Barnes' Int. to 1 Tim.,) and that " the full power of the Gospel should be tried there," "^ that this may be a model Church, he sj)ends * " The Apostle, therefore, seems to have been anxious that the full power of the Gospel should be tried thei'e, and that Ephesus 30 THE CHEISTIAN DOCTKINE OF SLAVERY. three whole years with it, " teaching publicly and from house to house, keeping back nothing that was profitable to them" (Acts, XX. 20). At the end of this time he is driven away from Ephesus, but leaves Timothy, who " as a son with the father, has served with him in the Gospel," (Phil. 11. 22), in charge. Shortly after this, (a.d. 58 or 59 — Barnes,) he writes his First Epistle to Timothy, yet laboring in Ephesus. Three years then, at the least, after this model Church is founded by Paul, there are slave-holders in it, and this fact is well known to Paul, and in writing to Timothy, their pastor, Paul speaks of them as " believers, brethren, faithful, and beloved^ And so far is he from intimating that they ought to be excluded from the Church, or that they were not " entitled to all the respect and confidence due to the Christian name," he requires Timothy to teach their slaves, also members of the same Church, that they serve them (i. e. their " believing masters") the more faithfully, and treat them with the more respect, because they are their " brethren — beloved of God." 2. In the case of Eph. VI. 9. — From four to seven years after, Paul wrote his First Epistle to Timothy, should become as impoi'tant as a centre of influence in the Christian world as it had been in paganism and civil affairs." — Barnes' Int. to Ephesians. APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 31 he writes an epistle to the Church at Ephesiis, writes it during his second imprisonment at Rome, and shortly before his martyrdom. (See Barnes' Int. to Eph.) Slave-holders are still in this model Church, and Paul is cognizant of this fact. But instead of intimating that they ought not to " be regarded as maintaining a good standing in the Church," he specially addresses masters and slaves, as classes of Church members, along with husbands and wives, parents and children, giving them the titles " Saints and Faithful in Christ Jesus," and repeats to Christ- ian slaves the same direction, in substance, resj^ecting their conduct which he had before given by Timothy. 3. In the case of Col. IV. 1. — Paul, in conjunction with Silas and Timothy, found a Church at Colosse, A.D. 52, 53. Some ten to thirteen years afterwards, he writes an epistle to this Church. (See Barnes' Int. to Col.) In this epistle he addresses slave-holders as " saints and faithful brethren in Christ," and carefully prescribes the relative duties of masters and slaves as Christian men, and enfbrces these his directions by Christian motives; but says not one word about emancipation. 4. I?i the case of Phil, I. 2. — At the same time at which Paul writes his epistle to the Church at Colosse, and by the same person, (see Barnes' Int. to Col.,) he addresses an epistle to Philemon, his ^' dearly be- 33 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. loved sunergos^^ ('' deacon or preacher" — Bloomfield, " one of the pastors of the church at Colosse" — Dod- dridge)^ sending back to him Onesimus, a shive, wlio had some time before run away from him, and who, whilst a fugitive in Rome, had been hopefully con- verted through Paul's instrumentality. If we admit, as Dr. B. contends, that Onesimus was sent back in accordance with his own desire, and even that Paul did reguest his master to grant him his freedom, it will not affect the case, in so far as the point now under examination is concerned. It is clear, then, that ten years, at the least, after the Church at Colosse was founded by Paul it had slave-holders, not as worthy members only, but a slave-holding deacon or pastor also, one of Paul's own converts (ver. 19), and one of such standing in the Church that a part of that Church was accustomed to meet for divine worship in his house. Paul knows all this, and he writes to this Philemon an epistle of which slave-holding furnishes the'occasion, not only without any intimation that his slave-holding was inconsistent with his "good standing" in the Church, but he writes in terms which, as an honest man, he could not have used had he thought Philemon an unworthy office-bearer in the Church. Is all this reconcilable with the idea that a slave- holder, though " he might be converted — as many APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 33 have been in the practice of all other ki^ds of ini- quity — yet could not maintain a good standiug " in the Clu'istian Church in the Apostles' day ? § 8. Paul sent eack a Fiioitive Slave, after the Slave's hopeful Conversion, to his Christian Master aoain, and assigns as his reason for so DOING THAT MaSTEr's RIGHT TO THE SERVICES OP HIS Slave. . Proof. — Philemon, 10-19. "I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I " have begotten in my bonds ; which in times past " was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee " and to me ; whom I have sent again ; thou there- " fore receive him, that is mine own bowels : whom I " would have retained with me, that in thy stead he " might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the " Gosj)el. But without thy mind would I do nothing, *' that thy benefit should not be as it were of neces- " sity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore " departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive " him for ever ; not now as a servant, but above a '' sei vant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but " how much more unto thee both in the flesh and in 2* 34: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. " the Lord ? If tlioii count me therefore a partner, " receive hmi as myself. If he hath wronged thee, " or oweth thee anght, put that on mine account ; I, " Paul, have written it with mine own hand, I will "repay it; albeit, I do not say to thee how thou " owest unto me even thine own self besides." Paraphrase. — I Paul, beseech thee (Philemon) for my son in the faith, Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds. In time past, thcuigh called Onesimus, {^Tofitahle^ he has been an unprofitable slave to thee ; but now that he has been truly converted, as I believe, I have confidence in him, that he will en- deavor to serve thee " not with eye service, but in singleness of heart," (Eph. YI. 5, 6,) doing it "heart- ily," (Col. III. 23,) as he hath served me since his con- version.Q) As his sj>iritual father and instructor in Christian ditty, I have sent him hack to thee / i^) and I entreat thee to receive him as one that is mine own bowels. Had I regarded mine own wishes, and not thy -rights, I would have kept him with me, that in thy stead he might have rendered me that service in mine imprisonment which I know thou wouldst most cheerfully have done hadst thou been in Rome. But that I might not even seem to compel thee, even where I had a right to expect assistance from thee, 1 would do nothing of the hind without thine express consent. i^) APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 35 Who sliall say but tliat, in God's providence, Onesi- mus escaped from thee for a season, that thou sJiouldst have him again for Ufe.i^) Receive him back into thy family again, I beseech thee, not as a fugitive slave {doulos)^{^) to be regarded with suspi- cion and treated with severity ; but, even, as one better than an ordinary slave, (doulos,) a brother, especially dear to me, and, I doubt not, to become even more dear to thee, as a member of thy family, and of the Church worshipping in thy house. K thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. If, taking into account his former unprofitableness to thee, along with his diligent and willing service for the future, thou yet thinkest that he hath wronged thee in running away^i^) or in any way he hath be- come indebted to thee, put that to my account. I Paul have written this with mine own hand, I will repay it : not to say to thee, that as God made me the instrument in thine own conversion, thou owest thine own self to me.* * " I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten— i. e. converted to the faith — when I was in my bonds : which in time past was to thee an unprofitable servant, but now, if received, will be profitable to thee, and if sent back, to me : Whom I have sent again unto thee, he being in duty thine, and not to be employed by others, or detained without thy leave. Thou therefore receive him — him, I say — that is, mine ;Ow'n bowels, he being as dear to me as if he had 36 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. Notes. (^) — As Tie hath served me since his conversion. This is McKnight's paraphrase of "profitable to — me," and is the only sense which we can assign to proceeded from mine own bowels : whom I would willingly have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me being in the bonds of the Gospel. But without thy mind would I do nothing of this nature ; that thy benefit (or the advantage I received from him who is thy servant) should not be, on thy part, as it were a matter of necessity, because thou couldst not have him returned to thee, but willingly, by thine own grant. For perhaps he therefore departed from thee for a season, that thou shouldst receive him for ever — i. e., to serve thee for life. That thou shouldst receive him, I say, not now as a servant only, but above a servant, as being also in Christ a brother beloved, specially (or, particularly) to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord, i. e., as being of thy family and of thy faith. If thou count me therefore a partner in thy friendship, receive him as myself. If he have wronged thee in anything, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account : I Paul have written it with mine own hand, and so have entered into a solemn obUgation that I will repay it : albeit I do not say to thee, i. e., insist upon it, how thou owest unto me, by whom thou wast converted, even thine own self, or the well-being of thy soul, be- sides." — Whitby. " By all these considerations I beseech thee for my son, whom I begat in my bonds, and who on that account is very dear to me, even Onesimus, whom I acknowledge, formerly was to thee an unprofit- able slave, but now having embraced the Gospel, he will, by his faith ful, affectionate services, be very profitable to thee, even as he has been to me since his conversion. Him I have sent back to thee by his own desire. Do thou therefore receive him into thy family ; that is to say, receive one who is mine own bowels, my son, a part of me. APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. .' 37 the expression, without giving to the same word dif- ferent senses, as it stands connected with different parts of the same sentence : " to thee," and " to me." Being so useful to me, I wish to detain him with myself, that, in thy stead, he might have performed those offices to me in these bonds of the Gospel, which thou'Thyself wouldst have performed if thou hadst been at Kome. But, whatever title I had to his services, on account of what thou owest to me as an Apostle of Christ suffering for he Gospel, without knowing thy mind, whose slave he is, I would do nothing to encourage him to stay with me ; that thy good deed iu pardoning him might not be as extorted, but as proceeding from thine own good will. To mitigate thy resentment, consider, that perhaps also for this reason he was separated from thee for a little while, that thou mightest have him thy slave for life ; no longer as a slave only but above a slave ; even a beloved Christian brother ; especially to me who know his worth, and have been indebted to him for his services. How much more to thee, as a brother, both by nation and by rehgion, who will serve thee with more understanding, fideUty, and affection, than before? If thou then hold me as a partaker of thy affection, give him the same reception which thou wouldst give to myself. And if he hath injured thee anything by running away, or owetli thee in the way of borrowing, place it all to my account. And to entitle thee to payment, I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay thee all. This I have done, that in urging thee to pardon Onesimus I may not say to thee, thou owest me even thine own self besides." — McKnight. "I entreat thee concerning a certain son of mine, whom I have begotten to Christ in my bonds ; and whom I hope thou wilt, upon that account, be inclined to favor, knowing how dear he must be to me, considered as a soul which God hath given me at such a sea* 38 ThlE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF SLAVERY. (') — As Ms spiritual father^ and instruGtor in Christian duty^ I have sent him hack to thee. Of the word anapempo, here rendered " sent again," Robin- son as thia. And it is no other than thy servant Onesimus ; who indeed, if I may so allude to his name, did not formerly answer to it," (Onesimus, signifies joro^^. — Note.) " for 'he was once unprofitable to thee, negligent of thy business, and so conscious of thy displeasure that he fled from it. But he now is, and I trust will be, profitable both to thee and to me, so as daily to give increasing satisfaction to us both : whom, how agreeable and useful soever he might have been to me here, I have sent back to thee again : do thou therefore receive him with readiness and affection. Receive him did I say ? nay rather receive, as it were, my own bowels ; a person whom I so tenderly love, that he may seem, as it were, to carry the heart of Paul along with him wherever he goes. Whom indeed I was desirous to have kept near me, that he might have officiated for thee, and in thy stead attended upon me in the bonds I suffer for the sake of the Gospel : for I do thee, Philemon, the justice to believe, thou wouldst have found a pious pleasure in every ministration of this kind, if thou wert near me. But I would do nothing in this affair without thy express consent, that thy benefit might not seem extorted by necessity, but appear a voluntary act. I therefore return him to thee by the first opportunity ; for perhaps he was separated from thee for a while, by the permission of Px-ovidence to this very end, that thou mightest receive him and enjoy him for ever ; that he might not only be dear and useful to thee, during all the remainder of his life, as a servant, whose ear, is as it were, bored to the door of thine house, (to allude to the Hebrew custom, Ex. XXI. 6,) but that he might indeed be a source of eternal dehght to thee, in that infinitely better world, where all distinctions between masters and their slaves shall cease, APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 39 son gives this definition : " 1. 7b send ujp before a higher tribunal, to remit. — Luke XXIII. 7, 15. 2. To send hack again. — Luke XXIII. 11 ; I*hilemon 11." " As soon as he (Pilate) knew that he (Jesus) belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod. For I (Pilate) sent you to him (Herod) ; and lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him," — even that world of complete liberty and everlasting friendship. In the mean time, receive him not now as a fugitive slave, to be long frowned upon, and kept at a distance, for his former faults ; nor treat him merely as a common servant, but as above a servant, as standing in another, a much more dear and honorable relation, a beloved brother, especially to me, as having been for some time a very use- ful attendant upon me in my afflictions ; but how much more so to thee, to whom he belongs both in the flesh and in the Lord, as thou hast so long known him, and wilt have the pleasure of discerning more particularly how happy a change Christianity hath made in his temper and character ? If therefore, thou esteem me as a friend and a companion in Christ, I beseech thee to receive him as thou wouldst myself, if I could have the satisfaction of making thee a visit in per son. If he have injured thee in any pecuniary matter, or is indebted to thee in consequence of any former extravagances and follies, (of which divine grace hath, now, I hope, made him truly sensible,) as far as it has been the case, charge it to my account. I Paul have written it with my own hand, and do hereby, as it were, give thee legal security for it. I will pay it again upon demand, as far as my little substance will go. Not to say to thee thus, as I was the happy instrument of thy conversion to Christ, thou owest even thine own self to me.'' — Doddridge. 40 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. Lnke XXIII. 7, 15. " And (Herocl) sent him (Jesus) again to Pilate."— Luke XXIII. 11. New Testa- ment usage, then, requires us to understand Paul, when he says, " I have sent again," to mean, that he had used some authority in returning Onesimus to his master. And as an Apostle indignantly repels the idea of acting "as a Lord in God's heritage," the only consistent interpretation of the expression is that presented in the paraphrase, " As his spiritual father and instructor in Christian duty." (^) — T would do notJmig of the hind without thine exjyress consent. When Paul writes, "But without thy mind would I do nothing," we must understand him as referring to what he has written in the verse preceding. (*) — Shouldest receive him again for life. For this use of the expression {aionios) ^'for ever^' as applied to slaves, see Sep. Ex. XXL 5, 6 : — " And if the ser- vant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free; then his master shall bring him unto the judges : he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post : and his master shall bore his ear throui^^h with an awl ; and he shall serve him for ever.^'' See also Deut. XY. IT ; Lev. XXY. 46. (') — Not as a fugitive slave. So Doddridge para- phrases the clause, and we think, correctly ; since APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 41 Paul is here speaking immediately of Onesimus' reception by liis master, and not of his subsequent relation to him. And we know, from other sources, that the treatment commonly received by returned fugitives was very severe. (^) — Hath wronged thee in running away. " Many are of opinion that Onesimus robbed his master before he ran off. But of this there is no evidence ; unless we think the expression, ver. 18, '^ If he have injured thee in anything^ contain an insinuation of this sort. But the Apostle might mean, injured thee by the loss of his services. The words will fairly bear this inter- pretation. Why then, as Lardner observes, impute crimes to men without proof?" — M'^KnigMs Int. to Phil. " From these words, many infer that Onesi- mus had been guilty of robbery as well as desertion. But the recent commentators seem right in thinking that the terms will scarcely authorize us to suppose this. Adikase may apply to the having wronged his master by depriving him of his services during his absence, or perhaps by idleness before." — Bloom- field's N. T. 42 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. REMARKS. First. — In his preface to this Epistle to Philemon, M'Knight writes : — " What the Apostle wrote to Philemon on this occasion is highly worthy of our notice : namely, that although he had great need of an affectionate and honest servant to minister to him in his bonds, such as Onesimus was, who had expressed a great inclination to stay with him ; and althougli if Onesimus had remained with him, he would only have discharged the duty which Phile- mon himself owed to his spiritual father, yet the Apostle will by no means detain Onesimus without Philemon's leave, 'because it belonged to him to dispose of his oion slave in the way he thought jprojper. {See also the Paraphrases of Whithy and Doddridge on this poiiit.) Such was the Apostle's regard to justice and the rights of mankind." And subsequently, when setting forth the uses to be made of this epistle, he writes : — " Christianity makes no alteration in men's political state. Onesimus, the slave, did not become a freeman by embracing Christianity, but was still obliged to be Philemon's slave for ever, unless his master gave him his freedom. Slaves should not he tahen^ nor detained from their masters^ without their master'^ s consent P {See Paraphrases of Whithy and Doddridge on this point also.) APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 43 Second. — Dr. Barnes, in his notes on the expression, " whom I have sent again," (ver. 12,) makes four remarks, to which we Tvill briefly turn the reader's attention. 1. "There is not the slightest evidence that he (Paul) compelled him (Onesimus), or even urged him to go. The language is just such as would have been used on the supposition either that he requested him to go and bear a letter to Colosse, or that Onesi- mus desired to go, and that Paul sent him agreeably to his request. Comp. Phil. II. 25. 'Yet I sup- posed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labor.' — Col. IV. 7, 8. ' All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithfal minister and fellow-servant in the Lord : whom I have sent unto you.' But Epaphroditus and Tychicus were not sent against their own will, nor is there any more reason to think that Onesimus was." — Barnes'' Notes. JSTot to dwell upon the fact that the Greek words translated sent in Phil. 11. 25, and Col. lY. 7, are not the same with that used in Philemon, 12, and there- fore cannot properly be appealed to in interpreting that word : We remark, in these instances, Ej)aphro- ditus and Tychicus were sent by Paul, the one to Philippi, the other to Colosse — in virtue of his Apos- tolic authority, as all commentators are agreed. Not 44 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. against their will, if they .were worthy Christian ministers, taught of the Spirit of God to submit themselves to one set over them in the Lord ; yet not, on that account, the less sent by Paul the Apostle, in virtue of that authority which Christ had conferred upon him in calling him to the Apostleship. 2. " Paul had no power to send Onesimus back to his master, unless he chose to go. He had no civil authority ; lie had no guard to accompany Jiim ; he could intrust him to no sheriff to convey him from place to place, and he had no means of controlling him, if lie chose to go to any other place than Colosse. He could indeed have sent him away from himself," (qy. 1st, How could he have sent him, see- ing he had no civil authority, guard or sheriff, to convey him? 2d, Could he not have sent him to Colosse in the same way ?) " he could have told him to go to Colosse ; but there his power ended. One- simus then could have gone where he pleased. But there is no evidence that Paul even told him to go to Colosse against his own inclination, or that he would have sent him away at all, unless he had himself requested it." — fames' Notes. The quibble involved in this note of Dr. B. is so evident as to need no comment from us. 3. " There may have been many reasons why APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 45 Onesimns desired to return to Colosse, and no one can prove that he did not express that desire to Paul, and that his sending him was not in conseqnence of such request. He may have been poor and a stran- ger in Rome, and may have been greatly disap- pointed in what he had expected to find there when he left Philemon, and may have desired to return to the comparative comforts of his former condition."— Barries' Notes, If this reason for Onesimns' return be admitted to be the true one, we remark, the whole transaction does very little credit either to him or to Paul as Christian men. The case, as Dr. B. presents it, is that of a man who, before his conversion, has over- reached himself in attempting to over-reach a Christ- ian brother; and who, after his conversion, takes advantage of his Christian profession to throw the bad bargain upon the hands of the Christian brother whom he had attempted to wrong. Dr. B. may believe this of an Apostle of Jesus, if he can ; for ourselves, we have far too much respect (to use no stronger term) for the memory both of Paul and his convert Onesimns to admit any such explanation of their conduct as this. 4. " It may be added, therefore, that this passage should not be adduced to justify any sort of influence over a run-away sla/ve to induce him to retu/rn to his 46 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF SLAVERY. former master. There is not the least evidence tliat this occurred in the case before us. If this instance is ever appealed to, it should be to justify what Paul did — and: nothing else.^'' — Barnes' Notes. If Paul did not " use any sort of infAience over Onesimus to induce him to return to his former master," what does he mean by writing ''whom I have sent again?" Even giving the word the most limited signification possible, it would certainly imply the use of some sort of influence. Dr. B. occasionally has fugitive slaves come to him, (see '' Scriptural Yiews of Slavery," p. 324), and of late years, he never " uses any sort of influence to induce them to return to their former masters." Supposing I should publish the statement — Dr. Barnes sends back to his master every fugitive slave that comes to him — would not Dr. B. cry out upon me as a slanderer ? But, writes Dr. B. : " There is no certain evidence that Onesimus was ever a slave at all." — Notes on ver. 16. " All that is stated of him in this epistle, would be met by the supposition that he was hound to Philemon, either by his parents or guardians. It is perhaps quite as common for apprentices to run away, as it is for slaves.^^ — Barnes^ Int. to Philemon. "We are surprised that Dr. B., having made such a pregnant discovery as this, makes so little use of it APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 47 in his after labors upon this epistle. Had he turned to Acts XYIII. 3, he might have read — " And because he (Paul) was of the same craft, he abode with them (Priscilla and Aquila) and wrought, for by their occupation they were tent-makersP I^ow, Philemon " maif^ have been a tent-maker also. "iTc? one can prove that he was notP And Paul, when he addresses him as his " fellow-worker {sunergos)^'' ver. 1, '^may''^ have meant fellow-worker at the tent- making business. And when he speaks of himself as Philemon's " partner," ver. 17, he " may " have meant his partner in the tent-making business. '''N'o one can prove that he was notT And One- simus, as Dr. B. suggests, " may " have been a mere apprentice, bound by his father or guardian to Phile- mon and Paul, tent-makers. " No one can jprove that he was notP And then : the whole transaction appears in an entirely new light. And no one will have a right to infer any thing at all respecting fugitive slaves, from this epistle to Philemon. Should Dr. B. feel inclined to consider this inter- pretation, with an eye to a future edition of his ^otes, we would suggest — 1. It is more ingenious — not to say ingenuous — than the remark that Paul could not have sent One- simus to Colosse, because he had "no guard or sheriff" at his disposal. 48 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 2. It is far less derogatory to the Ciiristian cliarac- ter, both of Paul and of Onesimus, than the reason Dr. B. assigns in his note 3d for Onesimus' return to his master. 3. It can be supported throughout by Dr. B.'s two favorite arguments — '' It may have heen^'' " No one can j^rove that it was not so " — and so, will form a homogeneous part of his J^otes on Philemon. 4. It disposes, at once, of the whole swarm of minor difficulties, springing up from every part of this epis- tle, which seems to have stung Dr. B. to temj^orary blindness. But enough of such notes as these. An ingenuous interpretation of Paul's words, '^ whom I have sent again^^'' ^^\\\ make them convey the idea, that Onesimus, after his conversion under Paul's teaching, " becomes sensible of his fault in running away from his master, and wishes to repair the injury by returning to him." — McKnight. And Paul, taking this same view of his past conduct and present duty, directs him to return. "We do not sup- pose that Onesinms returned against his will^ any more than Zaccheus, on his conversion, made restitu- tion of what he had before taken wrongfully, (see Luke XIX. 8,) against his will. In both instances alike, the Holy Spirit made the convert willing to repair any and every wrong done before conversion. APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 49 But that Paul, as liis instructor in Christian truth and duty, directed Onesimus to return to his former master, is clearly implied in his words — " whom I have sent again." CHAPTER III. APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. " When he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will ''guide you into all truth."— Jno. XYI. 13. § 9. The Apostles "repeatedly enjoin the relative Duties of Masters and Slaves, and enforce their Injunctions upon both alike, as Chris- tian Men, by Christian Motives ; uniformly treating the Evils which they sought to cor- rect AS incidental Evils, and not part and parcel of Slavery itself. Pkoof.— ^;A. VI. 5-9 ; Col III 22-25, IV. 1 ; 1 Tim. F7. 1, 2 ; Titus II 9, 10 ; 1 I'et. II 18, 19. Eph. YI. 5-9. " Servants (douloi) be obedient to those that are " your masters according to the flesh, with fear and "trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto 50 APOSTOLIC PKECEPT. 61 " Christ ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but " as the servants {douloi) of Christ, doing the will of " God from the heart ; with good-will doing service, " as to the Lord, and not to men : knowing that what- " soever good thing any man doeth, the same shall " he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or " free." " And ye masters, do the same things unto them, " forbearing tlireatening : knowing that your master " also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of per- " sons with him," Col. in. 22-25 ; lY. 1. " Servants {douloi) obey in all things your masters " according to the fleslT ; not with eye-service, as " men-pleasers ; but in singleness of heart, fearing " God ; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to " the Lord, and not unto men ; knowing that of the " Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance : " for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth " wrong, shall receive for the wrong which he hath " done ; and there is no respect of persons." " Masters, give unto your servants {douloi) that " which is just and equal ; knowing that ye also have " a master in heaven." 52 the christian doctrine of slavery. 1 Tim. YI. 1, 2. "Let as many servants {douloi) as are under tlie " yoke count tlieir own masters worthy of all honor, " that the name of God and his doctrine be not blas- " phemed. And they that have believing masters, " let them not despise them, because they are breth- " ren ; but rather do them service, because they are " faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." Titus II. 9, 10. " Exhort servants {douloi) to be obedient to their " own masters, and to please them well in all things ; " not answering again, not purloining, but showing all " good fidelity ; that they may adorn the doctrine of " God our Saviour in all things." Peter II. 18, 19. "Servants {piketaiv be subject to your masters " with all fear ; not only to the good and gentle, but " also to the froward ; for this is thankworthy, if a * " Oiketas. In the N. T. a domestic^ a servant. Luke XVI. 13 ; Acts X. 7 ; Rom. XIV. 4." — Eobhisoyis iV T. Lexicon. " Strictly, an inmate of one's house : but most usually, a house- slave^ menial.''^ — Liddell and Scott. APOSTOLIC PKECEPT. 53 " man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffer- " ing wrongfully." Instead of giving the reader a paraphrase of these several passages — and their meaning, in so far as it bears upon the point now under consideration, is so obvious as to render a paraphrase unnecessary — we give an admirable summary of the instruction they contain, in the words of Bishop "Wilson : " If the deepest student of Christian morals were to endeavor to point out the especial dangers to which servants are exposed, he could mention none so pro- minent as those named by our inspired Apostle. The experience of all ages agrees upon these matters. Eye-servants who watch the absence of their masters for indolence or negligence ; pert and fro ward ser- vants, who answer disrespectfully when rebuked ; dishonest servants, who, instead of guarding their master's house, food, provisions, stores, gardens, fur- niture, property, ' with all good fidelity,' ' purloin,' and give away to their companions whatever they can ; ill-instructed religious servants, who take liber- ties with their masters, if they are pious and devout persons ; lastly, hypocritical and disputatious servants, who abuse the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and dote about abstruse questions, which they cannot understand, and which do not concern their prac- 64: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. tical duties ; these are allowed by all to be the most unprofitable and disgraceful to the Gospel they pro- fess, of all kinds of persons in stations of dependence. " How precisely adapted to the dangers to which masters are exposed in the performance of their duties to their inferiors," are the instructions ad- dressed to them. " They are to give to their servants or slaves ' that which is just and equal ;' that measure of support and recompense for their labors, which their contract with them or the natural laws of God require ; that care of them in sickness ; that provision in old age ; that proportional reward for extraordi- nary fidelity and exertions ; in a word, all that con- siderate, reasonable, and affectionate attention, which they, in like circumstances, would wish their servants to render to them ; ' forbearing threatening,' and remembering that they also have a master in heaven ; and exercising, therefore, their authority with hu- manity and gentleness, not only without inflicting rigorous punishment, as it was too common for mas- ters to do, but also forbearing to menace and terrify their servants, or to express any haughty or excessive anger at them even when faulty. For though the law of man might give them great power, yet they were accountable to the great Lord and Master of all for their use of it ; who would deal with them accord- ing to their conduct to their inferiors, as well as APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 55 others ; and who expects his people to copy the ex- ample of his own divine mercy and leniency. " Tiie wisdom of the inspired Apostle in these directions is most obseryable. He enters not ab- stractedly upon the subject of slavery, in the existing state of the world, but requires implicit obedience from servants to their masters ; enjoining, at the same time, on the masters equity and mildness, and not the absolute manumission of their slaves. It was by working in this unobtrusive way — in inaking good husbands, good wives, good children, good ser- servants, good magistrates, good rulers, good sover- eigns — that Christianity was to produce its stupen- dous effects."— ^j?. Wilson on Col., pp. 340, 343. REMARKS. First. — In his Epistles to the Ephesians and Colos- sians, Paul treats of the relative duties of master and slave in immediate connection with those of husband and wife, parent and child ; in his Epistle to Titus, in very much the same connection, with the addition of rulers and subjects. And Peter treats of these duties in connection with those of husbands and wives, rulers and subjects. And let the reader remark, that in form, at least, Paul and Peter treat them all in the sam^ way. 56 THE CHKISTIAN DOOTKINE OF SLAVERY. In the Apostles' days, all these relations were greatly abused. The civil government under which they lived, and labored, and preached, and wrote, was a despotic government, and in its actual admi- nistration oppressive, and often exceedingly corrupt. JSTero was emperor throughout the greater part of Paul's ministry, and many of his epistles were written from a Roman prison, into which he had been unrighteously cast. Throughout the Roman empire, the wife, the child, and the slave were, in law as well as in fact, on very nearly the same level.* The Apostles found incidental evils, many and great, attaching to all those relations of life, and these were sanctioned by law. * The condition of the Child. — " A father, under the Roman law had the power of life and death over his children. He could not only expose them when infants, which cruel custom prevailed at Rome for many ages, as among other nations, but even when his children were grown up, he might imprison, scourge, send them bound into the country, and also put them to death by any punishment he pleased." — " A son could acquire no property but with the father's consent*; and what he did thus acquire was called his peciilium, as that of a slave. The condition of a son was in some respects harder than that of a slave. None of them became their own masters till the death of their father and grandfather." — Adani's Rom. Ant. p. 60. The condition of the Wife. — " A daughter by marriage passed from the power of her father under that of her husband. — " The woman was to the husband in the place of a daughter, and he to her as a father."— ^5?a»i's Rom. Ant., pp. 60, 441. ArOSTOLIC PHECEPT. . 57 Called, ill such circumstances, to preacli tlie Gos- pel, and to teach mankind righteousness, they did not shut their eyes to the abuses of these several institutions — civil government, marriage, the family, slavery ; nor do they affect an ignorance of them, but carefully distinguishing between the institutions them- selves and the abuses which had become attached to them, they set themselves to work with zeal and faithfulness — faithfulness at once to God and to man — to correct the abuses. With civil government, marriage, the family, and slavery they dealt in the same w^ay. All that was sinful, contrary to the laws of God, in each, as then actually existing, they clearly and unequivocally condemn ; and within the pale of the Church, by their authority as Apostles, and in the w^orld at large, through the influence of their teaching and example, they labored to remove. But they touch not the institutions themselves. They require subjects " to submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake ; whether it be to the king, as su- preme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers and for the praise of them that do well." " Wives to submit themselves to their own husbands, as unto the Lord," and husbands " to love their wives, even as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it." Children 3* 68 THE CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. " to obey their parents," and parents " to bring np their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Slaves " to be obedient to those who were their masters according to tlie flesh, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ," and masters '' to give unto their servants that w^hich was just and equal, know- ing that they also had a master in heaven." Thus the J sought to make good subjects, good wives, good husbands, good children, good parents, good slaves, good masters ; good^ in the Bible sense of the word good — that is, discharging all the duties growing out of their several relations as men and as Christ- ians. The condition of the wife in this our Christian land is not now what it was throughout the civilized world, both in law and in fact, at the time Christ- ianity was first preached among men. And it w^ould be easy to show that Christianity, applied to human life in the way in which the Apostles applied it, has wrought this change. That there are yet incidental evils attaching to the marriage relation ; that the husband often abuses the authority which belongs to him as a husband, and that these abuses are sanc- tioned by the laws of the land — the laws respecting property, for example — no one, we presume, will deny. That the industrious, pains-taking wife should be turned out of " house and home," and stripped APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 69 even of that which she has lierself earned, to pay the debts contracted by a profligate husband, is not an unknown event in any of our States. But will any God-fearing man, in his senses, on this account, denounce the marriage relation, and advocate the doctrine of the " Free-lovers ?" The condition of the child, in the United States, is very different from what it was in old Rome ; and Christianity has wrought, this change. And yet, in this Christian land, in spite of all the guards which the law has thrown around " the helplessness of childhood," and all the influence of the Gospel, direct and indirect, the authority of the father is often greatly abused. From time to time we read in the papers of fathers cruelly beating, starving, and even murdering their own children ; and this in every part of the land. Shall we therefore abolish the authority of the father, and introduce socialism, mak- ing children the immediate care of the community ? Ciin any Christian man believe that, in so doing, he would be doing either God or humanity a service ? The condition of the slave, in our country, is very different from what it was throughout the Roman empire in 'Paul's day. And this change also is one of the trophies of our heaven-descended Christianity. That there are incidental evils yet attaching to the institution, both in law and in fact, all will admit — 60 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. evils wliicli Christianity, working in God's appointed way, will ere long remove, we firmly believe. It has done a mighty work in days by-gone ; it has always worked well. All that has ev.er been done for the slave has been done throngh its agency ; and we are perfectly willing to trnst it for the future, believing, as we do, that the time v*^ill yet come when all men will see and acknowledge that in this, as in other matters, " the foolishness of God is wiser than man." Second. — Referring to the Scriptural injunctions addressed to slaves, and quoted at the head of this section. Dr. Barnes writes : — " But let not a master think, because a pious slave shows this spirit, that therefore the slave feels that the master is right in withholding his freedom ; nor let him suppose, be- cause religion requires the slave to be submissive and obedient, that therefore it approves of what the mas- ter does. It does this no more than it sanctions the conduct of Nero and Mary, because religion required the martyrs to be unresisting, and to allow themselves to be led to the stake. A conscientious slave may find happiness in submitting to God and doing his •will, just as a conscientious martyr may. But this does not sanction the wj-ong, either of the slave-owner or the persecutor." — Barnes' Notes^ E:ph. VI. 71. Supposing we admit the correctness of this view APOSTOLIC rHECEPT. 61 of tlie injunctions addressed to slaves, we must then interpret the corresponding injunctions addressed to masters, in immediate connection with these, upon the same principles. And Paul's words, in Eph. YI. 9, Col. lY. 1, would read somewhat in this way : — • "Saintly and faithful" ^ero, impale, crucify, cast to the wild beasts, if you please, the disciples of Jesus : but see to it, as you must answer to God for your conduct, that you " give unto them that which is just and equal " in this whole matter. And you. Bloody Mary, kindle the fires of Smithfield anew, and send your brethren in Jesus to the stake ; but, " beloved of God,'' burn these holy men with the same meek- ness and single-eye for God's glory with which they submit to b^ burned. §10. Paul declakes that his Doctrine respecting THE Duties of Slaves and Masters is whole- some doctrine, according to Godliness and ■ the Doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ. Proof.— 1 Tim, YL 1-3. " Let as many servants {doiiloi) as are under the " yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, *' that the name of God and of his doctrine be not 62 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. " blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, " let them not despise them, because thej are bre- " thren ; but rather do them service, because they " are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. " These things teach and exhort." 3. " If any man teach otherwise, and consent not " to wholesome words, even the words of the Lord "' Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is accord- " ing to godliness, he is proud," etc. Paraphrase of Yer. 3. — If any man teach that slaves ought not to count even unbelieving masters worthy of all honor, and to render to believing mas- ters the more cheerful and hearty service because they are believers, he teaches what is at variance with the doctrine which is according to godliness and wholesome words, even the expressed will of the Lord Jesus Christ. i^Y' * " If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, (Matt. XX. 27, He that would be first among you, let him be your servant, or servant of all — Mark, X. 44,) and to the doctrine which is according to godli- ness." — Whitby. " If any one teach differently, by affirming that, under the GrOi5i3el, slaves are not bound to serve their masters, but ought to be set free, and does not consent to the wholesome commandments which are APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 63 ]N"oTE.(^) — The, expressed will of the Lord Jesus Christ. " All tlie precepts wliicli the ^pestles de- livered by inspiration being precepts of Christ, there is no occasion to suppose that he referred to some precepts concerning slaves, which Christ, while on earth, delivered to his Apostles, and which, though not recorded by the Evangelists, were made known to Paul by revelation ;" or, to understand him as referring to such precepts as are actually recorded in the Gospels, but which do not directly refer to the case under consideration, as Whitby has done. Commissioned, as the Apostles were, to perfect the organization of the Christian Church, and complete the sacred cannon, and guided by " the Spirit of Jesus" into all truth, what they taught may, with strictest propriety, be spoken of as " the words of the our Lord Jesus Christ's, and to the doctrine of the Gospel, which in all points is conformable to true morality, he is," etc. — McKnigkt. " These things which I have been mentioning, take care, Timo- thy, to teach and exhort thine hearers always to maintain a duo regard to them. And if any one teach otherwise, if he attempt to broach principles contrary to these great maxims, and attend not to such sound and wholesome words, even to those of our Lord Jesus Christ, as these may with strict propriety be called, and which express the doctrine that is agreeable and subservient to the great cause of practical godUness, which it is the declared design of the Grospel to promote in the world, whatever fair show of simplicity and humiUty he may affect, he is certainly proud," etc. — Doddridge. 64 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTEINE OF SLAVEFwY. Lord Jesus Christ." This, Paul distinctly asserts in his first epistle to the Corinthians : " If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknow- ledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord." — 1 Cor. XIY. 37. Remarks. Paul's declaration in the passage under examina- tion, refers expressly to such as should teach false doctrine respecting the duties of slaves alone. Yet, upon fair principles of interpretation, it must be understood to include those also, if such there were, as taught false doctrine respecting the correlative duties of masters. The " doctrine which is according to godliness," teaches the slave to serve his master w^ith singleness of heart ;" and just as distinctly teaches the master to give unto the slave " that which is just and equal." Master and slave are alike the creatures of God, the objects of his care, the subjects of his government : and alike responsible to him for the discharge of the duties belonging to their several stations. APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 65 § 11. Paul treats the Distin-ctions which Slavery CREATES AS MatTERS OF VERY LITTLE IMPORTANCE in so far as the interests of the christian Life are concerned. V^ooY,— Gal. III. 28 ; 1 Cor. XII. 13 ; Col. III. 11 ; 1 Cor. VII 20, 21. Gal. III. 28. " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither " bond {doulos) nor free {eleuthereos)^ there is neither " male nor female ; for je are all one in Christ Jesus." 1. Cor. XII. 13. " For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one " body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we " be bond {douloi) or free {eleutheroi) ; and have been " all made to drink into one spirit." Col. III. 11. " Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circnm- " cision nor uncircumcision. Barbarian, Scythian, bond " {doulos) nor free (eleuthereos) : but Christ is all and " in all." 66 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTEINE OF SLAVERY. The common sentiment of these ^^assages of Scrip- ture is well expressed by Doddridge, in his para- phrase of the last quoted : " Thus you will indeed become genuine members of that blessed society where there is no distinction between men of differ- ent nations, education, or rank in life; where neither is any man rejected for being a Greek, nor accepted merely for being a Jew ; a society where he can claim nothing by virtue of circumcision, nor lose any- thing by uncircumcision ; where no Barbarians, or even Scythians, are treated with contempt for that want of learning and politeness which is to be found in the most remote nations ; or any slave trampled upon as unwortliy of notice, since he shares with others in the possession of that inestimable treasure, an immortal soul, and may have a part in the great Redeemer of souls ; nor is a freeman chiefly esteemed or regarded upon account of his boasted liberty, but rather in proportion to his subjugation to our divine master : for this is the great bond of union among them all, the matter of their boasting and their .joy, that they are related to Christ, who is acknowledged to be all that is amiable and excellent, and who dwells in all true believers, without any difference on any of these accounts." APOSTOLIC PKECEPT. 67 1 CoE. YII. 20, 21. " IT. But as God hath distributed to every man, " as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. " And so ordain I in all the churches. 18. Is any " man called being circumcised ? let him not become " uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision ? '* let •him not be circumcised. 19. Circumcision is " nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the " keeping of the commandments of God. 20. Let " every man abide in the same calling wherein he " was called. 2L Art thou called being a servant ? " care not for it ; but if thou mayest be made free, " use it rather." FAiiAPHRASE OF VER. 20, 21. — Siuce Christ's " kins:- dom is not of this world," (Jno. XYIIL 36,) his Gos- pel makes no alteration in a man's civil relations or political state, and hence I o.rdain in all the churches that Christian men remain in the same condition, in- so far as these are conce7med,{^) in whicli the Gospet finds them. Art thou called of God, being a slave {doulos\ care not for it, as though it could affect thine acceptance with God, or thine acceptable ser- vice of him. Yet* if they can lawfully be made free, as a general rule,(^) slaves had better accept their 68 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. freedom ; for a condition of slavery is not one to be desired on its own account.* I^OTES.(^) — The same condition^ i. e.^ the same civil relations or political state. The word Tclaseis, is here, * " Let every man abide still in the same calling wherein he was called to the faith, not thinking himself obliged by it to quit his call- ing. Art thou called being a servant, care not for it : bu^ if thou mayest lawfully be made free, use it rather," — Whitby. " Since the Gospel makes no alteration 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 be made free, fancying that a bondman is less the object of God's favor than a freeman. Yet if thou canst even be made free by any lawful method, rather obtain thy freedom." — McKnight. "As for other matters, be not excessively concerned about them : but in whatever calling, that is, profession or circumstances, any one of you was called, in that let him continue : affect not to change without the clear and evident leadings of Providence, as there is generally greater reason to expect comfort and usefulness in such a calling than in another. And I may apply this not only to the diffe- rent employments, but relations in life, as well as diversity in reli- gious professions. Art thou, for instance, called into the Church of Christ, being in the low rank, not only of a hired servant, but of a slave? do not so much regard it as upon that account to make thy life uneasy : but if thou canst, without any sinful method of obtaining it, be made free, choose it rather, as what is no doubt in itself eligible, yet not absolutely necessary to the happiness of a good man," — .Doddridge. APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 69 evidently, not used in the sense of " calling," as we understand that word at the present day, and as Doddridge seems to have understood it ; since Paul's specifications under the general term are, circumcised and uncircumcised, bond and free. Liddell and Scott give this definition — " II. in Dion H. Maseis and kaleseis^ are the Roman classes^ which word he de- rives there from." Tliis is doubtless the sense in which Paul uses it here ; and as we have no one English word which corresponds exactly to it, we have para- phrased it, '• civil relations or ])olitical stated (^) — As a general rule. That Paul does not mean here, to give anything more than general advice, is evident from the language he uses, " use it rather," as well as from the whole tenor of the context. There are many cases in which the advice to a slave to become free where his master would willingly grant him his freedom, would be neither kind nor wise. Indeed, the greatest practical difficulties which the enlightened Christian citizen encounters in attempt- ing to solve the problem of emancipation, are such as grow out of the obligation to act with a righteous regard to the subsequent well-being of the slave. 70 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. Remarks. First. — In the passage under examiiiationj Panl mnst be understood as speaking in his character of a religions teacher, an Apostle of Christ ; and hence, when he treats the relation of master and slave as a matter of very little importance, we mnst understand him to mean, of very little importance in so far as the duties and interests of the Christian life are concerned. In other words — a man can be as good a Christian, and can as acceptably serve God, as a slave, if in God's providence the Gospel finds him a slave, as he could had it found him a free man. Shivery is not only not the great impediment, bnt not a great im- pediment in the Avay of the spread of the Gospel. A practical proof of this is afforded in the case of the slaves in our Southern states, — although there is not a little of incidental evil attaching to slavery as it exists among us, — in such facts as these, viz. : 1. A larger proportion of the laboring classes be- long to the Christian Cliurch in the Soutliern than in the Northern states of the Union. 2. If it be true, as alleged — and we believe that it is true — that the piety of the Christian slaves at the South is of a lower, less intelligent grade than that of the laborers of the North, we have at the Soutli, as APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 71 an offset to this, an almost entire exemption from Universalism, Spiritualism, Mormonism, and tlie many forms of baptized infidelity, which number their disciples by thousands among the laboring classes in the Free States. It seems but fair, too, in taking account of the lower grade of piety prevailing 'among our Christian slaves, to remember that those slaves are, many of them, but a very few generations removed from heathenism in its most debasing, degrading form ; and all history testifies that a degradation which has been going on through ages can be only gradually overcome. Second. — When Paul writes, — " If thou may est be made free, use it- rather," we must understand him as giving this direction with especial reference to the state of things existing in Greece at the time he wrote this epistle to the Church at Corinth, This is a sound rule of interpretation in all cases of this kind, and is especially suggested in the case before us by the context. In ver. 27 he writes : — " Art thou bound to a wife ? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife f seek not a wife,''^ '^q ingenuous interpreter has ever understood Paul as liere intend- ing to discountenance marriage, or as in any way contradicting the divine declaration, " it is not good for man to be alone." It was in view of " the pre- sent distress," i. e. liability to persecution for their 72 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTEINE OF SLAVERY. religion's sake, Paul gives the advice lie does respect- ing marriage. So in the words " if thou may est he made free^ use it rather^'' if we would fairly interpret them for the purpose of applying the truth they teach in our country, and at the present day, we must take into account, — 1. In Eome, and in Greece also, slaves were held ''^ jpTO quadruj^edihus^'' i. e. as cattle, and the master might torture them, or even put them to death, at his will. (See § 3.) In contrast with this, a slave in our Southern States is as truly a man, in the eye of the law, as is the master. A master will be hung as quickly for the murder of his slave as he would for that of a freeman. In this view of the case, Calvin, in his comments on this passage, writes : — " This admonition was very necessary at that time, when slaves were driven by threats and stripes, and even fear of death, to obey every kind of command with- out selection or exception, so that they reckoned the procuring of prostitutes, and other crimes of that nature, to be duties belonging to slaves, equally with honorable employments." 2. Most of the slaves in Paul's day, especially those in Greece, were of nations so closely allied to that of the master that they could freely intermingle if set free, and in the course of a few s-enerations all trace APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 73 of tlieir servile condition would disappear. The case of the slaves in our Southern States is very different. We fully and firmly believe in the doctrine of the " unity of the. human race ;" that " God has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Even if the physiologist could find no trace of this unity in the body : The body is not all of man, black or white. He has a soul also. And the fatal sin of our common parent, " the first Adam," has branded its mark of our unity just as deeply and indelibly upon the soul of the negro, as it has on that of the Anglo-Saxon. And in the regene- ration of the Christian negro, the Holy Spirit brings out a second, and, blessed be God ! a brighter mark of that same unity, in his union with Christ, " the second Adam." And every time that the Christian master and slave sit side by side at the Lord's table — and in a ministry of twenty years at the South I never recollect to have sat at the Lord's table when, there were not slaves at the same table — we make a public profession of our faith on this point. But that the negro cannot mingle with the Anglo- Saxon in our country, it matters not for our present purpose why this be so ; we need no clearer proof than that afforded in the facts — •!. That in the free States, where the number of negroes is very small, they never have been admitted upon equal footing 4 74 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. with the whites ; and 2. Whenever the number of negroes has seemed likely to increase to any great extent, in any of those States, immediately laws have been passed to prevent their immigration, as in Ohio. There are impediments then in the way of a slave's attaining to the rank of a genuine freeman, even where his legal freedom has been granted him, exist- ing in our country, and at the present day, which did not exist in Corinth at the time Paul wrote this epistle to the Church in that city. And in all fair- ness, these must be taken into account, in inter- preting Paul's words with reference to our country and our day. CHAPTER lY. APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. " Yerily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind " on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever " ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." —Matt. XYIIL 18. § 12. Paul directs the Christian Minister to teach THIS Doctrine respecting the Duties of Slaves AND Masters in the Church, and prohibits the teaching of any Doctrine at variance with it under most solemn sanctions. Proof.— 1 Tim. VI. 3-5 ; Titus, II. 9, 10, 15. 1 Tim. YI. 3-5. " Let as many servants as are under the yoke " count their own masters worthy of all honor, that " the name of God and his doctrine be not blas- 75 76 THE CHRTSTTAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. " phemecl. 2. And tliey tliat have believing mas- " ters, let tliem not despise them, because tliey are " brethren ; but rather do them service, because " they are faithful and beloved partakers of the '' benefit. These things teach and exhort. 3. If *' any man teach otherwise, and consent not to whole- " some words, even the words of the Lord Jesus " Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to " godliness, 4. He is proud, knowing nothing, but " doting about questions and strifes of words, where- " of Cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, " 5. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, " and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is " godliness ; from such withdraw thyself." Paraphrase of ver. 4, 5. — ^These things teach in the Church and exhort thy hearers to take heed to them. (Yer. 2.) If any man teach otherwise, (ver. 4,) he is puffed up with pride though he knoweth nothing, having a morlid fondness for so-called philosophical qicestions and logomachies ^{^) whence eometh envy, strife, blasphemies ^i^) wicked suspi- cions, perverse disputings of men of corruj)t. minds and destitute of the true doctrine of Christ Jesus, reckoning whatever produces most money is the best religion. From all such teachers piMicly withdraw thuselfi^) and acknowledge them not as the ministers APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 77 of Clii'ist, that all men may see that this doctrine has not the countenance of thy name and authority.* * *' If any man teach othenvise, be is proud, (Gr, puffed up,) know- ing nothing, but doting (sick) about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, pcryerse dis- putings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness. From such withdraw thyself/' — Wliitby. " If any man teach otherwise, he is puffed up with pride, and knoweth nothing, either of the Jewish or Christian revelation, although he pretends to have great knowledge of both ; but is dis- tempered in his mind about idle questions and debates of words, which afford no foundation for such doctrine, but are the source of envy, contention, evil speakings, unjust suspicions that the truth is not sincerely maintained, keen disputings, carried on contrary to conscience, by men wholly corrtipt in their minds and destitute of the true doctrines of the Gospel, who reckon whatever produces the most money is the best religion. From all such impious teachers withdraw thyself, and do not dispute with them." — McKnight. " If any man teach otherwise, whatever fair show of simphcity and humihty he may affect, he is certainly proud, and whatever conceit he may have of his superior knowledge, he is one who knows nothing to any good purpose ; but, like a man raving and delirious in a fever, he runs on, declaiming on idle questions and useless debates about words, from whence no good can be expected to arise, but, on the contrary, a great deal of mischief; envying of those more regarded than them- selves, contention with others who will not submissively yield to what such self-sufficient teachers dictate ; abusive language, which their intemperate zeal deals round to all w^ho offend them, and evil suspi- cions and obnoxious representations of the worthiest and most amiable characters; angry debates of men whose minds are corrupt and averse from the truth, for which they pretend so eagerly to 78 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. Notes. (^) — Having a morhid fondness for so-called philosophical questions .and logomachies. '' JV0S072, (doting) denotes ' having a morbid fondness for,' of which examples are adduced by Wets and in Rec. Syn." — jBloomfeld. The sense in which the word zataseis (questions) is used here is determined by Paul's words "perverse disputings" {paradiatril)a\ subsequently used. On this word McKnight re- marks : — " A philosophical disputation, such as was held in the schools, was called diairiba ; but the addition of the preposition para converts the word into a bad meaning." And Bloomfield : — " TIiq para denotes inanity, and the dia vehemence." The Greek word logomachia (strifes of words) has no common English word exactly corresponding to it, since it is used to convey the idea of a strife loith mere words as well as about mere words. (^) — Blasphemies. The Greek word llaspheniia (railings) is generally used in the N'ew Testament of railing words spoken against God, and we see no good reason for giving it a different meaning here, more especially as it is evidently used in this sense in the immediate context — " that the name of God plead ; while they seem to suppose that which promises the largest quantity of gain to be most worthy of pursuit, and would, if possible, varnish it over with the venerable name of godhness. Turn away therefore from such, and have no intimacy with them." — Doddridge. APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 79 and his doctrine be not blasphemed." — Yer. 1. Of the truth of Paul's descriptions, thus understanding this word, we have many illustrations at the present day. (') — From all such teachers picblicly withdraw thy- self. For the use of a similar expression in this sense, see 1 Cor. Y. 11 : — " But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one, no not to eat ;" understood by all com- mentators to mean that such an one should be excom- municated from the Church. TiTiJS 11. 9, 10, 15. "Exhort servants to be obedient to their own " masters, and to please them w^ell in all things ; " not answering again : not purloining but shewing " all good fidelity : that they may adorn the doctrine " of God our Saviour in all things. 15. These things " speak, and exhort and rebuke with all authority. " Let no man despise thee." Pakaphrase of ver. 15. — ^These things which I, as an Apostle of Jesus, have just given thee in charge, respecting the duties of the old and the young of both 80 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. sexes, (ver. 1-6,) and of tliose who in God's provi- dence are in the condition of slaves {douloi\ (ver. 9, 10,) speak oj^enly and exhort all thy hearers to attend to them. And rebuke the Judaizing teachers who incnlcate a different doctrine with all the authority which belongs to thee as an Evangelist, and as such a spiritual ruler in the Church. And suffer no man to despise thee, or disregard thy decisions in these matters.* * " These things speak and exhort, and rebuke the opposers of this doctrine with all authority. Let no man despise thee, but use the censures of the Church, and deliver up to Satan those Jews who gainsay this doctrine." — Whithy. " These things inculcate as necessary to be believed, and exhort all who profess the Gospel to live suitably to them. And such as teach otherwise confute with all the authority which is due to truth, and to thee as a teacher commissioned of Christ. Let no one have reason to despise thee." — Mc Knight. " These things therefore speak boldly, and earnestly exhort all thy hearers to attend to them. And if they fail of regarding them in a proper manner, rebuke them with all authority, as one that knows he has a divine commission to support him : and, upon the whole, let no man despise thee ; but endeavor to give them exhortations with that solemnity and dignity, and to enforce them by that wisdom and sanctity of behavior, which may set thee above all danger of con- tempt." — Doddridge. APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 81 Remarks. Let the reader compare this account, given by Paul, with that given by Dr. Channing— and surely Dr. Channing cannot be thought to be a witness giv- ing testimony under pro-slavery prejudices— of the same class of teachers in this our day : '' The Abolitionists have done wrong, I believe ; nor is their wroug to be winked at, because done * fanatically, or with good intentions : for how much mischief may be wrought with good designs ! They have fallen into the common error of enthusiasts, that of exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be compared with that of countenancing and upholding it. The tone of their newspapers, as far as I have seen them, has often been fierce, bitter, and abusive. Another objection to their movement is, that they have sought to accomplish their object by a system of agitation , that is, by a system of affili- ated societies, gathered, and held together, and ex- tended, by passionate eloquence. The Abolitionists might have formed an association ; but it should have been an elective one. Men of strong principles, judi- ciousness, sobriety, should have been carefully sought as members. Much good might have been accom- plished by the co-operation of such philanthropists. 4* 82 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. Instead of this, the Abolitionists sent forth their ora- tors, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound the alarm against slavery throughout the land, to gather together young and old, pupils from schools, females hardly arrived at years of discretion, the ignorant, tlie excitable, the impetuous, and to organ- ize these into associations for the battle against op- pression. Yery unhappily they preached their doc- trine to the colored people, and formed these into societies. To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute, heart-rending, descriptions of slavery were given in the piercing tones of passion ; and slave- holders were held up as monsters of cruelty and crime. The Abolitionist, indeed, proposed to con- vert the slave-holders ; and for this end, he ap- proaclied them with vituperation, and exhausted on them the vocabulary of abuse ! And he has reaped as he sowed." — Quoted from, Dr, Hodge's Essays^ pp. 477, 478. Dr. Barnes ! ! ! in his " Scriptural Yiews of Slavery," p. 267, quotes and endorses this descrip- tion of Dr. Channing. § 13. "Blasphemies." Among the consequences of such '' questions and strifes of w^ords" as characterized the anti-slavery APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 83 preaching in Paul's day, he reckons llasphemies. The same is true of it in our day. As an instance, take the following : " Down with your Bible ! down with your political parties ! down with your God that sanctions slavery! The God of Moses Stuart, the Andover God, the God of Win. H. Kogers, w^hich is worshipped in the Winter St. Church, is a monster, composed of oppression, fraud, injustice, pollution, and every crime in the shape of slavery. To such a God I am an Atheist." — Mr. Wright, in his Speech before the Anti-Slamry Society in Boston,. May, 1850. To those familiar w^ith the anti-slavery literature of the day, especially the speeches delivered at anniver- sary meetings, there is no need that I should remark, that blasphemy is one of the characteristic features of it. And in connection with such open and positive blasphemy, as that quoted above, let the reader take an extract or two from the late writings of Dr. Barnes : " Is it to be held that the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits will have something to do with the progress of the Gospel and the salvation of men, and slavery nothing ? That the vending of a few lottery- tickets is a matter of sufficient importance to claim the attention of the ministers of religion, and this not? That the amusements of the ball-room, the 84: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. theatre, and the opera, should engage the earnest prayers and exhortations of the ministers of religion, and that the fact that three millions of human beings are held under such a system, can have no claim on the attention of the ministers of Christ? Shall a horse-race, a bull-fight, or even a duel^ be deemed of sufficient moment to awaken the indignation and stir the soul of a minister of Christ, and this enormous system of injustice and wrong have nothing to awa- ken his sympathy, and to enkindle his zeal? Is the system of caste in India, an evil greater than Ameri- can slavery ? Is the voluntary hurning of a few widows on the funeral pile, either as an obstruction to the Gospel or as actual wrong^ to be compared with this system ? Is the swinging on hooks or the painful torture of the body in Hindoo devotion an obstruction to the progress of the Gospel, at all to be compared in extent or in enormity with American slavery." — Dr. Barnes^ Church and Slavery^ pp. 161-2. " With what consistency, it might be asked, can a nation engage in the work of missions to the heathen, which systematically and on principle holds three millions of human beings in slavery ? What is the hind of religion which such a people would seek to introduce among the heathen, and to substitute for the forms of superstition and idolatry which prevail APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 85 tliere ? And wliat would be the advantage of substi- tuting a religion where such views and purposes are avowed, for those systems which now actually pre- vail in heathen lands ?" — Church and Slavery^ pp. 170, 1. " We must either give up the point that the New Testament defends slavery, or we must give up a very large — and an increasingly large — portion of the people of this land to infidelity ; for they neither can, nor will, nor ought ^ to be convinced that a book which sanctions slavery is from God. I believe that this must, and should he so ; and that there are great principles in our nature, as God lias made us, which can never be set aside by any authority of a pre- tended revelation ; and that if a book professing to be a revelation fromljod, by any fair interpretation defended slavery, or placed it on the same basis as the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, such a book neither ought to be, nor could be received by mankind as a divine revela- tion." — The Church and Slavery^ p. 193. Dr. Barnes may be able to show, that this language of his does not amount to positive blasphemy ; but we ask — using one of his own favorite expressions — what would " a proper developnent of it " be ? 86 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. § 14. " So-called Philosophical Questions and Logomachies. 1. ^' Mere ProjpeHy T'^' " Property is the right of possession and use, and must of necessity vary according to the nature of the objects to which it attaclies. A man has property in his wife, in his children, in his domestic animals, in his fields, and in his forests. That is, he has the right to the possession and use of these several ob- jects according to their nature. He has no more * " So long as the slave is regarded as a ' chattel,' or a mere piece of 'property,' like a horse, so long men pndeavor to content them- selves with the feehng that he may be held in bondage." — Barnes' Notes on Eph. VI. 9. " What is the essential element of the system ? What distin- guishes it from all other relations ? This question can now be an- swered by the single reply, that it is property in a human being. He (the master) regards him (the slave) as his own property in the same sense as he regards anything else as his property." — Scriptural Views of Slavery^ p, Al. "According to the system, their (slaves') bodies are not their own, their souls, so far as they can be made to subserve the interests of the master, are not their own." — The Church and Slavery^ p. 179. " He (the master) sets the slave up at auction, not his services ; he disposes of the slave in his will, by name, not of his unexpired term of service* " — Scriptural Vieivs, p. 55. APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 87 right to use a brute as a log of wood, in virtue of tlie right of propert}^, than he has the right to use a man as a, brute. There are general principles of rectitude obJjgatorj on all men, which require them to treat all the creatures of God according to the natnre which he has given them. The man who should burn his horse because he was his property, would find no justification in that plea either before God or man. "When, therefore, it is said that one man is the pro- perty of another, it can only mean that the one has a right to use the other as a man, but not as a brute or as a thing. He has no right to treat him as he may lawfully treat his ox or a tree. He can convert his person to no use to which a human being may not, by the laws of God and natnre, be properly applied. When the idea of property comes to be analyzed, it is found to be nothing more than a claim to service either for life or for a term of years. This claim is transferable, and is of the nature of property, and is consequently liable for the debts of the owner, and subject to his disposal by will or otherwise." — Dr. Hodge's Essays on Bevieios^ p. 499. This view of the nature of the property which a master has in his slave, is the view which all ethical writers of any reputation, whether Christian or nofc^ have taken ; and Dr. Barnes had before him this very Essay of Dr. Hodge, as is evident from his frequent 88 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE CF SLAVERY. quotations from it, when he penned such sentences as those quoted in the note. On what ground, on what authority, does he set it aside? On none, that we can discover, except that presented in his w^ords — " He sets the slave up at auction — he disposes of the slave in his will, hy nameP In Matt. XX. 6, Y, we read : — " About the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle in the market-place^ and said unto them. Why stand ye here all the day idle ? They say unto him. Because no man hath hired us.'''' These men exposed them- selv^es, bodily, for hire in the market-place ; and their language is " hired its.'''' Shall we hence infer, that when the "owner of the vineyard" hired them he acquired a temporary property " in their bodies and their souls," and that they meant to transfer such property to him ? If Dr. B. wished to hire a huuse- servant for a month or a year, would he not expect that house-servant to show himself bodily to him? not because he wished to acquire a temporary right of property in his body, but because thus only could he judge of his physical ability to perform the service for which he wished him. And when he had hired him, would he not say, I have hired such an one — naming him — for a month or a year, as the case might be ? Such is the language always used in common life ; and although it may not be philosophi- ArOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 89 cally accurate, none but tlie willfully perverse can misunderstand it. 2. " A chattel, a tUngr'^ " Slaves shall be claimed, held, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors," is the language of the law in South Carolina. And hence it is inferred that that law" does not regard a slave as a human being, but as a " tiling.^'' If this be a correct view of the case, how comes it * " It follows from this that a slave is not to be regarded as a ' chattel ' or a ' thing,' or as ' property.' He is a man, a redeemed man, an immortal man. He is one for whom Chi-ist died. But Christ did not die for ' chattels ' and ' things.' " — Barnes' Notes on Eph. VL 9. " It would be impossible for Philemon to comply with the wishes breathed forth in this letter, and meet exactly the desires of Paul in the case, and yet regard him (Onesimus) as property, as a ' chattel,' as a ' thing.' " — Barnes' Notes, Philemon. " This system (I speak of the system, not of the feehngs of many who are connected with it) treats man not as man, and not as capable of redemption, but as a 'chattel,' as a 'thing;' this system does at least as much in this country to hinder the progress of the Gospel of Christ, and involves as many violations of the law of God, as either intemperance, gaming, lotteries, sabbath-breaking, skepticism, infidelity, if not as much as all combined." — Church and Slavery, p. 157. . 90 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. that tlie laws of South Carolina make the killing of a slave, murder; and the forcible violation of the person of a female slave, rape? Can a "thing" — a bale of cotton, for example — be murdered ? What is a " chattel f " " In the grand costumier of JSTormandy," writes Blackstone, " a chattel is described as a mere movable, but at the same time it is set in opposition to a fief or feud ; so that not only goods, but whatever was not a feud, were accounted chattels. And it is in this latter, more extended, negative sense that our law adopts it ; the idea of goods or movables only being not sufficiently comprehensiv^e to take in everything that the law considers as a chattel interest. For since, as the commentators on the costumier observe, there are two requisites to make a fief or heritage — duration as to time and immobility with regard to place ; what- ever wants either of these qualities, is not, according to the Normans, a heritage or fief; or, according to us, is not a real estate ; the consequence of whicli in both laws is, that it must be a personal estate or chattel." — Blaclcstone* s Commentary^ book ii. ch. 24. When then the civil code of South Carolina — for it is the civil and not the criminal code that is quoted — declares that " slaves shall be claimed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels per- sonal," the declaration in eftect is, simply that APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 91 they are not to be held as real estate ; that the pro- perty wliich the master has in the shave — without at all determining the extent of that property — shall be governed by the laws respecting transfer and trans- mission, which apply to personal estate. The interest which a master has in his apprentice, under the laws of Pennsylvania, or which Dr. Barnes may have in a minor, bound as a servant to him for a term of years, is as truly a chattel interest, in the law sense of that term, as the interest which the master has in his slave. And this fact no more degrades the person, in the account of the law, from the rank of an immor- tal being, for w^hom Christ died, in the one case than in the other. And when Dr. Barnes declares, *' Christ did not die for chattels," he cuts off the apprentice and the bound servant along with the slave — " the jpoor^'^ to whom Christ left especial direction that his Gospel should be preached — from all the precious hopes which are garnered up in that Gospel. 3. '^Unrequited Labor. '^^'^ In the aspect in which this objection contemplates * "One of the elementary principles of it (slavery) is, that there must be ' unrequited labor ;' that is, the slave must earn as much more than he receives as will do his part in maintaining the master in 92 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. slavery, the question is properly one respecting the relations of " capital and labor," and in all fairness should be so treated. Let us state it as a question of capital and labor, taking the case of a slave on one of our southern plantations, and it will stand thus : — The capitalist (i. e. the master) furnishes the land, live-stock, seed, and agricultural implements. The laborer (i. e. the slave) furnishes his own labor in the use of this capi- tal. The master, in return for his capital used, and his skill in superintending and conducting the affairs of the plantation, receives the maintenance of himself and iiimily — perhaps something more. The slave, in return for his labor, receives as wages, shelter, food, and clothing for himself and his young children, as yet dependent on him, his maintenance and medical attendance in sickness, and a comfortable provision for his old age. In what does this case differ from that of the northern capitalist, the owner of a cotton- idleness, for it is of the very essence of the system, that he is to be maintained in indolence by the slaves which he owns." — Barries' Notes, Col. IV. 1. " Slavery is, of necessity, a system of unrequited toil. The master expects to make soviething by the slave ; that is, he expects to secure more from the labor of the slave than he returns to him." — " Appro- piiuting to ourselves entirely tlic iuails of the labor of anollifn- man, 13 au essential to the system."— *>SVri//<. Viev)i< of Slavery, pp. b'l, oo\. APOSTOIJC INJUNCTION. ^ 93 factory, for example, and the laborer he employs, excepting that in one case the wages are paid " in kind," in the other in money. But " the master (i. e. the Southern capitalist) expects to make something by the slave " (i. e. the laborer). And does not the JSTorthern capitalist ex- pect to make something by the laborers he employs ? "Are cotton-factories benevolent institutions, for the beneiit of the poor ? But " the master is maintained in idleness ;" i. e. he does not take hold of the plough- handle and the hoe, as the slave does. And does the owner of a cotton-factory labor as an operative within its walls ? But, says Dr. B., "it is vain to say that the food, the raiment, and the cottage of the slave are any equivalent for his services, or that the deficiency of these is made up by the implied pledge of the master that lie will furnish him with medicine when sick, and that he will take care of him when he is old." We would inform Dr. B., by the way, that these are not matters secured by " the implied pledge of the master," but by ''Hlie righteous slave-laws''^ of the Southern States ; and if the master fails to provide them, the proper authorities will do it, and the mas- ter will have to pay for it. " JSTone of these things are such an equivalent for his services that a free- man would be willing to contract for them by selling 94 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. himself into slavery ; they are not what a freeman can secure by voluntary labor." — Scrijyt. Views, p. 62. If by freeman, we understand the free laborer. in our l^orthern States, we reply, — the wages of the slave are not as much as the freeman can secure. Intelligence and industry are, and ought to be, taken into account in determining a laborer's wages. And in these particulars the American laborer is far in* advance of the African, but a few generations re- moved, as the latter is, from the most degraded, debasing barbarism. But compare the case of the slave with that of the free laborer in Europe, and the wages of the former are better than those of the latter ; as is proven by the fact, that one out of every five, even in Great Britain, of these free laborers, is compelled to spend a part of his days in the poor- house. That is, he does not receive for his labor what amounts to a support for himself and family while able to labor, and a comfortable provision in sickness and old age. Even in our country, taking into account the amount and quality of the labor, the slave must receive more wages than, the freeman ; else how can it be that slave-labor is less profitable to the capi- talist than free-labor? This allegation, so often repeated by anti-slavery writers, (see Scrijpt. Views, pp. 24, 25,) if it mean anything, must mean that the APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 95 capitalist pays, and the laborer receives, more wages for a given amount of labor performed under a sys- tem of slavery than under one of free-labor. 4. "Theft:'^ Anti-slavery writers are accustomed to speak of slave-holders as " men-stealers," as guilty of '' theft ;" not as the actual thieves, but as the receivers of stolen goods. Let us take Dr. Barnes' illustration of the case by that of " a stolen lioi'se^'' and admit for the present * " None become slaves voluntarily, and consequently the whole process of making slaves partakes of the nature of theft of the worst kind. What guilt is like that of stealing a man's children or wife, or his father or mother? The guilt of 7nan-stealing is incurred essen- tially by those who purchase those who are thus stolen, as the puv' chaser of a stolen horse, hnowing it to be so, participates in the crime. A measure of that criminality also adhei'es to all who own slaves, and thus maintain the system, for it is a system known to have been ori- ginated by theft." — Barnes' Notes on 1 Tim. I. 10. In his Scriptural Views of Slavery, Dr. B. illustrates the case by that of Napoleon's plundering the Itahan churches and monasteries of their choicest paintings, remarking : " It is clear that no lapse of time, no amount of legal enactment, and no number of transfers of the property, by sale or bequest, could ever convey a moral right to those works of art. Somewhere, in spite of all these forms of law, the wrong is perpetuated and extended, nor can it ever be obliterated but by a restoration." — Pp. 356, 367. 96 THE CriKISTlAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. what lie doubtless believes, tliougli we do not, that the ilhistration is a fair one. The case as stated by Dr. B. is not fuU}^ stated. That we may deal fairly by all the parties concerned in the transaction, we must go back to the beginning, and ask first of all, Who stole the liorse ? To this the only true reply is, The l^orthern man ; for nothing is more certain than that the inhabitants of the ISTorthern States, and not the people of the South, were the persons immedi- ately employed in the African slave-trade at the time that most of the original stock of slaves was brought into this country,* and that Southern men purchased from them. At the time, neither party thought it was a theft. But since then, E". has found out that such w^as the nature of the act. If now, he would lionestly repair the wrong done, let him come to S. with the money that S. paid him, and returning it, say, — I have found out that the horse I sold you was a stolen horse, I therefore bring you back the money you paid me for him. Return me the horse, that I may restore him to his rightful owner. Is not this what would be required by the law of God as well as * " They (i. e. the Southern people) remember with little gratitude the laws and cupidity of the Motlicr country by which it (slavery) was imposed on them, and the Northern ships by which the inhabit- ants of Africa were conveyed to their shores." — Barries' Scrip. Views^ p. 9. APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 97 of man in the case as stated by Dr. B. ? But siij)- pose that, instead of this, E". comes, and not offering to refund any part of the price which S. paid him for the horse, with sanctimonious visage, says : S., you are a thief; that horse you have is a stolen horse; and you'll be a thief as long as you keep him. Is not this just the case in which our Lord puts into the mouth of a respondent the reply, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Does Dr. B. say ; Tlie present generation of ISTorthern men did not receive the price^ and they have it not, and therefore cannot be rightfully called upon to return it ? We reply : Neither did the pre- sent generation of Southern men receive the stolen horse, and they have him not, (he died years ago,) and therefore cannot be rightfully called upon to return him. If the stolen horse " is somewhere," so is the money paid for him " somewhere." At this day, that money is just as easily to be found in the shipping and manufacturing establishments of l!^ew England, as the stolen horse is upon a Southern plantation. Let us take another case. Most of the land in I^ew England — and the same is true in the Southern States — was procured from its original possessors^ the In- 5 yo THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. dians, by fraud or violence. And hence the original title — original, as the land is now held — ^is a title which, at this day, all would regard as an unrighteous one. Does this vitiate the title of the present owner, who has purchased or inherited it under the peaceful operation of law ? Is lie a robber as truly as if he had wrested the land from the Indian on yesterday? The truth is, all such reasoning as this is delusive. (See Foley- s Moral Phil.^ book iii. ch. 2, 3, 4, for a more full examination of the subject.) The distinc- tion between man-stealing (i. e. kidnapping) and slave-holding made in the laws of our country — and just the same distinction was made in the laws of Moses, and recognized in the l^ew Testament (see § 5) — is a proper distinction, and one which no sound writer has ever discarded. 5. Exclusion from the Pulpit"^ Dr. Barnes complains, and the same is true of other * " Now, what the spirit of the age and the spirit of the Gospel, as I understand it, demands, is not that the subject of slavery should have any undue prominence in these discussions, nor that it should be forced into the publications of the Tract Society and the Sunday School Union, nor that it should occupy the sole place in the pulpit ; but that it should be treated just as all other acknowledged evils and wrongs are : as contrary to the Gospel of Christ, as preventing the APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 99 anti-slaver J writers, that lie is not permitted to preach his doctrine on the subject of slavery, in the pulpits at the South, or by means of the press, through the agency of the American Tract Society and the Ameri- can Sunday School Union ; and represents this as a willful withholding of God's truth for the purpose of conciliating the favor of the Southern slave-holder. This is all a misrepresentation of the case from beginning to end. The ministers of Christ at the South are accustomed to introduce the subject of slavery into the pulpit, and teach all that the Bible teaches on the subject, just as they introduce any other subject which Cln-ist has given them in charge. And I will add, after an experience of twenty years, there is no subject on which a Southern congregation listens more respectfully to God's truth, as taught from the pulpit, than on this very one. Does Dr. B. ask : Would you allow me to occupy salvation of men, as a violation of the spirit of the Gospel, and as an evil not to be perpetuated, but to be removed. For one, I am weary — and I am sure that in this I speak the sentiments of many thousands of others— of the perpetual deference shown to the holders of slaves in the pulpit and in the religious literature of the land. I am weary of the care taken, more than in other cases of wrong, to eonciUate their favor and to avoid giving them offence." — Church and Slavery^ pp. 158, 159. 100 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTEINE OF SLAVERY. 3'our pulpit to preach on slavery ? My prompt reply is : JSTo, sir ; never. As a pastor of a Christian Church, I am responsible to God and to man, that nothing but God's truth shall be preached from its pulpit. I have your creed on slavery, in such passages from your published works as these : " We cannot answer the argument for infidelity drawn from this source, if we admit that slavery is authorized by the Bible, any more than w^e could answer the argument if the Bible, by a fair interpretation, justified polygamy, theft, highway robbery, or piracy." — " I believe, that if a book, professing to be a revelation from God, by any fair interpretation, defended slavery, or placed it on the same basis as the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, such a book neither ought to be, nor could be, received by man- kind as a divine revelation." — Church and Slavery^ pp. 188, 193. And I say to you, sir, on the subject of slavery you are, in my view, to God's trutli, infidel. You cannot enter m}^ pulpit to preach on slavery, for the same reason that the Free-lover can- not enter it to preach on marriage, or the Socialist to preach on the relation of parent and child. But any minister of Christ who will come and preach just what the Bible teaches, and all that the Bible teaches, will be welcome, not to my pulpit only, but to any pulpit in the slave-holding States, to preach on the APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 101 subject of slavery, or any other subject on which Christ has given instructions to his Church. All this talk of " orators transported with fiery zeal" (Channing) about '^ mere property" — " A chat- tel, a thing"—" Unrequited labor "--" Theft"— "Ex- clusion from the pulpit," is fitly described by Paul as mere " logomachy," a wordy dispute about mere words — words which the "orator" does not under- stand, and, in many an instance, does not because he will not. CHAPTER Y. NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. In our examination of what the I^ew Testament teaches on the suhject of Slavery, we have found — 1. That slave-holding does not appear in any cata- logue of sins or " offences " given us by inspired men, (§ 2-5.) 2. That the Apostles received slave-holders into the Christian Church, and continued them therein, without giving any intimation, either at the time of their reception or afterwards, that slave-hold- ing was a sin or an " offence," (§ 6, Y.) 3. That Paul sent back a fugitive-slave to his ovvm master again, and assigned as his reason for so doing, that master's right to the services of his slave, (§ 8.) 4. That the Apostles frequently enjoin the relative duties of master and slave, and enforce these injunctions upon both alike, as Christian men by Christian motives ; uniformly treating certain evils which they sought to correct, as incidental evils, and not " part and par- 102 NATUEE AND ORIGIN OF SLAYERY. 103 eel " of slavery itself, (§ 9.) 5. That Paul treated the distinctions 'which slavery creates as matters of very little importance, in so far as the interests of the Christian life are concerned, (§11.) 6. That he de- clares that this, hrs doctrine respecting the relation of slave and master, is wholesome doctrine, and ac- cording to godliness, and the doctrine of the Lord Jesns Christ, (§ 10.) 7. And directs Chj-istian minis- ters to teach it in the Church, and prohibits the teaching of any doctrine at variance with it under the most solemn sanctions known to the Church, (§ 12.) All this is utterly irreconcilable with the idea that slave-holding is to be regarded as a sin in the sight of God, or accounted an offence by his Church ; nor is it possible to maintain the opposite doctrine, with- out either rejecting the Word of God as our " only rule of faith and obedience," {Larger Catechising or adopting principles and methods of interpretation which will destroy all certainty in human language. It becomes, then, a matter of great practical impor- tance to him who receives the Bible as the Word of God— especially in view of tlie conflict of opinion in the Christian Church in our day — to answer correctly the question, What is the slave-holding which the Apostles teach is not a sin before God, or an " offence " in his Churcli. 104: THE CHEISTIAN DOCTEINE OF SLAVERY. § 15. Insjpired DefMiho7i of Slavery, The Chiircli is tlie School of Christ / and the Bible is the authoritative text-book appointed to be taught in that schooL If, in the statement of a doctrine tauglit in any text-book, doubtful terms are used, we must go to the text-book itself for a definition of those terms. Tliis is nothing more than in common fair- ness any author might demand. The Church is the Kingdom of Christ / and the Bible is the one only law-book of that kingdom. In the case of any other system of laws, if a certain re- lation were declared to be a lawful one, we would go to the code of laws in which such declaration was made, and not to that of some other country or some other age, for a definition of that relation. Any other course than this, would be accounted simply absurd. Let us, then^ adopt this course in the case before us. The Bible, the authoritative text-book in the School of Christ, the code of laws in the Kingdom of Christ, teaches that slave-holding is not a sin. To the Bible, then, let us go, and not to the writings of Aristotle, or to the Civil Law of Home, or to the laws of South Carolina, for a definition of slavery. In the Bible we will not find a definition of the term, drawn NATUEE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 105 out in strictly logical form— for tins is not the way in which the Bible ordinarily presents truth : it con- tains no strictly logical statement of many of the most important doctrines of our holy religion—but we will find a definition, in substance, and this so presented as to leave the ingenuous inquirer in no doubt respecting the matter. Slavery, in the Bible sense of the term, is a con- dition OF MUTUAL EIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. ThE EIGHTS OF THE MASTER, AND THE CORRESPONDD^G OBLIGA- TIONS OF THE SLAVE, ARE TO OBEDIENCE AND SERVICE. " Servants, be obedient to them that are your mas- " ters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, " in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ ; not with " ^jQ,-service, as men-pleasers ; but as the sermnts of " Christ, doing the will of God from i\iQ heart ; with " good will doing service, as to the Lord and not to "men; knowing that whatsoever good thing any " man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, " whether he be bond or free."— ^A. YL 5-8. See also Col. III. 22-25 ; Titus IT. 9, 10. The Eights of the Slave and the corresponding Obligations of 'the Master are, to "that which is JUST AND equal." " Masters, give unto yom- servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master " in heaven."— a>^. IV. 1. See also E^h. VI 9. 6* u 106 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. For an exposition of these words, see § 9. In confirmation of tins view, let the reader turn to Gal. lY. 1, 2, where Paul makes use of the condition of a slave to illustrate that of a child during his minority, and thus of the Church under the old dis- pensation. " Now, this 1 say, that the heir, as long as he is a " child, differeth nothing from a. servant, (doidos, a " slave,) though he be lord of all, but is under tu- '' tors " {epitro])os^ a guardian, who, standing in the place of a parent, is entitled to the obedience due a parent,) " and governors," {pikonomos^ " an overseer : one who had authority over the servants of a family, to assign their tasks and portions." — Ilohinsoiih N. T. Lex.) '' until the time appointed of the father." Besides what may be considered, strictly speaking, essential to slavery, there are certain other particu- lars, so generally attaching to it, that they may be treated — as they are by the sacred writers — as " part and parcel" of the institution itself. Of this nature are the following, viz. : 1. Slavery is a relation formed without the consent of the slave heing first obtained. — ^This is not essential to slavery ; since in the law of Moses provision is made for a man's voluntarily assuming the condition of a slave, (Ex. XXI. 5, 6,) and analogous provisions exist in the laws of many slave-holding states. NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 107 2. It is a relation for life. — Moses' law provided that an Israelite, who, in any way had become a slave, should regain his freedom at the end of seven years, or at the jubilee at the farthest, (Ex. XXI. 2 ;) and similar laws have existed in other countries ; so that slavery may exist without life-long duration. 3. It is a relation which cannot he lawfully termi- nated without the consent of hoth the parties. — In general, the consent of the slave is presumed : and yet were not the consent of both parties required, cases of great injustice might arise — for example : By the master's manumitting a slave in his old age, for the purpose of getting rid of his obligation to sup- port him. The rights and obligations already stated, and these three particulars, are all that the Apostles treat as 23roperly belonging to slavery itself. Whatever else may attach to it in any particular country or age, they treat as incidental. And the distinction between that which is '''part and parcel'''^ of slavery itself and that which is merely incidental^ and therefore may vary or disapper, while slavery itself remains, is a dis- tinction which lies at the very foundation, of the Christian method of dealing with it, as set forth in the life and writings of Christ and his Apostles. It is a distinction, too, which has always been re- cognized by ethical writers of reputation. Thus, 108 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. Puffendorf's definition of slavery is in these words : " The full sum and notion, then, oi personal servitude^ amounts to this : that a man, for the sake of food and other necessaries of life, shall lie under an obligation to perpetual labor ; which, if taken in its true natural extent, extracted from the barbarous cruelty of some masters, and the unreasonable rigor of some laws, doth not imply an extravagant degree of hardship and severity. For that perpetual obligation is Avell requited by a perpetual certainty of maintenance, for which those who work for hire are often at a loss, either through want of business or willful idleness." — ■Law of Natiire and Nations^ B. YI., Ch. III., § 10. And Dr. Hodge writes : " The grand mistake, as we apprehend, of those who maintain that slave- holding is itself a crime, is, that they do not discrimi- nate between slave-holding in itself considered, and its accessories at any particular time or place. They have a confused idea of chains and whips, of degra- dation and misery, of ignorance and vice, and to this complex conception they apply the name slavery, and denounce it as the aggregate of all moral and physical evil. Do such persons suppose that slavery as it existed in the family of Abraham, was such as their imagination thus pictures to themselves ? Might not that patriarch have had men purchased with his silver, who were well clothed, well instructed, NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 109 well conpensated for their labor, and in all respects treated with parental kindness ? ]N'either inadequate remuneration, physical discomfort, intellectual igno- rance, nor moral degradation, is essential to the con- dition of a slave. Yet, if all these ideas are removed from the commonly received notions of slavery, how little will remain. All the ideas which necessarily enter into the definition of slavery, are deprivation of personal liberty, obligation to service at the discretion of another, and the transferable character of the authority and claim of service of the master." — Hodge's Essays and Reviews^ pp. 483, 48-i. Either of these definitions would answer our pur- pose, had we no other design than that of defending the doctrine of Scripture, that slave-holding is neither a sin nor an " offence ;""^ but neither of them is as * In commenting upon Dr. Hodge's view of the nature of the pro- perty which a master has in his slave, (see § 14, 1,) Dr. Barnes writes : "According to this view, slavery is comparatively a harmless thing — and no one should regard slavery as essentially an undesirable condi- tion of society, and still less as having any thing in it that is morally wrong:'' Aiid referring to Abraham's slaves, he writes: "They may have been purchased from those who had taken them as captives in war, and the purchase may have been regarded by themselves as a species of redemption, or a most desirable rescue from the fate which usually attends such captives— perchance from death. The property which it was understood that he had in them may have been merely property in their time^ and not in their persons. Or the purchase 110 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. perfect a definition as that given by Paul ; their defi- ciency consisting in this, that whilst stating distinctly and correctly the obligations of the slave, they do not take as explicit notice of the corresponding obliga- tions of the master ; and the latter enter as truly into the idea of slavery as the former do. § 16. Origin of Slavery, The Scriptural theory respecting the origin of Slavery, may be stated, in brief, thus : — The efi'ect of sin, i. e., disobedience to God's laws, upon both indi- viduals and nations, is degradation. A people under this influence, continued through many generations, sink so low in the scale of intelligence and morality as to become incapable of safe and righteous self- government. When, by God's appointment, slavery comes upon them — an appointment at once punitive and remedial ; a punishment for sin actually com- mitted, and at the same time a means of saving the sinning people from that utter extermination which must otherwise be their doom, and gradually raising them from the degradation into which they have sunk. may have in fact amounted to every thing that is desirable in eman- cipation." — Script. Views of Slavery, pp. 40, 75. NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. Ill It was in consequence of sin, in part actually com- mitted, and yet more foreseen in the future, that the first slave sentence of which we have any record was pronounced by Noah upon Canaan and his descend- ants — " Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren."— Gen. IX. 25.* By the mouth of Moses, God threatens his people Israel, in case of their disobedience, with a long series of judg- ments, terminating in slavery, — " And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee. Thou shalt see it no more again : and there shall ye be sold for hond-men and 'bond-women^ and no man shall buy you." — Deut. XXYIII. 68. And Solomon declares, in general terms, "The fool (i. e., the wicked) shall be the ser- vant {ebed. the slave) of the wise in heart." — Prov. XL 29. This doctrine of God's word is strikingly illustrated * The connection between sin and slavery appears in connection with the record of man's first sin — " Therefore the Lord sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken."— Gen. III. 23." " To till,'' in the Hebrew, is the word that means a slave, but is here used as a verb, and literally means " to slave the groimd ;"" and is used to show, not that Adam had become the slave of any other person, but a slave to his own necessities, and that the labor required was the labor of a slave." — Fletcher's Studies on Slavery, p. 434. 112 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. in his providence. All men are sinners, and hence all are subject to what Fletcher well calls " M^ first degree of slavery," i. e., slavery to their physical wants and necessities — " in the sweat of their face must they eat their bread." Where sin has been persisted in for a time by any peo23le, then comes the second degree of slavery, i. e., subjection to despotic government. The deep foundations of despotism in Europe are laid in the degradation of the people. Overturn those despotisms a thousand times, and you cannot make the people free, unless you can first raise them in the scale of intellectual and moral being. "Where sin has been persisted in for many generations, and a people have become deeply degraded, then comes the third degree of slavery, i. e., personal slavery. Uniformly the people who have been reduced to sla- very, have been those degraded by the long-continued operation of sin in just this way.* "The world never * " We may everywhere notice that some among the family of man have become so poisoned with sin, so destroyed, that they are no longer safe guardians to themseWes, even under the general inter- dict, that animal want enslaves us all. That for such God provides as the general safety may seem to require. That, in the history of man, some races have become ^o deteriorated by a continued action in op- position to the laws of God, that he has seen fit to care for them, by placing them under the control of others ; or by placing them, in mercy, under the guidance of a less deteriorated race, whom, no NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 113 has, nor will it ever witness, a case where the moral, intellectual, and physical superior has been in slavery, as a fixed state, to an inferior race. The law giving superior rule and government to the moral, intellec- tual, and physical superior, is as unchangeable as the law of gravitation." — Fletcher's Studies on Slavery^ p. 391. Of the remedial operation of slavery, we have a striking illustration in the case of the African race in our own country. In the history of nations, it would be difficult to find an instance in which a people have made more rapid progress upward and onward than the African race has made under the operation of American slavery. That they have not yet as a peo- ple, attained a point at which they are capable of safe self-government, is, w^e believe, conceded by every one personally acquainted with them, and therefore capable of forming an intelligent opinion. That it may take generations yet, to accomplish the gracious purposes of God in inflicting slavery upon them, is very possible. The work which it has taken doubt, he holds responsible for the good he intends them. And may we be permitted to inquire of the Christian man, if this position pre- sents anything contrary to the general law of benevolence of the Deity — contrary to the welfare of man on earth, or his hopes of heaven." — Fletcher'' s Studies of Slavery^ p. 504. 114: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. ages to do, it often takes ages to undo. But nothing is more certain than that God's plan has operated well thus far National sin, persisted in from geileration to gene- ration — then, national degradation, becoming deeper and darker as time rolls on — then, national slavery, at once a punishment for sin, and a gracious pro- vision for saving from utter extinction, and gradually restoring again to the position from which sin has dragged its victims down. Such is the order estab- lished by God, as set forth both in his word and in his providence ; and thus understood, there is a pro- found philosophy underlying the Scriptural method of dealing with slavery. § 17. Counter-arguments, To most oi the arguments from express Scripture advanced by anti-slavery writers, the simple state- ment of the Scriptural doctrine of slavery, is a suffi- cient answer. Such, for example, as Dr. Barnes' argument from the passages — " For one is your mas- ter, even Christ, and all ye are hretlirenP — Matt. XXIIL 8. And— "God hath made of one hlood aW nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth."— Acts, XYIIL 2G. There is one passage, however, which may need a NATURE AND OEIGIN OF SLAVERY. 115 passing notice, viz. : our Lord's words, " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them ; for this is the law and the prophets." — Matt. YII. 2. Or, as the same truth was expressed, on an- other occasion — " And the second (commandment) is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commadments hang all the law and tho prophets."— Matt. XXII. 39, 40. On this. Dr. B. remarks : " This rule he (Christ) evidently designed should be incorporated into his religion as essential to the system, and it is manifest that nothing incon- sistent with the fair application of it can be in ac- cordance with the spirit of Christianity. Yet its bearing on slavery is obvious. Its influence in secur- ing the emancipation of all those now held in bond- age, if fairly applied, would be certain and inevitable. Freedom is sweet to man ; and it cannot be doubted that if a man were in all circumstances to act toward those nnder him, as he Vv^oukl desire to be treated if in their place, the bonds of servitude would soon be loosed." — Script. Views, pp. 248, '9. These words of Christ are given by him, expressly, as a summary of the second table of the law, delivered in full to Israel from the top of Sinai. Turning to this second table of the law, now, as written by God's own finger, we read, " Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- bor's wife, nor his man-servant (male-slave), nor his 116 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. maid-serva7it (female-slave), nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." — Ex. XX. IT. Can it be that God has recognized — recognized by regulating it — a right, in this his statement in full of a law, -which is directly at variance with the principle of that law ? Or, taking Dr. B.'s method of interpreting the words of our Lord, we ask. Can any father rightfully restrain the waywardness, or correct the disobedience of his child ? Does he believe that if he were the child, and the child were the father, he would like to be chastised? Or, can the civil magistrate punish the criminal ? Does he believe that if he were the criminal, and the criminal were the magistrate, he would like to be hung ? All interpretation of general laws, such as that of Dr. B., is delusive. The conse- quences of sin, consequences established by God him- self, must come upon the sinner ; and if they come as chastening, they must come against the will of him who suffers under them, " for no chastening, for the present, seemeth to be joyous, but grievous;" and all this without any violation of the "law of love." CHAPTER YIL RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. § 18. The Discipline of the Church. " The Churcli is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its officers are his servants, bound to exe- cute his wilL Its discipline is his law, Avhich he as a king has ordained. The Church can enjoin what he commands, prohibit what he condemns, and enforce her testimonies by spiritual sanctions." Bejond the Bible, the code which Christ has given her, she can never rightfully go. The Bible, and that alone, must govern her discipline. Let us apply this principle — first in a case or two, about which, we presume, there would be no differ- ence of opinion, that we may see clearly its scope and import. Under the Roman law, in Paul's day, a father might kill his child, and yet be guiltless of murder (see § 9). Supposing now, that some father, a mem- 117 118 THE CUKISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. ber of the Cliristian Cluircli, liad taken away the life of his chikh How ought the Church to deal with such a case? Undoubtedlj, they should deal with the man as a murderer, and as such, " deliver him over to Satan.'' Did he put m the plea, The Roman law, the law of the land, gives me the right to take away the life of my child ; the reply would be. That plea might avail you before a Koinan court, but in the Church, the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the law of God is alone of authority ; and by that law you are a murderer, and under that law, as a mur- derer, we cast you out of the Church. Or, take a case such as might occur in some of our ^Northern States. The laws of certain States allow husband and wife to be divorced, and subsequently to marry again, in cases in which the law of God does not allow it. Supposing a case, in which a member of the Church, divorced lawfully according to the States' law, but unlawfully according to God's law, has married again, comes up for decision in a Church court. Will the plea that the second marriage was lawful according to law of the State shield the offender from the Church's censure? Not for a moment. The law of God, and not the law of this or that particular State, is the law in his Church, and must regulate all her discipline. The only cases of apparent exception — and the RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 119 exception is apparent only — are those in wliicli mat- ters left undetermined by God's law are prohibited or enjoined by the law of the State. In this case, under the general requirement of Christian men " to obey magistrates," (Titus, III. 1,) an offence against the law of the State may become, indirectly, an offence in the account of the Church, and the Church may be required to deal with it as such. Turning now to such cases as may arise in con- nection with slavery. The laws of our slave-holding States, at the present time, ignore the marriage rela- tion among slaves. Supposing a slave, a member of the Church, is guilty of adultery, as that crime is defined in God's law, and his case comes up for adju- dication before the Church. Will the plea that the act was not adultery according to the State law be admitted in bar of judgment? ISTot for a moment. The law of God, and not the law of the State, is the law in his Church. The law in our slave-holding States, at the present day, gives to the master the right to separate finally husband and wife among his slaves, and this at his pleasure and for his own profit."^ But supposing that * As this matter is often referred to by anti-slavery writers, let me ask the attention of the reader to an extract from Fletcher's Studies, on Slavery^ the most elaborate work on slavery which has been pub- lished at the South : — " So far as our experience goes, masters uni- 120 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF SLAVERY. a master, a member of the Cliurcli, exercises his power in violation of the law of God, will the plea that the State law gives him this authority be ad- versally manifest a desire to have their negroes marry, and to live with their wives and children, in conformity to Christian rules. And one reason, if no other, is very obvious. The master wishes to secure the peace and tranquillity of his household. Besides the interest of the master, his education on the subject of marriage must be allowed to have a strong influence on his mind to favor and foster in his slaves a connection which his own judgment teaches him must be important to their happiness and his own tranquillity, to say nothing of his duty as a Christian. Indeed, we never heard of a master who did not feel a strong desire, a pride, to see his slaves in good condition, contented, and happy ; and we venture to assert, that no man who entertained a proper regard for his own character, would consent to sell a family of slaves, separately, to different individuals, when the slaves them- selves manifested good conduct, and a habit, or desire to live toge- gether in conformity to the rules of civilized life. That the owners of slaves have sometimes abused the power they possessed, and out- raged the feelings of humanity in this behalf, is doubtless a fact. Nor do we wish to excuse such conduct by saying that proud and wealthy parents sometimes outrage the feelings of common sense and of their own children in a somewhat similar way. These are abuses that can be and should be corrected ; and we are happy to inform Dr. Wayland that we have lived to see many abuses corrected, and hope that many more corrections may follow in their train." — Pp. 38-41. The author would add, that in a ministry of twenty years — all of it in Virginia — no case such as that he is supposing has come up for decision by the churches to which he has ministered, because no such case has occurred. lie has never known a Christian master to violate God's law of marriage in the case of his slaves. RELATION OF THE CHUKCH TO SLAVERY. 121 mitted as a valid defense in a Clmrcli court ? ^N'ot for a moment. Tiie law of God, and not the law of the State, must govern the discipline of the Church. Unscriptural State laws can no more determine the discipline of the Church in the case of slaves than in the case of freemen."^'^ JSTo conflict is likely to arise between a " Free Church " (i. e. not a State Church) — and we believe that Christ intended his Church to be " free " every- where — and the State out of the administration of justice, in their several courts, under different codes of law. The discipline of the Church extends to her own members only, and they become such by their own voluntary choice ; and she can enforce her deci- sions by spiritual sanctions alone. There are no slave-laws in our Southern States — in so far as we know — enjoining that which is contrary to the law of God. K such laws were enacted, the course of the Christian and the Christian Church is very plain ; they must obey God, and not man, as did the martyrs of other days. But where the State law simply per- mits that which is contrary to tlie law of God, the * The reader who wishes to kuow how such cases as those stated above are treated by the churches of Christ in the slave States, caa consult a very able " Report of the Charleston (S. C.) Baptist Associa- tion on the Marriages of Slaves," republished in the February number of the Presbyterian Magazine for 1857. 6 122 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. Christian man can abstain, and the Church can require him to abstain, under the penalty of her spiritual sanctions, from the exercise of the permitted powers, without in any way coming in conflict with the State. § 19. The Teaching of the Church. Beyond her own pale the Church has no authority of discipline. On the world at large she can operate directly through the agency of her teaching alone. Her commission as a teacher is in the words, " Go ye therefore and teach all nations^ baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things what- soever I have commanded youP — Matt. XXYIII. 19, 20. As the Bible is the only record of what Christ hath commanded, the Bible must govern her in all her teaching. " Apart from the Bible, she can never rightfully speak. ' To the law and to the testimonies,' and to them, alone she must always appeal, and when they are silent, it is her duty to put her hand upon her lips." "What is the Church to teach on the subject of slaver}^ ? Just what Christ hath commanded. Just what the Bible teaches — adding nothing thereto — taking nothing therefrom. And this she is to teach RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 123 publicly, to all alike, be.tliey "bond," or be they " free," and " wlietlier men will bear, or wbetber tbey will forbear." Sbe bas no esoteric doctrine for tbe initiated, and exoteric for tbe people : no doctrine for tbe master wbicli tbe slave may not bear ; and none for tbe slave wbicb tbe master maiy not bear, as Dr. Earnes seems to imagine.*^ " In Cbrist Jesus tbere is neitber bond nor free." Do tbe ministers of Cbrist, in tbe Soutbern states, teacb from tbe pulpit all tbat tbe Bible teacbes on tbe subject of slavery ? Yes, we reply : as freely as tbey do tbe doctrine of God's word on any otber subject. (See § 14, 5.) Tbere are practical difficulties to be encountered, botb in teacbing and administering tbe discipline of tbe Cburcb toucbing domestic relations, as every E'ortbern pastor must bave learned from bis own experience in tbe case of busband and wife, * This passage teaches — " That the ministers of religion should not labor to produce a spirit of discontent among slaves, or excite them to rise upon their masters. It would undoubtedly forbid all such in- terference, and all agencies or embassies sent among slaves theynsehes to inflame their mind against their masters, in view of their wrongs. At the same time, nothing in this passage, or in any other part of the New Testament, forbids us to go to the master himself, and show him the evils of the system, and to enjoin upon him to let the op- pressed go free, or that the wrongs of the system may not be fully set before him." — Barries' Notes on 1 Tim. VI. 5. The italics are Dr. B.'s own. 124 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. parent and child. But we believe that the Southern Church is as faithful to her duty, in so far as the re- lations established by slavery are concerned, as the Church, either J^Torth or South, is ret^pecting the duties growing out of the marriage or parental rela- tion. It is not to Sc7'iptural teaching from the pul- pit, that Southern Christians or men of the world ob- ject, but to the unscriptual teaching of men "puffed up with pride though they know nothing, having a morbid fondness for so-called philosophical questions and logomachies." § 20. Church and State. The Church of God is not — as seems to be taken for granted by many — an institution intended to do all the good which needs to be done in the world, and wage war upon every form of human ill. There are other institutions, intended to do good and to alleviate the ills of life, to enable men to "live in all godliness and honesty," that are as truly institutions of God as the Church itself. Civil government is one of these. " The powers " that be are ordained of God / whosoever therefore " resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. " He (i. e. the civil ruler) is the minister of God to RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 125 "thee for good."— Kora. XIII. 1-4. "1 exhort, " therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, " intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all " men ; for kings and for all that are in autliority / " that we may lead a quiet and peccable life, in all " godliness and honesty. For this is good and accept- " able in the sight of God our Saviour."— 1 Tim. II. 1-4. " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man " for the Lord's sake ; whether it be to the hing^ as " supreme, or unto governors^ as unto them that are " sent hy him for the punishment of evil-doers, and " for the praise of them that do well." — 1 Pet. II. 13, 14. According to the plain teaching of Scripture in such passages as those quoted above — and we might multiply the quotations did it seem necessary — the Civil government is as truly an institution of God as is the Church ; and a great deal of the good which needs to be done in this world, is, by God's appointment, to be done through its agency ; and a great many of the ills of life are to be alleviated in the same way. In his own proper sphere, the civil ruler is as truly " the minister of God to thee for good," as is the minister of the Church. Is tlie " evil- doer to be terrified ?" the civil ruler " beareth not the sw^ord in vain." Is " a life in all godliness and honesty " to be secured to the Christian man ? the 126 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. civil ruler is " sent of God," for the " pTinishment of evil-doers and the praise of them that do well." The Christian man is bound to regard these ap- pointments of God. The Church may no more right- fully intrude its^f into the province of the State, than the State may intrude itself into the province of the Church. The fact, if fact it be, that the State may not be accomplishing all the good it ought, that civil or political evils are suffered under its adminis- tration, that it needs reforming — does not authorize the Church to step in and supply these deficiencies, or reform these abuses, any more than a similar state of things in the Church would authorize the State to interfere. All human institutions — human, in that they are administered by man, though ordained of God — are imperfect in their operation. And this, not because the ordinance of God is imperfect, but because sin has introduced disorder into the working of all earthly things ; has put man's nature out of joint. The Church, the State, the Family — we dis- cover evils in the practical working of them all. And such, we believe, will be the case so long as man, but partially sanctified at best, is " God's minis- ter " in their administration. "We freely grant, and sincerely rejoice in the truth, that the healthful operations of the Church in its own appropriate sphere, re-act upon all the interests RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 127 of man, and contribute to the progress and prosperity of society. But we are far from admitting, either, that it is the purpose of God, that under this present dispensation of religion, all evil shall be banished from this sublunary state, and earth be converted into a paradise ; or, that the proper end of the Church is the direct promotion of univeral good." — Synod of South Carolina^ 1848. Tlie conduct of the Apostles — and the same is true of that of Christ himself — was always in conformity with these principles so plainly laid down in the "Word of God. They lived, and preached, and labored ; they planted the Church, and nurtured it, in countries where the civil government was oppressive, and greatly needed reforming ; where the State failed in the accomplishment of much of the good which God designed the State to do ; where many of the ills of life which civil government is intended to cor- rect, were suffered to prevail unchecked ; where per- son and property were insecure ; where the judges took bribes and the rulers oppressed the people ; and the Apostles suffered in their own persons in all these various ways. Yet never do we find these heaven- guided ministers of the Church, either individually or in their synods, intermeddling with the affairs of state. Never do we see them taking the lead in political agitation ; never did they, on the Sabbath, 128 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. lay aside the Gospel that they might preach civil or legal reform. Having received a specific commission to ^' teach all things whatsoever Christ had com- manded," they abide by their commission ; never transgressing it, by adding any thing to, or taking anything from Christ's commandment. Would that the Church in succeeding ages, had followed their example. Alas ! she did not. "With increasingnumbers, increasing wealth, and increasing power, the ordinance of Christ came to be disre- garded, the wisdom of man was substituted for the truth of God, and the Church was wedded to the State in unholy union. And then, as the conse- quence of such a step, growing corruption in doctrine and in manners mark her histery ; and a long, dark night of ignorance, and degradation, and sin, settles down upon Christendom. The State, cursed in her union with the Church ; and the Church yet more deeply cursed in her union with the State. These unholy bonds are n^w, in some measure, broken throughout Christendom. In our own coun- try, they have been more thoroughly broken than in any other ; and God forbid that they should ever be formed anew. And let us not say that because our government is a government of the people, and the Church of Christ in our land is divided into different denominations, there is no danger of Church and KELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 129 State ever uniting. If such a union is formed, it will, of necessity, be different in its character from any that has existed heretofore. And he who has care- fully watched the course of things during the summer last passed, may have some inkling of a form which it may take on. A state of things in which political questions shall be discussed in the pulpit and on the Sabbath, and ecclesiastical councils, turning away from the matters which Christ has given them in charge, shall busy themselves with affairs of state ; and men's religious feelings shall be evoked as elements of political strife, and they made to feel that in promot- ing the interests of this or that party they are verily doing God service. Experience teaches us that there is no tyranny like that of a mob. The bloodiest page in the bloody history of France, is that which records the despotism of the people. And so, we believe, should God, in righteous judgment, suffer a union to be formed between a government of the people, and a Church such as ours, it will prove itself the most dis- astrous union of Church and State the world has ever seen ; disastrous to civil liberty ; and yet more disastrous to the religion of Christ. God has assigned to the Church and the State each its separate province, and neither has ever intruded into the province of the other without suf- fering therefor. To the Church God has intrusted 130 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. all the interests of man which more immediately con- cern the life to come ; his Gospel, and this she is to preach to every creature ; and the supervision of the manners of his people, her members, and these she is to regulate by his law, and so train them for his hea- venly kingdom. To the State God has intrusted all the interests of man which more immediately concern this present life — all questions respecting capital and labor, civil rights and political franchises, the pro- tection of the weak, the forcible repression of crime, and the general administration of justice between man and man. Each, acting in its own sphere, indi- rectly reacts upon the other. A pure Church is a blessing to a State, and an incorrupt State is a blessing to the Church. But let neither the one nor other o'erstep the "metes and bounds" which God has prescribed. The transgression of God's law, whether by individuals or nations, is sin, and sin and sorrow came into our world hand-in-hand, and hand- in-hand they have walked " up and down in the earth " ever since. CONCLUSIOi^. Where God has appointed a v^orTt for liis Chiircli, he has generally appomted the way also in which that work is to be done. And where this is the case, the Church is as much bound to respect the one appoint- ment as the other. Both the worTc of the Church and the way are often more distincly set forth in the life and ministry of Christ and his Apostles than in any positive precept. But in whatever manner the will of God is made known, that will is law to his Church. In the case of a race of men in slavery, the wor'k which God has appointed his Church — as we learn it, both from the example and the precepts of inspired men — is to labor to secure in them a Christian life on earth and meetness for his heavenly kingdom. The African slave, in our Southern States, may be deeply degraded ; the debasing effects of generations of sin may, at first sight, seem to have almost oblite- rated his humanity, yet is he an immortal creature ; LSI 132 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTETNE OF SLAVERY. one for whom God the Son died ; one whom God the Spirit can re-fashion, so as to make him a worthy wor- shipper among God's people on earth, and a welcome worshipper among the ransomed in heaven ; one whom God the Father waiteth to receive as a return- ing prodigal to his heart and to his home. And the commission of the Church, '' go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature^'' sends her a messenger of glad tidings to him as truly as to men fra* above him in the scale of civilization. On this point there can be no difference of opinion among God's people, North or South, who intelligently take the word of God as their " only rule of faith and obedience." This is the work of God, assigned by him to his Church, in so far as the slave race among us is concerned. ^'^ In what way is this work to be done ? We answer. By preaching the same Gospel of God's grace alike to the master and the slave ; and w^hen there is credi- ble evidence given that this Gospel has been received in faith, to admit them, master and slave, into the same Church — the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in which " there is neither bond nor free " — and to seat * " The fact is, that the great duty of the South is not emancipa- tion, but improvement. The former is obligatory only as a means to an end, and therefore only under circumstances where it would pre mote that end." — Hodge's Essays and Revieios, p. 607. 133 them at the same table of the Lord, that drinking of the same cup, and eating of the same loaf, they may witness to the world their communion in the body and blood of the same Saviour. And having received them into the same Church, to teach them the duties belonging to their several " callings" out of the same Bible, and subject them to the discipline prescribed by the same law, the law of Christ. And this, the teaching of the Church, is to be addressed not to her members only, but to the world at large ; and her discipline of her members is to be exercised not in secret, but before the world, that the light which God has given her may appear unto all men. This is just the way in which Christ and his Apostles dealt with slavery. The instructions they have given us in their life and in their writings prohibit any other. In this^way must the Church labor to make " good masters and good slaves," just as she labors to make *' good husbands, good wives, good parents, good children, good rulers, good subjects. With the ulti- mate effect of this upon the civil and political condi- tion of the slave the Church has nothing directly to do. K the ultimate effect of it be the emancipation of the slave — we say — in God's name, " let it come." " If it be of God, we cannof^ — and we would not if we could — " overthrow it, lest haply we be found even to light against God." If the ultimate effect be 134 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. the perpetuation of slavery divested of its incidental evils — a slavery in which the master shall be required, by the laws of man as well as that of God, " to give unto the slave that which is just and equal," and the slave to render to the master a cheerful obedience and hearty service — we say, let slavery continue. It may be, that such a slavery, regulating the rela- tions of capital and labor, though implying some deprivation of personal liberty, will prove a better defense of the poor against the oppression of the rich, than the too great freedom in which capital is placed in many of the free States of Europe at the present day. Something of this kind is what the masses of free laborers in France are clamoring for under the name of '' the right to labors Something of this kind would have protected the ejected tenantry of the Duke of Sutherland against the tyrantiy which drove them forth from the home of their childhood, and quenched the fire upon many a hearth-stone, and converted once cultivated fields into sheep-walks. It may be, that Christian slavery is God's solution of the problem about which the wisest statesmen of Europe confess themselves " at fault." "-Bonds make free, be they but righteous bonds. Freedom enslaves, if it be an unrighteous freedom." * * For an able examination of this point the reader is referred to 135 To this way of dealing with slavery, thus clearly pointed out in God's word, does God in his provi- dence " shut us up," for years to come. None but the sciolist in political philosophy can regard the problem of emancipation — even granting that this were the aim which -the Christian citizen should have immediately in view — as a problem of easy solution. And thoughtful Christian men at the North, it has seemed to us, often lose sight of the greatest difficul- ties in the case. It is comparatively an easy matter to devise a scheme of emancipation in which all the just rights and the well-being of the master shall be provided for. But how shall we, as God-fearing men, provide for the just rights and well-being of the emancipated slave ? To leave the partially civilized slave race, in a state of freedom, in contact with a much more highly civilized race, as all history testi- fies, is inevitable destruction to the former. Their writ of enfranchisement is their death-warrant. To remove one hundredth part of the annual increase of the slave race to Liberia, year by year, would soon quench for ever that light of Christian civilization which a wise philanthropy has kindled upon the dark Slavery and the Remedy ; or, Principles and Suggestions for a Remedial Code, by Samuel Nott. Crocker and Brewster, publishers, Boston. 136 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. coast of Africa. How shall we provide for the well- being of the enfranchised slave? Here is the real difficult J in the problem of emancipation. "We mean to express no opinion respecting the feasibility of the future emancipation of the slave race among us. As we stated in the outset, our pur- pose is to introduce no question on which the Bible does not give us specific instruction. And we have referred to the question of emancipation — a question which it belongs to the State, and not the Cliurch, to settle — simply that the reader may see how com- pletely God's word and God's providence are " at one," in so far as the present duty of the Church is concerned. Is slavery to continue? We want the best of Christian masters and the best of Christian slaves, that it may prove a blessing to both the one and the other. Is ultimate emancipation before us ? We want the best of Christian masters to devise and carry out the scheme by which it shall be effected, and the best of Christian slaves, that their emancipa- tion may be an enfranchisement indeed. And this is just what the Bible plan of dealing with slavery aims at. The future may be hidden from view in " the clouds and darkness" with which God oft veils his purposes; but there is light — heaven's light — upon the present. And it is with the present alone we have- immediately to do. 137 This is 0716 way of dealing with sLaveiy, and so firmly convinced are we that it is GocVs loay for his Church that we cannot abandon it. Another way ^vo'^o^^Q^ is — confounding the distinc- tion between slavery itself and the incidental evils which attach to it in our country, and at the present day, under the guise of dealing with "American Slavery;" in the teaching of the Church to denounce slave-holding as a sm, as " evil, always evil, and only evil," {Barnes' Notes, 1 Cor, YIL 21) ; and in the discipline of the Church to treat it as an " offence^'' and " detach the Church from it, as it is detached from piracy, intemperance, theft, licentiousness, and duelling," {Church and State^ p. 193), and so labor directly to put an end to slavery throughout the world.* * That the reader may see how far Dr. B. would go, we give his own words : — " A Church, located in the midst of slavery, though all its members may be wholly unconnected with slavery, yet owes an important duty to society and to God in reference to the system, and its mission will not be accomplished by securing merely the sanctifi- cation of its members, or even by drawing within its fold tnultitudes of those who shall be saved. Its primary work as a Church may have reference to an existing evil within its own geographical limits. The burden which is laid upon it may not be primarily the conversion of the keatlien, or the diffusion of Bibles and tracts abroad. The work which God requires it to do, and for which specif cally it has been planted there, may be to diffuse a definite moral influence in respect 138 TITE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. To all this we object — First. — There is a radical fallacy involved in the use which is made of the expression, " American Slavery." By American Slavery, Dr. Barnes means — and the same is true of all anti-slavery writers whose works we have seen — the aggregate of, 1. Slavery itself; and, 2. Tlie incidental evils which attach to it in this country and at this day, considered as inseparable — an indivisible unit. This treatment of the sub- ject is — 1. Un^hilosophical, Nothing is more real than the distinction, as set forth in the writings of Paul. (See § 15.) The fact that Dr. B. can write about Jewish slavery, and Roman slavery, and American slavery, as different the one from the others, shows that there must be something common to them all, to which we give the common name. Slavery ; and something peculiar to each, which we designate by the adjuncts Jewish, Eoman, American. Dr. B. admits to an existing evil institution." — Ohurch and Slavery, p. 21. To con- vert the Church of God into a kind of " omnibus," in which every- thing called a moral reform shall be free to ride on an equal footing with the Gospel, as Dr. B. does, (see Church and Slavery, pp. 159- 164,) is bad enough; but thus actually to turn the Gospel out upon the pave, until a certain moral reform has been carried home, is at once the folly of fanaticism and the fanaticism of folly. 139 that Eomau slavery, as encountered by the Apostles in their day, was far more cruel and oppressive than American slavery now is* — that is, that much of the incidental evil which once attached to slavery has disappeared. If much has already disappeared, why may not all that remains disappear in like manner ? The change that has taken place, has been effected under the benign influence of Christianity. And just as certainly as we believe that Christianity is from God, and is destined to a final triumph in the world, just so certainly do we believe that slavery — if it is to continue to exist — must continue to be modified by it, until all its incidental evils disappear. 2. It is %inscTi])t%iTal. By this we mean, 1. It is an essentially different way of approaching the sub- ject of slavery from that adopted by the Apostles. Paul never wrote a line respecting Jewish slavery — * " It is proper to concede that the state of things was such that they (tha Apostles) must have encountered it (slavery), and that it then had all the features of cruelty, oppression, and wrong, which can ever exist to make it repellant to any of the feelings of humanity, or revolting to the principles of a Christian. It is fair that the advo- cates of the system should have all the advantage which can be de- rived from the fact that the Apostles found it in its most odious forms, and in such circumstances as to make it proper that they should regard and treat it as an evil, if Christianity regards it as such at all." — Scriptural Views of Slavery^ pp. 250, 251. Compare this with a quotation given a little further on. 140 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. meaning thereby, slavery itself and the incidental evils which attached to it in his day and among the Jews — or Roman slavery ; nor does he give the Churches any directions couched in any such lan- guage as this. He writes about slavery^ which he treats as neither a sin nor an offence ; and about cer- tain GVils attaching to slavery as he encountered it, which he treats as sinful, and requires the Church, in her own proper sphere, to labor to correct. 2. It ignores the very ground upon which the whole method of dealing w^ith slavery prescribed in the Word of God, is predicated. In his introduction to his "Scriptural Yiews of Slavery," Dr. Barnes justifies his dealing, as he does, with what he calls " American Slavery," upon the ground — 1. That slavery, as it exists in the United States, is slavery divested of all the incidental evils of which it is reasonable to suppose Christianity will ever divest it ; and hence, that all which now belongs to it, ought to be considered as, for all practical purposes, essential to the system."^ * " If any system of slavery is sanctioned by the Bible, it may be presumed that that which exists in the United States is. This is a Christian land — a land, to a degree elsewhere unknown, under the influence of the Christian religion. It could hardly be hoped that a 141 This is certainly "American glorification" — "with a witness." For ourselves, w^e love our country ; and we feel an honest, patriotic pride in her standing among the nations. But God forbid, that we should entertain the thought that her social institutions, either in law or in fact, shall never be brought more fully under the control of God's truth than they now are; that the wife shall never be better protected against the wrong often inflicted by the profligate husband ; and the child against the cruelty of the drunken father ; and all this, without destroying the essential character of the marital and parental rela- tions as set forth in the Word of God ; that our heart and our home relations shall never be more thoroughly Christian than they now are. And so, too, with re- spect to slavery. Had we heard such sentiments as those just quoted from Dr. B., as part of a Fourth-of- July oration of some beardless Sophomore, w^e could have comforted ourselves with the reflection — in- creasing years may give the young man wisdom. That we should read them from the pen of one who must have " gray hairs here and there upon him," we can account for only by calling to mind what Paul state of society could be found, in which slavery could be better de- veloped, or where its developments would more accord with the prin- ciples of the Bible, than in our own land." — Scriptural Views,- p. 14. 142 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTEINE OF SLAVERY. tells US of the effects of feeding on " unwholesome words."— 1 Tim. VL 3. 2. That what we have designated as God's way of dealing with slavery, is dealing with slavery in the abstract^ and not as 2i practical matter."^ What Dr. B.'s idea of dealing with an institution in the abstract is, we know not. We have always supposed that such dealing implied the abstraction — i. e., the taking away or neglecting for the time being — something, either essential or incidental, belonging to such institution. But, surely, we are not dealing with American slavery — slavery as it exists among us, in the abstract — in any such sense as this. We take slavery, and the whole of slavery, just as it exists among us, and, after Paul's example, we separate it into — 1. That which is essential^ i. e., that * It is a subject of not unfrequent complaint, that, in the exami- nation of this subject (slavery), the adversaries of the system endeavor to show that slavery as it exists in our country, is contrary to the Bible, instead of confining themselves to the naked question, whether slavery in the abstract is right or wrong. The very question — the only one that is of tcnj practical importance to us — is, whether slavery as it exists in the United States is, or is not, in accordance with the principles and the spirit of Christianity. As an abstract matter, there might indeed be some interest attached to the inquiry whether slavery, as it existed in the Roman empire in the time of the Apostles, or in Europe in the Middle Ages, was in accordance with the spirit of the Christian religion. — Scriptural Views, pp. 10, 12. god's work in god's WAT. 143 which must continue if slavery continues ; and, 2. That which is incidental^ i. e., that which may disap- pear and slavery yet remain. Having done this, we then, in discussion^ deal with 1)0111 parts. We prove from the Word of God, that \}i\.Q first is not in viola- tion of his law ; and show, just as clearly, that much of the second is in violation of that law. And in our ^practical dealing with it^ as a Church, we deal with hoth parts. The fi7'st we treat as not sinful, and re- quire both the parties to conform to its obligations ; much of the second — and just so much of it as is in violation of God's law — we prohibit, with all the authority given by Christ to his Church over her members, and in every proper way, we seek tT) re- move from the world at large. If this is not dealing with slavery in its entirety, we ask, What is ? If this is dealing with slavery m the abstract, we ask, What have we abstracted ? We remarked that there was " a radical fallacy in- volved in the use which is made of the expression, American slavery,''^ as used by Dr. B. and other writers of the same school. The reader will now see just what was meant by that remark. The only meaning which can properly attach to the expression American slavery, is that of slavery as it exists in these United States of America. In this sense of the expression, we are dealing with American 144: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF SLAVERY. slavery, just as truly, and just as fully, and with far more oi practical wisdom, we think, than Dr. B. is. The real difference betw^een us is, that we distinguish between that which is essential and that which is in- cidental, as Paul did, and we deal with each as it deserves, as Paul did. Whilst Dr. B., neglecting this distinction, and thus, practically, treating all as essen- tial, deals with it as an indivisible unit ; and he does this under the guise of dealing with " American sla- very," foisting upon that phrase, in addition to its proper meaning, the idea of the indivisible unity of the mass. To take such a course as this, when the issues in question are such as they are, is nothing more nor less than '^a begging of the question." Second. — Wq object to the course proposed by Dr. B. and others, for dealing with slavery, because it re- quires the Church to obtrude herself into the province of the State, and this, in direct violation of the ordi- nance of God. A course which has never been taken in times past, without disastrous consequences to the Church which did the wrong, as well as to the State which permitted the wrong to be done. Many a thing which it is right and proper, and even the duty of the Christian citizen, in this our free country, to do, the Church, as such, has no right to intermeddle with. It is, doubtless, the duty of the Christian citi- zen, for example, to use all proper means to inform 145 himself respecting the qualifications of candidates for ofi]ce, and having thus informed himself, to vote for the one whom he believes will best discharge the duties of the office. But will any Christian man, hence contend that it is right for the preacher, in the pulpit and on the Sabbath, to discuss the claims of rival candidates, and the Church, in her councils to direct her members how to vote ? The Church and State has each its own appropriate sphere of opera- tion assigned it of God, and neither can innocently intrude herself into the province of the other. Third. — It leads to tampering with God's truth, and " wresting the Scripture," as Dr. B. has done in his Kotes, by the application to them of principles and methods of interpretation, which destroy all cer- tainty in human language. In order to make the Bible declare that slave-holding is a sin, when it plainly teaches j ust the contrary ; - and to teach in * " As it appears to us too clear to admit of either denial or doubt, that the Scriptures do sanction slave-holding ; that under the old dis- pensation it was expressly permitted by divine command, and under the New Testament is nowhere forbidden or denounced, but on the contrary, acknowledged to be consistent with the Christian character and profession, (that is, consistent with justice, mercy, holiness, love to God, and love to man;) to declare it to be a heinous crime is a direct impeachment of the Word of God." "When Southern Chris- tians are told that they are guilty of a heinous crime, worse than T 146 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTETNE OF SLAVERY. the Church doctrines which we are forbidden to teach under the most solemn sanctions. (See § 12.) This course has led not a few, once fair and promis- ing members of the Church, and even ministers, into open " blas]Dhemy ;" and Paul teaches us, that such is its natural tendency, (1 Tim. YI. 4.) We have no desire to walk in their waj^, or to meet their doom. FouKTH. — It requires us to quit a method of dealing with slavery which has worked well in time past — all of real advantage to the slave that has ever been done by the Church has been done in this way — and to substitute for it a method which, to say the least of it, is a mere experiment, and an experiment which has wrought nothing but harm to the slave* thus far piracy, robbery, or murder, because they hold slaves, when they know that Christ and his Apostles never denounced slave-holding as a crime, never called upon men to renounce it as a condition of admis- sion into the Church, they are shocked and offended without being convinced. They are sure that their accusers cannot be wiser or bet- ter than their Divine Master, and their consciences are untouched by denunciations which they know if well founded, must affect not them only, but the authors of the religion of the Bible." — Hodge^s Assays and Eemcws, pp. 503, 484. * In illustration of this remark, we quote from Fletcher — " Thirty years ago, we occasionally had schools for negro children ; nor was it uncommon for masters to send their favorite young slaves to these schools ; nor did such acts excite attention or alarm, and, at the same time, any missionary had free access to that class of our population. 147 — and we say this, after watcliing its operation during a ministry of twenty years, all of it, in God's provi- dence, spent in a slave-holding state. For all these reasons, we can never adopt this second way proposed. God's wokk in God's way, the Church at the South, in common with some por- tions of the Church at the ISTorth also,* have inscribed upon their banner ; and under that banner do we mean to fight the " Lord's battles," grace assisting us, until he who bid us gird on our armor shall give us leave to put it off. Churches of God may cut us off from their communion. They cannot break our union with Christ, " the Head." Ministers of the Gospel, But when we found, with astonishment, that our country was flooded with abolition prints, deeply laden with the most abusive falsehoods, with the obvious design to excite rebellion among the slaves, and to spread assassination and bloodshed through the land ; when we found these transient missionaries, mentally too insignificant to foresee the result of their conduct, or wholly careless of the consequences, preaching the same doctrines — these little schools, and the mouths of these missionaries, were dosed. And great was the cry. Dr. Way- land knows whereabout lies the wickedness of these our acts ! Let him and his coadjutors well understand that these results, whether for the benefit or injury of the slave, have been brought about by the work of their hand." — Studies on Slavery, p. 41. We could add much of similar character, from our own obser- vation. * See the paper adopted by the General Assembly of the Presby- terian Church, 0. S., in 1845. {Assembly's Digest, pp. 811-813.) 148 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. froin wliom we have a right to expect better things, may revile us — we " fear God rather than man." '' A conscience void of offence before God," is above all price. With this whole subject of slavery, we mean to deal just as Christ and his Apostles dealt — to preach what they preached — to labor as they labored — to govern the Church of .God as they governed it — in Christian fellowship and brotherhood with God's people at the JSTorth, and in other lands, if we MAY : — in faithfulness to Christ, though in opposition to all the world, if we must. THE END. THE DOCTRINE OF BAPTISM. THE DOCTRINE OF BAPTISM. A SCRIPTURAL EXAMINATION OF THE QUESTIONS RESPECTING^ I. THE MEANING OF BAPTIZO. II. THE MODE OF BAPTISM. III. THE SUBJECT OF BAPTISM. BY GEO. D. ARMSTRONG, D.D. In One volume, 12nio., 340 pages. Price |1 00. " We regard this as altogether the most able and faithful work on the general subject now to be had."— 77ie Congregationalist (^Boston). " We have given this work a very careful examination. As a treatise for the people, we know of none, on the whole, equal to it." — Central Presbyterian {Richmond). " A very thorough and Scriptural investigation of the subject. Dr. A. gives soft words but hard arguments." — The Freshyterian {Philadelphia). " Dr. A. handles his points with scholarly accuracy and dilectic skill, while every page evinces his excellence as a Ch.v\si\&ny— Presbyterian Banner {Pittsburg). " A book remarkable for its originality, as also, for its method and conciseness." — Genesee Evangelist. " If any of our readers are seeking information respecting the mode or subject of baptism, we hope they will buy and read this yo\\xmQ.''''—Soxithern Churchman. " This work is in advance of current views. It locates the issue just where it is obliged for ever to rest — in the Bible. Dr. A. is very methodical and concise, never wasteful of words, and marches to his conclusions with the form and force of mathematical demon- stration."— i!fe^7iO(it6i Quarterly Review. 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