The Bible and Slavery, by Joseph Gilbert
When you fall into company with a christian man, while under the influence of devotion; his passions unruffled by the interests of this life, and his understanding unentangled with their intricacies; he seems as if his soul had been breathing in a milky and fragrant sea of love. The spirit of a system which proclaims "glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, goodwill to man," has inspired him; and with a glow of sacred benevolence, without restraint or reserve, he will tell how "God is love;" how this love in its infinitude dwelt in Christ the Saviour of man, while through atonement to justice and satisfaction of law, it opened to itself a channel, along which, with a free course, it might visit every child of Adam. He will tell you that the essence of that religion which the Redeemer brought from heaven to men is this glorious attribute; that its power is displayed in subduing whatever is fierce,untractable, proud and selfish in the human bosom; and in transforming a heart, before the residence of many a malignant demon, into "a habitation of this God of love through his Spirit."
But mark this same man in other circumstances, in contact with the common affairs of life, and associated with the man of business; especially when on the arena of debate, where temporal interests are discussed, the anomalous claims of various classes of society adjusted, and questions of expediency weighed and determined; -- see him when the efficacy of principle must be exposed to trial, when religion is to go forth from theory to practice, its energy to be teated by acts, and its influence for good brought into competition with the power of example, habit, human friendships, and national institutions; -- what then do you too frequently behold, but the man of secular wisdom, and of less than pagan justice? -- an ordinary man of this world, offering profoundest homage to rank, even to ill-gotten wealth, sympathizing with the oppressor, and not only leaving the victim in his fangs, but insulting the misery he helps to inflict by affected condolence; -- one really engaged in fastening more firmly the chain of bondage, by quoting the Bible in favour of tyranny; but while in the act of driving the iron deeper into the soul of the oppressed, preaching to him submission and contentment with his wrongs.
An hour or two has passed, since this professed disciple of Christ beheld his Master adorned in robes of grace, melting with pity, weeping over the miseries of men, even the most guilty; inviting the weary and heavy-laden, and stretching a merciful hand to "break every fetter, to loose every yoke," and to pour the healing balm into every galled wound. In all this, he saw the Saviour doing the will of the eternal Father, doing nothing from discordant sympathies, nothing apart from his commission, but in the very act of beginning his career of mercy, exclaiming, "Lo! I come to do thy will, O God!" Yet now this same disciple has discovered, -- discovered in one short hour, contrary decrees of God, opposing acts of providence; nay, allowance, permission, more than toleration, -- a positive license for proud contempt of a fellow-creature; for a sordid claim of sovereignty over his limbs and spirit; for the prostitution of a being for whom Christ died, into the mere instrument of avarice; for the foulest of robberies; yea, even for certain and wholesale murder, however slowly working may be the violent death.
To inflict slavery upon a Brother, to extort his unrewarded labour by the terror of the lash, to brutalize him, to make him our property (as we coolly name the impious deed) to consume his life in unpitied toil, to treat him as made on purpose for us, and given, bound hand and foot, into our merciless gripe by his Creator; -- this we are told is not inconsistent with Christianity, is no sin, has been permitted, nay even recommended by God himself, and remains to this hour the accredited license of the strong against the weak. This we are told by the christian man, by him who just before declared that God is love, and that the gift of Christ is the glorious pledge, the proof that love is indeed his very essence.
Stay, indignation! repress thy clamour, wait awhile, and learn what strengths of reason may compel us to admit this seeming contradiction.
When Christianity obtains its final triumphs, and by consequence, in proportion as it prevails at all times, "The wolf is to dwell with the lamb, the leopard to lie down with the kid, the calf and the young lion together," as well as the cow and the bear to feed in friendship; but must we not amend our wonted exposition of these figures? It is not, perchance, that the fierce and ravenous are to assume the nature of the meek and innocent; but that, by blending qualities, the lamb and the wolf are to be confounded; the cow, the bear, and the lion, alike in ferocity and devouring selfishness. Can this be true? Then let the infidel triumph, and let us renounce our drivelling about the religion of love! Who, in maintaining contrarieties, can conciliate the respect of common sense, or the approbation of his conscience?
If Christianity sanction Slavery, it must at the same time sanction the cruelty and wrong, the misery, and the loathsome forms of human degradation from which it is inseparable, which compose indeed its essence, and which defile and curse every soil where it is planted. Then let us, with a fearless probity, designate this same Christianity by its proper attributes; let us tell the world how it mocks the hope of the benevolent heart; how, instead of elevating our species into the practice of heroic virtue, and urging to generous personal sacrifices for the good of others, it leaves us leagues below humanity, sunk in depths of the meanest selfishness, and the devoted worshippers of that accursed thing, which, with a strange inconsistency, itself denominates the "principle of every evil." Let us tell the scoffing infidel with manly candour, what it is that we so strenuously commend to his regard. and press on his acceptance; let us pursue him with entreaties, till he embrace the glorious truths which authorize him to do -- what? -- to sail to the West Indies, to purchase an estate of human flesh, to pray and flog, to thank his God and manacle bis brother, to water his plantations with the tears of his fellows, to enjoy the music of wailing and lamentation, to become happily familiar with sights of woe, and enjoy the sweet interchange of devotion and ferocity.
But are we truly reduced to this necessity? must we forego the stimulating hope that the world itself is, by the power of Christianity, -- hoped otherwise in vain, -- to become the abode of justice, kindness, love; -- the ennobling thought, that therein is revealed to our contemplation a system of unmingled purity and benevolence; that this system is embodied in the person, character and acts of its great Founder, and that the Christ of whom it testifies has in his life, and partly in his death, left us an example, which he not only calls upon us to imitate, but pledges himself to enable us ultimately to attain? We will not easily be induced to forego this transporting anticipation, nor will we suffer an ambiguous sentence, nor a disputed fact, to repress our ardour. We will not quibble with the advocate, who imagines himself called by duty to justify wrong, but rather endeavour to ascertain the spirit of the enactment; we will interpret what might be doubtful, if alone, -- harmoniously with the main design; and illustrate the obscure by the clear light, -- the steadily-burning lamp of undisputed truth.
This is a course so palpably reasonable, that one must be astonished how some minds could ever wander from it, and by so doing plunge amidst morasses and pitfalls, exposing alike themselves and those who trust their guidance to untold danger. If there are insulated passages of Scripture which seem to be exceptions from its general tone and character; who that values consistency, would strain their verbal bearing to what is condemned by every page of the volume; -- to the support of injustice, violence, and mockery of human weakness?
Principles of interpretation have, on this question, been adopted, which, if followed out, must banish virtue and happiness from the world; while it is passing strange, that not only professed divines, but even experimental christians, in opposition to the dictates of the inner man, have become apparently their willing patrons.
To institute a formal argument, to prove that the word of God has nowhere given to man the license, at his own pleasure, to make a slave of his fellow-man, seems indeed to common sense a labour so superfluous, that only demonstration the most palpable that folly not unfrequently thus mingles itself with general wisdom, could warrant the painful and ignominious attempt -- ignominious to those who need it, if not to him who with reluctance undertakes the task.
Upon what pretences, then, of scriptural authority do men plead for the lawfulness of holding, at our own discretion, a fellow-being in a state of slavery? They are founded on such positions as the following.
That Slavery in the abstract cannot be unjust, since on some occasions it has been expressly permitted, and on others even commanded; -- that from the beginning, and more explicitly since, part of our race were marked out by a distinctive colour to become victims of the oppression of others; -- that at a recorded period, the Divine Proprietor laid a portion of the human family under the ban of his curse; -- that He decreed, and having decreed, predicted that a certain race should be held as slaves of other races; -- that Slavery, though existing when Christianity was introduced, was not by name definitely denounced; -- that instructions are given to slaves as slaves, by which that state is recognized; -- and that Paul, the great asserter of christian liberty, sent back a vagrant slave to his former master, without demanding his manumission.
Let us examine these vaunted proofs, that an opprobrious scheme of perpetrating injury on our fellow-creatures has been introduced and practised under the guarantee of heaven.
I. To speak of Slavery in the abstract, is to talk but unintelligibly; -- and the difficulty is, to understand from what it is to be abstracted. Is it that the subject of such slavery is abstracted from the iron grasp of his fellow-man; from every usurped claim over his person and unpaid labour; from the infliction of the brand, the scourge, and the fetter; from the blustering villany which degrades his manhood into the unintelligent brute? Is he to be withdrawn from the cupidity, the lust of domination in the master? Is it a case in which, against his own desire, under a sense of solemn obligation from an authority higher than his will, without a sordid feeling, or the least tyrannical love of power, the hapless lord is found encumbered with his slaves? Were such the fact, this slavery in the abstract were tolerable to the slave, intolerable to the master, and would not long, we may presume, be found. The logic of such a holder of property in man would soon be keen enough to find a plausible deliverance. His wit, so sharpened now to defend his grasp, would not be wanting then to counsel him how he might relax his hold. If Slavery can indeed subsist without oppressors, then may there be a slavery in the abstract, which we ought not to condemn.
But difficult as it may be to discover what is meant by so obscure a phrase, and yet so often employed by the advocates of slavery; perhaps by attending somewhat closely to the line of defence pursued on such occasions, we may gather, that what is intended is, not slavery in the abstract, but just the contrary. As far as we can judge, it amounts only to the acknowledged case, that circumstances may arise, such, that it is not unlawful nor unjust, to hold a fellow-creature in bondage. Whoever doubted of this fact? and by what rule of thought or language is this to be called slavery in the abstract, depending as it does entirely upon specific and peculiar conditions from which alone the lawfulness arises? Did any one, save these slavery defenders, ever dream that it was right in the abstract to hang our fellow-creatures, to behead them, to shut them up in prisons, or to chain them in solitary cells, because it has been generally admitted that rebels, murderers, and felons may be so treated? Not unfrequently; indeed, have we heard these slavery-men defend their cruelties by pointing to our prisons and our prisoners, our chained felons and our gibbets; assuming doubtless that Englishmen will take for granted, that these miserable beings are so used upon the principle of abstract right, not upon that of punishment for crimes against society; or at least supposing that the British public can discern no difference between suffering for felony, and suffering for not submitting gracefully to the claim of a tyrant over their persons and unrewarded services. Having succeeded in benumbing to utter insensibility their own perceptive powers of moral distinction, they seem to imagine that the torpor has become universal, and that as suffering is suffering all over the world, Botany Bay and the West Indies make no different associations. Justice and violence, lawful punishment and murder, are in their esteem twin-brothers; and a merciless Planter and a Judge may claim from public esteem and confidence an equal sanction.
God, it is said, in some cases -- in that of Abraham for instance, has implied the right to make our fellow-creatures slaves, by giving laws and regulations for its exercise; while, in other cases, as in that of the Israelites, he not only permitted but enjoined it, by commanding them to take of the people of surrounding nations, and to make them slaves. Let us examine this high pretension, -- this boasted patent from heaven in favour of a practice which bears so many marks of a contrary origin.
Are we then to infer that it cannot be wrong in the abstract, to extirpate whole nations at our pleasure, to slay utterly, old and young, women and babes, and to take possession of their land, their cattle, and their goods? Does this follow because God, on a special occasion, gave this command to a specific people, against a people also specifically marked and separated to that judgment? Does abstract right arise from cases insulated thus from ordinary rule? Are all the acts performed by the immediate sanction and express authority of God, the undoubted Proprietor and Supreme Judge, to be regarded as examples and public rules of conduct for all mankind? Will the Christian yield to the Infidel the honesty or justice of such an interpretation?
The apologist for Slavery, driven by sad necessity, has in his defences learnt the art of knaves; the well known art of slily reversing facts and rules; and many a weak Christian has not been able to detect the fearful trick upon his understanding. To do no injury, is, as it has ever been, the abstract rule, or rather to do good to all men; -- the opposite, to inflict evil, is the melancholy exception, then only right, when justice, necessity, general safety, or the express authority of heaven, for a higher end than individual benefit, demands. The Creator, the Preserver of life, the most rightful and universal Lord, possesses without doubt an absolute authority not to be delegated to his creatures. It rests with him to judge, when, where, and how to punish his offending subjects, considered simply as his subjects, not as transgressors against societies of men. Nor is He more restricted in the means than in the power and right to inflict his judgments. He may employ his creatures as his executioners, but woe to those who assume that office without express commission! Power, the most absolute, belongs to God, but never causelessly does he draw the sword of his Almighty Providence, or give the license to his agents to destroy. At length it will be found that "justice and judgment have been the basis of his throne."
But because God is Lord and Sovereign over his creatures, shall therefore man put in his claim to that prerogative? Shall a thing of nought invest himself with his Creator's attributes, and claim to make his own will his law? Or if not, can our West Indians produce their commission from their Maker to spoil his workmanship, and to degrade into the brute whom God has meant for men? Let them shew the seal of their high warrant. Let them, like Moses, not bring plagues only on mankind, but take them off; let them work wonders of goodness, as well as marvels of evil. What seas have they divided to let the ransomed pass over? From what flinty rock have they given water to the thirsty refugee from bondage? Never have there been wanting men, sufficiently audacious to imitate the rule, the authority, and royal state of the Almighty, -- but if this be piety, then hell itself is peopled with pious inmates. Let then no one so debauch his reason, as to argue, that because under some circumstances, some men have received an implied permission, or even an express command, to hold slaves, -- therefore we, according to the dictates of an imperious will, or the impulses of avarice, may do the like. Fit argument this for tyrants, or for idiots, but frightfully out of keeping for reasonable christian men. In what part of holy Scripture, then, has God conceded to any portion of mankind, the right, the license, the permission, if you please, to employ a power casually accruing to them, at their own will, and simply for their gain, to enslave their fellow-creatures? This is the question, and we demand a clear, indubitable grant, before we implicate the Bible in the crime.
But if to hold our fellow-creatures in unwilling bondage be so great a sin, it is replied, why was it not forbidden? The answer is, it was forbidden, and it has been punished also.
Before the law of Moses, the light of nature, God's law written on the mind, forbad it; as is most justly held by all the authors best approved and most learned in the laws of nature and of nations.[Author's note: "Licet unus prae altero variis dotibus, animi corporisque à natura sit ornatus, non eo minus tamen, legis naturalis praecepta adversus alios ei sint exercenda, atque ipse ab aliis idem expectat; nec ideo plus licentiae, ipsi concedatur, alios injuriis afficiendi." -- Puffendorf.] And what is the specific crime for which it is recorded that the providence of God so fearfully interposed as to bring the flood upon the inhabited earth? It was this, -- "the earth was filled with violence." What violence greater can be, than that of depriving a brother-man of all his rights, treating him as our property, and by force and terror making him, body and soul, subservient to our will? If any oppression greater than this is asserted to have been punished by the flood, let us at least be informed how we may conceive of it.
The written law of Moses forbad Slavery. Christ, the infallible interpreter, has expounded it to mean, that we should "love our neighbour as ourselves," and that "we should do to all men as we would that they should do to us." Explain these maxims as you may, place the utmost limit to their beneficence which shall leave but a particle of meaning in them, and it must follow still, that Slavery, -- Slavery uncaused by crime, by compact, or, if such a thing there can be, by the issues of a war necessarily and justly waged, -- is peremptorily forbidden. That this particular form of injustice should be specifically and expressly named, it were most absurd to demand. Things of a doubtful nature might require a distinct enumeration, but what need of such particularity where hesitation would be inconsistent with the primary distinctions of right and wrong? Christ himself has explained murder to include whatever leads to it, even anger towards a brother without cause. What sort of book had been the Bible, if every sin to which depravity gives rise had been described by some distinctive name? Conciseness, universality, and yet unfailing adequacy to bring conviction to the offender, constitute a part, and no small part, of the innate evidence, that the law laid down in Scripture does really come from God.
Jurists, worthy of the name, have unanimously held, that the strong, as such, could by no law of nature assume dominion over the weak; and to one of four causes have ascribed the origin of Slavery. These causes were, violence in the spoliator, crime in the victim, voluntary compact between the parties, and finally, the result of war, undertaken from some urgent cause, and prosecuted rightfully. This cause was deemed to imply a capital offence in the enemy, and to invest the victor with the right to punish with general slaughter. When death was not inflicted, it was transmuted for a state of lasting servitude; and inasmuch as, had the right to kill been exercised, issue had been prevented, it was assumed that children born to the Slaves, become obnoxious to the sad condition of their parents. Consequences so fearful ill accord with our notions of what is just; but, at any rate, being generally known, they might at least have one salutary effect; -- that of deterring from aggression.
Whether the slaves possessed by Abraham were exclusively of the latter class, cannot be determined; but as some of them were his by purchase, it is to be inferred that some had been either prisoners of war, or the posterity of such; yet others might have been held by him for life, by stipulation. The case of Abraham, therefore, can supply no extenuation of the Slave-system. He did not employ a lawless power, making his own cupidity the rule, and assuming, contrary to the law of nations, an absolute control over strangers merely because he had the power to do so. If any insinuate the slanderous charge, on him must rest the proof. The Scriptures do not sanction the attempt.
Our modern Slavery cannot be legalized. International, universal law forbids, and must annul all compacts to the contrary of its indissoluble obligation; whence, by whatsoever pretended sanction of confederacy, one nation, or one class of men, without wrong previously committed, decree the people of another nation, or the weak amongst their own, together with their offspring, to a perpetual servitude, the act is felony, and chargeable as such on all who but concur in the fraudful plunder. Are we to impute this crime to Abraham? By what rule of evidence or equity is it in our power?
Yet it may be admitted that maxims then current amongst mankind might be severe; and that He who is the supreme Judge, might not, for weightier reasons than we can urge, see fit to give specific revelation on such points of practice. The law, -- not the moral law of God, but the subsidiary interpositions of divine prescription, -- made nothing perfect. This was left for the period when God, having previously instructed us by the prophets, should speak to us by his Son. It was by Him, and by his sanction, that the law, the Moral Law, was to receive its fuller interpretation. Moses suffered, we are told, what Christ did not allow to be in full conformity with the rule originally introduced by God. Revelation is susceptible of degrees. It is an interference on the part of God, not to be claimed as our right, but left to his prerogative of mercy; and fact has shewn that it was not complete at once; but, that much of human knowledge, important as it might be, was left to be developed gradually, by the exercise of thought, and by the progress of events. In all ages men were treated according to the light within their reach, and the advantages possessed by which they might collect it, while these advantages have been from time to time increased, till perfected by Christ himself. The revelation enjoyed by Abraham therefore was not a universal rule of right, but an auxiliary towards a better interpretation of the law of nature, perfect indeed in its degree, but not including all the elucidation which God has since seen fit to grant to man. In the case before us, as far as revelation interposed, it was, be it remembered, for the advantage of the weak, for the benefit of the poor slave, and not to enlarge the license of the master. Common as is the maxim with certain reasoners on such subjects as these, -- that the rule of man's duty could not extend beyond explicit revelation, or that the Almighty must of necessity approve whatever He did not by his word particularly condemn, -- it is unwarrantable in reason and disproved by fact. Those who have not a written law at all are nevertheless "a law unto themselves," nor is this law in the least abrogated by any superadditions more or less communicated in another manner.
If from Abraham, we turn to the Israelites, we find a clearer enunciation on the subject. They were expressly forbidden to make slaves of their brethren, or to serve themselves by them for nought; yet the Israelite might nevertheless become subject to a temporary bondage under his brother Israelite, through the operation of peculiar circumstances. Considering the general provisions of the Jewish law for the distribution or security of property, these circumstances could scarcely occur, without a personal dereliction of care and prudence. Yet whatever was the fault of the unhappy sufferers, their degradation was but short, closing at the utmost at the entrance of the year of Jubilee, and, in the opinion of the most learned divines, even never extending beyond the seventh year. The law is express upon the point in Exodus xxi. 2 : "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve, but in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing." At the expiration of his term of servitude, the previous bondman was not to go out empty, much less to buy his freedom, but, together with recovered liberty, to have the means to enter upon some plan of regular subsistence.
It is commonly said, however, and our translation warrants the assertion, that, of the surrounding nations, the Israelites were not only permitted, but commanded to take slaves. Yet from the forms of speech employed in that language, and the construction of the passages, the Hebrew scholar will deny the justness of the sentiment. The clauses are exceptive, and it was permission, not command. Take it however in any sense, yet, since it was a special case, in which the license must be limited by the express authority by which, for peculiar reasons, it was granted; it cannot touch the cause for the support of which it is alleged. This we have already proved; but we further add the important consideration, that those nations had been previously doomed, some, their iniquity at length being full, to utter destruction, and others to subjugation, for their malicious hatred of, and direct opposition to, the purposes of heaven, manifestly declared, and ratified by miraculous acts.
God had chosen the place and the people, where and by whom He would make known his merciful designs to men. He had determined on the instruments of His high purpose; nor would He suffer that instrumentality to fail. On this account, and for this end, in addition to the mere exercise of distributive Providence, He gave to his chosen people powers and prerogatives, which none may claim by natural right, or on any grounds not clearly and explicitly laid by God himself. And finally, those who were thus subjected to the Israelites were not free men, but already servile, and doubtless in that condition according to established rules of judicature, for they were not to be stolen, but bought with money, which none could be but those whom war had doomed; while in the exchange of masters they passed, by that event, not only under a mitigated system of bondage, but to the privilege of learning the law of life, and of becoming participators in the blessings of the Church of God.
II. The pretence that certain portions of our race, distinguished by colour from ourselves, may, on that account, be arbitrarily subjected to bondage, betraying as it does a pitiable ignorance, is rather ridiculous for its folly than formidable for its argument. Men in circumstances of desperate guilt, bribed by their interests or their passions to remain so, endeavour to cheat their consciences by any flimsy sophistry. It is said, that God set his mark upon the victims as he did upon Cain. But how came our West Indians to know, that the sign which God gave to Cain that his life should not be taken by the hand of violence, was not by suddenly bleaching him white, rather than by turning his skin to black? Our first parents, inhabiting an eastern clime, might, for any evidence to the contrary, be persons of colour; as we certainly know were some of the earliest and mightiest potentates.
Was it, moreover, the posterity of Cain who survived the flood? One might imagine, that in the judgment of the Americans, some at least must have escaped from that catastrophe, since they publicly maintain that, by his outward mark, God has for ever designated the white man to honour and rule, and separated this lordly caste from every shade of colour so effectually, that even Christianity cannot re-unite them. Were this merely folly, it might disarm our indignation, but is it not malignant pride? Neither Cain, nor his posterity, as far as we can judge, were slaves, but rather like these haughty oppressors, men of violence, their fathers in rebellion against the fundamental law of God, who "made of one blood all the nations to dwell upon the face of the earth." Inventors of arts, they were probably no less so of arms, and famous in their day for lust of domination,
That the posterity of Ham were marked by any outward sign of reprobation cannot be inferred from any record of them; though from the page of Scripture and the traditions of various nations, we may conclude that they too were once, valiant, ambitious; and, for a lengthened period, little mindful of the rights of other tribes. Some of them have indeed since fallen into helpless misery, and this event was both foreknown and predicted by their Maker; but though the fact, that their fellow-men would hold them in ignominious subjection, was both foreseen and foretold, neither prescience nor prophecy can justify the abominable deed.
III. "Cursed shall be Canaan," is, it seems, the high commission, under which the willing executioner of the Almighty's judgments may, for his own sordid ends, enslave his fellow man. We are to believe that it is no vulgar passion, no mean love of gain in the Slave-holders, which impels them to an act so abhorrent from their sympathies, but rather an exalted feeling for the glory of the Supreme Legislator, a heaven-inspired zeal, that none of His predictions may want fulfilment. Piety -- who can doubt it? piety works mightily in their devoted hearts; insomuch that, seeing the Almighty needs instruments whereby to accomplish his awards of justice, they -- putting holy violence on their pity, -- they exclaim, Behold us, behold us, here are we, ready to perform thy will, O God! Do they forget that it is generally the wicked, whom, in His mysterious Providence, the Most High employs to execute his judgments? And do they not remember that those who, for private ends and from personal pride, become his weapons -- "his hammers, his axes and his saws," -- to perform decrees, in the justice of which their motives share no part, will themselves incur a yet severer vengeance? How have the lessons of the prophets been lost on these unhappy self-deluders!
"Your first father sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me; therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse and Israel to reproaches." Here is the ban of God upon a people. What then? Is any one at liberty to share the Divine indignation, and voluntarily to present himself in the joy of his heart for the work of punishment? Let us hear the sequel of this mournful case.
"Assyria is the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. -- Against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the street. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations not a few. Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent. -- My hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the land; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? -- Therefore shall the Lord send among his fat ones, leanness; and under his glory shall he kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. -- And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. Therefore hear thou this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: but these two things shall come on thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and there is none beside me. Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know."
Thus far the prophet Isaiah, what saith Jeremiah?
"All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the Lord, the habitation of justice, even the Lord, the hope of their fathers. Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage, because ye are grown fat as a heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls; your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed: behold, as the hindermost of nations it shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. Because of the wrath of the Lord it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance; He will render to her a recompense."
To the same purpose thus speaketh Ezekiel.
"Because thou saidst, Aha, against my sanctuary when it was profaned, and against the land of Israel when it was desolate, and against the house of Judah when they went into captivity; Thus saith the Lord God, Because thou hast clapped thine hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced in heart, with all thy despite against the land of Israel; behold therefore I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen; and I will cut thee off from the people, and I will cause thee to perish out of the countries: I will destroy thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord."
Nor less decisive is the language of Zechariah.
"O Lord of Hosts! how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the elders of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation, these threescore and ten years? -- Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy, and I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction."
From these concurrent denunciations of the Prophets, as well as from many other parts of Scripture, we cannot but discern the fearful mistake committed by those who proffer themselves so readily to fulfil the divine displeasure, however clearly declared, without express commission. Injustice and wrong, whether perpetrated or approved by us, will meet with no extenuation from the fact, that they are in fulfilment of the Divine decrees. Those decrees are no part of the rule which God has given for the guidance of our life, nor will they, under any circumstances but direct command, peremptorily and explicitly given, as in the case of Abraham's offering his son, authorize us to violate the everlasting obligation, to "do justice and to love mercy," as well as to "walk humbly with our God."
What can be more humiliating to every friend of religion than to hear self-designated evangelical professors, -- the avowed advocates of a system which conveys in on intense bearing on the destinies of man the irradiations of infinite love itself, -- so speaking as if they were afraid of excelling their Maker in compassion! they dare not "undo the heavy burden and let the oppressed go free," lest by that act they might unwittingly oppose some counsel of the Almighty which dooms their victims to perdition! Such friends of Christianity, by the weakness of their intellect, or the prejudice with which they read the sacred volume, do greater injury to the holy cause which they assume to have espoused, than any its most virulent foes are capable of accomplishing. Greater far than can be told is the danger to which they cannot but expose themselves, and those who listen to their wrestings of the word of God from its benevolent purpose.
Did the Jews incur the less peril, or meet with any mitigated indignation from their God, because in crucifying the Redeemer they performed a deed which "His hand and counsel determined before to be done?" Or did their successors meet with sympathy from Paul, when thinking to have repelled his accusations by his reasoning on the unfailing purpose of Heaven, they exclaimed, "Who then hath resisted his will, and why doth he yet find fault?" Notwithstanding the Divine decree, they were wicked hands by which the Prince of Life, the Lord of Glory, was crucified and slain; nor were the acts of the same people in subsequent days the less crimes of dark enormity, although not frustrating but fulfilling the Divine purpose.
Though it could be proved, therefore, that the Africans do indeed lie under the Divine displeasure; that for causes known to God it is his purpose, that they should become like the Jews, a "by-word and reproach amongst the nations;" -- though it should be granted that the ancient curse has not as yet entirely discharged its quiver against their race; yet would not that fact, though clear as daylight, in the least abate our expectation of those judgments which ever are reserved against oppressors. God's purposes and those of the guilty spoliators, according as they may in the event, are not in unison; they spring from different motives, are not adjusted by the same rules, nor directed to the same ends; and the result will certainly be, that while He will, at a future day, unfold to open view the justice of his procedure, they must drink, even to the very dregs, the cup of His inexorable displeasure.
IV. While some profess to found their apology for a system of slavery upon Divine decrees, others, with a witlessness even more insane, venture an appeal to His mere predictions. "Their misery and bondage have been foretold," say these sagacious christians, "how then can we better approve our zeal for God than by ensuring that misery and taking care to rivet fast the chain?" What crime ever committed by man might not, on this pretence, become a virtue? Does not prophecy embrace the foulest deeds which human agency can perpetrate? When Christ foretold to his disciples the wrongs which they should suffer, did He, by that act, give license to their foes? When John depicted the monster drunk with the blood of saints, did he -- did the Holy Spirit by him, by that very prophecy, excuse the harlot's bloody deeds? What persecutions, murders, tyrannies, what acts, most foul and deadly, have not been antedated in the page of prophecy? If to predict, then, is to justify, we are at once provided with apology for deeds the most malignant which men or devils ever can perform. Farther they cannot go, than when they fulfilled the oracles which told of the sufferings of Christ, as well as of the glory that should follow,
V. But Slavery, we are reminded, was in being, and not definitely by name denounced, when Christianity itself was introduced. Are we then for ever to be babes, -- never to be trusted with an inference, -- never excited in religion to call forth the faculty of reason? This master-principle, so necessarily active in every other department of our being, that life itself, and all that gives it value, are suspended on its exercise; must, it seems in this, in this, the greatest of affairs, in ascertaining the will of God and human duty, be for ever dormant. We must have the very words which literally describe, or peremptorily forbid, all shades of crime, or guilt will not attach to the wrong-doer. Will these infantile commentators maintain the hope, that they can excuse their babyism at the bar of the last Judge? Will they then escape the sentence fated to go forth -- the "wrath revealed" against "all unrighteousness," as well as "ungodliness of men?" Are all the other forms of unrighteousness, all of ungodliness, specifically marked? And is not this sufficiently depicted? Is not every master enjoined to give to his doulous, -- his slaves, as these commentators at least will have it, whatever is just and equal? And what says James to these men of wealth, -- of wealth wrung from the sinews of their brother men? --
"Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, and the cries of them that have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as for a day of slaughter; ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you."
Listen, Slave-holders! -- hearken, ye that justify the wicked, either with or without reward for the atrocity, -- listen, till your ears tingle! Is not this a scriptural net, close enough and strong enough to secure you? Break through its meshes if you can, but sleep not within its dread enclosure; mistake not, sottishly, the dream of safety for deliverance.
But you give your slaves food, and clothing, and medicine; you do not suffer them to die of famine or nakedness, or to become absolutely exhausted for want of respite or refreshment. So did these doomed tyrants, else how were their fields reaped, or their victims capable of labour? Where are the wages of your slaves, their just reward for toil, their willing agreement to exchange their well-directed strength for compensation? Is not this just remuneration, "of you kept back by fraud?" Do not you, by grinding down their vigour with work and torture, with imprisonment and chains, because not obedient to your absolute control; -- do not you continually "kill the just, who cannot resist you?" Do you not live in pleasure, and become wanton amidst these mournful scenes? Are you not, then, nourishing your hearts for the day of slaughter? Have the cries of those who have reaped ceased to enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth? And what think you will be your aggravated doom, for charging these deeds of pride and avarice upon the sanction of the Judge, the pretended license of Christianity?
VI. Yet, say you, can it be denied that instructions were given to slaves, as slaves, to be obedient to their masters, and that not only to the good and gentle, but even to the froward? Does not this, then, recognize slavery? It is allowed that the Scriptures recognize a state of slavery, and honour the poor slave prodigiously, by expecting from him the noblest acts of christian heroism; -- the most difficult of all conquests, even over the strongest feelings of the human bosom, for the sake of Christ. But do those Scriptures therefore justify the foul despot, who, without crime or previous compact, brands and manacles a fellow-man, and otherwise, by force and terror, holds him fast in bondage? To recognize the existence of a fact, -- is this to authorize the doing of it? Why blink the question? When the Scriptures teach us to do good to those who persecute us, who evil entreat us, and despitefully use us, they recognize a state of persecution, but do they justify the persecutors? When Christ teaches his disciples to be glad and rejoice under such circumstances, does he, by these encouragements, cheer on their haughty enemies, invite the hand of violence to its fierce deeds, and include the oppressor with the oppressed in the honour and happiness which so graciously he pledges? At what time shall we meet with such infatuation as when the oracles of heaven are to be expounded? Yet, "at least," you say, "the slave is not called upon to redress his wrongs, or to assert his liberty." This, no doubt, must give you some contentment, even under the justly excited dread of future retribution. It is true there is one who hath said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay;" and the christian slave, helpless as he is, may safely leave his cause to the never-dying justice of heaven.
But where, in the New Testament, is any man called upon to assert his rights in opposition to violence? Where are christian nations, or any nations, whatever the provocation, encouraged to make wars? Where are our slave-holders, or any men, called to defend their right of property, of which they talk so loudly, unblushingly denominating such their miserable captives? Are not men in general exhorted rather to suffer wrong than forcibly to repel injury? What then? Is it therefore unlawful to recover debts, to defend rights, to vindicate our claims to personal liberty against despoilers? Will these men thus interpret the law of Christianity?
On every occasion, but when the helpless are to be maltreated, these schoolers of the slave can wield another logic, and, by other lights, can read the word of God. Then they can talk of just and necessary wars, of patriotic slaughter, of magnanimous defenders of our altars and our thrones. Then they can discover that Christianity does not betray the rights of men -- does not protect invaders of those rights; -- that it rather assumes a natural sense of injury, which will scarcely fail, when opportunity shall come, sufficiently to repel aggression; -- and that to moderate its fierceness, to assuage its raging fires, is most in character with that commission which brought down pardon for the guilty, and taught how love could suffer for objects the most undeserving of its pity. This heavenly system purposes to prove its strength by an apparent weakness, and to vanquish pride and cruelty by meekness and untiring patience. Such triumph it has often won, and glory infinite will follow these its wondrous conquests. But when the pretended Christian himself demands new victims, calls for unceasing miracles of patient suffering, and would seek a shelter from retribution either from God or man, by making opportunities to exercise the passive virtues, insulted goodness must itself ere long be roused, and dire will be the day, when its bright blade of justice shall be unsheathed.
VII. Finally, we are told that Paul sent back Onesimus, a slave, to Philemon, a Christian master, and therefore Christians may hold slaves, and that deserters, when converted, must return to slavery: this we are told too, on his authority, who has said, "If thou canst be free, use it rather;" and who himself asserted, with manly vigour, his own rights, rebuking the magistrates, and saying, "They have beaten us uncondemned, and now they would thrust us out privily; nay, verily, -- let them come themselves and fetch us out." Is this the man to sanction slavery?
What, then, was the condition of Onesimus? Was he really a slave at all? He is indeed called doulos, but amongst the learned the meaning of this word is not determined. Potter, no mean authority, denies that it was in Greece applied to slaves; nor is it likely, according to the genius of the christian system, that the apostles should denominate themselves the slaves of Jesus Christ. Of slaves also, who might really bear that name, there were various classes;[Author's note: Vide Puffendorf, cap. iv. De Off. Dom. et Servil.] and amongst them those who, by voluntary engagement, had obliged themselves for life. Some, moreover, were called douloi, who were merely bound to certain services, not constant, but occasional, arising out of claims reserved for privileges or benefits conferred. Under which of the descriptions must we rank the case of Onesimus? Will our opponents prove that he was a stolen slave, or the descendant of such a one; or rather, must we not infer, that, though called by that name, he had, by virtue of a compact, come into that condition?
Did Paul recognize him as such a slave, that to abstract his services were, as our West Indians ingeniously have it, to steal himself, and to forfeit life for the felony. Why then ask, "IF he hath wronged thee?" Was not that IF absurd in any sense in which our colonists could regard the act of a slave absenting himself from the daily task?
Do they not universally maintain that mere withdrawment is a flagrant wrong? Do they not for this inflict the torture of some hundred lashes, and sometimes death itself? What means Paul's IF, then? It means that Onesimus could not be a slave, or else the Apostle was a most unlearned slavery magistrate.
But does the sacred writer really send him back to slavery, even if he had been a slave? Does he, in the spirit of American christianity, deny that he can, though a christian, become a brother? He sends him back to liberty, with full assurance of his legal manumission, because he knows a christian's heart. He is assured that he will be regarded as no longer a slave, but a brother beloved. But lastly, as an Apostle of Christ, and therefore under the authority of the christian religion, could he not command the master to manumit his slave? Our West Indians, and their apologists, say, NO; but the Apostle himself says, YES. "Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ, to enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet, for love's sake, I rather entreat thee, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ." Beautiful specimen of meekly bearing, and of tender affection! But if Paul could command, whence his authority, but from Christ? Could he do so simply as a man, or as an aged man, or as a friend? Do these circumstances warrant commands to yield up rights? If, then, by the authority of his apostleship, Paul could command in this case, though he chose to entreat, how can Christianity sanction the slave-holder? Could he, by the same authority, enjoin the unwilling forfeiture of property, or the abdication of dominion, justly held and lawfully administered? Who will venture the assertion?
From the review of what has been alleged from Scripture, to screen the worst of crimes from public reprobation; alleged too, boldly, openly, at all hazards, by the professed friends of revelation; though, according to the judgment of all our writers on its evidence, in such a case, even revelation itself must have been discarded as a cheat; we find no trace of any support to such flagitiousness, as that of holding, without cause, at our own will, and for our own interest, a fellow-creature and his offspring in perpetual bondage. Positive proofs to the contrary are abundant, and have been often cited. They need not, as for want of space they cannot, be repeated here. The whole spirit of the sacred book, as a directory for man, from its first page to its last sentence, breathes the opposite of violence and cupidity, breathes benevolence and love. "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and goodwill to man," is its burthen. Christianity and the modern slave system can, by no possibility, amalgamate, till right and wrong shall be intrinsically confounded, till love and cruelty shall mingle natures, or till heaven and hell, without a gulph between their coasts, shall but include one common domain.
Joseph Gilbert.
Nottingham.