human monopoly by His own holy and perfect law. He never made a grant to one class of men of any other class, and the fact that he has not, taken in connection with the other grant, is alone proof certain and conclusive, that so far from ever having sanctioned the practice of human slavery, He utterly forbade the same by enactments, obedience to which rendered such slavery impossible.

XI. Another equally decisive fact is, that human slavery is a direct violation of the eighth and tenth commandments, and an indirect but equally certain violation of the other commands contained in that great table. Slavery, as we have seen, is the highest kind of larceny condemned by the Levitical law, and is therefore the greatest possible violation of the eighth commandment. But as by the same law every human being is, under God, the sole owner of himself and all his just rights, faculties and acquisitions, the crime which usurps and robs him of them all is founded in covetousness, or in a greedy and criminal desire to possess that which belongs to another, or to others, and to which the slaveholder knows he has no moral or just right, and which is thus a direct violation of the tenth commandment. But human slavery is also an indirect but equally certain violation of the commands in the Decalogue, because its support and effects necessarily produce such violations, as every reader will by a little reflection readily perceive. Now nothing could be more wickedly absurd than the supposition, that though the Almighty enacted these great commands in the Levitical law, He at the same time established an institution in the same law, the support of which He knew would produce the necessary and certain violation of the same commands, and within the wide sphere of its destructive influence, render the practical observance and operation of the whole of them impossible.

Slavery produces the constant violation of the commands of the Decalogue. Thus, it compels the slaves to violate the first and second commands, by rendering their masters the objects of their slavish obedience and worship, and compelling them to obey their owners' will in every case, though that will be ever so hostile to that of God. It produces the violation of the third command, by the constant criminal temptation and wicked necessity in all concerned in, or suffering from it, to use the most profane language, and causes them otherwise lightly to treat

their Maker's commands. It teaches them also to violate the fourth command, by rendering it impossible for slaves to observe the Lord's day (the Christian's Sabbath), in the spirit of the command, and by otherwise inducing a general neglect and disregard in all slave societies to the ordinances to be attended to on that day; of the fifth, by prohibiting slave children from honoring and obeying their own parents, they being obliged to substitute in place of filial obedience and parental authority, a slavish obedience and subjection to their masters only; of the sixth, by constantly tempting and producing slave murders in every form and degree of barbarity, for the necessary support of slavery; of the seventh, by prohibiting marriage to the slaves, and producing criminal concubinage and licentiousness among them, as well as the general compulsory prostitution of the female portion of the slaves, by reason of the arbitrary power which it confers on the masters and other oppressors; and lastly, of the ninth, by its necessary tendency to produce the habit of falsehood and lying in both masters and slaves-in the former for the purpose of deceiving and abusing their slaves, in the latter to deceive their oppressors and avoid punishment for slave offences. It also produces the same habit in others who are infected with the spirit of the sin of slavery and are enlisted in its support, as is well exemplified by their constant employment of the various false pretences and objections raised by them against the abolition of slavery, and by the malignant falsehoods circulated by them against the friends of emancipation, and their measures, as well as against and respecting slaves; and as all the other moral precepts in the Scriptures are but exemplifications and applications of those in the Decalogue, slavery directly or indirectly produces the constant necessary violation of them all.

XII. The last decisive fact I shall quote in this connection is, that human slavery is an indirect but certain violation of every moral precept contained in the Scriptures, because the support of it produces the necessary violation of every one of those precepts, a circumstance which proves its great criminality, and furnishes the principal reason why it was punished with death by the Levitical law. In this way such slavery is discovered to violate the spirit or general intent of the Scriptures more extensively perhaps than any other crime except murder. It is impossible for any person to practise human slavery an hour without violat

ing the law of Love, the Golden Rule, and the numerous other similar precepts that abound in the Scriptures, as much so as if he practised murder and other crimes, as every one would acknowledge were he himself enslaved, and as the slightest critical reflection will demonstate. Thus it is impossible for any slaveholder or other person engaged in the support of slavery not to violate the precepts found in such passages as Lev. xix. 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Mal. iii. 5; Mark x. 19; 1 Thes. iv. 6, &c. Nor is it possible for any slave fully to obey the precepts in Ex. xx. 16; Eph. v. 2-4, 22, 25, vi. 1, 4. Now for us to pretend that the Almighty would give us this multitude of precepts as rules of our moral conduct, and declare disobedience to any of them to be sinful, and at the same time establish and sanction an institution in the same law containing the precepts, the necessary effect of which he foreknew would produce the necessary violation of them all, and totally prevent their moral efficacy in this world, is an absurdity too gross and too wicked for a moment's innocent toleration.

I might thus proceed to enumerate many other natural and Scriptural facts of less moral importance in the connection, but equally conclusive against the wicked pretence of Old Testament slavery, but the foregoing are abundantly sufficient for the present purpose. And against this overwhelming mass of circumstantial evidence, contradicting and disproving the pretence, what do its advocates produce? Nothing but a repetition of the few perverted passages which have been reviewed, their pro-slavery construction of which has been proved to be false, as the same passages were intended for the promotion of liberty instead of slavery-the same repetition being always accompanied with a contemptuous and obstinate refusal, either critically to examine the merits of those passages by themselves, or to compare the passages with the context on the same subject matters, or with the general spirit of the Scriptures, in order to ascertain their true and genuine meaning. Such dishonesty as this is truly popish in its character, and never was, and never can be employed for anything but the justification of sin and crime, being always exhibited in cases where the true meaning of God's Word is the subject of controversy, the same conduct being a direct violation of the precepts contained in 1 Thes. v. 21, and other similar passages, and severely censured and condemned in Matt. xv.: 3,

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6, 9; 2 Pet. ii. 1, and in a hundred other places, and can only be accounted for in the present case, from the absolute necessity of committing one great crime for the support of another, because sin can never in any case or under any circumstances be supported by any other than sinful means.

CHAPTER XV.

PRO-SLAVERY PERVERSIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

It is very generally contended by the advocates of human slavery that Christ and his apostles did not condemn the practice of such slavery, but, on the contrary, connived at, and acquiesced in, and thereby sanctioned that practice, though the same was nearly universal throughout the Roman empire during the whole period of their ministry. This pretended example of theirs is supposed to be a sufficient moral warrant for the pro-slavery conduct and example of our pro-slavery clergy and their pro-slavery followers. It is said if Christ and his true followers sanctioned and supported human slavery, all Christians ought to sanction and support the practice also. But to this pro-slavery pretence, I reply, that Christ DID DIRECTLY AND EXPRESSLY CONDEMN THE PRACTICE OF HUMAN SLAVERY AS A GREAT SIN, and by the same name of man stealing, &c., too; in the same manner as the Old Testament did, as has been sufficiently explained. He did this by solemnly re-affirming, ratifying, and confirming the Levitical or Moral law, which said law (condemned human slavery by those names, as we have seen it did; see Matt. v. 17, 18; Luke xvi. 17. Were a legislature to adopt and ratify a whole code of laws at once, as has been the case, which said code condemned a particular act or practice as a crime or sin, it would just as directly and as positively condemn the same act or practice as a crime or sin, as if it had originally draughted and enacted the special statute intended for that purpose. It is the weakest sophistry imaginable to pretend that Christ did not condemn human slavery directly, because he could not ratify and confirm the moral law without doing so.

It would be just as absurd and false to pretend that Christ did not by such ratification and confirmation directly condemn murder, robbery, theft, and the other crimes specifically condemned in the moral law or Levitical code, as that he did not directly condemn manstealing or slavery by it. The apostles also pronounced the same condemnation by their similar ratification and confirmation of the moral law. See Rom. iii. 31, vii. 12, x. 4; Gal. iii. 24; 1st Tim. i. 8, and numerous other New Testament passages confirmatory of the moral law. The whole public ministry of the apostles was based upon this doctrine, namely,-that the whole moral law was still in force, and would for ever remain in force; and that as all mankind had violated that law, and would continue to violate it, they had no other means of salvation left but by faith in Christ and obedience to His laws. The whole scope and tenor of their writings so clearly and abundantly teach this doctrine that it cannot be honestly mistaken. After such repeated and explicit ratifications and confirmations of this great law, there was neither any necessity nor propriety in Christ and the apostles transcribing the whole of that law into their writings in order to show that they condemned each of the specific crimes enumerated in it, such a transcript being a work of mere supererogation or useless task. Accordingly they never alluded to any of the specific sins condemned in and by the moral law for any other purpose than that of illustration, as in 1st Tim i. 10, and other passages. But even without such allusions, the mere ratification and con ́firmation of the moral law by Christ and his apostles, was a direct and positive condemnation by them of every sin condemned in that law. The common pro-slavery pretence, therefore, that Christ and his apostles did not condemn human slavery, is a naked and obvious untruth. They did in various other ways indirectly condemn such slavery, as by their denunciations of oppression, and their views of covetousness, extortion, &c., but the foregoing is their direct and positive condemnation.

So by way of indirect apology, we frequently hear it asserted. that Christ and his apostles did not attack slavery at all, that they never preached against it, and from this assumption the pro-slavery inference is sagaciously drawn that they actually connived at and acquiesced in the practice, just as pro-slavery preachers and professors now do. But to this gratuitous supposition, or begging the question, I reply, that we do not now know against what par