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Show 112 any text teaches the lawfulness of slavery. Accm ·dingly, it has been quoted for ages by the supporters of arbitrary power, and made lhe stronghold of tyranny. Did our fathers acqtuesce m the most obvious interpretation of this text? Because the first Christians were taught to obey despotic rule, did our fathers feel as if Christianity had strip! men of their riuhts? Did they argue that tyranny was to be exc~sed, because forcible opposition to it is in most cases wrong? Did they argue that absolute power ceases to be unjust, because, as a ueneral rule, it is the duty of subjects to obey? Did they infer that bad institutions ought to be perpetual, because the subversion of them b! force will almost always inAict greater ev1l than 1t removes? No; they were wiser interpreters of God's Word. They believed that despotism was a wrong, notwithstanding the general obligation upon its subjects to obey ; and that whenever a whole people should so feel the wr~ng .as to demand its removal, the time for removmg 1t bad fully come. Such is the school in which we here have been brought up. To us, it is no mea~ proof of the divine oriainal of Christianity, that 1t teaches human brotherhood and favors human rights; and yet, on the ground of two or three passages; ~vhich admit different constructions, we make Chn:l!amty the minister of slavery, the forger of chams for those whom it came to make free. 113 It is a plain rule of scriptural criticism, that particular texts should be interpreted according to the general tenor and spirit of Christianity. And what is the general, the perpetual teaching of Christianity in regard to social duty? "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." Now does not every man feel that ·nothino- nothin•, could induce him to consent to be a slav;'? Doe~ he not feel, that, if reduced to this abject lot, his whole nature, his reason, conscience, affections, would cry out against it as the greatest of calamities and wrongs? Can he pretend, then, that in holding others in bondage he does to his neighbour what he would that his neighbour should do to him P Of what avail arc a few texts, which were designed for local and temporary use, when urged against the vital, essential spirit, and the plainest pt·ecepts of our religion ? I close this section with a few extracts from a recent work of one of our most distinguished writers; not that I think additional arguments necessary, but because the authority of Scripture is more successfully used than any thing else to reconcile good minds to slavery. "The very course, which the Gospel takes on this subject, seems to have been the only one that could have been taken in order to effect the universal abolition of slavery. The gospel was de- S |
