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Show 108 NARRATIVE OF Mr. Gracelius here paused, ancl gave Mary an opportunity to put in a word. "But/' sa1d she, "after takiog off what you call the rubbish, Mr. Gmcclius, and pruning the question down as much as you please, I cannot possibly admit that the Bible anywhere justifies piracy under any circumstances whatsoever, either abstractly or practically. I call upon you for anything in all the Bible that gives the Blightcst countenance to such a mode of life, or such a government, as you arc pleased to term it." "I should rather require of you," replied the learned divine, "to make out from the Bible your charge that piracy is a crime. I know not a word from the first of Genesis to the end of Revelation where piracy is once condemned. But I pass this, and, wu.iving my clear logical Tights, undertake to prove the negative, and to show that the Bible docs, most explicitly, both by precept and example, bear me out in my assertion, that piracy is not necessarily, and always, and amidst all circumstances, a sin. WITAT Goo SANCTIONED IN TilE OLD 1'ESTA· :ME~T, AND PElUIITTED IN TilE NEW, CANNOT BE SIX. "I begin with the patriarch Jacob, whose namo ALBERT AND MARY. 109 I srael bas been appropriated from his day to this time to the true church. llow <lid Jacob acquire l• is great riches? Was it not by appropriating the propert y of La• ban to himself? And did not God bless him in thus doing? There is not a woru of condemnation; but, on the contrary, Jacob, in tellinrr his brother that he had much property, re· n1m ·l--..oc d , th".... t God had dealt graciously with l1im. . llcrc, you see, is a marked case of an appropna-tion of anothm 's property by a very adroit slrat· agcm, "·hieh is fully justified by the Old Testament, and uneondemned by the New. "Had Jacob not represented in his person a different community from Laban's, of which be was to be the Patriarch, his mode of acquiring wealth ont of Laban would have been censurable. But his conduct towards Laban was consistent with wbat was subsequently allowed under the Mosaic laws on the part of the Jews towards other nations. They could, for instance, make slaves of tbc nations round about;they could take usury of them ;-they could despoil them by war, and they could do a variety of thmgs in relation to the people of other nations which would have been robbery, fraud, murder, and so on, if done |
