| OCR Text |
Show 154 THE BIBLE VS. SLAVERY. To talk of the spirit of Christianity, in distinction from its express or implied la\'..- against slavery, is as if one would trust for the extinction of sin again~t the sixth or seventh commands of the decalogue, by gcn· era! inculcation of meekness or purity, without· denouncing murder and defining it, or defining between allowed and disallowed affinity in the marriage law. W c may if we do not proscribe theft, and bring the positive law of God to bear against it, and bring a law into harmony with the divine, be understood,. while we talk only of the abuses of property, as warning rather against spenchng stolen goods in a bad way, than against theft itself? But the design of the moral law is to define rights, as well as to govern the usc of them; and it requires that not only the tempers of men, but the institutions of society, be adjusted by the law of equity and charity. It forbids not only the abuse of just power, but all false usurpations of power, and classes man-stealers and extortioners as murderers. Who, if he but examines the laws of soqial and relative duty, as laid clown in the New Testament Epistles, may not discern that the relation of master and servant is recognized side by side with the permanent r r • I TnE BrnLE vs. SLAVERY. 155 relations of parent and child, husband and wife, which rest on the law of nature; just because it is not the temporary, unnatural, and violent relation of slaveholder and slave which is recognized, but that of master and servant by contract. The other, its very apologists allow, will pass away ; but these duties are enhanced in a law of permanent application, and rest on natural principles, common to all times and all nations. |
