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Show 16G LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. The truth is, that the metho4 of the one Tcstamen t is the same as that of the other. In both, the method of tcachi ng by precept is adopted; by precepts of greater and of lesser generality. Dr. Wayland's principle is merely ageneral or comprehensive precept; and his precept is merely a specific or limited principle. The distinction he makes between them, and the use he makes of this distinction, only reflect discredit upon the wisdom and consistency of the Divine Author of revelation. .A. third account which Dr. Wayland gives of the silence of the New Testament respecting the sin of slavery, is as follows: "If this form of wrong had been singled out from all the . others, and had alone been treated preccptivcly, the whole system would have been vitiatecl. We should have been authorized to inquire why were not similar precepts in other cases delivered? and if they were not delivered, we should have been at liberty to conclude that they were intentionally omitted, and that the acts which they would have forbidden are innocent." Very well. But idolatry, polygamy, divorce, is each and every one singled out, and forbidden by precept, in the New Testament. Slavery alone is passed over in silence. lienee, ARGUMENT FROM TilE SCRIPTURES. 167 accoriling to the principle of Dr. Wayland himself, we are at liberty to conclude that a precept forbidding slavery was "intentionally omitted," and that slavery itself "is innocent." Each one of these reasons is not only exceedingly weak in itself, but it is inconsistent with the others. For if a precept forbidding slavery were purposely omitted, in order to teach mankind to be governed by principle and to disregard permissions, then the omission could not have arisen from a love of brevity. Were it not, indeed, just as easy to give a precept forbidiling, as to give one permitting, the existence of slavery? Again, if a great and world-devouring sin, such as the abolitionists hold slavery to be, has been left unnoticed, lest its condemnation should impliedly sanction other sins then is it not worse than puerile to suppose tl:at the omission was made for the sake of brevity, or to teach mankind that the permissions of the Most lligh may in certain cases be treated with contempt, may be set at naught, and despised as utterly inconsistent, as iliametrically opposed to the principles and purity of his law? If the abolitionist is so completely lost in his attempts to meet the argument from the silence of Scripture, he finds it still more |