sages certainly include the case of slaves and their enslavers, so their moral teaching is, that God will punish with utter retributive destruction those who practise the sin of slavish oppression.

A Virginia preacher of the Gospel* has said, "The fact that slavery was introduced among us, not by ourselves, but by our forefathers, is almost constantly brought forward as an excuse for our practice. Admitting that this may be some palliation, a moment's reflection might satisfy any one that we are not justified in living in a practice in itself wrong by the fact that our fathers acted so before us. The laws of civil society, the conduct of man with man, the history of God's dealings towards nations and individuals, as well as the express declarations of his Word, are all opposed to this plea of justification. How can you read your Bible and not see as a matter of fact, that the sins of our fathers instead of justifying us in living in the same, will assuredly, unless we repent, be visited on us? It is laid down as a principle of God's providential government that he I will visit the sins of the fathers on the children unto the third and fourth generation. This is explained in Ezek. xviii. as especially applicable to those cases in which children continue in the same sins in which their fathers lived. The way, and the only way, to escape visitations for the sins of our fathers, is to forsake those sins, and as far as may be correct the evils they have done. Not only is this principle plainly taught in Scripture, but it is illustrated by examples, and some on the very point in question.

"The generation of the Egyptians that were visited with such heavy judgments for enslaving Israel, did not begin the work of enslaving that people; it was commenced long before. They found it in existence, received it from their fathers, and were probably the third or fourth generation that had practised it. They followed the footsteps of their fathers; and while probably making this identical excuse, the cloud of vengeance was gathering over them, which swept over them as with the besom of destruction.

"So it was with the Babylonians, and the nations that acted with them, in oppressing Israel, that held them fast and refused to let them go.' God visited on them their own sins, and the sins of their fathers; gave them up to spoil and slavery, and caused it to 'be recompensed unto them according to their doings.' The practice of

* Rev. J. D. Paxton, formerly Pastor of the Cumberland Congregation, Virginia, in a book of 200 pages, entitled "Letters on Slavery," published by A. T. Skillman, Lexington, Ky., 1833.

slavery may have been going on about as long among us as it did in Egypt; and while some are pleading in excuse that we did not begin it, they seem to forget that, according to God's word, we are the generation at which the Divine threatening begins to look hard. The very fact that it has gone on so long, is in proof that the cup of iniquity must be filling up, and the bitter waters almost ready to overflow."

VIII. Abundant additional evidence of the same doctrine is found in the fact, that the holding, exchanging, bartering, buying, selling and otherwise trading in human beings as property, and the licentiousness and prodigality, tyranny and cruelty produced by those practices are represented as among the greatest sins and threatened with the severest Divine judgments and punishments, in various other parts of the Scriptures, see 'Deut. xxviii. 68; 22 Chron. xxviii. 8-15; Neh. v. 5-15; 'Ps. xliv. 12; Isa. lii. 3-6; Jer.

3

1 And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bond-men and bond-women, and no man shall buy you.-Deut.

xxviii. 68.

2 And the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took also away much spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Samaria. But a prophet of the LORD was there, whose name was Oded; and he went out before the host that came to Samaria, and said unto them, Behold, because the LORD God of your fathers was wroth with Judah, he hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up to heaven. And now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bond-men and bond-women unto you: but are there not with you, even with you, sins against the LORD your God? Now hear me therefore, and deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren; for the fierce wrath of the LORD is upon you. Then certain of the heads of the children of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, and Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, stood up against them that came from the war, and said unto them, Ye shall not bring in the captives hither: for whereas we have offended against the Lord already, ye intend to add more to our sins and to our trespass: for our trespass is great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel. So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the congregation. And the men which were expressed by name rose up, and took the captives, and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm-trees, and to their brethren: then they returned to Samaria.-2 Chron. xxviii. 8–15.

3 Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought into bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards. And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles, and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them. And I said unto them, We, after our ability, have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to answer. Also I said, It is not good that ye do: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies? I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses,

xv. 13, 14; 'Eze. xxvii. 2, 13, 26-36; Joel iii. 3-8; Amos ii. 6, 7; 10 Oba. 11; "Nah. iii. 10; 12 Zech. xi. 5, &c. According to also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them. Then said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise. Also I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said, Amen, and praise the Lord. And the people did according to this promise. -Neh. v. 5-15.

4 Thou sellest thy people for naught, and dost not increase thy wealth by their price.-Ps. xliv. 12.

5 For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for naught; and ye shall be redeemed without money. For thus saith the Lord God, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore, what have I here, saith the Lord, that my people is taken away for naught? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the Lord; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I. -Isa. lii. 3-6.

6 Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders. And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.-Jer. xv. 13, 14.

7 Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market. Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas. Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy mer. chandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy caulkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin. The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots. And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land; and shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes: and they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing. And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea? When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many people; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise. In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall. All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance. The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more.-Éze. xxvii. 2, 13, 26-36.

And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompense? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense upon your own head; Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things. The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. Behold I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompense upon your own head: and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the Lord hath spoken it.-Joel iii. 3-8.

9 Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof: because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek; and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name.-Amos ii. 6, 7.

10 In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.Oba. 11.

the letter and spirit of these passages, such treatment of human beings is deserving of death, though in some of them the same treatment is threatened as the punishment of the greatest sins, which amounts to the same thing, because human slavery is the living death and destruction of its victims-while in most of the same passages public destruction or national death is threatened, as the Divine retaliatory punishment for the public or customary practice of the same treatment, as their context clearly shows. Divine retaliatory punishment threatened in the Scriptures is generally of a similar kind to the national or public sins threatened.

IX. I lastly argue that the practice of human slavery is the identical crime of "man-stealing," from the nature of the practice itself, or the light in which the law of nature places it, as the highest species of larceny or theft that can be committed. Larceny, or stealing, in its most comprehensive sense, is the taking and withholding from one human being by another, of anything that justly belongs to the former, and to which and to its use the stealer or thief knows he has no just or moral right; the scriptural descriptions of crimes being far more comprehensive than our common law definitions of them, so as to correspond with the law of Nature in its requirements. By the will and gift of God every human being is, under God, the sole and exclusive owner of himself, and of all his own just rights, faculties and acquisitions. All these the slaveholder takes from his slaves, without any leave or licence from them, and without any compensation or equivalent, for his own exclusive use and benefit, just as the common thief steals common goods and chattels for his own exclusive use; both of these kinds of thieves well knowing they have no moral or just right to the property stolen, as each would instantly see and acknowledge, were the crime practised upon himself. The slaveholder never pretends to take these things from third persons who are themselves left free, as the common thief does, and it is certain they are taken from the slaves without their leave. It is therefore larceny or stealing in fact, originating in the sin of covetousness, the same being the highest and most violent breach of the eighth and tenth commands of the decalogue, because

Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honora ble men, and all her great men were bound in chains.-Nah. iii. 10.

12 Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty; and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them

not.-Zech. xi. 5.

the articles stolen are the most precious and valuable that men possess in this world, as uniform and universal experience testifies. None of the scriptural accounts of the crime of man-stealing describe it as the stealing of one person from another whose lawful property he was, but each of them, so far as it goes, describes it and its effects as the involuntary and forcible reduction of human beings to the condition of property, like other goods and chattels, and the use and treatment of them in that condition by means of criminal violence and fraud, exactly as slaves are now reduced to the same condition and subjected to the same use and treatment by the same criminal means. A careful examination and comparison of the numerous passages here quoted, will establish these facts clearly.

From the copious premises here quoted it is past all reasonable and honest doubt or controversy that human slavery is the same identical practice as the great crime of man-stealing, &c., so severely denounced and condemned in the Scriptures, that every slavetrader, purchaser, seller, slaveholder, and all persons engaged in the support of such slavery, such as slave overseers, and drivers, and persons engaged in the pursuit and capture of fugitive slaves, as well as those who legislate and otherwise act in favor of slavery, are deserving of the punishment of sure death by the Levitical or moral law, and that the communities and nations who tolerate and sanction the practice by law or custom, are obnoxious to the terrible retribution threatened as the punishment due to this great crime in the Scriptures.

Much quibbling is resorted to by the advocates of slavery on the subject of this alleged identity, on account of the pretended indefiniteness and obscurity with which the crime of "man-stealing," &c., is described in the Scriptures. But as I have already remarked, the scriptural descriptions are all more comprehensive than most human definitions are, so as to allow no chance for the guilty to escape. But it is necessary for me also to observe, that the scriptural descriptions of man-stealing, &c., are as plain as those of any other crime condemned in the Levitical law, and the identity of that crime with the practice of human slavery is as clearly exhibited in the Scriptures as the identity of murder, or any other crime condemned by that law, is with the crimes now supposed to be the same-so that if man-stealing, &c., be not the practice of slavery, so neither is the murder, mayhem, robbery, &c., described and condemned in the Scriptures, the same crimes which they are so currently supposed