kings shall serve themselves of them also. And I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their own hands." Jeremiah xxv. 9-14.

I will close my references to Scripture examples with that of Cyrus. There is a fine contrast between him and the king of Babylon. Of the last it was said, "he opened not the house of his prisoners;" but of Cyrus it was foretold, “He shall build my city, he shall let go my captives, not for price or reward, saith the Lord of hosts." We find he did this.

"Thus saith Cyrus: The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth. Who is among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God; and whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with gold and silver and beasts." Isaiah xlv. 13. Ezra

i. 3.

It is a singular coincidence that Cyrus, the only heathen that is called the "Lord's anointed," should be set forth in Scripture as letting "go captives without price or reward"—as liberating those in bondage; and that Christ our Saviour should be described as "anointed to proclaim liberty to captives, and the opening of the prison-doors to those that were bound, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

It ought here to be observed, that the instrumental use which God, in many of the above passages, is represented as making of man in inflicting judgments on man for his sins, does not in the least lessen the sin of man in spoiling, oppressing, and enslaving others. The law of God is the rule of duty, and not that secret purpose of God, which overrules even the crimes of men, and often uses them as a rod to punish the wicked.

When God commands a person to do a particular thing, his command justifies him in doing it. The command to borrow of the Egyptians, and to destroy the Canaanites, justified Israel in so doing. But so far from commanding men to injure and oppress and enslave each other, these things are against the very spirit and tendency of his law; which requires us to do good to all men, and love them as

ourselves. Men, in inflicting on others those evils which God has threatened for their sins, are not more clearly represented as the instruments of Providence, than as doing the evil, not from any purpose to please God, but for ends of their own. This is often noticed in Scripture.

"O, Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is my indignation. I will send him against the people of my wrath, to take the spoil and the prey, and to tread them down as the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few-wherefore it shall come to pass, when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria. Jer. 1. 23. li. 20. Isa. x. 5-12.

The Scripture notices the fact, that while men do evil to their fellow men in disregard of God's word, they often attempt to excuse their conduct by pleading that secret purpose and providence of God, which causes their disobedience to fulfil his will. 66 Why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his will." "All that found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the Lord, the habitation of justice. And the captain of the guard (after destroying Jerusalem and many of its inhabitants, and carrying off the rest for slaves) took Jeremiah, and said unto him, the Lord thy God hath pronounced this evil upon this place. Now he hath brought it to pass, and done according as he hath said; because ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore is this thing come upon you." Jer. 1. 7. xl. 2, 3.

The captain of the guard appears not to have known, or to have forgotten, the awful judgments denounced against his own country for what he was then doing. She was to be recompensed in the same way-to be destroyed, to be led captive, to be held in bondage--for doing these things to others. For however much they may have sinned against God, they had done nothing that justified her in thus treating them. All those nations who oppressed Israel, or oppressed each other, whom God is said to have sent against them, to whom he is said to have sold them,

who took them captive, and "held them fast and refused to let them go," had, in their turn, the judgments of God inflicted on them.

"All that devour him shall offend, evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, I am very sore displeased with the heathen; for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction. Because the Lord God of your fathers was wroth with Judah, he delivered them into your hands, and ye have slain them in a rage that went up to heaven; and now ye purpose to keep under the kingdom of Judah for bond-men and bond-women: but are there not with you, even with you, sins against God? Now therefore deliver up the captives again, for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you." Jer. ii. Zach. i. 2 Chron. xxviii.

I infer, that oppressing and selling and holding our fellow men in slavery is morally wrong, and for the plain reason, that these things are charged on those nations as sins, and punished as such. Where there is no law, there is no transgression: here was transgression; there must, therefore, have been law. But it was not a revealed law of God, for the heathen had none; nor was it their civil laws, for their civil laws allowed them to do thus. It must then have been a violation of natural justice and right and equity. Some sense of this is common to man. The dictates of natural conscience "show the work of the law written in their hearts." Balaam, as quoted by the prophet Micah, declared, that to "do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with God," was what God required; and the king of Nineveh, in order to escape the threatened judgment, commanded his people "to turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence of his hands."* Rom. ii. Jonah iii. Yours, &c.

* Balaam prophesied of Christ. I see no good reason for the opinion that he did not utter the sentiment in Micah vi. 5-8. as the connexion seems clearly to intimate. 10*

114

LETTER X.

CHRISTIAN BRrethren,

LET us, in the present letter, sum up the argument from the Old Testament against slavery, and notice its bearing on the teaching of the New, and our duty as learned from both.

The Scripture relates facts and events, both bad and good, as they took place, and often without any statement in their relation as to their morality. We cannot of course infer that an action was right from the fact that it was done by a person of a character on the whole good; for many such have done bad things. This remark is equally applicable to conditions in society, and relations which man may sustain to man. They are mentioned in the terms in common use, and mostly without any remark at the time as to their right or wrong. Scripture lays down general moral rules-the law of God, loving our neighbour as ourselves, and doing as we would be done by, which are to be applied to all the conduct of man to man, and all the relations they sustain to each other, that the right or wrong, the good or evil, may be ascertained. These principles are unfolded and carried out into the details of human conduct, by the many precepts, and warnings, and councils, and admonitions, and directions of the sacred volume.

We may farther remark that there are various moral terms often used in scripture, some expressing good and some bad conduct. They are used as words that need not be defined, being generally understood by the great mass of society. Of this kind are justice, truth, equity, kindness, goodness, &c. with many others, which when applied to any kind of conduct, prove it to be morally good. On the other hand injustice, oppression, violence, dealing hardly, and similar terms, which express moral evil, and when applied to the dealing of man to man, prove it wrong.

Now that a fair and straight-forward and common-sense application of the law of "loving our neighbour as ourselves," and of " doing as we would be done by," condemns holding our fellow men forcibly in bondage, and compelling them to serve without wages, is so plain that I

marvel any can doubt it. That slavery is in Scripture spoken of as violence and oppression, a hard dealing, and affliction, is past dispute. It is therefore morally wrong, and a violation of God's law.

The Mosaic institutions, and the cases of slavery mentioned in Scripture, instead of justifying it, as many have supposed, do really agree with the above rule in condemning it. The Israelites were not only reminded of their own bondage, and charged not to deal thus with others; but were not allowed to retain any servants who did not profess the true religion; and on their doing this, they were to own them as brethren, and let them go out free after six years. The law that made it death to steal or have in possession a stolen man-that giving freedom for hard usage that forbidding them to give up a runaway servant-the jubilee law, &c. were additional guards against slavery, and showed a care to prevent it.

The passage in Leviticus xxv. which at first view seems to allow it, admits of several explanations on received principles of interpretation.

The Patriarchs had servants, but it is not certain that they were slaves, and evidently they were not held in such a condition as slaves are among us, and even if they were, still that does not make it right, any more than their practising polygamy and concubinage makes those things right.

Israel was often brought into bondage, but always as a punishment for their sins; and when they practised slavery they were severely punished for it. Heathen nations were punished for enslaving Israel, and for enslaving each other.

The bearing which this state of things, under the Old Testament, was designed to have upon our conduct towards our fellow men, under the New Testament, seems too plain to need much illustration. That it has been by so many overlooked or misunderstood is strange, and especially that the want of a special condemnation of slavery in the New Testament should be construed into a justification of it, is passing strange.

It can be accounted for only on the principle that we account for the old notions that Scripture justified persecution, church establishments, and the "divine right of kings to govern wrong." People believed these things were so,