God by images or idols, or any other way not appointed in his word. But the slaveholder makes himself an idol to the slave, by contravening the authority of God's law relative to the slave; so that he has no power to worship God in the practical use of his word and ordinances, nor power to command his own children or household, but through the permission of his master. If the slave wor. ships God at all, or teaches his family, it must be by the sovereign will of his master, who is his idol.

A master who voluntarily assumes that power which contravenes the authority of God's law relative to the slave, treats God as an idol, and not the true God; for it is impossible that the true God could grant any such privilege to a creature.

The second commandment requires the receiving, observing, keeping pure and entire all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his word. But the slaveholder excludes the slave from the means of knowing the true God and his ordinances, and prevents the possibility of his keeping pure and entire such religious worship and ordinances, as he has appointed in his word, by monopolizing all the slave's time to himself, without allowing him either leisure or means to know the will of God, or to render that worship and reverence to him which his word requires. Therefore slaveholding is a most flagrant breach of the second commandment.

Slaveholding is a most formal example of sacrificing to an idol, or false god. The idol is Dives, the god of riches. The sacrifice is, the temporal and eternal happiness of the slaves. The ancient heathens offered human sacrifices to their gods, but it did not affect the eternal happiness of the victims; but the slaveholder sacrifices both the temporal and eternal happiness of the slaves, therefore his crime is as much worse than the practice of the heathen, as an eternal happiness is more valuable than a temporal.

The method by which slaveholders sacrifice the eternal happiness of the slaves, is keeping them in a state of brutish ignorance, so as to be incapable of attaining to salvation in the ordinary way. God may, and, in many instances, does save sinners without reading, yet the tendency of slaveholding is to prevent their salvation.

It cannot be a valid objection to this reasoning, that a preventing the slaves from every branch of literature, and therewith family instruction, is only an abuse of slavery, because it is and has been shown to be essential to its permanent existence. A thing may be said to be abused when it is perverted to an end entirely contrary to its native tendency; but for slaveholders to educate their slaves is an abuse of slavery, because it tends to bring about their emancipation, and put a final end to the practice; but to keep the slaves in complete ignorance, is the surest method to keep them in bondage.

Suppose the legislature of a slave state was to compel all the holders of slaves to have all their slaves taught to read and write, and oblige them to feed and clothe them well, it would not only prepare the slaves to emancipate themselves, but it would eventually compel the slavehold. ers to do it themselves. Considering the slow reluctance with which the slaves labor, together with the expenses of education, victualling, and clothing, agreeable to such a law, it would cause the expenses to be more than the profits arising from their labor, and occasion a general emancipation; for slaveholders can have no profits except that which arises from extortion, or the privations of education, victualling, and clothing.

THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.

Tenthly-That practice must be criminal which causes the breach of the third commandment. But slaveholding is of that description.

The third commandment is, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

This commandment implies a negative and a positive. The negative forbids the abuse and unnecessary use of the name of God; or withholding that honor and glory which his creatures owe to him. The positive lays an obligation upon all to use the name of God in a right, solemn, and seasonable manner; as in religious worship, religious conversation, and in making oath before a court of justice. But slaveholding causes the breach of the third commandment both negatively and positively. As, 1st.

The ignorance in which slaves are held, in order to secure their permanent subjection, is an occasion of most atrocious profanity in the lives and conversations of slaves; one ingredient of which is, that of taking the name of God in vain by profane swearing and cursing. 2. The necessity of keeping the slaves in a state of brutish ignorance, renders it impossible for them to either know the true name of God or his attributes, in order to worship him agreeable to his word, neither are they competent to make oath before any court.

The practice of slaveholding is a breach of the sacramental covenant, which is implied in baptism and the Lord's supper; in both of which persons are bound, with all the solemnity of an oath, to love their neighbors as themselves, and to do to all others whatsoever they would that they should do to them.

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.

Eleventh-That practice must be criminal which occasions the breach of the fourth commandment, which is, "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." But slaveholding is of that nature.

The slave is amenable to no law but that of his master's will. If he chooses to obey the law of God for conscience' sake, rather than his master's will, he must be exposed to most cruel persecution, so that the slave is liable to be compelled to break the Sabbath. If he should refuse, he could have no redress from the laws of the commonwealth, for a slave can have no protection from the laws of slave states; such is the nature of slaveholding, that it excludes the slaves from the protection of the civil law, and places them entirely at the disposal of their masters, who have a despotical authority over the persons and the behavior of their slaves, both of a spiritual and temporal nature. Though the civil law will not grant positive protection to a master in compelling his slaves to labor on the Sabbath, yet, as no cause can be supported before a court but by legal testimony, to which a slave is not competent, the master has an absolute power to compel the slave to labor on the Sabbath, or to violate any other precept of the mo ral law.

The fourth commandment binds all heads of families to command all within their gates to keep the Sabbath; but facts bear witness that slaves, almost every Sabbath, are kept to labor, the females in kitchens, and the males about the stables or other domestic labor. But when even works of necessity are all thrown over upon the slaves, it will for the most part employ them through the day; but should works of necessity admit of some relaxation to the slaves, the constant round of visiting practised among slaveholders on the Sabbath will keep the slaves employed from morning to evening in serving them. Besides all this, many slaveholders compel their slaves to labor in the field on the Sabbath; others, by withholding a scanty allowance of victualling, compel them to labor on the Sabbath for their support.

The profound ignorance in which the slaves are held, of necessity occasions the breach of the Sabbath-day, because the Sabbath cannot be kept holy to the Lord in any acceptable form, but by holiness in heart, life, and conversation; and none that are ignorant of God's word, of his doctrines, his promises, or of the economy of grace and salvation, can keep the Sabbath holy to the Lord; so that the breach of the Sabbath is a necessary consequence of slaveholding.

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.

Twelfth That practice must be criminal which occasions the breach of the fifth commandment, which is, "Honor thy father and thy mother." But slaveholding is of that description.

The fifth commandment requires the duty of parents to children, and the duties of children to their parents. The chief of all parental duties is that of teaching children the knowledge of God's word, the doctrines of religion, and the way of salvation through Jesus Christ: Prov. xxii. 6. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it:" Deut. vi. 4. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and

thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." But cruel slaveholding prevents family instruction. It necessarily prevents both parents and children from either knowing or fulfilling their reciprocal obligations to each other, by keeping them in a state of intellectual and moral darkness: and besides this, slaveholders, by cruel tyranny, prevent parents doing their duty to their children, agreeable to the fifth commandment, and children from obeying their parents. This they do by usurping the headship and rightful authority of the parents over their children, and the right of obedience in the children to the parents; and thus make their own authority to be above that of the moral law, as it relates to the duties of parents to children, and those of children to their parents; in all which it outreaches the utmost stretch of civil power, which claims no authority over the private rights and private duties of the citizens; so that a slaveholder is a tyrant, a cruel despot, in the most aggravated sense in which it can be understood. The grand point of difference between a government founded on equity, and one that is despotical, lies in one thing. The former is a power delegated to civil rulers from the people, which cannot interfere with the private rights or private relative duties of the people, which are incapable of being transferred to representatives; but the latter, without the consent of the people, usurps a power over the community to command them at his pleasure, but rarely, in the administration of his power, meddles with the private rights and private duties of the citizens. The slaveholder ranks on a level with the worst of tyrants upon the globe, as to his usurpation of power; but, in his administration of that power, he far exceeds the most cruel tyrant upon earth: so that slaveholding is so flagrant a breach of the fifth commandment, that the most superficial observer may be led to conviction who will apply his mind to the subject.