and murderers of mothers, for man-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons." Man-stealing is here classed with such crimes as are most detestable in the sight of God, and most odious in the sight of men, and most deserving of death by the sword of justice. Man-stealing must therefore be a moral evil of the most aggravated nature, in every age and in every nation. A sin not only against God, but against our neighbor. If he who steals a sheep, or robs on the highway, may be considered a pest to society, of what enormous villany must he be guilty who steals or robs a man of all his property, or which is the same thing, takes a man by violence from all his property. The crime of theft does not so much lie in using stolen property, as in depriving the right owner of the use and enjoy. ment of it. But slaveholding deprives the man of all his property, and from the liberty of ever possessing more, and has some circumstances of aggravation and horror peculiar to itself, as that of robbing wives from their husbands, and husbands from their wives, children from their parents, and separating children from one another. But although these near relatives should not be separated from one another, yet it implies all the criminality of robbery of the highest aggravation, because all natural relations which exist amongst slaves, with all relative duties, are at the disposal of the slave master, who is absolute lord over all these relations and relative duties; in consequence of which, every child that is born of a slave, even though it is suffered to live in the same house with its parents, is robbed from them; that is, the rights of all relative duties are by violence taken away and usurped by the masBut what is the most criminal of all is, that the slave master, by his last will, gives his posterity a charter to continue the practice of man-stealing, to perpetual gene.

ter.

rations.

Lev. xix. 13: "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor neither rob him; the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee until the morning." But slaveholding implies both fraud and robbery. It is a robbing our neighbor of his liberty, his time, and his labor. If to defraud an hireling of his wages is theft and robbery, how much rather is slaveholding, that not only robs a man of wages for

his labor, but of his liberty, his children, and all his relatives of their right of duty to them, and the right of obedience from them; and the worst of all is, a robbing them of that time which they ought to devote to the service of God; so that the slave has no time to learn to know his duty to God, nor leisure to serve him, or to prepare for eternity.

Verse 33: "And if a stranger sojourn with you in your land, ye shall not vex him; but the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Strangers and sojourners among the Jews were all the heathen nations; so that this text absolutely prohibited the Jews from enslaving the heathen who dwelt among them and enjoyed their protec. tion, much more to enslave those heathen who were living within their own borders, and seeking no protection.

Ex. xxiii. 9: "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." That oppressing strangers means enslaving them, is evident from the reference had to their bondage in Egypt; so that this prohibits slavery among the Jews.

Levit. xxv. 35: "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fall into decay with thee, thou shalt relieve him; yea, though he be a stranger or sojourner, that he may live with thee." This is the very reverse of what is practised in slave states. Not only brethren of mankind, but brethren in Christian fellowship are enslaved; that is, robbed of time, liberty, labor, and all the rights of men; and whosoever will attempt to relieve them, must needs be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear.

Jer. xxii. 13: "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work. This last is so directly pointed against unmerited, involuntary slavery, as to require no comment.

In the former part of this work it has been shown that slavery never was authorised among the Jews by the divine law, that although the law admitted of bond-men and bond-women, yet their bondage was so restricted as to

prevent it from being intolerable. It has also been shown that it was confined to captives taken in war, to criminals and debtors; and we may now add, in connection with what has been said on the cause of the Gibeonites, that all public national servants, which the law of God allowed of among the Jews, were to be exclusively of the seven nations of Canaan, which God, by a special revelation of his will, consigned over to destruction for their atrocious wickedness. Deut. ii. 5, 9. 1 Kings, ix. 20, 22: "All the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which were not of the child. ren of Israel, that were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel also were not able utterly to destroy, upon these did King Solomon levy a tribute of bond-men unto this day. But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bond-men, but they were men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and rulers of his chariots, and his horsemen." Whence it appears that these bond-men were not contrasted with the natural rights of humanity, as in our slave states, but with military service and other honorable employments in the state. These bond-men, like the Gibeonites, were public national property, the same as enlisted soldiers, but not the private property of individuals; and as their bondage could not have been supposed to be intolerable, were liable to serve to the year of jubilee, except they became proselytes to the Jewish religion. But whatever institutions God gave to the Jews which bound them as his own peculiar people, to deal justly and mercifully to one another, are now equally binding upon the whole world; and all positive precepts which allowed the Jews to serve themselves by either the persons or property of any heathen nations, are now done away by the coming of Christ.

Eph. ii. 11:"Wherefore, remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who some time were afar off, are now made nigh by

the blood of Christ, for he is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." Col. i. 20: "And having made peace by the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven." From these passages it appears, that all the peculiarities of the Jewish dispensation are done away; so that all moral precepts which forbade the Jews to oppress, enslave, or sell one another, are equally binding upon all mankind. As the Jews were called in Scripture language brethren, whether they were gracious persons or unbelievers, so under the gospel dispensation are all mankind on account of the Gentile nations enjoying the same privileges which aforetime were restricted to the Jews, to the exclusion of the Gentiles. All the Gentiles are said to be reconciled to God, because the middle wall of partition is taken down. In strict agreement with the Scriptures above cited, the words addressed to the Jews, will condemn our modern dealers in the souls and bodies of men.

Amos viii. 5, 6: "Falsifying the balance by deceit, that ye may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes." Chap. ii, 6: "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." Eccl. iv. 1. "So I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comfort; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the living who are yet alive." That these words were designed to display the miserable condition of persons in a state of abject slavery similar to what is practised in our slave states can hardly be call. ed in question by any that will be at pains to compare his words with the condition of slaves.

As

First-These which he saw and considered were overwhelmed with grief and despair.

Secondly. They were subject to unjust and arbitrary power, because those who had the rule over them he calls oppressors.

Thirdly. They were in that condition as to be out of the reach of any ordinary merns of relief, for on the side of their oppressors there was power.

Fourthly. Their condition was so wretched that he praised the state of the dead in comparison with theirs. The whole is so completely descriptive of modern slavery, that had the inspired writer designed at the time to give a true delineation of the real condition of slaves in our slave states, he could not have done it with more exact

ness.

We shall now state some arguments from the New Testament. Matt. vii. 12: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." Chap. xxii.37-40: "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." All men are our neighbors. To love our neighbors as ourselves is to study his interest as well as our own, and in no respect to sacrifice his welfare for the advancement of our own, but slaveholding can have no existence without sacrificing all the rights and privileges of the slave for the advantage of the master. James v.1, 6: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon you. riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten, your gold and silver is cankered, and the rest of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last day. Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud crieth, and the cries of them who have escaped are enter ed into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." That the laborers here who are defrauded of their hire or just wages were slaves and not hirelings, is evident,

Your

First. Because slavery was then universal throughout the Roman empire, and the twelve tribes of Israel to whom the apostle addressed his epistle, were scattered abroad throughout the whole empire, which was then all the known world.