as Grotius says, he could inflict without applying to any magistrate, he besought the apostle to write to Philemon requesting him to forgive and receive him again into his family," &c. "To account for

the solicitude which the apostle showed in this affair, we must not, with some, suppose that Philemon was keen and obstinate in his resentments, but rather, that having a number of slaves, on whom the pardoning of Onesimus too easily might have had a bad effect, he might judge some punishment necessary, for a warning to the rest, &c. The apostle would by no means detain Onesimus without Philemon's leave; because it belonged to him to dispose of his own slave in the way he thought proper. Such was the apostle's regard to justice and to the rights of mankind !”

(4.) The demonstration furnished on this question, I need only mention; it is the baptism by the apostles of slaveholders, and the admission of them into the churches. Before baptism they required men to repent, that is, to abandon all their sins; yet they baptized masters holding slaves. They fenced the Lord's table with the most solemn warnings that men should examine themselves, and that to eat and drink unworthily was to eat and drink condemnation; yet they admitted to the supper masters holding slaves. They declared that "without holiness no man could see the Lord," and at once condemned all the darling sins of the day. Idolatry was interwoven with the very elements of society, yet they spared it not, but at the sight of "a city given to idolatry" their "spirits were stirred," and they told the people plainly that they worshipped devils. They abhorred the thought

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that "the temple of God could have any agreement with idols ;" and stigmatized idolatry as one of the "works of the flesh," "as to which," said they, we tell you before, as we have told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Voluptuousness reigned in city and country, and even philosophers considered it innocent; but the heralds of Christ assailed it everywhere. In a word, going in the strength of the Lord God, they, with lion-hearted dauntlessness, struck at and warred with the superstitions of the Gentiles and the prejudices of the Jews. They attacked the passions of the vulgar and the pride of the noble. They defied the priests, and confronted the Sanhedrim, and thundered before unjust and licentious princes "of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come." Yet as to slavery, they not only never forbade it, but received believing masters into the churches, and declared them "faithful and beloved" brethren in Christ Jesus. After this shall I be told that they considered slaveholding as a sin of appalling character, and meant it to be condemned by some covert and slow spirit or principle of their teaching? Is this supposable? Is it possible? Does it even verge towards possibility? Did they thus treat any infraction of God's law? And what would we say, I ask again, if our missionaries should thus act towards idolaters and fornicators in heathen lands? To put a case not half so strong as that here made out, let me suppose it could be proved that the apostles baptized children, would not that litigated question be at once settled? Yet then it might be urged that the very New Testament idea of a

Christian church requires its members to be bc. lievers, and that the only commission to baptize excludes infants; whereas, in the instance before us we have clear, universal, apostolic practice, and not only no command with which it clashes, but the previous precepts and dealings of God all in conformity with it. If any one with all this-this argument, and inference, and proof, and demonstration-before him, still doubts, why then no good can come to that man from farther discussion. But it is impossible. So incurable a skeptic does not live, and my proposition is established, that slavery was sanctioned in the Old Testament, and permitted in the New Testament. If, how ever, slavery was sanctioned in the Old, and permitted in the New Testament, it is not a sin; and he who says it is, will answer to God whom he af fronts, and not to me. You and I cannot, I know, differ as to the impiety of such a charge.

My letters are becoming, I fear, quite too long for your patience or the attention of our readers. I will conclude this by adverting as briefly as possible to the consequences which you think must follow if the New Testament permitted slavery. Now, to all objections of this kind, my dear brother will recollect that inspiration supplies one proper and compendious answer: "Nay, but who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" The Christian, however, need not fear that the teaching of the Holy Spirit can ever be found to inculcate doctrines at variance with truth or piety, and, therefore, he may be confident that all attempts to fasten upon the Scriptures any error in science, moral or physical, must fail. Nor is my humble assurance

shaken by your objections. Those objections may be condensed thus.

Objection first.-If the New Testament per mitted slavery among Christians in the apostles' days, then it permitted all the atrocities and enor. mities of Roman slavery, if the master only forbore threatening, and gave his slave suitable physical comforts as the reward of his toil; for this is all that the precepts to masters required.

Answer.-Here is a manifest confusion of sla. very with the Roman slave-laws. What you af. firm is, that slavery is always a sin. But slavery may exist, and did exist, among "faithful and beloved" Christian masters in apostolic times, and does exist now, without any of the horrors legal. ized by the Roman code. The gospel condemns cruelty, oppression, and injustice. It, therefore, denounced the system of servitude allowed among the Romans; and, moreover, by expressly enforcing justice, and reciprocal rights, and reminding the master of his subjection and accountability to God, it altered entirely the relations of the parties. The case is analogous to that of the Roman despotism. Indeed, Dr. Channing uses the very example, when he says, that if the Bible precepts to slaves sanctioned slavery, then the precepts to subjects sanctioned all the tyranny of the reigning emperor, the tiger Nero. Let us now suppose that the apostles had not only enjoined subjection to rulers, but that one of the Cæsars having been converted and received into the church as a brother "faithful and beloved," an epistle had been addressed to him, exhorting him "to give unto his subjects things which are just and equal, and to

remember that he also had a King in heaven :"what would this prove? It would establish conclusively the proposition that despotic power is not in itself a sin; but would it justify the profligate and sanguinary reigns of Tiberius, and Caligula, and Nero, or the crimes which the royal penitent himself might have formerly committed by the abuse of his power? And this supposed case is exactly the fact as to slavery. The precepts and example of the apostles settle the point that slaveholding is not in itself a sin; but they did not, and do not, sanction any abuse of the master's power; and had a master been guilty of cruelty or injustice to his slaves, the apostles would never have suffered him to continue in the communion of the church, much less would they have pronounced him "faithful and beloved."

Objection second.-A gospel permission is a general permission; and if the New Testament permitted slavery formerly it permits it now; nay, it sanctions the slave-trade, and "I should be as much justified in sending a vessel to Africa, murdering a part of the inhabitants of a village, and making slaves of the rest, as I should be in hunting a herd of wild animals, and either slaying them or subjecting them to the yoke."

Answer.-Jesus and his apostles found slavery existing as a part of the social organization. Should they appear now, they would find the same institution here. They did not declare it to be a sin, but by precept and example permitted it to continue; making it, however, a relation not of oppression and crime, but of justice and love. And they would act now just as they acted then; or