Secondly. Keeping back the hire is spoken of as a general evil, which could not have been if the ground of complaint had been no more than that of rich men withholding stipulated wages from their laborers, because such a practice could not have been universal, while every hireling had the half of the bargain to make; and a general practice of defrauding hirelings would have prevented hiring altogether; therefore these rich men must have been slave holders, and the laborers that reaped down their fields were slaves, whom they defrauded of their wages. John viii. 35: And the servanta bideth not in the house forever, but the son abideth forever." In these words Christ could not have meant to compare the local residence of a servant with that of a son, for it was a privilege granted to a son from the beginning, that he should leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife. Therefore Christ's design in the illustration of his subject was, to compare the temporary relation of a servant to his master, with that of a son to his father, which is perpetual. The servant abideth. If perpetual hereditary slavery had been allowed among the Jews, the comparison would have been perfectly unnatural, so that this text is a plain proof that perpetual slavery had no existence in the Jewish nation. Rev. xviii. 8-13: In this chapter trafficking in slaves is pointed out as one criminal mark of the great whore of Babylon, where her articles of commerce are specified, some of which consisted of slaves and souls of men. CHAPTER VI. THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. OBJECTION.-If slaveholding is criminal, why did not Christ preach up the emancipation of slaves? ANSWER.-Christ did testify against slavery in the very first sermon he delivered, where he publicly announced his mediatorial office. Luke iv. 18. His subject was from Isaiah, chapter 1:-" The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he hath annointed me to preach the gos pel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken heart ed, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." These expressions, broken hearted, blind, bruised, are figurative of the different kinds and degrees of misery in which mankind are involved by sin, from which they need deliverance through a mediator; but these strong figures are not taken from those kinds of miseries or punishments under which persons are lawfully held for their crimes. It is in every instance unlawful to relieve the guilty from deserved punishment, but those figures are taken from miseries in which persons are unjustly held by cruel tyranny, and certain it is that no people are subject to so hopeless and so unjust a captivity as those that are detained in a state of unmerited slavery, none kept in greater blindness, none more subject to be beaten, bruised and murdered. As Christ then, by the use and application of these figures, shews what was the great object of his mission into the world at a time when slavery was universal throughout the Roman empire, while two thirds of the population were slaves, we may conclude that one branch of his mediatorial office, was the emancipation of mankind from civil and political bondage, as well as spiritual. Had Christ made choice of a number of figures taken from those civil punishments under which criminals are justly held, it would have conveyed an idea that he came to destroy the law rather than to fulfil it. Man's punishment for sin is just in relation to God, but in many instances mankind are subject to unjust punishment in relation to one another. Christ's office as mediator was to fulfil the law, to deliver sinners from condemnation in relation to God's law, and from unjust punishment in relation to men and the power of Satan: the design of the gospel is to proclaim to mankind, sinners' deliverance from the guilt of sin, and for freedom from spiritual bondage, and to enlighten the nations of the earth, as to bring about their freedom from civil and political bondage. That the end of Christ's office was thus extensive is more copiously expressed in the next verse: "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." This expression relates to the great jubilee, which was a general release from all debts, mortgages and ser vitudes. That a release from all these bonds was just, and to have detained persons under bonds longer than the year of jubilee, would have been unjust, is evident from these reasons. First. It was the command of God that such release should be. Second. All their contracts were made in accommodation to the year of jubilee. Third. The general release which was proclaimed in the jubilee was typical of the coming of Christ, whose office was to proclaim liberty to all that are in spiritual bondage, and to open a way for deliverance to all that are unjustly detained in temporal bondage. That this is the sense of the words, is manifest from the particular kind of freedom, which was implied in the jubilee; it was a freedom from servitude, so that no person could be detained in bondage longer than to that period. Every part of the typical service must have been founded upon moral justice, and in no respect contrary to it. A release from bondage in the year of jubilee was typical of that liberty which Christ came to proclaim, therefore it must have been just to release all servants from bondage in the year of jubilee, and to have detained them would have been unjust; that which was unjust in a moral point of view, under the Old Testament, is equally unjust under the New; for Christ came not to destroy the law. If the typical law secured the emancipation of all such as were held in bondage, the ante-type must do the same, for we cannot expect the ante-type to fall short of the type. The proclamation of the jubilee under the Old Testament, was to the Jews, as the Gospel is to all nations under the New, the middle wall of partition being broken down by the coming of Christ; so that Christ in his public administrations established a foundation for the univer. sal emancipation of slaves. Matth. vii. 12: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them." Christ and his apostles laid down the gospel before sinners as a ground of salvation, and also the preceptive obligations of the moral law as a rule of duty, explained it and enforced its authority, so as by necessary implication to condemn slaveholding, allowing their hearers to make an application of the general prin. ciples of moral justice to particular cases. But the condition of the Christian church is entirely different in the present age, and in this country from that of the apostoli. cal age. The great end of the gospel in the apostolical age was not in the first instance to deliver mankind from cor. poreal bondage, and to restore them to the enjoyment of civil privileges, but to deliver them from the guilt and bondage of sin, which would prepare the way for deliverance from political bondage. In that age, all nations were under the Roman yoke. To have preached a universal emancipation of slaves in the apostolical age, would have been the same as to have attempted an over. throw of the empire; but in the present age and in our nation, the preachers of the gospel are bound to address mankind in a manner adapted to their present condition as professed Christians and freemen, who are acquainted with God's law, and its obligations upon all men—to a people also, who are themselves the constituents of government, and have an active hand in making the constitution and all the laws of government. Men under the Roman government might have been either masters or slaves without criminality, while masters were bound to pay wages to their slaves, as will be afterwards shown. But it is impossible for men to hold persons in slavery under our government, without the grossest criminality, because the principles upon which we maintain our own liberty and independence, and the ground upon which we make laws to promote justice and equity between man and man, strike at the very root of slaveholding, and condemn it to the lowest hell. CHAPTER VII. OF THE DUTY OF A SLAVE TO HIS MASTER. A slave while he remains with his master, owes obe. dience to him, and as long as he remains under his authority is bound to honor him, not because of any moral right that the master has to hold him in bondage but be cause of the benefits he receives from him. Although Slavery, virtue dreads it as her grave, And the chain the moment when you may. 1 Cor. vii, 21: "Art thou called, being a servant, care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather; he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's free man." The word here translated servant, is doulos, which signifies either a slave or an hired |