the laborious compilation of the learned and excellent Bishop Hopkins in his late work. Though not thus coming before the public by any design or forethought of his own, it seems to the author to be somewhat providential, that he should have been called upon, just at this time, to show the people "what saith the Scriptures" concerning the relation of master and slave. The reaction from the extremes to which a plausible but fierce and reckless fanaticism had carried both the American and British people, but especially the former, seems about to set in. The sober second thought of Christian people is beginning to suspect the dogmas of the noisy, canting, infidel philanthropism whose prophets have seduced them temporarily to follow the pretended revelations of natural reason, "spiritual insight," and "universal love," instead of Jehovah's prophets whom their fathers followed. The recent very remarkable utterances of this fanatical philanthropism from the very highest official of the American nation, since this discourse was delivered,-utterances, which, as will appear from the argument of this discourse, can hardly be characterized as less than impiously presumptuous perversions of the Word and Providence of God,— must arrest the attention of thoughtful Christian men, and lead to the inquiry whether the lights which the Churches of that country have been following to such an extreme, can possibly have been kindled at the altar-fires of inspiration. To such inquiries, it is believed, this brief yet compact and somewhat exhaustive view will be of service; especially to such as have no time or opportunity for more extended reading. STUART ROBINSON. TORONTO, March 6th, 1865. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION.-Reasons for this present discussion. thorities in biblical criticism upon which the argument SECTION I.-Slavery in the Church, anterior to the civil code of Moses, recognized in the covenants which form the fundamental charter of the Church visible. The deliver- ance from Egypt was the deliverance of a nation of slave- holders from political bondage, SECTION II.-Rationale of the Mosaic civil law respecting the bond-service of Hebrews. That service was not slavery, in the proper sense, at all. The prohibition against reducing a Hebrew to slavery was not on the ground of natural right, but of special religious faith, SECTION III-A system of perpetual slavery was recognized and regulated by the Mosaic civil code, substantially the same with the system in the American Southern States; nor SECTION IV. This system of perpetual slavery continued to exist in the Mosaic Church till the close of the Old Testament inspiration; and, during the interval between the close of the Old and the opening of the New Testament, vast num- bers of Jews, as well as of other peoples, had been sold into SECTION V.-During the personal ministry of Jesus Christ, though slavery, in fact, as part of the social order and the question of slavery, in thesi, in the exposition of Moses, must have been forced upon his attention, Christ did not re- peal Moses' permission of slavery, as He repealed the per- mission of divorce and polygamy, nor claim to teach a purer ethics than Moses. When actual cases came before him, not only did he not rebuke the relation of master and slave as sinful, but blessed both master and slave, and, in his preaching, referred without rebuke to the relation of master SECTION VI.-In the final reorganization of the visible Church, through the Apostles, under the dispensation of the Spirit, the ethical propriety of slavery, especially of enslaving Jews, must have been forced upon their attention. Yet the Apostles not only admitted slaveholders and their slaves together into the Church, but enjoined the Christian duties of master and slave precisely in the same manner as the duties of ruler and subject, husband and wife, parents and SECTION VII.-The Apostles not only recognized negatively the ethical propriety of the relation of master and slave, but ex- pressly denounced those who "teach otherwise," as heretics from whom true ministers of the Church must withdraw SECTION VIII.-The imminent danger to religion from the tend- encies of the anti-slavery philanthropism to subvert the faith of the people in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Fallacious judgments of the greatest and wisest men under the mental and moral epidemics that seize upon society, as compared with the infallible word of God, CONCLUDING NOTE.-Application of the foregoing argument to the great secular issues now pending between the slaveholding States and British and New England philanthropism. The trilemma. Neither of its horns consistent with scriptural ethics nor with facts. The slavery tolerated in the New Testa- ment demonstrated to be the same in principle with that in the American States. Why these views have not been press- ed upon the attention of the world before by Southern writers. DISCOURSE. Now these are THE JUDGMENTS which thou shalt set before them. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve thee, &c. Ex. 21: 1-6. And if a man smite his servant with a rod and he die under his hand: he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding if he continue a day or two he shall not be punished: FOR HE IS HIS MONEY, Ex. 21: 20. And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake, &c. Ex. 21: 26, 27. If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. Ex. 21: 28-32. and And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant; but as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee; then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of HIS FATHERS shall he return. FOR THEY ARE MY SERVANTS, WHICH I BROUGHT OUT of the land of EGYPT: they shall not be sold as bondmen, &c. Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about thee; of them SHALL YE BUY BONDMEN AND BONDMAIDS; moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, &c. And they shall be YOUR POSSESSION. And ye shall take them AS AN INHERITANCE for your children after you, TO INHERIT THEM FOR A POSSESSION; they shall be your BONDMEN FOREVER; but . |