A SOUTHERN FAMILY ESTABLISHED.

505

Here is a family of four persons. It consists of John Smith and Mary, his wife, John Smith, Jr., their son, all white persons; and Peter, a negro slave, held as a "chattel" under the "code" of South Carolina, in the name of the elder Smith. It is claimed that these three relations, in this concrete case, have equally the sanction of Scripture, and that each is an "ordinance of God." How does this appear? Each of these relations had a beginning, as to that particular family and these particular persons. How could they, of right, be formed, so as to make each one, when formed, an "ordinance of God ?"

When

There is no difficulty in regard to the first two. John Smith wanted a wife, whom had he a right to marry? Any woman in the wide world, not within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity, who was willing to marry him. The marriage of John and Mary was based upon mutual consent. The relation of husband and wife was thus properly formed between them, and the demands of the law of God were fully met, and thus the first "ordinance" is established in this family under the divine sanction. John Smith, Jr., is the offspring of these parents, begotten and born in lawful wedlock. The second or parental relation is thus formed in this family, according to the "ordinance of God," and is therefore brought fully under the divine sanction.

We have now only to provide for Peter, and to see if we can exalt his relation into an "ordinance." How shall it be done? There appear to be some practical difficulties in the way of bringing him under God's "ordinance," as a slave to John Smith, though he is John's slave under South Carolina law.

Whatever is done for Peter's relief, must be done in accordance with the Scriptures, for it is an "ordinance of God" that is to be established.

DIVINE ORDINANCES PLAIN.

All God's ordinances are explicit. If they involve the instituting of a relation, they show how it is to be formed, and what is essential to it. Is it a union with the Church? The Scriptures show in what this consists, the terms of communion, the requisite qualifications, and how membership is to be formed. Is it severance from the Church? They point out the offences which justify it, the officers who are to judge, and the several successive steps to be taken. Is it of baptism, or of the Lord's supper? They are full upon every point touching persons and things. Is it of marriage? They declare who may and who may not join to constitute this relation, and point out the sin of violating the law. Is it of divorce? They define what may and what may not sever the relation of husband and wife.

And so on through every ordinance; every thing essential to the case is made clear. And, be it observed, it is not merely the duties of these several relations which the Scriptures make plain. It is the relations themselves upon which they give light; the persons who may enter into them, and all the requisites for their formation.

THE SERVILE RELATION AS AN ORDINANCE."

Now, how are we TO FORM this relation between master and slave, so that it may be an "ordinance of God," with the same undoubted certainty as to the persons who may be masters and the persons who may be slaves, and all other things essential to it, as in the case of every other conceded "ordinance of God?" Do the Scriptures give us any light whatever on these points? How can we, at the start, put Peter into the family of John Smith, of South Carolina, so that the relation which Peter will then sustain to John as his slave, will be in the same sense an "ordi

THE SERVILE RELATION AS AN "ORDINANCE."

507

nance of God" that the marriage tie by which John and Mary are husband and wife, is an "ordinance of God ?" What is there in Scripture, as regards this "ordinance," to show that Peter might not just as well have been the master, and John the slave? We put aside mere abstractions at present, and we wish the doctrine applied to this concrete case. If it cannot explain the relation existing between John and Peter, and how it was originally formed as an "ordinance of God," the doctrine cannot apply to any case. It must first establish the relation between John, the master, and Peter, the slave, and then vindicate it as God's ordinance. What is the process for doing this, pointed out in Scripture?

We have no difficulty in putting Peter into the family of John Smith as his slave, under the statute law by which he is held. We can kidnap him from Afiica, by Col. Lamar and the slave ship Wanderer; or we can transmit him by inheritance from the honorable family of Smith, in the line of John's ancestors; or we can buy him of Wade Hampton with John's money; or we can give John a "clean bill of sale" from a friend as a gift, with " one dollar" as a consideration. We can exhaust all the possible modes by which he could have been made and held a slave, and brought into this relation to John Smith, any one of which would stand the test of South Carolina law; and yet, we fail to find any one of them, or all of them together, anywhere set forth as the modes by which this relation may be constituted, so as, without question, to make it an "ordinance of God," as the matrimonial and parental relations are acknowledged to be; while, how to exalt Peter into "an ordinance" in a Scriptural manner is the vital question at issue.

Now, can it be possible, that a relation where such momentous interests are involved, can be elevated to the

dignity of a divine "ordinance," founded on revelation, and put on a par with the matrimonial and parental elations, a relation, as in negro slavery in the South, involv ing life, liberty, the grossest ignorance, ignoring marriage, breaking up families, and yet, the Scriptures be utterly silent on the manner of its formation, and the persons who may enter it, on the one side and the other, while they are so full on these points touching every other relation where an "ordinance of God" is concerned? Judæus Apella.

THE ONLY LOOPHOLE, AND THAT CLOSED.

Credat

There is but one possible resort by which any advocate of this doctrine can attempt to relieve the case of Peter; and that we have already met, and it will avail him nothing. The New Testament can throw no light upon it. The only thing left is to go back to the time of Abraham and Moses, to the Jewish law, which would allow Peter to be "bought with (John's) money," as "bondmen" were then bought of the "heathen." But that resort presents sundry difficulties which we have already noticed.

As we are now confined to a specific case, we say as before, that until you show as unequivocal commands as Abraham and Moses had, commands as directly addressed to the present race of masters as those ancient commands were addressed to the Jews as a distinct people, you can gain nothing by that resort; and if John Smith claims that he has a right to Peter, under those ancient commands, he must show, that he, John Smith, infallibly belongs to the present class to whom like commands are addressed, or that a similar command has been addressed to him in person. All this must be as certain antecedently as the claim which any Jew could make, and then John

THE ONLY LOOPHOLE, AND THAT CLOSED.

509

Smith can proceed, but not before, to possess himself of Peter.

If these positions are not tenable, then we say as before, that any person or any number of persons, without any authority whatever from God, may at any time, and in any country, get up a system of slavery "to order," and immediately place it under the ancient Jewish law, with the same good reason that the Southern system can be placed there.

We here drop the discussion upon the Scriptural claim of Southern slavery to a recognition by both the Old and New Testament. There are other arguments which are often advanced for the claim which it is unnecessary to notice. If those which we have considered cannot be maintained, the claim must fall. On which side lies the truth, we leave the reader to judge.