Psalmist is addressing judges who act unjustly, (v. 2). The wicked here are such persons as bring the poor and needy into court, in order to enforce exactions upon them by bribing the corrupt judges. Were the slaves of the Hebrews, then, sued in court by their masters? I trust not; their masters needed no court but their own, and had a summary process within their own power.

The next appeal is to Jer. 34: 17. "Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor." The context (vs. 12-16) informs us, that the Jews of that day paid no regard to the liberation of Hebrew slaves, when the seventh or liberty-year had come. The masters still continued their bondage. Jeremiah threatens them, therefore, with divine judgments, on account of their perfidy to the law of Moses. But not a word or syllable is here, about the bondage of heathen slaves.

The fifth and last appeal is to Isa. 16: 3. "Hide the outcasts; bewray not him that wandereth." And who are the outcasts and the wanderer? They are the fugitive daughters of Moab, who flee from the conquering invaders of their country, and seek safety in the land of Israel. The prophet presents them as addressing the Hebrew people, beseeching them, in the words quoted, to conceal them in a place of safety, and not to tell the pursuing enemy where they are, i. e. not to bewray them. This is all. But how this is to be put to the justification of concealing runaway slaves, or made into a command to aid and protect them, I have not sagacity enough to divine.

I should not refer to Ariel, who has thus exhibited his profound acquaintance with the Old Testament, if it were not, that he has merely given utterance to what is resounding on all sides. Such are the conclusive texts, which are every day appealed to with the most undoubting confidence, as speaking to the point which the Abolitionists are eager to establish. How much reason they have for such a confidence, has now been shown. Probably, however, it will be labor lost on most of them; for they seem very much prone to ignoring. Be it so; I still hope that the cautious and sober inquirer after scriptural truth, will at least be put on the alert, as to such quotations, and as to the interpretations which are given to them. As to Ariel himself—I know not who he is, and am glad that I do not, because I can now speak the more freely, without subjecting

myself to the imputation of personalities. I suppose, by his frequent appeals to the Scriptures, that he may be a minister of the Gospel. If so, I can only condole with his people, that they have not a more dicriminating guide, to lead them to a right knowledge of the meaning of the Scriptures. If the quotations above, and the construction put upon them, do not show him to be a mere sciolist in the knowledge of the Bible, it would be difficult to say what could exhibit proofs of such a predicament. I add only, that the last three texts above are printed in staring capitals; why, I know not, unless it be to proclaim to the world what a capital exegete he is.

I stop with these examples; for if I were to follow up and examine all the texts of Scripture which are every day abused in this manner, it would of itself require a little volume. I add here only a few brief reflections.

Let us now take a momentary retrospect. Where do the Hebrew Scriptures place and leave this whole matter? The answer is plain and undeniable. The Jews were permitted to purchase and hold slaves, who were of their own nation, i. e. native Hebrews. But this could be done only for six years at a time. When the seventh year came, each Hebrew was free; and so at the jubilee-year they were all free, whether the six years had expired or not. Many privileges were granted to such persons, which were not usually granted among other nations. Moses made great advances in the matter of humane treatment. But the unlawfulness of such slavery, so modified, is a thing that Moses never once intimates.

But how was it with slaves purchased from the heathen? The Jews had unlimited liberty to purchase them, and to hold them as heritable property. There was no seventh year, and no jubilee-year, to them. Lev. 25: 44-46 has put this matter at rest, for all sober and honest inquirers. There it stands, (and even Abolitionists cannot abolish it), that the Jews might have slaves ad libitum.

Have the prophets contradicted this? Did the expounders and enforcers of Moses' laws occupy themselves with repealing and contradicting them? So the Abolitionists virtually conclude and declare, every day. I do not mean that they venture directly upon such assertions, but that they quote and apply the words of the prophets in such a way, as to set them in direct opposition to Moses. If they are not conscious of this, (as many of them do not seem to

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be), or if they do not intend it, it is none the less a matter of fact a thing too plain to be overlooked. Why then should they vituperate, with so much unsparing violence, those who believe and maintain that Moses and the prophets have not contradicted each other, but are in perfect concord?

One more suggestion, and I have done. It should be remembered, that the Jewish commonwealth was a theocracy, or a monarchy, and not a democracy. The people had not the right of electing rulers and magistrates; nor any right to repeal or modify their laws. These laws were ecclesiastico-political. They spread over all the duties of religion and civil polity. They determined all the various relations and relative duties of the community. What Moses had ordained, no subsequent legislative Congress could repeal, or even modify. If, then, he gave full permission to purchase and hold slaves, (which he surely did), then, so long as the Jewish dispensation lasted, this permission could not be abrogated. God only could change the Mosaic law; and therefore, if any Hebrew disliked slavery, he could only refrain from it himself, but could not demand of ⚫his neighbors to refrain from it, much less denounce them if they did not refrain.

Last of all; let it not be forgotten, that Moses was forty years at the head of the Jewish nation, before he ventured on giving to female slaves the same rights of freedom after six years, which the Hebrew bond-men had. What do or can the zealous advocates of immediate emancipation do with his example?

I have but one question more to ask, and I shall then leave this part of our subject. This question is very simple and plain: Did the God of the Hebrews give permission to them to commit a malum in se? Did he give unlimited liberty to do that which is equivalent to murder and adultery? To this point the matter comes. There is no shunning the question. It will not do here, to allege that the Hebrews were permitted to hold slaves, because they were an obstinate and rebellious people. It is only in matters less strenuous than this, (I mean such as were not mala in se), that any indulgence of this kind could be granted. Crimes mala in se cannot be transformed into no crimes, by heaven or earth. Slavery, therefore, under the Jewish dispensation, by purchase from the heathen, was not one of these crimes. The God of the Bible could never sanction the commission of such. And yet, if Abolitionists are to be heard,

that God has sanctioned not only a positive evil, but one of the greatest of all crimes.

Enough for the Old Testament; come we now to the New.

§ 3. The attitude of Slavery in the New Testament.

We pass now from the ancient dispensation of the Law, which, in its very arrangements for worship and ritual, was confined to one nation, and was never designed to be a permanent and universal religion. The moral and spiritual part of it, however, has its basis in the relations of God to man, and of men to God and to each other. They are unrepealed, and irrepealable.

First of all, let us call to mind, that in our Saviour's time, the Jews were under a foreign power; whose appointed governor in Judea was a stern and jealous military commander. It needed a strong hand to keep the Jews under, and make them quiet; and such an one was laid upon them. They had no choice of officers, no appointment of magistrates, no means of vindicating their freedom and independence. It was in circumstances such as these, that our Saviour made his appearance among them as a religious teacher, and the head of a new dispensation. It is a deeply interesting question, when we ask: How did he, "who knew no sin," demean himself among the Hebrews with whom he lived and conversed?

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There are a sufficient number of cases, by means of which we may see how carefully our Lord avoided all appearance of opposition to the government under which he lived, notwithstanding his full knowledge of the tyranny and injustice of the Roman governor. His disciples were applied to for tribute-money, and were asked, whether their Master paid tribute. The answer was, that he did. When Peter applied to him to know what he would do on a particular occasion, he asked him: "Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith to him: Of strangers. Jesus saith to him: Then are the children free." The meaning of this seems to be, that he, the Son of David and Son of God, as the sovereign of the Jews and of all men, might rightfully decline to give tribute to a heathen power. Still, he ordered Peter to take a fish, in whose mouth a piece of silver was found, and this was given to the exactor of tribute, both

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for himself and for Peter; see Matt. 17: 24-27. In other words; he would set an example of being "subject to the powers that be," even when they required what he was not under obligation to give.

In Matt. 22: 16-21, is an account of a plot laid by the Herodians, to ensnare Jesus, by asking, whether it was lawful to give tribute to Cesar. They expected him, as a Jew, to answer the question in the negative; and then they meant to accuse him of sedition before the Roman governor. Or, if he should answer in the affirmative, then they meant to make him odious to the people, for his want of Hebrew patriotism. His answer was admirable: "Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." It is easy to see how utterly he frustrated their insidious designs. No wonder that the evangelist subjoins, that his enemies “marvelled, and left him and went their way." Yet he could, and doubtless did, regard the Roman sway over Judea, as merely the predominance of might over right.

When the Pharisees came to him, tempting him, and seeking to entangle him in a quarrel with the Jewish expounders of Moses' law, in regard to the matter of divorce at the will of the husband, he boldly answered at once, that Moses permitted this only "because of the hardness of their hearts; but that in the beginning it was not so." Mark 10: 2-9.

In John 8: 3 seq., we have an account of a woman taken in adultery, and brought to him by his enemies, in order that he might condemn her. He confounded them by saying: "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone." One by one they all slunk away, and left the woman alone. "Jesus said to her: Where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said: No man, Lord. He said to her: Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." The object of his enemies was, to lead him to meddle with a case which belonged to the civil and judicial tribunals. This he declined to do. And when he said: “Neither do I condemn thee,” he meant merely that he did not undertake to give a judicial condemnation. Still, he left the woman no room to suppose that he was ignorant of her crime, or indifferent to it, for he said to her: "Go, and sin no more.”

Thus much in respect to the Saviour's cautious forbearing to intermeddle with, or oppose, the civil power. Had the civil juris