a wife or child was patient endurance of wrong? What would be inferred about the apostolic view of those relations, if the apostles had said to wives and children that they were not to 'care' anxiously on account of their condition, but that they were to rejoice in the feeling that they were 'free' in a higher sense, and that the ills of the condition of a wife or child, therefore, should be patiently borne? And what would be inferred, if he had told them that if they might be 'free' from a husband or father to use it rather?' But no such exhortations as these are found in the New Testament, and the relation of master and slave, therefore, is not like other relations.

(f) Slaves were directed, if possible, to obtain a release from their hard condition. They were taught to prefer freedom, and to obtain it, if they could consistently with the manifestation of the spirit of the gospel. Thus the apostle Paul expressly says, (1 Cor. vii. 21,) "Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be free, use it rather." Here there is a distinct assertion that freedom is preferable to slavery, and that the slave should not regard his condition as the best and most desirable, though, in comparison with the higher freedom which the gospel imparts in delivering the soul from sin, he was to regard his servitude as comparatively unimportant. This might be, and yet it might be true that slavery was a great evil. Yet the command is clear, that if it was in the power of the slave to become free, (εἰ καὶ δύνασαι ἐλεύθερος γενέσθαι,) he was to avail himself of the privilege. If either the laws or his master set him free; if he could purchase his liberty; if a friend would purchase it for him; if in any way that was not sinful he could obtain his freedom, he was to embrace the opportunity. But where is there any representation like this in regard to a wife or child? What should we think of the condition of a wife or child if there had been such a representation? But there is none. It is never said or implied that their condition, as such, is a hard or undesirable one, and that they should, if possible, escape from it.

(g) To all this is added, in regard to the slave, that, if he could not be free, he was to comfort himself with the reflection that he had been emancipated from the greater evil-sin, and therefore was to bear with patience the lesser temporary evil-servitude; that in his condition it was possible for him to serve Christ acceptably; that the evils of his hard lot did not prevent his becoming a true Christian, and cherishing the hope of eternal life; and that he should patiently bear those evils, submitting to the arrangements respecting them over which he had no control, as to any other wrong. 1 Cor. vii. 22: "For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman." He is manumitted, made free, endowed with liberty by the Lord.' The meaning is, 'You are blessed with freedom from the bondage of sin by the Lord. That servitude was far more grievous, and far more to be lamented, than the bondage of the body. You are now a true freeman, the freeman of the Lord. Your spirit is free; while those who are not slaves, and perhaps your own masters, are even now under a more severe bondage than yours. You should rejoice, therefore, in deliverance from the greater evil, and be glad that in the eyes of the Lord you are regarded as his freeman, and are endowed by him with more valuable liberty than it would be to be delivered from the servitude under

which you are now placed. You will soon be admitted to the eternal liberty of the saints in glory, and will forget all your toils, and privations, and wrongs, here below.' But, where, I may repeat, is there any such representation made to a wife, or a child, or even to the subject of a civil government? Where are they told to console themselves in their hard condition with the reflection that they, by deliverance from sin, have been released from a far greater evil than the condition of a wife or child, and that, therefore, they should not regard the evils of their condition with solicitude? Where are they told that though under the law of a husband, a párent, or a civil ruler, they were the Lord's freemen,' and should now bear patiently the lesser evils of their bond

age in these relations, exulting in their higher liberty as the freemen of the Lord? There are no such exhortations in the New Testament, and the apostles never designed to represent the relations of husband and wife, and parent and child, and master and slave, as similar, or to leave the impression that the one was as proper and as desirable for the good of a community as the other.

From the arguments thus far presented in regard to the relation of Christianity to slavery, it seems fair to draw the conclusion that the Christian religion lends no sanction to slavery; that it is not adverted to in the New Testament either as a good and desirable relation, or as one that religion would have originated for the good of society, or as one which it is desirable to perpetuate in order that society may reach the highest point in its progress which it can reach. It would be clearly impossible to find a hint that would be the slightest basis of an argument to prove from the New Testament that either Christ or his apostles would have originated slavery, or that they regarded it as a good and desirable institution. There is but one point, then, necessary to complete the argument, which is to inquire whether they expressed any views, or laid down any principles, which, if fairly acted on, would tend to its abolition.

§ 4. The principles laid down by the Saviour and his Apostles are such as are opposed to Slavery, and if carried out would secure its universal abolition.

In addition to what has already been said, which might be appropriately introduced under this head, I would make some additional remarks. The inquiry is, what was the intention of the Saviour in regard to this institution? What would be the result of a fair application of the principles of his religion in regard to it? Did he design that it should be understood to be a good system, and one which his religion was intended to sanction and perpetuate?

To show that the institution of slavery is contrary to the Christian religion, and inconsistent with its spirit; that it is regarded as an evil which religion was designed to remove from the world; and that it cannot be perpetuated consistently with the fair influence of the gospel, I would now submit the following considerations :

(1.) The Saviour and his apostles inculcated such views of man as amount to a prohibition of slavery, or as if acted on would abolish it. In other words, they gave such views of man, that, under their influence, no one would make or retain a slave. This argument I cannot express in a better manner than is done by Dr. Wayland :

"In what manner, then, did the Saviour and his apostles deal with this universal sin? I answer, by promulgating such truths concerning the nature and destiny of man, his relations and obligations both to man and to his Maker, as should render the slavery of a human being a manifest moral absurdity; that is, a notion diametrically opposed to our elementary moral suggestions. Let us observe how strangely they are in contrast with all that was then known of the cha racter and value of a man.

"To men who had scarcely an idea of the character, or even the existence, of a Supreme Intelligence, and whose objects of adoration were images of gold and silver and stone, graven with art and man's device,' and whose worship consisted in the orgies of Venus and Bacchus, the gospel revealed the existence of one only living and true Jehovah, all-wise, all-just, all-holy, everywhere present beholding the evil and the good, knowing the thoughts and intents of the heart, who will bring every secret thing into judgment, whether it be good or whether it be evil, and who has placed us all under one and the same law, that law which declares, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.'

"To men who had scarcely an idea of existence after death, whose notions of futurity were the fables of Charon's boat,

the Styx, and Tartarus-fables which were already held up as objects of inextinguishable laughter-the gospel revealed the doctrine of man's immortality; it taught that every human being was a never-dying soul; that the world to come was a state either of endless and inconceivable happiness or of wo; that for this infinitely important state, the present brief existence was the probation and the only probation that God had allotted to us; and that, during this probation, every one of our race must by his own moral character determine his destiny for himself.

"To men who had scarcely formed an idea of their moral relations, the gospel revealed the fact that our race were universally sinners, and were, without exception, under the condemnation of that law which denounces eternal death as the desert of every transgression; that God placed such an estimate upon a human soul, nay, that he so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life; and that, in consequence of this atonement, eternal salvation is freely offered to every human being, who, repenting of his rebellion, will return to the love and service of God.

"To men steeped in the most debasing and universal sensuality, whose motto was, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' the gospel revealed the truth, that while this salvation was thus freely offered to all, yet still every individual of our race was placed on earth to work out his salvation with fear and trembling; that he was still, in the strictest possible sense, in a state of probation; and that in a world lying in wickedness, surrounded by every temptation to sin, exposed to all the allurements of vice, and assailed by all the arts of the adversary of souls, he must come off conqueror over every moral enemy, or else he will after all perish under a most aggravated condemnation.

"And lastly, to men who esteemed the people of another nation as by nature foes whom they had a right to subdue, murder, or enslave, whenever and in what manner soever they