The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

Thus it is in the case of a national war, waged for conquest. Christians have taken part in it; and, because they were blinded by a wrong education, and were acting in the name of their country and under the impulses of patriotism, they never suspected that they were doing the devil, instead of "God, service." But when, in the kind providence of God, one of these butchers of their fellow beings is brought to pause and consider his ways, and to resolve his enormous and compound sin into its elements of wickedness,—into the lies, theft, covetousness, adultery, murder, and what not of crime, which enter into it,—he is amazed that he has been so "slow of heart to believe," and abandon the iniquity of his deeds.

What I have said to show that Christians, even in enlightened and gospelized lands, may be blind to the great wickedness of certain customs and institutions, serves to introduce the remark; that there were probably some customs and institutions, in the time of the Apostles, on which it would have been even worse than lost labor for them to make direct attacks. Take, for example, the kind of war of which we have been speaking. If there are reasons why the modern Christian can be insensible to the sin of it, there are far stronger reasons why the primitive Christian could be. If the light and instruction which have been accumulating for eighteen centuries, are scarcely sufficient to convince Christians of its wickedness, is it reasonable to suppose that, at the commencement of this long period, they could have been successfully taught it? Consider, that at that time the literature and sentiment of the world were wholly on the side of war; and especially, consider how emphatically the authority of civil government and of human law was in favor of its rightfulness. Now, to how great an extent such authority covers over and sanctifies sin, may be inferred from the fact, that there are many, who, notwithstanding they believe slavery to be a most Heaven-daring sin, yet, because it is legalized and under the wing of civil government, would not have it spoken against. Even Rev. Dr. Miller, in certain resolutions which he submitted to the last General Assembly, indicated his similar reverence for human laws; and the lamented Dr. Rice distinctly recognises, in his letter to Mr. Maxwell, the doctrine that the Church is bound to be quiet about every sin which the civil government adopts and whitewashes. That the Christian Spectator should indorse the Doctor's sentiments on this point is still more worthy of remark than that he should utter them. Indeed, I judge from what you say on the 68th and 69th pages of your book, that you are yourself opposed to calling in question the morality of that which civil government approves. But, to doubt the infallibility of civil government,—to speak against Caesar,—was manifestly held to be quite as presumptuous in the time of the Apostles as it is now.

Another reason why an Apostle would probably have deemed it hopeless to attempt to persuade his disciples, immediately and directly, of the sin of war, is to be found in the fact of their feeble and distorted perception of truth and duty. We, whose advantage it is to have lived all our days in the light of the gospel, and whose ancestors, from time immemorial, had the like precious advantage, can hardly conceive how very feeble and distorted was that perception. But, consider for a moment who those disciples were. They had, most of them, but just been taken out of the gross darkness and filth of heathenism. In reading accounts which missionaries give of converted heathen—of such, even, as have for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, been reputed to be pious—you are, doubtless, often surprised to find how grossly erroneous are their moral perceptions. Their false education still cleaves to them. They are yet, to a great extent, in the mould of a corrupted public opinion; and, as far from having a clear discernment of moral truth, as were the partially unsealed eyes which saw "men, as trees, walking." The first letter to the Church at Corinth, proves that the new principles implanted in its members had not yet purged out the leaven of their old wickedness; and that their conceptions of Christian purity and conduct were sadly defective. As it was with the Corinthian Christians, so was it to a great extent with the other Christians of that age. Now, if the Apostles did not directly teach the primitive believers that wars, and theatres, and games, and slavery, are sinful, it is because they thought it more fit to exercise their ignorant pupils chiefly in the mere alphabet and syllables of Christianity. (Acts xv, 28, 29.) The construction of words and sentences would naturally follow. The rudiments of the gospel, if once possessed by them, would be apt to lead them on to greater attainments. Indeed, the love, peace, truth, and other elements of holy living inculcated by the Apostles, would, if turned to all proper account, be fatal to every, even the most gigantic, system of wickedness. Having these elements in their minds and hearts, they would not fail of condemning the great and compound sin of war whenever they should be led to take it up, examine it, resolve it into its constituent parts, and lay these parts for comparison, by the side of those elements. But, such an advance was hardly to be expected from many of these heathen converts during the brief period in which they enjoyed Apostolic instruction; and it is but too probable, that most of them died in great ignorance of the sin of national wars. Converts from the heathen, in the present age, when conviction of the sinfulness of war is spreading in different parts of Christendom, would be more likely to imbibe correct views of it.

The Apostles "fed with milk" before they fed with meat, as did our Saviour, who declared, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." In every community, the foundation principles of righteousness must be laid, before there can be fulcrums for the levers to be employed in overthrowing the sins which prevail in it. You will doubtless, then, agree with me, that it is not probable that the Apostles taught their heathen converts, directly and specifically, the sinfulness of war. But slaves, in that age, with the exception of the comparative few who were reduced to slavery on account of the crimes of which they had been judicially convicted, were the spoils of war. How often in that age, as was most awfully the fact, on the final destruction of Jerusalem, were the slave-markets of the world glutted by the captives of war! Until, therefore, they should be brought to see the sinfulness of war, how could they see the sinfulness of so direct and legitimate a fruit of it as slavery?—and, if the Apostles thought their heathen converts too weak to be instructed in the sinfulness of war, how much more would they abstain from instructing them, directly and specifically, in the sin of slavery!

3d. In proceeding with my reasons why the Apostles did not extend their specification of sins to slavery, I remark, that it is apparent from the views we have taken, and from others which might have been taken, that nothing would have been gained by their making direct and specific attacks on the institutions of the civil governments under which they lived. Indeed, much might have been lost by their doing so. Weak converts, with still many remains of heathenism about them, might in this wise have been incurably prejudiced against truths, which, by other modes of teaching,—by general and indirect instructions,—would probably have been lodged in their minds. And there is another point of view in which vastly more, even their lives, might have been lost, by the Apostles making the direct and specific attacks referred to. I know that you ridicule the idea of their consulting their personal safety. But what right have you to do so? They did, on many occasions, consult the security of their lives. They never perilled them needlessly, and through a presumptuous reliance on God. It is the devil, who, in a garbled quotation from the Scriptures, lays down, in unlimited terms, the proposition, that God will keep his children. But, God promises them protection only when they are in their own proper ways. The Saviour himself consulted the safety of his life, until his "time" had "full come;" and his command to his Apostles was, "when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another." If you suppose me to admit for a moment, that regard for the safety of their lives ever kept them from the way of their duty, you are entirely mistaken; and, if you continue to assert, in the face of my reasoning to the contrary, that on the supposition of the sinfulness of slavery, their omission to make direct and specific attacks on it would have been a failure of their duty, then I can only regret that this reasoning has had no more influence upon you.

I observe that Professor Hodge agrees with you, that if slavery is sin, it would have been specifically attacked by the Apostles at any hazard to their lives. This is his conclusion, because they did not hesitate to specify and rebuke idolatry. Here is another of the Professor's sophisms. The fact, that the Apostles preached against idolatry, is no reason at all why, if slavery is sin, they would have preached against that also. On the one hand, it is not conceivable that the gospel can be preached where there is idolatry, without attacking it: for, in setting forth the true God to idolaters, the preacher must denounce their false gods. On the other hand, gospel sermons can be preached without number, and the true God presented, not only in a nation of idolaters, but elsewhere, without one allusion being made to such crying sins as slavery, lewdness, and intemperance.

In the same connexion, Professor Hodge makes the remark "We do not expect them (our missionaries) to refrain from denouncing the institutions of the heathen as sinful, because they are popular, or intimately interwoven with society." If he means by this language, that it is the duty of missionaries on going into a heathen nation, to array themselves against the civil government, and to make direct and specific attacks on its wicked nature and wicked administration, then is he at issue, on this point, with the whole Christian public; and, if he does not mean this, or what amounts to this, I do not see how his remark will avail any thing, in his attempt to show that the Apostles made such attacks on whatever sinful institutions came under their observation.

What I have said on a former page shows sufficiently how fit it is for missionaries to the heathen, more especially in the first years of their efforts among them, to labor to instruct their ignorant pupils in the elementary principles of Christianity, rather than to call their attention to the institutions of civil government, the sinfulness of which they would not be able to perceive until they had been grounded in those elementary principles; and the sinfulness of which, more than of any thing else, their prejudices would forbid them to suspect. Another reason why the missionary to the heathen should not directly, and certainly not immediately, assail their civil governments, is that he would thereby arouse their jealousies to a pitch fatal to his influence, his usefulness, and most probably his life; and another reason is, that this imprudence would effectually close the door, for a long time, against all efforts, even the most judicious, to spread the gospel amongst a people so needlessly and greatly prejudiced against it by an unwise and abrupt application of its principles. For instance, what folly and madness it would be for our missionaries to Burmah, to make a direct assault on the political institutions of that country! How fatal would it be to their lives, and how incalculably injurious to the cause entrusted to their hands! And, if this can be said of them, after they have spent ten, fifteen, and twenty years, in efforts to bring that portion of the heathen world to a knowledge and love of the truth, how much more emphatically could it be said if they had been in the field of their labors but three or four years! And yet, even this short space of time exceeds the average period of the Apostles' labor among those different portions of the heathen world which they visited;—labor, too, it must be remembered, not of the whole, nor even of half of "the twelve."

That the Apostles could not have made direct attacks on the institutions of the Roman government, but at the expense of their lives, is not to be doubted. Our Saviour well knew how fatal was the jealousy of that government to the man who was so unhappy as to have excited it; and he accordingly avoided the excitement of it, as far as practicable and consistent. His ingenious and beautiful disposition of the question, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not," is among the instances, in which He studied to shun the displeasure of the civil government. Pilate gave striking evidence of his unwillingness to excite the jealousy of his government, when, every other expedient to induce him to consent to the Saviour's death having failed, the bare charge, utterly unproven and groundless, that, the Divine prisoner had put forth pretensions, interfering with Caesar's rights, availed to procure His death-warrant from the hands of that truth-convicted, but man-fearing governor. Had it not availed, Pilate would have been exposed to the suspicion of disloyalty to his government; and so perilous was this suspicion, that he was ready, at any expense to his conscience and sense of justice, to avoid incurring it.

A direct attack on Roman slavery, as it would have called in question the rightfulness of war—the leading policy of the Roman government—would, of course, have been peculiarly perilous to its presumptuous author. No person could have made this attack, and lived; or, if possibly he might have escaped the vengeance of the government, do we not know too much of the deadly wrath of slaveholders, to believe that he could have also escaped the summary process of Lynch law? If it be at the peril of his life that a Northern man travels in the Southern States,—and that, too, whether he do or do not say a word about slavery, or even whether he be or be not an abolitionist;—if your leading men publicly declare, that it is your religious duty to put to an immediate death, whenever they come within your power, those who presume to say that slavery is sin (and such a declaration did a South Carolina gentleman make on the floor of congress, respecting the inconsiderable person who is addressing you);—and, if your professing Christians, not excepting ministers of the gospel, thirst for the blood of abolitionists[^A], as I will abundantly show, if you require proof;—if, in a gospel land, all this be so, then I put it to your candor, whether it can reasonably be supposed that the Apostles would have been allowed to attack slavery in the midst of heathen slaveholders. Why it is that slaveholders will not allow a word to be breathed against slavery, I cannot, perhaps, correctly judge. Abolitionists think that this unwillingness denotes that man is unfit for absolute power over his fellow men. They think as unfavorably of the influence of this power on the slaveholder, as your own Jefferson did. They think that it tends to make him impatient of contradiction, self-willed, supercilious, cruel, murderous, devilish; and they think that they can establish this opinion, not by the soundest philosophy only, but by the pages of many of your own writers, and by those daily scenes of horrid brutality which make the Southern States, in the sight both of God and man, one of the most frightful and loathsome portions of the world—of the whole world—barbarous as well as civilized.