In explaining and applying this passage, it is proper to suggest:
- 1. That it could not have been the object of the apostle to bind the Corinthian converts to the stations and employments in which the gospel found them. For he exhorts some of them to escape, if possible, from their present condition. In the servile state, "under the yoke," they ought not to remain unless impelled by stern necessity. "If thou canst be free, use it rather." If they ought to prefer freedom to bondage and to exert themselves to escape from the latter for the sake of the former, could their master consistently with the claims and spirit of the gospel have hindered or discouraged them in so doing? Their "brother" could he be, who kept "the yoke" upon their neck, which the apostle would have them shake off if possible? And had such masters been members of the Corinthian church, what inferences must they have drawn from this exhortation to their servants? That the apostle regarded slavery as a Christian institution?—or could look complacently on any efforts to introduce or maintain it in the church? Could they have expected less from him than a stern rebuke, if they refused to exert themselves in the cause of freedom?
- 2. But while they were to use their freedom, if they could obtain it, they should not, even on such a subject, give themselves up to ceaseless anxiety. "The Lord was no respecter of persons." They need not fear, that the "low estate," to which they had been wickedly reduced, would prevent them from enjoying the gifts of his hand or the light of his countenance. He would respect their rights, sooth their sorrows, and pour upon their hearts, and cherish there, the spirit of liberty. "For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman." In him, therefore, should they cheerfully confide.
- 3. The apostle, however, forbids them so to acquiesce in the servile relation, as to act inconsistently with their Christian obligations. To their Savior they belonged. By his blood they had been purchased. It should be their great object, therefore, to render Him a hearty and effective service. They should permit no man, whoever he might be, to thrust in himself between them and their Redeemer. "Ye are bought with a price; BE NOT YE THE SERVANTS OF MEN."
With his eye upon the passage just quoted and explained, the Princeton professor asserts that "Paul represents this relation"—the relation of slavery—"as of comparatively little account."[[66]] And this he applies—otherwise it is nothing to his purpose—to American slavery. Does he then regard it as a small matter, a mere trifle, to be thrown under the slave-laws of this republic, grimly and fiercely excluding their victim from almost every means of improvement, and field of usefulness, and source of comfort; and making him, body and substance, with his wife and babes, "the servant of men?" Could such a relation be acquiesced in consistently with the instructions of the apostle?
[Footnote [66]: Pittsburg pamphlet, p.10.]
To the Princeton professor we commend a practical trial of the bearing of the passage in hand upon American slavery. His regard for the unity and prosperity of the ecclesiastical organizations, which in various forms and under different names, unite the southern with the northern churches, will make the experiment grateful to his feelings. Let him, then, as soon as his convenience will permit, proceed to Georgia. No religious teacher[[67]] from any free State, can be likely to receive so general and so warm a welcome there. To allay the heat, which the doctrines and movements of the abolitionists have occasioned in the southern mind, let him with as much despatch as possible, collect, as he goes from place to place, masters and their slaves. Now let all men, whom it may concern, see and own that slavery is a Christian institution! With his Bible in his hand and his eye upon the passage in question, he addresses himself to the task of instructing the slaves around him. Let not your hearts, my brethren, be overcharged with sorrow, or eaten up with anxiety. Your servile condition cannot deprive you of the fatherly regards of Him "who is no respecter of persons." Freedom you ought, indeed, to prefer. If you can escape from "the yoke," throw it off. In the mean time rejoice that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;" that the gospel places slaves "on a perfect religious equality" with their master; so that every Christian is "the Lord's freeman." And, for your encouragement, remember that "Christianity has abolished both political and domestic servitude wherever it has had free scope. It enjoins a fair compensation for labor; it insists on the moral and intellectual improvement of all classes of men; it condemns all infractions of marital or parental rights; in short it requires not only that free scope be allowed to human improvement, but that all suitable means should be employed for the attainment of that end."[[68]] Let your lives, then, be honorable to your relations to your Savior. He bought you with his own blood; and is entitled to your warmest love and most effective service. "Be not ye the servants of men." Let no human arrangements prevent you, as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, from making the most of your powers and opportunities. Would such an effort, generally and heartily made, allay excitement at the South, and quench the flames of discord, every day rising higher and waxing hotter, in almost every part of the republic, and cement "the Union?"
[Footnote [67]: Rev. Mr. Savage, of Utica, New York, had, not very long ago, a free conversation with a gentleman of high standing in the literary and religious world from a slaveholding State, where the "peculiar institution" is cherished with great warmth and maintained with iron rigor. By him, Mr. Savage was assured, that the Princeton professor had, through the Pittsburg pamphlet, contributed most powerfully and effectually to bring the "whole South" under the persuasion, that slaveholding is in itself right—a system to which the Bible gives countenance and support.
In an extract from an article in the Southern Christian Sentinel, a new Presbyterian paper established in Charleston, South Carolina, and inserted in the Christian Journal for March 21, 1839, we find the following paragraphs from the pen of Rev. C.W. Howard, and, according to Mr. Chester, ably and freely endorsed by the editor. "There is scarcely any diversity of sentiment at the North upon this subject. The great mass of the people, believing slavery to be sinful, are clearly of the opinion that, as a system, it should be abolished throughout this land and throughout the world. They differ as to the time and mode of abolition. The abolitionists consistently argue, that whatever is sinful should be instantly abandoned. The others, by a strange sort of reasoning for Christian men, contend that though slavery is sinful, yet it may be allowed to exist until it shall he expedient to abolish it; or, if, in many cases, this reasoning might be translated into plain English, the sense would be, both in Church and State, slavery, though sinful, may be allowed to exist until our interest will suffer us to say that it must be abolished. This is not slander; it is simply a plain way of stating a plain truth. It does seem the evident duty of every man to become an abolitionist, who believes slavery to be sinful, for the Bible allows no tampering with sin.
"To these remarks, there are some noble exceptions, to be found in both parties in the church. The South owes a debt of gratitude to the Biblical Repertory, for the fearless argument in behalf of the position, that slavery is not forbidden by the Bible. The writer of that article is said, without contradiction, to be Professor Hodge, of Princeton—HIS NAME OUGHT TO BE KNOWN AND REVERED AMONG YOU, my brethren, for in a land of anti-slavery men, he is the ONLY ONE who has dared to vindicate your character from the serious charge of living in the habitual transgression of God's holy law.">[
[Footnote [68]: Pittsburg pamphlet, p. 31.]
"It is," affirms the Princeton professor, "on all hands acknowledged, that, at the time of the advent of Jesus Christ, slavery in its worst forms prevailed over the whole world. The Savior found it around him IN JUDEA."[[69]] To say that he found it in Judea, is to speak ambiguously. Many things were to be found "in Judea," which neither belonged to, nor were characteristic of the Jews. It is not denied that the Gentiles, who resided among them, might have had slaves; but of the Jews this is denied. How could the professor take that as granted, the proof of which entered vitally into the argument and was essential to the soundness of the conclusions to which he would conduct us? How could he take advantage of an ambiguous expression to conduct his confiding readers on to a position which, if his own eyes were open, he must have known they could not hold in the light of open day!