12.—Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.
13.—Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work:
14.—But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou.
15.—And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day.
Which is the correct reason for sanctifying the Sabbath-day?
Was it because the Lord rested, or because the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt on that day? The true believer will devoutly answer, 'The Lord only knows.'
Chapter xxi., vv. 2 to 6. Leviticus, chap, xxv., vv. 44 to 46. In these verses we find slavery acknowledged, and its continuance provided for by the law of God. The offering a slave his liberty on condition that he abandoned his wife whom he loved, and his children who are of his flesh and blood, is a piece of refined cruelty. Perhaps God did not know that a slave was capable of love, perhaps God was not aware that the slave in his hovel may have as true and as warm an affection for his wife and children as the king in his palace, or the noble in his fine mansion. Is a slave a man with a man's passions and feelings, or is he an inferior animal? If the Bible is to be examined before replying to the question, and if we are to govern our mode of answering by the words we find there, it ceases to be a matter for wonder that there are slave States in Christian countries.
It is a beautiful theory this, and worthy of a place in a revelation from an all-wise and all-good God—i. e., that a man may be a religious man and yet keep his brother and sister as male and female slaves, breeding and begetting other slaves. How did this slavery originate? before the flood slaves are not mentioned. If God made all men originally free, how did any become slaves? Verse 6 is contradicted in Leviticus, chap, xxv., w. 39 to 42.
Verses 7 to 11. These verses contain a provision for the sale by a man of his own daughter. And for what purpose? Our translators have endeavoured to hide the real meaning of the text. Verse 7 reads, 'And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men servants do.'
In the Douay it is, 'If a man sell his daughter to be a servant, she shall not go out as bondwomen are wont to go out.'