We must also take to heart in our day the lesson of the fifth commandment, as re-enforced by St. Paul, with its converse in the duty of parents. Domestic obedience is somewhat at a discount, it is to be feared, in this generation in most classes of society; and this is a very grave peril. Parents, wealthy as well as poor, are very commonly disposed to make schoolmasters and schoolmistresses do the work of discipline for them, while they retain for themselves the privilege of spoiling their children. There are, however, of course, very many exceptions. There are multitudes of homes where discipline is exercised wisely and lovingly, and children find obedience always a duty and mostly a joy. This is certainly the only divinely appointed method by which we are to be prepared for the obedience and self-discipline required of us when we grow to be what is falsely described as 'our own masters.' And St. Paul's twofold admonition to parents is full of wisdom: they are not to provoke their children so that they become bad-tempered, and they are not to over-stimulate them, by competition or otherwise, so that they become disheartened. But to nourish them by appropriate food, mental and spiritual as well as physical, so that they may grow to the full stature and strength which God intends for them.
C. MASTERS AND SLAVES. VI. 5-9.
Masters and slaves
St. Paul's method in dealing with slavery is well known. The slave is in a position really, at bottom, inconsistent with human individuality and liberty, as Christianity insists upon it. Thus, to go no further, the male slave and his wife are liable (in all systems of slavery) to be sold apart from one another. This puts in its plainest form the inconsistency of slavery with Christianity. The slave is a living rational tool of another man, and not his brother with fundamentally the same spiritual right to 'save his life' or make the best of his faculties. Thus where a slave can obtain liberty St. Paul exhorts him to prefer it[[31]]. And when he is dealing with the Christian master Philemon, whose runaway slave, Onesimus, has become Christian under St. Paul's influence, he exhorts him to receive him back, no longer as a slave, but as a brother beloved[[32]]. But Christianity enlisted in no premature crusade against slavery as an institution—premature, because Christianity was not yet in the position to fashion a civilization of her own. It left it to be undermined by the Christian spirit.
Thus St. Paul exhorts slaves to obey, and that in more forcible language than he has applied even to children, 'with fear and trembling'; that is with an intense anxiety to do their duty. They are to perform their work as in God's sight, thoroughly—He being the inspector of it who can infallibly tell good work from bad—and 'from the heart,' that is, putting their will and mind into it. They are to do it as to the Lord, knowing that no good work, however menial or uninteresting, is wasted, but shall be received back, in its product or legitimate fruit, as 'its own reward' from Christ's hand. In the Epistle to Timothy, this additional reason for diligent service is given, that if Christian slaves get a reputation for slackness they will bring discredit upon the Christian name[[33]]. And in the same passage a touch is added which shows what, even in its possible perversions, the spirit of brotherhood really meant, 'They that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren; but let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believers and beloved.'
And the masters are exhorted to remember that true principle of human equality—that 'with God is no respect of persons,' that in God's sight each man counts for one, and no one counts for more than one; each having an equal claim and duty in the sight of the one Master under whom all are servants. Thus they are to deal with their slaves in the same spirit of duty as their slaves should have toward them, and they are to treat them with the respect due to brother men 'forbearing threatenings.'
Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men: knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, and forbear threatening: knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no respect of persons with him.
Christianity has long abolished slavery so far as the legal status of the slave is concerned. But the principles of mastership and service are still to be learned in this brief section of St Paul's writing; and if we really believed that 'with God is no respect of persons' there would be neither scamping of work and defrauding of employers, nor on the other hand the 'sweating' of the employed and treating of men and women as if they were tools for the profit of others, instead of spiritual beings, with each his own divine end to realize.