Slavery Ordained of God

by F. A. Ross

I must-advance one step further. What is sin, as a mental state? Is it some quality--some concentrated essence--some elementary moral particle in the nature of things--something black, or red, like crimson, in the constitution of the soul, or the soul and body as amalgamated? No. Is it self-love? No. Is it selfishness? No. What is it? Just exactly, self-will. Just that. I, the creature, WILL not submit to thy WILL, God, the Creator. It is the I AM, created, who dares to defy and dishonor the I AM, not created,--the Lord God, the Almighty, Holy, Eternal.

That IS SIN, per se. And that is all of it,--so help me God! Your child there--John--says to his father, "I WILL not to submit to your will." "Why not, John?" And he answers and says, "Because I WILL not." There, sir, John has revealed all of sin, on earth or in hell. Satan has never said--can never say--more. "I, Satan, WILL NOT, because I WILL not to submit to thee, God; MY WILL, not thine, shall be."

This beautiful theory is the ray of light which leads us from night, and twilight, and fog, and mist, and mystification, on this subject, to clear day. I will illustrate it by the law which has controlled and now regulates the most delicate of all the relations of life,--viz.: that of the intercourse between the sexes. I take this, because it presents the strongest apparent objections to my argument.

Cain and Abel married their sisters. Was it wrong in the nature of things? [Here Dr. Wisner spoke out, and said, "Certainly.">[ I deny it. What an absurdity, to suppose that God could not provide for the propagation of the human race from one pair, without requiring them to sin! Adam's sons and daughters must have married, had they remained in innocence. They must then have sinned in Eden, from the very necessity of the command upon the race:--"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." (Gen. i. 28). What pure nonsense! There, sir!--that, my one question, Dr. Wisner's reply, and my rejoinder, bring out, perfectly, the two theories of right and wrong. Sir, Abraham married his half-sister. And there is not a word forbidding such marriage, until God gave the law (Lev. xviii.) prohibiting marriage in certain degrees of consanguinity. That law made, then, such marriage sin. But God gave no such law in the family of Adam; because he made, himself, the marriage of brother and sister the way, and the only way, for the increase of the human race. He commanded them thus to marry. They would have sinned had they not thus married; for they would have transgressed his law. Such marriage was not even a natural evil, in the then family of man. But when, in the increase of numbers, it became a natural evil, physical and social, God placed man on a higher platform for the development of civilization, morals, and religion, and then made the law regulating marriages in the particulars of blood. But he still left polygamy untouched. [Here Dr. Wisner again asked if Dr. R. regarded the Bible as sustaining the polygamy of the Old Testament.] Dr. R.--Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir. Let the reporters mark that question, and my answer. (Laughter.) My principle vindicates God from unintelligible abstractions. I fearlessly tell what the Bible says. In its strength, I am not afraid of earth or hell. I fear only God. God made no law against polygamy, in the beginning. Therefore it was no sin for a man to have more wives than one. God sanctioned it, and made laws in regard to it. Abraham had more wives than one; Jacob had, David had, Solomon had. God told David, by the mouth of Nathan, when he upbraided him with his ingratitude for the blessings he had given him, and said, "And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom." (2 Sam. xvii. 8.)

God, in the gospel, places man on another platform, for the revelation of a nobler social and spiritual life. He now forbids polygamy. Polygamy now is sin--not because it is in itself sin. No; but because God forbids it,--to restrain the natural and social evil, and to bring out a higher humanity. And see, sir, how gently in the gospel the transition from the lower to the higher table-land of our progress upward is made. Christ and his apostles do not declare polygamy to be sin. The new law is so wisely given that nothing existing is rudely disturbed. The minister of God, unmarried, must have only one wife at the same time. This law, silently and gradually, by inevitable and fair inference of its meaning, and from the example of the apostles, passed over the Christian world. God, in the gospel, places us in this higher and holier ground and air of love. We sin, then, if we marry the sister, and other near of kin; and we sin if we marry, at the same time, more wives than one, not because there is sin in the thing itself, whatever of natural evil there might be, but because in so doing we transgress God's law, given to secure and advance the good of man. I might comment in the same way on every one of the ten commandments, but I pass on.

The subject of slavery, in this view of right and wrong, is seen in the very light of heaven. And you, Mr. Moderator, know that, if the view I have presented be true, I have got you. (Great laughter.)

[The Moderator said, very pleasantly--Yes--if--but it is a long if.] (Continued laughter.)

Dr. R. touched the Moderator on the shoulder, and said, Yes, if--it is a long if; for it is this:--if there is a God, he is not Jupiter, bowing to the Fates, but God, the sovereign over the universe he has created, in which he makes right, by making law to be known and obeyed by angels and men, in their varied conditions.

He gave Adam that command,--sublime in its simplicity, and intended to vindicate the principle I am affirming,--that there is no right and wrong in the nature of things. There was no right or wrong, per se, in eating or willing to eat of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But God made the law,--Thou shall not eat of that tree. As if he had said,--I seek to test the submission of your will, freely, to my will. And, that your test may be perfect, I will let your temptation be nothing more than your natural desire for that fruit. Adam sinned. What was the sin?