Principles like these came upon the world like the morning sunlight, scattering the mists of superstitious ignorance, melting the icy pride and selfishness of the mighty, permeating all classes and relations of society with their secret influence, and blending all into one harmonious brotherhood of love and peace. Apparently they were subject as others to the laws of the state, but in secret were bound by stronger ties, and governed by higher, nobler laws, than the world outside dreamed of.
Instead of the Roman law of marriage, regarding the wife as the husband's slave, he must love her as himself; more, as Christ loved the church. Instead of the tyranny on one side, and the retaliating disobedience on the other, of the Roman parental relation, it became the image of our heavenly Father's love, and our trusting obedience to him. The relation of slave, "pro nullo, pro quadrupedo, pro mortuo," (as a nobody, a quadruped, a dead man,) to his master, became the relation of brethren, the one to render true and faithful service, Eph. 6:5, the other never to threaten, Eph. 6:9, much less punish; not to regard them as chattels, as under the Roman law, but to give them just and equal compensation for their service, Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1, "knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven," "neither is there respect of persons with him." The legal deed of manumission was unnecessary; for as, when master and slave land in England, they may remain connected as master and free servant, never as master and slave, so, on admission into the brotherhood of the church, the waters of baptism, as shown above, dissolved the relation of slavery, and substituted that of freemen and brethren.
Again, believers were members of Christ's body. He dwelt in them; and therefore every indignity and injury done to them was done to him in their person. To enslave, buy, and sell them was to enslave, buy, and sell Christ himself. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Who, then, would dare hold a brother Christian as a slave? What! make merchandise of the person of Christ? Never! the cry of Judas would ring around them as they were driven ignominiously from the church.
"Why," it is objected, "did not the apostles preach
immediate emancipation, instead of indorsing slavery by defining its duties—'Servants, obey your masters,' &.? and Paul even sent back a slave." 1. The primary object of the apostles was not simply "to preach liberty to the captives;" this was but a branch of the tree planted "for the healing of the nations." Their object was to sow the principles of faith, love, justice, and equality, well knowing that, when these took root and flourished, among the first fruit would be "liberty to all the inhabitants of the land." 2. Had this been their great object, they took the best and speediest plan for its accomplishment. Attacking the system directly, the appearance of the Christian missionary would have been the signal for servile war and untold bloodshed, the slave against the master, the poor against the rich; and the heathen rulers, eager for a pretext to crush them, would have denounced them as lighting the torch of rebellion and war; and the further spread of the gospel would have been drowned in the blood of its founders. But they took the very course which God adopted among the Israelites in regard to servitude, not directly prohibiting it, but inculcating principles of social equality and progress, restricting the master's power, and protecting the servant's rights, till, master and slave blended in one, the name of slave was lost in that of Christian. 3. The relation and duties of master and servant are defined by the apostles exactly as they might be to-day in England or the free states—as those of men, never as owner and property; on the contrary, all ownership of man by other than God is expressly denied. 1 Cor. 6:19, 20, "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God's." There the ownership is clearly asserted; how can man claim it? "Render to Cesar the things that are Cesar's, and to God the things that are God's," lest you be found robbing God himself. Again, 1 Cor. 7:21, 23, "Art thou called, being a servant? care not for it; but, if thou mayst be made free, (δύασαι γενέσθαι, canst become free,) use it rather." What can be more explicit than this? First, ownership of man is denied even to himself, much more to another. Next, the exhortation to slaves is, if they can
not get free from this great wrong, to bear it as such, but, if they can, "use it rather;" and the reason given is followed by a rule of action to be adopted wherever possible. Verse 23, "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men." If this be not express prohibition of chattelism, and command to slaves to free themselves from it, then the language is totally contradictory and unintelligible.
Contrast these laws of Paul with the laws of most of the southern states, forbidding even the master to free his slaves, while states and Congress unite in hounding back to whip and task the poor slave who dares obey that command; nay, offer large rewards for men, even Christian ministers, when attempting to obey it. "But Paul sent back Onesimus to his master, and therefore sanctioned the sending back of fugitives." We answer, there was no sending back at all. Paul, a prisoner, could not send him back: a Jew, he was forbidden by his religion to do so. Deut. 23:15. It was simply a recommendatory letter sent with Onesimus, returning voluntarily to Colosse and his master. Let us look at the letter. Verse 8 begins, "Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet, for love's sake, I rather beseech thee. I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, ... which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me; whom I have sent again, ... not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved," &c. Here Onesimus is described as having been, while heathen, an "unprofitable" trouble to his master, and had either run away or been sent away by him. Converted at Rome, Paul heard his story, and in his letter, instead of thinking he is doing Philemon a favor, has to earnestly "beseech," almost command, his reception as a favor to himself. Not one word of property or right in him, save the right of love as one of the brotherhood. "Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more to thee!" Onesimus had left the "slave" in his heathenism; in Christ he became the "brother" of Philemon and Paul. Instead of sanctioning chattelism, it positively denies it by affirming voluntary service, the equality of men as brethren, to be loved as Christ himself.
Thus Christ and his apostles, so far from upholding chattelism in their teachings, denounced the ownership of man by any but God, and inculcated its opposite—love, liberty, equality, and fraternity—by precept and example. And subsequent history showed the result.