Page 40. “If a Hebrew servant had married a wife with consent of his master, she and her child became her master’s property for ever.” This seems not to be candidly expressed. This wife must have been an Heathen slave, for Hebrew women had the privilege of the Sabbatical year; but if he chose to continue with his wife, he had only to renew his contract with his master. Indeed the regulation appears to have been intended as a check to the connection with slaves in the poor reduced Hebrews.
Page 41, 42. When he speaks of the (Leverpool) “slave trade having the sanction of being encouraged, almost commanded, and even enjoined, to be prosecuted by the Supreme Legislator,” he puts opposition to silence. But when, p. 43. he talks of “the Almighty’s forgetting himself, when he encouraged the slave trade, if it be a crime,” I am happy for his sake to recollect, that the author tells us, till he was 27 years old, he knew not the value of an English expression.
Page 43. The slavery of the Gibeonites.
The land of Canaan was allotted to the Jews for an inheritance. The former inhabitants, for their sins, were to be extirpated, or expelled. The Gibeonites preferred slavery to this. Their services were allotted first to the tabernacle, then to the temple. It appears from David’s application to them, on account of the famine brought on the land for Saul’s massacre of them, that they were kept distinct as a people. We may suppose that they continued to occupy part of their ancient possessions (for we find in David’s time that even Araunah a Jebusite was a proprietor of land) and that they were in their turn draughted off for the service of religion; those who occupied the lands maintaining those who served. There is not one common circumstance between the manner of their becoming servants, and the present Leverpool slave trade, and hardly any more in their treatment.
Page 50. On the supposition of the iniquity of the (Leverpool) “slave trade,” he speaks of the Almighty disturbing the course of nature, when the sun stood still at Joshua’s command, to make it subservient to injustice and oppression, in vindication of ill-gotten property. Here he may be assured the horror of the expression will secure him from contradiction.
Page 54. “The slave trade,” (still Leverpool slave trade) “is in perfect harmony with the principles of the word of God respecting justice.” P. 58. “The inspired writers of the New Testament did not consider it as an infraction of the principles of the gospel.” Nor did these declare their own persecution for righteousness sake, to be an infraction of the principles of the gospel. The keeping of slaves, which the author constantly calls “the slave trade,” was a custom then generally prevalent over the world. Neither were masters or slaves prepared for a general manumission. The spirit of Christianity was suffered gradually to undermine this mass of oppression, and wherever the gospel has prevailed, it has in fact abolished it.
We have a similar instance of this management, in the abolition of the ceremonial law of Moses. The first disciples, and even the apostles, conformed to it, though they had declared it to be an unnecessary yoke, and they suffered it to wear out gradually. That slavery was an evil, and therefore a sin in all those who inflicted it on others, in such a degree as to become an evil, is plainly declared in the gospel. Our Saviour tells the believing Jews, If ye continue in my word, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free; or shall confer new privileges on you. If freedom be a privilege or an advantage, slavery is a degradation and a disadvantage. But if a man be degraded or injured for the caprice or profit of another, that other, under whom he suffers such injury, is guilty of a sin.
Again, St. Paul, 1 Cor. viii. 21., says, “Art thou called being a servant, care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.” Here is plainly a direction to the disciples to submit to their situation, but to prefer freedom when fairly offered; which in this case was its being purchased for them by the Christian congregation. This is explained, ver. 23. “Ye are bought with a price, be not (Greek become not) ye the servants of men.” Avoid a situation which must debase your mind. In the Revelations, xviii. 13. slaves and souls of men are said to be articles of traffick in Babylon, the Mother of Abominations. This supposeth nothing very excellent in slavery, to make it be approved of, and commanded to be prosecuted by God.
We may now account for the manner in which St. Paul applies to Philemon in behalf of his servant Onesimus. He desires him to receive him back into his family, not now as a servant, but above a servant; a profitable inmate, a brother beloved. He would not take advantage of the privilege of an apostle, to withhold Onesimus from his service, or consider his conversion as a bar to it, and therefore endeavours to effect a reconciliation between them. But from the manner in which the apostle solicits this favour, it is clear the situation of Onesimus in the family was desirable; for he requests it as a favour to Onesimus, and considers not his interposition, as the conferring of an obligation on Philemon. All this is very opposite to that West-Indian slavery with which this of Onesimus, p. 65. is compared. For the master only is considered here; neither the feelings nor profit of the slave is taken into account.