Page 72, 73. I shall not dispute his exposition of doing as we wish to be done by, as far as it goes, of “a slave’s serving his master, as he if a master would wish to be served.” But I would carry it a step farther. As I, a free man, settled with my family and friends about me in my native country, would not wish to be kidnapped, or to have my family enslaved, separated, and carried bound neck and heel, and stifled in the foul air of a ship’s hold, all to be sold in a distant country, to toil incessantly for a man we never knew, without food or raiment, except such scraps as we may procure by breaking the sabbath; under the lash of any unfeeling boy, who may be set over us with a whip in his hand; so would not I be concerned in any such cruel oppressive inhuman treatment of others. When this author publishes his Second Part, it is to be hoped, this will be pressed home on his Leverpool patrons.
It is curious to remark, that in these researches, in which the wisdom and goodness of God is so freely applied to the Leverpool slave trade, there is not even a distant hint given of the purpose which is to be served by slavery, to shew it to be worthy “of this divine approbation, the almost divine commands.” When God commands us to love our neighbour, our heart goes along with the precept. But if, as this author incautiously affirms, we be commanded to exercise the slave trade, bow down our brother’s body in bondage, and treat him ill, as Sarah did Hagar with impunity, we have no clue to trace out the agreement of the doctrine with divine goodness. If commanded or enjoined to use the slave trade as it is now carried on, we are commanded, (horrid even in the supposition) to commit murder, to starve, oppress, suffocate, and lead into exile, our brother, who never offended us. Suppose slavery approved of in revelation, yet surely robbery, murder, and oppression, are not approved there: and yet no man is originally reduced into a state of slavery but by such methods:—at least, when the advocates for slavery plead for a divine sanction to it, they should be able to lay down a method of making slaves of others, which shall be innocent, and may deserve that sanction.
The Jews, for their sins, were given up to captivity. Their cities were to be destroyed, their princes murdered, and their people carried to Babylon. The prophets invited the surrounding nations to come to the slaughter, and to the spoil. Here is a divine command in stronger terms than can be shewn for the Leverpool slave trade, or any other slave trade or holding of slaves. Yet what follows. These very nations thus invited, and even commanded to execute the divine judgments on the Jews, are destined to destruction, are made to cease as nations, for having obeyed the call to vengeance. Edom was amongst the first in this field of blood, and slavery, and plunder. Hear the prophet Obadiah address him:—“Thou shouldest not have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity: thou shouldest not have stood in the cross-way to cut off those of his that did escape: thou shouldest not have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress. For the day of the Lord is near on all the heathen;—as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee.”
The reason is plain, though instruments in God’s hands to punish a wicked people; yet in the execution of his justice, they only satiated their own hatred, cruelty, and avarice. Let therefore the Leverpool slave trade be not only approved of, but even, as he says, commanded by God; yet if the corporation, in prosecuting the infernal business, be actuated by avarice, or any other unworthy motive, and use cruelty, oppression, and inhumanity in the course of it, (and let those who use the trade lay their hands on their hearts, and let them, if they dare, deny the charge), then, sooner or later, divine vengeance will find them out, and plunge them into ruin with all those who encourage or abet them in it.
Page 75. Corol. 1st. “The Scriptures declare the slave trade to be intrinsically good and licit.” Not in any other manner than Jewish arbitrary divorces, plurality of wives, or their original desire of a king; all of which we know to have been wrong from the beginning.
Corol. 2d. “He is highly criminal who refuses assent to the intrinsick licitness of the slave trade, declared in the Scriptures.” I hope not, if he cannot find it there, and resolves not to meddle with it, till he has discovered it.
Corol. 3d. “He who acquiesces not in the licitness of the slave trade, disbelieves the Scriptures.” Answered in Corol. 2.
Corol. 6th. “The abuses of the slave trade not an inducement to the Legislature to abolish it.” If the slave trade be, as it certainly is, inseparably connected with murder, oppression, and every iniquity that has from time to time drawn down divine vengeance on guilty nations; and if the Legislature be instructed in the nature of it, and be called on to put a stop to this murder and oppression, and cannot possibly do it but by the abolition of the slave trade, (were the slave trade even commanded in the clearest terms, which is not the case, but the contrary) then is the Legislature obliged, and called on by every motive of religion and prudence, to put an immediate stop to it, that it may not bring ruin on the state.
FINIS.