If it shall be said that God merely sanctioned or permitted slavery in the time of the patriarchs, who will say that he did not enjoin it in the time of Moses? A repeal of this injunction demanded a countervailing revelation of no equivocal character, clear and decided, without the admission of a doubt.
“And God spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying, * * * But thy bond-men and bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy and of their families, which they beget in your land; and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession: they shall be your bond-men for ever.” Lev. xxv. 1, 44, 45, 46.
Mr. Barnes has adduced no proof that this law was ever repealed; nor do the holy books contain any evidence of such repeal; yet he has denied the existence of slavery in Judea, at the time of the advent of the Saviour. See pp. 228, 242, 244, and 249, before quoted, and, we trust, sufficiently refuted. But we now add, that at the time Jesus Christ and his apostles were on the earth, Judea was a province of Rome. Now, since it was clear that slavery was inculcated by the Hebrew laws, unless it was forbidden by the Roman, we could not come to the conclusion that slavery did not exist in Judea at their time, even if Jesus Christ and his apostles had never alluded to it.
But,—see Matt. xxvi. 51: “Behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant (δοῦλον, doulon, slave) of the high-priest,” then some suitable but different word would have been used, as in the following: “And the servants (δοῦλοι, douloi, slaves) and officers (ἱπηρέται, hupēretai, attendants, persons who aid, assistants) stood there,” John xviii. 18; proving the fact that both slaves and other attendants were present, and that the slave was named distinctly from such other attendants. There can be no doubt about these facts; and in proof that slavery was not forbidden by the Roman laws, we quote from Mr. Barnes, page 251: “In Italy, it was computed that there were three slaves to one freeman; and in this part of the empire alone, their numbers amounted to more than twenty millions.”
Page 252: * * * “The number of slaves could not have been less than sixty millions in the Roman Empire, at about the time the apostles went forth to preach the gospel.”
Page 254: * * * “The following places are mentioned, either as emporia for slaves or countries from which they were procured: Delos, Phrygia, and Cappadocia, Panticapæum, Diascurias, and Phanagoria on the Euxine or Black Sea; Alexandria and Cadiz; Corsica, Sardinia, and Britain; Africa and Thrace.”
And does it astonish us that in these dark ages of human degradation, Britain helped to supply Rome with slaves? It should be remembered that conquest gave the right in ancient days to enslave all barbarous and deeply degraded nations; and it might be inquired whether such principle was not alluded to by the prophet: “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered.” Isa. xlix. 24. History will inform us that all these nations were of the lowest order. St. Jerome, in his writings against Jovinian, informs us what were the morals of Britain. He says—“Why should I refer to other nations, when I myself, when a youth in Gaul, have seen the Atticotti, a British tribe, eating human flesh? Should they find shepherds tending their herds of swine or cattle, and flocks of sheep in the woods, they are wont to cut off the fleshy parts of the men, and the breasts of the women, which are esteemed the most delicious food.”
Who then is to say that Britain is not now indebted for her high state of intellectual improvement to the pike, bludgeon, and sword of the Roman, Dane, Saxon, and Norman? And can we say that the hand of God was not in this? The same providences and principles that have ever applied to degraded Africa apply to all degraded nations, and even to individual men. “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant (δοῦλος, doulos, slave) of sin.”
And it may be said that nations and individuals thus enslave themselves. “Behold, for your iniquities ye have sold yourselves.” Isa. l. 1. These principles may be seen every day operating among the most degraded of even the most enlightened nations. The history of the present day informs us of the deep degradation of the African tribes; and that even in their own country the great mass are slaves. Consistently with the laws of God, they could not be otherwise; and even slavery among themselves, subject to sacrifice and death as we have seen it, is yet better for them than a state of freedom. We have seen how the free hordes roam like the brutes, making that place home where night overtook them. Suppose such to be cannibals, of which we have proof, it might so happen, that, in one day, one half of their number would be destroyed by themselves. Therefore, as distressing as slavery must be among them, yet it is far preferable to their dejected condition of freedom.
We know of no one who pretends to believe that the masses of the African tribes have increased in number since the commencement of our era; whereas, a few scattering individuals, brought into slavery, within the last few generations, in these States, have increased to near four millions; nearly one-twelfth of the number of the entire population of Africa. However wicked may be the Christian master, how much more is slavery to be desired by the negro than any condition among these pagan hordes! We, therefore, do not deem it presumptuous to say, that so degraded is the condition of the African in his own land, that it has been elevated in proportion as it has been affected by the slave-trade, and more especially with Christian nations. The first tendencies towards civilization, and whatever dawning of mental development there may be now noticed among the African tribes, are traceable alone to that source. And the Christian philosopher might well inquire whether, in the providence of God, its existence, from the time of Noah to the present, has not been the saving principle which has alone preserved the tribes of Ham from the condition of Sodom and Gomorrah, and other nations long since wasted away.