LESSON VIII.
It is conceded by Dr. Wayland, that the Scriptures do not directly forbid or condemn slavery. In search of a path over this morass of difficulty, he says that the Scripture goes upon the “fair ground of teaching moral principles” “directly subversive of the principles of slavery;” and quotes the golden rule in proof; and thus comes to the conclusion that, “if the gospel be diametrically opposed to the principle of slavery, it must be opposed to the practice of slavery.” In excuse for this mode being pursued by the Author of our religion, he says—
P. 212. “In this manner alone could its object, a universal moral revolution, have been accomplished. For, if it had forbidden the evil, instead of subverting the principle,—if it had proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery and taught slaves to resist the oppression of their masters,—it would instantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly hostility, through the civilized world; its announcement would have been the signal of servile war; and the very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the agitations of universal bloodshed.”
We have heretofore attempted to show that this doctrine is extremely gross error;—its very assertion goes to the extinction, the denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ and his religion. And we deeply lament that this was not one of the errors of Paley which Dr. Wayland has seen fit to expunge from his book. (See his Preface.)
Paley says, third book, part ii. chap. 3—“Slavery was a part of the civil constitution of most countries, when Christianity first appeared; yet no passage is to be found in the Christian Scriptures by which it is condemned or prohibited. This is true, for Christianity, soliciting admission into all nations of the world, abstained, as behooved it, from intermeddling with the civil institutions of any. But does it follow, from the silence of Scripture concerning them, that all the civil institutions which then prevailed were right? Or that the bad should not be exchanged for better?”
“Besides this, the discharging the slaves from all obligation to obey their masters, which is the consequence of pronouncing slavery to be unlawful, would have had no better effect than to let loose one half of mankind upon the other. Slaves would have been tempted to embrace a religion which asserted their right to freedom; masters would hardly have been persuaded to consent to claims founded on such authority; the most calamitous of all contests, a bellum servile, might probably have ensued, to the reproach, if not the extinction, of the Christian name.”
In these thoughtless remarks of Paley, abolition writers seem to have found a mine of argument, from which they have dug until they deemed themselves wealthy.
Channing, vol. ii. p. 101, says—
“Slavery, in the age of the apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately interwoven with it, and the materials of servile war were so abundant, that a religion preaching freedom to the slave would have shaken the social fabric to its foundation, and would have armed against itself the whole power of the state. Paul did not then assail the institution. He satisfied himself with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its dissolution.”