This author, thus having satisfied himself with a display which the greater portion of his readers deem original, commences, p. 103, and quotes from “The Elements of Moral Science,” p. 212:
“This very course, which the gospel takes on this subject, seems to have been the only one that could have been taken in order to effect the universal abolition of slavery. The gospel was designed, not for one race or for one time, but for all races and for all times. It looked, not at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence, the important object of its author was to gain it a lodgment in every part of the known world:” and concludes with our quotation from the author.
Dr. Barnes “fights more shy;” he sees “the trap.” The Biblical Repertory has unveiled to his view the awful abyss to which this doctrine necessarily leaps. Yet the abyss must be passed; the facts, the doctrine of Paley, and the gulf, must be got over, in some way, or abolition doctrines must be given up. For thirty pages, like a candle-fly, he coquets around the light of this doctrine, until he gathers courage, and finally falls into it under the plea of “expediency.” He quotes Wayland’s Letters to Fuller, p. 73, which says—
“This form of expediency—the inculcating of a fundamental truth, rather than of the duty which springs immediately out of it, seems to me innocent. I go further: in some cases, it may be really demanded,” &c.
“And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life.” Luke xviii. 18.
This man was rich—probably had slaves. Was it inexpedient for the Son of God to have plainly told him of its wickedness? Was not the occasion quite appropriate, if such had been the Saviour’s view?
When the keeper of the prison said to Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what shall I do to be saved?” was it inexpedient in them to have mentioned this sin?
When the subject of slavery was mentioned in Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, in Timothy, Titus, and Peter, was it still inexpedient? And in the case of Philemon, “the dearly beloved and fellow-labourer,” when Paul was pleading for the runaway slave, in what did the inexpediency consist? When the centurion applied to the Son of God, and boasted that he owned slaves, can we bring forward this paltry excuse?
This doctrine of Paley has been so commonly quoted, let us be excused for presenting a remark from the “Essays,” reprinted from the Princeton Review, second series, p. 283:
“It is not by argument that the abolitionists have produced the present unhappy excitement. Argument has not been the character of their publications. Denunciations of slave-holding as man-stealing, robbery, piracy, and worse than murder; consequently vituperation of slaveholders as knowingly guilty of the worst of crimes; passionate appeals to the feelings of the inhabitants of the Northern States; gross exaggerations of the moral and physical condition of the slaves, have formed the staple of their addresses to the public.”