“Now, suppose the average value of all these slaves be only $400 each, and it will give a capital of $264,225,200! invested in humanity, the interests of 660,653 beings upon whom God has chartered immortality, and stamped it with the signet of his own image.”
From this review it will be perceived that the most influential denominations have given their sanction to slavery. They have opened wide their doors to slaveholders, and have welcomed them to their communion. They have not advised nor commanded them to emancipate their slaves as a condition of admission to the church, to the Lord’s table, to the pulpit, or even into heaven itself!
Divines have, by a perversion of the Bible, corrupted the consciences of Southern, aye, even of Northern Christians, by the most subtle and monstrous errors. The holy Bible has been made, in the language of Blanchard, a smith shop whence consecrated hands have brought fetters for the feet, and manacles for the mind! “We have,” said Frederick Douglass, “men-stealers for ministers, woman-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church-members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cow-skin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week, meets me as class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible, denies me the right of learning to read the name of God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage, robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that, scatters whole families,—sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,—leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men, erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity.”
[CHAPTER XII.]
Slavery and the Church.
NON-FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.
We shall now proceed to show what we conceive to be the true position of a Christian church in relation to slavery. It has been demonstrated that slavery is a complicated and monstrous iniquity involving a direct violation of the whole second table of the Decalogue. This being an established position it will not be difficult to determine the relation which the church should sustain to this sin, and to those who commit it.
The scriptural position of a Christian and a Christian society in relation to sin, may be ascertained from the following quotations: “But I have written unto you not to keep company—if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or railer, or drunkard, or extortioner, with such an one, no, not to eat.”
“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord; and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”
“Now we command you brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly.”