The Slavery Question

by John Lawrence

In these passages the duty of open and decided non-fellowship with sinners is unequivocally asserted. 1. Do not “keep company” with covetous persons and extortioners. Do not “eat” with them at the sacramental table, for this would imply a sanction of their sin. 2. “Come out from among them.” Let there be between you a plain line of demarcation so that the whole world will know that you are not in favor with their sin, and are not a party to it. “Have NO FELLOWSHIP.” Be not united in any associations which require it. Go not with them to the sacramental board. Unite not with them in benevolent efforts for the conversion of the world, for this would require fellowship. Have no fellowship. 4. “In the name of the Lord Jesus withdraw yourselves”—cut off all ties which imply fellowship. Do this solemnly—do it in the name of the blessed Jesus—do it for the glory of God—do it as an act of discipline—withdraw yourselves from every disorderly walker—from every “darkness worker,”—let them be unto you “as a heathen man and a publican.”

Now how are these scriptures to be obeyed respecting the great sin of slavery? We answer: 1. The church should debar slaveholders from its communion. While they remain impenitent in relation to the monstrous sin of slavery and refuse to emancipate their slaves, they should be peremptorily refused admittance into the fellowship of saints. At the door they ought to be met by an emphatic “No sirs; your hands are red with blood, your purses are filled with unjust gains, you rob the widow and the fatherless, you make merchandise of men, repent, reform, do justly, love mercy, or away ye men-stealers!”

2. If by any means slaveholders have obtained a place in the church, they should be plainly dealt with, according to the directions given in such cases by the sacred writers, and in case of a refusal on their part to “hear the church,” they should be immediately thrust out—accounted as “heathen”—“delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh.”

3. But in case a church refuses to discipline slaveholders, as it disciplines other offenders against God, and on the contrary persistently retains them in its communion and officially recognizes them as members of the household of faith,—as holy persons,—as good christians, then a christian can do no better than to withdraw from that church. He cannot remain in it without giving an expressed or implied sanction to a slaveholding christianity. The whole force of his piety and influence will go abroad to create the conviction that slavery is right and quite consistent with holiness.

In support of this view of the true position of a church and of christians in relation to slavery, the following additional considerations are submitted:

1. The church is required to be holy. But it cannot approximate to holiness while welcoming into its pale sinners such as slaveholders are, and sanctioning such an impurity as is slavery.

2. The Church is required to be the “pillar and ground of the truth.” But a slaveholding church wofully perverts and corrupts the truth in many important particulars. The truth that God hates oppression and robbery for instance, is corrupted by it, for it pronounces the very chief oppressors and robbers the true children of God, and assures the world that He approbates their conduct. It corrupts the truth in relation to the true idea of a christian. It denies that justice, mercy and love, are essential attributes of a christian character, by passing off upon a deluded world a class of persons as christians who are pre-eminently unjust, unmerciful, and full of hate to the human brotherhood.

3. The church should honor the holy scriptures. But a slaveholding church necessarily dishonors them. The church is presumed to be a faithful and competent expounder of the doctrines and moral precepts of the Bible, and hence what it approves, it is supposed, the Bible sanctions, and as it approves of slavery, it gives currency to the idea that the Bible is a pro-slavery book,—that Christianity is favorable to oppression, and an enemy to equality and fraternity. Thus a slaveholding church dishonors the Word of Truth and is an infidel-making organization. Non-fellowship with slaveholding is demanded as a condition of faithfulness to the Bible.

4. The church is expected to convert the world to righteousness. But it can never do this while shielding the Leviathan of sins. Slavery is a system of barbarism which must necessarily be destroyed in order to the evangelization of America and of the world. The tyranny, injustice and cruelty of masters, and the ignorance, servility and general degradation of slaves are inconsistent with christianity, and to sanction these is to sanction and sustain sin, and interpose a barrier to the progress of truth and righteousness. And in addition to this, a church must have a character to give it influence with men. A church without character for disinterestedness, benevolence and truth, will be despised by men and forsaken of God. A slaveholding church is without a good moral character, and hence lacks moral power. Men will be slow to believe that, while fiercely defending a monstrous national sin, it is in earnest in its opposition to lesser crimes and trivial wrongs. How powerless is a body of christians whose virtue gives way under the temptation of a popular and lucrative vice! How justly branded with cowardice and hypocrisy!