AN ADDRESS TO THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ENFORCING THE DUTY OF EXCLUDING ALL SLAVEHOLDERS FROM THE "COMMUNION OF SAINTS." By NEW YORK. ADDRESS. Christian Brethren : The signs of the times plainly indicate that a change, in reference to slavery, must speedily take place in our republic. Loud lamentations over the evil of human bondage have been resounded, until the voice of wailing and anguish makes no more impression than the mock sorrows of an Irish wake. Promises of amendment and gradual emancipation have been repeated until the most credulous infatuation can no longer be deceived by their emptiness and vanity. During this period, the sin of slavery has incalculably been multiplied, and the groans of the tortured, and the barbarity of their task-masters, have been infinitely extended. The most melancholy portion of all this wickedness and misery, is, that it has been clothed with a mask, and honored by a christian name. It is indubitable, that the present existence of slavery, in the United States, máy chiefly be imputed to the professed disciples of Jesus, the Prince of philanthropists, one part of whose divine mission it was, to "preach deliverance to the captives." Although all the denominations of christians, with one or two exceptions, are culpable in this respect, in a higher or less degree; and although the censure is almost generally applicable, yet our church is peculiarly condemnable. With the exception of the Episcopal Methodists, and the Friends, with some of the minor divisions of the christian family, whose influence is comparatively unimportant, I know not any one of the large compacted churches, which has formally recorded in their standards of faith and discipline, an indignant denunciation of slavery, except the Presbyterian church. When it was resolved to adopt our present ecclesiastical organization, the Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Book of Discipline were ordered to be published, that all persons might know the doctrines and forms of the church, in the most authentic manner. The question of slavery was discussed, and alas! against their consciences, the northern brethren entered into a compromise with the slaveholders, something like the federal compact, and agreed to tolerate the highest possible iniquity, rather than dissolve the Presbyterian confederacy. Yet, the understandings, sensibilities, and consciences of many revolted against that perfidious departure from godliness; and, to pacify the clamor of their minds against this abandonment of truth, they inserted the following illustration of slavery,-which the slaveholders permitted to stand in the book, being convinced that in practice, it would be only a dead letter. It is found in all the editions of "the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church," printed before the year 1818; and constitutes the note appended to the hundred and forty-second question of the larger Catechism;"What are the sins forbidden in the eighth commandment?" The answer states, among other sins, man-stealing! And this is the account of that sin officially "ratified and adopted by the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, held at Philadelphia, May the sixteenth, 1788, and continued, by adjournment, until the twenty-eighth of the same." Our General Assembly thus annotate. 1 Tim. i. 10. "The law is made for men-stealers. This crime, among the Jews, exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment; Exodus xxi. 16; he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death: and the apostle here classes them with sinners of the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or detaining them in it. Hominum fures, qui servos vel liberos abducunt, retinent, vendunt, vel emunt. STEALERS OF MEN ARE ALL THOSE WHO BRING OFF SLAVES OR FREEMEN, AND KEEP, SELL, OR BUY THEM. To steal a freeman, says Grotius, is the highest kind of theft. In other instances we only steal human property, but when we steal or retain men in slavery, we steal those, who, in common with ourselves, are constituted by the original grant, lords of the earth. Genesis i. 28. God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Vide Poli synopsin in loco." This was the authorized doctrine of the Presbyterian church, on the subject of slavery, from the meeting of the first General Assembly, in 1789, until the General Assembly of 1818, when that body determined that the note above quoted was no part of the belief and doctrine of the Presbyterian church. In reply to this fallacy, it must be observed, that every minister ordained prior to that meeting, solemnly declared his assent to the constitution of the church as it then existed, not as it was altered by that fearful body. The question is not so much, however, whether that doctrine be obligatory upon all Presbyterians, merely because it is found in the constitution of their church; but whether it is the decision of the oracles of God; and I maintain that it is infallibly correct. It has been often stated, and I know not how the heinous allegation can be disproved, that our church is mainly chargeable with the guilt of slavery in the United States. The proposition is thus de- \ clared. On the fourth of July, 1776, every person then in the United States, or who should afterwards be born in them, was pronounced free, from the very fact of his bearing the characters of man, and in the undisputed possession of certain inalienable rights. After a contest of seven years, the truth was recognized by all the European nations; and the country was entirely delivered from foreign control. Notwithstanding the national declaration, all the colored people were inhibited by force, from asserting or obtaining their "inalienable rights.” During the revolutionary contest, most of the religious denominations had become so scattered and disorganized, that there was no union, and scarcely any intercourse among the members. The Presbyterians alone maintained, in some measure, their compactness of organization, and immediately after the peace, resumed their usual meetings, with an imposing influence. The question of slavery was early agitated; but "the fear of man, which bringeth a snare," swayed the Synod. All the southern states combined, at that period, probably |