servants do. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed to sell her to a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her." The slavery thus expressly sanctioned was hereditary and perpetual: "Ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondmen forever." (Lev. xxv.) Lastly, Hebrews, if bought, were to be treated, not as slaves, but as hired servants, and to go free at the year of jubilee. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant; but as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his father shall he return." (Lev. xxv. 29.) If during the Hebrew's time of service he married a slave, and had children, the wife and children were not set at liberty with him. If he consented, he might become a slave for life: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:

Then his master shall bring him unto the judges he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever. (Exod. xxi. 2-6.)

Such are some parts of the Mosaic institution. Let me add, also, that the decalogue twice recognises slavery, and forbids one Israelite to covet the man-servant or maid-servant of another. And, now, how does all this appear if your assumption be for a moment tenable, that slavery is as great a crime as can be committed? Suppose these regulations had thus sanctioned piracy, or idolatry, would they ever have commanded the faith of the world as divine? How conclusive this that slavery is not among crimes in the estimation of mankind, and according to the immutable and eternal principles of morality!

In struggling with such difficulties as these, I expected from you all that man could do, and I have not been disappointed. The apostles, however, declared they "could do nothing against the truth," and with the portions of the record already before us, I do conceive, that either proper reverence for the Bible, or your proposition, must be abandoned. Nor do I perceive that your explanations bring your doctrine at all more within the range of probability. I believe your reasonings may be summed up thus:

Plea first.—" God did not see fit to reveal his will on this subject, nor indeed on many others, to the ancient Hebrews. He made known to them just as much of his moral law as he chose. has seen fit to enlighten our race progressive

He

ly, and he withheld from them his will as to sla: very."

Answer. It is true God has unfolded gradually his plans and purposes; but there is a great dif. ference between this, and his making a revelation expressly authorizing any thing. He did not withhold from the Jews his will concerning slavery, but both by precept and example sanctioned it. The Jews had the ten commandments, which are an abridgment of the whole moral law; and even in this slavery is recognised; God may and does conceal much; but he cannot deny himself; he "is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity," much less expressly sanction it. Plea second.-The permission granted to the Jews was peculiar. God had authorized them to destroy the Canaanites; their slaves were to be only of these Canaanites thus devoted to destruction; and the authority to hold slaves was a part of this grant; but it is not true that what God sanctioned among the Hebrews, he sanctions for all men and at all times.

Answer. It has never been pretended that any man can claim under a grant but those to whom the grant was made; nor was any one ever so silly as to affirm that because Jehovah authorized the Jews to hold the Canaanites as slaves, therefore we might enslave the Canaanites. But it is affirmed that the moral character of actions is immutable; that sin is always "the abominable thing which God hates;" that if slavery be essentially and necessarily a sin, it was a sin among the Hebrews; and that it is impiety to say that God, at any time, or in any place, gave his express sanc

tion to sin. If the character and will of God, and what he approves, and permits, and condemns, are not illustrated by his dealings with individuals and nations, then, almost the whole of both Testaments is useless now. The ten commandments were delivered to the Hebrews; the addresses of Christ were to his audiences; and the instructions of the epistles were to particular churches. This is the

answer.

Besides, there is inaccuracy in your premises. You say, "This grant was made to one people only, the Hebrews. It had respect to one people, and to one people only, the Canaanites." Not so. "Strangers sojourning among the Hebrews," might be held in bondage as well as the heathen around; and Hebrews might, in your own words, "be held in slavery for six years;" and they might, by their consent, become slaves for life. Be it remembered, too, that long before this, the patriarchs held slaves, and not under any grant. "Abimelech took sheep, and 'oxen, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and gave them unto Abraham." Gen. xx. 14. Pharaoh, too, enriched him with "sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants." Permit me also to say, that M. Henry not only does not agree with you as to the right of enslaving being a part of the right to destroy the Canaanites, but thinks that slaves were not to be bought from the seven nations doomed to destruction. "They might purchase bondmen of the heathen nations round about them, or of those strangers that sojourned among them, (except of the seven nations to be destroyed,) and might claim a dominion over them, and entail them on their fam

ilies, as an inheritance, for the year of jubilee
should give no discharge to them." I
pass this,
however. My answer, as above, may be thus given
in the syllogistic form which your letter invites:

(1.) Whatever the holy God has expressly sanctioned among any people cannot be in itself a sin. (2.) God did expressly sanction slavery among the Hebrews.

(3.) Therefore slavery cannot be in itself a sin. Plea third.-The Mosaic regulations were very different from the laws of the Southern States respecting slavery. "Every one must perceive the unreasonableness of pleading the Jewish laws as authority for an institution so entirely dissimilar, and so forgetful of the limitations by which the practice was originally guarded."

Answer. This whole plea is founded on that confusion of slavery with the Southern slave-laws which I have so often mentioned, and which is so glaring. A very good argument it would be with our legislatures to amend our laws, and I wish you would urge it there. On the present issue it is wholly out of place.

Plea fourth. If God sanctioned slavery among the Jews, he also commanded them to " destroy the Canaanites ;" and he commanded Saul to destroy the Amalekites. Were these commands to all men and at all times?

Answer.-Nobody is capable of drawing such an absurd inference. But these commands do prove that it is not always, and amid all circumstances, a sin to take human life. And just so the sanction of slavery proves that it is not always and amidst all circumstances a sin to hold slaves.

'