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God took pains to put it, plainly and un
mistakably, in each one of those two tables
of stone ?—Must we not then agree that,
just so long and just so far as that great
law of God shall be considered binding up
on man, so long and so far must the insti
tution of slavery —the relation of master
and servant —be regarded as having the ex
plicit sanction of the Great Law-giver of
the universe. Well, it is certain that God
did that thing, in the first table, in the
fourth commandment, He says: ‘ln it thou
ahalt not do any work, thou nor thy son,
nor thy daughter, thy man servant nor thy
maid servant' And in the second table, in
the tenth command, He says: ‘ Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man
servant, nor his maid servant, nor any thing
that is thy neighbor’s.’ Do you not see
that God has put His own holy recognition
of property in man in the decalogue itself?
But, lest it might be said or thought that
the servants here mentioned are not staves
but hired servants, God was pleased in the
original Hebrew to use the very same word
which He used in the next chapter, when
He said of such servants they are tne mas
ter’s money. (Exodus xxi, 9-1.) Surely I
need not look any farther in the Old Testa
ment. Tne law of God is very plain. It
was the law when Jesus came. Did He
re peal it ? Did He change it? He had
the right to do it. lie would have done it
had it been best that slavery should be
abolished. He was not afraii of the. slave
power; and had He seen, in His infinite
wisdom and good ness, that it would be bet
ter for the master, better for the slave, or
better for the world, better for the welfare
of humanity and the promotion of the reli
gion of the gospel, He would have repealed
it, as He did the old laws of divorce and
polygamy. And if He did repeal it, we
are under the Gospel and must be govern
ed by the new law concerning slavery.—
It has been claimed that He did; it has
been declared, a thousand times, that what
was thus so plainly allowed and even or
dained under the Law, was revoked under
the Gospel. When was it done? Where
is the record ? Slavery is as often men
tioned in the New Testament as in the Old.
Is it ever mentioned to condemn it? Js
there in any allusion to it even an intima
tion that it was wrong, or that it was now
to be abolished ? Nothing of the kind ever
has beep or ever can be found. So far
from it, ft is most plainly and unmistakably
again and again recognized as a righteous
and holy institution, and the relation ot
master and slave placed in the same cata
logue with those of husband and wife,
parent and child. Turn to the sixth chap
ter of Ephesians aud read : ‘ Children, obey
your parents. Fathers, provoke not youi
children to anger. Servants, bo obedieut
to them who are your masters, according
to the flesh.’ Turn to the of
Colossians and read : ‘ Wives, submit your
selves unto your own husbands. Husbands,
iovo your wives and be not bitter against
them. Children, obey your parents. Fa
thers, provoke not your children. Servants*
obey in ail things your masters. Ma3ters (
give unto your servants that which is just
and equal, knowing that you also have a
Master in heaven.’ Turn to the second
chapter of Ist Peter, and read : * Servants,
be subject to your masters with all fear,
not only to the good and gentle, but also to
the Iroward. be in subjection to
your own husbands,’ etc.
D<> you not see that the recognition or
master und slave, fur the origmul record in
all these places, means slave? and what is
said of these servants could only apply t*
slaves ? Do you not see that the relation
of master und slave is classed with those oi
husband and wife, parent and child ?—L
no mure condemned, no more abolished,
but expected just as much to cuutinu
among Christian people in all coming tiim
as those other household relations ?
But I have not done with you yet.—
There is another and a most important
teaching upon this subject, which has beet,
most unfortunately overlooked or disre
garded, even by southern Christians. Let
us turn now to Ist Timothy—and remem.
ber that Timothy and Titus were not ordi
nary Christians, but ministers of the Gospel;
and the epistles to them are God’s instruc
tions, not to church member*, but to
preachers. We lose half the meaning oi
these epistles when we forget this fact.—
In this epistle, the inspired apostle is telling
Timothy, as the representative preacher ot
Christ, how preachers are to conduct them
selves in their official work ; he tells us
how to preach, and what to preach. Here
in the sixth chapter, he tells us what to
preach on the subject of slavery. To Titus
he wrote in the same vein : ' Exhort ser
vants to be obedient to their own masters,
aud to pleae th=>m well in all things, not
answering again, not purloining, but show
ing all good fidelity. (Titus vfll, 9.) Bui
here to Timothy, he goes further; • Let a
many {djttfoi) slaves as are under the y oke
BANNER AND BAPTIST.
count their own masters worthy of all hon
or, that the name of God be not blasphemed;
and they that have believing masters, let
them not. despise them because they are
brethren, but rather do them service be
cause they are fathful, beloved, partakers
of the benefit. These things teach and
exhort.’ This is the way the minister of
Christ was commanded by the Lord Jesus
to preach on the subject of slavery. He
was not silently to ignore its existence or
the doctrines of the Lord concerning it.—
He had a plain and unmistakable message
from his Saviour in regard to this institu
tion ; and whether it waa popular or un
popular, he was to ‘ teach ’ it and ‘ exhort'
the people to obey it. But the apostle
goes still further. He seems to have an
ticipated the day when abolitionists would
find their way even into the church and the
pulpit. He seems to have foreseen the
strife and envy, and lying and wickedness,
which their preaching would engender.—
Hence, he gives further instruction: that
if any man should take it upon himself to
teach another doctrine than the one which
h-* instructed the true minister to teach,
such minister should refuse to recognize
that man as a fellow minister, or even as a
Christian man, by at once ‘ withdrawing
from him ’ all religious fellowship. Hen
are the words: ‘ And if any man teach
otherwise and consent not to wholesome
words, even the words of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the doctrine which is according
to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing,
but doting about strifes of words, whereot
eometh envy, strife, railings, evil sur
rnisings, perverse disputing* of men of cor
rupt minds and destitute of the truth, sup
posing that gain is godliness; From such
withdraw thyself .’ God gives great and
important commands, sometimes, in few
and simple words. We have been accus
tomed to look upon the law forbidding
murder as the most important of the deca
logue ; yet it consists of only four short
words—‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Here is an
other law in but four words, but no less
binding than the other. Hero waa our sin
—I do not say the sin of the nation, but the
sin of the church, and especially the sin of
the ministry. God commanded us to do
this thing, and we did not do it. Sin is
transgression of Ct>d’s law. Here is God's
law, in these four plain words: ‘ From such
withdraw yourselves' From whom? From
those ‘ who teach otherwise' than Timothy
was instructed to teaoh on the subject of
slavery. Itrequired of every true minister
of Jesus Christ a prompt and simple course
of action in view of a certain contingency.
When the very fir3t man claiming to be a
Christian ministor preached the very first
sermon in which he put the first senteuce
against tho duty of slaves to obey and hon
or their masters, and proclaimed their right
to liberty and equality, it required of every
true minister at once to note that man and
have no more fellowship with him. He
might no more invite him to his pulpit, or
to the table of the Lord. He might not
recognize him as a brother in the ministry
or the church. He had one duty to per
form, and that a very plain one: ‘ From
such withdraw thyself.'
Brethren, we did not do it. Wo had
such men in our churches. We knew’ they
taught otherwise. They taught it in books;
they taught it in pamphlets; they taught it
in newspapers and magazines; they taught
it in the social circle; they taught it in
their pulpits at home, and they came to the
great gatherings of the brethren in the an
niversaries of our organizations for religious
i benevolence, and they taught it there.—
! They taught it until they had formed a
great and overpowering public sentiment
; in opposition to the teachings of the apos
tles of Christ; and we continued stil l to
meet them as brethren, address them as
brethren, preach with them as brethren, and
;odperate with them in other things as breth
ren,our equals in the ministry of the Word,
t was not until they had gone so far as vir
tually to resolve, in the triennial conven-
I don, that they could not cooperate with us,
that w@ were driven to separate from them
because they w'ould no longer permit us on
equal terms to remain in their company.—
And even then, did we ‘ withdraw from
them’ because the Lord bad so commanded
us Or, in the Scripture seuse, did we
j* withdraw ’at all? Were we not influ
enced by a regard to our own self respect
’rather than God’s commandment ?—.and
! while we i.o longer met with them in *>n
vention to cooperate in the g cat work of
giving the gospel to the heather, did we
I not still continue to call them brethren and
treat them as if they bad been tree c inls
| ters of Christ ?
! But, Baptist churches ar.d Baptist min
| inters were r.ot alone in ‘his. The people
of other denominations were even more
guilty than we. The Presbyterians had
| been bearing * their testimo* y against slave,
ry,’ as they termed it, ever since 1819 —
land many in their general assemblies were
|accutomed very officiously ‘to teach oth-
erwise,’ —and yet southern members only
begged that they might still be allowed to
remain in fellowship with them. And if
at last they have ‘withdrawn themselves’
and formed anew organization, it has been
only when further cooperation was no long
er possible.
The Methodists have been stiii more
gyilty. Tnoy laid the very foundation of
their ohurch in an op* n pledge to violate
this law of God. Their preachers were
all, both north and south, expressly re
quired to ‘ teach otherwise.* They were
sect out for the express purpose of ‘ teach
ing otherwise.’ Every one of was
bound, by a solemn vow to God, that he
would ‘teach otherwise.’ la its very in
ception, the Methodist Episcopal Church
of America was a great * Abolition Society.'
Do not start—do not exclaim that it could
not be so ! It certainly was so; and every
intelligent Methodist, who is familiar with
tho history of his own church, knows that
it was so. ido not say that it was nothing
more, but an abolition society it surely was.
It was organized in Baltimore, on Southern
soil, and soearly as 1784—before the blood
of the Revolution had soaked into the
ground, or the tears of that war had yet
■fried on the nation’s cheek ; yet even there
and at that early day, the preachers who
formed that church by denouncing
slavery as an * abomination ’ which must
immediately be ‘ extirpated ’ from among
us, and adopted strenuous measures to
accomplish the object. (See Emery’s His
tory of the Discipline, page 43.) Ten
>ears later, they declared in conference,
and made it a part of the discipline, ‘That
they were more than ever convinced of the
great evil of African slavery , as it still ex
isted ’ in this country, and adopted new
measures for its ‘ extirpation.' And so
they continued from time to time, not only
to ‘ leach otherwise,' but, by all means in
their power, to promote and build up the
spirit of abolition in the north, and, so far
as public sentiment would permit, in the
south. And it is remarkable, that although
their church was divided ona point relating
to this subject, yet even in the ‘ Church
South’ they continued for years to ‘teach
otherwise,’ by retaining in their Discipline
the same rules which had been tho occasion
of their separation. They still continued
to ask—in Section 9, Part 2— ‘ What shall
he done for the extirpation of the evil of
slavery ? * and to answer: ‘Wo declare
that wo arc as much as ever convinced ol
the -'•i! of slavery; therefore, no slave
ho! icr shall be eligible to any official sta
don in our church,’ etc. They still contin
ued to print and sell tho Notes of their
great commentator, Clark, in which he
says (Noteon Ephesians vi, 5): ‘ln heathen
countries, slavery was in some sort excusa
ble. Among Christians, it is an enormity
and a crime, for which perdition has scarce
ly .no adequate state of punishment.’-
Within the last few years the Discipline
has been changed. But there is room for
doubt whether, at last, it was because God
required it in His word, or only because
publio sentiment in the south would no
longer tolerate such teachings.
The repentance, if we have indeed re
pented at all, has been slow and reluctant.
But let us hope that now at last we no
longer have among us any man ‘ teaching
otherwise,’ and yet received by any people
as a minister of Christ. Let us hope that
this wicked war, if it do no other good,
may at least do this : bring all who preach
the Gospel to preach it truly in regard to
slavery. Had it been done at first, we
should have had no war. The preachers
had much more to do with its production
than the politicians. The so-called minis
ters of Christ have done much more than
Lincoln or Seward, or any of their party,
in bringing upon our once loved and happy
country this storm of blood and death.—
Had anti-slavery doctrines been left whert
they belong, to the assemblies of infidelity
and irreligion, that party would have had
no power.
Our question was, Is slavery a sill ?
l have shown you that, to be a sin, it must
be a violation of the law of God. And
then, that God’s law, so far from forbidding
or condemning it, actually commended it
in the lives of the Patriarchs ; ordained and
ehtablished it in the secular code of the
Jews ; recognized and perpetuated it in the
Ten Commandments themselves; and for
bade any minister of Christ, under the
| Gospel, to * teach otherwise,’ or even to
give Christian fellowship and brotherhood
ito any one who should ‘teach otherwise.’
It follows, then, that whatever our sin may
be, it is not holding men and women in
slavery. God has made this thing very
plain.
But now someone may ask whether
i there is no Scripture on tke other side. —
Men w hom the world counts'wise and good
have for years been denouncing the insti
tution as a thing accursed of God and eon
[trary to both the spirit and the letter ot
I the Sacred Word. Is it possible they have
lied against God? Ur could they have
honestly been so utterly mistaken in regard
to His teachings? To such suggestion?
only one reply is needful, i wish it could
be engraved as with a pen of iron on eveiy
heart, so as never to be forgotten or over
looked in this ; or any other discussion in
volving religious faith or duty. It is this :
The Bible is never on both sides of any ques
tion. If it teaches that slavery is right, it
does not teach that slavery is wrong. It
doe.s not contradict on one page ’what it
averts on another. It is always consistent
with itself. If it were not so, it would not
be worth the paper that it.is printed on. —
It would not be God’s" Bible. Our God is
not like a wily "politician, whose words are
meant to please all parties. Nor are His
holy oracles like the utterances of the
heathen temples, intended to have a double
meaning. He teaches all the time the
same things. Nor does the plain fetter of
His teachings contradict the spirit of them,
as has been falsely asserted. The letter
and the spirit are the same, for they are
both of God. And hence it follows, that
although seme people, by garbled quota
tions, taken out of their connection and
perverted to a Use quite different from that
they were intended to have, rnay have sue
ceeded in convincing themselves or others
that slavery is forbidden, it can not be so.
A careful and candid examination of such
quotations will show that they are not in
tended to contradict, and do not contradict
what, as we have seen, the Bible plain!)
teaches. And here let me add, that while
this is true of slavery, it is. equally true of
every other übject. The Bible does not
teach one set of doctrines in one place and
a different and opposing set in another. —
The Gospel does not in one part require
one form of church organization, church
order or church government, and another
or several others opposed to and inconsist
ent with it iri another part. What it re
quires once, it requires all tho time. Nor
does it teach in some places that one desig
nated act is the baptism of the New Testa
rnent, and in other plaoes that some other
and altogether different sot is that same
ordinance. It does not teach that the Epis
copalians are right, and the Presbyterians
, t ro right, and the Methodists and Baptist?
are equally right. If any one denomination
is right, then the others, just so far as the)
differ from that one, are wrong. The
Scriptures are not on a 1 sides of the }ues
ions in disputo among these various and
opposing denominations. All denotnina
tions may possibly be wrong, but it is cer
tain that they can not ail be right; just as
certain as it is that two propositions which
contradict each other can not both be true.
But this is an episode. I have wandered
from the subject of slavery. One thing
yet remains—not, indeed, to complete my
argjment. but to give it the full force it
ought to have upon the mind and heart: —
Why did God thus ordain and re-ordain
this institution ? He had an objeot in vie w;
an object at once kind and noble, worthy of
God, the Ruler of the universe. We must
accept His law as right and good and holy,
even though we should be utterly unable to
see what that object was. It is enough for
us that so God w’ills, and so God says.—
This is the strongest possible proof that it
is just and kind. But in this case we are
not left without reason of another sort.—
He who has observed the influence of slave
ry in elevating and ennobling an inferior
race ot men, by the close contact into which
it brings them with a superior race, will be
at no loss to discover one reason, and that
one of itself sufficient to ‘justify this wa\
of God to man.’ We have been told ot
the degrading and demoralizing influence
of slavery, until the thoughtless and inob
servant may have been led tobt l eve that
it really has had some such influence.—
But look at the facts. Has slavery de
graded the negro race in this country ?
Men sea the negro inferior to the whit*
man, the slave beneath his master, and the\
it once conclude that it is slavery which
has made him so. But if you will learn
the truth, you must compare the negro it
slavery with the negro in freedom. The
compari<on is easily made. There ar*
millions of the race who have remained in
their state of liberty in Africa. But among
them all you can no where find any consid
erable number who, in point of intellect or
morality, religion or civilization, can bear
any comparison with the Jour millions ot
! slaves in the Confederate States. During
several years of constant travellin. in Af
| rica, Mr. Bowen said he did not meet at
; ‘ honest man or a modest woman ’ Th*
few freed men who have gone back to
Africa, as colonists of Liberia, after a few
generations spent in slavery to the white
man, are able at once to take the marten
'of thousands of natives who have had the
| iienefit ot their original freedom during the
| same generations.
But there is another reason why God
[ordained slavery. It is found in the intens*
I selfishness of human nature, and the power
of money capital to oppress the. poor.
Slavery is God’s remedy against oppres
sion. It is not, perhaps, the remedy that
Dr. Way land or Dr. Barnes would have
suggested. But “the foolishness of God is
wiser than men.’ God is a better philoso
pher than Dr. Way land. He understands
human nature. He knows that it is very
selfish. lie was unwilling to trust the
comfort of tho poor laborer to the mere
humanity of the rich. He would make it
the interest of the rich to provide for tho
poor. In every country, sooner or later,
capital accumulates in the hands of some,
while others remain poor. The poor man’e
capital is his strength, his capacity to labor.
This is all he has to feed and clothe himself
and family. Now shall it be for the inter
est of the rich man to extort from him the
greatest amount of labor for the smallest
amount of money, to press him down to
the lowest point of human endurance; o r
shall it be for his interest to see that ho jie
never over-worked, never under fed, never
needlessly exposed to hardships, never left
to suffer in sickness, that his children are
well fed and well clad, and grow up vigor
ous and healthy ? This i9 the question.
God answers it by making the laborer the
property of the capitalist. It is then not
merely a dictate of humanity, but also or
self-interest which demands that the laborer,
the slave, be clothed and fed and nursed.
The strongest of motives known to roan
demands it. It may be denied even to
this. There are some masters who are
cruel and reckless of the lives and health
even of their own household—but what
would such masters be if it were for their
interest to be cruel and oppressive, as it
surely would if the laborer were IJot their
own property ?
To illustrate what I mean, let us goto
England where then boasted freedom has
placed, capital and labor in opposition.
Herein the splendid mansion of the rich
landholder surrounded by every luxury
that taste can call for or money can pur
chase. Go to his stable. You see that his
horse lives in a fine briek house, with adty
roof above his head. He has good fresh
air to breathe, nice clean straw to sleep on,
a blanket to keep him warm in bad weather,
plenty of the best and most wholesome
food to eat. Even the colts, who are yet
too young to labor, are carefully fed and
nurtured. If sick, they have the best of
medical advice and the most careful nurs
ing. Every thing that a horse need ask
for, if a horse could talk, is theirs. It is
for the owner’s interest that it should
be so.
But, now, go to the hovel across the
way, where the poor man lives who drivhe
horse. The human laborer has no com
fortable house. His home is a poor cot
tage or hovel, thatched with straw. If &e
is unable to work for a little time, aud
can’t pay ront, he is cast out even from
that. Ilis food is scanty. His family are
often in want. If sick, his wages stop, and
he must suffer on or die. It matters noth
ing to his employer how he fares. He
pays him so much money for so much
work, and that is all. When the work
stops, the connection ceases; and while it
continues it is the interest of the employer
to pay little and require much. What'is
the result? Hundreds of thousands daily
begging work or bread, and many starving
ing for the want of both. Poor houses in
every parish filled with thousands of rag
ged, starving paupers, sustained by a re.
luetant and compulsory charity; little
children driven by their own parents to
such laborious tasks as early destroy
health and life. Huge prisons filled with
vagabonds and petty thieves. I trust that
God is now about to set us free from
Northern dictation and foreign interference,
and permit us, in our Confederacy, to show
how His plan to obviate these eviL can ba
made to work under the benignant influence
of true Christianity.
[ CONCLUSION NEST WEES.)
Army Chaplain*.
These devoted workers for their country
*nd their Saviour, find that religious read,
mg for the soldiers helps them very much
in their labors of love. Hence, they call
for tracts, Testaments, and religious papers.
These brethren say that the soldiers are
very fond of religious papers, and many of
them have written and asked for The Banner
to be sent to them weekly for distribution.
But while brother H. would gladly furnish
targe numbers to his country’s defenders,
he cah not do so unless the means are fur.
mshed. Will not these ChaplUins take up
contributions for this object? and will not
brethren, pastors and others, at home do
the same, and forward the amount to fcro
rher II.? Each number of The Banner
will be worth more to the soldier that an
ordinary tract. J. M. W.
All Baptist ministers and others, in tb*
'ontederate Slates, friendly to the paper
ars requested to act as Agents.