THE belief was long nearly universal, and is yet very general throughout the Christian world, that the Scriptures do, to some extent, justify human slavery, as practised in this country. The object of the following chapters is to controvert this belief, and to prove that it is false and heretical, as well as dangerous and destructive to human happiness; that this belief is founded entirely on perversions of the true meaning of certain passages in the Scriptures, and is entirely contrary to the spirit of the divine volume, the letter of which condemns the practice with as much severity as it did that of any other crime. The following argument is presented for the calm and prayerful consideration of all Christians, both in the North and in the South. The time has come when (as a learned writer justly remarks*),

*Millennial Harbinger, vol. ii., ¶3, p. 50.

THOUGH plainly and severely as the practice of human slavery is thus condemned in the Scriptures, yet its advocates contend that the same practice is morally justified by them, thus making the word of God contradict itself, by first justifying and then condemning the same practice, at the same time and in the same code of laws!! But I have constantly observed that these advocates never attempt to point out and explain the specific distinction between these two cases, such for instance as those described in Ex. xxi. 2 and 16; the first of which is morally approved and justified because regulated by statute, while the other is morally condemned as one of the greatest crimes under the penalty of sure death. Nor do they ever attempt to settle the specific distinction between the acts described in Lev. xxv. 39, 47, and Deut. xxiv. 7, which are treated in the same manner in the Scriptures. They never tell us wherein the case recorded in Gen. xxvii. 12, 13, 23, 27, buying the services of men for a limited period, differs from that recorded in Gen. xxxvii. 27, 36, xlii. 21, 22, where Joseph was said to be sold or stolen; though it is equally plain that the first was approved, and the last condemned by God himself. They never attempt to reconcile these passages as describing the same subject, nor to point out the specific difference in their subjects, probably on account of the utter confusion in which the attempt would involve them. They never, in fact, mention the last quotations if they can avoid it, but content themselves with naked assertions that the first passages here quoted describe and justify the practice of human slavery. It becomes proper, therefore, to show at some length, that this doctrine of theirs is founded and sustained entirely on perversions of certain passages of the Scriptures, forged by falsifications of their true meaning and intent. Perversions of the Scriptures are a turning (perverto) of their true to a false meaning, and are denounced all over the Scriptures as among the greatest sins that men can commit, as indeed they necessarily must be, because they are attempts to make the Almighty say what He has not said, and to mean what He did not mean, to the destruction of human duty, rights, and happiness. Abolitionists have sometimes been severely censured for the moral severity with which they have condemned the pro-slavery perversions of the Scriptures, but let those who may feel disposed to repeat this censure read the following passages; Ps. cxix. 126; Isa. v., 20; Jer. xviii. 15, xxiii. 36; Eze. v. 6, 8, xiii. 9-16, xxii. 26, 28, xxxiv. 18, 19; Mic. iii. 9; Hab. i. 4; Zep. iii. 4; Mal. ii. 7, 8; Matt. xv. 3, 6, 9; Mark vii. 8; Acts xii. 10, xv. 1, 24; 2 Cor. ii. 17; Gal. i. 7; Col. ii. 8; 1 Pet. i. 18; 2 Pet. ii. 1; iii. 16; Rev. xxii. 18, 19, and numerous other similar passages.

It is proper here to add for the sake of perspicuity, that all the doctrines of the Scriptures are properly divisible into two kinds, namely: first, those which are matters of faith or belief only, and secondly, those that are matters of faith and practice both; the former being so indistinctly and obscurely revealed, that we may without any perversion or sin, honestly and innocently differ in opinion as to their true meaning, because we never can attain to absolute certainty with respect to many of their particulars; while the latter are so distinctly and clearly revealed, as the rules of our practice or practical duty, that there can be no honest or innocent difference of opinion respecting them. Of the former kind are the doctrines of the Creation, the fall of man, the Nature of Christ, the nature of Inspiration, the nature of the future state, &c. while of the latter kind are the rules of the Decalogue, the New Birth, the Law of Love, the Golden Rule, and all other practical precepts of the Scriptures. The same distinction is made among the rules composing the great Law of Nature, though it is less obvious than the former. It is everywhere contended by the friends of the slave, that the Bible doctrines in relation to human slavery and its abolition belong entirely to the latter class, being so plainly and perspicuously revealed in the Scriptures, as to admit of no honest difference of opinion respecting them. They assert that any essential difference from their own opinions on those plain subjects, are evidence of rather a perverted heart in their adversaries, than of the incorrectness of those opinions. It is hoped that the following pages will clearly exhibit the truth of this assertion.

THE absurd pro-slavery pretence that the people of Africa descended from Cain, and are included in the curse pronounced upon that murderer, would not be worth noticing were there not some few persons in the world, apparently weak, and stupid, and perverted enough, seriously to imagine its truth, as there is hardly anything in the world too absurd to be without some believers. That these people descended from Adam is certain. But as we find from 1Gen. vii. 23, ix. 18, 19,

1 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.—Gen. vii. 23; ix. 18, 19.

GREAT numbers of pro-slavery people contend that the negroes have descended from Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, who was cursed for his father's transgression, 1Gen. ix. 25-27,

1 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.—Gen. ix. 25-27.

As in the investigation which is to follow, it will be necessary, in order to avoid perversion and ascertain the truth, to put different constructions on certain words and phrases, such as the subject matter and the context will clearly direct and require, it is proper here to specify certain rules of critical construction, which have been long since approved and universally adopted by critical commentators.

I. That the letter of a statute or other law be so construed, whenever it has different meanings in different uses and connections, as to harmonize with the spirit or general and collective meaning of the whole connection to which it belongs.

II. Where a double or different construction of the letter is admissible, that shall always be preferred which is most consistent with natural liberty, justice and righteousness, provided the general spirit of the law permit such construction.

MULTITUDES of pro-slavery advocates contend, that because the words “buy” and “sell” are used in describing some of the customary legal Hebrew servitudes, the latter must necessarily have been slavish, and such seems to be the general belief or impression even among preachers of the gospel and professors of religion. But this proposition must as a certain and infallible rule necessarily be false, because the same words are oftener used in the Scriptures to describe free and voluntary service, than they are to describe slavish service or slavery. Thus, in such passages as Gen. xxxvii. 27, 28, 36; Ex. xxi. 16; Deut. xxiv. 7, &c., they are undoubtedly used to describe the condition of slavery, while in Gen. xlvii. 19-23; 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25; 2 Kings xvii. 17; Isa. l. 1, lii. 3; Acts xx. 28; Rom. vii. 14; 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23; 2 Pet. ii. 1, &c., the same words are just as certainly used to describe free and voluntary service, as their context clearly proves, and as is universally admitted among Bible commentators and critics. So sensible are the advocates of slavery of the truth of these propositions, that they never dare to compare such cases as those contained in Gen. xxxvii. and xlvii., in Ex. xxi. 2-16, and Deut. xv. 12, and xxiv. 7; because if they admit a difference between them, that difference can only be the same as between free service and slavery, which contradicts and ruins the whole theory of Bible slavery; while if they assert the identity of the practices described, the ready inquiry instantly occurs, why did God, who never does anything in vain, regulate and thereby approve and sanction a practice in the passages first quoted, but condemn it in those last quoted under the penalty of death? This inquiry is so distressing to the advocates of slavery that they always avoid it if possible by neglecting and refusing to notice such passages as Gen. xxxvii. 27, 28, 36; Ex. xxi. 16; Deut. xxiv. 7; 1 Tim. i. 9, 10, and other passages which describe and condemn such slavery as one of the greatest crimes or violations of the moral law; but simply content themselves with obstinately asserting, that the passages describing the Patriarchal and Hebrew servitudes where these words “buy” and “sell” are used, describe slavery and nothing else.

But from the foregoing clear premises we discover, that from the mere scriptural use of these words alone in describing the condition of servitude or service, nothing can certainly be determined respecting its real nature, which, as in every similar case of critical doubt and construction, is to be ascertained, determined, and understood, by the subject matter, by the context, and by the general description or spirit of each passage, all taken in connection with the letter or language thereof. Such, when we are honest, is always our customary mode of examination or reasoning. Thus no person supposes from the description given in 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25, that Ahab was a slave or article of personal property, because we see from the context of his life, actions, and character recorded in the same and other books, that he was a king and absolute monarch. So no person supposes from the description in such passages as Acts xx. 28; Rom. vii. 14; 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23; 2 Pet. ii. 1, that Paul and his converts were property or slaves, because the context describes them as free and voluntary servants of Christ. In a similar manner, though slaveholders customarily call their slaves their “servants,” yet we know them to be slaves from the circumstances in which the word is used. On the contrary, in England and other free countries, we know the persons customarily called “servants” are not property or slaves, from the circumstances attending the customary use of the same word. It will no doubt be said in reply to these observations, that these words are employed in the passages here quoted in a typical or figurative sense merely, and do not in that sense mean slavish service or slavery. THIS PROPOSITION IS TRUE. In the passages under consideration these words are used in a typical or figurative sense, as descriptive of free and voluntary service only. But the important inquiry immediately arises, where are the types or figures from which these free descriptions are copied to be found? For it should be specially noticed and remembered, that these types must have existed before the descriptions did, and been free also, because a free description can no more be taken from a slave type, than a slavish description can from a free type—every typical description in the Scriptures corresponds in its nature with its type. I answer, that the types or figures here sought after are these same Patriarchal and Hebrew servitudes, the nature of which is so much controverted, because all the types referred to in the New Testament are contained in the Levitical law and the lives of the Patriarchs, and nowhere else, and no other types suited to these descriptions except servitudes are to be found in either. But as these descriptions are all free, so these typical servitudes from which they are copied must have been free also. According to the descriptive testimony of the New Testament, therefore, all those servitudes were free and voluntary, and both Testaments thus far completely harmonized.

Nothing in this plain and decisive testimony ought to surprise us as strange or uncommon, because we ourselves, in common with the people of most other modern nations, customarily and familiarly use the same words “buy” and “sell” to describe free and voluntary service. Thus, we customarily say with respect to town or parish paupers, that they are “to be sold.” We always customarily mean thereby, that their support and maintenance are to be sold to the lowest bidder. So we say figuratively from custom respecting poor foreign immigrants, that they are “sold,” or that they “sell themselves” to pay for their passages. We always customarily and really mean by these expressions that they agree beforehand to let themselves out to labor after their arrival, in payment of the money advanced by their employers to pay for their passage; it being especially to be noticed in this connection and remembered by the reader, that the immigrants in this case receive the pay for the labor before the same is to be performed. With a similar meaning we customarily say of venal politicians, that they “sell themselves,” and are “bought” or “purchased” by their employers or patrons—nobody being in the least deceived in any of these cases by the use of this phraseology, into a false belief that slavish service was intended by it, or that the kinds of service described were not entirely free and voluntary. So where people are deceived and their interests betrayed by their representatives or public confidential agents, the same kind of phraseology is sometimes employed the more forcibly to express the baseness of the supposed treachery, or the greatness of the injury sustained. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was “bought” by British gold, and that Williams, Paulding and Van Wart could not be bought by Major André. When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip thus hits off the indecency: “The cotton bags bought him.” Sir Robert Walpole said, “every man has his price, and whoever will pay it, can buy him,” and John Randolph said, “The Northern delegation is in the market; give me money enough and I can buy them.” The temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey. The same, or corresponding words and phrases, are employed for various purposes in other parts of the Scriptures, but generally to describe certain other free and voluntary customs of the ancient oriental nations. See Gen. xxix. 15-29, xxxiv. 11, 12; Ex. xx. 7, 11, xxii. 17, xxxiv. 20; Lev. xxvii. 2-8; Numb. xviii. 15, 16; Deut. xxii. 28, 29; Judg. i. 12, 13, ii. 14, iii. 8, iv. 2; Ruth iv. 10; 1 Sam. xviii. 25, 27; Hosea iii. 2, &c. I shall hereafter have occasion to remark upon the nature of the ancient Hebrew free custom, of buying and “selling” Hebrew wives, wards, and children.

FROM the premises already stated it clearly appears that TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MODES OR WAYS of buying and selling people, the one free and voluntary, and the other slavish, are plainly described in the Scriptures as having been in customary use among the ancients, just as they now are among the moderns. The real controversy between the Bible advocates of slavery and their opponents then is as follows, namely: Were the ancient Patriarchal and Hebrew servitudes in controversy, slavish or otherwise? Were Abraham's servants, said to have been “bought with his money,” free servants or slaves? Were the Levitical servants who were said to “sell themselves,” and to be bought by their masters, and to be “their money,” free and voluntary servants, or were they slaves and property? These important inquiries form the only material issue now in controversy, and since it has been shown that the mere scriptural employment and use of the foregoing words and phrases proves nothing definite and certain in relation to it, and does nothing towards settling the merits of the controversy, the same must be decided and determined as in other similar cases, by the subject matter of the narrative, by the context, and by the whole general description of the actual condition of those servants, all taken in connection with those words and phrases. Several other subordinate controverted matters will arise for consideration in our progress, such as, Whether the Levitical law justified any form or degree of human oppression? Whether the Holy Prophets did the same? Whether Christ and his Apostles connived at and sanctioned heathen Greek and Roman slavery? &c. But the principal true material issue attending the whole controversy is that above stated.

PREPARATORY to the further investigation of this important subject, it is proper for the reader to understand and become skilled in the use of what I call the Key to the Inquiry, which said “Key” consists in the critical examination and comparison of several passages in the Scriptures, in which the foregoing words and phrases are used to describe two different kinds of human service, a few specimens of which are as follows. The first specimen is the comparison of Gen. xvii. 12, 13, 23, 27, with Acts xx. 28; 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23. In each of these cases the servants are said to have been “bought,” or “purchased” (and of course were “sold”)—in the first case “with money,” and in the other “with blood,” and “with a price.” By any rule of critical reasoning or construction whatever, if the mere use of those words and phrases alone is to decide that Abraham and the other Patriarchs were slaveholders, then the same use decides that Christ and his Apostles were slaveholders also, owning and treating their own converts as property or slaves, and possessing the equal character and qualities of slaveholders both ancient and modern, as much as Abraham and the other Patriarchs can be supposed to have done. Thus if it be argued that property is commonly “bought” with property, and that “money” is property, so also is “blood” and “a price,” property in common estimation, as much so as money is. But the supposition or notion of our Saviour and his Apostles being slaveholders, and their converts being their slaves, is too absurd and wicked for intelligent belief. This specimen is therefore a comparison of free service with free service, which is so much plainer as the one kind was the type of the other.

The second specimen is the critical comparison of the case recorded in Gen. xxxvii. 28, 36, with that recorded in Gen. xlvii. 19, 26, as follows:

From the human sale recorded in Gen. xxxvii., we learn the following particulars.

1st. That the person sold (Joseph) was thus treated without his consent and against his will.

2d. That he was no party to the bargain or contract by which he was sold, any more than a beast or other article of property is.

3d. That he received no part of the price, consideration or compensation (twenty pieces of silver), for which he was sold, any more than a beast or other article of property does.

4th. That the effect of the sale was to convert him into an article of property, as suitable for subsequent traffic and merchandise in, as beasts and other kinds of property are.

5th. That according to Gen. xlii. 21, 22, this transaction is represented to have been so great a crime or sin, as to be deserving of death by the laws of nature.

From the human sale recorded in Gen. xlvii., we learn,

1st. That the persons sold (the Egyptians) were thus treated at their own earnest request.

2d. That they “sold themselves,” and alone made the whole contract with the purchaser.

3d. That they themselves received the whole of the price, consideration or compensation (support during the years of famine) given on the contract for their sale.

4th. That the effect of the whole transaction was to render them tenants at a very reasonable rent, but otherwise to leave them just as free in all other respects as they were before.

5th. That according to the Scripture account of it, the whole transaction was perfectly moral and virtuous in its own nature, and just as free and equal as common leasing and hiring now are.

Here then are two scriptural accounts in the same book, of two different purchases and sales of human beings, both entirely opposite to each other in their moral and political nature, effects and consequences. In the first case, the word “sold” is used, and “bought” understood, because there cannot be a sale without a purchase. While in the second, the word “bought” is used, and “sold” understood, because there cannot be a purchase without a “sale.” This specimen then is a comparison of a slave sale, with a voluntary sale of free service. The critical reader will also remark that in the latter case quoted from Gen. xlvii., the Egyptians who “sold themselves” received their pay before their services were to commence or be rendered, just as poor foreigners said to be “sold to pay their passage” receive it now; whereas the “hired servants” mentioned in the Levitical law did not receive their pay until after their work was performed, as most hirelings now do, which is the only material distinction made in the Scriptures between bought and hired servants, both kinds being in all other respects equally free, voluntary and privileged. We make the same necessary inference respecting the payment of the ancient “bought” Hebrew servants, from the descriptions contained in such passages as Lev. xxvi. 49; Neh. v. 5, &c. We also infer that these bought servants might freely hold property of their own, a right wholly incompatible with the condition of slavery. From Lev. xxv. 47; Neh. v. 8, &c., we also learn that this free custom of purchasing servants of themselves in payment of previous debts contracted by them, was general throughout the ancient oriental countries.

The last specimen I shall offer is the critical comparison of Ex. xxi. 16, and Deut. xxiv. 7, with 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25; 2 Kings xvii. 17; Isa. l. 1, lii. 3; Rom. vii. 14; 2 Pet. ii. 1-3, &c., by which, from the light furnished by the comparison just made, similar inferences will be easily and readily drawn; the same being also a comparison of slave kidnapping, and slave selling and holding, with free and voluntary service figuratively described. From the descriptions in the passages quoted it is certain, that neither King Ahab, nor the Jews, nor the Apostles Paul and Peter, and their converts therein mentioned, could have been property or slaves, in any respect or sense whatever. See John viii. 33; Gal. iv. 1. It is proper for the sake of perspicuity again to repeat the remark that the only important scriptural distinction made between bought and sold servants, and hired servants, is as follows: namely, when their wages or pay were advanced to them beforehand, they were said to “sell themselves” and to be “bought” by their creditors or employers to repay the same, as the examples already quoted clearly prove. But where the wages or pay were not to be received till the labor was performed, the Hebrew servants were said to be “hired,” as we see in Deut. xxiv. 15, and many similar passages.

But excepting this one mere nominal distinction, and that of the heritable disability of foreign servants, to be noticed hereafter, not another can be found in the Scriptures, in the equal rights and privileges of these two classes, of Hebrew and other ancient oriental servants.

From the strong light furnished by the copious premises already stated, the remainder of our task will be comparatively easy. The Hebrew word Quanah so frequently rendered “buy” in the common English translation of the Old Testament, is literally rendered “gotten” in Gen. xii. 5, as it should be in some other passages where it is rendered “buy.” The word literally means to get, gain, acquire, procure, obtain, possess; but it is more frequently used in the Scriptures than the word Kaurau, which literally means to buy or purchase. From the phrase “souls that they had gotten,” which occurs in this passage, the advocates of slavery infer that Abraham's servants were slaves. But I agree in opinion with Mr. Dickey, that these “souls” were the converts which Abraham had made to the true religion—especially as this construction harmonizes with Abraham's history and character— and with the spirit of the Scriptures. From the expression used in Gen. xvii. 12, 13, 23, 27, the same pro-slavery inference is customarily drawn. But as we have seen that the scriptural use of these words and phrases does not necessarily describe the condition of slavery, we are obliged to resort to the context to discover the real condition of Abraham's servants. The amount of the evidence thus furnished is small, and entirely circumstantial, but that little is very strong. From these same verses it appears that the same religious rights and privileges were secured to Abraham's servants, that belonged to him and his own children; a strong analogical proof that they shared all other rights, because real slaves have no rights whatever, and it is not likely that these servants would be allowed some rights equally with children, but be denied all others.

From Gen. xx. 7, we learn that Abraham was a prophet. From Gen. xii. 7, 8, xiii. 4, and other passages, that he was a priest— and from Gen. xxiii. 6, that he was a “mighty prince,” or king—he being in each of these three offices the type of Christ,— From Gen. xiii. 2, xxiv. 35, and other passages, that he was very wealthy and powerful. From such passages as Gen. xiv. 22, 23, xviii. 18, 19, &c., we learn, that he was equally remarkable for natural honesty, justice, equity and righteousness.

It also appears from Gen. xii. 1-37, xv. 1-18, xvii. 1-22, xviii. 1, 13, 17, &c., that he had frequent visions from God, that the greatest Divine promises were made to him and his posterity, and that he enjoyed more of the Divine favor than any other person of his time. What probability is there that such a character as this would have been guilty of a practice afterwards condemned in the Scriptures under the penalty of death, both by the laws of Nature and Revelation? Not the slightest whatever. Were it not for the wickedness involved in it, nothing can be conceived more ludicrously amusing, than the notion of Father Abraham buying and selling slaves, feeding them on a peck of corn a week, selling fathers from their children, husbands from their wives, or exhibiting conduct in an other respect resembling that of our modern professed Christian slaveholders. It would be just as absurd and unreasonable to suppose that Christ and his Apostles were guilty of such conduct, as that Abraham was, the wickedness being no greater in the one case than in the other. What is there recorded in the lives and characters of the other patriarchs, that could induce us to suspect that they might have been slaveholders?

From the information given in Gen. vi. 5-13, it is highly probable that the antediluvians were destroyed for the crime of slavish violence among other sins. But there is no probability that Noah, who with his family alone were saved on account of his justice and righteousness (see Gen. vi. 8, 9, vii. 1, &c.), would afterwards have been guilty of the same sinful practice that destroyed the rest. Nor is there any probability that such righteous persons as Isaac, and Jacob, and the other patriarchs are described to have been, would have been customarily guilty of a practice so utterly repugnant to the Law of Nature as human slavery is. As that practice is described in the Scriptures, Gen. xlii. 21, 22, as being utterly condemned by that great law, there cannot be the slightest reason to suppose that any of the patriarchs adopted it—for God certainly would never have selected as the chosen depositories of the true religion, persons who were in the habit of violating it without scruple or remorse, especially in acts that were afterwards condemned by express revelation to be punished with death; for slavery is as great and as plain a crime against natural as revealed religion, as the last argument, or subjection to the condition of slavery, will immediately convince the most inveterate friend of human slavery. It should be remembered, however, that as the patriarchs lived under the dim and uncertain light of the Law of Nature, they like Joseph's brethren occasionally fell into great errors and sins, of which from the bad consequences they had frequent occasions for repentance, whether they improved them or not—so that even if under this dim light they had committed the sin of slavish oppression, their conduct in that respect would have been no more moral example or justification of our own, than that of Joseph's brethren in selling him was.

A pro-slavery quibble has been raised from the descriptions contained in such passages as Gen. xiii. 2, 24, xxxv. 30, 43, &c., that Abraham's servants must have been slaves, because they are mentioned in connection with beasts and other property. But if this mode of reasoning be correct, then according to Gen. xii. 5, Abraham's wife Sarah, and Lot his nephew, must have been his slaves also. So according to Ex. xx. 17, and v. 21, all wives must have been slaves or property. Nay, further, from the words in the command, “nor anything that is thy neighbor's,” it appears that all the husbands, parents, children, and other relations, comprising in fact the whole Israelitish nation, must have been slaves! But under such strange circumstances the material inquiry instantly occurs, where did they all find masters? So according to the same logic we see from Job i. 3, 4; xlii. 12, 13, that Job's wife and children must have been his slaves. Our common law must also render all servants under its jurisdiction slaves, because it gives precisely the same remedies to masters for injuries done to their servants, that it does to their beasts and other property. So where a nation acquires new territory by treaty or otherwise, it must by the law of nations sustain the same relation to the inhabitants of the territory, that it does to the territory itself, and as the latter is property the former must be property also. But enough of these absurd consequences in reply to nonsense. The pro-slavery mistake is made by confounding the relations of persons with those of things, merely because the latter happen to be mentioned in connection with the former, while it always appears from the whole context, describing the condition of the ancient Hebrew servants, that by the gift or transfer of persons and property in the same transaction, the opposite relations previously existing between them and the donors were not altered as between them and the donors. This case finely illustrates the sophistry which relates a part of a narrative or story only, the effect of which is often the same as telling a fasehood—as by means of it we are able to prove from the Scriptures themselves, that there is no God. See Ps. xiv. 1; liii. 1, &c.

It is not to be supposed that after the lapse of so many thousand years, we can now fully understand the exact nature of the customary ancient Hebrew servitudes which in some way were so different from our own. Nor is it to be expected that we can now fully understand the exact intended application of all the short political as well as moral statutes in the Levitical Law. Like other very ancient writings, much obscurity must rest and remain on most of them. They were evidently intended to regulate and restrain the ancient legal customs which then prevailed among the Israelites, probably in common with all the other ancient oriental nations—these statutes holding a similar relation to those customs, that our modern national and state constitutions do to our other laws and customs—while a critical examination of the same statutes shows that the spirit if not the letter of them is just as useful now as it ever was, to regulate, and restrain, and guide all human legislation—no other laws now existing being so perfectly adapted to secure the temporal as well as spiritual happiness of mankind as those contained in the ancient Levitical code.

It appears from the statute in Ex. xii. 43, 45, that though servants “bought for money” could eat the passover after they had been circumcised, yet neither strangers nor foreigners, nor hired servants were permitted to eat it, so that since these bought servants were allowed a greater privilege than hired servants and strangers were, we may safely conclude without further comment, that this was a case of the free and voluntary sale of such servants by themselves. We see from the 48th and 49th verses of the same chapter, that no legal distinctions were made by the Levitical law, between the rights of strangers and native Israelites, as they were to be governed by the same laws, and the phrase “he shall be as one born in the land,” also proving that after circumcision these adopted foreigners were as much “brethren” and “children of Israel” as the native Jews were—a rule well worthy of the consideration of those who are in favor of disfranchising foreigners. It should be further remarked that under one single code of laws intended to govern all the individuals in a nation, it is impossible to make any distinction in the natural rights of those individuals, or any of them. As Dr. Duncan*

*In a work of 136 pages by the Rev. James Duncan, the father of the Hon. Alexander Duncan, Member of Congress from Cincinnati, first published at Vevay, Ia., 1824, and republished by the American Anti-slavery society, 1840.

Lev. xxv. 39-43, and 47-54, are other Levitical statutes regulating the voluntary sales of free Hebrew servants, made for the payment of their debts previously contracted, as is evident from the statutes themselves, and as has been sufficiently illustrated and explained. This fact appears very plainly from the latter statute, and from the 25th to the 32d verses of the same chapter, where the redemption provided for would be impossible and absurd, were they not for the payment of such debts; for it is certain that the servants “sold themselves,” which they could not have done without payment, which they must have received at or before the time of their sales, for otherwise they would have nothing to redeem themselves for or from after sale. It also appears from these “redemptions” that these “sold” and “bought” servants must have been in debt to or owed their masters, which they could not have done had they been slaves, any more than beasts or other lawful property could. They were therefore all free and voluntary servants. We see also from these statutes that foreigners settled in the nation had the same customary right to purchase native servants, that the native Israelites themselves had. But in the latter case the servants might be redeemed at any time by the payment of the debts they had sold themselves for, and as (v. 49) the servants might if they were able redeem themselves, this very fact also proves that they could not be property or slaves, because no slave has a right to property, and can acquire none but what belongs to his master. The same statutes taken in connection with the 10th and 13th verses of the chapter also prove, that the contract for these voluntary sales could last only till the next Jublilee, when all poor servants were not only discharged from such contracts, but the native servants were restored to the possession of their paternal inheritance or estates.

A multitude of laws have been contrived in the world, to prevent the suffering and oppression of the poor and the helpless, but the whole of them put together are but trifles for that purpose, when compared with the statutes embodied in the Levitical law, and especially those contained in Leviticus xxv., for it was impossible for much oppression of the poor to exist where these regulations were faithfully observed, it being only where they were disregarded and violated that such oppression was ever complained of among the Jews, see Neh. v. 1-13; Jer. xxxiv. 8, 22, &c. Multitudes of persons, including many professed preachers of the gospel, seriously contend that the Scriptures do not teach politics or political matters at all. But the single statute in Lev. xxv. 8-15, providing for the great institution of the Jubilee, had a more extensive and abiding political effect, and produced more extensive political as well as moral consequences, than the whole of the political measures heretofore made the objects of party strife in the United States put together. The statutes under consideration and others of a similar character interspersed throughout the Levitical law (see Ex. xxii. 21-27, xxiii. 9; Lev. xix. 33, 34, xxv. 35-37; Deut. xv. 7, 11, &c.), also exhibit the extreme care and tenderness manifested in that law, for the support and protection of the poor, and needy, and helpless, and especially for po