And now, for what purpose is your recital of these facts?--not, for its
natural effect of awakening, in your readers, the utmost abhorrence of
slavery:--no--but for the strange purpose (the more strange for being in
the breast of a minister of the gospel) of showing your readers, that
even Greek and Roman slavery was innocent, and agreeable to God's will;
and that, horrid as are the fruits you describe, the tree, which bore
them, needed but to be dug about and pruned--not to be cut down. This
slavery is innocent, you insist, because the New Testament does not
show, that it was specifically condemned by the Apostles. By the same
logic, the races, the games, the dramatic entertainments, and the shows
of gladiators, which abounded in Greece and Rome, were, likewise,
innocent, because the New Testament does not show a specific
condemnation of them by the apostles[A]. But, although the New Testament
does not show such condemnation, does it necessarily follow, that they
were silent, in relation to these sins? Or, because the New Testament
does not specifically condemn Greek and Roman slavery, may we,
therefore, infer, that the Apostles did not specifically condemn it?
Look through the published writings of many of the eminent divines, who
have lived in modern times, and have written and published much for the
instruction of the churches, and you will not find a line in them
against gambling or theatres or the slave-trade;--in some of them, not a
line against the very common sin of drunkenness.
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