The book of Acts sets forth the fundamental doctrines and
requirements of Christianity. It is to the letters of the Apostles we
are to look for extended specifications of right and wrong affections,
and right and wrong practices. Why do these letters omit to specify the
sin of slaveholding? Because they were addressed to professing
Christians exclusively; who, far more emphatically then than now, were
"the base things of the world," and were in circumstances to be slaves,
rather than slaveholders. Doubtless, there were many slaves amongst
them--but I cannot admit, that there were slaveholders. There is not the
least probability, that slaveholding was a prevalent sin amongst
primitive Christians[B]. Instructions to them on that sin might have
been almost as superfluous, as would be lectures on the sin of luxury,
addressed to the poor Greenland disciples, whose poverty compels them to
subsist on filthy oil. No one, acquainted with the history of their
lives, believes that the Apostles were slave-holders. They labored,
"working with (their) own hands." The supposition, that they were
slaveholders, is inconsistent with their practice, and with the tenor of
their instructions to others on the duty of manual labor.
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