And there is another point of
view in which vastly more, even their lives, might have been lost, by
the Apostles making the direct and specific attacks referred to. I know
that you ridicule the idea of their consulting their personal safety.
But what right have you to do so? They did, on many occasions, consult
the security of their lives. They never perilled them needlessly, and
through a presumptuous reliance on God. It is the devil, who, in a
garbled quotation from the Scriptures, lays down, in unlimited terms,
the proposition, that God will keep his children. But, God promises them
protection only when they are in their own proper ways. The Saviour
himself consulted the safety of his life, until his "time" had "full
come;" and his command to his Apostles was, "when they persecute you in
this city, flee ye into another." If you suppose me to admit for a
moment, that regard for the safety of their lives ever kept them from
the way of their duty, you are entirely mistaken; and, if you continue
to assert, in the face of my reasoning to the contrary, that on the
supposition of the sinfulness of slavery, their omission to make direct
and specific attacks on it would have been a failure of their duty, then
I can only regret that this reasoning has had no more influence upon
you.
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