I observe that Professor Hodge agrees with you, that if slavery is sin,
it would have been specifically attacked by the Apostles at any hazard
to their lives. This is his conclusion, because they did not hesitate to
specify and rebuke idolatry. Here is another of the Professor's
sophisms. The fact, that the Apostles preached against idolatry, is no
reason at all why, if slavery is sin, they would have preached against
that also. On the one hand, it is not conceivable that the gospel can be
preached where there is idolatry, without attacking it: for, in setting
forth the true God to idolaters, the preacher must denounce their false
gods. On the other hand, gospel sermons can be preached without number,
and the true God presented, not only in a nation of idolaters, but
elsewhere, without one allusion being made to such crying sins as
slavery, lewdness, and intemperance.
In the same connexion, Professor Hodge makes the remark "We do not
expect them (our missionaries) to refrain from denouncing the
institutions of the heathen as sinful, because they are popular, or
intimately interwoven with society.
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