]
I need not render any more reasons why the Apostles did not specifically
attack slavery; but I will reply to a question, which I am sure will be
upon your lips all the time you are reading those I have rendered. This
question is, "If the Apostles did not make such an attack on slavery,
why may the American abolitionists?" I answer, that the difference
between the course of the abolitionists and of the Apostles, in this
matter, is justified by the difference in their circumstances. Professor
Hodge properly says, that our course should be like theirs, "unless it
can be shown that their circumstances were so different from ours, as to
make the rule of duty different in the two cases." And he as properly
adds, "the obligation to point out and establish this difference rests
upon the abolitionists."
The reasons I have given, why the Apostles did not directly attack
slavery, do not apply to the abolitionists. The arm of civil power does
not restrain us from attacking it. To open our lips against the policy
and institutions of civil government is not certain death. A despotic
government restricted the efforts of the Apostles to do good.
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