IV.

"Whom I have sent back to thee in his own person, that is, my very

heart: whom I would fain have kept with me, that in my behalf he

might minister unto me in the bonds of the gospel: but without thy

mind I would do nothing; that thy goodness should not be as of

necessity, but of free will."--PHILEM. 12-14 (Rev. Ver.).

The characteristic features of the Epistle are all embodied in these

verses. They set forth, in the most striking manner, the relation of

Christianity to slavery and to other social evils. They afford an

exquisite example of the courteous delicacy and tact of the Apostle's

intervention on behalf of Onesimus; and there shine through them, as

through a semi-transparent medium, adumbrations and shimmering hints of

the greatest truths of Christianity.

I. The first point to notice is that decisive step of sending back the

fugitive slave. Not many years ago the conscience of England was stirred

because the Government of the day sent out a circular instructing

captains of men-of-war, on the decks of which fugitive slaves sought

asylum, to restore them to their "owners." Here an Apostle does the same

thing--seems to side with the oppressor, and to drive the oppressed from

the sole refuge left him, the horns of the very altar. More

extraordinary still, here is the fugitive voluntarily going back,

travelling all the weary way from Rome to Colossae in order to put his

neck once more beneath the yoke. Both men were acting from Christian

motives, and thought that they were doing a piece of plain Christian

duty. Then does Christianity sanction slavery? Certainly not; its

principles cut it up by the roots. A gospel, of which the starting-point

is that all men stand on the same level, as loved by the one Lord, and

redeemed by the one cross, can have no place for such an institution. A

religion which attaches the highest importance to man's awful

prerogative of freedom, because it insists on every man's individual

responsibility to God, can keep no terms with a system which turns men

into chattels. Therefore Christianity cannot but regard slavery as sin

against God, and as treason towards man. The principles of the gospel

worked into the conscience of a nation destroy slavery. Historically it

is true that as Christianity has grown slavery has withered. But the New

Testament never directly condemns it, and by regulating the conduct of

Christian masters, and recognising the obligations of Christian slaves,

seems to contemplate its continuance, and to be deaf to the sighing of

the captives.

This attitude was probably not a piece of policy or a matter of

calculated wisdom on the part of the Apostle. He no doubt saw that the

Gospel brought a great unity in which all distinctions were merged, and

rejoiced in thinking that "in Christ Jesus there is neither bond or

free"; but whether he expected the distinction ever to disappear from

actual life is less certain. He may have thought of slavery as he did of

sex, that the fact would remain, while yet "we are all one in Christ

Jesus." It is by no means necessary to suppose that the Apostles saw

the full bearing of the truths they had to preach, in their relation to

social conditions. They were inspired to give the Church the principles.

It remained for future ages, under Divine guidance, to apprehend the

destructive and formative range of these principles.

However this may be, the attitude of the New Testament to slavery is the

same as to other unchristian institutions. It brings the leaven, and

lets it work. That attitude is determined by three great principles.

First, the message of Christianity is primarily to individuals, and only

secondarily to society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced to

influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual and moral sentiment,

and only afterwards and consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it

hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened conscience. So it

meddles directly with no political or social arrangements, but lays down

principles which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them to soak

into the general mind. If an evil needs force for its removal, it is not

ready for removal. If it has to be pulled up by violence, a bit of the

root will certainly be left and will grow again. When a dandelion head

is ripe, a child's breath can detach the winged seeds; but until it is,

no tempest can move them. The method of violence is noisy and wasteful,

like the winter torrents that cover acres of good ground with mud and

rocks, and are past in a day. The only true way is, by slow degrees to

create a state of feeling which shall instinctively abhor and cast off

the evil. Then there will be no hubbub and no waste, and the thing once

done will be done for ever.

So has it been with slavery; so will it be with war, and intemperance,

and impurity, and the miserable anomalies of our present civilization.

It has taken eighteen hundred years for the whole Church to learn the

inconsistency of Christianity with slavery. We are no quicker learners

than the past generations were. God is patient, and does not seek to

hurry the march of His purposes. We have to be imitators of God, and

shun the "raw haste" which is "half-sister to delay."

But patience is not passivity. It is a Christian's duty to "hasten the

day of the Lord," and to take part in the educational process which

Christ is carrying on through the ages, by submitting himself to it in

the first place, and then by endeavouring to bring others under its

influence. His place should be in the van of all social progress. It

does not become Christ's servants to be content with the attainments of

any past or present, in the matter of the organization of society on

Christian principles. "God has more light to break forth from His word."

Coming centuries will look back on the obtuseness of the moral

perceptions of nineteenth century Christians in regard to matters of

Christian duty which, hidden from us, are sun-clear to them, with the

same half-amused, half-tragic wonder with which we look back to Jamaica

planters or South Carolina rice growers, who defended slavery as a

missionary institution, and saw no contradiction between their religion

and their practice. We have to stretch our charity to believe in these

men's sincere religion. Succeeding ages will have to make the same

allowance for us, and will need it for themselves from their successors.

The main thing is, for us to try to keep our spirits open to all the

incidence of the gospel on social and civic life, and to see that we are

on the right side, and trying to help on the approach of that kingdom

which does "not cry, nor lift up, nor cause its voice to be heard in the

streets," but has its coming "prepared as the morning," that swims up,

silent and slow, and flushes the heaven with an unsetting light.

II. The next point in these verses is Paul's loving identification of

himself with Onesimus.

The A.V. here follows another reading from the R.V.; the former has

"thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels." The additional

words are unquestionably inserted without authority in order to patch a

broken construction. The R.V. cuts the knot in a different fashion by

putting the abrupt words, "himself that is, my very own heart," under

the government of the preceding verb. But it seems more probable that

the Apostle began a new sentence with them, which he meant to have

finished as the A.V. does for him, but which, in fact, got hopelessly

upset in the swift rush of his thoughts, and does not right itself

grammatically till the "receive him" of _v._ 17.

In any case the main thing to observe is the affectionate plea which he

puts in for the cordial reception of Onesimus. Of course "mine own

bowels" is simply the Hebrew way of saying "mine own heart." We think

the one phrase graceful and sentimental, and the other coarse. A Jew did

not think so, and it might be difficult to say why he should. It is a

mere question of difference in localizing certain emotions. Onesimus was

a piece of Paul's very heart, part of himself; the unprofitable slave

had wound himself round his affections, and become so dear that to part

with him was like cutting his heart out of his bosom. Perhaps some of

the virtues, which the servile condition helps to develop in undue

proportion, such as docility, lightheartedness, serviceableness, had

made him a soothing and helpful companion. What a plea that would be

with one who loved Paul as well as Philemon did! He could not receive

harshly one whom the Apostle had so honoured with his love. "Take care

of him, be kind to him as if it were to me."

Such language from an Apostle about a slave would do more to destroy

slavery than any violence would do. Love leaps the barrier, and it

ceases to separate. So these simple, heart-felt words are an instance of

one method by which Christianity wars against all social wrongs, by

casting its caressing arm around the outcast, and showing that the

abject and oppressed are objects of its special love.

They teach too how interceding love makes its object part of its very

self; the same thought recurs still more distinctly in _v._ 17, "Receive

him as myself." It is the natural language of love; some of the deepest

and most blessed Christian truths are but the carrying out of that

identification to its fullest extent. We are all Christ's Onesimuses,

and He, out of His pure love, makes Himself one with us, and us one with

Him. The union of Christ with all who trust in Him, no doubt,

presupposes His Divine nature, but still there is a human side to it,

and it is the result of His perfect love. All love delights to fuse

itself with its object, and as far as may be to abolish the distinction

of "I" and "thou." But human love can travel but a little way on that

road; Christ's goes much farther. He that pleads for some poor creature

feels that the kindness is done to himself when the former is helped or

pardoned. Imperfectly but really these words shadow forth the great fact

of Christ's intercession for us sinners, and our acceptance in Him. We

need no better symbol of the stooping love of Christ, Who identifies

Himself with His brethren, and of our wondrous identification with Him,

our High Priest and Intercessor, than this picture of the Apostle

pleading for the runaway and bespeaking a welcome for him as part of

himself. When Paul says, "Receive him, that is, my very heart," his

words remind us of the yet more blessed ones, which reveal a deeper love

and more marvellous condescension, "He that receiveth you receiveth Me,"

and may reverently be taken as a faint shadow of that prevailing

intercession, through which he that is joined to the Lord and is one

spirit with Him, is received of God as part of Christ's mystical body,

bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh.

III. Next comes the expression of a half-formed purpose which was put

aside for a reason to be immediately stated. "Whom I would fain have

kept with me"; the tense of the verb indicating the incompleteness of

the desire. The very statement of it is turned into a graceful

expression of Paul's confidence in Philemon's goodwill to him, by the

addition of that "on thy behalf." He is sure that, if his friend had

been beside him, he would have been glad to lend him his servant, and so

he would have liked to have had Onesimus as a kind of representative of

the service which he knows would have been so willingly rendered. The

purpose for which he would have liked to keep him is defined as being,

"that he might minister to me in the bonds of the Gospel." If the last

words be connected with "me," they suggest a tender reason why Paul

should be ministered to, as suffering for Christ, their common Master,

and for the truth, their common possession. If, as is perhaps less

probable, they be connected with "minister," they describe the sphere in

which the service is to be rendered. Either the master or the slave

would be bound by the obligations which the Gospel laid on them to serve

Paul. Both were his converts, and therefore knit to him by a welcome

chain, which made service a delight.

There is no need to enlarge on the winning courtesy of these words, so

full of happy confidence in the friend's disposition, that they could

not but evoke the love to which they trusted so completely. Nor need I

do more than point their force for the purpose of the whole letter, the

procuring a cordial reception for the returning fugitive. So dear had he

become, that Paul would like to have kept him. He goes back with a kind

of halo round him, now that he is not only a good-for-nothing runaway,

but Paul's friend, and so much prized by him. It would be impossible to

do anything but welcome him, bringing such credentials; and yet all this

is done with scarcely a word of direct praise, which might have provoked

contradiction. One does not know whether the confidence in Onesimus or

in Philemon is the dominant note in the harmony. In the preceding

clause, he was spoken of as, in some sense, part of the Apostle's very

self. In this, he is regarded as, in some sense, part of Philemon. So he

is a link between them. Paul would have taken his service as if it had

been his master's. Can the master fail to take him as if he were Paul?

IV. The last topic in these verses is the decision which arrested the

half-formed wish. "I was _wishing_ indeed, but I _willed_ otherwise."

The language is exact. There is a universe between "I wished" and "I

willed." Many a good wish remains fruitless, because it never passes

into the stage of firm resolve. Many who wish to be better will to be

bad. One strong "I will" can paralyse a million wishes.

The Apostle's final determination was, to do nothing without Philemon's

cognisance and consent. The reason for the decision is at once a very

triumph of persuasiveness, which would be ingenious if it were not so

spontaneous, and an adumbration of the very spirit of Christ's appeal

for service to us. "That thy benefit"--the good done to me by him, which

would in my eyes be done by you--"should not be as of necessity, but

willingly." That "as" is a delicate addition. He will not think that the

benefit would really have been by constraint, but it might have looked

as if it were.

Do not these words go much deeper than this small matter? And did not

Paul learn the spirit that suggested them from his own experience of how

Christ treated him? The principle underlying them is, that where the

bond is love, compulsion takes the sweetness and goodness out of even

sweet and good things. Freedom is essential to virtue. If a man "could

not help it" there is neither praise nor blame due. That freedom

Christianity honours and respects. So in reference to the offer of the

gospel blessings, men are not forced to accept them but appealed to,

and can turn deaf ears to the pleading voice, "Why will ye die?" Sorrows

and sins and miseries without end continue, and the gospel is rejected,

and lives of wretched godlessness are lived, and a dark future pulled

down on the rejecters' heads--and all because God knows that these

things are better than that men should be forced into goodness, which

indeed would cease to be goodness if they were. For nothing is good but

the free turning of the will to goodness, and nothing bad but its

aversion therefrom.

The same solemn regard for the freedom of the individual and low

estimate of the worth of constrained service influence the whole aspect

of Christian ethics. Christ wants no pressed men in His army. The

victorious host of priestly warriors, which the Psalmist saw following

the priest-king in the day of his power, numerous as the dewdrops, and

radiant with reflected beauty as these, were all "willing"--volunteers.

There are no conscripts in the ranks. These words might be said to be

graven over the gates of the kingdom of heaven, "Not as of necessity,

but willingly." In Christian morals, law becomes love, and love, law.

"Must" is not in the Christian vocabulary, except as expressing the

sweet constraint which bows the will of him who loves to harmony, which

is joy, with the will of Him who is loved. Christ takes no offerings

which the giver is not glad to render. Money, influence, service, which

are not offered by a will moved by love, which love, in its turn, is set

in motion by the recognition of the infinite love of Christ in His

sacrifice, are, in His eyes, nought. An earthenware cup with a drop of

cold water in it, freely given out of a glad heart, is richer and more

precious in His sight than golden chalices swimming with wine and melted

pearls, which are laid by constraint on His table. "I delight to do Thy

will" is the foundation of all Christian obedience; and the servant had

caught the very tone of the Lord's voice when he said, "Without thy mind

I will do nothing, that thy benefit should not be, as it were, of

necessity, but willingly."