It is conceded by Dr. Wayland, that the Scriptures do not directly
forbid or condemn slavery. In search of a path over this morass of
difficulty, he says that the Scripture goes upon the “fair ground of
teaching moral principles” “directly subversive of the principles of
slavery;” and quotes the golden rule in proof; and thus comes to the
conclusion that, “if the gospel be diametrically opposed to the
_principle_ of slavery, it must be opposed to the _practice_ of
slavery.” In excuse for this mode being pursued by the Author of our
religion, he says—
P. 212. “In this manner alone could its object, a universal moral
revolution, have been accomplished. For, if it had forbidden the _evil_,
instead of subverting the _principle_,—if it had proclaimed the
unlawfulness of slavery and taught slaves to _resist_ the oppression of
their masters,—it would instantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly
hostility, through the civilized world; its announcement would have been
the signal of servile war; and the very name of the Christian religion
would have been forgotten amidst the agitations of universal bloodshed.”
We have heretofore attempted to show that this doctrine is extremely
gross error;—its very assertion goes to the extinction, the denial of
the divinity of Jesus Christ and his religion. And we deeply lament that
this was not one of the errors of Paley which Dr. Wayland has seen fit
to expunge from his book. (_See his Preface._)
Paley says, third book, part ii. chap. 3—“Slavery was a part of the
civil constitution of most countries, when Christianity first appeared;
yet no passage is to be found in the Christian Scriptures by which it is
condemned or prohibited. This is true, for Christianity, soliciting
admission into all nations of the world, abstained, as behooved it, from
intermeddling with the civil institutions of any. But does it follow,
from the silence of Scripture concerning them, that all the civil
institutions which then prevailed were right? Or that the bad should not
be exchanged for better?”
“Besides this, the discharging the slaves from all obligation to obey
their masters, which is the consequence of pronouncing slavery to be
unlawful, would have had no better effect than to let loose one half of
mankind upon the other. Slaves would have been tempted to embrace a
religion which asserted their right to freedom; masters would hardly
have been persuaded to consent to claims founded on such authority; the
most calamitous of all contests, a _bellum servile_, might probably have
ensued, to the reproach, if not the extinction, of the Christian name.”
In these thoughtless remarks of Paley, abolition writers seem to have
found a mine of argument, from which they have dug until they deemed
themselves wealthy.