Thus, it has pleased God, at an early age of the world, to reveal to the
mind of man this mode of learning his will by the indications of
Providence.
But Mr. Barnes has given us further data, whereby we may be enabled to
examine more deeply into the indications of God’s will touching the
institution of slavery, by reference to his providences concerning it,
growing out of the universality and ancientness of the institution.
Thus, page 112, he says—“That slavery had an existence when Moses
undertook the task of legislating for the Hebrews, there can be no
doubt. We have seen that servitude of some kind prevailed among the
patriarchs; that the traffic in slaves was carried on between the
Midianites and the Egyptians, * * * and that it existed among the
Egyptians. It was undoubtedly practised by all the surrounding nations,
for history does not point us to a time when slavery did not exist. * *
* There is even evidence that slavery was practised by the Hebrews
themselves, when in a state of bondage and that though they were as a
nation ‘bondmen to Pharaoh,’ yet they had servants in their families who
had been ‘bought with money.’ * * * At the very time that the law was
given respecting the observance of the passover, and before the exode
from Egypt, this statute appears among others: ‘This is the ordinance of
the passover: there shall no stranger eat thereof: but every
man-servant, _that is bought for money_, when thou hast circumcised him,
then shall he eat thereof.’ It is clear, from this, that the institution
was always in existence, and that Moses did not originate it.” Again,
page 117: “A Hebrew might be sold to his brethren if he had been
detected in the act of theft, and had no means of making restitution
according to the provisions of the law. _Exod._ xxii. 3. ‘He shall make
full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his
theft.’” “This is in accordance with the common legal maxim, _Luat in
corpore, qui non habet in aere_. The same law prevailed among the
Egyptians, and among the Greeks also till the time of Solon. * * * By
the laws of the twelve tables, the same thing was enacted at Rome. A
native-born Hebrew might be a servant in a single case in virtue of his
birth. If the master had given to a Hebrew, whom he had purchased, a
wife, and she had borne him children; the children were to remain in
servitude.” See _Exod._ xxi. 4. Again, page 250: “It is unnecessary to
enter into proof that slavery abounded in the Roman Empire, or that the
conditions of servitude were very severe and oppressive. This is
conceded on all hands.” And page 251: “Slavery existed generally
throughout the Roman Empire was very great.” * * * Page 252: “Of course,
according to this, the number of slaves could not have been less than
sixty millions in the Roman Empire, at about the time when the apostles
went forth to preach the gospel.” And again, page 253: “The slave-trade
in Africa is as old as history reaches back. Among the ruling nations of
the north coast, the Egyptians, Cyrenians, and Carthaginians, slavery
was not only established, but they imported whole armies of slaves,
partly for home use, and partly, at least by the Carthaginians, to be
shipped for foreign markets.”
“They were chiefly drawn from the interior, where kidnapping was just as
much carried on then as now. Black male and female slaves were even an
article of luxury, not only among the above-named nations, but in Greece
and Italy.”
Mr. Barnes has quoted and adopted the foregoing, and many other
passages, from the Biblical Repository. (See Bib. Rep. pp. 413, 414.)
And again, page 259 of Barnes: * * * “And it is a rare thing, perhaps a
thing that never has occurred, that slavery did not prevail in a country
which furnished slaves for another country.”
Many of the foregoing statements are facts as well established as _any_
part of history. But these truths, honestly admitted by Mr. Barnes, are
pregnant with important considerations touching the institution of
slavery and the providence of God towards it.
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