Wide Difference Between the State Laws of the Hebrews and the Moral Law Which Was Given Them.

There is a most important difference between the state laws, or judicial statutes of the Hebrew nation, and the moral law as expressed in the decalogue. Both these systems of legislation, emanated indeed from the same Divine author, but they were given for different purposes. The state laws had respect to the particular circumstances of that nation in distinction from all others, and were evidently designed to be superseded, as they have been, by the Christian dispensation, to which many of them were preparatory, and at whose introduction the wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles was entirely broken down. Whereas the moral law is founded on principles of immutable rectitude, equally applicable to all men in all circumstances and ages; and was designed to be neither abrogated nor modified by the introduction of Christianity, but to be interpreted and confirmed by the Author of both. The apostolic substitution of the first for the last day of the week for a sabbath constitutes no exception, as the very letter and spirit of the original command may and should be as fully regarded under the change, as before its occurrence. It is still every seventh day which is to be hallowed. The state laws in view of the established usages of those to whom they were given, the prejudices of their minds and hardness of their hearts, suffered and regulated certain evils, because by the enaction and enforcemcnt of judicial statutes they could not be removed, without producing consequences still more deplorable. On this point we have testimony which will not be contradicted. When the Pharisees captiously inquired of our Lord, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” He, evidently designing to condemn polygamy, and divorces as commonly practised together, reminded them that at the beginning, the Creator made but one man and one woman and joined them together as one flesh. Others similarly united in marriage, he said were no more twain but one flesh. And impressively added, “What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder.” They said, “Why did Moses then command to give her a writing of divorcement and send her away?” His remarkable reply was, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, MOSES suffered you to put away your wives: but in the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery, and whoso marrieth her that is put away, committeth adultery.” Even the disciples were startled at this decision of the Lord and remarked, “If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.” So greatly prejudiced were they in consequence of their Jewish education, against the original purity and binding nature of this sacred institution. Now if Moses suffered the Jews to put away their wives for every cause, not because it was right for them to do so, but on account of the hardness of their hearts and the evils which this obduracy might have led them to inflict on their helpless companions with whom they were not pleased; it is obvious that they might have been suffered, by the same code of laws, to do other things which they had no right to perform. So it is in regard to the laws of all nations. God, in the dispensations of his providence, is continualy suffering men to do what they ought not. But the Moral Law lays the axe at the root of all moral evil, it strictly, without regard to persons or circumstances, forbids the least deviation from the path of absolute rectitude, and binds transgressors to answer for their conduct not to earthly tribunals but to the Supreme Lawgiver himself, in the day of final judgment. The laws of the state not merely suffered the Hebrews to do things, but in some cases, required them to do things, which without such authority from God, they would have had no right to perform; and might not without great criminality attempt. As instances of this sort we must reckon the stoning of children to death for such immoralities as have been mentioned, and a man for gathering sticks for his fire on the Sabbath day, and especially the destruction of the Canaanites, who by their great sins had forfeited to divine justice not only their earthly possessions, but their lives. God had a right to cut off these transgressors by pestilence or earthquakes, or fire from heaven, or the agency of his angelic hosts, or by the hands of their fellow men, as he saw fit. The wonderful miracles which attended the march of the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan, while they were passing the Jordan, and besieging Jericho, gave indubitable testimony that they were indeed divinely commissioned to cut off the guilty nations, inhabiting the land which God had promised to give them for their possession. But to plead that since it was right for the Jews to do these things when expressly commanded, it must be so for others to do such things when not commanded, seems as egregiously absurd as for every man in this country to claim the right of acting as a public executioner at his own discretion, because some men have been authorized by law to inflict sentence of death on others, and were in justice bound to do it. On the contrary, the moral law enjoins duties which are common to all. Our Savior has taught us, that the substance and scope of it all is this, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself.” These are things right in themselves, and which all men would have been bound to do, even if no express law to this effect had been given.

Wide indeed, then, is the difference between the judicial statutes of the Hebrew commonwealth and that moral law, contained in the decalogue which binds all men to obedience, and with which the great principles of christian morality laid down in the New Testament perfectly harmonize. The former was given to an individual nation, in peculiar circumstances, for special purposes; and are at present no further a rule of conduct than they in particular instances, inculcate duties which are confirmed by the latter, as expounded or enforced by Christ or his apostles. Without this sanction, you have no more authority from the political laws of the Jews to practice slaveholding; even in the sense and manner in which they practised it, than you have to practise polygamy.— And we have seen that the system of servitude which prevailed among them was so mild that it cannot according to the correct meaning of the term in this country, be denominated slavery at all. It is as plain then as the sun at noon day, that the laws of the Hebrew nation, do not, and cannot afford your cherished institution any support or cover.

If slavery can be justified from the Bible a tall, it must be on the ground of the great principles of universal benevolence and perfect rectitude, which constitute the foundation of christian morality. We therefore agree with you to refer the great question to Christ and his apostles for ultimate decision.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 76-82

The Jubilee Brought Universal Release.

What is an inhabitant, but one who dwells, or resides in the place mentioned? “All inhabiting it” is the exact form of expression in the original. The persons of whom we are speaking inhabited some country, they dwelt somewhere. It was not in Syria, Arabia, or Egypt, or any other spot on earth than the land of the Hebrews. Besides for whom was the proclamation of liberty so obviously necessary. The Hebrew people generally, could not be in bondage; the hired servants like hired men now, were at liberty to make their own contracts, and on performing them to go where they pleased. The Hebrew servants who had been sold to their brethren for debts, could not at the longest be detained over six years, without their own consent. For whom then, especially, was the great release, on the return of every fiftieth year from its first celebration, provided? Was it not for those who of all men most needed it; for those who otherwise must have remained in bondage until death, leaving their children and children's children after them, to inherit the same destiny? Of this sort were Hebrew servants who on the expiration of six years, had chosen to have their ears pierced in token of perpetual bondage, because they did not like to be separated from their families, and the foreign servants who had been bought with money. That the former of these classes were inhabitants of the land we suppose no one will dispute. Why were not the latter in every proper sense of the term, as really so? The seal of the Jewish nation, and of her covenant with God, had been by their priests set upon their flesh. Their children who had never been in any other land, were like themselves consecrated to Israel's God. They all, in common with the native Hebrews, were required to share in the rest and join in the holy employments of the Sabbath; were admitted to all the solemn feasts, in which strangers had no right to partake; and shared equally with their masters in all the benefits of the Sabbatical year, during the whole of which they enjoyed exemption, as well as Hebrew servants, from labor. Who then will say that when the great circle, or seven times seven years have revolved, and the loud and joyful trumpets of jubilee were proclaiming liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof, that proclamation, so welcome, so full of good tidings to others, brought to these no blessing whatever; nothing but death to their hopes, and bitter aggravation to their lot? This would, indeed, make the similarity between the Hebrew servitude and American slavery more close and striking, in this land, on the day set apart for the celebration of our national independence, while the noble declaration is sounded through the land, that “all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” while smooth-tongued orators grow eloquent in extolling our land as eminently the land of liberty, and an asylum for the oppressed; and general rejoicing in the ringing of bells and roaring of cannon is heard through the land, nearly three millions of the inhabitants, for no crime, despoiled of liberty, mingle their sighs with our national rejoicings. Can we believe it was so on the occasion of the jubilee which was designed to prefigure affectingly, the universal and unrivalled blessings of the Gospel in the future reign of the Messiah? It is astonishing indeed that the biblical scholar, in disregard of such a mass of evidence to the contrary, could ever come to the conclusion that the bought servants of Gentile extraction were not to be set free. On what is it founded? Simply on the declaration that the bought servants should be bond men and bond maids forever, when they all admit that this same term forever when used in the same way in reference to the Hebrew servant whose ear was pierced with the awl, only means that he should remain permanently while he lived, or until the year when the jubilee should set him free. In this case they are undoubtedly right, but in the other wrong. The perponderance [sic] of evidence in favor of the complete release of all the bought servants, as well as others, on every occasion of Jubilee, is in our view decisive. The learned author of the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge has well said in regard to this matter, “All the slaves were set free. The political design of the law of jubilee was to prevent the too great oppression of the poor as well as their being liable to perpetual slavery.” Their servitude then, was entirely different from modern slavery in this highly important respect, that it could in no case continue, in regard to any one person, over forty nine years, and in most cases only for a much shorter period; a period continually diminishing as the great year of universal release drew nigh. When released they were politically situated as are now the colored people in the British West Indies; and left free to make such arrangements in regard to the future as they might consider for their interest and happiness.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 60-4

Meaning of the Term Forever.

That the term forever, when used to denote the continuance of their bondage is not to be taken in its absolute sense, is evident from the very nature of the case. Neither these servants nor their masters could abide forever by reason of death. Nor was the institution by means of successive generations always to be perpetuated, inasmuch as the entire frame work of the Hebrew government, which sanctioned it, has been demolished for more that eighteen centuries; and will never be revived. The term forever was used to distinguish, strongly, the stated continuance of this servitude from that of the hired servants, which might be but for a day or two; and also from that of the poor Hebrews, sold to their brethren for debts, who could not be detained against their consent over six years. It is very well known that while the Hebrew term alam (or gnolam,) forever, when applied to subjects which do not necessarily require its limitation, denotes endless duration; it, in other cases, may and does mean a duration continued for some term limited by the nature of the subject to which it is applied, or otherwise fixed by the connection in which it stands. It is used in this limited way in reference to the duration of the material world, the continuance of a nation, and even the time of an individual's natural life. It is said, Deut. 15:17, with respect to the Hebrew who had served his term of six years and still chose to remain with his master, “Thou shalt take an awl and [thrust] it through his ear, unto the door, and he shall be thy servant forever.” That is as long as he lived, provided the occurrence of the year of jubilee should not sooner set free both him and his family on whose account he had chosen to remain, for it is universally admitted that all such Hebrew servants were on those occasions released from their bonds. In the same way do we understand the term when applied to the continuance of the servitude of the foreigners. They were to continue in servitude as long as they lived unless sooner set free by the return of the year of general release; which occurred only at the termination of every half century. We have precisely the same amount of evidence to prove that the foreign servants were all then to be set free as we have that the Hebrew servants were, whose ears had been pierced with awls. The proclamation of liberty as often as the jubilee returned was universal. “Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.” Lev. 25:10. The only point here to be ascertained, in order to determine whether the foreign servants as well as those of the Hebrew nation were all to be set free on this joyful occasion, is this, Were they comprehended in the phrase “all the inhabitants of the land?” Let Is look at this point.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 57-9