THE
LAW OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE.
The illegality of slavery among Christians is a point which I have long laboured to demonstrate, as being destructive of morality, and consequently dangerous both to body and soul. There are nevertheless some particular texts in the New Testament, which, in the opinion of several well meaning and disinterested persons, seem to afford some proof of the toleration of slavery among the primitive Christians; and, from thence, they are induced to conceive, that Christianity doth not oblige its professors to renounce the practice of slaveholding.
A learned and reverend correspondent of mine seems to have adopted this notion, and has signified his opinion nearly to the same effect, in a private letter to me on this subject, to which I have not yet ventured to send him a reply, though it is a considerable time since I received his letter; but, to say the truth, the question in which I had never before apprehended any difficulty, was rendered very serious and important, upon my hands, by my friend's declaration; and I thought myself bound to give it the strictest examination, because I conceived (as I do still) that the honour of the Holy Scriptures, which of all other things, I have most at heart, was concerned in the determination of the point in question; and yet I know, that my friend is full as zealous for the honour of the Scriptures as myself, and much more learned in them, being very eminent in that most essential branch of knowledge.
