&c. (1 Pet. ii. 18,) yet he adds in the very next verse— "for this is thankworthy, if a man, for conscience towards God, endure grief, suffering WRONGFULLY;" so that, it is manifest, the apostle did not mean to justify the claim of the master, because he enjoined the same submission to the servants that suffered wrongfully, as to those who had good and gentle masters: and it would be highly injurious to the gospel of peace, to suppose it capable of authorizing wrongful sufferings, or of establishing a right or power in any rank of men whatever, to oppress others unjustly? And though the apostle Paul, also, so strongly exhorts servants to submit to their masters, and "to abide in the same calling wherein they were called," and "not care for it."— 1 Cor. vii. 20, 21. Yet at the same time he clearly instructs them, that it is their duty to prefer a state of freedom whenever they can fairly and honestly obtain it; "but if thou mayest be made free," says he, "use it rather!" (v. 21.) And the reason which he assigns for this command, is as plainly delivered, viz: the equality of servants with their masters in the sight of the Almighty, "For he that is called of the Lord, being a servant," says he, " is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called being free, is Christ's servant," (verse 22.) Christ having purchased all men to be his peculiar servants, or rather freemen. —"Ye are bought with a price," says the apostle in the 23d verse, "be not ye the servants of man," which plainly implies, that it is inconsistent with the dignity of a Christian who is the servant or freeman of God, to be held in an unlimited subjection, as the bond servant or slave of a man; and, consequently, that a toleration of slavery, in places where Christianity is established by law, is entirely illegal.; for though the slave commits no crime by submitting to the involuntary service, (which has been already demonstrated,) yet the Christian master is guilty of a sort of sacrilege, by appropriating to himself, as an absolute property, that body, which peculiarly belongs to God by an inestimable purchase! For if God said of the Jews, even under the old law, (Levit. xxv. 52,) "They are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt;
