treat them as brethren) but must render them service the more willingly on this account, having brotherly love as an additional motive to faithful service. It is manifest, therefore, that this text was intended to regulate the conduct of Christian servants, and not that of Christian masters; for, with regard to the former, the doctrine is perfectly consistent with the other texts, that I have quoted; which is not the case when it is applied to justify the mere temporal claims of masters or slaveholders, because there are many clear and incontrovertible precepts throughout the New Testament for regulating the conduct of Christian masters, which exclude the justification of any such claims among Christians, and consequently forbid any application or interpretation of these particular texts in favor of them: and besides we must always remember, that it is not lawful to maintain an hypothesis upon the testimony of any one single text of doubtful interpretation, especially when the same does not clearly correspond with the rest of the Scriptures, and cannot bear the test "of the royal law," of which more shall be said in my tract "on the Law of Liberty."
I mention this text of St. Paul, as one of "doubtful interpretation," because commentators are divided concerning the application of the very words on which the imaginary justification of the slaveholder is supposed to be founded! Many learned men (and Dr. Hammond among the rest) have construed the words—"δτι πιςοι εισιν και αγαπητοι όι της ενεργεσιας αντιλαμβανομενοι," (1 Tim. vi. 2.)[1] in a very different manner from the common version, and applied them to the servants, which entirely destroys the presumption in favor of the slaveholder.
Nevertheless I have contented myself with the common rendering, being convinced that no conclusions can fairly be drawn from this text in favor of slavery, even when the epithets "faithful and beloved," &c. are applied to the
- ↑ These words are translated by Dr. Hammond as follows:—"Because they who help to do good are faithful and beloved," and he uses several arguments to show that these epithets refer to the servants, rather than to the masters.
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