ourselves as citizens of the world; that every man what ever without any partial distinction of nation, distance, or complexion, must necessarily be esteemed our neighbor, and our brother; and that we are absolutely bound in Christian duty to entertain a disposition towards all man. kind as charitable and benevolent, at least, as that which was required of the Jews, under the law, towards their national brethren, and, consequently, that it is absolutely unlawful for those, who call themselves Christians, to exact of their brethren (I mean their brethren of the universe) a more burthensome service than that to which the Jews were limited with respect to their brethren of the house of Israel: and the slavery, or involutary bondage, of a brother Israelite was absolutely forbid.
These premises naturally lead us to consider the severe national judgments which the Jews brought upon themselves principally by exceeding these very limitations which I have here specified; and the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from these examples is, that we are absolutely in danger of the like judgments, if we do not immediately put a stop to all similar oppression by national authority: because an uncharitable extension of the said limits, by those who call themselves Christians, will certainly be, at least, as heinous in the sight of God as the oppression of brethren under the law; and probably much more so, if we consider the purity and benevolence which is required of all men under the gospel dispensation: and I have clearly proved (I trust) that the permission to the Israelites, to keep bondmen of the heathen (or more properly the nations, הגױם) that were round about them, and of "the children of the strangers that dwelt among them," cannot be extended to any other people, whatever, except the Israelites themselves; and that even to them it was only tempoporary, during the dispensation of the Mosaic Law, whilst they possessed the land ofCanaan, the former inhabitants of which (viz. the seven abominable nations of Palestine, expressly mentioned by name in the seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, where the sameHeb. noun גױם, rendered heathen in the former text, is properly expressed by the
