and political
inequality among men. That so far from the Scriptures teaching, as
abolitionists do, that all men have ever had a divine right to freedom
and equality, they show, _in so many words_, that marriages were
sanctioned of God as lawful, in which _he enacted_, that the children of
free men should be born hereditary slaves. They show also, that he
guarded the chastity of the free by the price of life, and the chastity
of the slave by the rod. They show, that in the judgment of God, the
life of a free man in the days of Moses, was too sacred for commutation,
while a fine of thirty shekels of silver was sufficient to expiate for
the death of a slave. As I said in my first essay, so I say now, this is
a controversy between abolitionists and their Maker. I see not how, with
their present views and in their present temper, they can stop short of
blasphemy against that Being who enacted these laws.

Of late years, some obscure passages (which have no allusion whatever to
the subject) have been brought forward to show, that God _hated
slavery_, although the work of his own hands. Once for all, I challenge
proof, that in the Old Testament or the New, _any reproof was ever
uttered against involuntary slavery, or against any abuse of its
authority_. Upon abolition principles, this is perfectly unaccountable,
and of itself, is an unanswerable argument that the _relation_ is not
sinful.

The opinion has been announced also of late, that slavery among the Jews
was felt to be an evil, and, by degrees, that they abolished it. To
ascertain the correctness of this opinion, let the following
consideration be weighed: After centuries of cruel _national bondage_
practiced upon Abraham's seed in Egypt, they were brought in godly
contrition to pour out "the effectual fervent prayer" of a righteous
people, to the Almighty for mercy, and were answered by a covenant God,
who sent Moses to deliver them from their bondage--but let it be
remembered, that when this deliverance from bondage to the nation of
Egypt was vouchsafed to them, they were extensive domestic slave owners.
God had not by his providential dealings, nor in any other way, shown
them the sin of domestic slavery--for they held on to their slaves, and
brought them out as their property into the wilderness. And it is worthy
of further remark, that the Lord, _before they left Egypt_, recognized
these slaves _as property_, which they had bought with their money, and
that he s