not believe slavery to be a sin? Yet if your definition of
slavery be correct, holy Abraham lived all his life in the commission of
one of the most aggravated crimes against God and man which can be
conceived. His life was spent in outraging the rights of hundreds of
human beings, as moral, intellectual, immortal, fallen creatures, and in
violating their relations as parents and children, and husbands and
wives. And God not only connived at this appalling iniquity, but, in the
covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, expressly mentions it, and
confirms the patriarch in it, speaking of those 'bought with his money,'
and requiring him to circumcise them. Why, at the very first blush,
every Christian will cry out against this statement. To this, however,
you must come, or yield your position; and this is only the first
utterly incredible and monstrous corollary involved in the assertion
that slavery is essentially and always 'a sin of appalling magnitude.'"

Slavery among the Hebrews, however, was not left merely to a tacit or
implied sanction. It was thus sanctioned by the express legislation of
the Most High: "Both thy bondmen and thy bond-maids, which thou shalt
have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye
buy bondmen and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers
that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families
that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your
possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children
after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen
forever."[163] Now these words are so perfectly explicit, that there is
no getting around them. Even Dr. Wayland, as we have seen, admits that
the authority to take slaves _seems_ to be a part of "this original,
peculiar," and perhaps "anomalous grant." No wonder it appeared
_peculiar_ and _anomalous_. The only wonder is, that it did not appear
impious and absurd. So it has appeared to some of his co-agitators, who,
because they could not agree with Moses, have denied his mission as an
inspired teacher, and joined the ranks of infidelity.

Dr. Channing makes very light of this and other passages of Scripture.
He sets aside this whole argument from revelation with a few bold
strokes of the pen. "In this age of the world," says he, "and amid the
light which has been thrown on the true interpretation of the
Scriptures, such reasoning hardl