d be profitable merely as a
Christian brother, we cannot see why any other Christian brother would
not have answered the purpose just as well as Onesimus. If such, indeed,
were the apostle's object, he might have conferred a still greater
benefit upon Philemon by sending several Christian brethren to live with
him, and to feast upon his good things.

Thirdly, the supposition that St. Paul thus announced the emancipation
of Onesimus, is as inconsistent with the whole scope and design of the
passage, as it is with the character of the apostle. If he would do
nothing without the consent of Philemon, not even retain his servant to
minister to himself while in prison, much less would he declare him
emancipated, and introduce him to his former master as a freeman. We
submit to the candid reader, we submit to every one who has the least
perception of the character and spirit of the apostle, if such an
interpretation of his words be not simply ridiculous.

It is certain that such an interpretation is peculiar to abolitionists.
"Men," says Mr. Sumner, "are prone to find in uncertain, disconnected
texts, a confirmation of their own personal prejudices or
prepossessions. And I,"--he continues, "who am no divine, but only a
simple layman--make bold to say, that whosoever finds in the gospel any
sanction of slavery, finds there merely a reflection of himself." He
must have been a very simple layman indeed, if he did not perceive how
very easily his words might have been retorted. We venture to affirm
that no one, except an abolitionist, has ever found the slightest
tincture of abolitionism in the writings of the great apostle to the
Gentiles.

The plain truth is, that Philemon is exhorted to receive Onesimus "no
longer as a slave ONLY, but above a slave,--a brother beloved." Such is
the translation of Macknight, and such, too, is the concurrent voice of
every commentator to whom we have access. Pool, Clarke, Scott, Benson,
Doddridge--all unite in the interpretation that Onesimus was, in the
heaven-inspired and soul-subduing words of the loving apostle, commended
to his master, not as a slave _merely_, but also as a Christian brother.
The great fact--the "words of emancipation," which Mr. Sumner sees so
clearly on "the face of the epistle,"--they cannot see at all. Neither
sign nor shadow of any such thing can they perceive. It is a sheer
reflection of the abolitionist himself. Thus, the Old Testament is not
only merged in the New