of persecutors in innocency? Does it
justify the wilful smiter? All men know better. No one contends for such
exposition. Yet it is indispensable to the interpretation which finds a
justification of slavery in precepts which enjoin obedience on slaves.
That obedience is required on other grounds.

Another example. The New Testament explicitly commands citizens to
submit to the civil power. Does this sanctify the tyranny of a Nero or a
Nicholas? In the enjoined submission of subjects, has the despot, or the
state, full license for edicts and acts of oppression and iniquity? Yet
they are logically compelled to admit this, and thus, in theory at
least, banish freedom from the whole earth, who find in commands
addressed to servants power conferred on legislators and masters to make
them slaves; that is, to hold them as property. Instead of this, the
rights and obligations of rulers, and of those who claim to be owners of
their fellow men, are defined in a very different class of instructions.

Secondly, the instructions addressed to masters forbid the exercise of
the right which is assumed in slavery. To make this clear, we observe,
primarily, there is no passage in the New Testament which _institutes_
the relation of men held in ownership by men. There is no direct
reference to the civil laws which constituted this relation. They are
passed by silently, as are the laws that established idolatry, and
kindled the fires of persecution. Their existence is tacitly
acknowledged in the use of the terms which designate masters and
servants; and that is all. Hence those who find here an apology for
slavery are obliged to refer to secular history for the facts and
definitions on which their argument rests. Accordingly, no passage in
the New Testament would be void of meaning, though slavery should cease.
In this respect the Constitution of the United States resembles the
sacred books; for not one word of that instrument, interpreted on just
principles as the palladium of liberty, needs to be obliterated in the
abolition of slavery. Furthermore, and this covers our position, the New
Testament, disregarding the Roman law, refers masters exclusively to the
law of God as their rule for the treatment of servants. A single
citation, with which all passages agree, is sufficient to show this.
"Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing
that ye also have a Master in heaven." Now, as none can find in such
precepts