which, they had just
been cast into prison, and further threatened. Did these men do right? I
leave _you_ to answer, who now enjoy the benefits of their labors and
sufferings, in that Gospel they dared to preach when positively
commanded _not to teach any more_ in the name of Jesus; Acts iv.

But some of you may say, if we do free our slaves, they will be taken up
and sold, therefore there will be no use in doing it. Peter and John
might just as well have said, we will not preach the gospel, for if we
do, we shall be taken up and put in prison, therefore there will be no
use in our preaching. _Consequences_, my friends, belong no more to
_you_, than they did to these apostles. Duty is ours and events are
God's. If you think slavery is sinful, all _you_ have to do is to set
your slaves at liberty, do all you can to protect them, and in humble
faith and fervent prayer, commend them to your common Father. He can
take care of them; but if for wise purposes he sees fit to allow them to
be sold, this will afford you an opportunity of testifying openly,
wherever you go, against the crime of _manstealing_. Such an act will be
_clear robbery_, and if exposed, might, under the Divine direction, do
the cause of Emancipation more good, than any thing that could happen,
for, "He makes even the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of
wrath he will restrain."

I know that this doctrine of obeying _God_, rather than man, will be
considered as dangerous, and heretical by many, but I am not afraid
openly to avow it, because it is the doctrine of the Bible; but I would
not be understood to advocate resistance to any law however oppressive,
if, in obeying it, I was not obliged to commit _sin_. If for instance,
there was a law, which imposed imprisonment or a fine upon me if I
manumitted a slave, I would on no account resist that law, I would set
the slave free, and then go to prison or suffer the penalty. If a law
commands me to _sin I will break it_; if it calls me to _suffer_, I will
let it take its course _unresistingly_. The doctrine of blind obedience
and unqualified submission to _any human_ power, whether civil or
ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place
among Republicans and Christians.

But you will perhaps say, such a course of conduct would inevitably
expose us to great suffering. Yes! my christian friends, I believe it
would, but this will _not_ excuse you or any one else for the negle