rselves."_ Isa. lii. 3, "Ye have _sold yourselves_ FOR
NOUGHT, and ye shall be redeemed without money." See also, Jer. xxxiv.
14; Rom. vii. 14, vi. 16; John, viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the
Egyptians, already quoted. In the purchase of wives, though spoken of
rarely, it is generally stated that they were bought of _third_ persons.
If _servants_ were bought of third persons, it is strange that no
_instance_ of it is on record.

[Footnote A: Those who insist that the servants which the Israelites
were commanded to buy of "the heathen which were round about" them, were
to be bought of _third persons_, virtually charge God with the
inconsistency of recognizing and affirming the right of those very
persons to freedom, upon whom, say they, he pronounced the doom of
slavery. For they tell us, that the sentence of death uttered against
those heathen was commuted into slavery, which punishment God denounced
against them. Now if "the heathen round about" were doomed to slavery,
the _sellers_ were doomed as well as the _sold_. Where, we ask, did the
sellers get their right to sell? God by commanding the Israelites to
BUY, affirmed the right of _somebody_ to _sell_, and that the
_ownership_ of what was sold existed _somewhere_; which _right_ and
ownership he commanded them to _recognize_ and _respect_. We repeat the
question, where did the heathen _sellers_ get their right to sell, since
_they_ were dispossessed of their right to _themselves_ and doomed to
slavery equally with those whom they sold. Did God's decree vest in them
a right to _others_ while it annulled their right to _themselves_? If,
as the objector's argument assumes, one part of "the heathen round
about" were _already_ held as slaves by the other part, _such_ of course
were not _doomed_ to slavery, for they were already slaves. So also, if
those heathen who held them as slaves had a _right_ to hold them, which
right God commanded the Israelites to _buy out_, thus requiring them to
recognize _it_ as a _right_, and on no account to procure its transfer
to themselves without paying to the holders an equivalent, surely, these
_slaveholders_ were not doomed by God to be slaves, for according to the
objector, God had himself affirmed their right _to hold others as
slaves_, and commanded his people to respect it.]

We now proceed to inquire into the _condition_ of servants under the
patriarchal and Mosaic systems.

I. THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF SERVANTS.