he benevolent apostle, in the
letter which he wrote to _Philemon_, the master of _Onesimus_,
addresses him to the following effect: "I send him back to you, but not
in his former capacity[111], _not now as a servant, but above a
servant, a brother beloved_. In this manner I beseech you to receive
him, for though I could _enjoin_ you to do it, yet I had rather it
should be a matter of your _own will_, than of _necessity_."

It appears that the same _Onesimus_, when he was sent back, was no
longer _a slave_, that he was a minister of the gospel, that he was
joined with _Tychicus_ in an ecclesiastical commission to the
church of the _Colossians_, and was afterwards bishop of
_Ephesus_. If language therefore has any meaning, and if history
has recorded a fact which may be believed, there is no case more
opposite to the doctrine of the _receivers_, than this which they
produce in its support.

It is said again, that Christianity, among the many important precepts
which it contains, does not furnish us with one for the abolition of
slavery. But the reason is obvious. Slavery at the time of the
introduction of the gospel was universally prevalent, and if
Christianity had abruptly declared, that the millions of slaves should
have been made free, who were then in the world, it would have been
universally rejected, as containing doctrines that were dangerous, if
not destructive, to society. In order therefore that it might be
universally received, it never meddled, by any positive precept, with
the civil institutions of the times; but though it does not expressly
say, that "you shall neither buy, nor sell, nor possess a slave," it is
evident that, in its general tenour, it sufficiently militates against
the custom.

The first doctrine which it inculcates, is that of _brotherly
love_. It commands good will towards men. It enjoins us to love our
neighbours as ourselves, and to do unto all men, as we would that they
should do unto us. And how can any man fulfil this scheme of universal
benevolence, who reduces an unfortunate person _against his will_,
to the _most insupportable_ of all human conditions; who considers
him as his _private property_, and treats him, not as a brother,
nor as one of the same parentage with himself, but as an _animal of
the brute creation?_

But the most important doctrine is that, by which we are assured that
mankind are to exist in a future state, and to give an account of those
actions, which the