locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects,
are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's.
FINALLY.--As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, rife with
meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended
upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which
constituted its significancy. Hence, the care to preserve inviolate the
distinction between a _descendant of Abraham_ and a _Stranger_, even
when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory
ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the
Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Ex. xxi. 2-6,
is an illustration. In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term
expired in six years, married one of his master's _permanent female
domestics_; but her marriage did not release her master from _his_ part
of the contract for her whole term of service, nor from his legal
obligation to support and educate her children. Neither did it do away
that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific
_grade_ and _term_ of service, nor impair her obligation to fulfil _her_
part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of
a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To
render it void, would have been to divide the system against itself.
This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the
master to throw off the responsibility of instructing her children, nor
the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rearing. He was bound
to support and educate them, and all her children born afterwards during
her term of service. The whole arrangement beautifully illustrates that
wise and tender regard for the interests of all the parties concerned,
which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine
as the sun in the kingdom of our Father.[B] By this law, the children
had secured to them a mother's tender care. If the husband loved his
wife and children, he could compel his master to keep him, whether he
had any occasion for his services or not. If he did not love them, to be
rid of him was a blessing; and in that case, the regulation would prove
an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It is not by any means to
be inferred, that the release of the servant in the seventh year, either
absolved him from the obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the
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