13
to blind ourselves to all reason, philosophy, and religion. For instance, does any sacred writer intimate that the world is in a satisfactory state at the time he is writing, or that he would not alter it if he had supreme power? Was Christianity set in a world so complete in its social arrangements, that you had only to perfect them in detail, and then that all would be right? Were the political arrangements of that day perfect? What would your fellow-countrymen say to that?
But the favorers of slavery, as it exists in the United States, would reply, that, if slavery were such a bad thing, it would have been especially provided against and preached against in the Gospel. So you might say of absolute political power. The absolute political power of Nero and of Commodus, of Attila and of Genghis Khan, produced, no doubt, horrible results; but there is nothing that I know of in the Scriptures particularly directed against despots, and there has always been a great deal brought forward in their favor out of these very Scriptures by flattering, glozing, learned men.
Such views are far from being derogatory to the Bible. Comparatively slight would be the good of Christianity, if it could have been stereotyped in the way that some men's fancies would have had it, embracing a complete code, not only
