II. The Word of God condemns it. 1. Not by direct prohibition. Enough is known in the circumstances of the ages of the Bible to show abundant reason wherefore the servants of God were not commissioned to go and everywhere denounce this practice. 2. Kor by the absence of examples of good men who kept slaves. It was the universal practice. 3. Nor by absence tf implied sanctions of this relationship. These facts have been urged in its favour, but we may urge: (1) That if everything not distinctly pro- hibited in the Bible be right, then many very wrong things would be justified. For very few detailed rules for definite acts are given, but principles from which the mind of God may be easily inferred and his Law applied to all the minutiaa of daily lire. (2) Paul no more sanctioned slavery than he did the vilest despotism, for if he told slaves to obey their masters, he bade all men be subject to the higher powen. Now, Nero was on the throne at that time. What the Word of God and experience alike teach is that the violent subversion of evil almost always inflicts greater evil than it removes. (3) And the sacred writers had faith in the sure, even if silent, spread of the great principles of Christ which tau^ht " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (4) And as to the Old Testament slavery and the Mosaic laws in regard to it, it is to be noted that it was a far milder and more genial thing than aught that modern times have known ; and next, that the laws of Moses were given on this matter " for the hardness of men's hearts," so that, as with the law of divorce, what could not wisely be at once put down should be so limited and controlled as to be divested of its greater evils. But no greater slander or falsehood can be maintained than to say that the Bible upholds slavery. Its tone and teaching and its universal influence have been to put an end everywhere to the accursed thing.
III. ExFEsiENOB CONDEMNS IT. Its influence on the slave, on the master, on the nation, the Church; its moral, domestic, political influence,— all are disastrous and deadly. It is the prolific parent of the worst vices — selfishness, cruelty, licentiousness, tyranny. It has sealed the doom of all nations that have adhered to it, and must ever do so; whilst justice and freedom have ever had resting on them the manifest blessing of God. Christ came to preach liberty to the captives; his gospel it the Magna Charta of the human race. — 0.
Vers. 8 — 22.— A right act done 4n m wrong ipirit. I. Consider the act itself. It was emphatically a right act in itself. It did not become right or necessary merely by becoming a covenanted thing. It was an act that meant the attainment of liberty to a very considerable number of people who were not their own masters, Ctoi is always on the side of liberty, for only to the free individual is full opportunity given of serving God. And yet this must be said with qualification. External liberty is only of use when it is accompanied with deliverance from inward bondage. Hence, in the New Testament, no great stress is laid upon civil liberty ; that would come in due time, and, irresistibly, by the growth and conquering power of Christian principle. The stress in the New Testament is on the maintenance by the individual of liberty within himself^ But in ancient Israel there was a God-governed nation as well as God- governed individuals, and civil liberty had to be sought as far as possible by Divine provisions and commands.
II. The OAnsE of the liberation, bo fab as it was accomplished. There is some obscurity as to the origin of the covenant and act. Some unmentinned motive seems to have combined king and people to resolve on the liberation of all slaves ; but it could only have been a motive of fear and worldly prudence. The same sort of forces must have been in operation as we observe in Pharaoh. A plague drags him a little in the direction of letting Israel go ; then the plague ceases, and he draws back again. External force, then, or a shallow repentance, or perhaps something of both, led the people into making this covenant. It was not a deep pity for the oppressed that moved them. The covenant did not come from a deep and perfect insight into the golden rule. Thus there is a revelation of the moral attainments of the people. It is already shown to us how little the better they were for all their opportunities of knowing God's Law and wilL
III. Tax BEBULT or A siOHT ACT DONE III A WBOKO spiBiT. The result is ]u>t what
H
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [ou. xxxv. 1—19
might hare been expected, InconTenience, awkwardness, daily, almost hourly, irrita- tion, must have come at once. Just try to estimate some of the results. Only when the slaves had hecome free would the masters understand how dependent they had been upon them. The work of the covenant was not done when the slave was liberated. Really, it was only begun. The master had then to set to work for himself. Eia former servant is now given opportunity to become his rival., Moreover, the liberated slave himself does not all at once get the spirit of a free man. Wlien things have been going wrong tor generations, they cannot be got right by some magical swiftness. Hence, many potent considerations tempted the masters in forcing a return to the former state of things. They had not counted the cost in beginning, and thus, it seems, they were able to take only a very few steps in the right course.
IV. The punishment. This is specially attached to the breaking of the covenant. The people liad really no excuse to offer for breaking it, save the inconvenience anil the temporal loss occasioned by keeping it. As far as we can see, this particular covenant was a voluntary one on their part. It recognized a law that had been made in the very coming out from the land of bondage, and it was a covenant to perform a certain outward act. The punishment was just enough ; the real wonder would have been U loniethiTig of the kind had failed to fall on those breaking such a covenant.— Y.
EXPOSITION".
CHAPTER XXXV.
The third member of this group of short prophecies. In it, Jeremiaii points to the faithful obedience of the Ki cliabites, as putting to shame the infidelity of Judah- ites. It belongs obviously to the time before the arrival of Nebuchadneuar, perhaps to the summer of B.C. G06. (See Dr. Plump- tre's poem, " The House of the Beohabltes," part ii., in * Lazarus and other Poems.')