Does the Bible sanction American slavery?/Section 1

by Goldwin Smith

SECTION I.

It is true that the Old Testament distinctly recognises Slavery as a Hebrew institution. It is also true that the New Testament speaks of Slavery in several passages and does not condemn it.

But before we draw the conclusion that Slavery is a divine institution established by God for all time, we must consider what was the object of God’s dealings with Man recorded in the Bible.

If it was to put human society at once in a state of perfection, without further effort, political, social or intellectual, on the part of Man, the inference is irresistible that every institution enjoined in the Bible is part of a perfect scheme, and that every institution mentioned in the Bible without condemnation will be lawful to the end of time.

But if the object was to implant in man’s heart a principle, viz. the love of God and Man, which should move him to work (God also working in him) for the improvement of his own state and that of his fellows, and for the transforming of his and their life into the image of their Maker; in this case, it will by no means follow that any social institution recognised in Scripture for the time being, or mentioned by it without condemnation, is for ever good or lawful in the sight of God.

And that this, not the other, was the real object is matter of hourly experience; for man labours till now to improve his state and that of his fellows; and his conscience, which is the voice of God, tells him that he does well.

To say that the Bible has nothing to do with politics or science, is a bad way of escaping from a difficulty of our own creating. The Bible has much to do with politics and science, and with everything that enters, as all parts of our social and intellectual state do enter, into the moral life of man. But it does not suddenly reveal political and scientific truth without calling for any effort on the part of man himself to attain them; because such a revelation, instead of promoting, would have defeated the end for which, as the voice of our free moral nature assures us, the world was made. It implants in man the principle which leads him to good action of every kind. The love of God and Man, moving to disinterested efforts for the good of the community, is the source of all political improvement, at least of all that is real and lasting. And the same affection moves the high and self-devoted labours which have led to the discovery of scientific and philosophic truth. And thus in its onward progress human nature is by the very condition of that progress changed Into the likeness of its Maker. Why God should choose gradual improvement rather than immediate perfection, this is not the place to inquire. That He does so, appears from the history not only of the moral, but of the physical world.

The Bible recognises Progress. The New Testament says of the Old Testament that Moses gave the Jews certain things for the hardness of their hearts; not, of course, for their wickedness, to which God would not bend His law, but for their rude and uncivilized state. And not merely for their rudeness and want of civilization, but for the primitive narrowness of the circle of their affections: for it is only in the course of history, and with the increasing range of man’s social vision, that his affection extends from the primæval family to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, and from the nation to mankind. And as to the New Testament itself, it breathes in every page boundless hope for the future, together with the charity which is the source of social effort, and with the faith which carries each man beyond the sensual objects of his own short life. And it closes with that splendid vision of the consummation of all Christian effort in the perfect reign of God on earth, from which folly attempts to cast, like an astrologer, the horoscope of nations; but which is in truth the last voice of Christianity, as it passes from the hands of the Apostles and commits itself to the dark and dangerous tide of human affairs, breaking forth in the assurance of final victory.

The true spiritual life of the world commenced in the Chosen People. He who denies this would seem to deny not a theory of Inspiration, but a great and manifest fact of history. But the spiritual life commenced under an earthly mould of national life similar in all respects, political, social and literary, to those of other races. The Jewish nation, in short, was a nation, not a miracle. Had it been a miracle, it might have shewn forth the power of God, like the stars in heaven, but it would have been nothing to the rest of mankind, nor could its spiritual life have helped to awaken theirs.^[1]

This commencement of the spiritual life was marked by the appearance (1) of a Cosmogony which, unlike those of heathen nations, gave a true account of the origin of the world and of Man, and a true account of the relations between Man and his Creator; (2) of a series of histories written on a moral and religious principle, and still unrivalled among historical writings for the steadiness with which this, the true key to history, is kept in view; (3) of a body of religious literature, in the shape of hymns, reflections, preachings, apologues, which though not Christian, and therefore not to be indiscriminately used by Christians, was wholly unapproached among the heathen; and (4) of a Code of Laws the beneficence of which is equally unapproached by any code, and least of all by any Oriental code, not produced under the influence of Christianity.

This code of laws takes the rude institutions of a primitive nation, including Slavery, as they stand, not changing society by miracle, which, as has been said before, seems to have been no part of the purposes of God. But while it takes these institutions as they stand, it does not perpetuate them, but reforms them, mitigates them, and lays on them restrictions tending to their gradual abolition. Much less does it introduce any barbarous institution or custom for the first time.

To shew that this principle is not invented for the case of Slavery, we will try to verify it in some other cases first. It will be the more worth while to do this, because if the principle be sound, it may help to relieve the distress caused by doubts as to the morality of the Old Testament on other points as well as on the question now in issue. It may do this at a less expense than that of supposing the existence of two different Moralities, one for God, the other for Man, and thus making Man worship, what to his mind must be, an immoral God.

In times before the reign of Law, justice was done on the murderer by the nearest kinsman of the murdered as Avenger of Blood. Such justice was a degree better than no justice; and a custom which assigned the sacred duty of revenge to a particular person, instead of leaving it to any chance hand, was the first step towards the appointment of a regular magistrate. This institution seems to have been universal among primitive tribes. A relic of it lingered in the law of this country till the reign of George III., when Wager of Battle having been demanded in a case of murder by the nearest of kin against the murderer, as a common law right, the demand was with difficulty evaded.

The law of Moses accordingly recognises the Avenger of Blood, (Numb. xxxv., &c.)

But the custom was liable to great abuses, which were apt to make it a step backwards instead of forwards in morality and civilization. (1.) The same revenge was taken for blood however shed, whether wilfully or accidentally, which confounded men’s notion of crime, and in fact multiplied murders. (2.) When covetousness overcame revenge, and the slain kinsman was not very dear, a sum of money (called by our German ancestors the wehrgeld) was taken for his blood instead of the blood of the slayer; and this practice grew into a regular system, which destroyed the distinction between crime and civil injury, took away the sanctity of human life, the foundation-stone of civilization, and moreover sharpened barbarous divisions of class, since the price of a man’s blood was assessed in the tariff according to his rank. (3.) Revenge became hereditary, and blood feuds arose between family and family or clan and clan, which filled the world with slaughter. Such blood feuds were common in the Highlands while the old clans existed, and they are still common among the wild tribes of Syria and in other parts of the East.

Now (1) the law of Moses expressly distinguishes wilful murder from accidental homicide, and confines the office of the Avenger of Blood to wilful murder. “And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death…. Or if he smite him with a hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him. But if he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait, that he die; or in enmity smite him with his hand, that he die: he that smote him shall surely be put to death; for he is a murderer: the revenger of blood shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him. But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him anything without laying of wait, or with any stone, wherewith a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him, that he die, and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm: then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood according to these judgments: and the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled: and he shall abide in it unto the death of the high priest, which was anointed with the holy oil.”^[2] (2.) The taking of money as a satisfaction for blood is strictly forbidden. “Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest.”^[3] (3.) Hereditary blood feuds are forbidden with equal strictness.^[4] “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”

By providing judges in all the tribes to do equal justice between man and man,^[5] and by calling the congregation to judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood,^[6] Moses secures the speedy departure of the need of private revenge and the speedy advent of a reign of public law.

The right of Asylum is another primitive institution which is recognised by the Law of Moses; and which was not without use in its day, as the history of the Middle Ages, no less than that of the more ancient barbarism, can bear witness. It gave vengeance time for reflection, and in default of a magistrate armed with sufficient powers, helped to prevent society from becoming a slaughter-house. But this institution also was liable to the grossest abuses. It sheltered the wilful murderer as well as him who had killed a man accidentally or in self-defence, and in the case of wilful murder led to a final defeat of justice. Being connected with holy places and the priests who kept them, it bred gross superstition. For the same reason, and because the asylum was a source of power and profit to the priests, asylums were multiplied till they gave impunity to crime. In the reign of Tiberius the Roman Government found it necessary to interfere with the growing license of setting up asylums in the Greek cities of the Empire. “The temples were filled with the vilest of the slaves; the same receptacles sheltered debtors from their creditors and persons suspected of capital offences from justice. And authority was unable to restrain the fanatical violence of the people, who protected the crimes of men as a part of the worship of the Gods.”

Here, too, the Mosaic law abstains from abolishing the custom, which could not have been done without antedating the progress of society and taking man out of his own hands; but it guards against the abuse. The cities of refuge were not to be for the wilful murderer, but “that the slayer may flee thither which killeth any person at unawares.”^[7] “These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the children of Israel, and for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them: that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither.”^[8] The number of the places of refuge is strictly limited to six; and they are to be cities, not holy places to which any superstition could attach. Further to guard against such superstition, it is expressly declared that the holiest of all holy places shall not shelter the criminal. “But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from Mine altar, that he may die.”^[9]

In other nations of antiquity, and in Europe during the Middle Ages, the fugitive had to take up his abode for life in the asylum or sanctuary; at least he could never leave it with safety: and thus these places became nests of crime, as the neighbourhoods of some of them, Westminster for instance, are at the present day. The Hebrew Law guards against this by providing that the fugitive shall be required to remain in the city of refuge only till the death of the high priest, after which he may leave it with impunity. “If the slayer shall at any time come without the border of the city of his refuge, whither he was fled; and the revenger of blood find him without the borders of the city of his refuge, and the revenger of blood kill the slayer; he shall not be guilty of blood: because he should have remained in the city of his refuge until the death of the high priest: but after the death of the high priest the slayer shall return into the land of his possession.”^[10]

Again, in Patriarchal times, the family being the State, and the only government being that of the father of the family, the father, as supreme ruler, had the power of life and death over his child. Among the Romans, tenacious of all old institutions and full of the lust of dominion abroad and at home, this power, under the name of patria potestas, was retained long after the state of society by which alone it was justified had passed away. It remained a hideous and disgraceful relic of barbarism amidst the meridian light of Roman jurisprudence; and Erixon, a Roman knight, put his son to death in the time of Seneca. The power extended over the wife as well as over the child. It was exercised by the Roman father arbitrarily and privately; so that till public feeling at last put it down, there was no check on it whatever.

Now the law of Moses, coming at a time when a national government had not been completely formed, and the family had not yet been completely brought under the State, abstains from directly abolishing the father’s power; but it places it under restrictions which amount as nearly as possible to abolition. “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city and unto the gate of his place; and they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear and fear.” Here, we see, (1) the concurrence of the mother as well as of the father in the death of the child, (2) a definite charge, and (3) a public proceeding before a solemn tribunal are required. It may safely be said that a power so limited would not be abused.

So, too, Polygamy prevailed in primitive times: and in those times there might be a ground for it. When there was no government or law to protect the weak, a woman was absolutely dependent on the protection of a husband or a son, and if she had remained unmarried she would have been the helpless prey of violence and lust. Not only so, but, when the family was all in all, she would have been a miserable outcast on the face of the earth. And, as usual, sentiment accommodated itself to the state of society: so that affection was not wounded, nor the dignity of woman degraded, by a double marriage. Leah and Rachel are, and would necessarily be, as unconscious of impurity and therefore in soul as pure, as two daughters of one father. It did not follow that men were never to rise from the lower state of society into the higher; or that a relapse into polygamy, now that woman needs no protection but that of the law, and has become conscious of her due position, would be anything but brutality and crime.

The Hebrew lawgiver could not have forbidden polygamy without changing the state of society by a miracle, or breeding confusion, and doing a wrong in some cases to woman. But he does not perpetuate or encourage it: he recognises it only to mitigate its evils. “If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn; but he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.”^[11]

Shall we say, then, with these things before us, that the Bible sanctions Private Revenge, the right of Asylum for criminals, the exercise of a power of life and death by parents over their children, or the practice of Polygamy; that it establishes these as divine institutions intended for all time; and enjoins the revival of them, where they have been allowed to fall out of use, in civilized and Christian lands?

The Mosaic laws of war for the present day would be very inhuman: for that day, and compared with the practices blazoned on the triumphal monuments of Assyrian and Egyptian warriors, they were humane. “When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it; and when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.”^[12] That which is of Moses and of God in this passage is the command to proclaim peace to a city, and give its garrison the option of saving their lives by becoming tributaries before proceeding to the usual extremities of Oriental war. The duty of giving quarter to the garrison of a city taken by storm was not known to the group of primitive nations of which the Jews were one; it was not known to the polished Athenian who massacred the inhabitants of Melos without mercy; it was not known to the combatants in the Thirty Years’ War; it was hardly known to Cromwell; but it is known now.

The Greek, when he invaded a country, not only wasted the harvests of the year, but cut down the fruit-trees, which were the permanent wealth of the land. It was a common threat to an enemy, that “his cicadas should chirp upon the ground.” The precept of Moses is, “When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them; for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege: only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.”

The heroes of Homer drag at once to their bed the unhappy woman whose city has been stormed, and whose kinsmen have been slaughtered before her eyes; and the female captives of Achilles dare not let their tears flow except under cover of a feigned mourning for Patroclus. Nor did the captive retain any personal rights: she was just as the rest of the booty, and became the absolute slave of the victor’s lust. But the Hebrew law (Deut. xxi. 10,) says, “When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.” Will this passage of Scripture be quoted as permitting the captors of cities in modern times to force the captured women to become their concubines?

And so as to war generally. War was the universal state of nations in early times; and the strong though coarse foundations of human character were laid in the qualities of the warrior. The Jews were always surrounded and always threatened by war. Therefore to light valiantly for his country and his Temple was part not only of the civil duty but of the moral training of a Jew, and to be with the people in the hour of battle and exhort them to behave bravely was part of the office of the priest, and consistent with the character of his calling. “When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses and chariots and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be, when ye are come nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, and shall say unto them, Hear, O Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies: let not your hearts faint, fear not and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them; for the Lord your God is He that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies to save you.”

On the other hand, there is no exaltation of war above other callings, or of the military character above all other characters, such as we find in Greece, at Rome, and in the other heathen nations. There is none of that false estimate of moral qualities which produced the institutions of Sparta, and which partly leads Plato, in his ideal Republic, to propose that woman shall be trained to take part equally with man in the work of war. There are no provisions for triumphs or other military rewards; no incentives to military ambition; no rules for military education. No heaven is opened, as in the Koran, to those who fight bravely for the true God. “Peace in all your borders” is the blessing, though war is not a crime. And military pride, instead of being nursed, is rebuked by the words of the passage last quoted, which bids the Israelite put his trust, in the hour of battle, not in his own might, but in the presence of the Lord his God.

Not only so, but wars of conquest are made almost impossible by the law forbidding forced service, the means by which the great armies of the East are raised. This law follows immediately upon the passage last quoted. “And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it. And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her. And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart. And it shall be, when the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.”^[13] Pythius, a wealthy Phrygian, having gained the favour of Xerxes by the offer of a vast contribution towards the expense of the expedition against Greece, ventured to prefer a prayer to the great King. His five sons were all about to serve in the invading army; his prayer was that the eldest of them might be left behind as a stay to his own declining years, and that the service of the remaining four might be held sufficient. The King immediately ordered the eldest son of Pythius to be put to death, his body to be cut in two, and one half to be fixed on the right hand, the other on the left, on the road on which the army was to pass.^[14]

We see also that “the captains of the armies to lead the people” are not to be made till the people are actually in the field; so that there would be no military caste or profession always burning to go to war.

The God of the Hebrews, then, is not characteristically “a God of Battles.” Compared with the Gods of the other nations He is a God of Peace. Yet He has been taken for a God of Battles, as well as for a God of Slavery, and His name has been invoked in unjust and fanatical wars.

To turn to politics. Monarchy of the Eastern sort is a barbarous form of government. Moses does not wish the Jews to adopt it: he wishes them to remain content with their free local government, the great men who would be raised up to them in time of need, their religious unity as a nation, and the monarchy of God. But all the nations around had kings, in whose hands the national strength was gathered for the purposes of war: and the people of Moses had known no political aspirations not to be abandoned without treason to their nobler nature; they had inherited no birthright of ordered freedom, the fruit of political effort through the past generations, not to be betrayed without treason to the future. There was nothing immoral in the institution, though it was better to remain without it. Therefore the lawgiver recognises it as one which might be, and was likely to be, adopted, and sets himself to guard against the evils which waited on monarchy in other Eastern nations. “When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.”^[15] The king of Israel is to reign by the will of God and the choice of the people, not like a king of the Medes and Persians by the right of his birth and the sacredness of his line: he is to be, not a human God like the monarchs on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, but a man among his brethren, and his heart is not to be lifted up above them: unlike the neighbouring despots, he is to be beneath the law, which he is to study and keep, and upon his keeping which the continuance of his reign is to depend. Let this picture of a king be compared with the Oriental despotism of Nebuchadnezzar and Cambyses, or even with that more artificial tyranny of the Roman Emperors which has formed a model for the present government of France. Moreover, the king of Israel is not to debase himself by the lusts of the harem; nor to tax his people in order to lay up a great treasure; and he is strictly forbidden to multiply horses and chariots, which were the great instruments of aggressive war, the game of kings and the scourge of nations.

Now suppose the President of the Southern States were to make himself a king, with the powers of an Eastern monarch, could he with justice plead the Scripture as establishing monarchy and calling on the people to submit to it as a divine and universal institution?

We might apply the principle to things nearer the sanctuary. It was the custom of all primitive nations to set apart certain families or a certain tribe for religious functions; without which, before letters, or before the general use of them, there could scarcely be any certainty or stability of religion. The priest caste of Egypt, the Brachmans, the Chaldees, the hereditary guilds which kept up the worship of certain Gods in ancient Greece and Italy, were instances of the kind. But this separation had a tendency to produce caste with all its hateful and pestilential incidents. Probably there is nothing more depraved or odious in the whole range of human aberrations than the relations between the Brachmans and the Sudras as set forth in the Hindoo laws.

The Hebrew lawgiver sets apart the tribe of Levi to keep up the religion and ritual of the nation: but in the very act of setting it apart he takes care that it shall not be a caste. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the Levites from among the children of Israel, and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto them, to cleanse them: Sprinkle water of purifying upon them, and let them shave all their flesh, and let them wash their clothes, and so make themselves clean. Then let them take a young bullock with his meat offering, even fine flour mingled with oil, and another young bullock shalt thou take for a sin offering. And thou shalt bring the Levites before the tabernacle of the congregation: and thou shalt gather the whole assembly of the children of Israel together: and thou shalt bring the Levites before the Lord: and the children of Israel shall put their hands upon the Levites: and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lord for an offering of the children of Israel, that they may execute the service of the Lord.”^[16] Thus the sacred tribe is ordained to its office by the laying on of the hands of the whole people. Nor is there any restriction of religious knowledge and teaching to the Levite, as there is to the Brachmans and other priestly castes. The performance of the ritual alone is confined to the hereditary priesthood: the spiritual life of the nation is left free, and it finds its organs in the prophet and the psalmist, not in the priest.

Yet an argument has been sought in the ordinances of the Old Law concerning the Levites for the establishment in the Church of Christ of a priestly Order, self-ordained, and invested not only with the exclusive right of performing public worship, but with the sole custody of religious truth.

So with regard to the nature of the Jewish worship. All the nations worshipped God by sacrifice and through outward forms till the mind of man had been raised high enough to worship in spirit and in truth. The Hebrew lawgiver did not originate sacrificial rites; but he elevated and purified them, and guarded them against the most horrible aberrations as to the nature of God and the mode of winning His favour and averting His wrath; as all who know the history of heathen sacrifices, Eastern or Western, must perceive. The scape-goat has been and is a subject of much mockery to philosophers. Moses did not introduce that symbolic way of relieving the souls of a people from the burden of sin and assuring them of the mercy of God: but he took care that the scape-goat should be a goat, and not, as at polished Athens and civilized Rome, a man.

The religious system of the Jews was primitive, and therefore gross compared with Christian worship. It was spiritual compared with the religious system of the most refined and cultivated heathen nations. Nevertheless, to those who did not consider it in this comparative point of view, or with reference to the time of its institution, it has supplied arguments for introducing unspiritual forms, and something resembling sacrifice, into Christian worship.

It has been said by enemies of the Bible, with some exaggeration, but also unfortunately with some truth, that modern fanatics “feed their pride on the language of the Chosen people.” This is another case of the same kind. In ancient times, before Humanity was one, each nation was the “Chosen people” of a God of its own: but the Hebrew nation was the Chosen people of the true God. And as the Chosen people of the true God, the Jews were taught, compared with other nations, not national pride but national humility. They were taught, not that they had sprung of a divine seed and won their land by their own might and valour, but that “a Syrian ready to perish was their father;” that they had been bondsmen in the land of Egypt; and that they had been brought out of their bondage, not by their own arm, but by the arm of their God, to Whom they owed their land and all they had. “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and His statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked. For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; Him shalt thou serve, and to Him shalt thou cleave, and swear by His Name. He is thy praise, and He is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with three score and ten persons; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.”^[17] This, though the language of a “Chosen People,” is, compared with the self-praise of the Greeks and Romans, far from being the language of national pride. Yet there are some expressions in the passage which could not be used without fanaticism, by any nation or community, now that we know the relation in which all men alike stand to God, and to each other.

Finally, to ascend to the highest sphere of all, the Hebrews had, like other ancient nations, a national Deity, whose name was Jehovah. The national Deity of the Hebrews, unlike those of other nations, was God indeed. All His attributes were those of the true God, though but partially revealed: and His worship has consequently passed into the worship of the Universal Father without break or incongruity, as the light of dawn brightens and broadens into the light of day. But it is as God the universal Father of all that He is worshipped by Christians, not as Jehovah the Deity of the Hebrew nation.

1. See the Author’s work on Rational Religion, p. 50.
2. Numb. xxx. 16–25.
3. Ibid., v. 31, 32.
4. Deut. xxiv. 16.
5. Deut. i. 16.
6. Numb. xxxv. 24.
7. Numb. xxxv. 11.
8. Ib. 15.
9. Exod. xxi. 14.
10. Numb. xxxv. 26–28.
11. Deut. xxi. 15–17.
12. Deut. xx. 10.
13. Deut. xx. 5–9.
14. Herod., ii. 210; Grote, vol. v., p. 35.
15. Deut. xvii. 14–20.
16. Numb. viii. 5–11.
17. Deut. x. 12–22.