A Defence of Virginia: And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional PartyDabney, Robert Lewis
History
A Defence of Virginia: And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional Party
Dabney, Robert Lewis
Slavery -- Justification; Slavery -- United States; Slavery -- United States -- History; Slavery -- Virginia
regenerate and atone, while theirs was only to teach. But the answer
which Socinianism has devised is in part this: Christ was commissioned
to reform the moral system of the Old Testament, and to teach a new
law of far superior beauty, purity, and benevolence. Thus, they have a
corrupt polemical motive to misrepresent and degrade the Old Testament
law, in order to make a _Nodus vindice dignus_, for their imaginary
Christ, who does nothing but teach. To effect this, they seize on all
such passages as those in the "Sermon on the Mount," which refute
Pharisaic glosses, and evolve the true law of love. This is the mint
from which abolitionists have borrowed their objections against our
Old Testament defence of slaveholding; such as this, that however it
may have been allowed to the Hebrews, by their older and ruder law,
"because of the hardness of their hearts," it is condemned by the new
law of love, taught by Jesus. Now, our refutation (and it is perfect)
is, that this law of love was just as fully announced by slaveholding
Moses as it is by Jesus; in terms just as full of sweetness,
benevolence, and universal fraternity. Yea more, the very words of
Jesus cited by them and their Socinian allies, as the most striking
instances of the superior mildness and love of His teachings, are in
most cases quoted from Moses himself! The authority by which Christ
enforced them upon His Jewish auditors was Moses' own! Such is the
shameful ignorance of these fanatics concerning the real contents of
that Old Testament which they depreciate. Thus, Christ's epitome of
the whole law into the two commands to love God and our neighbour, is
_avowedly quoted_ from "the law," _i. e._, the Pentateuch. See Matthew
xxii. 36 to 39, and Mark xii. 28 to 33. It may be found in Deut. vi. 4
and 5, and in Levit. xix. 18. Even the scribe of Mark, xii. 32,
Pharisee as he was, understood better than these modern Pharisees of
abolitionism, that Christ's ethics were but a reproduction of Moses'.
He avows the correctness of Christ's rendering of the Pentateuch law,
and very intelligently adduces additional evidence of it by evident
allusion to 1 Samuel xv. 22, and Hosea vi. 6. Again: does Christ
inculcate forgiveness of injuries, benefactions towards enemies, and
the embracing of aliens in our philanthropy as well as kindred and
fellow-citizens? He does but cite them to the authority of Moses in
Levit. xix. 18, Exod. xxiii. 4, 5, Levit. xxiv. 22, Exod. xxii. 21,
xxxiii. 9. For here their great prophet himself had taught them that
revenge must be left to God, that an embarrassed or distressed enemy
must be kindly assisted, and that the alien must be treated in all
humane respects as a fellow-citizen, under a lively and sympathetic
sense of their own sufferings when they were oppressed aliens in
Egypt. The Golden Rule, as stated by our Saviour, is but a practical
application of the Mosaic precept "to love our neighbours as
ourselves," borrowed from Moses. In Matt. vii. 12, Christ, after
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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