serve their masters with the same willing obedience, because therein they were serving the Lord. For these persons, we may suppose, were originally made slaves by subjection. They are exhorted to submit themselves not only to the particular commands of their masters, but also to their providential condition. The commands of their masters might be obeyed from mere prudential considerations. In this case, their obedience would be without the religious element. Paul exhorts them to religious obedience. Many, no doubt, obeyed: gave the _consent_ of their wills, as they gave the assent of their understandings; and hence, cheerfully submitting to their providential condition as from the Lord, they obeyed their masters “in singleness of heart, as unto Christ.” They submitted, as any other good man submits, with consent as well as assent to his providential condition, and goes forth to the duties of that condition with a cheerful heart. Their condition was therefore changed from that of _subjection_ to one of _submission_, and for as long a time as God might be pleased to continue it. Did they, by reason of such submission, cease to be slaves? Certainly not. They were slaves when in a state of _subjection_. They were not the less so when, from the high Christian motives commanded by the apostle, their condition was changed to one of _submission_. Be this, however, as it may, the following case is decisive of the whole question. The ancient Jew, who _gave_ himself into slavery, was not the less a slave because he did it voluntarily; and the Mosaic law provided that such should be held and treated as slaves in perpetuity. See Exodus xxi. 5, 6: “And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children: _I will not go out free_; then his master shall bring him unto the judges: he shall also bring him unto the door, or to the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; _and he shall serve him for ever_.” Thus the law of God made a man a slave who became so by his own voluntary act. A state of _submission_, therefore, to _control by the will of another_, is no less a state of slavery than a state of _subjection_. If the state itself be one of slavery, the idea, _submission_, which makes it so, is in this case an element of the system. Hence, the true philosophical definition of the principle, as before stated, is _control by the will of another_, with its correlative (subjection, or submission, as the case might be) implied. It may be the one; it may be the other; and whichever it is in a given case, is the mere logical accident of _that_ case, and does not at all affect the _principle_ itself.