Slaveholding Weighed in the Balance of Truth, and Its Comparative Guilt Illustrated — John Shaqi
Slaveholding Weighed in the Balance of Truth, and Its Comparative Guilt IllustratedFitch, Charles
Philosophy
Slaveholding Weighed in the Balance of Truth, and Its Comparative Guilt Illustrated
Fitch, Charles
Antislavery movements -- United States; Slavery -- United States
fail to use the last power which my Maker has given me, in pleading for
the immediate deliverance of my fellow men from their sufferings and
their chains. I trample on the universal law of the infinite Jehovah, if
I leave undone anything in my power, which I would wish to have done for
me, if all the miseries of slavery were mine.
But it is not merely by looking at the general principles of God's
government, that I learn my duty toward the toil-worn, agonized,
suffering slave. I find positive direction for this specific case. Jer.
21 : 12.--'Thus saith the Lord--Execute judgment in the morning, and
deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my
fury go forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of
the evil of your doings.' Who is spoiled, if it be not the slave? Is he
not spoiled of everything? Spoiled of all his earnings--spoiled of the
child whom he loves--spoiled of the wife that is bone of his bone, and
flesh of his flesh--spoiled even of the ownership of himself, and
spoiled of his immortal soul, by being robbed of the light that would
guide his feet to heaven? And the poor suffering female slave--of what
is she not spoiled? Spoiled of all that protection, which the innocent
and helpless, have a right to claim, even of the savage. Spoiled of all
the affectionate tenderness, which woman everywhere, has a right to
expect; spoiled even of her virtue, and that by law, for we have seen,
that the laws have placed her, where she cannot preserve it, if she
would.
Who then, I ask again, is spoiled, if it be not the slave? And who is an
oppressor, if it be not the man who holds him in bondage, and inflicts
all these wrongs upon him? While, therefore, I hear the God of heaven
saying, 'Deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor,
lest my fury go forth like fire, and burn, that none can quench it,' can
I expect to escape the fury of that fire, if I shut my ears against the
mandate, which thunders upon me from the presence chamber, and from the
lips of Him, who declares himself King of kings, and Lord of lords? Tell
me not, that I have no right to interfere--no right to plead for the
deliverance 'of the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor.' I may not
fail to do it--lest the fire of God's fury kindle upon me, for my
disregard of his high command. And the same, is true of all my readers.
Unless you have a right to disobey Almighty God, you have no right to
leave anything undone, which you might do, for the deliverance of the
slave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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