The Trial of Theodore Parker: For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the DefenceParker, Theodore
Religion
The Trial of Theodore Parker: For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence
Parker, Theodore
Antislavery movements -- Massachusetts -- Boston; United States -- Fugitive slave law (1850)
"If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law that all the
Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the will of God that
they should serve the Lord. According to this rule of the
judge, they must 'obey both.' But if they served Baal, they
could not serve the Lord. In such a case, 'what is to be
done?' We are told that Elijah gathered the prophets
together: 'and he came unto all the people, and said, How
long halt ye? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal,
then follow him.' Our modern prophet says, 'Obey both. The
incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist.'
Such is the difference between Judge Elijah and Judge Peleg.
"Let us see how this rule will work in other cases; how you
can make a compromise between two opposite doctrines. The
king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew nurses, 'When you do the
office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, if it be a son ye
shall kill him.' I suppose it is plain to the Judge of the
Circuit Court that this kind of murder, killing the new-born
infants, is against 'the will of God;' but it is a matter of
record that it was according to 'the law of man.' Suppose
the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge Sprague for his
advice. He must have said, 'Obey both!' His rule is a
universal one.
"Another decree was once made, as it is said in the Old
Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God
for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast
into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel--I mean the old
Daniel, the prophet--should have asked him, What is to be
done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? 'Obey both!'
would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray
to God. We know what Daniel did do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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