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Updated: May 31, 2025
Can you for a moment imagine the meek, and lowly, and compassionate Saviour, a slaveholder? do you not shudder at this thought as much as at that of his being a warrior? But why, if slavery is not sinful? Again, it has been said, the Apostle Paul did not condemn Slavery, for he sent Onesimus back to Philemon. I do not think it can be said he sent him back, for no coercion was made use of.
Paul's course in relation to Onesimus was such, as an abolitionist would deem it proper to adopt, under the like circumstances.
After having recited the Resolution of the Chilicothe Presbytery "that to apprehend a slave who is endeavoring to escape from slavery, with a view to restore him to his master, is a direct violation of the Divine law, and, when committed by a member of the church, ought to subject him to censure" you undertake to make your readers believe, that Paul's sending Onesimus to Philemon, is a case coming fairly within the purview of the resolution.
Nay, it is impossible for thee, with thy interpretation of Christ's Golden Rule, to recognise the system of servile labor; nay, it is impossible for thee to tell this slave to return to his master as I sent Onesimus back; nay, thou art guarded by thy Golden Rule.
He has given a proof of obedience to the Gospel, of submission, of patience and long suffering, of implicit compliance with the rules of Christ, which excite my Christian emulation. My endeavor shall be to imitate Onesimus as he has imitated Christ, and to surpass him in likeness to that Lord who is meek and lowly in heart.
Now, look at the facts which are really in question in America, when the great subject of slavery is discussed there theoretically. Against the great evangelical system of morality, the Judaical interpretations of such or such a text have little chance. The epistle of Paul, sending back to Philemon his fugitive slave Onesimus, is quoted to us.
It appears that the same Onesimus, when he was sent back, was no longer a slave, that he was a minister of the gospel, that he was joined with Tychicus in an ecclesiastical commission to the church of the Colossians, and was afterwards bishop of Ephesus.
Onesimus had been an unprofitable servant to Philemon and left him he afterwards became converted under the Apostle's preaching, and seeing that he had been to blame in his conduct, and desiring by future fidelity to atone for past error, he wished to return, and the Apostle gave him the letter we now have as a recommendation to Philemon, informing him of the conversion of Onesimus, and entreating him as "Paul the aged" "to receive him, not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
"If then the laws of God provided against the ill treatment of the slave, slavery is virtually acknowledged, as not being contrary to his divine will. We have a further proof, subsequent to the mission of our Saviour, that the Apostles considered slavery as lawful." "I remember it: you refer to Paul sending back the runaway slave Onesimus.
The weight of direct taxation is a marvellous corrector of the exciting effects of rhetoric. It is pleasanter to have Federal troops line State Street in Boston to guard the homeward passage of Onesimus to the longing Philemon than to have them receiving without a challenge the fugitive Contrabands.
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