' This is the language of your God,--the God whom you worship; and
not only so, but you circumcise us to worship Him!
"Some benevolent Levite, jealous for the character of his Maker,
replies, 'But God did not institute slavery; He found it in existence,
and he only legislates about it, and regulates it.'
"A thousand groans are the prelude to the withering answer which the
slaves make to this apology for oppression.
"'He broke your bonds, it seems,' they cry, 'in Egypt, and in the Red
Sea. Did He "find slavery" on the opposite shore of the Red Sea? Why did
he not merely "legislate for it, and regulate it?" No, He enacted it.
How dare you apologize for your God with such a miserable pretext? He
made the ordinance separating a husband from wife and children, unless
the husband would submit to the indignity of having his ear bored and to
the doom of perpetual bondage, in case his wife was a Gentile. If he
goes away, he must leave his wife and children. Great indulgence have
you in multiplying wives; that is winked at "for the hardness of your
hearts;" but the poor Hebrew must abandon his wife and family if he
chooses freedom! They are his master's "property," "his money," and God
gave the servant these children, knowing that they would be the
"property" of another, and that he would have no unencumbered right to
them; and down through all ages they and their descendants must be
servants.
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