Jeremiah 34:17 - Homilies By S. Conway

Slavery.

"Ye have not hearkened unto me," etc. The Jews had become shamefully guilty of this sin of enslaving their brethren. They who had once been slaves themselves, but redeemed by God; they whose whole Law was a protest against it in its real forms of permanence and cruelty; they who were on no higher level than those they enslaved, all being on the same equality with God, members of the same race, worshippers of the same God;—the slavery they were now practising was abhorrent indeed. Concerning slavery—the permanent and absolute possession of a fellow man, to buy and sell and do with him as he please—this is ever a great sin.

I. NATURE CONDEMNS IT .

1 . We have a moral nature, a conscience, and this plainly condemns the degradation of a human being to a mere chattel,

2 . Think of ourselves as slatted, and then how prompt we are to condemn. But if one man may be so held, then every man may.

3 . All are on an equality before God, and have equal rights and responsibilities.

4 . And chiefly because man is made in the imagine of God. Dare we make a chattel of him who bears the image and superscription of Deity? At once our heart condemns.

II. THE WORD OF GOD CONDEMNS IT .

1 . Not by direct prohibition. Enough is known in the circumstances of the ages of the Bible to show abundant reason wherefore the servants of God were not commissioned to go and everywhere denounce this practice.

2 . Nor by the absence of examples of good men who kept slaves. It was the universal practice.

3 . Nor by absence of implied sanctions of this relationship. These facts have been urged in its favour, but we may urge:

III. EXPERIENCE CONDEMNS IT . Its influence on the slave, on the master, on the nation, the Church; its moral, domestic, political influence,—all are disastrous and deadly. It is the prolific parent of the worst vices—selfishness, cruelty, licentiousness, tyranny. It has sealed the doom of all nations that have adhered to it, and must ever do so; whilst justice and freedom have ever had resting on them the manifest blessing of God. Christ came to preach liberty to the captives; his gospel is the Magna Charta of the human race.—C.