3d.  In proceeding with my reasons why the Apostles did not extend their specification of sins to slavery, I remark, that it is apparent from the views we have taken, and from others which might have been taken, that nothing would have been gained by their making direct and specific attacks on the institutions of the civil governments under which they lived.  Indeed, much might have been lost by their doing so.  Weak converts, with still many remains of heathenism about them, might in this wise have been incurably prejudiced against truths, which, by other modes of teaching,—­by general and indirect instructions,—­would probably have been lodged in their minds.  And there is another point of view in which vastly more, even their lives, might have been lost, by the Apostles making the direct and specific attacks referred to.  I know that you ridicule the idea of their consulting their personal safety.  But what right have you to do so?  They did, on many occasions, consult the security of their lives.  They never perilled them needlessly, and through a presumptuous reliance on God.  It is the devil, who, in a garbled quotation from the Scriptures, lays down, in unlimited terms, the proposition, that God will keep his children.  But, God promises them protection only when they are in their own proper ways.  The Saviour himself consulted the safety of his life, until his “time” had “full come;” and his command to his Apostles was, “when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another.”  If you suppose me to admit for a moment, that regard for the safety of their lives ever kept them from the way of their duty, you are entirely mistaken; and, if you continue to assert, in the face of my reasoning to the contrary, that on the supposition of the sinfulness of slavery, their omission to make direct and specific attacks on it would have been a failure of their duty, then I can only regret that this reasoning has had no more influence upon you.

I observe that Professor Hodge agrees with you, that if slavery is sin, it would have been specifically attacked by the Apostles at any hazard to their lives.  This is his conclusion, because they did not hesitate to specify and rebuke idolatry.  Here is another of the Professor’s sophisms.  The fact, that the Apostles preached against idolatry, is no reason at all why, if slavery is sin, they would have preached against that also.  On the one hand, it is not conceivable that the gospel can be preached where there is idolatry, without attacking it:  for, in setting forth the true God to idolaters, the preacher must denounce their false gods.  On the other hand, gospel sermons can be preached without number, and the true God presented, not only in a nation of idolaters, but elsewhere, without one allusion being made to such crying sins as slavery, lewdness, and intemperance.