23 July 2024

Slavery, the Slave Trade and Christians’ Theology – Part 1

Abstract

In this article I explore the different positions taken by Christians in America and Britain, through the 17^th to 19^th Centuries, regarding slavery and the slave trade. In a second article I will reflect on the theological themes that framed how they thought, spoke and acted.

I.   Introduction

For those who spoke or acted regarding slavery and the slave trade we can make a rough distinction between Christians who were opposed to the slave trade but sought in different ways to work for a gradual ending of slavery; those who worked for an immediate abolition of slavery; and those who endeavoured to ‘Christianize’ slavery. There were variations within these positions, as well as those who seem to have stayed silent, and others who may have regarded slavery as a matter indifferent.

I am not writing about the history of the slave trade (abolished in the UK in 1807) or slavery (abolished by the British parliament in 1833), or about a Christian response in general. Neither will I consider how to understand and apply the Bible apart from how we see the question through the eyes of those at the time. Christians did not, of course, think of slavery and the slave trade only in biblical or theological terms. They were aware of its political, economic and social dimensions. Finally, I have little to say on important questions of how Christians should act and think about our pressing contemporary heritage of these issues.[1]

When encountering the stances taken by some whose lives and work we may have found very helpful, we are likely to concur with Andrew Fuller, writing on the subject of the slave trade to John Newton in 1802: ‘It is amazing to think how much we are influenced, even in our judgement of right and wrong, by general opinion, especially by the opinion and example of religious men’ (Bull, 2007: 49). Spurgeon observed of George Whitefield, ‘even in the saints there remains the old nature; even they are not altogether free from the darkening power of sin, for I do not hesitate to say, that we all unwittingly allow ourselves in practices, which clearer light would shew to be sins. Even the best of men have done this in the past.’[2]

There were, of course, those who shifted positions. John Newton, for example, moved from being indifferent to being a ‘gradualist’ regarding slavery but an ‘immediatist’ about the slave trade. Wilberforce was a politically self-aware gradualist about slavery until the final years of his life, but an immediatist about the trade.[3]

In the opening part of this article, I trace briefly the positions taken by the Puritans, especially in America; the position of Jonathan Edwards; the writings of the Southern theologians, Dabney, Palmer, Thornwell and Girardeau; and the position taken by Charles Hodge and Princeton. This leads to the core of the article, where I draw from the writings and preaching of the various protagonists, to understand how they:

• Grasped the implications of a Christian view of human nature.
• Drew varying consequences for a Christian doctrine of God’s providence.
• Believed, in some cases, that slavery was a national sin and hence raised the likelihood, if not repented, of national judgement.
• In some cases, regarded slavery as a deep hindrance to the gospel, and its abolition as promising gospel prosperity.

II.   “The Negro Christianized” – Puritans and Slavery

The general view of society taken by the Puritans was represented by John Winthrop in “The Model of Christian Charity” when he wrote, “God almighty in his most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others meane and in submission.”[4]

However, “man-stealing” (cf. Ex 21:16; 1 Tim 1:10) was denounced as a sin by the Puritans in the Westminster Larger Catechism. Q. 142 asks, “What are the sins forbidden in the eighth commandment? A. The sins forbidden in the eighth commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, theft, robbery, man-stealing…”. Writing in 1644, a year after the Westminster Assembly convened, Samuel Rutherford expressed what was perhaps the strongest statement from a Puritan in his Lex Rex.[5] He asks (Q XIII) “…how that is true, ‘every man is born free,’ and how servitude is contrary to nature?”[6] He answers, “Slavery of servants to lords or masters, such as were of old amongst the Jews, is not natural, but against nature.”[7] While he seemed to accept that slavery will exist in certain circumstances, he was clear that:

Slavery should not have been in the world, if man had never sinned, no more than there could have been buying and selling of men, which is a miserable consequent of sin and a sort of death, when men are put to the toiling pains of the hireling…

A man being created according to God’s image, he is res sacra, a sacred thing, and can no more, by nature’s law, be sold and bought, than a religious and sacred thing dedicated to God.[8]

However, many Puritans in America owned slaves, the first African slaves probably arriving in New England in 1638. The general view is that most of the Puritans “did not oppose slavery as an institution but sought to educate and evangelize the African slaves, such as Cotton Mather and John Eliot”.[9] But it is important to emphasise that there were various views among the English and New England Puritans. Nuenke has helpfully shown that William Perkins, William Gouge, Richard Baxter, Samuel Sewall and Cotton Mather in Massachusetts all took positions that “had many seeds of an anti-slavery movement” although not bearing as much fruit as many today would wish to have seen.[10] Baxter and Mather gave perhaps the fullest expression to the position characteristically taken by Puritan pastors. Baxter was writing in the 1670s with a focus primarily on the West Indies. He urged:

UNDERSTAND well how far your power over your slaves extendeth, and what limits God hath set thereto… that they are of as good a kind as you, that is, they are reasonable creatures as well as you, and born to as much natural liberty; that they have immortal souls, and are equally capable of salvation with yourselves; Remember that God is their absolute owner, and that you have none but a derived and limited property in them.[11]

He openly infers that “Those therefore, that keep their Negroes and slaves from hearing God’s word, and from becoming Christians, do openly profess contempt of Christ the Redeemer, and contempt of the souls of men, and indeed they declare that, their worldly profit is their treasure, and their God.”[12]

He turns his fire on plantation owners the other side of the Atlantic:

How cursed a crime it is to equal men to beasts? Is not this your practice? Do you not buy them and use them merely to the same end as you do your horses; to labour for your commodity, as if they were baser than you and made to serve you? Do you not see how you reproach and condemn yourselves, while you vilify them as savages and barbarous wretches?[13]

His application is uncompromising:

[To] catch up poor Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of thefts in the world, and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them, and use them as beasts for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect their souls, are fitter to be called incarnate Devils, than Christians.[14]

Cotton Mather wrote The Negro Christianized.[15] He was not speaking against either the trade or the institution of slavery, but to set the demands on slave owners in a New Testament context of the demands on a Christian household. But in doing so, the principles he sets out open the possibility of the later argument that it is not possible to have a humane slavery. He proceeds by way of careful exposition of a series of verses: Eph 5.9, Col 4.1, Gal 6.1, 1 Tim 5.8 and Gen 18.19.

He observes,

What is he, who is willing that those of his own House remain Strangers to the Faith, and Wretched Infidels? Householder, Call thy self anything but a Christian. As for that Worthy Name…Do not pretend unto it; Thou art not Worthy of it. If thou wilt Name the Name of CHRIST, in denominating thy self a Christian, then Depart from this Iniquity, of leaving thy Servants, to continue the Servants of Iniquity.[16]

The Christians who have no concern upon their Minds to have Christianity Propagated, never can justify themselves. They say they are Christians, but they are not.[17]

Of those who fail to do so he is unsparing: “Don’t mince the matter; say of it, as it is; It is a Prodigy of Wickedness; It is a prodigious Inconsistency, with true Christianity!”[18] He has much to say on acting consistently with their prayers: “What! Pray for this; and yet never do any thing for it! It is impossible, or, such Praying, is but Mocking of God.”[19]

Most certainly, Sirs; The Blood of the Souls of your poor Negroes, lies upon you, and the guilt of their Barbarous Impieties, and superstitions, and their neglect of God and their Souls: If you are willing to have nothing done towards the Salvation of their souls.[20]

He deals with objections that we return to below and which have echoes today: “It has been cavilled, by some, that it is questionable Whether the Negroes have Rational Souls, or no. But let that Brutish insinuation be never Whispered any more.”[21] He then writes of how, “Their Complexion sometimes is made an Argument, why nothing should be done for them.”[22] He calls this:

A Gay[23] sort of argument! As if the great God went by the Complexion of Men, in His Favours to them! As if none but Whites might hope to be Favoured and Accepted with God! Whereas it is well known, that the Whites, are the least part of Mankind … Say rather, with the Apostle; Acts 10.34, 35, Of a truth I perceive, that God is no respecter of persons; but in every Nation, he that feareth Him and worketh Righteousness, is accepted with Him.[24]

A final text that should be observed was published the same year as Mather’s work: “The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial”, by Samuel Sewall (1652-1730).[25] Sewall was a Judge, known for his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials – for which he later apologised. His argument is quite far-reaching. He opens saying, “The Numerousness of Slaves at this day in the Province,[26] and the Uneasiness of them under their Slavery, hath put many upon thinking whether the Foundation of it be firmly and well laid.”[27] I restrict reference to this text to a point which became central to the way the Bible subsequently was interpreted in relation to slavery, viz. the relevance of the curse on Ham following the Flood:

Obj. 1. These Blackamores are of the Posterity of Cham, and therefore are under the Curse of Slavery. Gen. 9.25, 26, 27.

Answ. Of all Offices, one would not begg this; viz. Uncall’d for, to be an Executioner of the Vindictive Wrath of God; the extent and duration of which is to us uncertain. If this ever was a Commission; How do we know but that it is long since out of date? Many have found it to their Cost, that a Prophetical Denunciation of Judgment against a Person or People, would not warrant them to inflict that evil.[28]

John Eliot’s contribution is also important.[29] In a letter in 1675 “To the Honorable the Governor and Council” sitting at Boston, “Protesting against Selling Indians as Slaves”, he protests “the terror of selling away such Indians unto the islands for perpetual slaves”, saying:

It seemeth to me that to sell them away for slaves is to hinder the enlargement of his kingdom.  How can a Christian soul yield to act in casting away their souls for which Christ hath, with an eminent hand, provided an offer of the Gospel?  To sell souls for money seemeth to me a dangerous merchandize.  If they deserve to die, it is far better to be put to death under godly Governors, who will take religious care that means may be used that they may die penitently.  To sell them away from all means of grace, which Christ hath provided means of grace for them, is the way for us to be active in the destroying their souls, when we are highly obliged to seek their conversion and salvation and have opportunity in our hands so to do.[30]

III.   Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards’ views and practice regarding slavery are complex. I will touch on them because Edwards has been the target of serious criticism. David Baker expresses one of the gentler versions, saying:

Whatever the nuances of Edwards’ views, the fact that he owned slaves at all is profoundly disturbing for us as Christians today. It was not even as if everyone who shared his theology at the time also supported slavery – some didn’t. Even before Edwards, English theologian Richard Baxter had condemned it. So what should we make of it all?… Apart from anything else, it reminds us that all theological heroes have feet of clay.[31]

Edwards had baptised black children, rejoiced in the conversion of members of the black community in times of revival, and admitted them to full membership of his congregation. He had envisaged a day when “many of the Negroes and Indians will be divines.”[32] But for all that, he still seated slaves in a segregated area of the church. As a young minister, he travelled to the slave port of Newport, Rhode Island, to purchase a fourteen-year-old African girl as a household slave. Her name was Venus, and she cost him eighty pounds. During his lifetime, Edwards bought and sold several other slaves, including a “Negro boy named Titus”, who was valued at thirty pounds in the inventory of his estate.[33] Matthew Everhard observes that “Though there are thousands of extant sermon manuscripts, it seems that Edwards never once preached against slavery as a form of social evil”.[34]

However, he took particular exception to a narrow definition of “Neighbour” as identifying only fellow believers. If neighbours were limited to Christians, then any sort of immoral behaviour toward others was permissible. “This”, Edwards commented, “makes the SS. [i.e. Scripture] Contradict itself”.[35]  Alluding to Acts 17:30, Edwards wrote that God had overlooked the prejudicial practices of people hitherto. “God’s winking at some things that were early, he argued, had no more relevance for the present than God’s winking at polygamy during the days of the Old Testament. In the dispensation of the gospel, God ‘don’t wink at such things now.’”[36]

As he surveyed world events, he concluded – unlike some Christians – that slavery could never be a converting ordinance that would bring captured Africans into the Christian faith voluntarily. In fact, an ongoing trade in African slaves would promote just the opposite. At the level of daily church life, Edwards and his congregation at Northampton were on the leading edge of thinking through these issues in at least one specific way. His congregation received black Christians into full membership of the church, giving them all the privileges of membership, including access to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper:

Edwards held a more negative view of slavery than did the Puritans, accepted slaves as church members, enlarged the Puritan’s understanding of neighbor, and strongly opposed the slave trade. His attitude toward the slave trade changed as a result of the Great Awakening, and that shift can be attributed to an increase in the number of conversions among Africans, and a strengthened millennial vision.[37]

A significant development was the discovery in 1997 of a draft letter written by Edwards to a minister who appears to have been facing criticism for his stance on slavery.[38] “It is the only known instance of Edwards’s writing, however abstrusely, about slavery.”[39] Minkema says of this letter:

Though he himself owned slaves, he did not wholeheartedly defend slavery; rather, his letter acknowledged its inequities and disturbing implications. At the same time, however, Edwards felt that slavery was a necessary evil that served some positive good in the natural order that God had decreed.[40]

Through his later writings on the Christian’s obligation to show a disinterested beneficence, Edwards significantly shaped the position of his successors, including his son, Jonathan Edwards, Jun. and Samuel Hopkins, who, in a 1776 sermon, declared, “where liberty is not universal it has no existence.” He exhorted his hearers to act, not only against British tyranny, but against their own sins:

Rouse up then my brethren and assert the Right of universal liberty; you assert your own Right to be free in opposition to the Tyrant of Britain; come be honest men and assert the Right of the Africans to be free in opposition to the Tyrants of America. We cry up Liberty, but know it, the Negros have as good a right to be free as we can pretend to. We say that we have a right to defend our Liberty, but know assuredly that this is not the priviledge of one man more than another. The Africans have as good a right to defend their liberty as we have. Be exhorted therefore to exert yourselves for universal Liberty as that without which we can never be a happy people.[41]

IV.   The Southern Theologians

The writings of Robert Dabney, James Henry Thornwell, Benjamin Palmer and to some extent John L Girardeau have been kept available through reprints in the latter part of the last century. Yet on slavery, we read statements in their writing that we would wish had never been uttered.

They were united in accepting that the African American population were people created in the image of God. “Depend upon it”, James Thornwell said, “it is no light matter to deny the common brotherhood of humanity… If the African is not of the same blood with ourselves, he has no lot nor part in the Gospel”.[42]  But he proceeded to insist that:

Providence has given us in Slavery. Like every human arrangement, it is liable to abuse; but in its idea, and in its ultimate influence upon the social system, it is wise and beneficent. We see in it a security for the rights of property and a safeguard against pauperism and idleness.[43]

Slavery, he believed,

is one of the conditions in which God is conducting the moral probation of man – a condition not incompatible with the highest moral freedom, the true glory of the race, and, therefore, not unfit for the moral and spiritual discipline which Christianity has instituted. It is one of the schools in which immortal spirits are trained for their final destiny.[44]

He made a distinction between a “like” and a “common” nature, saying that white and black people have a common but not a like nature:

Have we, as a people and a State, discharged our duty to our slaves? Is there not reason to apprehend that in some cases we have given occasion to the calumnies of our adversaries, by putting the defence of Slavery upon grounds which make the slave a different kind of being from his master? … The ground of His right to redeem is the participation, not of a like, but of a common, nature.[45]

The key text for understanding how Benjamin Palmer, the New Orleans Presbyterian pastor, argued the case for slavery, is his “Thanksgiving Sermon”,[46] delivered just days after the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president in 1861:

A nation often has a character as well defined and intense as that of the individual… The particular trust assigned to such a people becomes the pledge of the divine protection; and their fidelity to it determines the fate by which it is finally overtaken… If, then, the South is such a people, what at this juncture is their providential trust? I answer, that it is to conserve and to perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery as now existing.[47]

A whole generation has been educated to look upon the system with abhorrence as a national blot. They hope, and look, and pray for its extinction within a reasonable time… We, on the contrary, as its constituted guardians, can demand nothing less than that it should be left open to expansion, subject to no limitations save those imposed by God and nature.[48]

Robert Dabney’s fullest statement on the slavery question can be found in his Defence of Virginia (1867).[49] He was perhaps the most uncompromisingly negative of this group regarding the enslaved population. He said of “the curse on Canaan”:

It gives us the origin of domestic slavery. And we find that it was appointed by God as the punishment of, and remedy for (nearly all God’s providential chastisements are also remedial) the peculiar moral degradation of a part of the race.[50]

He went on to say, “The words of Noah are not a mere prophecy; they are a verdict, a moral sentence pronounced upon conduct, by competent authority; that verdict sanctioned by God”.[51] His overall argument was of a piece with this:

…in considering the actual influences of slavery on the morals of the Africans, let the reader remember what they actually were before they were placed under this tutelage… they were what God’s word declares human depravity to be under the degrading effects of paganism. Let the reader see the actual and true picture, in the first chapter of Romans, and in authentic descriptions of the negro in his own jungles.[52]

Dabney appeared to see his conclusion as the only one possible:

It is enough for us to say (what is capable of overwhelming demonstration) that for the African race, such as Providence has made it, and where He has placed it in America, slavery was the righteous, the best, yea, the only tolerable relation.[53]

Now cannot common sense see the moral advantage to such a people, of subjection to the will of a race elevated above them, in morals and intelligence, to an almost measureless degree?…was it nothing, that this race, morally inferior, should be brought into close relations to a nobler race.[54]

As a consequence, he believed that “the teachings of Abolitionism are clearly of rationalistic origin, of infidel tendency, and only sustained by reckless and licentious perversions of the meaning of the Sacred text”, such that “the anti-scriptural, infidel, and radical grounds upon which our assailants have placed themselves, make our cause practically the cause of truth and order.”[55]

While the least well-known of the four, Girardeau is, for me, the most interesting and intriguing.[56] In general, we have a man whose ministry to enslaved, freed and others of the black community was committed and blessed, while he maintained a defence of the superiority of the white community. Though Girardeau could not legally teach enslaved members to read, he led them in the memorization of Scripture, catechism, and hymns. Most notably, enslaved persons had both their first and surname listed on written membership rolls, which differed from the common practice of only a first name with the last name of the individual or family which owned them as slaves. He faced strong local opposition, including multiple death threats by those who feared he would incite a slave insurrection. In 1869 Girardeau was among the first (in the newly formed PCUS) to ordain freed African Americans as elders and support measures for integrated worship[57]

Yet we need to recognise that his treatment of Africans and African-Americans prior to and after the Civil War was in large part an expression of paternalism. He shared the belief that divine providence had given enslaved Africans into their possession as a means to civilize and evangelize them while reducing slaveholder abuses. His biographer summarises Girardeau’s position as follows:

He believed that association with the white man was essential to the uplift of the negro. He realized that both races were descended from the first Adam, and that for both the second Adam had died, but he also believed that God in His Providence had made the negro to be the inferior; that as to climb upward, the vine needs the trellis and the ivy the wall, so the negro needs the white man. Hence, he always desired the negro churches to be connected with and under the supervision of the white churches. Hence, he doubted the propriety of sending American negroes, though well-educated and even with an admixture of white blood, as missionaries to Africa, for he believed that when left to themselves they could not resist the temptation to dishonesty and adultery.[58]

V.   Princeton and Albert Barnes

For Princeton at this period, “The great issue of the day…was slavery. For the first fifty years of its existence, Princeton Seminary – students and professors – wrestled with the problem. Almost all agreed that it was a great evil and ought to be abolished. A Society of Inquiry report charged that because of slavery, ‘the glory of this far famed republic is sullied, religion is dishonoured, and humanity mocked’”.[59]

But the gradualists held sway. The General Assembly of 1818 passed a unanimous “Declaration of Slavery” (written by Ashbel Green) stating that slavery was “a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of nature … utterly inconsistent with the law of God … totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the Gospel of Christ.”[60] The Assembly urged that it was the duty of all Christians “as speedily as possible the efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery throughout Christendom, and if possible throughout the world.”[61] However, this strong statement was a compromise, believing “hasty emancipation to be a greater curse” than slavery.[62]

The Princeton theologian, Samuel Miller, is an example of someone who moved from seeming to be an immediatist regarding slavery to being a gradualist. He appeared to be an outright abolitionist in his youth in the late eighteenth century, when he said of slavery that one “must heave an involuntary sigh, at the recollection that … this offspring of infernal malice, and parent of human debasement, is yet suffered to reside”.[63] In 1797 Miller described the “humiliating tale … that in this free country … in this country, from which has been proclaimed to distant lands, as the basis of our political existence, that ALL MEN ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL, – in this country there are found slaves!”[64] But by 1836 he was chairing a General Assembly committee that concluded that slavery was not denounced in the New Testament but that Christ through the apostles:

Chose rather to enjoin upon masters and slaves those duties which are required of them respectively by their Master in heaven; and to inculcate those benevolent and holy principles, which have a direct tendency to mitigate the evils of slavery, while it lasts, and to bring it to a termination in the most speedy, safe and happy manner for both parties.[65]

A brief development of Charles Hodge’s position may serve to place Princeton.[66] Hodge and the Princetonians “abhorred the evils of slavery, deplored the agitation of the abolitionists, avoided condemnation of slaveowners, and aimed at peaceful emancipation”, and were against abrupt and radical measures.[67] J. W. Alexander wrote, “I am more and more convinced that our endeavours to do at a blow, what Providence does by degrees, is disastrous to those whom we would benefit”.[68]

It seemed clear to Hodge that Scripture did not prohibit slavery in all cases, and therefore the efforts to declare slaveholding a sin were unbiblical. Preservation of the integrity of Scripture was paramount. “It will do no good”, he asserted, “under a paroxysm of benevolence, to attempt to tear the Bible to pieces.” He remarked, “Let the North remember that they are bound to follow the example of Christ in their manner of treating slavery, and the South, that they are bound to follow the precepts of Christ in their manner of treating slaves.”[69] He dismissed the arguments that slavery was “man-stealing” and a violation of the Ten Commandments, believing that “slavery was not a sin ‘in itself.’ It all depended on circumstances.”[70]

Hodge saw himself as following Scripture where it led. He defended what he saw as the simple reading of the Bible, yet, as Mark Noll puts it, “the obvious crisis that bore directly on the fate of the nation was [that] the ‘simple’ reading of the Bible yielded violently incommensurate understandings of Scripture, with no means, short of warfare, to adjudicate the differences.”[71]

His position gradually softened. He became more insistent that slaveholders take seriously their responsibility to provide for the “religious education of their slaves, to respect their parental and marital rights … to recognize their right of property” in regard to what he called “the gospel method of emancipation.” He felt he was seeking “middle ground, the ground of the Bible.”

But his optimism proved to be unfounded as Southerners increasingly defended slavery, not only as a permissible necessity but as a positive good in God’s plan.[72] Despite his assertion to the very end that he did not change his views, Hodge became a more ardent supporter of the end of slavery and less sanguine about its ability to wither away under the natural processes of societal Christianization. He could not bring himself to say that slavery was wrong in itself from a biblical point of view, or that the spiritual arc of the Bible bent toward acknowledging slavery as sinful – the view held by many New School colleagues and numerous other evangelicals.[73]  Hodge thought that a position other than his own could lead nowhere but to an undermining of the authority of Scripture. However, “It could be argued that his maturing views of providence enabled him to see the hand of God at work in the extermination of slavery.”

Calhoun judges that “Princeton Seminary was a challenge and inspiration to thousands of people. In the matter of slavery, however, its message was timid, conventional and unremarkable.”[74] By contrast, Albert Barnes, the prominent participant in New School ‘progressive’ Presbyterianism, regarded slavery as “evil in its origin, evil in its bearing on the morals of men, evil in its relations to religion, evil in its influence on the master and the slave — on the body and the soul — on the North and the South, evil in its relations to time and in its relations to eternity.’[75]

In the next issue I will reflect on the theological themes that framed how they thought, spoke and acted.

Footnotes:

[1] On the history of slavery and the trade John Coffey, “Evangelicals, Slavery and the slave trade: from Whitefield to Wilberforce,” Anvil 24:2 (2007): 97-119; William Hague, William Wilberforce: the Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner (London: Harper, 2008); and David Richardson, Principles and Agents: The British Slave Trade and its Abolition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022) are helpful. Michael Haykin’s contributions have been useful, especially in regard to the central role of the Particular Baptists. I have written about it in Ian Shaw, “Evangelicals, Slavery and Colonialism in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries,” in Wrestling with Our Past: Papers Read at the 2022 Westminster Conference (Stoke on Trent: Tentmaker Publications, 2023). A satisfying Christian response to contemporary issues is awaited. I have tried to distinguish the questions at issue in an online lecture for the Westminster Seminary, UK. Ian Shaw, “Evangelicals, Slavery and Colonialism,” n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FEwjhqSGj4.

[2] Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons Volume 19: 1873 (Woodstock, Ontario: Devoted Publishing, 2017), 51.

[3] Wilberforce’s position was a politically careful one. Hague has a helpful discussion in Hague, William Wilberforce, 481.

[4] A sermon preached by Winthrop in Southampton before embarking with the colonists. John Winthrop, “The Model of Christian Charity,” n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online: https://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html.

[5] Samuel Rutherford, Lex, rex, Or, The law and the prince (London: Printed for John Field, 1644).

[6] Ibid., 89.

[7] Ibid., 91.

[8] Ibid., 91.

[9] H. Jeon, “Jonathan Edwards and the Anti-Slavery Movement,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 63:4 (2020): 773-788.

[10] J. Nuenke, “Puritan involvement with slavery,” Puritan Reformed Journal 15:1 (2023): 224.

[11] Richard Baxter, Baxter’s directions to slave-holders, revived; first printed in London, in the year 1673 (Philadelphia: Printed by Francis Bailey, at Yorick’s Head, in Market-Street, 1785), 4.

[12] Ibid., 4.

[13] Ibid., 5.

[14] Ibid., 6.

[15] Cotton Mather, The Negro Christianized. An essay to excite and assist the good work, the instruction of Negro-servants in Christianity (Boston: Printed by B. Green, 1706). See also Mather’s earlier work, A good master well served. A brief discourse on the necessary properties & practices of a good servant in every-kind of servitude: and of the methods that should be taken by the heads of a family, to obtain such a servant (Boston: Printed by B. Green, and J. Allen. 1696).

[16] Ibid., 7-8.

[17] Ibid., 8-9.

[18] Ibid., 11.

[19] Ibid., 12.

[20] Ibid., 16.

[21] Ibid., 23.

[22] Ibid., 24.

[23] ‘Gay’ here has the sense of not reasonable or suitable.

[24] Mather, The Negro Christianized, 24-25.

[25] Samuel Sewall, The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial (Boston: Printed by Bartholomew Green and John Allen, 1700).

[26] i.e., Massachusetts.

[27] Sewall, The Selling of Joseph, 1.

[28] Ibid., 2.

[29] For an introduction to the life of this too-little known New England Puritan see the essay by Cryer in Five Pioneer Missionaries (Banner of Truth Trust), a second edition of which is pending at the time of writing. For an important collection of his writing on related matters, see Clark (2003).

[30] John Eliot, “Letter from John Eliot Protesting against Selling Indians as Slaves,” n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online: https://nativenewenglandportal.com/node/18119.

[31] David Baker, “Jonathan Edwards’ disturbing support for slavery: some reflections,” Christian Today (24 June 2020), n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online: https://www.christiantoday.com/article/jonathan.edwards.disturbing.support.for.slavery.some.reflections/. Baker is incorrect when he says that Baxter condemned all slavery. On Edwards, others have argued that his doctrine of election or predestination can be thought to lead to his status as slave owner. But as far as we know, Edwards never argued such a view. He cherished the doctrine of election because it undergirded the free grace and love God shows toward undeserving sinners who could never merit his grace. There is no causal relationship – or even descriptive correlation – between theology proper and 18th century slaveholding. Nuenke rejects a similar argument brought against the Puritans who moved from England to America (Nuenke, “Puritan involvement with slavery,” passim).

[32] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards Volume 9: A History of the Work of Redemption (ed. John F. Wilson; Yale: Yale University Press, 1989), 480.

[33] John Coffey, “Difficult histories: Christian memory and historic injustice,” Cambridge Papers 29:4 (Cambridge: Jubilee Centre, 2000), 98.

[34] Matthew Everhard, “Jonathan Edwards’ Complex Views on Race,” Modern Reformation (1^st July 2020), n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online: http://www.modernreformation.org/resources/articles/the-mod-jonathan-edwards-complex-views-on-race.

[35] K. P. Minkema, “Jonathan Edwards on Slavery and the Slave Trade,” The William and Mary Quarterly. 54:4 (1997): 828.

[36] K. P. Minkema, and H. S. Stout, “The Edwardsean Tradition and the Antislavery Debate, 1740–1865,” Journal of American History 92:1 (2005): 50).

[37] Jeon, “Jonathan Edwards and the Anti-Slavery Movement,” 780.

[38] For a facsimile see https://slavery.princeton.edu/uploads/Edwards-Letter-on-Slavery-compressed.pdf  Edwards Papers, folder ND2.I3, Franklin Trask Library, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, Massachusetts. We do not know for whom it was intended, and the letter may never have been sent.

[39] Minkema, “Jonathan Edwards on Slavery and the Slave Trade,” 823.

[40] Ibid., 825. It would be of interest to understand the views of David Brainerd in this connection. In a report of 1746, Brainerd gave as a significant reason for the resistance of some American Indian tribes to the gospel, the fear of being enslaved by White settlers. See, David Brainerd, Mirabilia Dei inter Indicos, or The rise and progress of a remarkable work of grace amongst a number of the Indians in the provinces of New-Jersey and Pennsylvania, justly represented in a journal kept by order of the Honourable Society (in Scotland) for Propagating Christian Knowledge (Philadelphia: Printed and sold by William Bradford in Second-Street, 1746).

[41] Minkema, and Stout, ‘The Edwardsean Tradition and the Antislavery Debate, 1740–1865,’ 56. I have not dealt with Whitefield’s position. It is widely known that he supported the ownership of slaves, and that his beliefs on this matter hardened during his ministry (Shaw, ‘Evangelicals, Slavery and Colonialism in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries, passim.), but I have not been able to trace any theological or biblical defence offered by Whitefield. I wrote about Whitefield’s Bethesda orphanage project in Ian Shaw, ‘George Whitefield and his “Family”’, Reformation Today 32 (July/August 1976): 3-12.

[42] J. H. Thornwell, Collected Writings, Volume 4: Ecclesiastical. (New York: Robert Carter and Bros., 1873), 542.

[43] Ibid., 541.

[44] Ibid., 430.

[45] Ibid., 542.

[46] The text of this sermon can be found in Thomas Cary Johnson, The Life and Letters of Benjamin Morgan Palmer (Repr.; Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1998), 206-219.

[47] Johnson, The Life and Letters of Benjamin Morgan Palmer, 209. (Emphasis in original.)

[48] Ibid., 217.

[49] Robert L. Dabney, A Defence of Virginia, (and through her, of the South) in recent and pending contests against the sectional party (New York: E.J. Hale, 1867).

[50] Ibid., 103.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Ibid., 279.

[53] Ibid., 25.

[54] Ibid., 280-1. By contrast, we may notice an exchange Newton had with a House of Commons Committee. He was asked: “From what you saw of Africa, did the intercourse with the Europeans appear to civilise them, or to render them more corrupt or depraved?” He answered, “The intercourse of the Europeans has assimilated them more to our manners, but I am afraid has rather had a bad than a good influence upon their morals. I mean, they learn our customs, wear our apparel, they get our furniture; but they are generally worse in their conduct in proportion to their acquaintance with us.”

[55] Ibid., 21-22.

[56] For a helpful, if almost wholly positive, short piece, see Sally Davey, “John L. Girardeau, Minister to the Slaves of South Carolina,” Banner of Truth (8^th April 2015), n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online:          https://banneroftruth.org/uk/resources/articles/2015/john-l-girardeau-minister-to-the-slaves-of-south-carolina/.

[57] But he maintained and defended separate seating (the ‘Separate System’) for black and white members of his congregations.

[58] George Blackburn, The life work of John L. Girardeau, D.D., LLd.: late professor in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Columbia, S.C. (Columbia: The State Co., 1916), 70.

[59] David B. Calhoun Princeton Seminary: Faith and Learning 1812-1868 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 324.

[60] Ibid., 325.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Ibid., 482.

[63] Ibid., 325.

[64] Sammuel Miller (1816-1883), The life of Samuel Miller, D. D., LL. D., second professor in the Theological seminary of the Presbyterian church, at Princeton, New Jersey (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen and Haffelfinger, 1869), 92.

[65] Calhoun, Princeton Seminary: Faith and Learning 1812-1868, 325.

[66] A very helpful site that discusses Hodge’s position is Richard Reifsnyder, “Charles Hodge: A Conservative Theologian Finds His Way to Emancipation,” Presbyterian (17^th April 2018), n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online: https://www.history.pcusa.org/blog/2018/04/charles-hodge-conservative-theologian-finds-his-way-emancipation. I am indebted to him in the following paragraphs, and the unattributed quotations are from this site.

[67] Calhoun, Princeton Seminary: Faith and Learning 1812-1868, 326.

[68] Ibid., 327.

[69] Charles Hodge, “Slavery,” Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review (April 1836): 305.

[70] Reifsnyder, “Charles Hodge: A Conservative Theologian Finds His Way to Emancipation,” n.p. It seems as though Hodge himself may have owned a slave for a time.

[71] Mark Noll, “The Bible and Slavery,” in R. Miller, H. Stout, and C. Wilson, eds., Religion and the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Noll’s essay (1998) gives a summary of four major ways in which the Bible was interpreted on this issue. He has given a valuable lecture on ways in which Scripture has been interpreted on matters of race and slavery. See Mark Noll, “Race and Slavery in America’s Bible Civilization,” Wheaton College (31^st Marh 2016), n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unvPKqxJyc4.

[72] We noted above Benjamin Palmer’s view of the institution of domestic slavery, that it “should be left open to expansion, subject to no limitations save those imposed by God and nature.” “Nature” often appears in arguments from various sides, either to support change or as a reason to accept the status quo. For an outstanding discussion of how “nature” and “Nature” were important in Christian and scientific thinking, see P. Harrison, The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).  This volume was reviewed in Foundations in 2017. See, Ian Shaw, “Review of The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science,” Foundations 72 (Spring 2017) n.p. [cited 28 June 2024]. Online:  http://www.affinity.org.uk/foundations-issues/issue-72-book-reviews#book4.

[73] The divisions between Old School and New School Presbyterianism are complex, but for the purposes of this paper, New School Presbyterians in the North opposed slavery.

[74] Calhoun Princeton Seminary: Faith and Learning 1812-1868, 328.

[75] A. Barnes, The Church and Slavery (Philadelphia: Parry and McMillan, 1857), 6.