# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1863_S40
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

40 Foreword.

before the forum of the moral law, and therefore of conscience, sinful and punishable before God? Did it belong to those liberties which were permitted only for the sake of the people's stubbornness, but of which those could not, or at least should not, avail themselves who wished to act and walk not only civilly but also blamelessly before God? Does that relation, then, belong among the dispensations of the Old Testament economy that are abolished in the New Testament, where the moral law alone holds good? — It is, indeed, already unmistakably clear from the manner in which not only Moses but also the prophets of the Old Testament speak of it, that the relation of servitude does not belong in this class but corresponds to the moral law as well; yet, in order to attain an even greater certainty about this, let us compare the New Testament also.

Although the servitude existing in the Roman Empire in apostolic times had its origin mostly in the heaven-crying injustice of the plundering campaigns of the conquest-hungry and covetous Romans, and was in many cases bound up with the most hideous tyranny — since the masters even had the right over the life and death of the slave, a right of which only Antoninus deprived them — yet we never read that the holy apostles rejected the relation itself as sinful, as contrary to the law of love of neighbor, any more than they rejected the absolute governing power of a Nero as something contrary to conscience, despite the damnable abuse which that monster made of it. To be sure, they impress upon masters with great earnestness the duties that are theirs as such. Thus, for example, the holy apostle Paul writes in his epistle to the Christians at Ephesus: "And, ye masters, do the same things unto them" (namely, the slaves), "forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him." Ephes. 6:9. Similarly he writes also to the Christians at Colossae: "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven." Col. 4:1. At the same time, however, the same apostle also impresses obedience toward their masters upon the servants. He writes in the Epistle to the Ephesians, after having set forth to children and parents their duties: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service, as to the LORD, and not to men: knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the LORD, whether he be bond or free." Ephes. 6:5–8. In almost the same words the same apostle also exhorts the servants in the Epistle to the Colossians, Col. 3:22–25. To set this before the servants, Paul therefore also exhorts Bishop Titus in Crete: "Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; not purloining,