# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1863_S119
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Old Lutheran Teachers on Slavery. 119

—are sometimes harsher, sometimes more bearable. Although the jurists say that servitude is against the law of nature — for by the law of nature all men are born free at the outset — yet, because sin has come into the world, and servitude is one of the bonds by which either the weaker in understanding are kept to their duty, or the wilder are held within bounds, God therefore does not condemn the civil constitution in which servitude is customary, provided only that it is bearable and does not conflict with the love one owes to one's neighbor — that is, provided the masters are not permitted to treat and kill their servants according to their whims like draft animals, but rather grant the servant his bread and correction, as Sirach says. For that the insolent and the wild are kept in check and punished with servitude, and that God has no abhorrence of the bonds of servitude among men — this the Holy Spirit himself indicates not obscurely, in that he cursed Canaan, saying: Cursed be Canaan, and let him be a servant of servants unto his brethren. Gen. 9:25. And of Esau: The elder shall serve the younger. Gen. 25:23. To this Paul also comes, who says: Let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant, care not for it, etc., 1 Cor. 7:20–21. And elsewhere he exhorts the masters — not that they should set their servants free if they wished to be Christians, though this was permitted them and would have been an exceedingly praiseworthy kindness — but he exhorts them to show their servants what is fair, and to consider that they too have a Master in heaven." (On Lev. 25. Opp. I, 902–903.)

That the duties of the slave toward his master belong to those of the Fourth Commandment stands so firm for the old, highly enlightened theologian Brenz that in other places, instead of first proving it, he rather makes it the ground of his proof. He writes on Gen. 16:9: "Let us also hear what the angel preached to the maid Hagar. First he commands her to return home, and teaches that she render lawful obedience to her mistress. One sees, then, that it was a good angel. For Satan's angel does not teach lawful obedience, but unlawful rebellions and insurrections." (Loc. cit. 156.)

Caspar Cruciger, Luther's collaborator in the work of Bible translation, of whom Luther says: "The books he has given to the light bear him sufficient testimony with what spirit and diligence he teaches and advances God's Word,"*) writes, among other things, the following on 1 Tim. 6: "In order to instruct men of every station, he [Paul] also teaches servants their duties. And here we have first of all to learn that in the Gospel the institution of civil servitude, or the distinction between free men and servants, is not abolished. Indeed, just as the Gospel confirms other

*) See Luther's preface to his exposition of Genesis.