principal causes of their scepticism. Is it quite certain that Voltaire
himself would have been the adversary that we know him, if he had not
seen that thought was stifled, that liberty was crushed, that conscience
was violated in the name of the Gospel? Would not this same Gospel have
presented itself under a different aspect to Parker, Channing, and the
other Unitarians of Boston, if they had seen it at its post, the post of
honor, at the head of all generous ideas and true liberties? Yes; there
are Abolitionists who reject the Bible because they have heard certain
orthodox Christians maintain that the Bible is in favor of slavery.
Whoever preaches this, is of a school of impiety.




CHAPTER VI.

THE GOSPEL AND SLAVERY.


How did they set to work to preach this? I will answer this question by
two others: How did Bossuet set to work to write his _Politique tirée de
l'Ecriture,_ to proclaim in the name of the Bible obligatory monarchy,
divine right, the absolute authority of kings, the duty of destroying
false religion by force, the duty of officially sustaining the truth,
the duty of having a budget of modes of worship, the duty of uniting
Church and State, without speaking of his Biblical apology for war, for
the use of Louis XIV.? How did certain doctors among the Roundheads, in
their turn, set to work to proclaim the divine right of republics, and
to ordain the massacre of the new Amalekites? The method is very simple:
it consists only in confounding the law with the Gospel. This confusion