once wrought, the political and civil institutions of the Old Testament
lose their temporary and local character, and we go to the New
Testament in search of what is not there: namely, political and civil
institutions.

Though the Gospel is not the law, it is a truth which has been making
its way since the seventeenth century, and which seems to be no longer
contested to-day, except in the camp of the champions of slavery. The
Gospel, which addresses itself to all nations and all ages, does not
pretend to force them into the strait vestments of the ancient Jewish
nation; no more does it pretend to "sew a piece of new cloth on an old
garment, else the new cloth taketh away from the old, and the rent is
made worse." I speak here with a view to those who, in the law as in the
Gospel, in the New Testament as in the Old, venerate the infallible word
of God. A revelation, to be divine, does not cease to be progressive,
and nothing exacts that all truths should be promulgated in a single
day. If God deemed proper to give to his people, so long as they needed
it, a legislation adapted to their social condition, this legislation,
divinely given at that time, may be also divinely abrogated afterward.
And this is what has taken place. Those who quote to us texts from the
Old Testament concerning slavery, appear to have forgotten the saying of
Jesus Christ in reference to another institution, divorce: "It was on
account of the hardness of your hearts." Yes, on account of the hardness
of their hearts, God established among the Israelites, incapable, at
that time, of rising higher, provisory regulations,[B] perfect as
regards his condescension, but most imperfect, as he declares himself,
as regards the absolute truth. He who makes no account of this great
fact will find in the books of Moses, and in the Prophets, pretexts
either for practising to-day what was tolerated only for a time, or for
attacking the Scriptures, indignant at what they contain.