The Ecclesiastical Disruption of 1861 [pp. 321-351]

i876.] THE ECCLESIASTICAL DISRUPTION Ol? i86i.
ence toward slavery; "we are neither the friends nor the foes
of slavery;" that this is its true position; that to take any
other is to invade the province of the State and dishonorChrist. This is its plain teaching.
Passing by the fact already stated, if this position be correct
-that this Address commits sin for the Assembly which issued
it, and for the whole Southern Church-it is worthy of note,
that this ground of utter indifference to the system of negro
slavery in the South, as it actually existed, would be one of the
most remarkable phenomena of the whole case, were it not
that every turn the subject takes, every shape it assumes, presents something very remarkable. The common sentiment of
Christendom, to-day, in the church and out of it, except in the
places where it exists (even if not there), is against slavery
The General Assembly of i8i8 unanimously condemned it, andset forth the duty of seeking its universal extinction. All the
members of the South voted for this action. But a total revolution was wrought in the sentiments of the South, within a
few years previous to the war, concerning the whole system.
The Assembly of i8i8 declares it "utterly irreconcilable with
the law of God," while the Address of i86i says that "God
sanctions it in the first table of the decalogue. The Assembly
declares it to be "totally irreconcilable with the spirit and the
principles of the Gospel," while the Address claims th-e Gospel
in its favor. The Assembly declares that its evils "connect
themselves with its very existence," while Dr. Thornwellpronounces it "a school of virtue." The Assembly declares it
"the duty of all Christians to use their unwearied endeavors to
efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the complete
abolition of slavery throughout Christendom, and, if possible,
throughout the world," while Dr. Palmer discovers "a divine
trust," committed to the Southern Church, "to preserve and
transmit "the system to posterity; and while the Southern:Assembly of 1864 declares it to be "the peculiar mission of the
Southern Church to conserve the institution " and while the
Address of iS6i says, that "as long as that race, in its compar~
ative degradation, co-exists side by side with the white, bondage is its normal condition;" and while the Southen~ Assembly
of i86~ is emphatic in disclaiming all responsibility for giving
freedom to "nearly four million bond-servants."