Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-01-19
From the A. S. Standard
DOING THE DEVILS WORK.

The Rev. j. P. Durbin, D. D., one of the great
lights of the Northern Methodist Church and the
chosen head of her missionary operations, in order
to defeat the movement now making in thatChurch
to exclude Shareholders from the communion, has
come out with an Ingenious and learned argument
to prove that persons who acld their feow-men rs
chates were admitted to the Apostolic Churches;
the inference from that alleged fact being that
1mertcan Shareholders, in the middle of the nine
teenth century, may be and often are worthy of
Christian fellowship. And yet this Rev. apologist
for the 'sum of all villanies" takes credit to him.
self for being tremendously opposed to slavery, and
admits that no one can have "a natural or moral
right to hold human being in bondage" What
is this but the logic Of Bedlam-the confusion CT
Babel contounded? OF what avail is it to he theo-
retcally on the side Of justice and liberty. while
practically, he is doing the very work which slave
holders slaye.raders and their abettors desire to
have done, and which, above everything else tends
to rivet more firmly the fetters of the slaves?
Zion's Herald, we are glad to see, impcaches the
historic accuracy tand efectualy demolishes the
argument of this clerical champion of oppression.
To his admission shat there is not single pas
sage in the New Testament, angle act in
the records of thu early Church, expressive of ap-
probation ct slavery" it most pertnenty responds
thus: How can this be true, if the early Church
received slavery into her bosom by admitting slave
holders 10 her fellowship Can a Church give
stronger practical sanction crime than to admit
u known Criminal 10 ner communion T. Again:
"lf neither God nov nature gave the STAKEHOLDER
the right TO hold a human being in bondage, on
what principle Of rectitude or consistency could
the Church admit him to her communionW To
DR.. Durbin's allegation that the Apostles recog-
nsed and sanctioned the relation of master and
slave by prescribing duties to each, it replies:-
"The Church recognizes moral duties but re-
pentanco as springng out of the relation of mas
ter and slave, any more than she recognises moral
duties springing out of the relation of an adu-
terer to an adulteress. Moral duties grow out Of
rightful relations; whose claims wage everlasting
war against the false claims of wrong ones. The
Apostles recognised the relation of Serpitude, and
presented its duties because it is right relations
but TREY nowhere prescribe n moral precept found
ed on the alleged right of one man to hold proper
ty in another" And again: ''If the reader can
understand the meaning and grasp tho purpose of
DIR. Durbin, his perceptive powers are better than
ours. To ms they are full Of confused statement.
They make the primitive Church glaringly ncon-
sstent with herself. They teach that she allowed
her members to practice that which her principles
avowediy condemned; that she talked Of justice
equality and brotherhood, but wnked at injustice
chattelship, and tyranny in her practice: that she
sought to destroy slavery in the future by tolera-
ting it in the present. that she subjected the tunda
mental doctrines of equality to the law of the
State, and that, in word, her policy was to pro
mote freedom by tcleraiing g'a,cry. Such ,ium.